Practice Makes Peace...

I've got 3 posts sitting in my drafts folder that I just couldn't bring myself to publish. Why not? They're well-written, they're full of the realities of this journey, they're a great look into the process...and they're so whiny even I can't stand it. They're full of figuring out how I got to this place personally/financially/spiritually, hashing through some of the hurts that still bring an unexpected sting, stumbling around the recesses of my mind trying to find the sense in what God may be doing with all of this, blah, blah, blah... Sometimes the Lord just holds you back from putting something out there until you've seen some of the end of the process (or at least *this step* in the process). Until He gives you some perspective. Some perspective came into my life today. Of course, it has done it while I'm cooking lunch and I'm afraid that all the insight will be watered down if I wait too long to dump it from my brain to the page, so I...

What a nice thing to find on my return to the land of the living! After sickness that had me in bed and internet problems that kept me offline, I find that the newbie blogger has received an award from her sweet friend Sweet Jenn. Here's the problem: I have *no* idea how to link back to her site! Maybe some of you vets can give me some advice. But I'll play along and list 7 things I love (and I'll try to avoid the obvious ones of my hubby, etc!) 1. I adore sitting at a window watching lightening fork through the sky, counting the seconds until the peal of thunder, hearing the rain pound on the roof, sipping a cup of tea. (yes, I know it's not safe to sit at a window during a thunderstorm but you learn that the beauty is worth the risk when you grow up in the lightening capital of America! Well, worth *some* risks; you'll NEVER catch me on the phone or in anywhere near a running faucet during a good storm!) 2. I love sitting on the dock by the riverside watching the ...

Two posts in one day...something must be happening: I'm sympathizing with that poor little pupa who had to scale a glass vase to reach the place where it could cling and complete it's transformation. I watched him through the process. He'd climb, then slide, then climb some more and anchor himself with a bit of silk, rest a while, then climb, then slide, then anchor himself, ad infinitum. The key, I suppose, was that each time he remembered to anchor himself and he continued on. He never slipped farther back than his last anchor point. (something akin to the rocks of testimony piled in the wilderness by the Isrealites? hmmmm...) So, here I am, spinning some silk to the surface of that vase. Today has been a gradual slide from this morning's "beginning to see" post. I've dealt with both a migraine and the onset of some kind of allergy-induced sinus drip/sore throat/general yuckiness. And, in equal proportion, the kids have lost their sense of cooperation. T...

Isn't it exciting when you begin to see God working? When you start to feel the scales fall from your eyes? It's beginning. Just a few days into this conscious choice to dwell in the "whatsoever things" and I'm beginning to see with new eyes. Praise You, Lord, Your Word is indeed living, powerful, and effective!!! May I share a few examples? *In the last several days, I have not once described the day as "horrible" or the kids as "bad." I know, that's small, but I've been able to see the challenges as temporary things that ARE able to be worked through rather than permanent conditions under which I must labor on... *Despite the fact that we had a pretty dramatic Asperger's tantrum yesterday, I was able to walk away from dealing with it (which is exhausting both emotionally and physically) quietly encouraging my son that he had done great in getting himself back under control. It only lasted about 30 minutes this time; it's been ...

So, the history here is that I've had a blogspot account for a while. I first opened it solely for the purpose of being able to track some blogs of my friends. But then, well, God intervened and here I am posting. The problem was that I had selected a meaningless url just to have access. Now that I'm actually pouring out the words that God is giving and the experiences He's teaching me through, meaningless became aggravating. Being new to actually using the apps here, I had no idea if I could even change this. I began asking for help - in the "help" tab of all places! Do you know what I found? A simple answer. An easily achieved fix for my problem. Now, I know, life's not always like that. Sometimes there is simply not an easy answer. Sometimes there's a complicated series of steps. Sometimes there's a lot of research and trial-and-error. Sometimes there's no discernable answer short of accepting things as they are and trusting God's hand in it...

I've been thinking a lot about the phrase "dwell on these things." It doesn't say "remember to glance at them once in a while" or "take a walk around them then go back to what you were doing" -- it says "dwell." As in "make your habitation in" or "hang out in" or "live there." Dwell. That's really hard. When your child with Asperger's is huddled in a corner with his hands over his ears screaming "everybody hates me." When you sit down to pay the bills and there just isn't enough to go around and you've been trying to get a 2nd job but nobody's hiring. When you find out that one of your kids has been cheating on school assignments and you now have to figure out how to redeem the time without totally crushing the child - even though you kinda feel like crushing him just a little bit. When a storm rips the awning off your house and that awning provided the shady playspace for the ki...

Do you see that butterfly? I watched him from caterpillar through pupa to chrysallis to fully emerged Gulf Fritillary. He doesn't look great in the image on my title page - kinda brown and tired - nothing special and pretty worn out. He had just emerged. But, oh, when he spread those wings and the sun glinted off of those irridescent white spots! The brilliant orange with black markings of the tops of his wings became visible and his grace and ease of flight was breathtaking. The journey was treacherous. As a caterpillar he was jolted from his feeder passion vine when the neighbor took hedgetrimmers to it. He was "rescued" (along with 3 of his buddies who didn't make it) by two curious little boys with sticks who found him crawling around in the dirt. He was transplanted from outdoors to a glass vase. He became dependent on the food and water provided by novice caretakers. His climb up the side of that glass vase to get himself attached on that stick was agonizingly s...