This is the first Thanksgiving in about 14 years that I'm not hundreds of miles from home. While I'm thankful for the travel and the reasons for it, I'm relieved to be home. My home sure has seen a lot in the last year. I'm sure it will see a lot more. Anyway, my husband and two oldest are at our future homestead and my parents are eating lunch with my Grandmother and they took my 2 year old with them. I have orders to "sit" while everyone is gone because I've been having some majorly painful back problems this week. I'm 90% better but I'm still being ordered to "sit" so here I am....pondering away...
Pondering over
enjoying a meal with both my parents and Bruce's parents tonight for their first Thanksgiving dinner all together.
Turkey Days of old...words cannot express how much I miss my Pop and Granny. Grateful for my Aunt Vivian sending me a beautiful gift just because she loves me "a bushel and a peck".
how absolutely crazy our lives have been recently...not because I choose to be too busy but because this season just requires A LOT from us
living in a tractor trailer turned apartment for a year or two while we build a house (hopefully with little or no loan!!!)
how little time I seem to have had for my precious friends lately...I've barely said hello to my family in the last 6 weeks and I'm a stay-at-home-homeschooling-mama!
how little time I have spent at my Savior's feet during this season of life...it seems as though my heart has only cried out to Him in small moments...how I long to even have an uninterrupted hour for prayer...
what in the world is going to take place over the next few months for my Grandma and her husband Chuck, currently at the Hospice House
the absurdity that is consumerism, especially this time of year, and the massive amounts of debt that people are choosing to be in...for stuff...
truly giving thanks in all things and being content in all situations and understanding that if God is not calming this long-lasting storm, then He really does have a purpose for it...oh, may I not miss it and may I be thankful for the growth that can come...especially as I look back over what He has done in my heart in the last year.
the lost...it is absolutely heart-wrenching to watch the lost suffer, and worse, die...to see that everything without Christ is in vain...it is all for nothing...
the beauty that God brings out of His children's suffering
this precious baby boy growing in my womb, kicking me...I. love. it.
how pretty the lights are on my Christmas tree even though I'm still struggling with what pleasing the Lord during this time of year looks like...
how amazed I am at how different homeschooling looks while my family has been full-time caregivers to my grandparents involving oxygen, medicine, broken windows, dentures, doctor appointments, paperwork, bills, lawyers, more paperwork, sacrifices all around, more appointments, so much time, more paperwork, heartache, prayers for salvation finally come to fruition for Grandma's husband but still continuing for Grandma.
homeschooling revolving around our lives, not the other way around...I'm not into this so that my children can pass a bunch of standardized tests (after all, I'm sure scores matter in eternity somehow). My kids are getting some serious life experience and rising to the occasion of serving and sacrificing...they are learning how to deal with deep questions wrestling out their own faith. They are watching me wrestle out my faith...hey, I'm real with my kids. I don't know why God does or doesn't do certain things.
taking cookies and cards to Hospice recently leaving the workers with the encouragement to not grow weary in doing good...wondering how in the world I can tell someone else not to grow weary in doing good when I feel weary and heavy laden myself.
how much my Jesus loves me and this world and the people He created...that the reason He tarries in coming for us and ending all of this pain, death and suffering is because He is patient, not wanting any to perish...now, that is worth pondering...I think it's time to refresh myself in His Living Word while I still have a little time all alone with orders to "sit"...
