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Dizzy – Still Moments for a Hectic Day

Posted in Books!, Inspirations, Marriage - For Happily Evers, Parenting - Raising Wee Men, tagged Abraham Kuyper, Angela Blycker, Ann Voskamp, Because He Loves Me, C.H. Spurgeon, Crazy love, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Devotions, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, Forgotten God, Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, J.C. Ryle, Jesus Calling, John Ensor, John Piper, Life as a Vapor, marriage, Morning and Evening, My Utmost for His Highest, Near Unto God, Octavius Winslow, One Minute With God by Kathy Hardee, One Thousand Gifts, Oswald Chambers, Parenting, Philip Yancey, Pierced by the Word, Prayer, Quiet Time, Radical, Reading the Bible with the Damned by Bob Ekland, Reflections by Jim Branch, Running into Water, Sarah Young, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper, Spiritual Depression, Streams in the Desert, The Bible, The Great Work of the Gospel, The Precious Things of God, Time With God on March 7, 2014| 4 Comments »

The movement leaves me dizzy, for fast was never a speed that I’ve done well. Though words can come fast (from my lips or from my fingers), my moving and living, I’ve always done slow.

And it’s caused me problems, a little more than once, all my ponderings and perhapses. For time is sovereign in this world of ours, and doesn’t often leave room for the extras. The smelling of roses, the sighing over music, the browsing of books. And so while I start out ambling through my day like a Sunday driver, I end up racing half panic -stricken to make up for lost time and reach this or that place when I’m supposed to be there.

No, life doesn’t give us time enough for wonder. No, not enough time at all. Not like I thought it would be, those days before my real children came, when I poured over Victorian homemaker’s guides, all those black and white photos of ringletted children sprawled out on quilts to watch the clouds pass by, or gathered round the fire while their mother darned their stockings and read from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

While we have our moments, our moments of creativity and laughter and peace, it seems to me that every day is more like a race. A mad rush to cross off my list, and get through the cycle I completed just the day before (with a few things extra, if I’m lucky).

It’s a mad rush, a frenzy, and the movement leaves me dizzy. For all day, every day, I move things. Move crumbs from tables and high chairs, from countertops and floors. Move clothes from hamper to washing machine, from washing machine to dryer, from dryer to drawer. Move dishes from dishwasher to cupboards, from cupboards to table, and back again. And the toys, oh the toys!

I move people, too. In and out of cribs and high chairs, pajamas and nappies, car seats and prams. The boys, they move, too. Round me in circles at times, trailing behind them their tears, their bickering, their shouts, till I feel like they’ve bound me and I might just crash.

And I’m running and I’m rushing, taking glances at my list, hardly stopping it seems at times, to eat or drink, let alone to wonder. Ponder. Enjoy.

Through the blinding light of these last few days—the unhindered light of the winter sun glaring off mountains of snow—I’ve tried to stand back and look. To breathe deeply and untangle the movement, the activity, and the noise. To find beauty, find truth, and remind myself why I do what I do. Where we’re headed, and why I dared to bring these little lives into the world.

For what is the point of making our home look peaceful and beautiful, if peace and beauty are not found in our hearts? And how can I ever find the strength to have patience in those moments of chaos, or have serenity, or joy, or wonder enough to pour out on my children, if I do not first take time to let myself be filled?

I don’t often have hours. For though I’d like it otherwise, busyness is the call of motherhood. But I’ve learned the importance of taking a few minutes—even five or ten—to feel God’s arms around me, listen to his voice, and ask his Spirit to fill me with his strength, his stillness, his truth.

Without him I so often end up on a merry-go-round of movement, my head spinning, and my day feeling as fractured as a mirror broken into a thousand colored shards, and I cannot think straight enough to put back the pieces.

And so that alarm gets set. A few moments to myself. I’m tired, yes, but those twenty minutes of quiet, just me and God, will make all the difference for the rest of my day.

I asked some friends to help me by sharing their favourite morning readings. Some are my favourites, too, and the others, I look forward to reading. A few are also available on CD, for drives in the car or mountains of laundry that need folded or ironed! As I said, I haven’t read them all, and so cannot comment on each one, but I’d SO love to hear your thoughts on ones you’ve read–or suggestions for more! Most can be purchased on christianbook.com

One Minute With God by Kathy Hardee
The Book Lover’s Devotional from Barbour Publishing
Running Into Water – by Angela Blycker
Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
Jesus Today by Sarah Young
Jesus Lives by Sarah Young
One Thousand Gifts Devotional Journal by Ann Voskamp
Near Unto God by Abraham Kuyper
Morning and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon
Because He Loves Me by Elyse Kirkpatrick
Comforts from the Cross by Elyse Kirkpatrick
My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
Surrender: The Heart God Controls by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard
Crazy Love – Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan
Forgotten God – Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan
Reading the Bible with the Damned by Bob Ekland
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by J.C. Ryle
Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper
Pierced by the Word by John Piper
Life as a Vapor by John Piper
Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper
The Great Work of the Gospel by John Ensor
Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman
The Precious Things of God by Octavius Winslow
Spiritual Depression by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones
He is There and He is Not Silent by Francis A. Schaeffer
Reflections by Jim Branch
Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson
The Great House of God by Max Lucado

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Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Colossians 3:16-17

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Walking These Rooms — for Your Morning Cuppa (tea)

Posted in Books!, Inspirations, Parenting - Raising Wee Men, Uncategorized, Videos - If You Were There, tagged Abraham Kuyper, Avonlea Q Krueger, Bible Reading, Journaling, Long Lie, Morning Devotions, Near Unto God, Sleeping In, Writer's Block, Writing on February 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Dark mornings don’t call good mothers from bed. Don’t call good daddies, either. Not like beds, which call real loud. Hold us in their warmth and stillness, blankets wrapped around like strong arms that could shield us from every last thing we dread about the day. Entice us with our dream adventures, numb our bodies like a drug.

Yeah, it’s hard to leave that on late winter mornings, hard to meet cold floors with warm balls of feet, trade stillness for the swirl of to-do’s and the demands of little voices that never stop the long day.

And it’s easy to want to stop it coming, stop the start of another day. And too often this winter I’ve done that. I’ve listened to that call, counting times I’d been up in the night to comfort little cries, let myself stay a little longer, yanked the covers another inch higher, told myself that for today, whispered prayers, half-mixed with dreams and plans, would be enough. Enough to go on. To give me perspective. To put my thoughts just where they ought to be.

But creaking crib and cracking door always break the silence, and it all ends.

And so I start the day running, running late before I’ve hit the floor. Little things to be done–today like everyday–and so it should be no surprise, and yet I find myself overwhelmed, feeling fragile, incapable, and just a little bit insane. And then it’s not just my feet running, not just my hands trying to get it all done. My mind’s running, too, over what I’ve done wrong to make things turn out this way, and what I must be missing to leave our life feeling so fractured, so unharmonious, so flat.

Grey skies and that blue snow, these thin walls and the bitter cold, they hem us in like prison on those days. It’s a prison, and I’m running so fast, feeling so stressed that I miss three dozen precious little moments of my little men’s lives. Can’t see the beauty all woven through my day. Can’t see those sparkles of light, though I know my little men see and feel all the greyness of my frustrated tears.

And on those days even the words won’t come, though I sit down to write. Words, which have always been with me, forming patterns, rolling round my mouth as I make sense of world. Because on those days there is no sense, and so the words, they just don’t come.

It’s a hard thing, too, in the evenings, dragging myself away from the dreams of Pinterest, the drama of television, the softness of the couch. It’s a hard thing when the wee ones are down and my tea’s not cold, and I can put two sane thoughts together without any little voice to interrupt. It’s hard to leave that stillness, brush my teeth, climb into bed. But it’s worth it. Worth the rest. Worth the energy I’ll have next morning to be the first one up, with time to find some stillness there in the almost light of a new day.

His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

~ Lamentations 3:22-23

Because though I’ve heard it, I still need it. I need it every day. Need to hear the voice of Him that made me, hear just whose I am, and what I am, and why. I need truth. Love. Strength. Light.

And so early to bed (and then to rise) is a worthy goal. Because good mothers need rest. Good daddies need it, too. And more than that we need to pause a minute (or a few), and reach out to take the hand of the One who walks right with us (though we sometimes forget it) through every hour of our day.

“I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day,” said Mr. Irwine. “No dust has settled on one’s mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things.”

~ George Eliot

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Oh, WHAT have we done? Another year over, a new one just begun . . .

Posted in Holiday Cheer, Inspirations, Making Memories, tagged 2014, Bible Reading, Christmas Fail, Ice Storm, Icicles, January, New Year's List, New Year's Resolutions, Snow Pictures, Surrender, The Book of John, The Word, Winter Photography, Winter Pictures on January 11, 2014| 6 Comments »

There was a long list of bad this Christmas.

Like the enormous branch out back that fell and crushed my poor lilac bush. The ice storm came (that was before the arctic vortex and heaps of snow), and I guess that big old tree got a little too burdened down. Couldn’t take the stress. Couldn’t take the weight. So down it came.

The rest of our Christmas, well it was mostly the same. A little too much heaviness to bear.

Plenty of decorating and buying and wrapping and baking and carol playing and even praying beforehand, all meant to create the perfect day, but sometimes all the planning in the world will still leave you with a mess.

Sometimes you plan but get it all so wrong.

Sometimes you plan but it’s out of your control.

That ice again, lovely as it was, had it’s wicked way.

Treacherous driving conditions.

Night out with the girls for a chance to laugh and de-stress? Canceled.

Many thousands without heat or power.

Christmas Eve service at church? Canceled, too.

Mum hosting Christmas dinner? Nope. With two days to plan, it’s going to be me.

But there was more . . .

A mix-up of the name-drawing.

A gift for everyone under the tree? Well, not quite.

Keys locked in a running car.

Tired children put to bed on time? Think again.

A tummy bug moving slowly through the house till we all had our turn.

All of us there round the Christmas table, feeling right as rain? No, not that either.

Sometimes you plan but get it all so wrong.

Sometimes you plan but it’s out of your control.

Yet all this, all this we could have easily born with a nervous laugh and with making due. All this we could have born if only a frazzled mix of folks from different parts of the country, different parts of the globe, hadn’t all been tossed together, till from our botched arrangements surfaced pain, sadness, regret from weeks, months, years past.

Like my lilac bushes, it seems we, too, can be frail.

Tender.

Like the flowers. Like the grass.

Tender,

so that when love and fear come together,

like with family and with friends,

we feel an aching in our hearts

and a burden just too much to bear.

Too much to bear alone.

And it all seemed such a sham. The presents and the tree. The music. All the talk of joy and peace.

Because sometimes you plan but it’s out of your control.

And sometimes you plan, but there’s something deeper, something realer, that you missed.

All our shattered plans for Christmas or for life, they can really shake our souls, leave us wondering how to hope.

How to hope, or why.

Leave us wondering if the New Year will bring us more of just the same. And if you’re anything like me then you’re tempted to whisk out a sheet of paper and start making lists, ask yourself what went wrong, and start planning so the future will be better.

As if we could fix ourselves, fix our families, with a list.

The only thing is, sometimes you plan but get it all so wrong.

Sometimes you plan but it’s out of your control.

New Year’s resolutions? Yes, I’ve got them. Organized drawers, eating kale, and the like.

But this year what I’m planning is complete surrender.

Submission like I’ve never known.

All I have, all I am, all I dream, brought to the feet of the only One who will never get it wrong and never let me down.

Because what my family, what my world, what I am missing is more of Jesus.

And because it’s only is His will that we can ever truly be free.

I’m taking His list. Making it mine. Turning my life right upside down.

And I’m starting with the Word.

Because not only is the Word with God, but the Word IS God. (John 1:1).

And it’s living, and it’s active, and it knows me, too (Hebrews 4:12).

I’m going to see what I’ve been missing.

I’m going to learn to love and live

like Him.

This is January.

The first day of the rest of my life.

Join me as I discover.

You won’t look back.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.

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Happy Little Sigh

Finding beauty in the everyday

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A Different Kind of Thanks

Posted in Holiday Cheer, Inspirations, The Inklings, tagged C.S. Lewis, Fresh Start, Happiness, Thankfullness, Thanksgiving, The Love of God, Victorian Postcards and Clipart on November 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

One year.

That’s how long it’s been since we came here, to this old yellow house by the river.

A year ago, I stood looking up at the sky through the hole in the kitchen roof, counting on two hands the days till the baby would come. Trying not to care that I had to wash my dishes in the bathroom sink. Lay out our meals on a cardboard box.

At the storage unit in town a high cliff of boxes contained our stuff from two different continents,

two different lives.

I tried, but I never did find the baby clothes in time.

At night, on a borrowed computer, we tracked our stolen laptop round the city. Then lost hope when it left the state.

It had only been a year.

One year before that since we’d come back.

Started life again in America.

And even when life’s good, a person might have to mourn a little over that.

Over the loss of a country. Of a way of life.

Even without break-ins, and police, and counting loss.

And that’s exactly what I did for a while.

I counted my loss.

Sobbed over them like a teenager with a broken heart.

It was all too surreal, and I didn’t know where to begin.

And I can’t say when it happened.

Can’t say just exactly when

I felt the great relief of letting go of it all.

All the stuff.

All the demands I had for my life.

For years, I hadn’t dared draw too near. Not close enough to rest my head there on His knee.

I didn’t dare.

There wasn’t peace.

Then one night I dreamed.

He carried me in His pocket.

All linen and white.

And I was small, and I was safe,

and I went with Him through His day.

The roof has long been fixed.

I have a kitchen, and it has a sink.

Slowly, slowly, as we’ve done before, we’re making this house into a home.

But when I find myself surveying it all,

feeling pleased about the way the sideboard looks,

and the curtains, and the chandelier,

I remind myself

what I really have to be thankful for.

What I have–because of Jesus–that nothing and no one

can ever take away.

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“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”

~ C.S. Lewis

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For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

~ Romans 8:38-39

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A Very Happy Thanksgiving to You

Dear Readers!

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Avonlea x

Find me on . . .

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Happy Little Sigh

Finding beauty in the everyday

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When It’s All Just Tiring & Tedious

Posted in Inspirations, Videos - If You Were There, tagged Andrew Peterson, Anne of Green Gables, Autumn, Cup of tea, Geese Flying in a V, L.M. Montgomery, Lucy Maude Montgomery, Morning, Motherhood, November, Planting Trees, Servant heart, Thanksgiving, Washing feet, Winged Migration on November 25, 2013| 4 Comments »

Another week begins.

Outside, a change has come.

A bitter wind that those bare, black trees just can’t hold back.

My hands are raw like a nurse’s, from all that hot scrubbing.

Because though it’s Thanksgiving week here in America,

for me it will be another seven days of much the same,

if I want to look at it that way.

Loading and unloading

dishwashers,

washing machines,

wee ones in and out of beds.

Washing and scrubbing

walls,

floors,

toilets,

faces,

feet.

It’s sacred ground, you know, my home.

Sacred, with Jesus here.

Beside me as I labor, as I stoop.

Just as He did, right before He died.

Servant-like, He washed all the black off His disciples’ feet, just like He’d wash their hearts.

Just like He washed mine.

And so it’s sacred work, too, that I do.

Washing little hands, little feet.

Not easy. Not easy not to pipe up about what’s fair, and who’s pulling their share of it, and what I need to be happy.

No, the work’s not easy, and it goes on and on.

But what’s easy, really easy, is to go looking for something to give a bit more meaning to it all

when the sacred is disguised as tedium.

I know it’s not there, yet how often I go looking

for something to fill that deep, deep hole.

And yet I know, when it comes down to it, where to be filled.

Filled up and overflowing.

Where I can find the strength to serve and keep on serving.

And I can’t afford not to take the time each day to be filled up,

filled up and floating on all that love, all that grace.

He’s here. Beside me.

But I need to turn and look Him in the eye.

And as I scrub, I need to look them in the eye—my little souls.

They won’t sleep under this roof forever.

And while I’m kneeling, sometimes I’ve got to remember to keep them there, pull them to my lap.

Lean with our elbows on the windowsill to see what’s what.

With our eyes, trace the shape of those big, black trees,

the colours in the sky,

catch some geese in flight,

work together on our smile lines.

Acknowledge the sacred.

Because it’s right here.

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She rises up as morning breaks
She moves among these rooms alone
Before we wake
And her heart is so full; it overflows
She waters us with love and the children grow

~ Andrew Peterson, “Planting Trees”

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“It was November–the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”

~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

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Avonlea x

Happy Little Sigh

Finding beauty in the everyday ❤

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Time Capsule

Posted in Inspirations, Misty British Isles, Uncategorized, tagged Adventure, Anne of Green Gables, Basements, Daughter, Faith, Great Britain, Hope, International Move, Letting Go, Moving On, Regrets, Scotland, Son, The Cross, The Future and The Past, Time Capsule, Trust in God on November 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes it helps, remembering where you’ve been.

Other times it’s enough to leave you in a fit of tears.

Make you crawl into bed, yank up the covers

to hide your face,

blot your tears.

It can be regret

for what you did

or didn’t do

that leaves you feeling this way.

Regret for what you did

or what was done to you.

Other times it’s the life you had

but don’t have any more.

And it’s a combination, I suppose, of all those things, that can get me, really get me, make me want to head for bed, cocoon myself in the covers, throw a temper tantrum of the grown-up type.

A photo can remind me. Bring to mind all that once was.

A photo, or basement, maybe. A basement full of boxes that represent my life.

Boxes. Time capsules.

And that’s just what I created, though I didn’t know it those many years ago, when I wrapped my treasured possessions in old t-shirts and lace, arranged them carefully in empty banana boxes until someday when I was older, when I’d want them again, when I’d have a daughter . . .

And I didn’t know, when with slim, tanned hands, I slid the lids off the dozens of silver boxes we received for our wedding, that I wouldn’t hear the rustle of that tissue paper or see the gleaming stainless steel and sparkling crystal again for another ten years . . .

Now, with a house of my own back on this side of the Atlantic, they have been delivered to me—water stained banana boxes and silver gift boxes alike, and a thousand memories come back, along with a thousand questions, as I unpack it all and set on the floor around me.

It brings a smile, leaves an ache, when I remember. When I remember that we only meant to stay in Scotland for a year, though it turned out to be eight. When I recall how desperately I’ve always wanted a daughter, though God knew I needed sons.

And I’d like to claim it doesn’t matter. That I’m above all that.

All that wishing for weekend trips to London.

London, when it was just a few hours’ drive away.

England, with all the birthplaces and resting places of those literary geniuses I so adore.

Scotland. Our home.

Our stone house in the village, with our view of the valley, and the short walk to a friend’s front door.

And the rain—how I learned to love the rain!—and the sound of the kettle when we made our tea.

And the mist, and how it never did stop putting wonder in my heart.

And I’d like to claim I haven’t cried for a little girl I could gift with my tea set, my Anne of Green Gables doll.

Yeah, I could pretend. I could pretend that it’s fine.

It’s just fine with me.

And I don’t have to wrestle. Not one little bit.

But I know, and you know, that would all be one fat lie.

And there’s such a thing, I’ve learned, as pain that’s clean.

Clean pain, like from a surgeon’s knife.

Clean pain, when you learn to see

He knows a better way.

And though I’ve always known it, in theory, that His ways are best, that He’d take you round the world and back again to bring you closer to Him, I didn’t really know it till I’d gone.

Round the world. And back.

And I have to still my heart a little, to realize He’d do all that

just for me.

And so when I doubt, when life seems about as predictable as a Kansas plain, when I’m pretending to let go, but my thumb and finger are pinching, holding tight to something I think I need to make me happy, that I can’t live without, that’s when I’ve got, just got, to remember what He’s done.

On the cross.

In my life.

The adventure! I’d never dared to dream.

My sin! Yet He has drawn me back.

My former life can seem quite rosy, in the scrapbook of my mind.

It’s easy to forget the shadows when we think of the past.

But when Love is waiting to catch you

it’s best to let go.

Let go and rest.

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Sinking In Deep

Posted in Homeschooling, Inspirations, Parenting - Raising Wee Men, tagged Autumn, Autumn art, Christianity, cottagecore, Fall, God's love, homemaking, Homeschooling, marriage, Parenting on November 2, 2013| 4 Comments »

I had nothing to show for the day.

Nothing but a pail of wet nappies and some autumnal paintings drying on the porch.

Oh, and the fridge was emptier, and that basket of clothes that needed folding,

well, it sort of overflowed.

Outside the rain fell warm,

but we hadn’t seen a drop of sun all day,

and even the yellow trees, and the red, and the orange,

they all looked

just grey.

And it felt a cold place, a lonely place, to be doing battle.

And I’ve told myself a thousand times that it shouldn’t be so hard.

It should be nothing at all to

wash sticky hands and faces,

change nappies,

sweep floors.

Couldn’t anyone do it? Anyone at all?

But there’s a little more to it, always a little more.

Because they howl when you do it. When you wipe their hands and face.

And they howl when you change them, and they try to crawl away.

And the crumbs are never nice, dry crumbs that skid across the floor.

No, no.

They stick. Mashed peas and bread crusts. Cereal welded to the wood.

And you’d have to use a crowbar, or at least your nail, to pry them free.

And it wouldn’t be so bad if it were only once.

Not three times.

Every day.

Or if your baby had actually taken his nap,

or your toddler hadn’t been ill and bit hysterical at every little thing you asked him to do.

And there isn’t a room in the house (not one room) where they don’t come after you

with their quarrels and their tears and their demands for more food.

And so yes, it is a battle. And it’s hard.

And sometimes, it can leave you wondering what you’re worth.

Because you can’t help but feel that there are grander things you should be accomplishing.

And your husband, yes, he has to hear about it all, and you can’t help but feel that this is all

just a little bit his fault.

And part of the battle is taking it all—all the busyness, and the fights, and the tears

and turning it into something good.

Finding reason for us all to give thanks.

And there’s always a reason.

Or instead of shouting,

kneeling down to look your child in the eye

to find the cause for his tears.

Or forgetting about all the good things your spouse should be doing for you,

and finding something good to do for them.

Because souls, they live in people.

In your children. In your spouse.

And people are more important than things,

and being kind is more important than being right.

And when it all seems a bit of a mess, that’s what you’ve got to remember.

And as many times as you can remember in a day, you’ve got to tell it to your children

Tell them how very much they’re loved.

By God.

By you.

And when there’s no one there to tell it to you, you need to read it.

Read it till it sinks in deep.

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“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:17b-19

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Avonlea x

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Happy Little Sigh

Finding beauty in the everyday ❤

You might also be inspired by A Walk with C.S. Lewis — https://happylittlesigh.com/2013/10/18/a-walk-with-c-s-lewis/

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Colour – For Your Morning Cuppa (Tea)

Posted in Inspirations, Videos - If You Were There, tagged Apple Cider and Donuts, Autumn Colour, Avonlea Q Krueger, Darkness and Light, Fall Color, Gardening, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Seasonal Depression, T.S.Eliot, The Piano Guys on October 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I always felt the shadows.

The chill of autumn always felt colder to my soul than to my bones.

But it wasn’t just the cold. It was the light.

At the first leaf I saw wave goodbye to summer, I felt an ache inside. A nauseated, physical ache that felt like a broken heart.

For I knew the darkness was coming. Those days when the sun wouldn’t shine, and the night would come sooner, and the bitter cold would bite.

Those unnatural months of rising in the dark, when the earth seems to say “Keep sleeping,” but the world is waiting for you to be somewhere by eight.

Ever since my teenage years, it was those days that most rumpled the pages of my Bible. Sent me searching for the face of real Light. Reminded me of the world’s empty promises—for in the end, no matter what we do, death will come. It will come to us all.

But I turned to my Bible. I knew its secret.

That Christian’s aren’t buried, they are planted, to one day spring forth with new life.

Like bulbs. Like the red and white tulip bulbs I planted on Saturday.

In-between the hours of autumn rain there was a window. An hour or two of blue sky and warmth. And so I hunted out my gardening gloves and spent half an hour chatting with the earthworms. Digging holes and tucking those glossy white bulbs into the earth. Imagining the colour they will one day bring.

And I don’t feel it as much this year.

The shadows, they don’t seem as dark.

Even though it’s getting on now—nearly November.

But there are days left ahead. Days of colour. Days of mild coolness and sun.

And I’m taking pictures.

Recording blessings.

Eating donuts and apple cider every chance I get.

And when I feel that little ache, that unsettled ripple in my soul that says, “You’re missing something. You’re not getting it quite right,” then I know. I know I have to rumple some pages again. I have to stop and listen to the voice that whispers through the trees, and through the breeze, and through the harvest, “Listen. Listen. I am the Light!”

~~~

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

~ James 1:17

~~~

Autumn Ambience to enjoy with your morning cup of tea…

(more…)

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Birdsong – For Your Morning Cuppa (tea)

Posted in Books!, Inspirations, Jane Austen, Parenting - Raising Wee Men, Uncategorized, Videos - If You Were There, tagged England, Fresh Bread, Jane Austen, Morning, Siegried Sassoon, Tea on October 14, 2013| 4 Comments »

Another day ahead.

Not that it’s always easy. The getting started of a day.

Not when my bed’s so warm and the house so dark, and the children woke me in the night three times, at least.

And while my mind swirls with the to-dos of today,

beneath the surface of these plans, beneath all that I know will keep me busy, rushing from here to there,

lie my deeper dreams and goals.

All my heart longs to do and be for my family.

All the words I long to write.

And they look like a mountain from here. Like I’ve been given a wheel barrow and a shovel and told I have to move it.

Like I have to move a mountain.

But of course, I can’t.

And so no wonder it’s easier to stay in bed. Slip back into those dreams.

But this new day awaits. It’s time.

And though the stars are still out,

I can smell the bread.

The first gift of today, and there will be many.

And just waking, well isn’t that a gift?

And hasn’t the one thing that really needs to be done

already been done by Jesus?

In that, I can rest.

With that, I can pull back the curtains,

with hot cup in hand venture a step or two outside

to hear the first bird sing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lamentations 3:22-24

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Morning-Land

Old English songs, you bring to me
A simple sweetness somewhat kin
To birds that through the mystery
Of earliest morn make tuneful din,

While hamlet steeples sleepily
At cock-crow chime out three and four,
Till maids get up betime and go
With faces like the red sun low
Clattering about the dairy floor.

~Siegfried Sassoon

And finally, a word from Jane . . .

“What fine weather this is! Not very becoming perhaps early in the morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome—at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything.”

~ Jane Austen, November 17, 1798, in a letter to her sister, Cassandra.

Avonlea x

Find me on . . .

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Happy Little Sigh

Finding beauty in the everyday ❤

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Castle Stone, Cottage Moss

Posted in Inspirations, Misty British Isles, tagged Aberdeen, Crossroads, Gray, Green, Jane Austen, Journey, Pooh Sticks, Stone, University of Aberdeen, Winnie-the-Pooh on September 20, 2013| 5 Comments »

Some people are scared to go.

Others are scared to stay.

I was like that once. From this side of the Atlantic, going to Scotland seemed like a one-time thing. But the place got to me. Once I’d wandered the cobblestone streets of that fifteenth century university where I studied, stood on the cliff tops overlooking a ruined castle and felt the sea air make my hair dance, sat in my dorm room reading Pride and Prejudice while the tree outside my room turned from winter to spring, the place got into my blood, got into my soul.

A few weeks in, there was a gathering, a cup of tea, a charming red-head with an accent so thick I had to smile and wanted to cry, and did. Three years later we were married, kilts and empire waistlines and all.

We only meant to stay in Scotland for a year, though it turned out to be eight.

And I never did believe it, even after all that time, that I could be so blessed.

I could have stayed forever.

There, in that green corner of Scotland where we lived. As if Scotland has a corner that’s not that color. That’s not green.

Yes, I would have been quite happy to keep our home at the foot of the highlands, with our view of the village and the valley and the hills beyond. Our home and my great white kitchen with those walls thick enough to park your car, and our winding staircase, and the window seat John built me, where you could close the curtains and open a book and get lost for a while.

The nursery, where we spent the tenderest moments with our boys, singing lullabies, kissing toes.

The paths we walked—field and forest, castle and garden, playing Pooh Sticks, collecting rocks.

And I loved it.

But sometimes, sometimes you can love a thing too much.

You can love a thing, love a person, so much that your heart grows gray.

Gray and cold as stone.

I looked green enough, I’m sure, from the outside.

But not all green is grass.

Because I never missed a Sunday. Bible beside my bed never collected that much dust.

But I’m quite sure, if you’d gone looking, you would have seen the moss.

And moss means damp, and sitting, and rotting, and feeling comfortable too long.

It means clinging on for safety to what’s not really safe. It means being happy to linger in the shadows when you should be chasing light.

It wasn’t easy leaving. I must have left a trail across the country where I tried to dig in my nails and hold on tight.

But I’ve felt God’s love like I’ve never known it, and I’ve seen that He will take you places if He knows it will bring you closer to Him.

God will lead you to green pastures. He will lead you to a desert.

He will take you halfway round the world.

And He will bring you back.

He will bend you far like a reed, or wrap you up and cradle you like a newborn.

Whatever it takes.

Sometimes God borrows human hands, to cup your face and turn your eyes to His.

Other times His hands look like painful goodbyes, or a loss so big you don’t think you’ll ever smile again. Or a turn of luck so grand your mouth hangs open. Wide open. And you’ve got to dance.

Whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes to make sure you’ll be with Him. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.

He’ll chase you like He’s been chasing us humans from the beginning. He’ll forgive you again and again, make a way to bridge the bottomless gap. Pursue you, even when you’re running. Even when your heart is so gray and your deeds so black you make Him weep.

And what else could you call Love?

Some people are scared to go. Others are scared to stay.

But it’s not the going or the staying that matters.

Not really. Not to Jesus.

It’s what’s in your hands.

It’s where you’re looking.

It’s the color of your heart.

Psalm 37:23-24, Isaiah 43:22

You might also be inspired by . . .

And so on my birthday — some things that always get me . . . happy sigh?

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Archive for the ‘Inspirations’ Category

Dizzy – Still Moments for a Hectic Day

The movement leaves me dizzy, for fast was never a speed that I’ve done well. Though words can come fast (from my lips or from my fingers), my moving and living, I’ve always done slow.

While we have our moments, our moments of creativity and laughter and peace, it seems to me that every day is more like a race. A mad rush to cross off my list, and get through the cycle I completed just the day before (with a few things extra, if I’m lucky).

I move people, too. In and out of cribs and high chairs, pajamas and nappies, car seats and prams. The boys, they move, too. Round me in circles at times, trailing behind them their tears, their bickering, their shouts, till I feel like they’ve bound me and I might just crash.

And I’m running and I’m rushing, taking glances at my list, hardly stopping it seems at times, to eat or drink, let alone to wonder. Ponder. Enjoy.

Without him I so often end up on a merry-go-round of movement, my head spinning, and my day feeling as fractured as a mirror broken into a thousand colored shards, and I cannot think straight enough to put back the pieces.

And so that alarm gets set. A few moments to myself. I’m tired, yes, but those twenty minutes of quiet, just me and God, will make all the difference for the rest of my day.

One Minute With God by Kathy Hardee

The Book Lover’s Devotional from Barbour Publishing

Running Into Water – by Angela Blycker

Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Jesus Today by Sarah Young

Jesus Lives by Sarah Young

One Thousand Gifts Devotional Journal by Ann Voskamp

Near Unto God by Abraham Kuyper

Morning and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon

Because He Loves Me by Elyse Kirkpatrick

Comforts from the Cross by Elyse Kirkpatrick

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

Surrender: The Heart God Controls by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

Crazy Love – Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

Forgotten God – Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan

Reading the Bible with the Damned by Bob Ekland

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by J.C. Ryle

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper

Pierced by the Word by John Piper

Life as a Vapor by John Piper

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper

The Great Work of the Gospel by John Ensor

Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman

The Precious Things of God by Octavius Winslow

Spiritual Depression by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

He is There and He is Not Silent by Francis A. Schaeffer

Reflections by Jim Branch

Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson

The Great House of God by Max Lucado

Colossians 3:16-17

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Walking These Rooms — for Your Morning Cuppa (tea)

Yeah, it’s hard to leave that on late winter mornings, hard to meet cold floors with warm balls of feet, trade stillness for the swirl of to-do’s and the demands of little voices that never stop the long day.

But creaking crib and cracking door always break the silence, and it all ends.

And on those days even the words won’t come, though I sit down to write. Words, which have always been with me, forming patterns, rolling round my mouth as I make sense of world. Because on those days there is no sense, and so the words, they just don’t come.

His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

~ Lamentations 3:22-23

Because though I’ve heard it, I still need it. I need it every day. Need to hear the voice of Him that made me, hear just whose I am, and what I am, and why. I need truth. Love. Strength. Light.

“I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day,” said Mr. Irwine. “No dust has settled on one’s mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things.”

~ George Eliot

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Oh, WHAT have we done? Another year over, a new one just begun . . .

There was a long list of bad this Christmas.

Like the enormous branch out back that fell and crushed my poor lilac bush. The ice storm came (that was before the arctic vortex and heaps of snow), and I guess that big old tree got a little too burdened down. Couldn’t take the stress. Couldn’t take the weight. So down it came.

The rest of our Christmas, well it was mostly the same. A little too much heaviness to bear.

Plenty of decorating and buying and wrapping and baking and carol playing and even praying beforehand, all meant to create the perfect day, but sometimes all the planning in the world will still leave you with a mess.

Sometimes you plan but get it all so wrong.

Sometimes you plan but it’s out of your control.

That ice again, lovely as it was, had it’s wicked way.

Treacherous driving conditions.

Night out with the girls for a chance to laugh and de-stress? Canceled.

Many thousands without heat or power.

Christmas Eve service at church? Canceled, too.

Mum hosting Christmas dinner? Nope. With two days to plan, it’s going to be me.

But there was more . . .

A mix-up of the name-drawing.

A gift for everyone under the tree? Well, not quite.

Keys locked in a running car.

Tired children put to bed on time? Think again.

A tummy bug moving slowly through the house till we all had our turn.

All of us there round the Christmas table, feeling right as rain? No, not that either.

Sometimes you plan but get it all so wrong.

Sometimes you plan but it’s out of your control.

Like my lilac bushes, it seems we, too, can be frail.

Tender.

Like the flowers. Like the grass.