All posts in My Listening Year

The LIST

by admin on July 22, 2009 in Bits Of My Personality, Life Keeps Changing, My Listening Year with 1 Comment
My man and I started THE LIST today (the to do list that is). It is so different for each new home and I must say this is the BIGGEST one yet! And only growing! Our house may need a lot of TLC (do to rough renters before we bought it) but we are up for the challenge… well I think we are… sometimes… Phew, looking at this list makes me feel tired!

Each morning I have been happily practicing singing again. After my devotions I pick up an old hymnal we have and turn to a favorite. I feel so joyful as I sing them and today was a sweet favorite. I wish to share one line from FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH today. You should look up the rest! It is a lovely song to sing in the morning!

For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree, and flow’r,
Sun and moon and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise!

TTFN

Our Little Bit Of Earth

by admin on July 22, 2009 in Bits Of My Personality, Life Keeps Changing, My Listening Year with 3 Comments
Thank You Lord For This Dirt!
The kids followed me around tonight as I fussed with my gardens.
At first, when we moved here, all I saw was the size of our yard… kinda small… now I feel like I keep finding little treasures. The side gate with the steps up to it is so adorable. It leads to my treasured alley garden. Our neighborhood has a habit of turning all the bits of grass in the alley into garden and my yard is no exception. There are perennials down the one alley side. I love this garden… perhaps the best… It is a bit wild and I refuse to tame it. This garden is in a spot meant to be forgotten. An alley is usual an ugly place… but someone took the time to spreed some seeds and plant some bulbs and allowed beauty to grow.I have always been a girl who loves the outdoors and never felt I had the opportunities in past yards… My hands love to dig deep into the dirt, petting my flowers and encouraging them to grow with water… ironically I found a bit of earth just right for that need in the big city. Me! A farm girl! Becoming content where Christ has lead her! In the CITY!

The hymn ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’ comes to mind! I will have to look it up and see if I remember the tune:)

TTFN

Daddy’s Make Their Daughters Dance

by admin on July 21, 2009 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Mama Heart Mushings, My Listening Year, My Romance with 1 Comment

Attention from Daddy puts a dance in her step. She walks in a fluent joy dance and her face is a sunbeam.

My heart fills to bursting when I see this connection they have. I understand that feeling. I remember how it felt when my Daddy took my hand and when he talked with me.

I am so blessed to have a man who has a heart to really connect with his girls. Our girls will be better women for it.

Yesterday she came home from a date with Daddy and couldn’t hold still. She danced as she told me about their evening together. She danced more as he came in after her and stood next to her and she danced with all her heart as he smiled down at her and let her continue her story.

Today I remembered I can have that connection with my Abba Father God and as I danced and sang a few favorite hymns I remembered how willing he is to give me that direct attention, to talk with me, be with me and comfort me.

Just as I love my Daddy for loving me,
I will love my husband for loving our daughters,
and I love my GOD, for he first loved me!

TTFN

Comfort (think’n about it)

by admin on July 16, 2009 in Bits Of My Personality, My Listening Year with No comments
to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to relief in affliction; consolation; solace a person or thing that gives consolation a cause or matter of relief or satisfaction!

I realised today that most of my morning routine is me seeking COMFORT. Weather it is the lack of sleep from another baby interrupted night or the shocks I find in the morning (baby’s freshly pooh-poohed bedding) or the attack of mommy pressure (get stuff done, so much to do today)… I don’t know for sure but I know I feel in need of comfort as soon as I leave my very comfortable bed.

I have a wrap that I quickly put on. It is soft and cut to a perfect fit so it doesn’t fall off as I do the mommy things each morning. I automatically walk to the stove and put the kettle on because my morning date is always a milky warm ‘earl grey’. My regular breakfast of organic honey and cinnamon toast is definitely comfort food and always makes me put my feet up and sigh as I eat it. It is comforting to have the same routine each morning and always eating the same breakfast is a comfort due to familiarity.

(I could curl up around my cup of tea and stay there all day just surrounded by my thoughts…)

Quiet time with my Lord is the best comfort (kinda goes without saying) and yet I am so typical… I have trouble getting there… getting to that quiet place to be still and know that he is Lord…

I don’t wanna talk about that, admit that, not because of shame… but because it is so common and often talked about without conclusion… I have read plenty of blog articles about this topic and I always skim through them looking for a hopeful, joyful, powerful solution for Moms… sadly I haven’t seen it or realized it and so I am now adding my blog about this topic to the collection…

Often I open my Bible lately and don’t find the comfort in it… I WANT TO LISTEN and yet I don’t settle enough for it… I am that conflicted person, like Paul I am crying ‘oh pitiful person… why will I not do what my heart wants and instead do what I don’t want to???!!!’

I could use more comfort in my daily life… can’t we all?

TTFN

FIND ME IN THE RIVER

by admin on July 13, 2009 in Music Flavor, My Listening Year with 2 Comments
We spent Sunday walking along our river! Thanking the Lord for his creation, obviously:)Find me in the river
Find me on my knees
I’ve walked against the water
Now I’m waiting if you please

We’ve longed to see the roses
But never felt the thorns
And bought our pretty crowns
But never paid the priceFind me in the river
Find me there
Find me on my knees with my soul laid bare
Even though you’re gone and I’m cracked and dry
Find me in the river, I’m waiting here

Find me in the river
Find me on my knees
I’ve walked against the water
Now I’m waiting if you please

We didn’t count on suffering
We didn’t count on pain
But if the blessing’s in the valley
Then in the river I will waitWritten by Martin Smith ©1995 Curious? Music UK
TTFN

Jesus Requires No Photo Copys

by admin on June 22, 2009 in My Listening Year with 2 Comments

Reading a few friends blogs, talking to my family, talking to my husband… all are so important to me and all are so diverse in their Christianity. I was stressed today. Stressed that I haven’t been shining a light like theirs… or that is how I was seeing it…

My thoughts where jolting about like the following ‘ what do my friends want me to look like in Christ, and why am I not like that? what does my family expect of me in Christ and why am I not just like them, since we are related? what does my man expect of me, because aren’t we one?’

I have been feeling like a Spiritual failure. Does that make any sense? Sorry if it doesn’t… So I listened to my own thoughts long enough. I went to call my husband for some encouragement and guidance.

As soon as I picked up the phone I felt the Lord say ‘What about what I want you to look like, who I want to make you, how I see you and how I plan to do a work in you?’ It came so softly that I continued to dial Garnets work number and we chatted about it all.

I told him how I felt like I was letting everyone down. He pointed out it was a mistake to try to look like others. We aren’t all the hand or the eye in the body of Christ… I hadn’t even realised I was doing that till he mentioned it.

He then said something near the end that made me tear up… ‘What about what Jesus wants you to look like?’

Forget others spiritual expectations for me… truth is if I just focus on Christ’s view of me I will be the real me in Jesus and I will not be able to contain the shining LIGHT.

Today, this very minute, I am very excited to focus on what Christ wants me to be!

TTFN

The Crow

by admin on June 22, 2009 in Book Flavor, My Listening Year with 1 Comment

That advertisement in our province pains me… you know the one that encourages you not to give to PANHANDLERS… it makes me sad that such a label is used to encourage you not to see those men and women as our brothers and sisters and that you are encouraged to not interact with them personally…

This all came to mind as I read a story about a preacher last night. He rescued a crow, that his son found, trapped by thorns at a dump. He was greatly criticized by farmers who can only see crows as enemies who steal their corn. While explained he totally sees their point of view he explained the parable he saw in the situation…

“And as I saw the Crow from day to day, I considered how content he was not to rob cornfields when other food was furnished unto him, and I wondered how many darkened lives have been made predatory because there was no way found to feed them from that which would have cost others little. For it is not the fault of the Crow, as I suppose, that he hath no red breast like the Robin, or beautiful song like the Nightingale.”

“…but he who holdeth in his hand a living thing that the Thorns have cruelly wounded must not be chided from his Compassion.”

(Parables of a Country Parson, by William E. Barton, pg 188)

Later that day I watched a cheeze-y program I usually wouldn’t stop for but it was rainy and I was in the right mood. It surprisingly had an amazing message, ‘you are your brothers keeper’ and the poor and broken are our brothers. They aren’t ‘the panhandlers’ or ‘the mentally ill’ or so on and so forth but are PEOPLE! I cried and cried as I watched, and not because of the poor acting, but because it was a good message.

I have been wanting to read a very intense book about all this and want to recommend it to you to try out. ‘Under the Overpass” By Mike Yankoski (www.UnderTheOverpass.com) Two regular guys decided to live totally like our poor in a big city and they reveal very honestly how dehumanizing it is out there.

Oh Lord may I never be susceptible or part of dehumanizing rhetoric and labeling of my brothers and sisters.

TTFN

Parables of a Country Parson

by admin on June 17, 2009 in Book Flavor, My Listening Year with No comments

Found a recommendation for this little book of stories on another blog. I am enjoying it, relishing it, eating it up peacefully before bed each night. Such lovely stories, in such rich old English by such a stunningly wise preacher. William E. Barton had a gift for teaching in a wise and humble way.

Here is one story of his I enjoyed, last night, and wanted to bless you with:

Two Shadows

Now it came to pass in the Summer that I sojourned by the side of a Little Lake that lay to the westward of my habitation. And there was an evening when I watched the Sun as it was going down, and behold it was Glorious. And as I turned away from it and entered my dwelling, behold mine own Shadow went before me, and climbed up upon the inner wall of the Room as I entered. And as I went forward, lo, another Shadow rose upon the wall, and it was like unto the first, even mine own Shadow. And I marveled much that one man should cast Two Shadows. And the Thing Seemed Passing Strange.

But the reason was this, that the Sun as it was going down shone on the water and was like unto another Sun, and cast a Shadow even brighter and taller than the Sun in the heavens. For the Sun in the heavens was partly obscured by the trees; but the Sun in the lake cast its reflected rays under the branches and shone clearly. And so it was that in my sight the reflected Sun was brighter than the real Sun, and cast the greater and taller Shadow.

And I thought within my soul how to the men and women the vision of the Most Height God is often obscured; and how there be those who must see the exceeding brightness of His Person by reflected light. And I prayed to my God that such light of Him as I may reflect might reveal to such as behold it the true glory of the Sun of Righteousness.

(Written by William E. Barton, (c) 1998 Hendrickson Publishers, third printing -Jan. 2006, pages 177-178)

Have a beautiful day! May you be blessed to shine the Glory of God today!

TTFN

Mom and Tot Get Away Camp!

by admin on June 14, 2009 in Do I Call It Parenting Advice?, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Mama Heart Mushings, My Listening Year with 3 Comments

I think my husband was really surprise I actually went through with this plan! I don’t think I would be called a ‘go getter’ in the area of planning big things with the kids. I like to keep things small, simple and well planned out. Deciding to take my boys (one still nursing) off to a camp (that I had never been to before) for the weekend was out of character… It just felt right so I went for it.I felt lead to do this for my oldest boy, for his relationship with me and I know it was RIGHT! We had been having our struggles lately and he was so out of sorts with me. My little gentleman wasn’t happy around me and I knew he needed some direct attention and time.We all realise girls are emotionally connected but I realized this weekend my boy is really aware of my emotional state. He knew I had been stressed with all the changes in life lately and so he was acting out. By the end of the weekend the puzzle came together. Words like ‘I hate it when you are mad.’ and ‘I don’t want to be mad but you are.’ hit home. I started explaining if I was disciplining him I wasn’t angry, just doing my job. If he could accept the discipline we could both move on. He is a practical boy and normally good natured so he was able to accept that and in no time we where having a blast together.

We had time to talk about why I have been busy and stressed lately and I told him I was sorry for being grumpy. We discussed that when parents are grumpy it doesn’t always mean he has been bad. It isn’t his job to fix it every time I am sad or stressed. He liked my suggestion about praying for mom and dad when we are stressed. “I can do that.” he said… and he was already off playing. He doesn’t need much but he does need that little bit to make it right. My little man is quick to forgive and I love that about his bright little heart!I also realized how much ‘mom chatter’ I have in my head ALL THE TIME! This weekend, with meals and jobs done for us, I was actually present in what ever I was doing. I ate when we where eating, I sat when we where sitting… no thinking about what next, what to do, what didn’t I do, what should I do and so on and so forth. This experience was such a blessing! Just to BE for a while was so sweet!

TTFN

Newer Entries →