Practicing Gratitude

I'm having a hard time narrowing down what I've been thankful for this week. I know ~ what a delightful problem to have!! There's been nothing major like some previous weeks, but so many small things.

I'm thankful the sun is noticeably up earlier and down later these days. I'm actually walking in FULL DAYLIGHT when I leave as soon as the girls are on the bus! I'll admit, in a way, it somehow doesn't feel quite as special, but I love that the days are getting longer!

I'm thankful piano lessons with Fidget and Peanut are going so well.  Peanut is on the last lesson in the first level and Fidget is just starting it.  Nine-yr old Peanut was extremely reluctant to practice at first, but has come to accept that 10 minutes per day is actually not that big a deal.  She's progressing really well.

Just Tuesday, six-yr old Fidget started the lesson in tears because we were moving from the beginner black key lessons to needing to know the names of the white keys and using them.  But after our 10 minute lesson (I keep them quite short for her and we do a couple each week instead of one 30-minute lesson per week), she had keys for that lesson down pat and ran to the playroom where her older sister was, yelling at the top of her voice, "Guess what??!  I'm on the white notes now!  I'm on the white notes now!!  Woo-hoo!!"  I'm thankful that teaching my girls is working so much better than I expected it would and that I have a part in helping them achieve something like this.

I'm thankful for the spirit of playfulness that suddenly gripped me yesterday morning while the girls and I walked to the end of the driveway to wait for the bus.  I loved their expressions when without any warning, I cannonballed into the deep snow!  I think they were a little worried about their ol' mom for a second there, but after just a moment of confusion, they dropped their backpacks and joined me in jumping into the deepest parts and then laughing like crazy as we all struggled to get back on our feet.  It only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was a really fun way to start the day.

I'm so thankful for the little things that make my life really good.

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20/20 Vision

For the last two weeks, I've had an eye infection that has not been responding to treatment. It's nothing major (I don't think!), and just by looking at me, you probably wouldn't notice it. It's not gross like pink-eye; there's just some swelling and redness that's mostly hidden by my lower eyelid. It always feels like I've got gunk in the inside corner of my eye ~ even when I don't.

After it became apparent that the current antibiotic drops weren't having the desired effect, I started to worry.  I don't worry about much anymore, but anything regarding my health and my body still causes my heartrate and blood pressure to rise a little.
(what a good thing I'm already on bp meds...  )

I used to get mild anxiety attacks every now and again, and though I don't think I've had one in the last 3-4 years, I felt one coming on yesterday.  Interestingly, but not at all coincidentally, I've been immersed in a trilogy of study books written by one of my favourite Bible teacher/authors, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, entitled Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness, and I happen to be reading through the Surrender volume when the panic began to rise.

In contrast to all my other moments of anxiety, I took the opportunity to put into practice the words that had been stirring my heart, and this time when I talked to God about my concerns, I simply surrendered.  Yes, I still asked Him (once again) to heal my eye, but ~ and I know this may sound strange, even to many Believers ~ I literally told Him that I relinquished my "right" to good eyesight to Him.

My keen eyesight has been a gift that not everyone gets to enjoy.  I know that.  And while I've always been aware of how great it is to be able to see, to enjoy beauty, I don't know how often I've taken the time to consider how using it honours or dishonours God.  I just didn't want to lose the ability.

But I've been reminded that my eyes are on loan from God. They have always belonged to Him, just like the rest of me. He can do whatever He wants with me, so He also gets to do whatever He wants with my eyes. I have never considered how my eyesight can be used to serve Him, but if necessary, [deep breath] I am willing to consider how losing it can be.

I don't WANT there to be something permanently wrong with my eyes, don't get me wrong! I have enjoyed my better-than-20/20 vision my entire life thus far and I really don't want to lose it!! I am definitely hoping and praying that tomorrow's doctor's appointment will yield a new prescription that does the trick. But if it doesn't, you know what? It's okay.  I'm not worried anymore.

If losing my sight will help others see God, I am willing to lose my eyes.

Seeing isn't believing.  Believing is seeing.*

* I'm either quoting a line said by a cute little elf in the 1994 movie "The Santa Clause," or the title of an 1866 sermon by the great Charles H. Spurgeon...  Take your pick!

What do YOU call it?

Saw this haunting quote posted on Facebook a while back:

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

—D.A. Carson

I pray we are not drifting, slouching, and sliding our way to and through our worship services today!  Oh God, give us a hunger to know you more, to love you more, and to LIVE you more throughout our everyday lives each moment of every week. Give us a passion for holiness.

Practicing Gratitude

Oh, my friends, I have felt so incredibly blessed this last week!  My heart is just so full of gratitude for all the wonderfulness that the last several days have contained!!

Of course I have to mention here today that I'm thankful for 14 wonderful years of marriage! Our anniversary was
Valentine's Day and though The 'Man wasn't home at all that day, we had a wonderful at-home dinner date on Saturday night.

I'm so thankful simple, inexpensive, HOME dates can be fun. We fed the girls supper the same time as always, but waited to cook and eat ours until after they were in bed. We broke out our finest $7-bottle of wine, left the TV off, and just really enjoyed each other's company and conversation. It was a great evening at home and yet it still felt like a date because it isn't something we normally do. (We wondered why we didn't do it more often, but the next morning that late-evening-meal-heaviness in our stomachs reminded us why!! I guess there's a good reason we don't normally eat a big meal that late at night!)

And then on Sunday, I'd taken a bunch of leftovers out of the freezer and was planning on letting everyone pick and choose what they wanted for supper, but good friends of ours offered to take our whole family out for a meal! What an awesome treat!!!  We had the banquet room of the restaurant all to ourselves and so once our kids were done eating, they could roam free and play without us worrying about the hassle to other patrons.

On Monday, while The 'Man and his Business Partner were away in The Big City dealing with business stuff, The Business Partner's wife ~ my dearest friend ~ came over for a visit in the evening to help me polish off the last of the Molten Nutella Lava Cakes I'd made for Saturday's supper.  She brought her son to hockey practice in Town, then came all the way back to our house after picking me up a beautiful bouquet, some chocolates, and some Tim Horton's decaf coffee to have with our dessert!!  When she'd said earlier she'd bring the coffee, I thought she was just talkin' a thermos from home.  And I didn't realize all the driving she'd have to do in order to make a visit with me possible.  I really do have amazing friends!

It has taken me an embarrassingly long time to see exactly how special they are, but now all I want is to make sure I do what I can to be a blessing in their lives like they are in mine ~ those sweet ministers of God's grace and love in my life. What wonderful inspiration! ♥

 

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Fourteen to Life.

I'm not sure what made me think of it suddenly at the end of August, but it occurred to me that I'd never mentioned our wedding anniversary here on the ol' blawg. Which seemed wrong, given by that point, I'd been blogging for over three years. This could really be the FOURTH time I draw attention to my cheesy wedding date choice, and yet it's only my first.


You guessed it. Today, February 14th ~ VALENTINE'S Day ~ is our anniversary. Our FOURTEENTH this year, actually. Which makes it so much more magical.
And cheezy.

It all started many, MANY moons ago ~ like, WAY back before The Bushman and I were interested in each other. Or, at least, before I was interested in him, anyway! Way back in the late 1980's...

I think I must have been about 15 or 16 years old and my mom had this perpetual calendar thingy where you could see what the calendar would look like for any given year for the next century or something like that. I scoured the various pages to see which year would yield a Valentine's Day on Friday because a Friday night Valentine's Day wedding would just be the coolest idea. I saw with disappointment that it wouldn't happen until the year I'd turn 25.

Pfft. Like I wouldn't already be married by then!

Shoot, I was hoping for a Friday night Valentine's Day wedding. Ah well.

I didn't give it much thought after that.

Until many years later when I'd developed a serious interest in The Bushman (who did NOT look like a Bushman at ALL back then!) and was planning on marrying him.

Lo, and behold, Friday, February the 14th was a mere five months away....

And the rest is history.

Some of it, I'm very glad is history. We had a rough start, me being an only child and not used to sharing much, and all that. We fought a lot that first year. But after a fairly sharp turning point about eighteen months in, it's been sheer wedded bliss ever since steadily getting better and better and better each year. I can honestly say that, while I've got some regrets about my cheesy choice of wedding dates, there are NONE about whom I chose to share my life and raise a family with. I have been so thankful over the years for a husband who loves me, who sacrifices so much to provide for our family so I can stay home with the girls, and who loves to spend time with his daughters. He's perfect for me!

I love you, Man.

 

The New Mop

(Note to self:  spray Fidget's pants with Swiffer solution next time)

Happy Friday, y'all!! Have a great weekend!
 

Practicing Gratitude

Another week, another Thursday...
Another celebration of all the wonderful blessings the last seven days have held!!

Today I'm going to share some of the notes of thanks that I've recorded in my prayer journal over the last week.  I have one page each day for listing 5 things I'm thankful for every morning, afternoon, and evening.  Sometimes they're big things, sometimes they're silly things, sometimes they're profound things, but they're still always things I'm thankful for!

• the girls' school bus was cancelled again today!
• the beauty of winter
• The 'Man got to come home tonight instead of having to drive in the rain on super icy roads.
• I'm in a great mood today!
• girls got to play outside after supper today with their dad
• clean bed linens!
• a husband who wants to be the kind of boss that goes the extra mile to care for his employees
• we found out why Fidget's been coughing so much and finally have meds to treat it (bronchitis!)
• ATP (answer to prayer): Fidget didn't cough at night!!!!!
• fresh baked croissants for breakfast
• a beautiful afternoon walk
• an opportunity to speak at the upcoming World Day of Prayer event
• music
• the days are getting longer and longer!
• eyesight
• going to bed with the kitchen cleaned up
• hot coffee
• great books that point me to God and the ability to read them
• a husband who loves me and two beautiful girls who still think mom is pretty awesome
• God's mercy and grace
• a new day

You know as well as I do that the list could go on and on and on.  (And on!)  I encourage you to specifically set aside a few moments each day to think about and be thankful for the blessings both great and small in your everyday life.  It really does make a difference!!

 
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Wonderful, Merciful Savior

I'm playing this song for offertory in church this morning, but other than being familiar with the piano piece in one of my arrangement books, I didn't know the song at all. So I looked it up on YouTube the other night and was delighted to discover one of my favourite groups sings it.  It really is a beautiful song of worship and reverent praise and Selah does a wonderful job delivering it.

I've included two videos because I couldn't decide which one I liked better. I love the "humanness" of Jesus shown in this first one.

I don't know what movie the table scene is taken from* and I'm imagining the woman is perhaps one of His sisters. Mark 6:3 indicates He had at least two and the woman looks too young to be Mary ~ plus, I think Jesus would have been more respectful to His mother!! In any case, I love the humour and the playfulness. So often we think of Jesus as being always serious and business-like and yet we claim God has a sense of humour. It's nice to see someone using a bit of creative license to fill in the gaps in this way.

However, I found the subtitles QUITE distracting! I completely forgot about the words of the song while watching!!  So if you want to watch one with still shots and the actual song lyrics, here's a good one:


May we spend today ~ and each day to come ~ worshipping our Savior King in reverent praise, with joyful hearts that bubble over with gratitude for His mercy and grace.

 
* Apparently this might be a clip from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and the woman is supposedly Mary. I never saw it.

Practicing Gratitude

I'm thankful the girls got to stay home from school yesterday ~ and that it wasn't because they were sick!  We got a call at 7:20 in the morning saying their bus was stuck and that until further notice, their bus wasn't running.  I expected to hear back within an hour or so either that the bus was back on the road or that they were sending a replacement bus for our route, but we never did hear anything back, so they got a SECOND day off this week!  They already had Monday.  We pulled out the time-telling workbooks that we haven't touched since summer, had story time together, and both girls still did some extra home-reading. (Seems like it's up to me whether the girls go to school today too ~ I just found out our bus route has been officially cancelled this morning!  Hmmm, do I take them in or give them another day off?!)

I'm thankful that The 'Man didn't have truck trouble Tuesday night.  It was FIERCELY windy the last two days (which is creating serious drifts in some places ~ the reason the bus got stuck yesterday and cancelled today, I imagine!) and when you've got two massive but empty woodchip trailers, high winds can be problematic.  The last thing we need is ANOTHER wreck.  (I couldn't find a good picture online of the wood chip trailers we use and incredibly, I don't have any shots of our own trucks.  The truck pictured here is one The 'Man drove 5-1/2 years ago when he worked for a different company doing the same job.  And, as you can see, it was taken on a beautiful summer day, not a beastly cold and windy winter day!)

I'm thankful that though the wind hadn't died down last night, at least the temps were warming up ~ yesterday afternoon we were sitting at -9.  (16F)  Even with the howling wind, the adjusted temp was only -19/-2F.  That's a pretty big jump from Tuesday morning's -42/-44F!!  This morning it's relatively calm and -5/22F.

I'm thankful for a solid, warm house and that The 'Man got around to cutting some more firewood yesterday.  Of course, it would have been nice to use the woodstove to heat on these last super cold days, but hey, I'm thankful we have a furnace that kicks in when the wood runs out!!

I'm thankful winter is half over.  If next month is relatively normal, we'll start noticing a big change in the weather ~ possibly even the odd MELTING day!!  Of course, our snow probably won't be gone till the end of April at the very earliest ~ especially since we got so much more than normal this year ~ but at least it won't be long before the sun will actually start WARMING around these parts again!

I can hardly wait for mud puddles and extra laundry!

 

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Happy February!

Just think, only another 2 months till spring!