This is the day that I have made!  As you rejoice in this day of life, it will yield up to you precious gifts and beneficial training.  Walk with Me along the high road of thanksgiving, and you will find all the delights I have made ready for you.

To protect your thankfulness, you must remember that you reside in a fallen world, where blessings and sorrows intermingle freely.  A constant focus on adversity defeats many Christians.  They walk through a day that is brimming with beauty and brightness, seeing only the grayness of their thoughts.  Neglecting the practice of giving thanks has darkened their minds.  How precious are My children who remember to thank Me at all times.  They can walk through the darkest days with Joy in their hearts because they know that the Light of My Presence is still shining on them.  Rejoice in this day that I have made, for I am your steadfast Companion.

~ Jesus Calling, November 26

1450.  shares that humble

1451.  friends that discover the head lice before they come over

1452.  the gift of the opportunity to encourage others

1453.  early morning fog

1454.  two hundred pairs of shoes donated

1455.  eighty-plus health profiles

1456.  a day of baking to celebrate thanks

1457.  easy lunch buffets and an afternoon when it’s okay to graze

1458.  a Thanksgiving day bike ride

1459.  another six year old

1460.  encounters that help me learn grace, practice thanks in all things

May your coming week be filled with blessings.  May you not be able to count all the gifts He gives.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

It’s Monday morning and the beginning of a week of Thanksgiving but we count the gifts always here, trying to make a life of thanks-living.  Pastor teaches yesterday on the value of a grateful heart and that God’s grace is at the center of all giving thanks.  And he teaches how an ungrateful heart has forgotten the gospel and that the place in our heart created for thanksgiving will be filled with something dark, sinister, if it is not overflowing with praise to the One who gave all.  And I think of my Savior, how He took the bread, broke it, and gave thanks, knowing it was His body that would be broken, His blood that would be poured out.  And even still, He gave thanks.  How can I not give thanks in the midst of my light and momentary struggles?  How can I not praise Him in the midst of our daily storms?

Some days it is hard.  The flesh cries foul at the seeming injustice of it all and the heart weighs heavy, weary that things will never change.  What if they never do?  Can I continue on in praise to Him?  Can I continue to seek His will, to be molded into the image of the Son, even if my circumstances never change?  The only other option is bitterness.  I can praise or I can resent.  I can give thanks or I can complain.  My heart can continue to be made softer still or my heart can grow hard within me.

I do not want to be what the world tells me I deserve to be.  I want to love the unlovable.  I want to return kindness in the face of hatred.  I want to bow my head in prayer when the flesh cries out to scream.

The practice of listing the gifts, intentional thanks, opens my eyes to what He gives.  If everything is from His hand, I can trust Him that it is worth giving thanks for.  And so I look, I watch for those God-gifts.  Little things.  Big things.  All things.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17

1444.  Christmas shopping

1445.  seventy degrees in mid-November

1446.  decorations up

1447.  tired ears that mean a fun day with my girls

1448.  timely messages on Sunday morning

1449.  a week of focused thanks

Practicing the deliberate giving of thanks today.  I need to remember the gifts, His faithfulness, His mercies.

1432.  cool, rainy days

1433.  candles

1434.  quiet Christmas music

1435.  coffee

1436.  days that keep your eyes on God

1437.  succesful family pictures

1438.  dead batteries and tangled balloons

1439.  enjoyable sleepovers

1440. a one mile run

1441.  a drama-free Sunday

1442.  daughters who help sisters

1443.  a husband who’s got my back

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

Beloved Father, help me to expect you as I travel the ordinary road of life.  I am not asking for sensational experiences.  Fellowship with me through my everyday work and service and be my companion when I take an ordinary journey.  And let my humble life be transformed by Your presence. 

~ Streams in the Desert, October 22

“There is a reason I am not writing the story, and God is.  He knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all means.  I don’t.  Maybe…it’s accepting there are things we simply don’t understand.  But He does.”

~ Ann Voskamp

A Velveteen Mother — made Real by the years — the way grace can happen to you. And not all at once — but you become. And grace becomes you.

To be just a Velveteen Mother: worn and weathered down to the exquisite beauty of the frame of the Cross.

It’s the threadbare simplicity of the thing: a Velveteen mother — softened and strengthened by the years, rubbed down to the essence of Gospel — like the Lion Who sacrifices Himself as a Lamb.

And maybe that is all — a Velveteen Mother is a mother who keeps bending her worn knees with prayers that her child may walk straight paths. Never ceasing to pray for her own crooked heart.

Never forgetting — Train up a child in the way he should go and be ready to forgive him. The Way he should go is down a road named Grace.

Why do I forget that becoming Real — becoming a velveteen mother –  it will hurt in a thousand ways?

~ Ann Voskamp

After a slow wearing down and fighting the same battles and remembering that this war we wage is not against flesh and blood, and knowing that we fight discontentment with gratitude, I start again.  After too many weeks away, after October “the month that got away”, I begin the holiday season with an effort to slow, savor, and count the gifts.

1408.  being lice free

1409.  the chance to start feeling caught up

1410.  not running

1411.  family game of Monopoly

1412.  Friday night at home

1413.  getting there

1414.  clean house and truck

1415.  Chandler’s first 5k

1416.  pushing through 3.1 painful miles

1417.  the healing of deep laughter

1418.  approval letters

1419.  getting away

1420.  tropical storms

1421.  being content

1422.  ninety-three days

1423.  being with my peeps

1424.  two nights at home together

1425.  slowing down

1426.  laundry neatly stacked and folded

1427.  rainy days

1428.  candles

1429.  leaves swirling wonder around third-born child

1430.  facing the same frustration

1431.  becoming a velveteen mother

Won’t you join me this month in giving thanks to the Giver of all good gifts?  Even those gifts that hurt and wear us down and keep us on knees and faces…even these are good gifts in His hands.  Even when we don’t understand how something good could ever come, we can trust the One who has given all things for our good and His glory.

May your day be filled with thanks.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

I’ve been so hit and miss lately and so much has been happening, this seems like a good week for catching up.  First, always first, giving thanks for the good gifts and the hard gifts He has given over the past few weeks.  He is faithful, even when I am not.  This is inconceivable grace.

1373.  hard runs that are cheap therapy

1374.  long talks

1375.  13.7 miles on my own

1376.  fm radio on the iPod

1377.  “putty” golfing

1378.  twelve hours of sleep

1379.  head lice

1380.  forced change of plans

1381.  perspective

1382.  calm

1383.  an offer!

1384.  a contract

1385.  a sold sign

1386.  eleven “easy” miles

1387.  Row House with friends

1388.  home again on Sunday morning

1389.  counting gifts even when the heart grumbles

1390.  nine year old playing piano

1391.  last long run – done!

1392.  date night

1393.  second place at her second horse show

1394.  face down before the Lord

1395.  a God who hears

1396.  a sick one sleeping soundly

1397.  gold leaves on wet black pavement

1398.  sky – amazing shades of blue

1399.  moon – bright and clear

1400.  race training finished

1401.  four clean heads

1402.  hearing that still, small voice as I pray

1403.  confessing I have made an idol out of something good

1404.  another adoption hoop jumped through

1405.  race day

1406.  missing the mark

1407.  knowing I can try again

Hoping your week begins and ends with a heart full of thanks.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

“If I see God in everything, He will calm and color everything I see!  Perhaps the circumstances causing my sorrows will not be removed and my situation will remain the same, but if Christ is brought into my grief and gloom as my Lord and master, He will ‘surround me with songs of deliverance’ (Psalm 32:7).  To see Him and be sure that His wisdom and power never fail and His love never changes, to know that even His most distressing dealings with me are for my deepest spiritual gain, is to be able to say in the midst of bereavement, sorrow, pain, and loss, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised’ (Job 1:21).

“Seeing God in everything is the only thing that will make me loving and patient with people who annoy and trouble me.  Then I will see others as the instruments God uses to accomplish His tender and wise purpose for me, and I will even find myself inwardly thanking them for the blessing they have become to me.  Nothing but seeing God will completely put an end to all complaining and thoughts of rebellion.” ~ Hannah Whitall Smith, Streams in the Desert, September 17

Looking for God the past couple of weeks…

1362.  thirty for 30

1363.  a whole week of good running

1364.  generous girls learning to give good gifts

1365.  a quiet, happy birthday

1366.  home church above the city

1367.  a Monday made in heaven

1368. new running shoes

1369.  working through pain and discouragement

1370.  Kung Fu Panda II – who would have guessed?!

1371.  ice cream reward for James I memorized

1372.  a Sunday morning that keeps my heart bowed in prayer

Our God is a very present God.  He is with us in our troubles and our victories.  May you see God in everything this week.

By His Grace ~

~ Sara

….because I can’t keep up with all His endless gifts….

1341.  a quiet Monday morning

1342.  momentary grace

1343.  leftovers again

1344.  an at-home copier

1345.  home study completed!

1346.  singing love songs to my Savior as I scrub the kitchen counter

1347.  dossier in the mail!

1348.  surviving the craziest day of the week

1349.  music on the Victrola

1350.  tears on a Friday

1351.  two hours at Mahner Farms

1352.  pregnant goats

1353.  rubber chairs

1354.  talks about Hawaii, chickens, and kids with bad teeth

1355.  run that are hard

1356.  days that just don’t go right

1357.  glorious weather

1358.  Monday morning run that rocked

1359.  dreams that lead us to at least think and pray

1360.  trail hikes, the Kansas River, & catching frogs

1361.  open windows with church bell hymns ringing through

How Great Thou Art

Oh Lord my God when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed

REFRAIN:
Then sings my soul my savior God to thee
How great thou art
How great thou art
Then sings my soul my savior God to thee
How great thou art how great thou art

When thru the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze (Refrain)

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin (Refrain)

When Christ shall come With shout of acclamation
To take me home What joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
And there proclaim my God how great thou art (Refrain)

*photos from the weekend

**song lyrics prompted by church bells today

It starts again today.  The run-around.  The taxi-service.  The activity schedule that often has us out more than we’re in.

Strangely, I’m looking forward to it.  I’m looking forward to the structure it demands.  I’m looking forward to the hard stops, the fixed times.  I appreciate, at least to a degree, the pressure it puts on us to try a little harder, do a little better.

I don’t ever want a crazy life.  I need a lot of slow.  Our kids need a good amount too.  But I appreciate how a moderate level of busyness can force me to focus and use my time more wisely and push myself harder to fit more in to the day.

So here’s to a new year of ballet, horse back riding, gymnastics, choir, speech, and more….and that’s just the girls’ stuff.  Here’s to whatever God has planned as He stretches us, fills us, and makes us more like His Son.

And here’s to continuing to count, to celebrate the gifts He gives.

1321.  switched rooms

1322.  air conditioning

1323.  hottest days on record

1324.  first day of a new school year

1325.  eager students

1326.  Teaching Textbooks

1327.  eleven years old

1328.  more pics of our little girl

1329.  first photo shoot down

1330.  afternoon nap

1331.  Cafe Holliday chips and guac delivery

1332.  an afternoon of laughter and silliness

1333.  the return of hard stops