Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Eight Years

Eight years ago today, two youngsters got themselves hitched. They didn't know what love was.
They thought they did.

They had no idea that nine months after this kiss, their world would change again with a new baby on the way.

They were on the five year plan.


Five years later. The five year plan lasted all of eight months!

Eight years and he is still my best friend, my prayer warrior, my helper and strong leader. By the Lord's grace, my husband is a better man than the great man I knew eight years ago. He is so good to me.
And he still makes me laugh.
A lot.


Thank you Nathan, for choosing me and for not quitting when the waves toss us to and fro. Thank you for clinging to Jesus for me and with me through this walk. You still are the man of my dreams.
-Andrea

Monday, October 17, 2011

The three

It's been a LONG time since the kids' beautiful faces have shown up on this page. Here they are on a lazy Saturday morning fort-making session. Ben is fine. He is being firmly loved by his big sis.


 Noah is wearing his spiderman pajamas. I cannot get these pj's through the wash quick enough before he's dying to wear them again! He's the same way with his spiderman underwear. Can you take a wild guess at what this little man will be for Halloween? You guessed it.
Funny faces and lots of love. We are so very, very blessed!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Digging Deep

The Father is digging deep.
Drawing His people to Him.
Unveiling the dark, ugly portions of our hearts and saying, "Come sweet child" with tight embrace.

My febrile, snotty nosed, sick child can expect to be taken up in my arms and nursed to health. We can equally expect our Father to have compassion in our sickness - thanks to Christ!

Because He is a loving Father, He will not leave us undone in our broken, sick state.
He reveals our filth as He cleanses every crevice and corner, and He loves us deeply, all the way through it. We have a good, good Father.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Boundaries

We're in a trial and error stage of life right now, trying to figure out how to be children of action, children of prayer, and children who submit to Godly wisdom. With homeschooling, couponing, never ending laundry and dishes, and frequent grocery runs (oftentimes the children join me), we already know how the hours can simply run away from us. Add to that the priceless opportunities that God presents for us to pour the gospel into another individual's life, (and, if you're like me, you want to take as many opportunities for that as you can get) then you've got a bit of a conflict.

Our days are numbered. Our hours are numbered. The sun rises and sets, and we are only allowed so many daylight hours to work and to work hard. Our bodies are limited. Working hard leads to the need for us to also rest our bodies well.

Consider as well the primary responsibilities we've been given charge over: for me the top two are my marriage and my children. This doesn't include the secondary relationships in which all believers all called to invest: the church, discipleship relationships both for myself and myself towards another, extended family, my neighbors, the needy, the widow and orphan. Where do you find time to pour yourself into each of these types of relationships that fall into your life? Where does that all fit in?

Where do you draw the line as you consider the primary responsibilities versus the secondaries? How much energy and intentional time do you set aside for your marriage and for your family? How much time do you set aside for pouring into the secondaries? Do you ever say, "no," to the secondaries?
In this season, we're finding that if we participate in more than three or four secondary activities a week, we literally lose a day to recovery. That is one whole day a week that I can't pour into my primary responsibilities. This means that we've sometimes said "no" to birthday parties, having adult friends over, even after the kids go down, and declining to help when we really, really wanted to.  We're making mistakes sometimes, but we're trying to humbly submit, recognizing our own limitations as well as taking seriously our responsibilities.

What works for your families?

*Edited to add:
I really, really do want to hear what works for your families! We're still trying to figure it out.
Also it's funny/strange that I wrote on boundaries two years ago here, but I had a different take on it back then. hmmm. Learning still, I guess.