Saoirse just keeps on growing up. Today she lost her first tooth. Earlier in the day she was a bit worried as she was wriggling it around and she asked me if it was going to hurt for her tooth to come out. I told her that I hope it wouldn't but we wouldn't know until it came out. So imagine my surprise at lunch when she was holding something up in the air, talking in a very excited voice about something (I couldn't understand her), and then I saw blood coming from her mouth. Phew! It happened painlessly! I was very happy for her. Goodness knows we've had our share of drama over lost teeth and it is so nice to have one go out quietly :-)
Jedidiah is really getting into pretend play. He has been a bit obsessed with dressing up as a cowboy. I took a bunch of pictures with him in his gear, but they are on our back computer. I'll have to post them later. Jed had speech therapy today and he did very well!!! Yeah! It is so neat to see him making strides. He did very well making the sounds that we have been working on. His therapist said we can start adding a few other consonants now to work on. Jed also said two new words yesterday. One was 'table' and I forgot the other. I have to say it is so refreshing to see the cognitive growth that he has been having.
We have a pretty open week this week. We are planning on having a family over for dinner on Wednesday. And we may have plans for Friday as well. Right now we have had a lot of stuff on our plate. Emotionally it has been taxing. So a lot has gone undone over here. But for the last day or so I've been trying to get back on track. I took all the kids out for a walk this morning. And I am hoping to make that a part of our routine. We are in serious need of some direction over here. I am taking things slow, and am hoping that I can take it step by step to get some order back. Sometimes it seems so easy in my mind, but making it happen is another story! Right now I am trying to just keep the basics with homeschooling, making decent meals (although I really want to get back to eating more veggie than we have been), and keeping the dishes and laundry done. That's it. My standard bar is not very high right now. Ha!
Well off to sleep. My pillow is calling my name :-)
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
a new montage
Things have been crazy over here. Some day I may be able to tell you all about it, but for now just suffice it to say it's been one crazy month. Never mind that things may get even CrAzIeR over the next few weeks. But I really wanted to share our pictures with you all. I put them in a montage since there were so many. There are pictures of the kiddos building their message boards at Home Depot. We have Isabella and Moira's joint birthday party. You will see them playing pin the tail on the doggie, trying ever so hard to break the pinata and them with their cake. Plus there are some cute pictures of the boys at the end, mostly of Jonah. Today I have to get ourselves back on track with just some normal everyday tasks. I hope you enjoy the montage. I usually take the time to work out the 'effects', but I don't have time today, so I left it as is.
Monday, August 10, 2009
How our GI appt. went
Well Jed had his six month check up with GI. We were there for two hours, but the time we spent with the doctor was four minutes. And no, I am not exaggerating! He looked at his tube, showed me how Jed is following his growth curve, said that the nutritionist was still fine with our homemade formula and then asked if I had any questions. I told him about Jed's apraxia (as it is a brain thing and that maybe it had something to do with his feeding issues) and he told me that it had nothing to do with his feeding issues. Ahhh, OK then.....Then he told me that since Jedidiah is so stable that we can wait to come back in a year! yahoo!
In non Jed news Saoirse has her first loose tooth! Whoa! Wait, that can't be! But apparently it is true :-( She is growing up just too fast. The poor thing was really freaked out over it. She came up to me whimpering that her tooth was loose. I felt it and verified that it was and then she broke down crying that she didn't want to have a loose tooth. Weeeelllllll, sorry honey but there's no getting out of it! She was not pleased. Thankfully today she seems better about it. I am really hoping that her experience will be better than Flannery's first few loose teeth. Oh my oh my, you'd have to go back and read about those drama filled days of Flannery loosing a tooth.
I would put up pictures, except that I can't find my camera right now. I asked the girls about it and they said they didn't know where it was either, but that they did know the batteries were dead. Hmmmmm that's a bit suspicious! Well sooner or later it will turn up. We have a busy week here, I hope to update you all on Jed's kinesiology appointment goes. I really enjoy going to visit with the kinesiologist. She is so encouraging and so knowledgeable.
In non Jed news Saoirse has her first loose tooth! Whoa! Wait, that can't be! But apparently it is true :-( She is growing up just too fast. The poor thing was really freaked out over it. She came up to me whimpering that her tooth was loose. I felt it and verified that it was and then she broke down crying that she didn't want to have a loose tooth. Weeeelllllll, sorry honey but there's no getting out of it! She was not pleased. Thankfully today she seems better about it. I am really hoping that her experience will be better than Flannery's first few loose teeth. Oh my oh my, you'd have to go back and read about those drama filled days of Flannery loosing a tooth.
I would put up pictures, except that I can't find my camera right now. I asked the girls about it and they said they didn't know where it was either, but that they did know the batteries were dead. Hmmmmm that's a bit suspicious! Well sooner or later it will turn up. We have a busy week here, I hope to update you all on Jed's kinesiology appointment goes. I really enjoy going to visit with the kinesiologist. She is so encouraging and so knowledgeable.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Kefir smoothies
First I want to just say a very big thank you to all the wonderful comments I received on my 'challenge post'. I am very glad that I am not alone :-) I am very excited to see how the Lord works all of this out.....an adventure in the making! I will continue to share my thoughts and the results that come out of all of this. I am sure right now they will stay thoughts, like Bethany mentioned, I don't want to swing to the opposite side of the pendulum :-)
I have been making kefir smoothies now for the past few weeks. There are two that we rely on. I am looking forward to trying to come up with new concoctions. Here is our new favorite:
Orange creamsicle
2 cups kefir
2 cups milk
2 frozen bananas
1/2 can of frozen orange juice concentrate
1 dropper of liquid stevia (maybe 20 drops worth?)
1 TBS vanilla extract
Put all into a blender and enjoy. This came out with a wonderful frothy texture. Yum!
Our next standby:
Chocolate smoothie
2 cups kefir
3 spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa powder
3 spoonfuls of peanut butter
1 dropper of liquid stevia
1 TBS vanilla extract
The next two ingredients I just put in until I think is the right amount I am looking for (I like this to be thick like a milkshake).
maybe 3-4 cups of milk
maybe 4 or more frozen bananas
Mix this all in the blender. Be nice and share :-)
In other news I got another wonderful comment this morning (most of this post was written last night and I am finishing this morning), and it happens to be someone who "randomly" found me from another blog, who happens to be a missionary in Uganda and knows of Katie the missionary's blog I spoke of in my last post. Coincidence? I think not. Boy, you really have to be careful what you pray for :-) I am hoping to get to know this family and see what life looks like in Africa.
Have a great day!
I have been making kefir smoothies now for the past few weeks. There are two that we rely on. I am looking forward to trying to come up with new concoctions. Here is our new favorite:
Orange creamsicle
2 cups kefir
2 cups milk
2 frozen bananas
1/2 can of frozen orange juice concentrate
1 dropper of liquid stevia (maybe 20 drops worth?)
1 TBS vanilla extract
Put all into a blender and enjoy. This came out with a wonderful frothy texture. Yum!
Our next standby:
Chocolate smoothie
2 cups kefir
3 spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa powder
3 spoonfuls of peanut butter
1 dropper of liquid stevia
1 TBS vanilla extract
The next two ingredients I just put in until I think is the right amount I am looking for (I like this to be thick like a milkshake).
maybe 3-4 cups of milk
maybe 4 or more frozen bananas
Mix this all in the blender. Be nice and share :-)
In other news I got another wonderful comment this morning (most of this post was written last night and I am finishing this morning), and it happens to be someone who "randomly" found me from another blog, who happens to be a missionary in Uganda and knows of Katie the missionary's blog I spoke of in my last post. Coincidence? I think not. Boy, you really have to be careful what you pray for :-) I am hoping to get to know this family and see what life looks like in Africa.
Have a great day!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
A challenge
ANY READERS UNDER THE CARE OF THEIR PARENTS (UNDER 18) PLEASE DO NOT READ! PLEASE HAVE YOUR PARENTS READ THIS FIRST BEFORE CONTINUING!!
No, I don't have BAD things to say or share, but I do have a lot of my crazy thoughts to share and I am not comfortable with sharing them with a younger crowd if their parents are not OK with what I am about to share :-) So if you are a young one and you are still reading....then GET OFF :-) You can come back another day and enjoy our crazy life in pictures when I finally get them off my camera!
OK, if you ever thought that my posts were unorganized and a bit scattered well you haven't seen anything yet :-) I just feel this big ball of thoughts/emotions/and what not building and I want to get them all out. After all this is a journal, and one mainly for my family. But I know, only from my favorite sister in the whole world who tells me how things are truthfully, that I seem to come across as if I have my life together. I have to tell you I really thought I would laugh out loud (oh wait, I did) after hearing that. And so this post is to show you that I do NOT have my life all together. And I would like to record my crazy thoughts for posterity's sake (ha, ha, ha). This will be a crazy ride as I don't even know where to start as these thoughts have been building for some time.
A few things happened the past couple of days that kind of popped a bubble. They were small, and to anyone else may seem quite odd to have had such an effect. I guess I will start with these things and work my way back. My sister put up a post about deodorant. Ok, it was more than that, but she used that to make a point. You see, anti-perspirant has aluminum in it. Your skin, being your largest organ, absorbs the aluminum. And said aluminum can/will effect your kidneys. I am not sure if there are hard and fast studies done on this but there are writings out there that talk on the dangers of this aluminum from antiperspirants. Your kidneys will function just fine until they have been destroyed to only 10% working capacity. What this means is that you will have no clue that you have a kidney problem until it is too late. However your body will show signs, in seemingly non related ways, but it WILL be affected. Now what does this have to do with me? Well you see I read all that some 17 YEARS AGO! Yes, you heard right, I've known this for 17 years. Now, let me say this first, if you are family and you had anything to do with what I am about to say, let it be known I don't hold anything against you :-) Ok, so lets take a little time trip back 17 years and see what this looked like when I said the same thing.........[imagine a swirl of colors, clouds, a sense of falling through space....we are in NY now] I have read the info on this health concern and decide to take action. I went and bought what was known and maybe still known as a deodorant rock (or crystal). I was reading a lot about health stuff and saw that things were not as rose colored as the advertisers want you to believe it is. However I was alone at the time in this journey, and what I was met with is what I will call "the stare". The one where I am sure once the person turned their back to me were rolling their eyes. Come on, admit it....you rolled your eyes at me. Like I said, I don't hold it against anyone, after all it does seem odd. But if you think it is still out there and that the FDA has only our good in mind then please stand up and go to your antiperspirant bottle and read the back. About half way down you will see something that reads like this: Consult with your physician before using this product if you have kidney problems. I kid you not....go read it yourself. You may still be asking, OK Kerri this is a nice little story but what is the point? The point is after a lot of "grief" about my strange ways I started putting them by the wayside. A little here and a little there and I now find myself wondering where did *I* go. Yeah, all from some deodorant, who would have thought? Ok, obviously there is sooooooooo much more to it than that, but still it is a part of it all. But this ties in with soooooo many other areas in my life and I will try to share some of it with you. As the years went along I have found myself trying to follow a lot of rules. Now, hear me now, rules are good for us, ones in particular....the ones God made. However I was trying to make my life safe with those rules. I was always a bit......well I guess I would describe myself as always being "one beat off". For those of you who knew me some 17-18 years ago you know exactly what I am talking about. I enjoyed following the beat to a different drummer. I liked looking at things in a different light than the masses. Now granted there were still a lot of people like me, but I didn't follow the crowd. I was ok being different. But at some point I didn't. I felt like I needed to change for the sake of being more normal (whatever that might be!). Add a couple of children and I felt like I needed to do things right. And being a bit odd, well that just didn't seem like the 'right' thing to do. And so I continued to fill my life with rules. Lots of them. And the result of that is: A very joyless home and life. No, really, you can step into my home and just feel it. Or I should say the lack of it. And here is where another thing that came my way hit home. I was sent a link to a blog that had another link on it that I visited. And I can give a big thank you to my good friend, M, for that....although I am not sure if she is on my side or my hubbies :-) She knows what I am talking about :-) Anyways this is what I saw.....a young girl (21 or 22) she dresses in jeans and a tank top (rule number 24 being broken right there....the sad thing is and this is VERY VERY sad to me,my children will look at her and say, she must not be a Christian because she is wearing jeans....and no I am not joking, and no that is NOT what I wanted them to learn!! but again, I am sharing with you how my life is NOT put together right), not only that she is an unwed mother (rule number 41 being broken), she doesn't homeschool (rule number 5 broken), and she is not living at home (rule number something or other being broken) BUT, BUT, BUT you want to know what she has that is totally , COMPLETELY right?....the LOVE of CHRIST. This young lady is mom to 14, yes 14 orphans that she adopted, she lives in Uganda as a missionary and feeds the hungry and schools children who can't afford an education (education in Uganda is not run by the government and so all schools are private and you need to pay). She takes orphans home to clean them up, as some have NEVER had a bath in their 5, 6, 7 years of living on the earth. She holds them, cares for them and prays for them. Now, just to say a little to some people who are discontent with the way things are in the US, this young woman wouldn't be able to school or feed the hungry or be in Uganda if it wasn't for the financial support of people in the US. The Lord does have us work in different ways, as not all of us can be the hand or all of us be the foot...we each have different works to do. And even though there are a gazzilion things wrong with the US the Lord is still using some of us to accomplish His work :-) Ok back to my main thought (if there is a main thought). I have tried to build this fence to make my life work 'right'. But instead, since it indeed was by my own hands, I have made things go terribly wrong. I have children who are judgmental, who hate ( I do mean hate) work of any kind---school or housework, who even at times hate each other, who do things only if it will benefit them and so on. Now I am not pointing out my childrens' sins/weaknesses to point the finger at them....but to point it to ME. We do a lot of 'right' things around here. Please note that the word, right, is in quotes. We dress modestly, we homeschool, we go to church and I am sure the list goes on, but we don't have the love of Christ. I may not be a Bible scholar but I am pretty darn sure that that is what Jesus intended when he walked the earth and died for us. I mean how many times does he point to the Pharisees and condemn their ways? I'm a really, really great Pharisee. I am sure I could walk with the best of them. They did a lot of 'right' things, but they lacked in the most important THING.....love.
I am sure you are wondering how deodorant and a blog about the life of a missionay in Uganda have anything in common. In my crazy world they do :-) And this brings us to the reason I titled my post, "A challenge". As I was pondering my loss of 'one beat off-ness' I came across a site for some dresses and aprons. I know you are really wondering how that ties into things :-) But oh, they were so lovely, so neat, so different, but not different in a big way. Go here to see what I mean. Check out the Verity Hope dress and this apron, I love them, they are *me*. However if anyone knows me in the real world I am sure your eyes are a little wide right now with wondering, "what?" that is not Kerri. It is me in my mind and heart. But many things, including my rules and things like financials make me present in a different light. When I think of a garden I do not think of a few boxes of dirt with veggies in them. Or rows of veggies. I think of different shaped boxes put into a lovely pattern with little trinkets hung up to ring in the breeze, color here and there to liven up the place, a little fence and a colorful chair.....I know I've had pictures of my garden up here and you know mine looks like the former! But alas, how does one reckon these things in light of other pressing desires? I long to make a cozy wonderful nest right here. But there are things that the Lord has put on my hubby's and my hearts that don't exactly fit this mold. For the time being our hearts are set on helping a certain people, but just not in the same way :-) And so I have started to pray that either his or my heart would change so that we would be on the same page. I have mentioned before of my desire to adopt. I may have also mentioned that Jeremiah has a desire to be a missionary in Africa. We want to help the same people, but I want to do so by adopting, and he wants to do so by moving there and starting an orphanage and teach. I assure you this brings a great divide in our house over this :-) Jeremiah says we can move there and do both. Um, that brings us to a very big and real problem.....or I should say problemssssss. The Lord would have to move in a big way for me to get over the bug thing. Then there is the very real danger of disease. People would automatically say...vaccinations....but that is a problem all of its own. Now I do think it is rather an odd coincidence (NOT) that I prayed about this for the first time this week and the day after my friend sends me the link to the African blogs. (she does know my dilemma on the whole African thing, so this wasn't totally unexpected that she would send me something like that...but still). So I am reading with my heart yearning mostly to have a heart filled with love like this young woman does. Right now I would settle for having that same heart for my own children. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my children, but unless you have read her blog I am not sure if I could adequately explain. I pray that my heart changes in such a way, first towards my own family and then that it would overflow outwards to others. But here in lies the challenge...how do I reconcile my desire to make things beautiful and orderly herein the US when there is a young missionary woman with 14 adopted children who are cutting back (yeah, imagine 'cutting' back in Africa!) so that they will have more money to feed the hungry children. So I am leaving it to the Lord to work out, where it should have been all along....even 17 years ago ;-)
So where does this leave me? Will you be seeing me in jeans and a tank top? Will I pierce my nose next? You can laugh, but that was a desire of mine for many years! You can all breath a sigh of relief....the answer is no :-) But I do want my heart to be totally abandoned to the Lord, I want a love for my husband and children like I never have. I want a desire for the lost and abandoned of the world. I want to know that I can do great things for the Lord, right here and right now. I want to know that those little desires I have, like living healthy, are not kooky. Of course there are a lot of people now, who because their bodies are experiencing breakdown from a life of packaged non food, are now seeing that changes need to be made. I just happened to be trying to make them years ago. I need to stay the course, even if I am walking the path alone. But that does get hard to do after awhile. I can be thankful I am not alone now :-) I need to realize that although rules are good, and serve a purpose, I need to live by the most important rule of all.....love. And that will not happen without the Lords help! So there you go....a long, drawn out post about my crazy thought life! See, I am not put together! If only I had pictures of my house to prove it! Trust me, it's not pretty :-)
And if anyone is interested in reading this young missionary's blog you can visit her here. Go and be inspired. We all can't go to Africa, but we can all do great works, through the Lord, when we pursue Him.
And I apologize if you are a grammar nut and have hair on the back of your neck standing on end due to my lack of grammar and organization :-)
And one more thing....this is only half of my thoughts, hey I didn't want you all to keel over on me! Maybe I'll write more later. I'll be back to share some pictures of our "normal" life ;-)
No, I don't have BAD things to say or share, but I do have a lot of my crazy thoughts to share and I am not comfortable with sharing them with a younger crowd if their parents are not OK with what I am about to share :-) So if you are a young one and you are still reading....then GET OFF :-) You can come back another day and enjoy our crazy life in pictures when I finally get them off my camera!
OK, if you ever thought that my posts were unorganized and a bit scattered well you haven't seen anything yet :-) I just feel this big ball of thoughts/emotions/and what not building and I want to get them all out. After all this is a journal, and one mainly for my family. But I know, only from my favorite sister in the whole world who tells me how things are truthfully, that I seem to come across as if I have my life together. I have to tell you I really thought I would laugh out loud (oh wait, I did) after hearing that. And so this post is to show you that I do NOT have my life all together. And I would like to record my crazy thoughts for posterity's sake (ha, ha, ha). This will be a crazy ride as I don't even know where to start as these thoughts have been building for some time.
A few things happened the past couple of days that kind of popped a bubble. They were small, and to anyone else may seem quite odd to have had such an effect. I guess I will start with these things and work my way back. My sister put up a post about deodorant. Ok, it was more than that, but she used that to make a point. You see, anti-perspirant has aluminum in it. Your skin, being your largest organ, absorbs the aluminum. And said aluminum can/will effect your kidneys. I am not sure if there are hard and fast studies done on this but there are writings out there that talk on the dangers of this aluminum from antiperspirants. Your kidneys will function just fine until they have been destroyed to only 10% working capacity. What this means is that you will have no clue that you have a kidney problem until it is too late. However your body will show signs, in seemingly non related ways, but it WILL be affected. Now what does this have to do with me? Well you see I read all that some 17 YEARS AGO! Yes, you heard right, I've known this for 17 years. Now, let me say this first, if you are family and you had anything to do with what I am about to say, let it be known I don't hold anything against you :-) Ok, so lets take a little time trip back 17 years and see what this looked like when I said the same thing.........[imagine a swirl of colors, clouds, a sense of falling through space....we are in NY now] I have read the info on this health concern and decide to take action. I went and bought what was known and maybe still known as a deodorant rock (or crystal). I was reading a lot about health stuff and saw that things were not as rose colored as the advertisers want you to believe it is. However I was alone at the time in this journey, and what I was met with is what I will call "the stare". The one where I am sure once the person turned their back to me were rolling their eyes. Come on, admit it....you rolled your eyes at me. Like I said, I don't hold it against anyone, after all it does seem odd. But if you think it is still out there and that the FDA has only our good in mind then please stand up and go to your antiperspirant bottle and read the back. About half way down you will see something that reads like this: Consult with your physician before using this product if you have kidney problems. I kid you not....go read it yourself. You may still be asking, OK Kerri this is a nice little story but what is the point? The point is after a lot of "grief" about my strange ways I started putting them by the wayside. A little here and a little there and I now find myself wondering where did *I* go. Yeah, all from some deodorant, who would have thought? Ok, obviously there is sooooooooo much more to it than that, but still it is a part of it all. But this ties in with soooooo many other areas in my life and I will try to share some of it with you. As the years went along I have found myself trying to follow a lot of rules. Now, hear me now, rules are good for us, ones in particular....the ones God made. However I was trying to make my life safe with those rules. I was always a bit......well I guess I would describe myself as always being "one beat off". For those of you who knew me some 17-18 years ago you know exactly what I am talking about. I enjoyed following the beat to a different drummer. I liked looking at things in a different light than the masses. Now granted there were still a lot of people like me, but I didn't follow the crowd. I was ok being different. But at some point I didn't. I felt like I needed to change for the sake of being more normal (whatever that might be!). Add a couple of children and I felt like I needed to do things right. And being a bit odd, well that just didn't seem like the 'right' thing to do. And so I continued to fill my life with rules. Lots of them. And the result of that is: A very joyless home and life. No, really, you can step into my home and just feel it. Or I should say the lack of it. And here is where another thing that came my way hit home. I was sent a link to a blog that had another link on it that I visited. And I can give a big thank you to my good friend, M, for that....although I am not sure if she is on my side or my hubbies :-) She knows what I am talking about :-) Anyways this is what I saw.....a young girl (21 or 22) she dresses in jeans and a tank top (rule number 24 being broken right there....the sad thing is and this is VERY VERY sad to me,my children will look at her and say, she must not be a Christian because she is wearing jeans....and no I am not joking, and no that is NOT what I wanted them to learn!! but again, I am sharing with you how my life is NOT put together right), not only that she is an unwed mother (rule number 41 being broken), she doesn't homeschool (rule number 5 broken), and she is not living at home (rule number something or other being broken) BUT, BUT, BUT you want to know what she has that is totally , COMPLETELY right?....the LOVE of CHRIST. This young lady is mom to 14, yes 14 orphans that she adopted, she lives in Uganda as a missionary and feeds the hungry and schools children who can't afford an education (education in Uganda is not run by the government and so all schools are private and you need to pay). She takes orphans home to clean them up, as some have NEVER had a bath in their 5, 6, 7 years of living on the earth. She holds them, cares for them and prays for them. Now, just to say a little to some people who are discontent with the way things are in the US, this young woman wouldn't be able to school or feed the hungry or be in Uganda if it wasn't for the financial support of people in the US. The Lord does have us work in different ways, as not all of us can be the hand or all of us be the foot...we each have different works to do. And even though there are a gazzilion things wrong with the US the Lord is still using some of us to accomplish His work :-) Ok back to my main thought (if there is a main thought). I have tried to build this fence to make my life work 'right'. But instead, since it indeed was by my own hands, I have made things go terribly wrong. I have children who are judgmental, who hate ( I do mean hate) work of any kind---school or housework, who even at times hate each other, who do things only if it will benefit them and so on. Now I am not pointing out my childrens' sins/weaknesses to point the finger at them....but to point it to ME. We do a lot of 'right' things around here. Please note that the word, right, is in quotes. We dress modestly, we homeschool, we go to church and I am sure the list goes on, but we don't have the love of Christ. I may not be a Bible scholar but I am pretty darn sure that that is what Jesus intended when he walked the earth and died for us. I mean how many times does he point to the Pharisees and condemn their ways? I'm a really, really great Pharisee. I am sure I could walk with the best of them. They did a lot of 'right' things, but they lacked in the most important THING.....love.
I am sure you are wondering how deodorant and a blog about the life of a missionay in Uganda have anything in common. In my crazy world they do :-) And this brings us to the reason I titled my post, "A challenge". As I was pondering my loss of 'one beat off-ness' I came across a site for some dresses and aprons. I know you are really wondering how that ties into things :-) But oh, they were so lovely, so neat, so different, but not different in a big way. Go here to see what I mean. Check out the Verity Hope dress and this apron, I love them, they are *me*. However if anyone knows me in the real world I am sure your eyes are a little wide right now with wondering, "what?" that is not Kerri. It is me in my mind and heart. But many things, including my rules and things like financials make me present in a different light. When I think of a garden I do not think of a few boxes of dirt with veggies in them. Or rows of veggies. I think of different shaped boxes put into a lovely pattern with little trinkets hung up to ring in the breeze, color here and there to liven up the place, a little fence and a colorful chair.....I know I've had pictures of my garden up here and you know mine looks like the former! But alas, how does one reckon these things in light of other pressing desires? I long to make a cozy wonderful nest right here. But there are things that the Lord has put on my hubby's and my hearts that don't exactly fit this mold. For the time being our hearts are set on helping a certain people, but just not in the same way :-) And so I have started to pray that either his or my heart would change so that we would be on the same page. I have mentioned before of my desire to adopt. I may have also mentioned that Jeremiah has a desire to be a missionary in Africa. We want to help the same people, but I want to do so by adopting, and he wants to do so by moving there and starting an orphanage and teach. I assure you this brings a great divide in our house over this :-) Jeremiah says we can move there and do both. Um, that brings us to a very big and real problem.....or I should say problemssssss. The Lord would have to move in a big way for me to get over the bug thing. Then there is the very real danger of disease. People would automatically say...vaccinations....but that is a problem all of its own. Now I do think it is rather an odd coincidence (NOT) that I prayed about this for the first time this week and the day after my friend sends me the link to the African blogs. (she does know my dilemma on the whole African thing, so this wasn't totally unexpected that she would send me something like that...but still). So I am reading with my heart yearning mostly to have a heart filled with love like this young woman does. Right now I would settle for having that same heart for my own children. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my children, but unless you have read her blog I am not sure if I could adequately explain. I pray that my heart changes in such a way, first towards my own family and then that it would overflow outwards to others. But here in lies the challenge...how do I reconcile my desire to make things beautiful and orderly herein the US when there is a young missionary woman with 14 adopted children who are cutting back (yeah, imagine 'cutting' back in Africa!) so that they will have more money to feed the hungry children. So I am leaving it to the Lord to work out, where it should have been all along....even 17 years ago ;-)
So where does this leave me? Will you be seeing me in jeans and a tank top? Will I pierce my nose next? You can laugh, but that was a desire of mine for many years! You can all breath a sigh of relief....the answer is no :-) But I do want my heart to be totally abandoned to the Lord, I want a love for my husband and children like I never have. I want a desire for the lost and abandoned of the world. I want to know that I can do great things for the Lord, right here and right now. I want to know that those little desires I have, like living healthy, are not kooky. Of course there are a lot of people now, who because their bodies are experiencing breakdown from a life of packaged non food, are now seeing that changes need to be made. I just happened to be trying to make them years ago. I need to stay the course, even if I am walking the path alone. But that does get hard to do after awhile. I can be thankful I am not alone now :-) I need to realize that although rules are good, and serve a purpose, I need to live by the most important rule of all.....love. And that will not happen without the Lords help! So there you go....a long, drawn out post about my crazy thought life! See, I am not put together! If only I had pictures of my house to prove it! Trust me, it's not pretty :-)
And if anyone is interested in reading this young missionary's blog you can visit her here. Go and be inspired. We all can't go to Africa, but we can all do great works, through the Lord, when we pursue Him.
And I apologize if you are a grammar nut and have hair on the back of your neck standing on end due to my lack of grammar and organization :-)
And one more thing....this is only half of my thoughts, hey I didn't want you all to keel over on me! Maybe I'll write more later. I'll be back to share some pictures of our "normal" life ;-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
