So much has happened in the last couple of years since I have written on my blog.  My hands have been full with this busy family.  Our oldest is moving away in  a month, we have added a new son (Ivan, Age 10 from Bulgaria) to our family though international adoption, we have received the diagnosis of FASD for one of our adopted children.  Life has been full and busy, moving at a maddening pace as we live in a noisy house full of growing children.  It is my desire to learn by God's grace to keep a quiet heart in the midst of all of it.  So I am hoping to use this space to write down some reflections on life in the midst of crazy........

Amish Economy, Wendell Berry

   We live by mercy if we live.
To that we have no fit reply
But working well and giving thanks,
Loving God, loving one another,
To keep Creation's neighborhood.

And my friend David Kline told me,
"It falls strangely on Amish ears,
This talk of how you find yourself.
We Amish, after all don't try
To find ourselves. We try to lose
Ourselves"--and thus are lost within
The found world of sunshine and rain
Where fields are green and then are ripe,
And the people eat together by
The charity of God, who is kind
Even to those who give no thanks.

In morning light, men in dark clothes
Go out among the beasts and fields.
Lest the community be lost
Each day they must work out the bond
Between the goods and their price: the garden
Weeded by sweat is flowerbright;
The wheat shocked in shorn fields, clover
Is growing where wheat grew; the crib
Is golden with the gathered corn,

While in the world of the found selves,
Lost to the sunlit rainy world,
The motor-driven cannot stop.
This is the world where value is
Abstract, and preys on things, and things
Are changed to thoughts that have a price.
Cost + greed - fear = price:
Maury Telleen thus laid it out.
The need to balance greed and fear
Affords no stopping place, no rest
And need increases as we fail.

But now, in summer dusk, a man
Whose hair and beard curl like spring ferns
Sits under the yard trees, at rest
His smallest daughter on his lap.
This is because he rose at dawn,
   Cared for his own, helped his neighbors,
   Worked much, spent little, kept his peace.

I love Wendell Berry ....this poem has had me thinking all week.  How often I run
around like crazy and make things more difficult than they need to be.I do not want
to live in a world that affords no stopping place. I want to fix these words in my
mind this week as I care for my family....

Poetry Wednesday

Lay down your burdens

It is early morning and I am tired and frustrated. I have spent the last two nights tossing and turning unable to sleep. I keep worrying about all kind of things. My life is busy right now, my oldest three are in a musical and the next three weeks consist of late nights and long days of rehearsals. I have many details to work out, a messy house, and unfinished home school lessons. I chatted with a lady yesterday who told me her family had completed all their home school lessons and would be done next week. That immediately made my heart sink. That is not our reality here at the Brown home school. I worry about changes ahead , my eldest has one more year of high school, we have been talking about colleges. I want with all my heart for him to do what God wants for his life, and I also want with all my heart for him never to grow up! Church changes, relationship changes, loneliness, missing Julie. I toss and turn in bed , running things over in my mind. Like some mental hamster wheel. Worry, prayer, worry , prayer, lay it down , pick it up. What seems manageable in the daytime seems overwhelming at night.
So I get up and make a cup of tea and read Isaiah. The verses I have underlined and read over and over again. It is an often traveled path.

In repentance and rest is your salvation
in quietness and trust is your strength (Is. 30:15)

Surely this our God, we trusted in Him and he saved us (Is 25:9)
You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you (Is 26:3)

There are so many more verses. Often at times like this I long for a quiet space , I want to freeze frame my life and have a space of time to think, order my world. But I never have big chunks of time and life is always like this. I want to leran to find peace and joy in the midst of this season and the many seasons that will come. These verses encourage me and bring my focus where it needs to be on Him. I may need to read them again in 10 minutes.
So I will rest, and trust and lay down these burdens. I will keep coming back to these words as many times as I need to and I will pray.



Lay down your burden I will carry you
I will carry you my child, my child
Lay down your burden I will carry you
I will carry you my child, my child

Cause I can walk on water ..
Calm a restless sea
I've done a thousand things you've never done
And I'm really watching
While you struggle on your way
Call on my name, Ill com

I give vision to the blind
I can raise the dead
I've seen the darker side of hell
And I've returned
I've seen those sleepless night
And Count every tear you cry
Some lessons hurt to learn

Lay down your burden I will carry you
I will carry you my child, my child
Lay down your burden I will carry you
I will carry you my child, my child
-Amy Grant

Giving Thanks

I desire....

to live joyfully,

to live intentionally,

to live simply,

to live with love and peace.



not worrying about the things I cannot control. Praying about them instead.



I am grateful today for......

186. great friends
187. twenty plus years of shared memories and laughter
188. the warm Arizona sun
189. my wonderful mother in law
190. coming home
191. my own bed
192. family prayer
193. kindred spirits (my friend Lisa)
194. spring in Michigan
195. His grace sufficient for me.

Multitude Monday

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.(Khalil Gibran)

Praise the Lord , O my soul : all my inmost being praise His holy name . Praise the Lord , O my soul and forget not all His benfits (Ps. 103:1,2)

Some mornings I wake up and think "another day" and then my mind starts listing all the things I have to get done today. I get out of bed and do not even give thanks for the fact that I have been given another day to live, breathe, love. I forget His benefits. We take so many things for granted in this life we lead. So today I give thanks to the giver of life, love and all blessings.

177. flowers blooming

178. green grass

179. a nice chat with a dear friend

180. forgiveness of sins (He does not treat our sins as they deserve-Ps. 103:10)

181. The first trip of the year to Dairy Corner for ice cream

182. A rainy day, a big couch filled with family, five hours of Pride and Prejudice while eating homemade short bread

183. Me, not worrying that math was not getting done (see above)

184. beauty

185. another day to love and love

Silence

Grant me Lord, to hold fast to what is good by the power of your love. Preserve my every word and act that corrupts the soul, and from every impulse that is unpleasing in your sight and harmful to the people around me. Teach me what I should say and how I should speak. If it be your holy will that I be quiet and make no answer , inspire me to be silent in a peaceful spirit that causes neither harm nor hurt to my fellow human beings. Father Sophrony

This is a prayer I repeated several times today.....today was a day I would not want to repeat. But by His mercy God gave me this difficult day with hard hearts, arguing, and complaining to help me to grow. I am praying for a quiet soft heart and mouth. To pray before I speak. I make a Gratitude list , but shouldn't days like today be on that list? Days that stretch me and drive me to my Father's arms in prayer? So Thank you Lord for today ......help me to remember that all is grace.

Restoring Discipline

Restore: to rebuild and renew, or to bring back into existence.

There are five children in my house, all different ages , all different personalities, so there is much correction and training that goes on at our house. Discipline is a vital part of parenting. I am always thinking and praying about how to train my children. Here are some things I have been pondering;
When a wrecking ball is used to demolish a house, the purpose is to destroy, and there is no hope to rebuild. It is violent. Is my response to the children's sin similar? Do I use a wrecking ball when I discipline? Or do I use a restorative tool? A carpenter who restores an old home does it gently and carefully. The goal is not to destroy but to bring beauty and restoration. It is slow. It is tedious. However, the carpenter sees a promise of beauty and purpose. Proceeding carefully, so as to not crack or ruin what is precious and rare, his progress is slow.
How do I respond to my children, these unique and precious gifts from God? Does my discipline resemble the ruthless machine? I admit I am a wrecking ball at times. I crash in, not wanting to hear the whole story, angry or annoyed, and thoroughly tired of dealing with the same issues. I am quick to judge. My wrecking ball responses are seldom restorative. We may have a "right" to be upset, and it is our job to correct, but it is not our job to destroy. Our God restores, He does not strike me with lightening when I sin. He sees the beauty in me, and gently refreshes me.
I want to be a restoring mother. I want to use tools that restore, not rip apart. Kindness, gentleness, understanding, physical touch, and forgiveness, these are the things I need. I may not wreck very often, but am I careful? I don't want to even crack what is special. So, what am I doing to crack those precious ones? There are some things I am not aware, but there are many things I am aware of. Impatience, hurry, business, all these things give me less time to restore. Jesus, the master carpenter, was a restorer. He had compassion, told story after story, met physical needs, and was always pointing to the Father. Am I restoring with hope? Do I see the beauty under the bad attitude? I admit I often feel like some behavioral issues will never change. I need to pray for the grace fix my eyes on what is unseen (2 Cor. 4:18), believing that we are always being changed, all of us, into His likeness (2 Cor.3:18).

This is what I want for my home, my children, myself. A place of restoration, a place to rebuild, renew. This is my prayer, that I will be gentle and restore with hope.

These thoughts were sparked by a great devotional given to me by my dear friend Kathy:
Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp.


Psalm 23:3
He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Psalm 80:3
Restore us, O God make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.

Isaiah 57:18
I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him,

Zechariah 10:6
I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. I will restore them because I have compassion on them. They will be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.

1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

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