homegrowing

Today was an early morning, as my mind doesn’t have a pause button.  Eden awoke at 4am, and I couldn’t stop thinking, planning, and praying about all the changes happening in our life.

Thank you for your prayers and sweet words of encouragement this week.   I can’t believe it’s been a week since my last post!?!  Each day, I intended to update ya’ll of the joy, faithfulness of God, and answered prayers – but the days slipped away.   After posting “Joy and God’s Faithfulness” in my head, I laughed (yes, to God and myself, as I talk and laugh out loud to us all the time)  that my readers might tag me skitzo with uglies post one day and then a joy post, the next.

But that my friend is my real, wonderfully, blessed life.   And, I dare to believe that it is reality for all of us.

I’ve been taking my thoughts captive and renewing my mind with God’s Word.  Casting my burdens on Him.   Taking proactive steps to tackle the projects and planning that I do have control over, amidst my feelings of chaos.   Some, not naming names, may call me a tad neurotic, but I find it calming and liberating to have a plan and take action where I can.

The air is dry and it’s bitter cold outside.  The ground is once again covered with snow and is beautiful.  Fresh. Clean.

I am in awe of all God is doing in our family.  I can see Him advocating for us,  ordering our steps, and walking before us.   A loving Shepard.

However, change is change.   Change is stressful.   Good change is stressful.   I bet you didn’t know that I. do. not. like. change.

I’m growing.

We’ve been plugging away at home education.  Selling  / buying homes.  Praising God for the gift of health, amidst the many winter germs out and about.    We had a great trip to our city’s childrens museum with wonderful friends this week to try out the new Lego exhibit.   Ving was inspired and has been on a Lego castle building spree since we returned home.   Hunter started training at a new gymnastics gym.  His intensity and learning have increased with new coaches, and we are excited for his upcoming meets.   Isaac has joined the ranks of the master Lego builders, and loves playing with any manipulatives.    Zaiah is a busy climbing machine, and is talking non-stop.  I suppose two years worth of words are just erupting at once.   Eden now has four teeth, and is crawling all over the house!  She can feed herself finger foods… and remains a delight to us all.

There’s  much to tell, in time.  Deadlines and legalities, first.

I’ve been playing with hair bows.   I still love headbands, just imagining the things to do with wisps of hair.   I tried a mini rubber band holder thingie, it probably has a more official girlie-hair-name.  I thought  it looked silly, but the brothers loved the Bam-Bam look.   But seeing I am the boss of girlie hair, we’re sticking with the bows.

I have been ignoring you, please forgive me.

As I teach my kids, when apologizing, we should admit our wrongs…

“I was wrong for __________, please forgive me.”

I do apologize for ignoring you, but I don’t think it was a “wrong”.

You see, my uglies have been coming out.

Like, in a really bad way.

Therefore, I’ve been trying to not infect too many people.

We all have our uglies.   They rear their ugly head and require the taming of the Holy Spirit.

Last week  while driving, K-LOVE spoke Psalm 19:14 and it pierced my soul.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

I continue to parked on this verse.  It convicts me, and speaks pause and shut-up to my spazzing response to the chaos surrounding me.   He is my strength and Redeemer.

While I purpose to guard my words,  I’ve really been struggling with the meditations of my heart and my thoughts.  They just get going and going, and then the emotions and words seem to be a ticking-time-bomb, erupting without warning.   Sin, sin, sin.

When words are many, sin is not absent,  but he who holds his tongue is wise. Proverbs 10:19

I am processing my emotions and asking the Lord to give me insight and wisdom.   I acknowledged the emotion of anger  a lot today, and was struggling to decide whom I should be angry at.  Like, it must be towards someone, right?  I debated my options of whom.

The heaviness of the chaos, change, and impending stress pressed down upon me.   I sat in my recliner, and felt a physical weight of the burden, as if I couldn’t get out of my chair.   On the verge of cracking.   I knew I couldn’t go one more second without pouring it all out to Jesus and filing up with the peace that only God can provide.

In grief, I’ve learned the power of  pouring it all out at the foot of the cross, being real.  Practicing the acts of praise and thanksgiving, regardless of my circumstances.    Making the list of all I have to be thankful for.  Speaking truth to myself of God, His sovereignty, and His plans for me.   Singing.   I first learned this lesson, curled in a ball,  sitting on my closet floor.   When all I could see was my toilet and sink… “Thank-you God for  water and a toilet.  And for clothes….and my other kids….and….”   Yup, as simple as that.  The power of thanksgiving changes our perspective.     Reminding myself of who I am and who God is.

Today, my sweet time with Jesus changed my perspective and enabled me to “do” the tasks before me.

I was filled and tamed by the Holy Spirit.

I confess, I needed a refill soon after.   My uglies came out repeatedly.  By evening,  I wanted to go to sleep, for.a.very.long.time!     Funny, now I am up at 2am unable to sleep.

Off to go pour out and fill up some more.   Sing.  Praise.  Practice thankfulness.

Goodnight sweet friends.    With my lack of posts this month, I  didn’t want you to worry about me.

No worries, just feeling chaos and  a bad case of the uglies.    Trying not to share the germs, being contagious and all.

Grateful for your prayers…

These past weeks, my main prayer and belief has been that we would “hear from God” regarding our move / sale / purchase  of  homes.

I don’t have details to share,  as  this life-chapter is still unfolding.   But I must thank you for your prayers for action.

Buyers, talks, decisions to be made, and final steps to take.   Please continue to pray!

We’ve heard… and I’m so crazy excited that I have to share.

Yesterday morning, the Biggies and I were doing Special Time with Mom at our homeschool table.   We are discussing the character trait and fruit of the Spirit, patience, this month.   At the end of our devotional for Patience at Home, there were two verse references noted.  I assigned them to the boys to look up in their Bibles and we them read them aloud and discussed their application.   As Ving read,  I felt God’s Word penetrate my heart.  I immediately grabbed my sticky note pad and carefully wrote the verse down as he repeated it a few times.

Psalm 37:7  Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for Him to act.

Mid-day and again in the evening, I asked Ving where my stickie-note verse went.  We couldn’t find it, so I planned to find it or look it up again later.   Evening passed and I went to bed.

This Tuesday morning during my quiet time,  I wrote in my prayer journal.  It helps me to write my thoughts and emotions out to God, and I was on a roll.  There are occasional scriptures on the pages in the margins, and I was trying to write around one verse.   I was prompted to stop and read it, and to honest this isn’t a normal habit for me.  I tend to just keep writing away.   My heart did a little gallop as the words jumped off the page, and I  read it again and again…

Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait paitiently for Him to act.  Psalm 37:7

We’ve been believing we would hear from God, and have been fighting anxiety of decisions with the time passing.

Wow.  I knew I was hearing from God.   I went out to the kitchen to find Irv with the boys.

“Hey, you know what, I think I just heard from God!” I announced.  (That definetly got their attention.)

I shared my double verse revelation, and Irv looked it up in his BIble and read it aloud.

As he was reading, I got this crazy idea….

Sunday night, while desiring to blog with you all, I forced myself to clean up my  inbox with 500 emails dating back to June.  I printed some prayer requests and things to put in my folder to use during my quiet time.   On Monday I discovered that due to a printer issue, I had many blank print-outs reading “data not found”.    I assumed it was a divine act in providing me less papers to keep, and moved on without my printouts.

But, as Irv was reading the verse aloud,  God brought one particular email to my mind.   I couldn’t remember the fine details, but I told Irv we had to go search through my email trash bin and find it an email from J.M.  We headed to the computer room…

We finally found this short, obedient email from December 20th!

“The Lord put this chapter number in my head for you this morning, when I was driving over. I forgot to tell you. I don’t even know what the chapter says but I need to be faithful to relay it to you. Psalm 37″ -J.M.

I told you I am crazy excited.  All day I was singing… we’ve heard from God!  We’ve heard from God!  I mean, come on people, I can’t make this stuff up!  I don’t remember ever reading Psalm 37 before!  Of all the verses in the Bible (31,102), there is no coincidence,  just GOD-INCIDENCE, that without me even looking, all three of them were placed before me, so the Creator of the Universe could speak HOPE, LOVE, and ASSURANCE into our hearts.

I wrote out the scripture and hung it on the fridge.  Praise God.  He cares and hears.  Thank-you for praying.

Three o’clock finally arrived and I made it to quiet hour.   As I laid on the couch,  I told God “I’m being still in Your presence and waiting (and trusting) for You to act.”    I talked to Him about how I knew He was there, thanked Him for revealing Himself to us in a mighty,  exciting way.   I thanked Him for the assurance that He is with us and acting on our behalf with so many details beyond our control.

Then I got to thinking… I prayed and believed that we would “hear from God”.   And yes, I could see that we just had!  But as usual, my prayers aren’t answered in ways I imagine.    I had prayed that we would hear from God, meaning it would be obvious to us what directions to take with decisions.    So what now?   I heard from God, and He told me to be still in His presence and wait patiently for Him to act!   Just.Like.God.    He’s got it all in control and working things out greater than I could ever ask or imagine.

It’s Wednesday night and I’m still crazy excited just typing this out!  I’m encouraged to keep believing God and asking to hear from Him in so many areas of my life.  I know He speaks to us always as we read His Word, and we must be in it.   But, it’s exciting to know He loves fellowshipping with us so much that He reveals Himself to us in so many different ways….

And, I imagine He likes my little, I’ve-heard-from-God-crazy-excited-dance, too.

I’m purposing to be still in His presence,  praying for help to wait patiently, and knowing and believing that HE will act!

What’s He got you dancing, singing, and praising Him about these days?

…. I am asking for prayer this week.
We are making life-changing decisions regarding moving.

1.  Please pray for the families that are seeing our home this weekend:  Saturday Noon, Sunday 2:30, Monday 4:00.  And any other families that have seen our home in the past or ones wanting to still see it.  That they all, would now have a decision, either way, and take  action regarding our home that is for sale.

2. Pray that Irv and I would hear from God.  God would clearly show YES or NO on decisions that we are making in regard to moving, this week.

3.  We will glorify God in our decisions, and hear His voice.

HE knows the exact places where we should live…

Thanks!
Believing GOD,
Darci

Homegrowing seems to be a scrapbook of late.  Lot’s of photos and silly happenings.  I have serious posts and lessons being learned, rambling about my brain, but need time to work them out and on onto the screen.  Therefore, in the mean time I must keep Grandma (still residing in Florida for her rehabilitation), and the rest of you supplied with smiles and silly homegrowing stuff!

January third, she turned seven months.  We’re closer to her first birthday than the date she was born.  Sigh.

This past month we celebrated her first Christmas.  Fun and special.

She is up on all fours to crawl, but she only works in reverse.

She can work and maneuver an entire room with her rolling, squirming, sitting up and back down again, and crawling backwards.

She can feed herself puffs off her highchair, but she spits out anything of texture.  She loves her baby food menu at lunch and dinner.   She like to scrunch up her face and breath in and out of her nose fast when she’s eating.  We don’t know why she does this, but we all applaud with laughter!  She hums along and kicks her feet in excitement when she likes the food as she’s eating, too sweet.

Still only two bottom teeth, but her excessive drooling must be making way for her top teeth.

She examines everything!  She wants to hold tiny little things and manipulate them all about her fingers.  She doesn’t miss a beat or a sound.  Little Miss Busy Body, wanting in on everything around here.   This does affect her nursing…

She always wants to be holding onto someone or something.  She grips your shirt, the changing table, a blanket, or her doll Kisses while she sleeps.   Lately, she likes to pinch me (it hurts!) and hold onto my hair….

Her hair is filling in and is dark like Hunter’s was.  The rest of the babies have been blond.  I debate whether or not to cut the front mowhak wisps, but it’s starting to look very cute in a little barrett!  More fun…

I will remember her sixth month of life filled with….  dresses, dresses, dresses!  That’s the blessing of hand-alongs… I pray for them and am so grateful for God’s provision.  She has about six holiday dresses in size 9mo-2T, and I just made them all work.  It was fun and pretty.

Smiles and laughter….  I’m a blessed woman.