But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.  2 Peter 3:18

Thank you for the comments on the “selfishness” thoughts and C.S. Lewis quote on the last post.  I don’t have much time to write this morning but I’ve been thinking about the fact that for years, when I was in my impressionable mid-20’s, I attended a legalistic church.  My family was there for about 10 years and have only been out of it for 2 years.  I KNOW FOR A FACT that some of my awkwardness in church settings in particular stems from that experience.  There was a lot of strife and judgementalism at that church, and I wonder…..if, for 10 years, I was on guard expecting to be judged for everything I did and said at a place I was a member of and frequented on a regular basis, wouldn’t it make sense that at times I will still feel on edge?  So I give myself a little more grace and understanding, instead of being hard on myself.   Obviously, I still have a responsibility to let God continue to soften and humble my heart, and to teach me to put SELF behind me, and Christ before me. 

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16

We go to a wonderful church now, healthy and loving.  I praise God continually.

I’m thankful for my past though because I am constantly being blown away by grace in our new place. 

A book that has helped me is Tired of Trying to Measure Up, Getting Free from the Demands, Expectations, and Intimidation of Well-Meaning People, by Jeff VanVonderen. (He has written several other helpful books on spiritual abuse and grace, too)

It’s important to learn from any abusive experience, so that we don’t continue practicing the abuse on our own friends and family.  When you spend a lot of time in a bad environment you can’t help be influenced.  But God is good, merciful, and redemptive!

We don’t have a formal Sunday evening service at our church, instead, we have Bible studies at people’s homes.  Last night we had the study at our place for the first time.  The living room and kitchen were crowded.  It was wonderful; and I broke free from some of that pride by playing a hymn for singing.   I was so anxious about it “what if I make a mistake” but Rich told me “just DO IT!” and it was fine, it was beautiful (not my playing–the experience), I was able to play AND listen to all the voices singing, “My hope is built on nothing less,  than Jesus’ blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name”.

Pictures from the weekend:

Seth F, the children’s youth group leader, invited Jacob (neckalace) and Ethan (blue shoes) for a sleepover.  The young man in the cap is another of their friends from church.  They had a great time.

Rich and I took the kids out for ice cream downtown.   The weather was hot all week and while we were eating the ice cream, it started to break with some rain and thunder.

Rich and Grace

Makes me laugh; after church we usually do a fast food drive thru for lunch OR, as in this case, we stop and get buns and deli meat.  Jacob had a box with two watermelons on his lap and he made all the sandwiches.  We ate on the way home.

My thrift store finds of the weekend:  a bunch of great books all for just two dollars.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
He makes my feet like the deer’s;
He makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:19

Rich made it home safe, sound, and exhausted last night at about 7:30, needless to say, he fell asleep on the couch; poor guy.  He was gone since Monday and  had to do a lot of driving around New Jersey and New York.  He’s at work today and I cannot wait until he gets home for dinner, perhaps we can have a normalish family night?  No place to go, simply just spend time with each other and the children?  Seriously sounds like bliss.

It’s even hotter today….but my cold is getting better.  Now it’s Ethan’s turn to be sick.  We left him home with David for company and I took Jacob, Grace, Caleb, Seth, and Sarah to the Thursday morning Bible study with our pastor, Gary.  We meet at the commons (park) with no bathroom and unfortunately shortly after we arrived, Sarah told me several times she had to go p**p, so I had to actually leave 10 minutes after we got there, drive away to find a bathroom, and then go back.  Ugh.  I was stressed out but it was all worth it.  Isn’t it wonderful to meet with other Christians?  Brothers and sisters, FAMILY, to talk about Scripture?  The thing about this study is that we do go off on rabbit trails and it’s okay.  There is no pressure to get the worksheet done at a certain pace.  I confess, it took me some time to get used to the style, but I can see how it can be beneficial, as well, as the rabbit trails force me to THINK about my beliefs and opinions and I can practice articulating them.  I’ve been saved since I was six and have always regularly attended church, but there is still so much to learn.  The Bible is a never ending interesting topic.

I’m convicted this morning about my heart-attitudes and selfishness.  Wow, “oh wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of death”  PRAISE GOD and His Son, Jesus Christ!  Isn’t it wonderful that we HAVE HOPE.  Christ CAN (and did!) deliver me/us from our worst failures, He not only saves, but he redeems.  How in the world does He do it?  It’s hard to be patient with myself.  I get so short with the children, I feel sorry for myself, I think too much of myself.  I’m tired!  Instead of just resting in Him and forgetting my self.  Life IS good, and Heaven will be wonderful.

I have a problem with social interactions, I almost always come away kicking myself for ‘saying this’ or ‘feeling that’, and it’s my perfectionism and pride!  *confessions*  Oh Father,  help! 

I’m resting in Him and trusting that the people who associate with me will love me in spite of all my faults.  In fact, they don’t even notice them.  And if they do, they don’t care, really!  Why do I fixate on them???

I read this in a C.S. Lewis devotional this morning:

“There must be a real giving up of the self.  You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak.  Christ will indeed give you a real personality:  but you must not go to Him for the sake of that.  As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all.  The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether.  Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it.  It will come when you are looking for Him….even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making.  Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original:  whereas if you simply tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.  Give up yourself and your will find your real self.”

Such good stuff!  So much to mentally chew!  (meditate on)  Once again, I am eternally grateful for my salvation and that there is no condemnation for those who love Christ; only hope, glorious and free.

I have pictures to share today….I am mostly excited about the dragonflies and butterfly.  But the children had so much fun in the pond yesterday and I have some pictures of them, too.  Such happy and sweet faces.  I think I’ll go swimming today after naptime!

“Male Widow Skimmer” dragonfly As adults, dragonflies live for a few weeks or months at most.

I don’t know the name of this dragonfly but I LOVE it’s color and the beauty of the shimmering wings.  So delicate.

I went to hang up the clothes yesterday and found this creature hiding in a clothespin!

This lovely little dragonfly landed on my daughter’s fingers.

Grace and I sat and watched the little ones swim.  They were so cute as they climbed up the dock together.

A lot of fun can be had with an old bucket.

Ethan (in red) and Jacob (in blue) mowed the yard so nicely yesterday.  We are so thankful for our hard working sons.

Sarah Joy loves staying on the edge of the pond, “swimming”.

a bird in the pines

Sherlock, our orange kitten

Grace and her big book, not a dictionary, not a Bible,  but the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. (Yes, she named the orange kitten.)

David and Caleb were practicing their handstands in the water.

Grace and I amused ourselves by petting and scratching Parker’s shedding coat for him…….

There are little fish swimming around in the cooler…..(seth and sarah were looking at them)

back in her favorite swimming spot

Grace was fully clothed but couldn’t resist getting into a splashing fight with her brothers.

She taught Seth and Sarah to stand on her shoulders.  They had such fun!

This picture took a lot of patience; I stood and waited the hot sun for a long time until this butterfly opened it’s wings.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  I love the browns and oranges, and the beautiful pattern.  Even the tips of the antennae are lovely.

When we went to Bible study this morning, we had to leave Ethan and David home alone.  When I returned, I found this picture on my camera.  They made homemade waffles from scratch and defrosted strawberries from the freezer, to eat on top!  Don’t they look delicious!  It makes my heart happy to think about the brothers cooking, and then taking a picture of their finished project.  I’m so thankful for the relationship between Ethan and David, they get along so well and tend to do a lot together.  In fact, they are currently out trying to find enough wild berries for some muffins.  The blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries are ripe!

“Look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”  C.S. Lewis

PS.  One of my favorite books for myself and the children to look through in “nature study” is The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs.  It was written by a brother and sister.  I love that!

I believe I never was more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach those hearers in the open fields.  I now preach to ten times more people than I would if I had been confined to the churches.  Whitefield

A true faith in Jesus Christ will not suffer us to be idle. No, it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart, so that it cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ.  Whitefield

It is better to wear out than to rust out.  George Whitefield

Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you. 

And now let me address all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, to accept of mercy and grace while it is offered to you; Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation; and will you not accept it, now it is offered unto you?  ~G.Whitefield

The famous outdoor preacher, George Whitefield, a small and weak man, was born in England but traveled to America seven times in order to preach the gospel.  He had an amazing preaching ability and could make his voice carry for a mile, preaching up to 30, 000 people at a time.   Because he mainly preached outdoors, he was able to share the gospel with people of any denomination at once, of all types of background and social status.  His oratory skills were such that people couldn’t help but weep to hear him, resulting for those who came to Christ a salvation experience of great emotion.  Whitefield was credited for starting the Great Awakening, a time of spiritual revival in America. 

On Saturday, our pastor invited the congregation to meet him at a historical George Whitefield preaching location (a large rock) in West Brookfield, MA, to hear him give a short talk on Whitefield’s life and then listen to him give an open air gospel message.  Both the talk and the message were taped for the local TV station, and will be on youtube.

Rich and Ethan were away for a wedding, so I took the other children with me and we drove almost an hour to get to the field, which is privately owned.  It was a drizzly morning and Gary had to teach and preach in the rain.  He did a great job and we all enjoyed the time together very much.  I was thankful for the way this piece of church history came alive for the children.

I wonder, as Whitefield was standing on such a large rock, if he thought of this verse from Psalm 62;

Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

the big kids thought it was a little early in the morning for such enthusiasm.



The foam swords were a big success; amazon.com, 22 bucks for a dozen

putting together the lego stuff His Uncle David sent him a card with 10 dollars, which was burning a hole in his pocket; he really wanted to go to Target.  Jacob needed a hair cut, so the three of us went to the mall.   Is there anything more adorable than watching one quiet boy searching and searching the lego aisle for something just right?  I couldn’t stand it.  He found a lego guy for 9.99 and I threw in the extra change, for tax.  (“What’s tax?”  he asked.)  I also let him pick out a candy, which meant another long wait as he pondered all the options.  He finally came up for air with his decision, a bag of “sour patch kids”.   Caleb was the only baby out of seven that I almost lost.  I was 11 weeks along, bleeding, when the doctor told us there was a 50/50 chance that I would lose him.  I was stunned, could barely speak.  I rested and waited and to this day, I still thank God for letting Caleb grow and develop.  We went to the hospital at the full nine months, ready to meet our fifth baby, and found I was already at 7cms.  There was no time for an epidural but by the grace of God, the delivery was the best and most “comfortable” of all seven.  It was the perfect birth, and he was healthy and beautiful.  How I loved all my babies.   I taught Caleb to read.  He is the one and only child (so far) that I have had the honor to open up the world of reading for.  He just completed 2nd grade and was pronounced a “gifted reader”, so that  is our claim to fame, the two of us.  “Caleb is a gifted reader.  I taught him to read, myself.”   All in good fun, of course.     I have a “cut up cakes” book and the day or so before their birthday, the children look at each page, to chose the birthday cake that they want that year.  This year, Caleb wanted an igloo cake.  I baked it in a (fiesta!) bowl and when it cooled, I frosted it with homemade buttercream.  Caleb helped me add the marshmallows while Seth and Sarah stole them, Ethan made bacon and pancakes, and Jacob made a fruit salad (an ABSOLUTELY crazy hour of kitchen fun).     Igloo cake, on a round vintage yellow fiesta platter (from Joanna)     Rich got home from work, and after going to watch Jacob and Ethan’s baseball game (it was a very long day),  we headed home for cake and ice cream, running next door to impulsively invite the two neighbor children to join us, too.  At  8:30 last night, there were 11 of us around the kitchen island, singing and laughing and watching Caleb blow out the candles.

And now he is eight.

(As the Master of Ceremonies of this day, I have to say, I slept really good last night.)

Seth took to the ocean in his typical style; no fear and tons of energy.  They only thing he hated was the taste of the ocean.  He is used to pond water and the salt was a complete shock to him.  For this reason, he doesn’t like the beach, he says.

David also is like a fish.  He can swim very very well and never uses a life jacket anymore.  He swam and swam.  Rich and I smiled to watch him (without him knowing).  I do think one of the best parts of parenting is getting to observe the children unnoticed.   David was the only one who wanted to go back to the beach the very next day.  Even though he got up with puffy, red eyes (from the water).

I asked Rich to take some pictures with his iphone, too.  He took this one, I’m in the water with the boys and Sarah, who is very timid, stayed on shore to watch us. 

photo by Rich

photo by Rich

photo by Rich

photo by Rich

We took a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and two bags of chips.  We bought drinks at the beach.  I had a few magazines to look at and when Sarah got tired she would come lay down next to me and suck her finger…….we were at the beach for five hours!

On Sunday, Rich took this picture of me and the kids.

Sometimes I’m so happy with my family I get tears in my eyes.  David, who is 10, doesn’t understand but I think he will, someday.

How was everyone’s fourth of July?  We intended to travel back home but Grace woke up sick on the 4th and then on the 5th a fox got one of our chickens and they scattered all over the place and it’s SO very hot that we decided to just stay home and chill. 

Four of the hens are still missing.  Rich scared the fox and it dropped the hen, which survived the trauma, however, it is a mystery to us where the other hens have gone.  Caleb had just let them all out about 20 minutes before the fox appeared on the scene.  We wonder if perhaps some of the hens didn’t get shut up in the coop that night, but Dave insists that they were all there when he had the job of securing their door.  I always believe my children unless there is concrete proof to the contrary.  We have 12 hens left and I have to keep a close eye on them now that I know they are being hunted. They will have to be in their fenced in chicken yard, with no more free ranging unless it is the end of the day and I can watch them.  Rich said it was the biggest fox he has ever seen and that’s saying something with all his farming experience.

My sister called last night and said there were a few openings in their Youth Group for a Six Flags event,  including some Christian music concerts tonight.  They invited Jacob, Ethan, and Grace to go with Abbie.  We had planned to take them to the beach and Rich really believed that they would still choose The Beach Outing with Dad, over Chance of a Lifetime Six Flags experience.  Hmmmm, I knew what they would decide.  Ethan grinned ear to ear.  Rich, dazed, is currently driving them to Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jason’s house and I thought I would sit and post some more pictures from LAST WEEK (I just cannot believe it has been a week since Jo was here with the girls.)  Time flies.

We hung out on the front porch and I broke open my cherished lemon oreos.  I had to laugh when I noticed Parker persistently waiting for a chance to steal one.

I made a double batch of pancakes for breakfast on Saturday. 

We exchanged Christmas/Birthday gifts.  It was so fun to sit in my (messy) room and talk and open gifts….we browsed my bookshelves and simply enjoyed each other’s company with the kids running in and out.

Rich took the kids to Sunday School and I stayed behind with Joanna, to go to the service an hour later.  Coco and Seg looked so dear in their church dresses.

Those faces!  Trying to share the bubbles……

Dressed for church, me and my friend, I love this picture.

We went for a walk with Grace and she took this picture of us.

We had coffee and walked around downtown.  I took this picture of Chloe at the old park across the street.  I love all the stones.

Joanna with her baby girl. 

We had such a great weekend together and I’m so thankful for the time we shared.  We are going to try getting together more often now that the little ones are getting bigger and life isn’t QUITE as full. 

Okay…quick question…does anyone know how to remove warts?  My four year old just grew one on the palm of his hand and I’ve never had to deal with warts.  Any tried and true methods out there from another mom?  Thanks.

Have a great day, friends!