It is such a secret place, the land of tears. ~Antoine de Saint-Exuper
Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed. ~Natalie Clifford Barney
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. ~Charles Dickens
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran
Let your tears come. Let them water your soul. ~Eileen Mayhew
My lunch of late and Michaela’s as well…
Lettuce smoothie
One head of lettuce red leaf is best plus it gives a nice rosy color to the smoothie
3/4 cup goat milk yogurt (You could probably omit the dairy and use juice instead but I like to add a bit of protein and fat to make this a meal)
1/2 cup or more frozen peaches
pinch of stevia to sweeten
Blend add a little ice and make a huge mess. Lots of fun. You should see Michaela right now she is playing in puddles of lettuce smoothie beside me, here and there climbing up my chair to ask for spoonfuls more. It is really good , okay I know you don’t believe me, but Michaela whines for more on a regular basis. It is a hit folks. Make some up for your friends and family…I can guarantee they’ll probably leave it all for you. More for you! But for the record, yes I like the taste and so does Michaela. My husband however thinks I am nuts. Well, nothing new I guess. Shrug.
Oh and today Michaela just reminds me of Wild Thing. She’s nekid and her face and body are painted with green. Nekid babies make clean up considerably easier.
Michaela has a fair amount of “baby toys” I have collected. However, as bright and fun looking as they are at least to me, those aren’t the toys she gravitates to. No sir-ee, her favorites are the salad dressing bottles she rolls across the floor, the close pins, the river rocks and shells I used to decorate with, now Michaela has them decorating our floor, the dog (her absolute favorite toy slash playmate), old scraps of paper, bills, journals, key chains, purses, wallets, credit cards, spray bottles, her freshly folded and washed diapers, book cases in which she can pull off books by the cart load, drawers full of clothes and dish rags, the sink, you name it–if it isn’t a toy it is pretty fascinating. You know what, these days I let her get into just about anything as long as she is semi supervised and as long as it isn’t dangerous. My house is one huge toy. But you know what–Michaela is having a grand old time…and I hear that kids learn the most when the get into stuff–well Michaela must be learning A TON.
It’s a good thing I haven’t spent much on the baby toys, cause she doesn’t get that much use out of them!
I hope you enjoy it! I hope everyone else can get a copy of the book as well. Maybe request it at your library. Also Amazon sells used copies for great prices too for those of you with not so great library systems aka small towns. ; )
Winner chosen by http://www.random.org/
I just listened to this. I am listening again right now. SO good. So true. All you wives and aspiring wives. Listen up! It reminded me of how challenging it is to have the right–godly balance between housework and relationships/life. Sometimes I feel like I can’t function if the house is a mess and the floors are grimy. I think I am finally coming to terms with the fact that it is OKAY to let the house be messy—provided I am letting it be messy for good reasons: like loving people and living life. If I am focusing on the right priorities my house will probably BE MESSY. If however I go around with a mop and a broom twice a day I probably won’t have the energy not to mention time to focus on people and life in general. I guess sometimes housework can be a selfish indulgence for me. Sure, I feel great when my house is squeaky clean but the truth of the matter is this season of my life is fleeting and HOUSEWORK WILL ALWAYS be there. Always. So maybe be I should take a breather and step back and cook that messy meal, dump the toys out with Michaela and let her finger paint on the floor with shaving cream. Okay you get the idea. Maybe not the last one yet at least–she’d end up eating it rather than playing. Gag. Finally sigh, peace with housework and a baby?! I hope so…although I think I am probably going to have to learn this lesson again sometime within the next 20 years.
SIGH. I don’t think I ever realized how difficult this Proverbs 31 life is. Being a home maker is something people should study for years before undertaking. Man, it’s a high calling. But I think there is room to say that Proverbs 31 has a lot to do with the gospel too. Every day I fail in Proverb’s 31ing it. That is why I need Jesus. I need redemption.
Back to that book He Calls Me Beautiful again (by the way it came in the mail–winner to be announced soon) I need Jesus’ beauty to shine through my life. Well, that is for another post. I’ll just leave this all to say being a home maker is about more than your home. It is about your heart. Because in the end that is what matters most. The superficial house work is just an easy way out of the harder heart work I find. It is easy to have a sparkling house in comparison to a sparkling heart. It is easy to neglect the spiritual to keep the externals beauitful. There is more of an instant reward too with a clean house. Man, there is a high associated with a clean house at least for me there is. So hopefully my house is going to be messier over the next few years. Ouch, that was hard to say. But I think you know what I mean.
“Oh, Mothers of young children, I bow before you in reverence. Your work is most holy. You are fashioning the destinies of immortal souls. The powers folded up in the little ones that you hushed to sleep in your bosoms last night, are powers that shall exist forever. You are preparing them for their immortal destiny and influence. Be faithful. Take up your sacred burden reverently. Be sure that your life is sweet and clean.”
–J.R. Miller
The book giveaway will end as soon as it comes in the mail. I ordered it this weekend (right before I came down with the flu). Anyways. I am thinking in the next week or two. For some reason I always think book mail takes forever to come. We’ll see. So if anyone else wants to enter. There is currently a very high possibility of winning. So anyways thank you to Carrie and Kourtney for entering…you have kept me from feeling loser-like in creating a giveaway that had no entrants.
What an excellent reminder. God’s definition of Love is beautiful.
It is defined perfectly in Jesus.
Here’s a great post from Sew Liberated on EC. I echo her sentiments exactly about how amazing it is to see a little baby let you know it needs to go! : ) Michaela today was distracted by playing and started to go in her diaper and immediately crawled over to me and motioned for me to pick her up (to take to the potty).
In other news our little girl has been sick the past few days and it has been awful. She has this. No fun. NO FUN. Her temperature went up Saturday and by Sunday she was crying near constantly. I have been up more times than I can count with her the past 2 nights. She refused to nurse on Sunday and only did so TWICE. That’s a record folks. Thankfully today she resumed nursing. Prior to that we were using a syringe. Let me just say I am thankful we had a bit of children’s Motrin in the house (in case of an ‘emergency’). We were giving her cool baths and Motrin constantly. Anyways I was very thankful Andrew stayed home with us from church and helped me take care of our little girl. POOR thing. Seeing her sick makes me so thankful that she is normally so healthy.
Here’s another helpful quote from Franklin’s book Who Calls Me Beautiful. Enter the book giveaway here.
Identity in Christ is a powerful, living force. My identity defines and shapes my life: “I have been crucified with Christ: it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20) My understanding of physical beauty, along with the desires of my flesh has been crucified with Christ. Thus the beauty that now resides in me is that of the Spirit not of the flesh.
Furthermore, my body along with my beauty is now a symbol of my relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul set forth this idea when He wrote,
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
My life is no longer about me. My beauty is no longer about me. Trying to create my own beauty in the world’s image is to separate my beauty from my identity in Christ. Holding to the world’s image of beauty is refusing to crucify y desires and living willfully in the flesh.
Two questions then arise: how do I live out my identity in Christ, and now do I change my perspective from worldly beauty to spiritual beauty? After all, I am both flesh and spirit. I cannot simply say that how I look doesn’t matter. With one simple statement, Jesus summed up how we are to find our identity and our beauty in Him. When asked which commandment was the greatest, Jesus responded, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all y our heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38).
When I pursue God with all I am, what I want will change. Worldly desires will die, and my new desire will be to live in Him and for Him. Finding my identity in Christ, I allow all that I am -spirit, mind, and body–to be defined by God. God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us understand our new identity(…)
When we allow the Holy Spirit to direct us, we avoid becoming enslaved to the world’s standard of beauty, and instead are set free to find our true beauty in Christ. When the Holy Spirit “bears witness…that we are the children of God,” we begin to see ourselves and our beauty as God sees us. My understanding of beauty will then have proper perspective because I will see myself not as the world sees me but as God sees me —in Christ.
Regina Franklin, Who Calls Me Beautiful, Chapter 6, pg. 78-80
SO not pleasant! Michaela has bit me since she got her teeth in, but this morning it wasn’t just a bite…no this was A CHOMP.
Here’s a picture of the sharpies
Michaela is playing happily next to me…therefore I have a moment to share a few links. Yesterday, for some reason Mikki was quite clingy. I wore her in my pouch sling nigh the whole afternoon and had a killer back ache by the end of the day. Andrew let me hide in our room by myself for a while before I made dinner to journal and stare at a book. You know not read really just stare. Sit and stare. Because you know what IT IS RELAXING! I sometimes just need to STARE at a book. I left the room somewhat soothed. We also had omelette’s and rice for dinner. Just for the sake of simplicity and let me tell you it was delicious. Simple==sooo good. I am so thankful my Andrew isn’t an elaborate meal kinda guy. Because this whole motherhood thing isn’t conducive to fancy dinners at least very often. Eegad. Tonight stir fry. It is simple enough. Hope you all have a good Wednesday.
You’ve Got Lies: Chick Flicks and the World’s Approach to Men and Marriage
Newly married? Expectations & Adjustments good series!
How much entertainment? Breaking free from entertainment addiction. You can listen to this on audio and it is only a few minutes long. This is excellent advice.
A mother of 14 speaks out on her experience of being a “latch key kid”.
John Piper TWEETS?! Here’s why.
How rich are you?
To Be a Mother Is a Call to Suffer
How to convert Bum Genius into snaps
The PERFECT diaper cream & cloth diaper safe!
Educational games for children
Free on iTunes: Understanding Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses
Choose Superfoods Over Supplements
Beautiful Diaper Cover Tutorial
And finally–have you entered the Who Calls Me Beautiful Giveaway yet? If not why not?!
What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. – Martin Luther
Michaela of late has been a little eating machine! She wants to nurse near constantly and I do nurse her very frequently (we are the demand feeders of the century really) but it didn’t seem to be cutting it so I have started to increase the amount and types of solids she is eating. Now she eats just about everything we eat except for honey of course.
2 of her favorite foods are also my favorite foods which works out well because we both eat them frequently.
Dutch Babies or Dutch Puffs (SHE ADORES THESE) She sits in her chair and makes mMmmm sounds with great appreciation and relish it is too cute!
2 cups whole grain flour (we use spelt)
2 cups whole milk
6 large fresh farm eggs
1 tsp. Redmond Real Salt (I LOVE this type of salt!!!)
Blend and pour into well buttered baking dish and cook in oven at 400 for about 25-30 min. Depending on how thick it is. Make sure it is brownish and puffy on top.
Mango Lassi or Mango smoothie
Frozen mango blended up with whole milk yogurt and a tablespoon or so coconut oil. She makes quite a mess with this!
Enter the giveaway here. 
Women strive to shape their lives after that which popular culture tells them is beautiful, and Christian women are no exception. When we are preoccupied with physical attractiveness, we assert that the world’s standards of beauty matter more than God’s and begin to reflect the values of a world that Jesus said we are not a part of even though we remain in it.
“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They aer not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” (John 17:15-16)But what is in the world that we’re not to be part of? Scripture gives the answer: “For all that is in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world” (1John 2:16)
The lust of the flesh. Flip through most women’s magazines and you’ll see that our society focuses on the flesh–literally and figuratively. Women’s faces and bodies dominate marketing campaigns, promoting everything from cars to candy. The message> Beauty equals satisfaction (….)The lust of the eyes. The New Bible Commentary defines the lust of the eyes as a “strong desire for what is seen, for the outward form of things. It is the lust after the superficial.” (…) We live in a visual culture–images elicit responses. When we strive to meet the world’s standard of beauty, our bodies become images to evoke desired responses within ourselves and others. When we take what God has created to be a vessel of his glory and use it instead to glorify ourselves and satisfy our desire for admiration.
Efforts to have a beautiful face and body rarely come from the desire to reflect more accurately the body of Christ. Rather, they have roots in the desire to make ourselves “pleasant to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6)
Worldly beauty is a means to an end, a way of gaining a positive to ourselves from someone other than God. However, having been created in the image of God, we are to use our bodies as a witness of the kingdom of God.
The pride of life. (…) Women desire beauty because the world says it brings power and control. Like little girls who believe the illusions of beauty pageants, we believe that women who look perfect have achieved power over themselves and others, a power we want to possess. However, believing the my the that beauty will empower us is nothing more than desiring “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.”
Who Calls Me Beautiful, Regina Franklin, (Excerpts from pages 13-16)
Yesterday I was at our local thrift store perusing their book shelves when I picked up a copy Who Calls Me Beautiful by Regina Franklin. It was in perfect condition unlike most of the books on the shelve which mainly dated back to the 70’s or 90’s. I glanced at it quickly and the title captured my attention. I wondered “is this some fluffy pop psychology self absorbed book?” For some reason (now I see it was all God’s kind providence) I decided to go ahead and buy it. Little did I know it would be one of the best book purchases I have made this year! I couldn’t put it down yesterday and I am into chapter four. It has been very convicting as well as encouraging. I want to share some quotes this weekend and throughout next week. But for now I thought I would post the Amazon reviews. They capture my sentiments quite well.
Below are all reviews from Amazon’s website.
What an Awsome Book!!
All I will say is every woman ought to read this book! With the onslaught of the media and worlds idea of what is important and considered beautiful this book will cause you to think and see yourself and others in a totally different way. You will never regret buying and reading this book. Worth every penny and then some!
Quite Good
A skilled writer, Franklin, who has had years of experience with youth, addresses the topic of females perception of her own beauty. This book is aimed at single or married ladies, in hopes that they will learn to define beauty the Lord’s way and pass it on to the younger ladies around them. I was watching out for “self-esteem” (as opposed to Christ-esteem!) talk, since I imagine that would commonly be discussed in this arena. But for the most part I was quite pleased with Franklin’s treatment of the topic. She teaches women to find their beauty in Christ and to listen to the truth of God’s Word rather than the lies of the world or even just people who speak carelessly. The following are a few quotes from the text:
An Insightful Look into the Fulfillment of Woman’s Longing
“I recommend this book to any girl or women. It helped me identify the underlying issues in my life and actually do something about them. It was inspiring and ultimately showed me how to free myself from extreme self consciousness.”
Opened my eyes to truth — closed my eyes to the media
This book was a source of encouragement to me to stop looking at what the world (and all types of media) claims that beautiful is and start to see God’s definition of beauty. I only wish I was able to read this as a teen or while in my 20’s. It not only encouraged me but the study questions at the end of each chapter helped to propel me to do something about it. I now have a better self-image than before I read the book and I can now look at media as more fairy-tale than reality.
An uplifting and life changing book
Giveaway:
I want to give a copy to every woman I know! while that isn’t possible I do want to pass a copy on to one of you and I do hope that others will get a copy as well for themselves and thier daughters. Comment on this post and tell me what was the best book you have read this year for a chance to win. For two chances to win blog about it and leave a comment saying you did. I will announce the randomly drawn winner in a week or two as I want to give everyone a chance at entering and one of my dear readers is moving this week.
Have you heard of them? I am going to try them out! Go enter to win a trial bag at Lindsey’s blog.
