thoughts
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December 14
And it’s the work of peasants, the everyday schlepping as a mother. There are bits of beauty that weave in through the madness: the beautiful loaves baked in the morning, the sweet conversations by candlelight in the waning afternoon light, and bowls of popcorn shared while reading together.
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The risk of education
I heard the rumble of a larger truck going up our road and as I looked out beyond the deck saw that it was a local school bus. I smiled to myself and chuckled that my two school aged boys are learning more lessons here at home hauling these logs than they ever could during a day at traditional school.
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Time for the new.
I’m sorting through every single thing in our kitchen today. We are preparing to fully gut it tomorrow, a project that is happening about 5 years later than we thought it would. Life has been a little rocky lately. We’ve had some strange medical issues, along with some normal but annoying sicknesses. It feels as though we’ve had every common ailment over the past few weeks, and at times like it may never end. We are embarking on a new thing, the School of Kingdom Writers is just a few weeks from launching its first full time classes. Students are actually moving from all over the country to little Zanesville,…
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A missionary of LIFE.
The Lord urged me to take an extended social media break in the month leading up to my birthday. It was a wonderful time off and I’m now dipping a toe back in. The last month I felt clear headed, able to write just for fun and not likes, and found myself having more free time to ponder with God or really listen to my kids. In this age we are all learning how to live in this technological world, one that we’re not quite made for and is fairly foreign to our DNA. One evening last week I lit the lights on the deck and sat with the Lord…
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An air conditioned life
We finally completed (or nearly completed) the deck on the back of our house. We put an addition on 4 years ago when my grandma came to live with us, and I’ve been anticipating this deck to be finished ever since. I love being outdoors. I love eating outside, checking on the gardens, and spending time with my children in the waning hours of day. When we lived in the inner city of Columbus, I fondly recall late nights sitting with my love on our old broken porch. We would sit in the dark dreaming about the future and spin the web for the life we are now living. I’ve…
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The Power of Words
Written in March 2020 ———— The other night I could not sleep and felt panic gripping my body so I turned on some worship music. The clock on the stove read 3:13 and I heard the Lord whisper Romans 3:13. “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Well…that’s heavy,” I thought. As I pressed in I realized that He was leading me to pray for the blood of Jesus to cover the careless words that we as a nation speak. I prayed over our world and our country, that God would heal our tongues and that His people would turn…
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Distractions
I sit and write amid trash and crumbs strewn across the table. One child is sedated by a show, one squirms on my lap and the others are outside, finally making their own fun. The morning has been full of tempers that have flared. Tempers that lashed out at each other and the schoolwork that we tried to do. Forever I will be learning to not lash out at their lashing out because how in the world can I teach them to be calm when so many days I’m like a pressure cooker that’s not properly vented? For years I’ve been trying to figure out how to do social media…
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Devotion>Decency
Decency: behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability Devotion: great love, affection, or admiration for someone Recently the Lord spoke to me the phrase “the decency is gone”. As I looked up the definition of decency, I heard the Lord speaking that His standard is here and the world’s is gone. Later that day the Lord was so good to give me another phrase: “Decency is being replaced by devotion.” He wants me to look to Him with great love and affection because He is the only one who can show me my true, Christ given identity. I was reminded of the story of King David, who…
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Foggy sadness
The day is moving along but the fog outside has intensified. By nine it should be dissipating, driven away by the newness of the day and the sun shining bright. But today, this second day of the year, it’s worsening. Sadness crept into my heart in much the same way. When things should be the most joyful, sadness can be as the fog, thick and relentless. In some ways I welcome it, that old familiar feeling. I allow myself to wallow in my surroundings, in the things that shouldn’t be, but are. I want to feel entitled to my sadness. I want to feel justification that the world is against me…
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A new thing
About a month ago as I was laying down for bed, an image of a fire burning came into my mind. I closed my eyes to see what God had for me. I found myself a couple of stories up in an old building downtown. As I looked out there appeared to be a beautiful sunset, glowing orange and red, but as I moved closer to the window, I could see that buildings were on fire. However, instead of it being detrimental, I had the sense of this being peaceful and good. I was moved outside on the street and noticed the fire was burning certain buildings, but instead of destroying them…
