Random Musings

We've been having some sweet praise time in the play-room since we've lived here. 

Dad gets out the guitar, and the kids get out all the random music instruments. 

I love their enthusiasm to sing and praise the Lord. So sweet to my ears!

"Suddenly, with a longing that was more than he could bear, he wanted to stop fighting against this man.
He knew that he would give everything he possessed in life to follow Jesus."
 Drew's copy-work from The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare

Yesterday, I informed Ellie and Drew that they were going to start doing their own laundry.

They were oddly excited. Perhaps now, 

they will think twice about throwing clean clothes into their basket? 

A couple of Whit quotes: 

"I love Marie (her stuffed kitty) and mommy."

I'm squeezing her in a hug and she says, "Aaaaaaa.....by brain!"

Toby has actually given up sucking his thumb. He only did it when he had his "Ruff Ruff."

We explained to him that it was time to quit, and he's been such a big boy about it!!!

(Though it makes me sad that an era has passed....) 

He's waiting for the day when he can just sleep with his Ruff and not be tempted to suck his thumb.

You know you've got a big family when the check-out man at the grocery store asks you if you're shopping for the month.....my response was, "No, this will last us a week."

The beauty of the mountains brought me to tears last week! 

Do you ever get use to it? I hope not. 

"We're not going to stay in this house the whole day, we're renting it!" ....Toby

Yesterday, Toby, Whit, and Abby played together literally all day long~with hardly any quarreling!
I couldn't bring myself to make them stop to do school, therefore I was doing math and reading with Toby at dinner time! At one point, they were eating popsicles on the pantry floor because they didn't want to stay at the table and they thought it was too cold outside......
I guess they wanted a change of scenery.

The three slept last night on a pallet they made on the playroom floor..... 

Whit will NOT go to sleep these days without me singing to her....she is NOT content with letting anyone else (except occasionally Ellie) doing the service. Every night she asks me, 

"Will you come sing 'Day is Done' and 'Jesus loves Me' and scratch my back?"

I was reminded this week, as our family was visiting a sweet older couple in our congregation,

how fleeting these days are. Betty was telling us how long they've been married... 68 years! 

I was commenting how my sweet hubby and I have been together for 18 years
(married for 15 and dating for 3) and that we've basically now been a couple as long as we were under our parent's roofs. In comparison to Al and Betty, we've got a long way to go.
She made the point, as she was watching our children, how short the child-hood years are
in comparison to the whole of life. When you're in the throws of childhood,
it seems like life at home will go on forever. BUT.....pretty soon you hardly remember those years. yikes.

I have SUCH a small allotted time to shape my little arrows to be shot out into the world.

After I wrote this post, I read our daily reading to the children from Trial and Triumph
by Richard Hannula. We read about a monk who lived in the second century named Anselm.
He was quoted in this book, and I thought it so applicable to what I had just written here.

" 'A youth is like a piece of wax,' Anselm answered. 'If the wax is too hard or too soft it will not receive a perfect image when pressed with a seal. So it is with the ages of men.
Old men, untrained in the truth of God, are like hardened wax, and young boys,
unable to understand spiritual things, are like soft, liquid wax, incapable of receiving a seal.
But the young man is pliable.
If you teach him, you can shape him as you wish.....'" pg. 79

Though the childhood years are fleeting, they are some of the most important.
What an opportunity we have to mold our little ones, and what a grave responsibility that is!
O, that we might raise our kids with wisdom and diligence,
covered in God's grace,
 to be men and women of God
who love Him and want to serve Him with their lives. . . .

THAT is the most important thing
:: that they would have hearts for their Savior ::
NOT how well they read and write.

Lord, may you give me wisdom today as I teach my children. 
May I not be worried about the trivial things, but only what is most important. 
Make their little hearts soft for you. Will you please mold them into
men and women who love and honor You. 
Help me, Father, to be faithful to the task you've called me to.
In Jesus name, Amen