March gifts and heartaches

March was a terribly hard month for us, as B.'s mother passed away. I'm only now able to write a little bit about it, and share the gifts God gave us to cheer us a little during this hard time. These gifts  are part of my 1000 gifts list.

800. Hand made quilts
My mother-in-law Joy made so many beautiful things. She used to own a ceramics store, and she gave B. and I a beautiful nativity set which she then helped me paint in my favorite colors (green, red and brown). In the last five years she fell in love with quilting, and before she died she made B. and her other four children beautiful quilts. She even finished several for the older grandchildren (Stars's quilt is shown below), and picked material and designs for the rest of her grandkids (her three daughters have promised to finish them)

801. Revelation 21:1-7 "there shall be no more death"
The last words my mother-in-law said were "hi baby," when she saw her five month old great grand daughter, Jocelyn. How wonderful it was to have this sweet baby to lift all our hearts during this hard week, a gift of new life as another life passed on. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law each read from the Scriptures at her funeral, and asked me to read from the Scriptures, too. I read Revelation 21:1-7 "and He will wipe every tear from their eyes; and there shall be no more death."

802. Attacking cancer cells
Blaze and Dreamer and I were studying in science how white blood cells attack germs. Blaze says: "what if you could stick germs to cancer cells, so the white blood cells would attack them and get the cancer cells too. Wouldn't that help Grandma? (this was a few weeks before she died). I told her she needs to become a doctor!! what a brilliant idea.

803. Bambi's children
One of my most favorite and most re-read books when I was a child, and not as sad as the more famous book, Bambi, by Felix Salten. I was reading it to the girls at bed time, but the night we were supposed to finish it, I was out late somewhere with a friend and B. put the girls to bed. They talked him into reading them the end of the book (he'd been surreptitiously listening to it all along and was kind of keen to hear the ending too)

804. What book to read the girl next? hey, how about my book?
After finishing Bambi's Children, I started to think about which childhood favorite I wanted to read to the girls next.  Blaze is 12 years old, and she's getting close to the point where she'll be switching from reading middle grade to young adult. Right now she still loves animal stories and will read anything with horses or dogs in it (or unicorns).  I tried out the first four chapters of my unicorn story (the first story I ever wrote) to see if they liked it. Liked it?? They begged for more! Ah, even if I never get published, this was worth it all!

 color pencil illustration for my book (2001)

805. By faith, not by works
We've been studying American history and we had a lesson on the Mormons trail to Utah. Which led to a discussion of the Mormon religion. Which led to a great discussion of how different religions believe you get to heaven (usually by doing good things), and finally, to how the Bible says you get to heaven: not by anything we do except believing that Christ died for our sins, and "by faith you have been saved through grace, and this not of yourselves, not by works, lest any man should boast." This! This is why I love homeschooling!

806. Russian coins, paper rubles, and Lithuanian amber
Another Laramie homeschooling mom invited other homeschoolers over for an slide show at their house about Lithuania, where they had recently moved from because the government does not permit homeschooling there. We loved learning about Lithuania's history and culture and the family even gave us old rubles and little pieces of amber.

807. Talking like a cat
One of my big goals with homeschooling is to get the girls to love learning, and sometimes the only way I can think of to do that is to make them laugh. I'm not above acting ridiculous to make them laugh (pretending to be someone, including a silly voice). Today I could tell the girls needed a break from the history stuff we were doing so when they started playing with the cat, Cleo, tempting her with a piece of string, I narrated Cleo's take on the situation: "oh no, they've got the string out. I can resist; I will resist! But oh, look! I love the way it twitches when it moves... must POUNCE!"

808. A gift for teaching children
Our children's ministry director at church watched me teach my three year old class and gave me a wonderful compliment afterward: said I had a gift for teaching children and he even learned some thing sfrom watching me, ways to engage children more. Now if I could just apply this home school (Lord help me to teach my own kids with more energy, enthusiasm and creativity!)

809. "This is ready to submit"
Of all my writing and critique partners I've had over the years, the one who has helped me the most gave me her critique of my fourth novel (the science fiction one) and said "This is ready to submit!" The way she described my main character was exactly how I'd envisioned her.  I had edited my opening chapters based on her first critique, and when she saw my edits she said I was an "editor's dream". 

810. An English tea Lipizzaner
While making birthday cards for Grandma and Grandpa H, whose birthdays are within two days of each other, Blaze wanted to draw them things they liked (Grandma, tea and flowers; Grandpa, sailing and golf), but she also wanted to draw horses for them too, because everything she draws is pretty much a horse (just like me at her age!)  So she drew Grandpa's horse on a golf course with a sailboat sailing on a nearby lake (his horse was a mustang). Then she drew Grandma's horse next to picnic blanket with a tea cup and plate of cookies, and flowers (Grandma's horse was an English Lippazaner. I told her it should be a Spanish Lippizaner or an Austrian Lippizaner; but she insisted it must be English, because of the tea)

811. The conference call in real life
Heather shared this with me, and in turn I shared it with everyone at work... makes me laugh everytime. I can relate to every single one of these things during conference calls.

812. Seahorse tails
I took the girls into my favorite aquarium store in Ft. Collins, and we were especially delighted by the tank of seahorses, how they would wrap their tails around water plants and even around each other, like their own version of holding hands

813. Bible game - what part is false?
In my endless quest to make Bible study engaging for the girls, this is one thing that worked: the girls like it when I read them a passage from the Bible in which I change one thing, and then they have to figure out which part is false

814. A love note "blog"

Often times when B. asks me what I'm doing on the computer, I'll say I'm writing on my blog (besides this personal blog, I also have a writing blog that I post at least once a week on). I'm not sure he really gets what a blog is about, but one night I found a love note on my bed-stand from B, titled "My blog".

815. 2 Samuel 22: 29-30 "You are my lamp, O Lord; the Lord turns my darkness into light"
This whole song of David is amazing (see below for another verse); but this one really struck me, how personal it is: my darkness. He can take my dark times, and turn them into light.

816.  2 Samuel 22: 11 "He mounted the cherubim and flew; he rode on the wings of the wind"
This is speaking of God! God riding... made me think of the cherubim as a sphinx, or an angel horse. (yes, my imagination can get carried away. But I love how God's words can set my imagination on fire!) Verse 9 is also fuel for imagination: it talks of God breathing fire. Breathing fire! like a heavenly dragon.

817.  1 Thessalonians 4:1 "live in order to please God"
A dear friend of mine from church in Laramie (Lisa M. S.) now lives in Nebraska, just a half hour away from my in-laws house in Springfield, South Dakota. We went to church with her and her family during our time in South Dakota during Joy's last days: much needed encouragement. The pastor preached on 1 Thess 4:1, about pleasing God. "If you try to live to please yourself it puts you in constant conflict with others. Living to please others also causes conflict because you can't please everyone. Living to please God is the answer."

What do you look like when you love?

A friend of mine, H.L., recently went to Donald Miller's Storyline conference and told me some of the highlights (Anne Lamott spoke there! WOW!) Though I used to be a huge fan of Donald Miller, I have some mixed feelings about him these days, especially after his recent blog post about how he doesn't attend church anymore because it's not fulfilling to him.  But H.L. had lots of good things to say about this conference and all  the people sharing how God has led them to live better stories, amazing stories. Here's a blogger from Converge Magazine, who  shared her interesting perspective on this event from 2013.

All this brought to mind a post I wrote here in 2010 about "What I want to give God this year" inspired by Donald Miller's book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I wrote:

 "Miller challenges us to live a better story. Good stories have characters that take great risks, or face great conflict. The main character faces conflict and for a while you're not sure if he's going to overcome it. And the very best stories have sacrifice in them." 

I was blown away by the story about "How Jason Saves His Family" in this book, and re-reading this post from 4 years ago inspired me again, and also made me revisit the question of "how am I living a better story?"  What have I done in the past 4 years since this challenge?

Well, nothing like the ideas that I talked about in that post, though they were good ideas and I am sorry  I did not pursue them (sharing more about missionaries and their work with my daughters, sponsoring a child from Compassion International). Wow, this blog has actually made me accountable because I forgot to do some things that were very worth doing, but it's never too late to get started.

But while my ideas from 4 years ago didn't pan out, I do feel like the overall challenge to live a better story did take root in me and grow. Not as much as I'd like, I'm still not much more than a seedling, but there was progress. Also, the progress didn't happen until a year ago, almost exactly, when I found the puzzle piece that I was missing after reading Donald Miller's book. He shared lots of ideas but his ideas didn't quite fit me. I mean, he was a single man with no kids, and I'm a married woman with kids; he could pursue things I couldn't, though like I said I came up with some good ideas that I could do (and didn't).

But a year ago Beth Moore asked this question on her blog, What do you look like when you love?

What do you look like when you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength?

Because THAT person, Girlfriend, is who He’s looking for in you.

When we’re trying to hash out God’s priorities for us, that’s IT in a nutshell. “Teacher, which commandment is the most important of all?”

And that’s what He told them.

So, let me ask you this: when you are teeming with love for the Lord your God, who are you right then? What is your passion? What is it that you are bursting to do? That’s probably the stream of your calling. I’m not asking you who you see in front of you when you feel the most love for Jesus because that could be your pastor or your teacher or your worship leader. I’m asking you who is INSIDE OF YOU when you are flooded with the fiery love of Christ? Right there in that passion you’ll start discovering that purpose.

And that’s the road down which you will find what He put you on the planet to do. You don’t have to figure out what to surrender to. Just surrender your heart to Jesus. Every single ounce of it. Ask Him to give you a love for Him that surpasses anything in your human experience. A supernatural capacity. And ask Him for it every day until He does it and then ask Him to do it some more. If you’re a writer, your exploding love for Him will bring it out. If you’re a liberator, you will not be able to keep yourself from seeing to the oppressed. If you’re a teacher, you won’t be able to quit studying except to share what you learned with somebody. If you love Him with your whole heart and that whole heart bursts to sell everything and move to China, Girl, get your passport!

I don't know why I've hung onto this post for a whole year without sharing about it. Maybe it's because I wanted to see something come of it, instead of just talking about it. After reading this a year ago I can still remember jumping up and down with joy. That's it!!!!  I've always so felt inadequate, so lame because I'm not on fire for missions or evangelizing or serving more at church or other ministries. But I love the Lord passionately, with ALL MY HEART.  When I am flooded with awe and wonder of my Lord, it pours out IN MY WRITING, and also, when I teach. I LOVE to teach about the Lord.

A moment after this revelation/confirmation/affirmation, I had doubts. But I'm not PUBLISHED. Only a handful of people read my blog. What if it's all a waste of time? What if I'm only doing it for myself? And as far as teaching, I've offered to teach Bible studies at least half a dozen times and it never goes anywhere (or maybe only lasts for a short season).

But does work have to be BIG and NOTICEABLE to be worthy? Maybe the short studies I did teach did make a difference, to someone. I have been teaching children's church for years, the three year old class. Three year olds - I often think, that's no big deal. But Beth's post gave me a different perspective. I actually like teaching three year olds more than any other age group I've tried, including adult women. I LOVE teaching three year olds. I love how their faces light up and how I can make them giggle and how their hands shoot up enthusiastically when I ask them a question. And you know what, I also learn a lot myself, while teaching three year olds. You'd think it wouldn't be deep spiritual stuff, and I crave deep spiritual stuff. But learning how to distill deep spiritual stuff down to what a three year old can understand is challenging and enlightening. And sometimes their 3 year old perspectives cut straight to my heart too.

So as I was going through this revelation about teaching, it also hit me hard, here's another one of God's marvelous directional arrows that He sometimes uses to point me a direction he'd like me to go.  I had been vacillating about home school, even after a very clear arrow from God a few months earlier.  I had doubts. But this erased those doubts. From this point in March last year, I fully committed to home school and God honored my commitment and has brought it all to pass, despite obstacles and conflicts, yup now I can look back and see the long long story with all its conflicts and delays and doubts.... And I never could have dreamed how REWARDING it would be.  He wants me to be  a teacher. Years ago when I first discovered I loved to teach, I had imagined a different sort of teaching but God steered me right to where I was meant to be, and I love it.

Now I'm still not sure exactly where God is taking me with my writing. But I do know that my love for God pours out in my writing.  But it seems a semi-selfish pursuit, since none of its published (yet). I have finished one book and have started querying it to agents. I wasn't sure what to work on next and took a two month break from writing in January and February to think/pray about my writing.

Then a couple weeks ago at church (during the preaching, and it was really good preaching, too) the thought occurred to me: why don't I work on that children's story again, and share it with my kids? I had written a unicorn story with Narnian-type allegories to Christ and the Bible years ago, and then moved on to other more "grown up"  projects. I wondered what my kids would think of it? Was this a  God thought? So I read the first couple chapters to my kids and they LOVED it and begged me to read more it, much more than they've ever begged me to read other books (and they've loved the Narnia books we've read together so far, and Bambi's Children, and many other classics).

So I am pouring out my love for God in editing/revising a story about unicorns and God for my girls. I am also tossing around another writing/reading related idea, listening to other people's stories and writing for them. I am teaching my girls, and three year olds at church. Maybe sometimes the sacrifice and the struggle in living a good story is that at first it wasn't the grand story you were expecting. Perhaps God will move me on to other storylines later. For now, I am fulfilled and living in awe of His Glory.

February gifts: blue ribbons and pink cast

I've neglected my 1000 gifts list here on the blog for a long time... my mother-in-law started hospice care in February, and she died in March; then I had another tough loss in May. I've actually still been writing gifts on my calendar, but typing them up here to share was just too hard.

But I feel ready now, and so incredibly blessed that God gave me so many gifts to keep us going through times of grieving. Here are my gifts from God to add to my 1000 gifts list for February, 2014: a record for my family and another offering of thanksgiving to God.

788.  First place in the regional AWANA Bible quiz
Both my daughters' teams won first place! Here's Blaze (on the left) with Jaye, and below that Dreamer (on the right) with Makiah

 

789. remembering Lake Peignur

Just love those moments when Blaze gets excited about something at school. While studying about solutions and how salt dissolves in water, she remembered seeing a video of a lake that sunk into an underground salt mine; she looked it up and found it for us!

790.  Photo book and hand drawn pictures of all the things I love

My four girls drew me pictures of horses, unicorns, maps, globes, lizards and Grandma helped them put together with some recent photos in a photo book  for my birthday

791. two sets of flowers

Birthday presents both from B. and from Stars

792. orange creamsicle cake and Greek spanakopita

Two more of my favorite things, my mom made these for my birthday

793. left-behind treats

Stars moved to Washington and told the girls they could have anything she left behind in her room. Hair decorations, sun glasses, purses, odds and ends... the girls were down there for days poking around! I myself discovered a special treat: a jar of Nutella

794. antique map notebook

Blaze used her prize points in AWANA to get me a notebook instead of something for myself, because she knew I would love the antique map cover (and I do!) 

795. Bible hangman

Those two words don't seem to properly go together, Bible and hangman, but it's still a great word game that Blaze and I play sometimes

796. Amazing laparoscopic surgery

Serious took a fall off one of our horses and broke her arm, which ended up requiring a ambulance ride all the way down to Children's Hospital in Denver because the break was too complicated for local surgeons to tackle. Three pins later, we marveled at how such a bad break was fixed with noninvasive surgery!

797. 4H carnival duck shoot

The girls' 4H club designed a mechanized duck target for rubberband rifle shooting for our 4H carnival. Even more impressive were all the decorations! A giant cardboard alligator and dozens of ducks, frogs, hunting dogs, etc. (the theme was Duck Dynasty). 

798.  Job 38: 1-8

These were the verses that God used to speak to me personally, to prove His existence to me, over 20 years ago. A few months ago I shared these precious verses with friends in my Bible study... recently one of the ladies grabbed me at church and said, you have to hear my daughter's story!!! Her 14 year old daughter had just got saved reading the SAME VERSES. 

799. the infinite universe

When I do Bible study with Blaze and Dreamer, I've noticed what my girls really get interested in is when we talk about heaven... and space... or where heaven might fit into space (or not). We talked about how mind-bogglingly big the universe is, and it's a good thing we get to live forever because it will take forever to explore our infinite universe

Mom, I don't want to go to church

After posting on my "theme for 2014: surrender" in January, I have some follow up observations.

This is how I ended the post: "right away I was faced with having to Surrender something to God - or otherwise fret over it and try to control it.  My 12 year old daughter has developed a bad attitude about going to church with us, and when I questioned her more about it, she said she has no interest in the Bible or learning more about God or Jesus."

This is my struggle: facing a bad attitude every Sunday when I tell her it's time to get ready to go to church. She's bored there; she wants the time to pursue her own interests instead. I tell her that sometimes I don't like going to church either, and I try to be honest with God about that.  I admit to him, okay, I'm bored at church, but I don't want to be; give me a heart for worshipping you; give me a heart to look to your people today instead of myself and what I want.  I believe we should give a special time to God for worshiping him and learning about him with other believers. God gives us so much, I believe it's not too much to ask to give him and his people a couple hours of our undivided attention.

She's not impressed by my thoughts on this. Lately I've just wanted to give in, let her stay home. It's hard to face arguments about it every week; it threatens to drain my own enjoyment and worship at church. I don't like conflict. I'm not even going to try to talk about the difficulty of doing Bible study as part of our home school.

Why not just give up the fight? Why not let her go, stop controlling her? Completely surrender her?

Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

I think there's an important balance here, in this verse. We can't just give up having them do certain things because they don't like it, just like we don't let them stop going to school. God says its important to discipline and instruct them in His ways, which includes gathering with other believers.

But the other side of it is, don't exasperate them, don't provoke them.  I know I get exasperated when I feel like I'm being ignored. So I've been praying for patience to listen to my daughter and her complaints and her arguments.

Sometimes I even remember to use the powerful communication tool of repeating back her words, e.g. "so what I hear you saying is....[rephrase her arguments]... did I get that right? I want to understand your point of view." Even though she still has to go to church, I think it helps her frame of mind to know that I'm listening and valuing her frustrations about it.

But while I'm trying to patient and understanding on the outside, on the inside I'm fretting and crying with frustration. I've shared this frustration with my prayer group and I am strengthened and encouraged by their prayers, and also relieved when the older ladies share their own struggles with their children... I'm not alone. My husband also stands firm with me on this issue. It doesn't bother him like it does me; I'm more prone to fret on this than he is (he frets about other things, like the kids' safety).

So what it really boils down to is, fretting.

And God tells us not to fret... not to be anxious. To cast all our cares upon him. To surrender our fears to him. Ah yes, that theme of surrender, again.  Truly it is a daily thing.

Here are three things that help me keep my perspective (along with prayer, of course).

1) Remembering that I was adamantly opposed to the Bible and church for many years.  I resented when others tried to force their beliefs on me. I still remember how it feels. I still remember how I respected the Christians who were firm in their belief, and accepted me just as I was even though I disagreed with their beliefs. I will always, absolutely, accept and respect and love my daughter no matter if our beliefs remain different the rest of our lives.

2) The second thing is from Mere Christianity, where C.S. Lewis talks about the importance of church:

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. I know someone will ask me, "Do you really mean, at this time of day, to reintroduce our old friend the devil—hoofs and horns and all?" Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is "Yes, I do." 

3) And the third is this blog post I found,  http://adammclane.com/2010/10/18/when-your-kids-hate-church. I am cutting and pasting it on this blog to have a copy in case this post ever disappears (because that has happened before - I've gone back to find encouragement from an old post and the link leads nowhere!).  Attribution and full credit to Adam McClane.

My kids don’t get excited about going to church most Sundays. That’s putting a nice bow on it, isn’t it?
Let’s take the pretty bow off for the sake of this post.

They hate going to church.

Yesterday, I sat in the car with a child who refused to participate. Not all Sunday’ are like that. But sometimes the feet literally stop moving and the tears start flowing. It’s hard to look in your child’s eyes and see them tearfully say “please don’t make me go,” and then force them to go.
I can’t stomach it. That is, clearly, not the type of relational connection I want my children to have with Jesus.
To my dismissive friends– it’s not just our church. It’s pretty much any church we’ve tried out. Trust me, we tried to blame the churches we attended. It’s not their fault. And it’s been going on for a very long time. Yeah, they even hated churches I worked at.
I don’t know any other way to say it. They hate going to church.
[Insert our painfully banging of heads against the wall.]

As a parent I could get lost in the emotions of this. I mean, how is it that mom and dad can have a first love… Jesus and his church… and our kids aren’t loving what we love?
This is where the rational side of our brains takes over and comforts us.

• We don’t want them to fake it for our sake.
• We want to raise independent, critical thinkers. That includes giving them the freedom to question us within the boundaries of our authority over them.
• We believe Jesus wants to capture their heart, not their body. It’s OK if that takes time. Jesus’ offer to love the church stands the test of time, he is patient.
• We recognize that there is a difference between rejecting Jesus and not liking the action of going to church. They don’t hate Jesus, they hate going to church.
• We believe ultimately that it’s more important that the kids go to a church their parents love than one that the kids love and the parents tolerate. I find church strategies that try to hook parents with a McDonald’s approach to kids ministry often have equally crappy methodology elsewhere.
• We recognize that some of the reason they don’t like church is that daddy used to work at one, like 60+ hours a week. And repairing the equation that church equals dad loving other people’s kids and making other people’s kids a priority over them will take years to repair.
• We are willing to find expressions of church they might love. We’ve introduced Awana on Wednesday nights. It is is so developmentally appropriate for them that they are really digging it.....And this summer they will go to camp.
• We are willing to look in the mirror enough to recognize that being compliant at church does not equate to loving church. When I went to church as a child, I hated it and swore that I’d hate it forever.
• We aren’t going to give up simply because they don’t count down the days until Sunday. Their attitude towards church doesn’t drive us to make stupid decisions as parents. So it’s not like we’re going to stop going to church as a family.
• We are willing to lose the occasional battle for the sake of hopefully one day winning the war. That’s a crude way of saying we don’t force them to participate. We expect that they will, but allow them some ability to say no.

Maybe I’m not supposed to talk about this? Maybe writing this makes me look bad? Or maybe, just maybe, my kids are normal?

I am so thankful Adam took the time to write about this... and was willing to be transparent about his heartbreak and concern.

January gifts: teapots and testimony

Slowly catching up on all the blessings add to my 1000 gifts list. I write these on my calendar, and then as I have a chance I type them up to share here with more details, as a record for my family and another offering of thanksgiving to God. These are from January, 2014.

772. Glow pets
I was so desperate to finish a really good book (Eleanor and Park) that I commandeered Starlet's glow pet so I could keep reading in the car after it got dark, on our long drive to South Dakota to spend New Year's with B's family. Who knew a little kid's toy would come in so handy?

773. A knitted rose
I've never done any knitting, so it kind of surprised me when Blaze picked it up and actually finished some pretty long scarves. We found out about a 4H knitting group and know she's made all sorts of cool things, including a headband with a knitted rose (she taught herself how to make the rose from instructions off the internet) and a little knitted bunny.

774. A far away church with old friends
Our visit to the in-laws in South Dakota was really hard this time, because B's mom is getting so weak and is in so much pain, battling cancer.  Such a hard time, but found great spiritual encouragement from an old friend from Laramie, Lisa (M.) S.  who moved to the area... gave her a call and went to church with her and her family.

775. 1 Corinthians 15:58...your labor is not in vain.
When facing my first big test of 2014, I found great comfort in this verse: Always give yourselves fully to the Lord, because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain

776. Packing teapots with a friend
My dear friend who lives in Colorado Springs (K.A.) shares my love of tea and books, and she has a big collection of teapots; I went down to help her pack for a move across town, and she, knowing how much I admire her collection, had me help her pack them up for the move... which was neat because I got to hear the story of each pot from her as we worked. Then she gave me my favorite one of the bunch.

777. Testimony at biker's church
During my visit with K.A. I also went to biker's church with her and her family. I just love how my friend is both an avid biker (leather coat with patches and everything) and also a collector of tea pots. While there we heard a soul-stirring testimony from one of the bikers of how Jesus saved him. 

778. Titanic in space
Read this wonderful book, These Broken Stars, which is similar in some aspects to the sinking of the Titanic - but set in space with a luxury space liner instead of an oceanliner.  Shared with my writer friend, N.L.W., how envious I am of writers who can take a famous story and put in a new setting or with some other new twist and turn it into a best seller. Then my friend shared a brilliant idea retelling of a classic story set in space, too! (maybe it will my turn next to get a good idea like this)

779. Remembering "see you in my dreams"
I already listed "see you in my dreams" (from the movie Crimson Tide) as a gift a couple years ago, but when my husband texted this to me again recently it melted my heart... that he remembered it

780. The "Mar" prayer team 
I have been making it to our ladies' prayer meeting Friday mornings (at 6:30 am!)  more often and one day the four of us "regulars" noticed that our names all started with M-a-r.  (Marilyn, Mariah, Margy, and my name). So we dubbed ourselves the Mar prayer team.

781. Wings in the Bible
We've been studying Ruth in my weekly Bible study, and Ruth 2:13 "May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge" prompted me to look up other verses about wings in the Bible. I discovered some amazing things - enough I think I will write a separate post on them!

782.  Brilliant love light
I loved this imagery from Sarah Young's devotional, Jesus Lives:  "As you wait in the light of my [God's] presence, my love falls steadily upon you. In this brilliant love light you can sometimes catch glimpses of the glory revealed in my face" (2 Cor 4:6)

783. Christmas lights all year round
It's time to take down the Christmas tree, but I hung a strand of the Christmas lights in my bed room, to remind me that when we take our suffering, frustration or sorrow to God, He can permeate any darkness with His light

784. Your soul can understand more than your mind
This is another thing I loved from the devotional, Jesus Lives:  "Your soul can grasp matters that are too deep for your mind's understanding"

785. Postcards from Alaska
My stepdaughter has been getting postcards from a "beau" who lives in Alaska... and I drool over them almost as much she does (I've always wanted to go to Alaska!)

786. Wild Americans in their natural habitat
My stepdaughter has started making these funny short videos: my favorite one is where she adopts a Steven Irwin accent as he's stalking wild animals, as she talks about going "in search of wild Americans their its natural habitat" - and then reveals she's just entered Wal-mart. Made me laugh!

787.  Five years later, still waiting on a promise, still hopeful
I was reading through old posts here, and I came upon this one from 2009, "May this dream come true" - a dream about my parents coming to know the Lord - a real, living relationship. This hasn't come true yet, and who knows if it will happen like in my dream, but I will never lose hope.

Couldn't resist this picture of Blaze and Dreamer riding with two of Blaze's friends and the spread of mountains in the distance (horses: Strike, Rebel, Tuffy and Spring). Blaze has looked forward to Hailee's visit ever since she moved away last summer.

My theme for 2014: Surrender

In 2012  my theme for the year was Seeking God; in 2013 my theme was Prayer. As I shared last year about this time, I've always failed miserably with resolutions, but this idea of choosing just one thing as my theme for the year has had more results - especially since I started picking godly things for my theme.


Prayer has never been my strong point. I love studying the Bible and memorizing verses, but I would love to also be a prayer warrior, not a prayer weakling. I'm still on again, off again with prayer but having this as my theme last year did help significantly - as well as several really hard twists in our lives (in March, in April, and in June) that left me with no option except to pray. I kept up with it not quite daily but at least several times a week until I got ultra busy in the fall with home school.

Some major things from 2013:

1) My dad's Parkinsons disease taking over more and more and B.'s mom's cancer taking over more and more. God gave me an amazing witnessing opportunity with both my dad and mom, but I still don't have the fellowship with them as believers that I long for. Same with B's parents.

2) In 2012 I learned how freeing it is to not try to control people - namely my husband and teen stepdaughter, even a few situations with my younger daughters. 2013 really, REALLY challenged me again in this area.

3) Thanks to working the 12 steps and support of Overeaters Anonymous I lost 10 pounds in 2012 and another 10 pounds in 2013! - and kept it off! (though I confess Thanksgiving and Christmas I did slip up and regained 5 pounds; I've lost 3 pounds again so far in January).

4) Rediscovering an unresolved issue going all the way back to my teen years helped me identify and start working on a big issue I struggle with currently, having to do with honesty. Going through the 12 steps in OA meetings this year  helped me figure all this out, but interestingly, it was starting home schooling that indirectly helped curtail the problem.

5) Insecurity at church and work. The insecurity at work was also indirectly helped by homeschooling... too long of an explanation to share right now. The other insecurity still looms. It's not really church persay, but connecting with people there. A small revelation was "forced" upon me in June that I've been mulling over but not yet really acting on.

6)  I stayed depression-free! (two years now depression free). Thank you, vitamin D pills, but more importantly, thank you God for this great, great gift.

7) After years of debate, I started home schooling and discovered I loved it! (not sure if my girls quite "love it", but they're going along with it and I'm loving the extra time with them.

So now I come to my theme for 2014. Last month I started thinking about this and I think God impressed on me to choose Surrender (also, Humility. They're sort of related). I struggle with control, and I struggle with giving up my time, and I still struggle with eating when  I shouldn't  and what I shouldn't... all things that have to do with my will. This year I want to focus on surrendering my will to God's.

I feel like Surrender also encompasses my earlier themes of Prayer and Seeking God, too. 

No surprise, barely a week into the new year, I right away was faced with a tough situation I wasn't expecting... and was faced with having to Surrender something to God - or otherwise fret over it and try to control it.  My 12 year old daughter Blaze has developed a bad attitude about going to church with us, and when I questioned her more about it, she said she has no interest in the Bible, or in God or Jesus.

This is still so raw it's hard to write about it. I wanted to jump all over her and shake her and.... sigh... still can't write about this, except to say - Oh Lord! I surrender her to You.

1000 gifts: finishing the December challenge

Four new nutcrackers to add to my collection

I succeeded in my December challenge to add thirty one blessings to my 1000 gifts list,  one for each day.  But then again, saying "I succeeded" is a misnomer; I believe it's God that opens my eyes to see his blessings...

756.  "This is My Wish": beautiful Christmas song by Jordan Sparks

757. All six of us snuggled up on the couch watching a movie

758. Compliments from an agent on my novel
The agent "passed" on my novel, but she did give it three very nice compliments! so I am not at all discouraged.

759.  Our souls are bigger...
Dreamer told me she believes our souls are much bigger than our bodies. How big? I asked her. As big as a barn! They have to squish down to fit inside of us. I loved this idea.

760. A horsey Christmas party
B.'s roping buddies had a Christmas party and then my English riding club also had a party with a white elephant gift exchange. Many horsey-themed gifts - I actually won a really nice horse blanket!

761. Gratitude changes everything
Something that struck my heart at my O.A. meeting today: "you can get a gift, but you only really receive a gift if you receive it with gratitude"

762. Christmas tree lights in  our church window
I always drive by our church on my way home, and I love seeing the lights of the church's giant Christmas tree shining through the windows at night.

763. Singing every night before bed
With all the busyness of the Christmas season, sometimes its hard for me to feel that special Christmas magic and wonder, but one thing that really recaptures it for me is taking time each night to sing Christmas carols. I sit in the hallway between the girls' rooms and sing a couple songs to them out of my "Forty Favorite Christmas Carols" book - I handcopied these carols into this notebook when I was 14, and illustrated some of the pages too. Now almost 30 years later, this old notebook has become a great treasure to me.

764. Unexpected help wrapping presents
I always leave most of my present wrapping until last thing on Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed. B. helped me for a while, then went to bed himself. I didn't mind; I had my favorite Christmas carols playing and a beautiful Christmas tree to enjoy. But then after a half hour B. came back down and helped some more, he said he just enjoyed the time with me

765.  Animals at the table for a Christmas tea party
Mom always gives the girls stuffed animals for one of their Christmas presents; this year she had the animals all arranged at the dining room table as if they were just waiting for the girls to join them for a Christmas tea party

766. The Platters' old songs
Not Christmas music at all, but what I loved most about this Christmas was that my Dad was so happy (since being housebound, he's been so depressed this past year). It's been forever since we played any of our old favorite albums, so I was delighted when he asked me to put some of our favorites on: The Way You Look Tonight (sung by Bing Crosby), and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (the Platters).

767. A new Christmas bookstore tradition
Last year I so enjoyed spending a couple hours at the bookstore browsing and picking out three books for Christmas, which B. then bought for me - so I asked him if we could do the same thing this year for my Christmas present. Here's the books I picked this year (he also bought be a new camera for Christmas too!)

  
768. Christmas mugs
I love collecting mugs, and while Christmas shopping this year I found some mugs that I really liked, so I bought them and then gave them to Blaze and Dreamer to "give" to me as Christmas presents. I mean, it's not like they are old enough to go shopping themselves for mugs for me, right? I also "gave" myself  (via the twins) a fancy dark chocolate bar and a pack of notecards with a beautiful globe on the front of the cards (I love artistic maps and globes!)

769. Christmas calendars
My mom made a beautiful calendar for B. and I, and also B.'s parents (whom we are visiting now for a late Christmas, and New Year's Eve). Each month has pictures of the girls - some pictures I've never seen before and some older pictures I'd forgotten about! And another fun calendar she showed me was a collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, some of which I'd never seen before. This painting of Santa planning his route with a big map really tickled my fancy, since I'm a map-maker and all-around map lover.

770. Come Now Our King, song by Chris August
 Bethlehem turns in tonight
A town led up by candle light
All the children tuck in tight
Bethlehem turns in tonight

The angels start their whispering
About the one they're welcoming
No one knows what's soon to be
As the angels start their whispering

They sing glory
In the highest
Come now our King
We've been waiting
Come now our King

Silence falls
Yet once again
The shepherds leave for Bethlehem
Baby's cry soon welcomes them
Silence falls yet once again

Glory, Oh glory
You came here to save
Ooh Lord, we've been waiting so
Come now our King

Now my night has turned today
An empty manger, empty grave
Baby born so I could say
Now my night has turned today

Ooh, We sing glory in the highest
Come now our King, oh ooh
We've been waiting, waiting for you
Come now our king

 771. A Hallelujah Christmas, song by Cloverton
I've always loved the original song by Leonard Cohen, but when I heard this Christmas version of the song, my love soared to new heights.

I've heard about this baby boy
Who's come to earth to bring us joy
And I just want to sing this song to you
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
With every breath I'm singing Hallelujah
Hallelujah

A couple came to Bethlehem
Expecting child, they searched the inn
To find a place for You were coming soon
There was no room for them to stay
So in a manger filled with hay
God's only Son was born, oh Hallelujah
Hallelujah

The shepherds left their flocks by night
To see this baby wrapped in light
A host of angels led them all to You
It was just as the angels said
You'll find Him in a manger bed
Immanuel and Savior, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

A star shown bright up in the east
To Bethlehem, the wise men three
Came many miles and journeyed long for You
And to the place at which You were
Their frankincense and gold and myrrh
They gave to You and cried out Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I know You came to rescue me
This baby boy would grow to be
A man and one day die for me and you
My sins would drive the nails in You
That rugged cross was my cross, too
Still every breath You drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah