Spaces in the Heart for Joy

Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture.
Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart
for joy!

-- Unknown

What God Said

"The enemy of our souls knows that if he can't convince us
that God's ways are wrong,
he can at least try to convince us that we've misunderstood
what God said."

From the book,
Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God

The Married People Come for a Visit

All the siblings together when Josh and Jemima came out for dinner the other day.

Coming Soon ~ Wedding Pictures!

My, my! It's been over a month since my blog has seen my presence.

My sister got married and has settled down to housekeeping in their darling little house. Babies have been born, and a whole lot of other stuff has occurred. Enough to keep me constantly living life and not finding time to tell you about it. But soon, but soon... (I know, I keep saying that.)

There are so very many wedding pictures to post just as soon as we get our computer back with Adobe Photoshop. Blogging is on my to-do list, I promise. Today you'll have to be happy with this one sneak preview picture... Jemima and all of her sisters. :)

For now, I shall have to let this little post from a laptop without wedding photos suffice... Because there's so much to say but not nearly enough time to get started tonight. Because the soup for tomorrow's church lunch is cooling just a bit longer and I need to clean up the table littered with cake-baking mess and see if I can get to bed before it is tomorrow.

"Oh how great is Thy goodness, which thou hast wrought for them that fear Thee; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee.... Blessed be the Lord: for He hath shewed me His marvelous kindness..." Psalm 31: 19, 21

Puttering On the Porch of Eternity

"Fight for us, O God, that we drift not numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity." ~ John Piper

Being, Not Seeming

True worth is in being, not seeming, -
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good - not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
- Cary

The Five of Us, Soon to Be Four

The five of us sisters are the best of friends...
I don't know what we'll do when Jemima's gone!
L-R: Mary, Jemima, Liz, Ruth, Joanna
(taken Sept. 09 at Bakersville)

As most people are busily wrapping presents and stringing the last of the Christmas lights, our house is abuzz with activity, too... except it's more like the sewing machine humming over yards of midnight blue satin and dresses and sashes hanging everywhere. Seventy-five of the pies were baked last week and are in the freezer. The ribbon and tulle and candles are stacked in boxes in the bedrooms and we are busily checking off to-do lists daily. I know it won't all get done the way we want it to by the wedding day (January 2), but the point of the wedding is celebration of what God is doing in joining two lives. So, if everything's not perfect, it will be okay! Jemima keeps reminding us that she would much rather have her family and family-to-be happy on her wedding day, than everything be completely perfect and us stressed out and irritated with one another. I think it's a great goal. :)

People keep asking me how I'm handling losing Jemima. Honestly, reality hasn't hit yet that she's going to be gone forever. We talk about it and even as we help her pack up her things, it's hard to imagine her not coming back. It's really not very real yet that she will have another life and family ....that she will be more interested in her own new family than our cozy nest. We'll just have to have her visit often to keep ourselves from getting too depressed!

For now, I'm rejoicing in the things that God has given me. Josh and Jemima found a house... of all places, three blocks from my new office in Springfield!! I didn't even wishfully ask God to do that for me... but He did! I can walk over to her house for lunch in between prenatal visits or we can walk around the block on nice afternoons when I'm waiting for the next pregnant lady to show up. I can't say how excited I am about this fun surprise! :)

Love Heaven!

Love heaven. Let your heart be in it.
Up, up and visit the new land and the view the fair city,
and the white throne and the Lamb - run fast for it is late.
-- Samuel Rutherford
II Corinthians 4:16-18

Flirts?

"All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense."
-- Copied from Dana W.'s Facebook.

Hmmm.... true, or not?
I tend to think it's reflects the nature of women...

I Haven't Died

For those of you wondering,

I haven't died

or gone away

OR figured out how to enable comments on recent blog posts.

(I didn't change any settings; Blogger just stopped letting people comment.
After that happened, I did try to "fix" it through settings, but Blogger would have none of it.
So, here I sit... not entirely helpless, but not willing to waste another rare and
precious hour on trying to figure it out, just yet. If a geek out there has a quick fix, email me at wewouldseejesus {at} gmail {dot} com.)

As for lack of any substantial blog post in recent days, I have good reasons. I have a lot to do, and I'm trying to live my full and busy life with joy and purpose AND get a decent amount of sleep some nights.
I do feel sorta obligated to "keep up" with my online life.
But not enough to skip out on real life - like helping my sister
plan her wedding and things like delivering babies and talking to people in real life. :)

So... if you were worried about me, don't be. I plan to be back soon. :)

And I hope that someday soon, you'll be able to comment again and say, "Where are you??"