Soaring and Stillness: Life with the Chickadees

Where are my thoughts today? Am I stressing over preparations, schedules, kids, work? Where is my focus? Is it inward or am I striving to be a light? What is the condition of my heart? Am I taking the time to cultivate relationships with others? I've been asking myself these three questions every morning before I rustle the sheets and exit the covers. In the time between my eyes starting to flutter open and the pulling on of my sneakers, I'm working on being heart  intentional. I've found that it's not enough lately to simply pray before I rise...my thoughts are too scattered with the day scrolling behind my lids. I have to give it all to Him... He knows my needs, my plans, my hopes.  He was there first. He created and gave me this beautiful life that I am so very privileged to experience. I do not take that lightly.  I do sometimes lack in the remembrance of giving it all back to Him.  I tend to take and hold on tightly, rather ...

Congratulations... The winner of the David Crowder Band "Oh for Joy" album is Kristin Smith. I loved hearing all about your favorite carols and songs for this season; it seems that for all of us, music is both a heart and memory aid. .   .   .   . It's been a crazy few weeks around here. The prof has been travelling and doing a ton of project work   which translates to I've been going it alone since he went to Spain in October ; hopefully  this will change in the next few weeks so he may actually enjoy the holiday. I've been searching for a new dance studio for the chicks loooong story  where their hearts as well as there feet will find joy. Christmas decisions, shopping, ordering, wrapping and then sending have been a solo experience   USPS is a super fun place to stand in line for an hour. Add all of this to the normal homeschooling, wife/mother duties, bill paying and house maintaining and I've not felt a whole lot like myself lately. I've...

Music is a HUGE part of our home. My Little Bit hums and sings and twitters everywhere she goes and in all she does...much to the dismay of her older sister. I sang to the chicks in the womb, we play tunes constantly, and both girls have a strong affinity for the piano.   Silent Night ?  Not in our home. Smirk. With it being the Christmas season, we've changed up our playlists and found new favorites for the Pandora stations. I've always felt that Bing, Frank, and Judy do it best with the classics, but this year we've expanded our repertoire outside of the norms to include David  Crowder Band's new album, Oh For Joy. It is honestly the best  Christmas album I've heard in ages. Seeing as it's Christmas, and giving is so much better than receiving, I'll be gifting an iTunes copy of the album if you leave a comment below by midnight on December 10th.  I know hearing it will be good for your heart, your spirit, your joy levels. My all time favorite carol ...

The tree comes out the weekend after my birthday, usually going up amid shouts and cheers for our boys in blue as I carefully unwrap precious ornaments given decades ago. The small pieces of cloth, glass, metal, and wood are treasures in our home; Each piece gave me pause. I stood, remembering the friend who so lovingly stitched our "Yard of the Month" ornament while we were in the Navy together.  Those years when the grace girl was toddling around and I was ripping out bushes and changing landscaping in officer housing...giving attention to something that stayed done for more than four minutes with an active babe in the house. It was the three of us, a time where work didn't come home with the man because it was classified and our nights and weekends were all ours to shower our girl with stories and play and attention. Then came the block "M" for the years of the PhD and little bit joining us...the hospital she was born in bearing the same title as th...

"The secret to joy is to keep seeking God when we struggle to see where He is." -Ann Voskamp Sometimes, the easy thing to do is give up. ...to stop trying. ....to stop caring. ...to stop doing . We struggle to find Him in the places that are shadowy. We don't look closely; we merely glance,  then sigh in frustration at our seeming night blindness. In the dark, we shut our eyes, squinting them tightly against any light that may peek under the lids.  A bright that desires to come in, that steals under cracks and corners and shows as a sliver and reflection in places where we try to hide from it. Light that warms, heals, brings rest to the weary soul. It's in the struggle that we find out who we are, what we're made of, who He's making of us in the glorious mess we've made of ourselves.  In the struggle we find that it's not as much about seeing Him as it is the knowing Him.   It's about finding lig...