Embracing the Full, Hard and Good Life, While Pausing Often by Quiet Waters
Below you will find the 3rd and final letter, Made in the Image of God, in my Perfectly Unique letter series. I hope these letters have been an inspiration to you as you seek to encourage and inspire the young people you correspond with, and even with young people in your own community. The first two letters can be found here and here.Continue Reading
Sponsorship Saturday
You will notice, these Perfectly Unique letters are quite short and simple. I often struggle between being too wordy, and too abrupt. In these letters, I wanted the message to be true and rich, but my words to be few. Hopefully I have achieved a balance.
Several letter writing ideas swirl in my mind often, but getting them down on paper isn’t always done before I forget those great ideas. Understanding that about myself, I began to be intentional about looking for an idea for a series of letters to pre-write to our Compassion Sponsored Children. These letters are among the most popular posts on By Quiet Waters.
Early in the summer of 2015 I had made a commitment to myself to finish some of the books I started reading, but for one reason or another, hadn’t finished. Perfectly Unique by Annie Downs is one of those books. As I read the book, I was looking for quotes and ideas to infuse into my conversations with my daughters. And I was also inspired to write a series of three letters to our sponsored children. These letters are quite simple, but I hope the message is clear. Every child is planned for, loved, and has purpose. That is what I want each of my own children to know and believe, and each of our sponsored children well.Continue Reading
lets all be brave
My younger daughters and I love Annie Downs. She is another “big sister”. It has been a tremendous blessing to read her books together, alongside and/or one after the other. How ever her books are read around here, loads of conversation follows.
Let’s All Be Brave is a little different from the first two Downs’ books we read (Perfectly Unique and Speak Love). In each of those books I found encouragement and truth to share with my teen daughters. Perfectly Unique also inspired a series of letters that I wrote to our sponsored children!Continue Reading
Making Home
Read ~ 5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter, Where There Was No Church, The Power of a Half Hour, Million Little Ways Home Environment
Read 5 chapters of Love Does aloud. Read a picture book each day with my granddaughter.Write a love note to Ben.Clean the dresser top in our bedroom.Celebrate Valentine’s Day with our daughters (day full of good food, fun movie in the evening)
Personal GrowthFinish memorizing Romans 12:1, 2, continue working on Ephesians 6:1-8
Walk 3 miles this week. Start back up on crunches & pushups
Finish reading Undaunted, Say GoodBye to Survival Mode and Alone, Yet Not Alone.Work on knitting project
Ministry Goals
Prepare and test Perfectly Unique lesson plansTake 5 photographs & edit them
Email 2 encouraging messages, write & mail 3 cards of encouragement or gratitude
Household Business
Finish Gathering Tax PaperworkSubmit receipts to Health Savings Account
Find a replacement for my current INR testing siteFind & Download the driver for our printer to the new laptop, was able to use the cd to put the drivers on our new laptop with Windows 7. But I now need to see if there is a driver download for Windows 8
Goals for February 17-22.
I refined the goals just a little. During the fullness of the week I realized that reading aloud 5 chapters is a stretch, the same with the picture books.
Home Environment
Read 3 chapters of Love Does aloud. Read with my granddaughter.
Write a love note.
Clean all of the filters and drains
Personal Growth
Continue working on memorizing Ephesians 6:1-8
3 Days of Cardio. Start back up on crunches,pushups
Read Rich in Years, Call of the Klondike, 5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter, and Where There Was No Church
Work on knitting project
Ministry Goals
Work on Perfectly Unique lesson series
Take 5 photographs, edit & process
Write 3 notes, emails of encouragement or gratitude
Household Business
Finish Gathering Tax Paperwork, submit to accountant
Scan in final receipts for HSA reimbursement
Find a replacement for my current INR testing site
Find printer driver for Windows 8
