Waiting…a few years ago a dear friend shared a song with me, While I’m Waiting.  That song became my song, my breath, while  I’m waiting I’ll be hopeful.  While I’m waiting I will praise You.  While I”m waiting, I’ll keep waiting here for you.

And friends, I want to tell you, KEEP hoping, KEEP praising HIM, KEEP waiting.  Sometimes the wait seems so long, but then, when the answers are given, the fulfillment of the hopes come, the satisfaction is  complete.

Not that I have done this gracefully.  Not that I haven’t wavered.  But even while I wobbled in my waiting, the ONE I waited on is steady, full of GRACE.

These are my thoughts “on waiting.”

Linking up with The Gypsy Mama for 5 Minute Friday.

“Here’s how the game works: you simply stop, drop and write. Set your words free. Don’t edit them, don’t fret over them, don’t try to make them perfect.”

(Can I tell you how hard that is?  The not editing, not fretting…)

Anyway, to join in, click here.  And if you have a few minutes, wander around and get to know LisaJo a bit, I think you’ll be encouraged.

 

Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes! (a sisterchick’s novel)

by Robin Jones Gunn

From the back cover:
“A sisterchick is a friend who laughs with you till you cry and cries with you till you laugh; a gift from God.

A multi-tasking mama, Summer Finley has found ways to handle whatever life throws at her with grace and a grin. Until now, that is. An “abnormal” medical test result sends Summer into an emotional tailspin and prompts her to fulfill a life-long dream of “meeting” her best friend and pen pal since fourth grade, Noelle Van Zandt, face-to-face.

Their blissful week together in the Netherlands finds Summer and Noelle floating down a canal in Amsterdam, visiting Corrie Ten Boom’s Hiding Place, sipping decadent Dutch cocoa in Delft, and bobbing merrily along through a sea of brilliant, spring-fresh tulips. Each day takes them further from midlife anxiety and closer to trusting God in deeper ways.

As their week of adventure comes to an end, the two friends find they needed to be together more than either of them realized.”

It has been a couple of years since I read a Sisterchick’s Novel.  After doing some pretty heavy reading in this first 2 1/2 months of 2011, it was good to read something a little light hearted.  Robin Jones Gunn has a way with these Sisterchicks books, of weaving the delights of friendship, the trials of life, the day to day struggles and the truth of God’s love in a way that ministers while entertaining.  I am so glad I got to read this book, this week!

Summer and Noelle are friends who have never met, pen pals since the 3rd grade, knowing each other only 2 dimensionally.  When Summer get the “abnormal test results” call she decides to put off the further testing, to do what she has always wanted to do.  Summer books a flight to the Netherlands to finally meet her dear friend Noelle.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book is the characters.  I Corinthians 15:3 tells us “Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals.”  Summer and Noelle have been company to keep with as this week wrapped up and I found some quiet hours to relax and read.  I love the relationships each of these women have with their husbands, and vice versa, it’s very good to hear husbands being esteemed and wives supported emotionally, even if it is in a fictional read.

I love the way the truth and love of Christ is shared, woven all throughout this story.  Real, just like life between friends and family ought to be.

Another enjoyable part of reading this book was touring the Netherlands with the characters.  Robin Jones Gunn’s descriptive language helped me to see the tulip fields, the beauty and starkness of the cathedrals and to think on the story of loss and forgiveness while visiting the home of Corrie Ten Boome in Haarlem.  A little bit of Dutch Culture & History is an added bonus.

If you are looking for a little fun fiction during spring break, I recommend Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes!

Thank you, WaterBrook Multnomah for providing this book for my honest review.

 
Little Miss Itty Bitty

The chicks have been with us 4 weeks and 3 days!  It’s so fun to see how they change, to watch the fuzzy down be replaced by those beautiful feathers.  We are being able to recongnize the Lace Wyndottes and the Giant Black Jerseys now that the white is disappearing from the Giants and the Wyndottes are getting the lacy white markings on their wings.

The chickens are enjoying the warmer weather we’ve had.  It’s fun to see them running around and stretching out their wings. 

Ninja,  Petal Rose’s Black Jersey Giant, before the black feathers replace the white down

And what fun, the chicks have started finding places to roost!

A little dreaming…

We are excited to try to grow a bean tepee this summer, along with a pumpkin patch so we can invite neighbor kids to share with us.

And here are a couple pictures of seedlings!

 
I apologize for the blurry photos, we have tomato, celery and onion sprouting!  I just can barely wait for chicken soup with that fresh celery!

linking with An Oregon Cottage for Tuesday Garden Party.

by Mae

by Petal Rose

by Chica

This past week has been a very emotional wordy one.  Deep scars in my heart have been rubbed in such a way that I began to think they had ripped right back open.  Rubbed so raw that I forgot to keep counting gifts and instead, counted the throbbings of pain.  So here is the end week efforts to remember that the answers, the healing, begin with gratitude.

#441-458 of 1000 gifts

Understanding
Time to play at the park
Friends who are praying for me during this difficult time of sifting through my thoughts.
A husband who keeps listening
Children who long to be HOME
Sweet sleep
Kitten affectionate purrs
A husband who tells me not to apologize.
The husband who listens and listens and offers a task to bring healing.
The same husband who tells me nothing will be wasted.
Extra days to be home, he will be here for the ballet recital.
And SURPRISE, the newly scheduled puppet show.
Builder will be home for one of each of the children’s special events!

Love Mercy, A Mother & Daughter’s Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God. written by Lisa Samson and Ty Samson

Product Description

In Love Mercy: A Mother and Daughter’s Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God, having lived a life of plenty in suburban America, Lisa Samson and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Ty, thought they were traveling to Africa to minister to the people and chronicle the AIDS crisis devastating the continent. Their trip, they assumed, would be missional, merciful, giving. Instead, they experienced a life-changing, soul-rattling journey. As mother and daughter are confronted with incidents of child prostitution, preventable illness, poverty, oppression, abuse, and death so prevalent it leaves no time to mourn … their journey takes a decidedly different tack. Love Mercy confronts us directly with the AIDS crisis in Africa—in particular Swaziland, which has the highest AIDS rate in the world and where the average life expectancy is thirty-two years of age. Offering two unique perspectives, Lisa and Ty share the questions they encountered on their journey and tell the stories of those they met along the way—from the children themselves, to adult AIDS victims, to the compassionate mercy-givers who seek every day to alleviate their suffering. Smiles in a place of aching sadness. Mercy in a place of heart-wrenching poverty. Two people transformed by God in ways, and places, they never expected, discovering that even in a land riddled with heartache … Christ’s love and redemption are ablaze.
 
 
So I’ve been slowly reading through Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp, and I took a little sideline to finish Too Small to Ignore by Dr. Wess Stafford.  And then I was sent Lioness Arising by Lisa Bevere, after which I stumbled upon Love Mercy.

A theme of poverty, abuse and neglected children, AIDs devestation of the guilty and innocent alike slams right up against my own past, as an abused neglected daughter who grew up to be “one of those girls” until God took my hand and heart in his hands and began severe mercy surgery.

And here I am, now, a child of the Most High God, redeemed, forgiven, much loved wife of one and mother of many precious daughters.  And I want to know, how to make my life count?  And how to lead my daughters to this question.  Love Mercy caught my attention.

The subtitle of this book is what really caught my attention, A Mother & Daughter’s Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God. That is what I want, to pursue the Kingdom of God, and to show my daughters the way.

While this story was written about Lisa and Ty Samson’s trip to Swaziland, Lisa takes the reader to the beginning of the story, the place where God began to make her uncomfortable and moved her family from their home, to the place HE chose for them.  Lisa and Ty are each honest about their desire to follow God, but the pain and struggle involved in giving up those things that get in the way.

The story of the journey in Swaziland is beautiful, heartbreaking, hope giving.  It is beautiful to read the perspective of mother, then daughter, side by side.  Different, yet the same.  Thrilling to read between the pages of the life the FATHER is breathing into them as they seek to find where HE is in these broken, seemingly hopeless places.

This story ends with such honesty.  I appreciate this most about this story, the honesty that bring comfort to me that I am not alone in these struggles to find God in the broken places, and then to find that the broken places are so big and vast, and I am so limited and small.

What a gift that this mother and daughter were able to go on this journey together, and that they were able to find the words and courage to share it with us.

linking up with Life as Mom