Confessions of An Apple.....

I had the most beautiful apple in my hand that day.... The sun was shining through the windows and it felt as thought it could give me a tan if stood still long enough. It was so bright and refreshing, especially after feeling time stood still in the biting cold of a Northern B.C. winter. As I stood there almost about to bite into the delicious looking red apple in my hand, I was caught in awe at how it reflected the sun shining on me. It was gleaming and proud. Suddenly I found myself personifying this lovely morsel and wondering if had it been a "real" something, what would it be like. Ok, I know, sounds weird. But it was so shiny...I had to take it outside and look at it in the sun. Then I saw the freshly fallen snow on the ground. It had no footprints and was totally unaware of it's fate to be stomped on, sled on, balled up and thrown and laid upon. It was so white. It too was shiny but not like the apple...more like diamonds. How could I resist? So taken by the strong red apple and the glistening white snow...They had to meet!
So I went and got my camera and thus began the photo shoot of Confessions of an Apple. The pictures were beautiful. I put that apple all over the yard, posing it as if it were going to see the pictures itself. I was so fascinated by those striking colors. Then I got a great shot, ripe and red, perched on a green branch, angled from the ground with a perfect blue sky behind and the gleaming white snow beneath it..It was beautiful.
I was done..

I ate the apple!
It was just as tasty as it looked. That apple had a good life!

Hee hee hee
Crystal

Back to the Red Shoes...

So I never got to share about my Red Shoes that night. I am wiggling my toes inside the warm surroundings of the patent Red Shoes on my feet. They are the second pair of Red Shoes I have purchased this year. Pleased with myself I tell you that I paid very little for both. In fact, so little that one pair didn't even break a common Blue Bill. Yet in their simplicity and financially humble state they are surprisingly pleasing to me and my girlish thoughts. I wiggle my feet about every so often, catching the gleam of the sun bouncing off the tops. They are shiny and clean and Fire engine Red! They are the only color on a typically black enrobed body. They have little straps across the top that meet in a tidy little bow and gently sit atop my foot. The are soft soled which also pleases me as when I walk, they are not clicky and noticeable...I can be sneaky.... Although, I do enjoy a good clicky shoe every once in a while.

For whatever reason, the Red Shoes are making me giggle every time I look at them. Maybe they remind me of being a little girl, although I don't recall having a pair when I was one. None the less, I am still amused by them. Maybe it's that they are so bright! They look like a stop light! Maybe it's that I have found myself hiding in black for various reasons over the years and when I wear the Red Shoes I feel like I am being more honest with who I am and that the truth of it is that the shoes represent the part of me that I might be hiding. Not because I don't want others to see me, but because I don't want others to judge me. my size, shape, style, taste, ahhhh...the truth....Fear! Hmmm.....Funny how a little pair of Red Shoes can say so much....even that makes me giggle a little. Truth is a funny thing sometimes!

Well they are on, I am wearing Red Shoes and I am slowly learning to be me again. Even if it's one shoe at a time!

C

An excerpt from my book...I ACCEPT~Being enough in a world that says your not!......

I sit here and look out the window in the room that will soon be our bedroom. The sun is peaking through the trees and I can hear the pitter patter of multiple children through the floor above me. The happy stomps and door slams of blissfully distracted, amused and preoccupied children. My husband is somewhere in the great wilderness of our yard tending to its relentless aesthetic demands and I sit tucked away here in a slightly chilly unfinished basement content to write until my hands are numb. Wish I could, but I suppose that walking away from the solace of the keyboard and my quiet yet babbling brook of a brain would be the more considerate thing to do as the house and all it’s occupants are readying for out of town company and I suppose I should be part of that process..Ahhh…I want to whine and get sent to MY room!!!! Please

Red Shoes...

So I seem to have a thing for Red Shoes. I think tonight when I have a few moments that are not being engulfed by the sound of Winnie the Pooh and Friends on the PS2 and the oh so pleasant sound of six children (guest included) playing/fighting for their turn on it, has passed. So tonight I shall return and share all about my Red Shoes and why they are so delightfully occupying my mind....

Tomorrow....

So here I am again, with cold feet and a wandering mind. If I had a clear head for good decisions tonight I would be alongside my husband who lay only a few steps away from me doing as he is and snoring blissfully in a wonderland of dreams and feather pillows piled on monuments of blankets. Yikes that was one very long sentence. The same clear head that eludes me tonight would have corrected that long sentence and refined it with style and accuracy...Ah but No. Not tonight. Just cold feet, snoring and the tantalizing call of the fluffy bed behind me. Well I shall return, maybe tomorrow with a greater thought to share. Maybe not! Maybe I will return with cold feet, a cup of cocoa and a story to tell????
Goodnight today, See you in the next today!

Till then...

Artful Blogging....

A new concept that I have been introduced to. I feel so naive and freshman to it all. I am fascinated by the whole idea. Like a life journal slash diary, slash photography and art collection....Hhmmm I think I may have to explore this some more. I never even thought to take my life to that level out in the big world. Kind of makes me wonder why I Blog. Why do I blog? Do I want the world to know me, know what I think and believe? Maybe I want the world to respond to me. I don't think that's it though as I have never really hinged on the responses of those who read my words. maybe it's like painting. I know why I paint. I paint to breath. Like for some stepping out of a car and into the fresh air that surrounds you at a lake side or the intoxicating feelings of the salty air at the beach that brings us to near utopia. That's what painting is for me. Why do I write. It doesn't let me breath, it's not intoxicating or invigorating or even calming. What then? It's real. It feels like the moment when you have just poured out your heart to the right person and you know as the words drip off your tongue they will be met with the soothing relief of landing on just the right set of ears even if they may or may not be able to lift you up with any certain words but just landing on those safe ears, that's all that matters. That's what writing is like for me. That's why I blog. Oh I think this may grow in leaps and bounds...what doors can open....let me see, let me see!!!!!

How time goes by...

I don't think I have ever experienced so much change in such a short amount of time in all of my life. We have gone to a wonderful house 10 minutes out of the urban jungle of Northern BC's capital, Prince George. To a child's paradise also in P.G. on 160 acres of half agricultural half residential land, nestled in trees and birds and the sound of absolute silence with the exception of the breeze in the trees (that is when the kids are all asleep...).
We moved here one month ago now and I can hardly believe it. Time has never been faster. They say that as we age time only gets faster. Well that thought upon reflecting on this summer is somewhat unsettling. I can't imagine it going faster than it is now! The children love it here. With four lofty tree houses built by them and endless trees to climb and hide in and live in according to their imaginations they are in heaven on earth. They have all made friends here and much to my delight have spent from sun up till sun down outside adventuring like never before. Ahhhh...the sigh of relief aftermuch prayer and preperation is finally starting to breath out of me.
The move was a shear thrill as we with much faith asked the Lord very specifically for details of the anticipated day and they all went just as we had prayed. We had over twenty people help us on the day and to our blessing, were in, set up and settled by 4:00pm that same afternoon. What a miracle. Getting used to our new surroundings took little to no time at all. It was as if we had always been here. The smells, the air, the view, like it was all part of our everyday lives.
We could not have asked for better. How loved we are by our heavenly Father. HE has shown us in so many ways. The life he allowes us to have here has been the greatest adventure and delight to us yet. Thank you Lord for all you have done. May our lives glorify you in return, if there could even begin to be one!

Crystal

Aggrrr....

How is it that when you hand out a discipline to a child and they not only do not receive it, they make it worse by reacting so badly to the discipline that a new discipline has to be given just for the behaviour of the reaction. I do not get that! I remember when I was a kid and I got in trouble I hated getting the discipline to follow, but when I did, I took it. I knew that it was coming. It was not like our parents had to redefine the rules each day and that each discipline was fresh and new. I knew that if I did "a" I would get "b". It was simple. Yes true, the impending consequence was not always a deterrent before the crime. But it sure was when the disobedient spree was over. I trembled at the thought. We have all had times in our lives where we followed through with something we knew full well we should not and were very conscience of the consequence. I just don't understand when a child knows the consequence and to that child it is appropriate and related and consistent...WHY would that child continue to exacerbate the receiving of the consequence to the level that we have to add to the original consequence with something heftier? I don't get it!!!!! Here's the kicker...It happens nearly every time!
WHY????
Oh, I really wish I knew.
Th toughest part here is that as much as I desire to deal with these moments as often as they are, with patients and a calm spirit...I don't always and find myself angrier than I want to be a troubled not with guilt but with frustration for the following hours, frustrated at the repetitive and ridiculous looping of the moment. I feel like I am in the movie "Ground Hog Day" It is the same over and over again. Yes I know, so goes the life of raising kids..but this is not the same. Can you imagine if you had to tell the same child each and everyday that the stove was hot. No matter what age, or experience the child has had, each day you had to warn, and each and every day the child touched burned and cried in the pain of following through the repeated action. Not talking 18months here...... Can you imagine? That's the kind of thing I am talking about. Like living in a VHS player and someone keeps hitting the rewind button and we have to repeat the same lesson over and over again...for YEARS...Aggrrr

I know this too shall pass...I know that the Lord has a plan an I know that He has all things in control. For this moment I just want to vent and say...Does anyone else have this??? It's a lonely, limited and dry place.

Wow...After reading what I just wrote I turned to my bible and picked it up... It opened on it's own to James 3....."Taming the tongue." Hmmm... The Lord knows doesn't He! I asked to be encouraged and in an instant I was.

It reads ~ (Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. James 3:1-2)

Oh Lord. Who knew but you, it was humility that I would receive in this moment? Thank You!

Blessings'
Crystal

The Chickens forgot to pray...

There are a few moments in life when as a parent we realize that the things that we are seeking to embed in our children's hearts are in fact taking root. It is so satisfying when it is a polite please when they are asking for something they want from someone else and they don't know that we can hear them or maybe even better when there is an injured sibling or friend or even unfamiliar child that gets hurt and our child runs to their side in comfort and love. Oh how that makes us glow.
But nothing took the cake like a moment on the weekend when Merek was pleasantly requesting the opportunity to feed the chickens at a friends house while we were there for a BBQ and when the gracious father conceded to take him found himself in a funny little moment.
Merek and the dad together went to the coop and took the bucket of watermelon rinds that had been collected from the BBQ guests and proceeded to dump it in for the hungry creatures when Merek exclaimed, " The chickens didn't pray!" The dad looked at Merek and said, "Pardon?" Thinking that he must have not heard him right. It was then as he told this story to us that I too started to have that glow. "The chickens forgot to pray!" said Merek. The dad was so amused by this he promptly came back to us and recounted the scene. It was truly one of those times where a parent thinks, for all the things I feel are not going in, maybe the Lord has a deeper grasp on the hearts of our babies than we can see. The purity of a three year old touched the hearts of a hand full of people in an instant and shed just a little ray of the wonders of God on the whole evening!

Thank you Lord for food for the Chickens...
Crystal

The Author

So after a period of figuring out who is sleeping in who's room, the kids are now settled into their beds and although not asleep yet I am sure, they are quiet enough to not cause me to check! The days has come to a close. Ahhh...the sigh of relief from all the trappings of the day...and what a day it was.
I had the most amazing meeting with the Author of a book that I have been given the privilege of being the Co-editor and Illustrator for. The book is called "Unwrapping the Beatitudes of Matthew 5". I just brought back the manuscript and final paintings to her for the book and her approval. Much to my delight, she was thrilled. I have to say, it was only to the Lord's credit. He saw fit for me to do what I did and was totally led by His inspiration and encouragement. God has been so good to me. He allowed time for me in my crazy busy life to etch out a few windows here and there and work on the book. It was a delight. I really loved doing it. So it was with such Joy when I heard here confirmation as she approved of the editing and Illustrations that I presented to her. We sat there in her home, praying and thanking God for His guidance and perfect timing, planning and execution of every last detail. We both felt the presence of the REAL author. The Author and finisher of our faith and life!
Praise the Lord.

Father, we ask that this book will bless, lift up and honor you in every way and glorify you to everyone who lays a hand on it!

Thank you God...
Crystal

A safe place....

Sometimes I want to come and write something beautiful. Something that will reflect the Love and Joy in my life. But today as I sit here, calm and squeaky clean after a soothing hot shower and my favorite perfume lingering around me, I am forced into a contented honesty that bares all of how my day was. In fact it was not a bad day. It was a day of fellowship and friendship. A day of laughter and fun and sun. Ah but it is not what happens so much throughout the day as what happens in the fleeting moments of the day that seem to define it's swinging pendulum of emotions from one view point to another. It still amazes me how the smallest things can set me to anger. Good day and all it's descriptions aside, it is the volcanic anger that spewed from my heated lips that lingers like the burnt ash after a lava wash across a precious undeserving buried city that smolders in my mind with shame as I close out this evening. God knows that I am not a perfect woman and thank Him for that. I could not live up to that! However, it never feels good to look at the damage caused in the aftermath of the verbal disaster that I am not so sure is natural. There is so much for this heart to be cleansed from. I am so relieved that even though trying as I might for a clean start with the birth of a new day of a nap or a great shower, nothing is more cleansing than The Lords love for a little girl who needs to sit on her heavenly Fathers lap, cry out the shame and receive His forgiveness and give me a fresh start through Him! No promise to my self as I fall asleep. No false commitment to fight the fight alone, just curling up in his lap and letting Him sweep away the tears of shame that will be replaced with the soft kisses of a perfect God who tells me I am still loved in my brokenness.
Thank you Jesus

Your baby, Crystal

He is.....

I once let out a desperate cry in prayer to the Lord to fill my life with friends. I was feeling alone in a dessert of life and duties without a life line of female friendship to encourage me and remind me to lift my head to the true barer of fuel for the weary. That prayer was honest and heartfelt and not to my surprise my heavenly father heard me. It was no more than three days after those tearful words left my heart that my life was transformed by the abundance of friends. I had five, yes five new women in my life call me or reach out to me in those three days all seeking friendship and encouragement through fellowship. It was amazing.

Five years have past since that miraculous week and the mighty work of God has never ceased. I still have an abundance of friends most of them are the same as that very week, with a good hand full of new ones as well. The Lord knew my heart and knew what I could handle and not handle.

HE is my best friend. My comforter and my strength. He is rock when I am shaky and breaking down, my guide when I am lost and wandering in the darkness of life. He is love when my heart sinks lower than my own ability to love others. He is joy and sun when the grey sky and rain stays for too long. He is peace when I am overwhelmed. He is my calm when the stormy sea of disgruntled children, dishes, laundry and tears are more than this woman can bare. He is inspiration in a dark world when I long to create for Him and honor Him. He is my warmth when the blankets are too thin and my toes are cold. He is the cool breeze that refreshes my body when I am too hot to think and too tired to move. He is the credit behind every good idea given to me. He is the deep breath when my temper is bigger than me and the moment I am in. He is doctor when I am week and my body is trapped in it's own humanity and it needs guidance to operate. He is the food the builds me up and allows me to be upright and confident. He is the water that fills me, that fuels me, that freshens me, that cools me, that floats me, that baths me, that saves me.
He is my God, my friend.

Thank you Lord for blessings me with amazing friends who are the physical body of your love for me.
I am blessed, I know I am loved

Crystal

Ah the joyous day!

The Sun is shining, the birds are singing, the boys are playing outside, Olivia is blissfully baking her amazing Carrot Cake in the kitchen, David is working diligently at his job with a full day to fill and I am calmly sitting here reflecting on the day as I prepare for the rest of the days event.....Life is good!

I am sipping hot (micro re-heated) coffee, with a delicious Butter Pecan cream in it. Feeling the breeze of the gentle air from the back door that has been left open (again) and although a sweet breeze will soon be the cause of very cold feet as I rarely wear socks. I will enjoy the window in which I feel the benefit to the cool air at my toes. I know, I know, I could wear socks, but at least I have inside slipper shoes on. If that's what I can call a girly version of crocs. Oh I feel so cliche and silly just saying that. Oh well. Such is the day. A tall order of nothing new and yet totally content with the simplicities of the afternoon!

I love days like this. No one is crying, hurt or hungry. Now that right there is a mark of a successful afternoon or at the very least a mark of a successful moment!
Ah there it is broken....they are filtering back in the house likely to declare the need to fill their bottomless tummies and state their level of starvation as I have seemingly to them yet again left them deprived since the last meal only an hour an half ago!

Well off to tend to the needs of these fleeting little people. At least they say please when they ask for food every five minutes!

Crystal

Deeper Faith..

Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,

do not hold back;

lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread out to the right and to the left;

your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.
ISAIAH 54:2-3

What more does the Father have for us his children now as he did when he spoke to his people in Isaiah with such assurance and promise. He desires to bless us and shower us in His love and allow us to bask in His glory. Letting out our tents is a call to a deeper faith. A faith that shows that we believe before we see. Being prepared to receive His blessings. Oh how blessed we are.

"Teach me oh God to release the ties that hold my faith down and let me open up my life to receive more of you and be filled with your abundant lavish blessings."

~ Crystal

A new definition of Rest...

It always amazes me that despite my effort to be free of over scheduling, planning and obligations that can suck the very joy of spontaneity and free spirit out of you, I seem to manage to feel all to caught up in it on a regular basis.
I seek a simple unplanned if possible relaxed life and yet it never quite seems to actually look and be that way..Hmm. compared to some I suppose, we are rather unregimented. But for us, we are more than we would prefer to be. The blog for example, I love that I can write every day or more, but I love that I don't have to and it is to no one persons benefit or loss to me if I do not! However, I also find great encouragement and release in the process of writing and the fulfillment of reading or hearing about how one thought or another I have typed out has somehow blessed someone else. Even if it is momentary and fleeting. There is a great pleasure in that!

Today is no less busy than any other day, more so in fact. we are up and cooking, then readying for church, then off and buzzing around there, then back home for lunch then naps (especially for mom and dad, which is rare) then up and ready to go again to another families house for afternoon tea then off again for supper at yet another friends house! Now if that's a relaxed day for us...we are clearly far too busy. Now in saying all of that, I still feel like today is a good and calm day. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, the children have had time to each invite a friend over. Bringing our house total to 12, and this is normal. They blissfully played out side in the muddy thawing yard and enjoyed some time at the neighbors house too. Not to mention that somehow I managed to pre-pair and cook 48 Mini Quiche for our dinner engagement. Whoaa...Ok, ya, that's alot. Even for us! Not super parents here...maybe super crazy, but that's about all. Funny how writing it all out makes it seem unimaginably larger than it feels.....Love that about writing...
Quiche are almost done and then the readying begins.....

It's a good restful day....I wonder what form rest will take in a decade for us???

Crystal

A season....

I know that there is a season for everything. It was what I was told when I was young and with each passing year, I have begun to understand it as an unchanging truth. Most of us have come to a conscience acceptance of this fact. So why is it that no matter what season we are in, it feels endless and grueling and unending. After nearly twelve years of parenting I only now have come to the realization that Crying is a season. You would think this profound revelation would have fallen into my mind before now, but I think it is the cumulative years of tears, tantrums and weeping moments that has brought me to this new found conclusion. I know there is hope. I know that not only does the hope lie in the sad reality that these precious years of innocence and purity will soon pass and I may even long for these years. As well as the hope that the Lord has not given us but one day by accident. That no one child, day or year is overlooked and a loss in the name of stress and being overwhelmed. Yet still it is in the after math of a full adrenaline rush of frustration and brokenness that I sit here and reflect on a moment that is past and sure to come again, likely by the end of lunch as nap time approaches. Hmmm...This is nothing new. Nothing that no other parent does not deal with on a regular basis even if only for a season, but I still feel the hurling rocks of continuous weeping that I know awaits the rest of this day and the many before it and likely to come following it.
"Father God, teach me mercy as I journey through this. I know I am told this too shall pass. Give me strength to get through it with the grace that you have for me when I am too wrapped up in me to be grateful to you. Show me how to teach them as you would have me do, so that they too will know you and your comfort when the tears of their children are pulling them to their knees too!"

~C

The sound of No voice...

It is not very often that I am completely without a voice. Today was the first whole day, as I acquired this new tone yesterday when David and I were out on a date, that I was soundless. Not speechless, I must emphasize! I am rarely without words to say...hee hee. It's funny though, as I sit here and write I am very aware that I can talk in the same way as I always do on here, but somehow it feels different knowing that I cannot articulate what I am saying audibly even if I wanted to! My children thought for the better part of the day that I was whispering to be kind to a sore throat but if fact I did not and do not have a sore throat. Just absolutely NO voice. It has happened to me in the past less than I can count on one hand. In each of those times for what I can remember, it ended up being for a significant reason that I was not able to speak. Like the Lord had literally taken the sound from my body for a time to keep me from talking. Each time I have had some sort of cold, but not a sore throat, this time is no different. So I am wondering what it is if there is anything that He wants me to be silent for!...Hmmmm
Tomorrow is a wonderful event planned for me and few other artist in town by a friend of ours who is hosting a ladies night Artist Gala...am I to keep silent there? Hmm. I wonder.
We shall see, we shall see....

~Crystal

Easter Sunday..

One of the single most significant days to celebrate in all of our history. The day that Christ arose from the cave where His body had been housed for three days after His selfless and merciful death on the cross so that we would have freedom from our sin and the uncountable blessings of eternal life if we so choose to accept Him as the Saviour that He is. How beautiful a gift that the Lord God offered us in His one and only son, to sacrifice Him for our sake because He loves us so much. Thank you Jesus for your love and the gift of salvation from our own sin. What an amazing Father you are!

The earthy father of our children is just finishing off the tucking in of the oldest in the crew. As I sit here I cannot help but see the parallel in David and the Heavenly Father. Both love their children so much. Both have given up so much, offered so much and care beyond measure for each and every one. At the same time, both have a will for their children, a desire for full and complete lives for their children to grow in the Lord, know Him, love Him and seek His council. Both are also left with the same obstacle. Free will. For all the gifts and knowledge David emparts on the children, it is up to each of them to take what he has said and by choice apply it to their lives. They have to decide if they are going to hang on to what they have been taught or fight in the dark world on their own without leaning on the wisdom they have been given. We too as The Fathers children are faced with the same thing. To know Him and learn about Him and be taught is one thing, but to choose to employ that knowledge and embrace the love He has set within us is up to us.

It is becoming easier for me to pray for our children as I watch our journey of faith develop. I pray that they too will seek to be obedient to the Heavenly Fathers will as we do, as they learn to do that by being taught obedience to their Earthy fathers will in Christ for them too.

Your beautiful Oh Lord.

YOU are so beautiful. I will praise you all the days of my life. I seek the generations of our family to lift up your name till you return. May no one that comes from this family have a moment that they can recall where they did not know you by name. My they all know the sound of your voice and the whisper of your spirit in their soul. May you fill their hearts and consume up the souls of this family for your Glory God. May we exalt you all the days of our lives until you return to take us home with you.

I look at this body you gave me and sometimes I reflect and contemplate the wonders that you have created in us as your children. So often we complain and are grieved by the things that we consider short comings, inadequacies. Teeth crooked, hair to curly or straight, our shape, our size, our abilities that our bodies allow or not. Oh God we are so naive. We know that you make no mistake, you are not indifferent or shallow or frivolous with your blessings you pour out. Yet in haste we question your very creation by the criticism that burst out from our mouths. We are so silly and trite. You are perfect. You created everything exactly as you wanted it. Including US. Therefor we are created as you wanted us to be. Broken and Lost without you. Full filled and complete with you. Our gratitude will never show the true measure of anything compared to you. We give our lives Lord to you. Thank you for all you give. Teach us to be the people you have willed for us to be!

Journaling and the real motivation ~

I used to write in a journal when I was a young teen. I used to think it was a healthy outlet for my creative thoughts. It was not until my adulthood that I looked back on them and read how sad and dark they really were. It was not as if I had a bad life, I did'nt. In fact it was really pretty good. I was loved, provided for, prayed for and protected. It was my heart that reflected the darkness that I had penned at the time. The darkness that represented the part of me that I was trying so despertly trying to hide from God. I did not want to be vulnerable to Him. I most of did not want to be accountable to Him as that would mean I had to be obediant to His will for my life. It was my ignporance that kept me sheltered from the ultimate protection and prefection that the Lord had chosen for me. He was faithful to keep me in His care while I walked in those years of darkness but it was not until I came back to Him that I learned how to be in His protective and perfect hands. I rest there in the midst of many storms that He does not calm. But never once since I crawled into His hands has He let me get broken by the raging storms of this world.

Now I write because I have joy to share and putting my thoughts down to paper let's me celebrate Him like I never have before.

Thank you Jesus for keeping me safe and never letting me go farther than I can without you!

This is one of my newest pieces, it is called

"Let There Be Light"

I was inspired by Genesis 1:3 and have felt led to to dig deeper into the creator and His creations as well as the knowledge of Him creating our abilities to create!

Thank you Lord for the Gift of creativity. I seek to honor you in all I do. Let these works that you have inspired me to do be a praise unto you.

~ Crystal

Mothers Love

I watch them sleep
I watch them play
I watch them weep
I wipe tears away
I hold them close
I'll let them go
I'll raise them strong
They will always know
I'll show them hope
When they can't see light
So they can cope
And find their might
I'll give them wings
So they can fly
And when they fail
I'll point to the sky
And they will rise
To try again
Because they know
They have a friend
But most of all
What will make them soar
Is to have to fear no more
For what they have to count upon
Is what they got when heaven shone
For what they have from up above
Is always having
There mothers love

Written By; Crystal Desharnais

A Poem that I wrote a few years ago....I thought I would share it with you...

Stretch Marks

Can a heart be big enough to love more than one?
Will I be able to share my attention?
Share my time
Share my life
Will a little one consume me or complete me?
Oh how I long to know.
And know I will
The time is here
My Body has changed to hold this precious cargo
My world has shifted to accommodate our new joy
When I hold this sweetness in my arms,
I will never trade the stretch marks on my tummy,
For they have taught me
How to embrace,
The Stretch Marks of my heart.

By; Crystal Desharnais

What a day...

Today was one of those days where there was nothing unusual of difficult yet somehow when the day came to a close my temper was short, the to do list was long and the timing of it all was off. Hmmfff...well I just don't know. Do I sit and watch a movie and pretend the laundry will fold itself? Do I get on the phone and make the calls I neglected to make in the scurry of the daylight? Or do I take advantage of the long awaited quiet and solace that a house full of sleeping children brings and go to bed? Hmmmm, what to do?
Movie it is... Popcorn, the little secret chocolate and a cuddle with David on the couch watching a movie from our limited collection and that should wrap up the frazzled day just fine! Tough day but all in all, I am going to end the night with five healthy kids and a husband who loves me and the hope of a fresh day in the morrow! Thank you Lord for this day too!

Blessings
Crystal

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him all people here below

Praise Him above all heavenly host.

Praise Father Son and holy Ghost

Amen

I cannot help but rejoice, this is the day that the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it for this is the day He has made. My father is so good so good to me....

Hallelujah Jesus my Redeemer

Your face shines on me like the perfect warm sun on the dewy sun hidden grass of the earth.

How great you are Oh God how great you are to me!

~ Happy Boys ~

David and Pierce Fall 2008

"Oh Happy Day"

Open Doors...

I just kissed Pierce goodbye as he was leaving to go back to the neighbors house for the afternoon. It still strikes me as a little strange that our children are old enough to dress themselves, decide where to go and then follow through by going...Just going. No ride, no mom to mom play date planning, no help with zippers or laces, just opening the door and going. I can hardly believe that he is that old. For all the things that my memories fails to retain, I never seem to to forget how he looked when he was born or how he sounded the first time I heard him sing. His high angelic little voice singing out "Oh happy day, ah ah ah oh happy day" Time is like running water in a river bed, smoothly flowing with a specific purpose and in it's course makes permanent definitions in our lives as the water to the rocks.
I enjoy reminiscing but I also enjoy watching these doors open the front door to the house that let's our maturing children in and out and the doors that the Lord continues to open up to us as we mature in Him. I am sure that the Lord delights in our growth and ability to know Him and His will for us better. It helps me understand the joy of watching our children grow and mature and all though missing their sweet young years, living in the delight and anticipation of what doors the Lord will open up to them as they stand up and walk for Him!

Blessings
Crystal

The hustle and bustle of dinner ...

...and all it's calamities have ended. The children are gearing down to a cuddle and (ideally) a calm time for family devotions. I found myself while waiting for a toothbrush free bathroom, reading a fellow bloggers blog. This fellow blogger is close to my heart and will remain nameless however I did want to say....it was when I was reading his thoughts for the day that I found myself fondly remembering the last time he and his now wife were sitting with David and I in our living room. It does not feel like it was years ago, but according to his account of his life now with his wife and now three lovely children, apparently a great deal of time has passed. How can that be? How can it be that in my mind it is so clear that it must have been in the recent past? I can hear his deep and sincere hearty laugh filling our living room at the hilarity of the dialog he was having with a talking doll that our daughter had left in the living room. We were nearly dying of laughter as he had this whole world set up in that moment with that silly doll. I don't remember ever thinking a talking doll was so funny before that day! I never felt the same about that doll again. I also never felt the same about my dear cousin (fellow blogger). So for what it's worth, should you manage to catch this...Time goes by too fast, but it's the memories we fill it with that matter the most and I am grateful for the ones we have with you.... I love you buddy!

Satisfaction ~

I just finished a great class in the studio. It's too late to call anyone that I would love to talk to and I am not sure I would be all that great of a conversationalist at this point anyhow. However, I never seem to run out of things I would like to talk about. Almost every time I am in the Art Studio paitning, I manage to let the same simple words slip out of my mouth. "Oh I love painting" As if this were news to anyone. But it still shockes me just how happy and satisfied I am when I do it. I am so blessed. Today at the end of the class some of the students were planning how they were going to set up thier art areas in thier homes too. I can't even express just how wonderful that is to hear. If there was anything that I wish to have my students leave the class with, it is a desire to continue on the new path of creating and expressing themselves that they have discovered here in the studio.

What a satisfying day indeed!

A Frosty Winter morning Sunrise.
The View from our living room window

January 2009, Montgomery House

For all of those who have just come for the first time...

WELCOME.

Thank you for coming for a visit. I hope you will find as you visit from time to time that you find somthing interesting. I appreciate your support and encouragement and enjoy your comments..

God Bless you and Keep you.

Love Crystal

Good day to you,...

March has been nothing short of a miraculous month. I love being on the greatest ride, that which is to be safely buckled into the walk we call with the Lord. My walk is not much of a walk at all but more of a ride. I feel blessed to be in a life that I don't have to navigate through on my own. My God is an AWESOME God. Thank you Jesus for everything you do. Without you I would be nothing, have nothing, know nothing. I count everything as a loss without you. I finally understand what that means.
~ Crystal

My Lover, my Friend,

"David"

Acrylic, Black on canvas ~ Negative format

Painted Feb 9th 2009

By Crystal Desharnais

Good afternoon,

Today is another day of what feels like the same and yet vastly different. I am overcome by the generous blessings in my life and the contrast they are to the difficulties of the day! Oh how the Lord walks with us through our journey's! Thank you Lord for not leaving me to blindly grasp at the day on my own!

Crystal

This is the latest of my work to be sold.

Praise the Lord.

This piece, "Can't Hide Beautiful",

by Crystal Desharnais 22 x 36 Acrylic

Sold at Studio 2880 this week for $450. I am thrilled.

Thank you Lord, your timing is always perfect!!!!

"Blue Abstract" by artist Crystal Desharnais. 22 x 28 in Oil. Private Collection visit www.blessingsstudio.com to see my portfolio and contact me.

This is the first time I have set up a blog. I feel a little like a fish out of water so bare with me should you find this and are remotely curious, be patient as I am still learning just what this puppy can do!