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!