Another Update

On Saturday, December 8th, the Amish community held a benefit auction for Diane Goslin. They began their day at 7 am and stayed until about 3 pm. There were an unbelievable amount of items being auctioned. Everything ranging from toys to tools to the famous Amish made quilts.

My family attended for a couple of hours, and while we didn't actually do any bidding, we consumed mass quantities of the delicious home made food that was being prepared right at the auction site. We had barbecued chicken, hot dogs, hot pretzels, donuts and apple dumplings. The donuts that they made were so incredible that we brought home several dozen to eat for breakfasts!

The community was able to raise $21,000.00 to contribute towards Diane's legal fees through this event. I know that this must have been an incredible blessing to her and her family.

Thanks for all your prayers and please...keep praying!

Crazy Mom!

My days have been incredibly busy lately! Besides the daily schooling and general mothering, we have been involved in a homeschool co-op, fitness at Beachmont, serving at Beachmont Round-ups, taking Julia back and forth to soccer, Tuesday Teen Bible study, and practicing for our church's Christmas cantata!
Sometimes I feel like I am running a marathon at times. There are days that I wish I could remember what it feels like to sit down let alone have an uninterrupted night of sleep! Still, I wouldn't trade these days of raising our kids for anything. I absolutely love the walk of life that God has put me in!
There are times, however, that I think I get ahead of myself and don't take enough time to pause and make sure that my life is in order. A perfect example of this happened just this morning! I was being my usual busy self and thought I would be a good Proverbs 31 woman and get up while it is still dark and go to Walmart to do our monthly grocery shopping. (Hey - it sure helped me make this decision when I realized I could shop solo and not take the chance of having a 3 ring circus in the aisles of Walmart!)
Anyway, I got up and dressed in the quietness of a sleeping household, kissed Dave and was on my way to a early yet peaceful shopping trip. On my way home, Dave called and asked me to pick up donuts for Nathan's birthday breakfast, so I made a slight detour to the Wawa and then came home and unloaded the car, put the mountain of groceries away and then decided that I could finally take off my shoes and relax for a little bit before going to Julia's tournament game. (Her team is undefeated at the moment - yay!)
When I went to take off my shoes, I was suddenly horrified, mortified and highly amused all at the same time when I realized that when I put my shoes on in the peaceful dark hours of the morning, I had put on one of my shoes and one of Dave's! I had flaunted my new style of footwear for over an hour at Walmart and then again to the gazillion people that flood the Wawa on Saturday mornings!
For the first few seconds of realizing my mistake I was embarrased and then I burst into hysterical laughter! Here I thought I would go and act like a totally sane mother for an hour or two and actually get my shopping done without multiple potty breaks and "clean up in isle # whatever" but nooooooo, I had to go dressed like some crazy woman who can't even match her shoes!
The saying usually goes "You can dress them up but you can't take them out", but in my case..."You can take them out but you can't dress yourself".

Update on Midwife

Some of you have asked what has been happening with Diane Goslin.
According to PA news, the fine of $11,000.00 has been waived...for now. She is in the midst of an appeal, but the judge who waived her fee has given her very little hope for continuing her practice.
Her legal fees have surpassed $40,000.00 and later this month the Amish community will have a fund raising rally for her. Whether or not she is able to practice midwifery will not change the way that the Plain People have their children. If she is unable to attend their births, they will have their babies unattended which of course raises the risk of complications.
Please continue to pray for the judge to rule in favor of allowing Diane to continue her ministry.

Please Pray

I am asking for prayer for the woman who assisted me in the birth of our daughter Alyssa. Some of you know that she was taken to court because she attends home births without being a licensed nurse. She is licensed in midwifery and has attended over 5000 births in the 25 years that she has practiced.
A few days ago, she was ordered to cease and desist all practice and was fined $11,000.00. Her lawyer has appealed the decision, but until further notice she can no longer practice.
Diane is a wonderful godly woman whom God has blessed with a special gift. She has quite a ministry to those whom she serves and I believe that she should be allowed to continue her practice.
You can check out more info on Diane at this sight:
http://www.savehomebirth.com/news_and_views

Thanks for praying with me!

A Mom's Life in Less Than 3 Minutes

If you are a Mom, you gotta check out this clip!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=w_oc1j5NakY

Another Field Trip!

Our family took advantage of some free time this weekend and headed down to Williamsburg, VA for a field trip/mini vacation!

We started out on Saturday morning by meeting my parents at the Jamestown Settlement where the kids were able to see life sized replicas of the Powhatan Indian village, Jamestown Fort, and the Susan Constant and the Discovery. (The Godspeed was docked somewhere else for the weekend so they had a similar sized ship named the Elizabeth.)

Jim & Mark in a Powhatan Hut.

Julia & Alyssa grinding corn.

Mark & Matt with Gramps on the Susan Constant.

The boys trying on the armor at James Fort.

My Dad in the Jamestown Church.

Learing how to do laundry in 1607.

On Sunday we had a wonderful time visting Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. The kids had a blast riding all the rides, and Matt and Nathan got to ride their first roller coaster. They both loved The Big Bad Wolf!

Alyssa riding the bugs!

All the kids in The Land of the Dragons.

On Monday, we visited Historic Jamestown. This is the original sight where the settlers built Jamestown. We got to watch archeologists dig in the actual ruins and see some of the artifacts they have uncovered. We also got to watch some men working in the glass houses. It is amazing to see these men take a hunk of glowing goo and tranform it into a lovely piece of art! They actually blow into a long pipe with the hot glass at the end and as they shape it, it grows into a pitcher, vase or some other useful container.

Posing with Pocahontas.

Making a glass pitcher.

Blowing the glass.

We had such a wonderful time together! The Lord gave us beautiful weather and it was great to be able to see the kids enjoying learning about the start of our nation.

Couldn't resist this pose!

A Slew of Birthdays!

Since I didn't post over the summer, I missed a whole bunch of birthdays. Four of them - in less than 5 weeks!

Matthew turned 5 in July. He is so full of life. Passionate about everything and anything, there is never a dull moment with Matt (or Spike as we call him) around. He loves to read, talk, play Nintendo and swim. He told me that he wants to be a life guard when he grows up!

Alyssa turned 2 in August. We put all of the kids in camp except her this summer, and having that time with Mommy all to herself did wonders! She began talking in complete sentences and over came her shyness around other kids. Now we can't get her to stop talking! She loves Tinkerbell, Dora and Polly's and loves to sing with her brothers and sisters.

Julia turned 13 in August. Dave and I decided a long time ago that we would give our kids purity rings when they reached the appropriate age. We gave Julia her ring on the day that she turned 13. It was a wonderful (and yes- emotional) time. What a precious thing to see her making this commitment not only to keep herself pure but to pursue Godliness in all areas of her life! Julia loves to read - in fact I can't keep enough books around to satisfy her! She also loves to play soccer and has her first game tomorrow!

Jim turned 12 in August. He loves to build with Legos and likes to read Redwall and Star Wars books. His favorite gift that we got him was his hamsters. (This was a personal sacrifice for myself because I have a "thing" about rodents!) He named them Jack and Barbosa. He is excited because he gets to start attending the teen Bible study at camp this fall.

Well, now that July and August are over, we get a break from the birthdays until November and December!

More pictures

Thought I would post a few more pictures of our 1st day of school ~ enjoy!
Swimming in the surf.

Collecting Sea Nettles

Alyssa can be brave if she holds Julia's hand!

Spike is always a ham!

Sisters...is it my imagination or does Amanda's grin look evil??!


One last look at the ocean.

First Day of School!

If you have followed my blog in the past, you know that our family always starts school with a trip to Ocean City. We learn things in the car along the way to make it educational, and then we feast on Thrasher's french fries for lunch and enjoy the afternoon at the beach.

This year on the way down, my mom gave a talk on sea life and we learned many new things about sharks. (Did you know that the Sand Tiger Shark has 2 uterus, and that there are many babies inside each one? The strongest baby in each uterus eats all the others before they are born. Puts a new twist to sibling rivalry, huh?)

We also learned about the life of Beethoven and got to listen to many of his works, including the Moonlight Sonata and the 9th Symphony. What a gifted man!

Anyway...we had a blast yesterday! The fries were great and the water was warm. The kids had fun swimming with their Gramps and playing in the sand with Grammy.

On the way home, we got to visit with my Aunt and Uncle who live in a little town called Trappe. This is the town that my Mom grew up in. The older kids got to go to Uncle Jimmy's farm and watch the combines work while I stayed with the little girls and watched them play in the very playhouse that my mom played in when she was young.

What a great way to kick off our school year!

Look Mom, No Teeth!

I love it when my kids lose both of their front teeth at the same time! Nathan lost his just a few weeks ago, so we are still getting a good laugh every time he tries to say something with an "S" in it.

I couldn't resist posting a few shots of our cute little "snaggletooth"! Enjoy!

New Beginnings

What a summer! I can't believe my last post was in April. A lot has been going on - I guess enough to keep me too busy to blog.

If you know anything about our family, you would know that we practically live over at Beachmont in the summer! Our kids go to camp there of course, but along with that, some of them were helping out with various skits and Bible stories, all of them were taking swimming lessons every Monday night, our two oldest kids went to Teen Night every Tuesday and if that weren't enough I helped to run the concession stand for Friday Family nights!

Although it was a busy summer, it was a wonderful break from our regular routine (I use the word routine very loosely) and we are all ready for the begininning of a new school year.

Okay, so I am ready, along with 2 or 3 of the kids. Some of them are not too thrilled about things like pre-algebra, literature and waking up early every morning!

But - ready or not here they come! Want them or not, like them or not, changes are right around the corner! Here are some of the new beginnings that are headed our way.

~New school year. (We are adding a pre-schooler to the mix of 8th, 5th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st)

~New school activity. (We joined our church's Homeschool Co-op and are looking forward to the fellowship each week.)

~New Teenager. (We could look at it one of two ways - either Julia is our first teen at 13, or Jim is our second teen at 12 - either way...HELP!!!)

~New schedule. (Gone are the care free summer days when waking up is somewhat optional!)

~New job. (Sort of - Julia is on a soccer team this year so I am joining the ranks of Mom's taxi services!)

~New quiet times. (I confess that I have slipped back into a lazy quiet time schedule - back to early mornings!)

~New mercies. (Thank God they come every morning!)

... may God be the Force behind me, the Goal before me, the Protection around me and the Life within me!

Steps of Faith

"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you'."

Genesis 12:1

Abram was called by God to "go to the land I will show you". He was supposed to pack up his family, his possessions and all of his servants and go to somewhere. He was not given any more specifics than this. No maps, no points of interest along the way and no final destination.

Can you imagine (especially those of you with children) loading up all of your household goods into a moving van, getting your family loaded up into the car, saying by to your dearest friends and family and just taking off down the road without a destination in mind?

This is exactly what Abram did. God spoke to him and he obeyed. I am sure that he must have had doubts about this journey God was telling him to make, but he had faith in this great God who said that he would lead him to a land and would make him a great nation. Abram had nothing to go on but the promises of God - but oh what wonderful promises they were!

~ That he would become a great nation

~ That God would bless him

~ That God would make his name great

~ That he would be a blessing

~ That God would bless those that blessed him

~ That God would curse those who cursed him

~ That all people would be blessed through him

Can you imagine the great anticipation that Abram must have had? He was being led by GOD, and if he had faith enough to follow, all these blessings would be his!

Now, so many years later, we can't help but see all the people that have been impacted by the simple obedient faith of this one great man. He has indeed become a great nation and all have been blessed through him.

Well, I'm sure that most of you have heard this familiar story from Genesis. I have another story that is very similar about someone who is very dear to me.

There was a young man in the early 1970's who had a vision to begin a certain ministry for young people. He knew that God was calling him to this ministry, but he wasn't sure how it was to become a reality. At the time he was working as a youth pastor within a local church.

One day, this young man got a call that the great aunt of a friend wished to meet and talk with him and his wife about their ministry with young people. He agreed and went to the farm where this elderly lady lived. Her name was Mrs. Foard.

Once this young couple was seated at her home, Mrs. Foard jumped right into the conversation by asking them a very pointed question. "What does God want you to do?" I am sure that the young man was quite surprised by this direct question from a complete stranger, but with the strong call of God in his heart he readily answered, "God has called me to develop a Christian camping ministry for young people".

Mrs. Foard's response to his answer surprised him even more than the original question. She said, "Young man, I have been praying for you for 6 years! I would like to give you the gift of 21 acres of my property to begin making this vision that God has given you a reality!"

Can you imagine how taken aback this young couple must have been? Here they had felt that God was leading them in a definite direction, yet they could not see how to get there. Now, they had arrived at this place and through this woman's generosity, God was GIVING them the very land that they needed to begin the ministry He had called them to! They must have felt somewhat like Abram when he arrived in Canaan and the Lord said to him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you...Go walk through the length and breadth of the land for I am giving it to you."

Even though they now had the property to begin their ministry on, this couple had many more obstacle to overcome in order to get their ministry up and running. They would have to work long and hard and they would have to take some major steps of faith before they could see the fruits of their labors paying off.

For starters, they would have to give up their current job at the local church. Then of course, they would be without health insurance or their pension plan. To make matters worse, their family was not very supporting...especially the young man's father-in-law! He thought that this young man was following a dream and he was taking his daughter with him. How in the world could he possibly support a wife with the money from a dream?

Then, there was the problem of finding a place to live. When they saw the house that they would be able to live in, it was almost to much for the young man's wife, but this young man had such a vision that he could see what it could be not what it was.

He excitedly walked around the property and pointed out the places where they planned to build different things. A baseball diamond, cabins, a pond, etc. He was living out the vision that God had given him so long ago!

Like Abram, this man had nothing to go on but the promises of God - and it was more than enough! Just like Abram, the simple step of faith that this young man took has impacted hundreds of lives over the last 30 years.

I am sure that most of you are familiar with the ministry that this young man started. When it first started, it was called Beachmont Christian Camp. The first year that they were able to run a camping program, they only had 50 campers. Over the years, this number has grown to over 1500 and Beachmont has become much more that just a Christian camp. The aspects of their ministry are too many to list as are the scores of people that have been reached through God's work there. The name has been changed to Beachmont Christian Ministries and the original 21 acres have grown to about 50 acres all being used for the glory of God.

The young man in the story is my father, Paul Twining. I know that he is a very humble man and would say that the glory all belongs to the Lord. This is very true, but if the Holy Word of God can recognize Abram for his act faith in "following a dream" than I think it fitting to recognize my father as a man who took a step of faith and "followed a dream".

I don't need to know all the details as long as there is Someone I can trust to lead me.

The Twining "Home sweet home"!

(I like the KEEP OUT sign on the door!)

The trailer that our family lived in during the remodeling of our home.

The finished product in the later 70's.

(The house has had a great room and a sun porch added on since then.)

FAITH

The definition of faith according to Webster is Unquestioning belief that doesn't require proof or evidence. According to Webster, we don't need proof to have faith, but we as Christians are blessed with evidence of the great God that we place our faith in. We have the Bible. 66 wonderful books by 40 authors who were inspired by God Himself. This Book took 1600 years to complete!

The definition of faith according to Hebrews 11 is a bit different than Webster's definition. "Faith is the substance, (the assurance, reality, confirmation, title deed) of things hoped for, the evidence (conviction, proof, conviction of their reality) of things not seen."

According to the Bible, we are saved through faith, live by faith, receive righteousness through faith, are justified by faith, have access to God's grace by faith, receive the promise of the Spirit by faith, do God's work by faith, and wait for His return in faith. Faith is vital to the life of a Christian.

Faith affects our lives in different ways everyday. We have faith that when we get into our cars we will arrive at our destination. We have faith that the food that we buy at the grocery store which is grown by absolute strangers is not going to be harmful to us. We have faith that our doctors are competent and therefore place our health in their hands. Without faith our lives would be very difficult!

Hebrews offers us many examples of how faith affected the people of God. We read about Abel. His sacrifice was pleasing to God and by faith he was commended as a righteous man. It talks about Enoch whose faith caused him to please God so that God took him from the earth and he did not experience death. His faith delivered him from death! Noah's faith manifested itself in works. As James says, "Faith without works is dead". Noah's act of building the ark came completely from his faith in God.
There are many more examples of faith in Hebrews. By faith Abraham... by faith Isaac... by faith Jacob... by faith Joseph... by faith Moses... by faith Rahab... James even goes on to tell us that he doesn't have time to talk about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets!
Faith is so important in the life of the Christian. Faith is when we please God, admit our dependence upon Him, and continually seek to rely upon Him and His grace.

Our faith in God should affect our attitude towards this world. True faith produces conviction not preference and convictions are non-negotiable. No matter what trials and temptations this world may bring, the convictions that come through our faith in God must stand firm. We cannot afford to conform to the patterns of the world and jeopardize the affect that our faith may have on others. Just as James speaks of those from the past whose faith is an example to us now, so our faith may now and in the future be commendable enough to be listed alongside of these great heroes of faith from the past.

"...Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

The "After Shock" of the Ladies Retreat

I had the privilege of attending our church's Ladies Retreat over the past few days. This was the first time that I had joined the ladies of our church at Black Rock, and I must say it was a very refreshing time! The Holy Spirit's presence was so evident throughout the entire time and was moving greatly among us.
All of the teachings on grace, the worship times, small group discussions, personal solitude, and even the skit were clearly anointed by God and many walked away changed for the better.
The last teaching we had that was given by Laurie was very timely for me as a mom. She spoke about having grace for the ordinary days. Those of you who are moms can relate to those "ordinary days" where you wonder if you will ever do anything other than feed you family, wash their clothes, clean the house, put away dishes, reprimand the kids, feed babies, change babies, wash babies, and take care of anything and everything else that needs attending to with in the bounds of motherhood! (Of course being a mom has many brights spots such as watching your baby give their first smile, all the snuggle time from your favorite little people and seeing your kids understanding the father heart of God.) It was so refreshing to be reminded that God indeed will pour out sufficient grace not only during the trials we may face but on all those ordinary days that we face so often.
I was excited to be getting back home to my ordinary life with my family after the retreat, but all of us that rode up together decided that we should take advantage of the fact that we were childless and we went to BB's right after lunch on our way home. After filling our car with all of our bargains, we were ready to head home through the ice and snow!
Our first stop was Crystal's house. Her house is at the top of a very steep driveway. This very steep driveway was not plowed. Amy, who was driving, wasn't phased in the least. "Oh, I have four wheel drive", she says as she turns into the very steep, very slippery driveway. We were spinning wheels before we even got halfway up the driveway.
Now, anyone who has ever driven in the snow knows that if you don't make it up a hill the only way to get off the hill is to go backwards down the hill. As we were slipping and sliding backwards down that driveway, Amy was praying out loud that God would help her down the hill and the other three of us were jamming our feet on our invisible brake pedals praying that we would stay on the driveway and not fall off the steep inclines on the side of the driveway!
Thank the Lord we did make it back down the driveway and Crystal's husband jumped into his truck and picked up Crystal and her groceries and of course made it back up their driveway on his first try. Must be a guy thing.
I was supposed to call Dave when we left Crystal's house , but he had called when we were transferring the groceries to their truck. He left a message wondering where I was. Our original plan was for him to pick me up at Amy's but I wasn't sure now what he wanted to do, so I called him back. No answer. I tried his cell phone. No answer. I call our home number again and left a message and then left a message on his cell phone.
We had to make a decision since I had lots of frozen items from BBs so we decided that Amy should just take me home so that I could put the food away. I finally got a hold of Dave after I got home. He had been shoveling some one's driveway for them and didn't feel his phone vibrating through his heavy coat. So I came home to an empty house.
It wasn't empty for long since they were just in town, so I got to hug my husband and all the little people that I missed so much and then sat down in the rocker with Alyssa. Dave said that she wasn't feeling to well, so I thought maybe a little "mommy time" would help her to feel better. It wasn't long before she was asleep and I was nodding off shortly after, trying to partake in the conversations that my family was having. (Not much sleep at the retreat!) About 45 minutes later Alyssa woke up and I found out why she wasn't feeling too well. She had a major case of "loose bowels" and when I changed her it literally spilled out all over my lap. Not fun. We cleaned up from that and decided it was time to eat. Nothing fancy. Just sandwiches and chips. Easy to make, easy to clean up. Except when your baby eats a bigger piece of Dorito than she should, chokes on it and then proceeds to throw up all over herself. Again - not fun.
Well, at this point I have come to the decision that God has decided to give me a lesson in "Grace for the Ordinary Days" the minute I arrived at home, except that this wasn't quite the "ordinary" I had in mind when Laurie was speaking. This was more like one of those "extraordinary" days that come every so often to remind us how blessed our "ordinary" lives can be - and it wasn't over yet. Nope - not yet.
I decided that I needed to take a bath and get cleaned up from... ummm...Alyssa. So I got cleaned up and decided that it would be nice to get the book I am reading to the kids and read them a chapter. They were excited and I settled down in my rocker with my feet up to read only to hear Dave say, "Have you seen the dog?"
We had let Roxie out just before dinner to relieve herself and then when Alyssa threw up she was forgotten for a little while. Well, she must have taken offense to having been forgotten and decided that she would go for a little tour around the neighborhood. Dave and several of the kids hop in the van and go to look for her, while I stayed home with the other kids in case she showed up.
About 45 minutes later, she "appeared" on our door step covered with dirty, icy snow. Back to the bathtub, this time with a yucky dog who hates getting a bath. Of course after bathing a dirty dog in a human bathtub, the tub needs to be thoroughly scrubbed! I got all that done and decided that wet dog smell mixed with Comet was not quite what I wanted to smell like and headed up to the bathroom to take yet another shower!
Dave came back and we prayed with the kids and put them to bed. We watched the ending of a movie we had started several days ago and the went to bed ourselves. I was so tired I could barely stay awake to pray with Dave. Ah - sweet slumber!
As I look back at all the events of yesterday, I see that throughout all of these things God was indeed pouring out His grace upon me. I was able to take it all in stride and even managed to be singing one of the songs that we learned on the retreat. The words from the chorus say, "I come running to You when I fear when I'm tried. I come running to You - to Your blood to Your side. There my soul finds rest."
So, here I sit on Sunday morning with Alyssa sleeping on my lap - unable to go to church but more than able to rejoice in the day that the Lord has made because His grace is more than enough to get me through the ordinary days and the days that turn out to be not so ordinary!

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens."
Psalm 68:19

Bubbles!!!

Remember how fun it was as a kid to pop the strips of packing bubbles? Well, Dave often has large machines shipped to him for the company that he works for and they are packed with huge strips of "mega bubbles"! These are way bigger than the bubbles I used to pop! Anyway this morning he brought in a whole box full of bubble strips and the kids had a blast jumping up and down on these and popping all the bubbles. Just thought I'd share the fun!

Excellence acquired is to be required

This past Saturday I was able to spend a lot of time with my mom. I picked her up in the morning and we drove up to BB's to do some shopping.
After shopping we went to Lapp's Family Restaurant which is just a mile or two from BB's and had lunch together. I had such a wonderful time talking about many things with my mom. She has such a wonderful way of sharing insight that God has given her while she watches Dave and I raise our children. She offers suggestions and often has the answer to difficult situations that I may be having with my children or with myself!
After spending all this time with my mom, I was able to see some areas in our family that sorely needed improvement. She in no way implied that we were having problems, but through me sharing with her and with the insight she gave, God revealed many things to me.
Most of these things I found needed to be approached with me first taken the initiative to set a better example. I realized that my quiet times had been weak and shallow and I really need to get back to getting adequate nourishment for my family. I need to be diligent in my physical exercising so that I am able to keep up with my kids better. I need to require better manners of my children. I need to be more consistent in the correction of my children - especially with the younger ones who are going through "tantrum phases"! I need to approach schooling my kids as a privilege, not a burden, and I need to do it as unto the Lord. I need to have the kids pull their share of the chore load around the house and make sure that they finish these chores before they are released to play for the rest of the day. Most importantly, I need to require my kids to spend time daily in the Word on their own - not with Dave or I reading a passage of Scripture to them, but finding for themselves what a joy it is to learn from God's Word with a daily quiet time.
In short, I need to require excellence in living first of my self, and then of my children. The Bible says, "Be EXCELLENT at what is good..." My calling in life right now is to be the best mom that I can be. I am to diligently seek the Lord to give me wisdom in raising these future warriors for Him. If I fail, it is only because I was not striving to be excellent at what I have been called to do. If I fail, then all these years of training will have been for nothing. When my kids are grown up and raising children of their own, I want them to be able to look back and see that they ended up where they are because their mom required excellence not only in their life, but in her own.

"There is nothing I desire to live for but to do some small service for my children, that as I've brought them into the world, I may, if it please God, be an instrument of doing good to their souls."
Susanna Wesley

Being Pious

Having a flexible schedule was always a must growing up in the ministry. It was something I learned at a young age and have carried it with me into my marriage and have been very thankful to be able to apply it in raising my children. Raising this crew requires much flexibility!
Having a daily schedule or routine is a wonderful way to keep your sanity, but sometimes life will throw things at you that require you to alter that routine. Things like children getting sick and needing to go to the doctor in the middle of your school day, running out of milk, or needing to pick up or drop off kids for soccer practice. Sometimes making school more fun for the kids requires changing your daily routine. Sometimes I will wake up to a warm sunny day in the spring or the fall and decide that it is a perfect day to go to the zoo. Having a flexible schedule is a wonderful thing!
I have found, however, that flexibility is not something to be used when trying to have a daily quiet time. For me, it must come early in the morning, first in my schedule, and top priority, no matter how flexible I am willing or able to be. There is no squeezing it in elsewhere in my day. At no other time in my daily routine will I have more freedom, more quiet or less interruptions than in the early hours of the day.
So, how I can I achieve being pious in this area? More often than not I feel like I could be pious later in the day when I've had more sleep. After all, wouldn't I function better as a mother if I had more sleep? Can I trust that I will find that block of time where I can be uninterrupted long enough to have a productive and meaningful quiet time? Not likely!
The only way that I can ensure that I will indeed keep this most important time of learning and hearing from the Lord, is that I put aside my need for flexibility and maintain order in my schedule even if it is only long enough to have this precious time with Jesus.
Susanna Wesley was a woman who thrived off of having an orderly day. She would get her husband up at the same time every day, had meals at the same time every day, and had prayers and devotions at the same time every single day. It was said that even as she measured her hours, so she measured the porridge that she gave her husband every morning!
I have been reading a biography of Susanna's life written by Sandy Dengler. When Susanna's husband Samuel questioned her about her need to be so pious about everything, she gave this reply ~
"A regular and orderly day provides that nothing will be neglected.You might well feel more pious later, but keeping to a strict order ensures that you'll be pious, whether you feel like it at the moment or not. One must never trust whim and feeling."

A Wonderfully Busy Holiday

This holiday season seems like it was more busy than in past years. Our family seemed to cram more events into our schedule than possible! So much has happened in the month of December that if I posted about it all, you would probably get bored reading it!
I thought maybe I would post some pictures that would highlight our holidays.


These are our two December birthday girls. Christiana turned 9 on the 10th, and Amanda turned 3 on the 11th. One of Amanda's favorite gifts was a princess dress up set given to her by Dave's parents. She turns into a princess almost every day as soon as breakfast is over!
Christmas day was wonderful! We started the morning at our house with just our family. We did the "present thing" before breakfast and then we had our traditional Christmas breakfast of French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, and scrapple! MMMMM!!!!
After cleaning up from breakfast we headed over to Dave's parent's house for a few hours to visit with Dave's whole family, and then headed over to my parent's house for a while to visit with my family and to eat steamed shrimp!

We had the wonderful privilege of having my entire family at home for the holidays. My brother Todd is a pastor at Metro Life Community Church near Orlando, and so it's not often that He is able to be home for Christmas. This year he and his family were not only home for Christmas, they were able to stay through the New Year as well.

One of my favorite gifts this holiday season was being able to visit with my dear friend Amy and her husband. They were up visiting her grandparents in West Virginia over the New Year, and we were able to meet half way in Frederick for several hours of much needed fellowship with each other! I have known Amy since we were 15, and we have been through thick and thin together! She got married two years ago, and this is the first time that we have seen each other since her wedding.

All in all it was a wonderful holiday! We had wonderful times with our families and were able to truly enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior.