living

Matthew 23:18-20

"...go ye therefore, and teach all nations..."

"'Go ye therefore...' Go simply means live."

"'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me' in all these places. He undertake to establish the goings. 'If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you...' --that is the way to keep going in our personal lives. Where we are placed is a matter of indifference; God engineers the goings."

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Go simply means live. Go to work. Go to your home. Go on that trip. Go to the neighbors house. Just go. Trust that today, you woke up exactly where you are needed. Exactly where He has put you.

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"If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him for myself, and how to get alone with Him; I must take time to worship the Being Whose Name I Bear."

How often do i need to hear this in order to know it? How do i rid myself of the guilt of wasted hours...of the need to somehow redeem lost days.

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"'None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself..." That is how to keep going till we're gone."

In the face of another death, this time in Chad's family, i once again yearn to offer my life. Not as something worthless...why would Jesus die for something worthless? No, that is not what the word is saying. It is confirming my life's infinite worth in the light of what Christ has done. God doesn't deal in "wasted hours", but in what I choose today.

And today i choose to go.


~excerpts from Oct 14th's "My Utmost for His Highest".

to love children

i get a little ridiculous around babies. i've always been drawn to them. but anything older than 6 months or so? didn't really faze me much until i was in my 20s.

these days people wonder sometimes at how much i "love children". some think it's "sweet", some are convinced it's because i "have a heart for them", and some have made it clear that they "don't get it".

gwennie june!

i guess it's because i've seen what happens when they're taken away. 
i've seen what happens when every day for months or years, they're *almost* taken away. 
not just in my own family, though that's what has contributed to my spirit the most, of course. 

i know i wasn't the same after gwennie was born and she stole my heart, and i haven't been the same since. who knows what's going to happen when i have my own someday...sheesh.

i'm not baby crazy. it's not because i "just looove kids and think they're soooo cute."

it's because i see a fleeting preciousness there i hadn't before, a need to take it in, to be near it.

call it morbid, or pessimistic, call it strange but i always look at a small child through the eyes of loss. always.

ian in the hospital last year

maybe that will change someday, i don't know. it's hard to know how and why we react the way we do to sickness and death in babies.


it's not because i don't trust God, or because i'm pessimistic. i think it's really the opposite. i just don't ever want to miss what these children are, and what they have to show me. i feel like so many people do. and i never, ever want to.


tonight, i read Lilli's Story, and once again, it reminded me of these things. it's a beautiful, bittersweet little read. 

Lilli

bye and bye, grandpa...

December 3, 1924 - September 8, 2013

My grandpa Floyd went to be with Jesus this afternoon. Surrounded by 3 of his children, 2 of his grandchildren, and a son and daughter-in-law.

What a strange thing it is, to watch someone take their last shuddering breath in this world...

how.

how do you spend sweet time, cherish, and yet prepare peacefully (as possible) in faith for the coming death of your baby girl?

like this family...Madeleine.