Wednesdays With Words-Birds, Beast and Relatives

 

A few weeks ago, I completed My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.   The best word to describe it is delightful.  I don't remember where I heard of it, it was on a blog somewhere, and I am so glad that I came across it.  It is the recounting of Mr. Durrell's childhood years in Greece on the island of Corfu from 1933 to 1939.  I laughed quite a bit and reveled in the colorful descriptions of his family and the surrounding island.  It was supposed to be a naturalist's take on the flora and fauna of Corfu but his family kept coming into the story.  I was very happy to find that there is a follow-up book in Birds, Beasts, and Relatives.  I believe there is one more after that, but our library does not have it.  I did check out another of his books that he wrote about his later life.  I may end up buying them because I have enjoyed them so much. 

His descriptions are eloquent and bring a picture to my mind right away.  An example from the chapter I just finished "The Pygmy Jungle"

"Then, whistling for Roger, we went off through the sunlit olive groves, striped with shade, the whole island, spring-fresh and brilliant, lying before us.  At this time of the year, the olive groves would be full of flowers.  Pale anemones with the tips of their petals dyed red as thought they had been sipping wine, pyramid orchids that looked as though they had been made of pink icing, and yellow crocuses so fat, glossy, and waxy-looking you felt they would light like a candle if you set a match to their stamens.  We would tramp through the rough stone paths among the olives, then for a mile or so follow the road lined with tall and ancient cypresses, each covered in a layer of white dust, like a hundred dark paint brushes loaded with chalk white.  Presently we would strike off from the road and make our way over the crest of a small hill and there, lying below us, would be the lake, perhaps four acres in extent, its rim shaggy with reeds and its water green with plants."

 It has been neat to read also because he describes in some detail the lives of certain tiny creatures, and today I was thrilled to read of the diving bell or water spider.  I read about that spider last year with my eldest in her reader, but her readings did not contain the depth of description and vivid imagery that he provides. 

The other offshoot of these readings is that I am trying to convince my husband to move to Greece.  He pushes back with nonsensical things about cost of living and how I don't like the hot weather.  In the below freezing temps we've been having, it sounds downright amazing!

Wednesday's With Words-Can You Trust God?

 

 I am reading through Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.  It has been a very challenging book and has made me appreciate God's sovereignty and wrestle with some issues I have had with trusting God.  I am finding a wealth of information to write from every chapter in my quote book, and I have to remind myself not to copy entire chapters.  I have appreciated the book so much because Mr. Bridges is very real about the troubles we face as we go through life and does not in any way try to sugarcoat anything.  He says on pages 15-16:

"Yet, I acknowledge it often seems more difficult to trust God than to obey Him.  The moral will of God given to us in the Bible is rational and reasonable.  The circumstances in which we must trust God often appear irrational and inexplicable.  The law of God is readily recognized to be good for us, even when we don't want to obey it.  The circumstances of our lives frequently appear to be dreadful and grim or perhaps even calamitous and tragic.  Obeying God is worked out within well-define boundaries of God's revealed will.  Trusting God is worked out in an arena that has no boundaries.  We do not know the extent, the duration, or the frequency of the painful, adverse circumstances in which we must frequently trust God.  We are always coping with the unknown."

This rang so true for me because that is the crux of my struggle.  I want to trust God, but I don't know what is going to happen.  So what I really want is control.  I want to trust God as long as I am controlling what happens.  Control is just an illusion though.  We fragile humans have no idea what will happen in the next moment let alone have enough wisdom to work out the plan for our lives.  We can no more control the working out of our lives than the rising of the sun each or even our next heartbeat.  That is why I was able to take comfort and encouragement from this passage from page 16 also:

 "In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through eyes of faith, not of sense.  And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (see Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone.  It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God's relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances.  It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity."

 I am not going to ever know what is coming next or what the purpose of each trial is (besides conforming me to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29), but I can know God through His Word and that is in what I take comfort.  It will not always be easy.  Life is hard and full of joy and pain, but I rest in the Lord and His promises.  I can rest in Him because He is sovereign and He knows the end of the plan.

A Most Exciting Time of Year

It is time for a most exciting time of year.  It has nothing to do with this, however:

 The ice and snow around here have just been crazy.  Our area is expected to get another 6-12 inches tomorrow.  I'm not sure where we will put it!

No, the true excitement has to do with this:

I've started hunting down books.  I usually just collect for next year, but I thought I would also make the list for when E is in year four.  We had a very profitable trip to a local bookshop yesterday, profitable for me and the bookshop!  I love looking for new books!  It kind of keeps me going through the long months of February and March.  Those are the months I know we are almost done and that we should finish well but oh, we have been at this for such a long time.  The new books help me remember how exciting learning is and to take the time to enjoy each moment of it!

Wednesdays With Words: The Prayer Factor by Sammy Tippit

When I was at LBC, I took a prayer class, and one of the books we read was The Prayer Factor.  I decided to reread it around the turning of the year, and I was bowled over by how practical and challenging it was.  I highly recommend it to all who are following Christ!

"But my experience has found miserable people in both communist and capitalist countries.  Quality of life is not derived from circumstances, cultures, or political ideologies.  Quality of life is found in the Kingdom of God.  Romans 14:17 states, 'For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.'"

 Challenging words about contentment!

Accepting My Need for Routine

A friend of mine posted yesterday about an article about introverts.  I am quite decidedly an introvert.  In the article she referenced, 22 out of the 23 characteristics mentioned described me.  Her post was interesting, though, because she talked about how our culture thinks there is something wrong with introverts, that we need to be fixed, and how people are finally starting to realize that there is value in these characteristics as well.  It was encouraging to read her post and to read the article because it helped me understand the why of why I do some of the things I do or feel certain ways.  (I am in no way excusing sinful behaviors, more things like feeling panic-y if I have to participate in small talk or feeling alone in a crowd.) 
It also brought to mind something else that I have accepted about myself in the last week.  I need a very scheduled routine.  We are in our seventh week of school, and the first six weeks have been kind of chaotic.  We had no real routine, and many things were allowed to interrupt our day to the point that it was sometimes taking until suppertime to finish our work.  I found this very frustrating because we couldn't fully enjoy the fun things that were interrupting us as we knew we still had work to do.  This past weekend I worked out a rough daily schedule, and this week has gone beautifully.  I feel more orderly in my mind, and we are finishing school before lunch with time to ride bikes and go to the playground.
So you may be asking...why was this so hard for you to accept, why didn't you just set up your routine right from the get go?  Well, my life has been filled with people who have told me that I need to relax, go with the flow.  I distinctly remember hearing from one youth leader that I needed to chill out.  All these voices speaking into my life drowned out what I do know to be true about how I function best and said that there was something wrong with it.  I don't have a hard time with, on a Saturday, just hopping in the car with Joel and doing whatever he wants without knowing what it is.  But in our daily life, I need routine.  And I am okay with that.  The children are functioning much better.  We are getting quite a bit accomplished each day and having a lot of fun together.  Everyone knows what is expected of them.  Life is much smoother!

(Here is the link to the original article about introverts!)

Shabby Apple dresses for a year!

I love Shabby Apple's dresses and actually own one that I was lucky enough to buy on ebay!  They are kindly giving away a dress a month for the next year to one of their fans, and you can enter here!  http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3273394801291705844&postID=7683619539079443558&page=5&token=1349824212474
Go now, what are you waiting for!

Firefighters

Holy cow!  I had to try a couple of times before I could log in because I couldn't remember my password!  We've been so busy and I honestly haven't felt like writing.  I'm kind of getting back into it though, although it probably won't be four days a week like before.  We are almost done with our first term of school, and I really want to write about how that is going!  I love the curriculum we are using.  It is more of a method than a curriculum.  I can tell a huge difference in the girls' observation skills since we started using it.

But tonight I am just going to show you something special:

 These lucky men will become firefighters on Thursday.  There are 15 of them swelling the ranks of those who protect our homes and lives.  We'll be happy to have them.

These unfortunate ones didn't make the cut.  Several of them were a little too rotund to be firefighters.  They sadly are headed to the garbage dump to carry out less heroic duties there.