He directs the snow to fall...

"He directs the snow to fall on the earth, and tells the rain to pour down."
~~~  Job 37:6.

There is something about even just a dusting of snow falling over our Canadian soil that makes me feel a crisp renewing and anticipation of the heart.  Preparing for Christ's birth and preparing for new beginnings, new revelations and new love to emerge.    To wait exepctedly for our Lords presence each moment.  To pray continuoulsy in thanks.  Its a complete washing of the soul for me.  The autumn is nearing its end, struggles near its end and I exhale as it seems the clouds do, covering the neighbourhood in a white dusting of purity. 

"He sents the snow like white wool, He scatters frost upon the ground like ashes"
~~  Psalm 147:16

 

Im excited for this season coming.  Its a season to be celebrated in joy, thanks and hope.  To rediscover the peace of Jesus Christ.  To re-examine all within me and give thanks and purge of the things that dont bring Him glory

 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean, wash me and I will be whiter than snow

~~Psalm 51:7

Knitting pattern for Kobo Vox Cozy

My amazing hubby got me a Kobo Vox for Christmas, and with a few bats of the eyes I recieved it early :) So it only made sense I knit a cover for the thing (not that I dont have enough projects on the go :p)  I had some left over acrylic yarn (aran weight) ...nothing fancy but something that would do the trick. I doubled it up so it would be thicker. This is in no way a fancy pattern...I just winged it and prayed for the best. To be honest there might even be similar ones out there.  But I dont mind sharing mine as well.  The Kobo Vox's dimensions are 5 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches. 

This is how I made mine:

Cast on 30 stitches on a size 7.5 mm needles. Then you are going to knit six rows ribbed.
Row 1 :  *K2, p2; rep from * to end of row.
Row 2 :  *P2, k2: rep from * to end of row.  
Row 3, and 5: Repeat row 1
Row 4, and 6: Repeat row 2
Row 7:  Knit
Row 8: Purl.

Continue Rows 7 and 8 till you make 30 rows of this stockinette stitch.

Again, thegse are just guidelines...you can do more or a few less depending on your gauge. When you get it to the length you desire,then cast off and then fold it in half, purl side facing out  (this will be the inside) and stitch it up the bottom and one side to make it into the pouch the tablet will go into. And voila!

When your youngest takes your camera

He has captured the moment in the most unique way.  In a way I think as an adult I have forgotten to capture.  There is just so much that happens around us.  My son, Zayden, a few months shy of three, captured a few days ago on my digital camera while we kept company with my cousin and her youngest son.  Flashes flying... now this isnt a cheap camera and my warning signals went off that perhaps this is not the best idea, but I was interested to see in how he would capture the next moments in our livingroom..what would be important to him???



 

Turns out the things that are important to him are very similar to the things that are important to us :) 

Fear and yet still 1000 gifts...

I sat on the phone as the receptionist for the pediatric dentist confirmed our youngests appointment for the first day of December.   

"so just to confirm what we will be doing- 2 silver fillings, 2 white fillings, 4 crowns, he will be needing nerve work done on his four front teeth, x-rays and a cleaning.  You will need to bring him after 7am and hand him over to us, you cannot be in the room with him when we put him under and do the dental work.  Any questions?"

ummm...yes!!   I know God has not given me a spirit of fear but my wee baby (well my 32 pound toddler) is going to have to be sedated and then have massive dental work!  Its not that we were bad parents and didn't brush his teeth, but I guess two years of straight eating around the clock (he nursed like a newborn for that long!) and not being able to brush his molars the best due to him fighting us tooth and nail had something to do with it.

Oh all these what ifs!  What if I just got up and brushed his teeth after he breastfed every hour?  What if I tried a little harder to brush his teeth for the full two minutes?  What if we flat out refused to give him anything with sugar? 

How is he going to feel when he has to go in with these complete strangers?  When they have to make him sleep.  Im sorry, but the thought of it just makes me think he's going to be terrified!  Will he remember?  I know Im going to be a mess if I dont keep my eyes on Jesus the whole time.  And thats just what I havent been doing in this very well.  I know that God over and over again tells us to not be afraid (I believe its over 300 times in the Bible isnt it?) and yet here I sit, knowing my family has God on our side, that God will be with my son during the procedure, the doctors and nurses and staff, with my other children and my husband and I.   But its so funny how we forget God or dont even want to reach out to God in our times of trouble isnt it? 


Isaiah 40:10~ Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.


1 Peter 5:7 ~ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Romans 8:15 ~So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”

I ask for those reading this for your prayers, that God would cast out all the anxiety and fears I have for this day coming up this week, that He would comfort our son Zayden as he goes into surgury, to be with the doctors and nurses and staff and to just cover them all in His love.  That things would go well and that recovery would be quick.  
And through the upcoming week will be a bit different, I continue to count my 1000 gifts

301-  Zayden wiping his nose on a sweater in a store...so embarrasing, but made everyone laugh)
302-  preparing for Advent - anticipating the coming of Christ
303-  children decorating the Chirstmas tree
304-  new ice skates for an upcoming frozen season
305-  the kids Christmas shopping done!
306-  salt, cornstartch and water all mixed up and ornaments created
307-  the fact that my son CAN have his teeth repared, blessed to live in a country that can also help us pay for the procedure.
308-  ice blue snowflakes
309-  making a cab driver smile
310-  witnessing God work and move in friends and family
311-  Kids decorating the grandparents Christmas tree.  About six bulbs per branch!
312-  blessed with a violin,  time to learn, so excited!
313-  popcorn, icecream and Veggie Tales
314-  my husband all full of laughter and joy. 
315-  early Christmas gifts
316-  children finishing a Nativity scene for our home

And we do Advent for the first time

This is the first time I have ever even thought about doing Advent with my family.  Never before have I had the full out desire to do this in our home.  This year, I felt God really nudging me to dig right into it.  To explore it and take part in Advent.  To have Him as a focus this holiday season more than we ever have before in our home.   No matter how crazy it gets over the next weeks, the gifts, the red and green, the money, the Ho-Ho-Ho everywhere we go...


Jesus has to be the anticipation, Jesus has to be the center.

To celebrate the continuous love of God, with no beginning and no end.  To Seek God over the next weeks and to find Him wrapped in a manger, love shining for the entire world.  The first gift ever given.  God gave first, and we remember this. 

To have that hope in Christ, to renew it.  To have that joy in knowing we are His children!  Loved fully and adored!  To unfold the love that Jesus has for us, and celebrating the anticipation of His birth.  That little baby boy, spottless and blameless, without blemish, who would later be beaten, crucified... for you and for me.   This no greater love. 

We will sit nightly around our dinner table.  Bibles in hand (we will be using the scripture for each week found here )
waiting for God to speak to us through the pages of His Word.  Helping us to relive that moment in time when He came down to show us the way. 

Multitudes of Gifts #285- 300

Its in these tmes when we dont see exactically why God is allowing us to go through a struggle, or face sadder emotions that we must continue to write out our gifts.  They are everywhere.  God blesses us everyday.  Yet how fast we can forget even the things He shares with us moments afterwards. 

285-  making caramel apples and maple sugar fudge with the kids
286-  slumber parties in the livingroom
287-  a husband allowing Christmas lights up this early
288-  being stretched
289-  very thoughtful and random emails from friends.
290-  tears that flow down and then up to our Father who wipes them away
291-  cheesy cheesy laughter in unison- three children and a crazy Mother.
292-  a friend blowing a kiss through the window to cheer a cranky me (I did appreciate it Carly!)
293-  a surprise visit from my Godmother, cousin and her children.
294-  knitting nights
295-  much needed worship
296-  frost on the roof
297-  beyond excellent parent/teacher interviews.  A school year looking much better than the year before.  Thank You Lord
298-  12 new strings on the BC Rich.  Sounds beautiful. 
299-  worship flowing on the livingroom couch on a Sunday night, alone, just a girl and her guitar and the Holy Spirit
300-  Life Group-  what fun this is!


 

When God wants to move the enemy does too

I know that its a battle to just keep sanity for myself.  I have been called to be a Mother and a wife.  I have been called to enjoy each moment with my children, even if its a melt down at 9pm during worship at our Church service on a Thursday night.  Its a struggle though I must admit.  My impluse is to get right frustrated that my kids are clearly interfeering with my joy.  But there IS joy in this too.  I get to take care of these little balls of energy and love them regardless of their attitudes.  (please remind me of this the next time my two year old throws a tantrum)This song was being sung,  worship was amazing and I stood just in my secret place with Christ.  This whole service was so worship focused.  I so very much needed this.  My daughter taps me on the shoulder and tells me her youngest brother is beyond angry in the kids room.  He was beyond inconsolable, beyond tired, just Hulk in two year old form.   I tried to make him happy, took him into the other room in the dark.  "The righteous son, he is Yahweh.... Yahweh,  Yahweh"  I could here the whole Church worshiping the Great I Am.  I thought I could be very angry with my son for interupting this moment of such joy in God.  But I knew God called me for this moment in the dark with this screaming Zayden of mine.  I sang quietly (which he dislikes) the name of our God.   He was just so not having any happiness.  He was home focused and I knew I had to take these children home.  I dressed him and headed back out into the Sanctuary and sat him down amongst the church standing in worship of the King of Kings to dress my other two children. 

For a brief moment he stopped crying, almost feeling the Lord moving in amongst His people.  But it was short lived and the tears started.  I rushed to put on hats mittens and scarfs, I still think we mangaged to leave a mitten or two behind in amongst the tears. 

I think it was our Pastor who said in that moment to the Chruch that God moves in times like this and inside my head I heard myself say "so does the enemy" and I knew I had a choice to just be frustrated and angry with my children or to just love on them and get them home. 

The trip home was just as sad and noisy as it was inside.  He screamed in frustration the whole way home in the wagon.   In the door I sent the two oldest to one room to read while I put this wee tired lamb into bed, boots still on, he was out in two minutes, resting between his Mom and Dad.  Still that song echoed in my head. 

God was still with me and I could still worship.

I came downstairs and I had a choice, I could veg and watch tv, forget the chaos or continue to worship my God.  I cried I must admit for a good ten minutes, the utter exhaustion, trying so hard not to just let my frustration spill out onto my children.  The past three or so weeks, I have felt this depression I battled a few years ago try to creep back into my life.  I am determined that my God can defeat it in me, and while its hard,  I refuse to let it get to the point where I feel nothing.   I still want to feel Chirst.  Him in my life is something I couldnt imagine not having.  I prayed, and thanked Him for keeping me at a point this Thursday night that I wouldnt have handled as well on my own.   I read the Bible till I felt every uneasy feeling that crept in time to time cease.

His grace, His peace and joy,  His comfort-  it can rain down on us in every moment.  I think this past Thursday night was another reminder for me of this.  I have to stop looking at Jesus as a religion with doing things just this way or that way for worship, for praise, for prayer.  He is to be approached as a friend, a relationship with the One and Only who can help us in every. single. thing.  We must praise Him in everything because then the enemy will flee, because the second we dont give God praise, we are giving the enemy a free pass to move. 

His Grace.

My daughter picks up knitting again and again, trying to knit something, anything.  Her gauge much too wide, then much to tight.  Tears flow and she feels like she is the worst knitter in the world.  She is reminded that she isnt the worst, but learning, and even the best most accomplished knitters in the world started off just like that.  I remind her of the beautiful yarn she spun only a week ago, beautiful colours, the weight of the yarn, wispy then worsted, fingering to bulky.  She asks if that is okay.  It is okay because it is her expression of how that roving should spin.  People pay loads of money for yarn that is purposefully made to be a bit crazy... It doesnt have to be streamlined perfect.  Its art yarn!  Shifting our view of what she created to a different perspective from it being a bunch of mistakes to something beautiful. 

Its been warm, the kids run outside in t-shirts on the 8th November day (although a sweater would probably be better). Still tempted to run outside barefoot while laughing histarically at eachothers ideas and excitement.  Our two year old outside in winter boots, a t-shirt and a diaper...so Canadian.  These kids love to be outside. My son cries because he didnt win the one race, and there has to be a discussion on what the importance is of playing with friends. Its not about winning or loosing, its about fun and love. teamwork.  They continue on playing and for now, there has been no more tears.


Watching my chidren as they have challenges come against them reminds me more and more of how fragile our minds and hearts are... how fragile and full of pride my mind and heart can be and is a lot more than it should be.  Even when we know we are loved deeply and fully by Jesus, how His love covers all our hurts, we still get worked up and at times fall apart.  Anger can sink in and there is that "not good enough" feeling that creeps in.  Even though God's amazing Grace covers us and fills in those holes that we feel we have created. 

We are doing a book study in Life Group at our Church, by  Francis Frangipane called "Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God".   As we dig into Part Two:  The Spirit of Grace, the first paragraph on the page of Chaper Five spoke to me loud

"If you hear a teaching and feel as though it were unattainable in your condition, you have only heard half the message. you missed the grace that is always resident in the heart of God's truth.  Truth without grace is only half true.  Remember this always:  grace and truth are realized in Jesus Christ (John 1:17-For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.)  What God's truth demands, His grace will provide."

I think the past few weeks I have really been forgetting that God is full of Grace.  Loaded to the brim with it.  I have felt definatly less than worthy of God's goodness and to be in His Kingdom.  When I feel like this I feel like hiding from God.  Kinda hard when He is in my heart! I have felt inadequate and very discourraged because I have forgotten about God's Grace...I have said it again and again, and heard it but time and time again latley I never really thought it.  Really sat and reflected on it.  He is a good God and He loves me.  He provides the grace and forgiveness.  I belong to Him and I need to drawn nearer and nearer to Him when I feel inadequate because He is the only one who can make me feel adequate.  His Grace is enough.