Admiration

Fall is here. At night as I lay awake whispering last thankful expressions to God, I hear the acorns tumbling off the roof and landing with a soft thud on the ground next to my window. When I drive anywhere, or even walk around my neighborhood, I am awed by the glorious autumn splendor that is bursting colorfully from the trees and fluttering on the fingers of the wind downward to the leaf-strewn ground. The air is crisper, the sunlight is flightier. The days grow tired of holding winter back, and are slowly beginning to sleep in and go to bed early.

This is the time of year where stories start flying through my head and it is all I can manage to type them up before I forget them. There are also a lot of good opportunities for reading in front of the fire, and my mum, dad and I have just started the Little House books again.

Reading these books as an adult is drastically different from hearing them as a child. As I read, I am constantly reminded of families in my life that remind me of Laura Ingalls' family. And in particular, as I read about Mary and Laura's days with Ma, I am increasingly reminded of a lovely lady I know by the name of Sarah Snyder.

Sarah herself blogged once (and I will always remember this) that she believes anything a child CAN do, they ought to learn HOW to do. I remember being struck with the brilliance of this concept; and thought back in my own life about how my mum did this with me and my sibs.

So it is no wonder that I was reminded of Sarah and her girls as I read that:
1. Laura and Mary made their own bed every morning;
2. They helped Ma with the dishes each day, and each wiped off their own cup and plate;
3. On baking day they each made their own little loaf of bread, and once Laura even made a pie in her patty pan;
4. Mary made a doll's dress for Laura's birthday (she couldn't have been more than six-years-old) and Laura knew how to knit when she was four;
5. Mary helped churn the butter;
6. The girls were expected to be polite and use manners.

Sarah is every bit as innovative as Ma in finding ways for her daughters to help. I can picture them doing these same sorts of things right now - minus churning the butter, perhaps.

So, Sarah, if you read this, know that I feel privileged to watch you and Erik raise your family, and that I am taking many notes as I watch so that, like you, I may someday be a woman who is as wise and creative at leading her children each day as Caroline Ingalls was.

If you, my readers, feel that you simply must find out more about this neat family I've mentioned, feel free to visit their blog: http://erikandsarahsnyder.blogspot.com/

Golden Hour

I wrote this while driving from A-town to SJ a couple weeks ago. I plan to take it apart and put it in a story sometime, but until then, here is the raw picture. :)


Endless vineyards at golden hour
Hills rising out of the whole horizon
Great thunderclouds lined up and marching inland
Like a fleet of warships
The sun standing on the westernmost sky
Boldly
Shadows casting themselves upon the hills
Which are yet half-golden
Columns of Eucalyptus trees
Leaning their own shadows over highways
The sun pouring himself warmly
Across the setting countryside
And that certain glow
That comes over the whole world
When it sets

The Bright Side

Last week was really awful. I won't go into detail - you'll just have to believe me. Truly, it was one of the worst weeks I've had all year. Pretty much everything fell apart, broke, didn't go as planned or just plain failed. It was pretty bad.

What I usually do when I have bad days or weeks like that, is try to imagine how much worse it could be. For example, my car broke down right when I needed it the most and I had to rent a car to drive to San Jose for the weekend. So to help myself see the bright side, I tried to think of how it could be worse.


Well, the rental place could have charged me twice as much for being under 25, but they didn't... and at least they had a car available on short notice. And even if my power steering doesn't work on my car,  at least the engine is still sort of running... and it got me back home last weekend, which is a real bonus, because it could have stopped working on the road...


So it takes a bit of creativity, but there is always a way things could be worse - and once you think of those things, your current troubles don't seem quite so bad.

Also, I think God uses the bad weeks to teach us to trust in Him. Things will go wrong in our lives, so it is silly for us to draw our security from our circumstances. But we do anyway, right? What if, instead of drawing our security from our circumstances, we drew our security from Christ? Can you imagine how that would change our reactions to unplanned events in our lives? But I am convinced that God faithfully uses these unplanned events in my own life to show me what is truly important, and to teach me thankfulness.

Every weekend when driving to and from San Jose, I have passed a farm that has great reminders posted up for drivers. When passing the farm, you can see some hand-made signs that say, "Trust Jesus". That is all. And each time I pass them, I am reminded of the only really important thing in life - that I am surrendered to HIM. This week it was a particularly good reminder, because of all that had happened.

Really, even the worst of weeks can be turned into good weeks if we are willing to trust in the One who is in control of our circumstances - namely, Jesus Christ.