Odd

The maturation process is a strange one. I can long for future stages in life and be reduced to tears over a fond childhood memory in the course of one short conversation. Though I’ve never been prone to violent or prolonged mood-swings, I do find myself with growth-induced emotional whiplash fairly often these days.

Words of Wisdom

It's funny how difficult it is to find the time to blog when I'm on vacation. Yes, it's actually much easier to blog when I'm in school full time. Why? I suppose it is because I am already in the swing of writing constantly.  This doesn't mean that my mind isn't engaged while I'm on vacation. Quite the contrary, actually.

Anyway, here is a link to a 5-minute video with some great advice about marriage. Even though I have not entered this state yet, I still find this message valuable in shaping my understanding of the marriage covenant.

Piper, Carson, and Keller on Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love

When the Jasmine Blooms

. . . and you can't take your nose out of it long enough to get anything productive done. . .

my solution is to make a "jasmine" chain. And wear it on your head. All day long.

It's Summer.

Five Minute Friday: Deep Breath

Linking Up with Lisa-Jo for a five-minute post. No edits, no revisions, no worries. Love this!
Inspiration: "Deep Breath"

Flurries of papers: a student’s output. Question of how to be creative, original, unique, and correct – to give them what they want. In order to get what I want: the ‘A.’
I grow weary of the input and output of education. Of learning the ways of the world, and analyzing.

Always analyzing.

Seventeen weeks of tunnel vision: focus, focus, focus on the light at the end. The little glimmer of hope that whispers “well done, relax, it’s summer.”
I am almost there. I can make it. Through all the coffee, all the late nights with my nose in a book, all the underlining, highlighting, ‘copying’ and ‘pasting,’ quoting, and citing. Through all the tears, and bleary-eyed interactions, impromptu speeches, and late-night library visitations. I am almost there.


Deep Breath. . .

Motherhood should come with. . .

A post in five minuts. {Okay, it actually took me about 15.} A post that is free of edits/revisions/and too much analysis. A post that reflects my "gut reaction" to the writing prompt:
"Motherhood should come with. . ."

Motherhood should come with an award showcase. To enclose and display the honors bestowed on her by the three children she has raised/is raising well.
Awards that commend her patience with children who have minds of their own. Her patience with the whiplash of their ever-changing dreams and expectations for their futures. Patience with dishes and laundry and all the other tasks which motherhood imposes upon her in large proportions. Patience with the late-night phone calls: the tears and ramblings on the other end.

Awards that commend her presence. For working all throughout my life, yet never being an absent parent. For choosing to attend all the dance rehearsals, and soccer games, and baseball games, and parent teacher meetings, and award ceremonies instead of catching a much-needed nap or accomplishing another task that was waiting for her.

Awards that commend her example to her children and to the scores of students who she’s influenced throughout the years. Her example of faith in the Lord, her example of what it means to be a wife, her example of how to pull harmless pranks (:-)), her example of how to give of oneself.

(Yes, I know it's Saturday. Better late than never!)

Slow Me Down

Grafted

A rosebush has been dormant along the front walkway all winter. Sure, I’ve trimmed it back a time or two when it began to hang over the footpath with its daunting thorns, but overall it has gotten very little care. I have spent practically no contemplative power on this plant in the course of my residence here {It’s just a plant after all, and as I’ve been a desert dweller nearly all my life, plants don’t really hold importance in my day-to-day thinking - unless of course they’re gargantuan tumble weeds that happen to be rolling across the dusty two lane highway in front of my small commuter car – but I digress.}  Now, the roses are in bloom and to my astonishment it is a rosebush with two distinct varieties of roses growing from the same series of roots.  Upon making this discovery I began to think of the passage in Romans 11, in which Paul speaks of gentiles as having been grafted into the “olive tree” of faith in the Lord -- A faith which is now available to anyone who will make it their own by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  

 I am thankful for this beautiful metaphor of God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice which stands to greet me every time I pass through my front door.

Worry {Be Gone}

"Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way!" {Oswald Chambers}

"The strong hands of God twisted the crown of thorns into a crown of glory; and in such hands we are safe." {Charles Williams}

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength."{Corrie Ten Boom}

"The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety."{George Muller}

Cousins

Painting nails,

laughing,

drinking tea,

watching Pride and Prejudice,

and cracking witty remarks about nearly everything. . .

That's what cousins are for.

Eternity {an Analogy}

I read this recently and found it thought provoking and humorous. A fun combination. :-)

We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. “How he’s grown!” we exclaim, “How time flies!” as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal.

                                                               -CS Lewis in Reflections on the Psalms

Upcoming

There are lots of ways I could have prepared for this weekend. I could have planned ahead more thoroughly. I could have meditated on Christ’s sacrifice more often. But despite my preparedness, Easter is upon me; it is almost the day of commemorating the Resurrection of Christ. And, for that I am thankful, in that I am rejoicing, and by that I am saved.

I have a serious case of

Wanderlust.

I want to travel the world.

Who's with me?