Grateful Acres

I searched and searched and I simply cannot find in photo form what I saw. This is the closest. The floor was clean and smooth, and indescribably shiny. I was wearing white, and I couldn't see Him, but He was there right before me. He offered his arms and I accepted. The muscles in my back still felt the tightness of holding a sleeping baby, and she wiggled and smashed her nose into my chest. My six year old's feet swung and kicked the chair next to me in time with the music. Every thing and every one else faded and we were all that was left, and that shiny floor. He swept me gracefully, smoothly around in a fairytale dance, singing love over me. My body just rested and breathed, and  I heard only His  voice, echoing deeply through the open room.  I experienced a strange overlap of the spiritual and physical for just a short time during church this morning, and it was beautiful.  The spiritual is just as real as the physical, and I feel MORE alive w...

Time for a family update! Something rather unusual happened this morning. I woke up before anyone else (baby went back to sleep after her early-morning feeding, and I stayed awake), and after I stumbled around our semi-dark kitchen for awhile preparing my coffee, Jonathan came downstairs. The sunrise was beautiful and pink, and it was such a rarity to have Jonathan wake up first. Normally Henry is the first one up, and he's been gifted with lots of volume, so most mornings he wakes up J and almost everyone else :) Sissy often manages to sleep through the commotion of two not-so-little boys starting their day, and likes to lay in her bed and talk to herself, snuggle her zebra, and I think enjoy the only portion of her day that will be quiet and alone. Jonathan and I snuggled up onto the couch for a few quiet minutes. His body is so big now- his head comes up past my shoulder, and his feet stretch down next to mine. His hands are getting rougher, and his arms and legs have young ...

I've been working on allowing God to walk the dusty corners of my heart- places that have seemed foundational, and therefore needed to stay unchanged so that the structure of my heart wouldn't be threatened. As God gently earns more and more of my trust, I allow Him into those places because I trust that the changes He makes will not crush me. I trust that as he walks my dusty corners He will pull aside heavy drapes, flooding sunlight through windows I did not know were there. It becomes a beautiful experience, full of discovery and fresh freedom and light. Somewhere along the line I disconnected between head and heart that God is very, very wealthy. I felt stuck in my humanity, limited by what I, as a human, am capable of. I could only earn as much money as the amount of work I did, I could only reach as many people as I "witnessed" to, I would only be good at something if I put in hard, hard practice hours. Self control became not a fruit of the SPIRIT, but a ...