Know yourself, love yourself, be yourself

I was recently challenged with this concept.Know yourself, love yourself, be yourself.
I feel like God is challenging me to be comfortable in my own skin. I constantly have that Holy spirit nudge saying, "be who I created you to be". But it doesn't change the outside influences that are nudging me in a million directions. The world nudges me to act a certain way, friends nudge me to be certain way, church nudges me to feel a certain way. Not that these "other" ways are bad ways or even wrong ways. But I have to question if they are the ways that God has for ME.

I was reading today about Mary and Joseph and began to think about this concept for their lives. For them to BE themselves, for them to BE who God had created them to be...the had to turn from everything that they knew. Everything that was religiously right, everything that was socially right, everything that was right for their immediate family. They had to turn from that and turn to the plan that God had for them. That must have been unbelievably hard. I think the reason they we able to "BE" who God created them to be is because of their closeness to God.  If I had peer pressure talking in one ear and an Angel of the Lord talking in the other....well it seems like it would be easier to follow God.  It wasn't like they could set back and wonder if any of what was happening was God or not.  The KNEW it was God.  And they knew it was God because of their closeness to Him.  They were close enough to feel Him kick. Yes it may have been a proximity closeness and not as much a relationship closeness. But it was closeness nonetheless.

So I think about that in my life. If I am to be who God created me to be.  To follow where God leads.  Then I must be close enough to Him to never question His direction. I must be close enough to hear His voice and follow His leading.  I must be close enough that when I look in the mirror, I am certain that I am being exactly who He created me to be.  And when I am certain of that....then it is easy to love myself and BE who who designed me to be.  When outside influences come beside be and speak into my life it will be easy to tell the difference between them and God and it will be easy to know when they line up. 

God help me to know who I am in you.  Help me to love your creation.  And help me to be without question who you made me to be.

~LL

Fall Fun

I just love this time of the year more than any other.  It is cool outside, it's beautiful with all of the leaves changing, and everyone seems happy to get out and play.

Here are some pictures of us enjoying the weather...

Apple Picking at Carter Mountain

 

GeoCaching

Biking in the leaves

~LL

15

Well yesterday came and went.  Sunday they were 14 and Monday they were 15.  I did a little reflecting here and there as the day approached.  Smiling at what beautiful, amazing young ladies they have become. Reminiscing at funny little stories of the past.  But then it hit me. I began to think about how different my life is 15 years later.  How different OUR life is 15 years later.
I don't think back much.  I don't even think about last week to much.  I have learned to live life looking forward.  The only time I look backwards is to take notice, small glances, at the stones of remembrance that I have left in my past.


Some of those stones are past hardships that now help me to press on when we have tough times.
Some are stones of people (wretched people :-) that now stand to remind me of the kindness I should always show people.
Some are stones of places that we have lived, and loved.
Some are stones of bad choices that stand to remind me of God's grace and mercy in my life.

All of my stones stand to remind me of something great, that God has allowed in my life. Good or bad, but all great.  When I pause to glance back at the stone that was placed in my life 15 years ago, I can't help but to shake my head.  I am still dumb founded at what God allowed into my life to show His grace to me.  I glance at our beautiful daughters and I can't believe that He would entrust them to us.  Despite my choices.

The girls are now 10th graders.  Six months from a learners permit, two years from graduating.  Both love life in their own ways.
B loves horses.  She is compassionate and heartfelt.  She is giving and kind.  She reads anything she can get her hands on.  She is a dreamer.  She dreams of a horse farm and a cowboy to run it :-)  She is the kindness I want to be.
S loves the arts.  She is passionate and driven. She is already planning her move to a film school and then out of the country.  She is kind to people when they wouldn't even notice it.  She reads like crazy but it is always for information not fiction. She is grounded and a planner.  She is the curiosity I wish I had.

Fifteen. Wow!  Fifteen.

~LL


I can't even begin to express my awe for the life God has allowed us to walk over the past years.  We (a family of 6) are truly blessed beyond measure. 

Crock pot

I don't know about you but....tis the season....for crock pot cooking. One of my favorite things about fall is that I get to start using the crock pot regularly without complaint.  Not that I stop using it in the spring and summer but I just try to not use it as much. 
Anyway, as the season kicks back up I wanted to post this website that I found off of pinterest. Its HERE.  Tons and tons of crock pot recipes to try. 

Happy Crock potting :-)

~LL

Gifts

School has started, the temperature has dropped, and some way some how (if only for a moment) our house has slowed down. It kind of seems that every year around this time, life kind of slows down a little.  We all get back into our routine, Summer church projects have been completed and Christmas ones have yet to get started.  I have determined that God gives me this couple of weeks so that I can regain my sanity :-)  Because I don't know about you, but summer at our house is just.plain.busy.

I was sitting the other morning at the Home school co-op that we are apart of and I was observing the, over 50 families that are there.  Some are your typical home school families, some are normal looking people who just  happen to home school, and then there is us (I don't know where we fall on the spectrum anymore :-).  As I sat there I began to admire how different all of our families are and how despite the different looks that some of us embrace or the different schooling styles we use, we all were there for the same reason. We all, at some point, for some rationale, decided that our children would be better in a home based educational environment than public/private school.

And then it hit me as we were all asked to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance....I was reminded that we, despite our motivation, we home school because we can.  We home school because we have the freedom to choose to home school.  I all of the sudden found myself holding back tears.  Tears of thankfulness.  For all who had fought for my family and the 50+ sitting around me, to be able to make choices like to home school or not.

It is very easy for me to sip my tea sitting by the window on a cool brisk morning enjoying the sound of school buses going by, and LOVING the fact that mine don't have to get on it.  But it is also easy for my to miss all that I have been given and who gave it to me.

My tea,the coolness in the air, my sleepy children, my husband, my home, my rights.  Truly 1000 gifts.



Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was first published in 1892. 
It read like this:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
     one Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.
On June 14, 1923 the Pledge received another make over and it read:

I pledge allegiance to my the
Flag of the United States,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
     one Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.
 The following year it changed again:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
     one Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

The last change in the Pledge of Allegiance occurred on June 14 (Flag Day), 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved adding the words "under God".   As he authorized this change he said: 
"In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."

It is then that the Pledge of Allegiance was changed to read:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
     of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
     one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

~LL