life giving

Ballet pictures tonight.  I've loved watching them grow in skill and courage this year. 

This month I now have a 5, 7, and 8 year old.  If someone could explain to me how this happened, I'd really appreciate it. 

I've struggled to keep updating here because, frankly, my computer is so slow that it takes me three times longer to upload pictures than it should.  Eventually I'll have something new and then using this space as a little journal will be easier again.  I suppose I could just write without the photos but life is so full right now that I don't think I have time for a lot of writing.  It's a good thing to look forward to someday. 

Little things I am finding life-giving right now: 

-getting my hands back in the springtime soil while planting beans, peas, potatoes, greens, carrots, and then watching them push through the earth.  I feel a little like a seed buried in the soil in the dark these days waiting for the light to warm me and draw me upward.  Growth requires a death of sorts and if that's true then I'm all kinds of growing right now. 

-friendships and sisterhood.  This year has been a year full of encouragement in friendship for me.  I am overwhelmed by the place the Lord has brought me to where I have true sisters that hold me up and allow me to hold them up before our Father, where we enter His presence together.  There was a time when I thought that my loneliness would overwhelm me for all my days, but I should have known better.  The Lord is so kind, so compassionate, and longs for his children to be in unity with one another.  I have been so blessed by the sisters and brothers in our church family and why should this joy surprise me?  It's a pleasant surprise, really, like a gift you weren't aware you were going to receive and then someone drops a thing you have longed for in your lap.

-animals; Jesse has been working really hard to prepare our pasture for animals so we don't have weed-filled acreage this year.  That has meant repairing missing fencing, devising creative ways to add fencing in places where the soil has eroded into the neighbor's property from an old gate and pathway, and stringing electrical wire.  We looked at a pair of Nubian cross doelings (goats) this week that we are planning to bring home very soon, a long-time dream.  A steer may be in the future as well.

-reading in the evenings before sleep.  I prefer to have several books in process at once nowadays.  My favorites most recently have been Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and the Time series by Madeleine L'Engle.  We spend an inordinate amount of time reading as a family and during our school day, which means so many books at once that are enriching my heart and mind, like Pilgrim's Progress and Howard Pyle's Robin Hood.  It's really true for me that educating my children is educating myself all over again. 

-making.  Knitting and sewing and stitching give my hands something to do while my brain works out the many things backlogged.  My current favorite are little sundresses I'm making for the girls which have knitted cotton bodices and calico skirts in bright and colorful prints.  I'm hoping to make some additional dresses to tuck into the shop very soon, the poor shop which has fallen behind in these busy spring months. 

Those are some of the happy things of my days.  Life isn't easy or straightforward and there are many troubling things in my world that one day I will share, but I can choose to celebrate the beauty around me in this space where I record the joys.  For the past five years I have realized that recording this beauty in a place that I can easily look back upon only spurs me toward thanksgiving and peace in my daily moments now.  God is gracious.  God is so good to me.