Lord, break the chains that hold me to myself; 
free me to be Your happy slave –
that is,
to be the happy foot washer of anyone today who needs his feet washed,
his supper cooked,
his faults overlooked,
his work commended,
his failure forgiven,
his griefs consoled or
his button sewed on.
Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great
if I am unwilling to do for a human being something very small.

Elisabeth Elliot
A Lamp Unto My Feet

I just love this. LOVE.

Oh for grace to trust Him more!

Getting more organized is not the goal ::: If the idea of simplifying is to make your life simpler and free up some time, then why does it take so much time? And you’re never done!

Advice to wives: Stop praying ::: oh how spiritually sound I felt listing all the many things the Lord could do to fix my man- all that was wrong with him.

Give the gift of innocence, beauty ::: We are what we feed on.

10 Ways to Love your Kids ::: (if you're anything like me, get ready to feel convicted)

we don't wan't your obligation ::: What if it was God's idea from the very beginning to give you particular desires for particular things to fill a particular purpose?

In spite of my own disbelief, we have now entered the land of double digits.

Last weekend we celebrated ten years of a precious gift, and I passed the milestone of a decade of being mom. A decade of ninety-percent of the time referring to my husband as "Daddy". A decade of our life and decisions not just being about us, the husband and wife, but about someone else too. A decade of being faced daily with the depths of my own selfishness.

This poor little girl has definitely received the worst of me. The transition from a day being all about what I want to a day devoted to a little person with a million needs was quite brutal, and I feel bad that she had to be the one on the other end of that. You know what it's like when you've been standing in line forever at Wal-Mart and when you finally get your turn at the register you realize, "Oh, I got the trainee." And you brace yourself for mistakes and disfunction and over-all inability.

That's what this poor girl gets. Not a mom, but a mom in training. She gets the mom who is only just learning every step of the way. A mom who has no idea what she's doing and can only see the depth of her mistakes after the damage is already done. Her sisters will reap the benefits of her being the guinea pig. She'll take me through all the mother-of-girl scenarios and make me find my way and hopefully by the time it's their turn I'll have a few things figured out.

She didn't get to choose this. She doesn't have the option of quickly diverting to another line at the grocery store to avoid the annoyance of someone in training. This is all she gets, and probably to her benefit this is all she knows.

I've already got a mental list accumulating; those things she's going to look back one day and ask "What was my mom thinking?"

But maybe she won't have a list. She's a lot nicer than me. She's the girl who's overflowing with mercy and grace.

I can't express the depths of my thankfulness for her. For who she is. She's taken us down some paths I was not anticipating when she was born. Paths that I tried to pull away from when I saw them coming because honestly they were scary to me. I had no idea. 

The detours her little life has taken us on have turned out to be nothing but a gift. Amazing and beautiful. To think of all we would have missed if I'd had my own way. 

We're really into the land of big girl now. I refuse to allow the label of "tween". (Sorry I'm a snob like that.) But we are definitely moving into a new phase. New topics needing to be discussed. New challenges to face. I try to remind myself how scary those little girl challenges were years ago, and trust that what feels scary now will be okay, and maybe even really wonderful in the end.

I feel like I've become redundant in the words I use to describe her, so instead I'll share a story. To give you a glimpse of this ten year old girl of ours.

A couple weeks ago we visited an adult day care center with a few other people from our homeschool group. We'd never gone before. I wasn't sure what to expect, so hadn't prepared the girls too much in any way.

We found ourselves standing in front of what felt like a giant living room, full of about forty elderly and disabled people. We were the entertainment for the day. 

There was some singing and reading of poems. Sharing of stories. Anything interesting the kids could think of. Miss A brought along her bird book and played bird calls into the microphone, then informed the people of what kind of bird they were hearing . She was a big hit.

After entertaining for awhile, the kids were encouraged to just visit with the people.

I had a four year old and seven year old attatched to my legs and hiding behind my back as they were overwhelmed by so many strangers trying to reach out and touch them or hold them. 

So my big almost ten year old who was not one bit afraid was left free to wander to her heart's content. 

When it was almost time to go, she came to me and said "You have to meet my new friend!"

She took me to the back of the room where an elderly man sat in a recliner. His eyesight was obviously going, and it was clear when we spoke that he was starting to lose a bit of clarity when it came to his memory.

But she walked me right up to him and said "I'd like you to meet my new friend George!"

And she sat on a chair next to him. Held his hand and shared all that she had learned about him in the last half hour. He smiled and squeezed her little hand in his and just said how happy he was that she came to visit him. And she just sat there with a smile exploding across her face. So happy.

He kissed her cheek and with swallowed back emotion thanked her for coming. She promised to come back. 

We came home and she told her dad all about her dear new friend.

And I told him all about the breathtaking way I'd witnessed the gift of our girl.