Changes

As you can tell, there's some changes happening around these parts...the first, made obvious by the goofy face of my sweet boy who somehow in the blink of an eye became big enough to be 

a 

Big Brother.

We are blessed. 

We are overwhelmed with His goodness. 

We are wide-eyed at the prospect of a new baby,

while having just entered toddler-dom. 

Change. 

It used to scare me. It used to make my heart ache with what would no longer be. 

I've changed...

my heart doesn't feel afraid anymore.

I feel joy. 

I feel hopeful. 

Because I know whatever the days hold- easy or hard- God is with me. 

He is good. 

And I can only live with gratitude for the abundance He's giving. 

"I will tell of the Lord's unfailing love. I will praise the Lord for all He has done. I will rejoice in His great goodness...which He has granted because of His mercy and love!"

Isaiah 63:7

You may have noticed too, some changes with my blog. 

Back in November, when I decided to take some time away it was both out of necessity and out of desire.

Let's just say that " morning sickness" was an all day event some days and blogging was not on the 

To Do List!

But more than just physically needing a break, my heart needed some time away to think and refocus. 

What is my purpose, my mission  for the time I spend in writing? 

Does it have worth? Value? 

When I began last spring to blog daily, my intent was to keep up with my family who live out of state. My intent was to do something I love and hadn't done in a long time. 

To simply write about the joys of the day. 

Funny how things can so quickly change course, huh?

Instead of stepping away from Facebook and focusing on my blog, I found myself at a place with

 two Facebook accounts, a Twitter account, and an Etsy shop. 

The demands were high. I felt the need to grow my followers, to run with the big guns of blogging.

But friends...it's just not me. 

I love to craft...but I don't have time to run my own small business online. 

My small business involves teaching piano three nights a week. 

I love to stay connected online...but I don't want to announce my every move by Tweeting fifty times a day. 

I love to write...but not at the expense of living. Enjoying. Being in the moment. 

So I'm stepping back. 

Back into blogging.

But away from what isn't working in my life. 

source

My heart feels so full these days. 

Call it emotions. Call it hormones. 

It's probably some of both. 

But more than that, it's simply being in a place of deep reliance on my Savior. 

It's the hiding away in the safety of His simplicity. 

It's being in tune with what He's doing, and where He's leading and calling. 

It's living simply. In the moment. 

With gratitude.

A life driven by a thankful heart. 

Thankful for all things...

Taking A Break

So....I've been doing alot of thinking these last few weeks. 

Six months of consistant blogging, learning HTML code, designing

buttons and links,

hosting giveaways and sharing our sweet everyday moments has been

fabulous. 

But in my heart, there's a struggle. 

A little voice saying maybe it's time to take a step back. To listen hard. Look deep. 

Evaluate my purpose in blogging. 

I've been ignoring the gentle prompting in my heart up until last week. 

That's when I knew for sure that the little voice I kept ignoring was really

the Spirit of God...

asking me to surrender. 

source

My pastor has been speaking recently on spiritual growth. 

His first two points on the subject were

Desire and Sacrifice.

I have the desire.

Now I need to sacrifice. 

My time is not my own, and while I strive to use the days I'm given 

the best way I can,

there's still so much more I could be doing. 

Bigger things with a bigger purpose. 

So I'm taking the rest of the year off from blogging. 

You'll still see me pop in from time to time...

and I have a sweet friend's guest post coming  just in time for 

Thanksgiving.

But when I come back in January, I hope you'll be as thrilled with

some major changes and big announcements to

Today Is Sweeter

as I am. 

Right now, I just need to 

seek His face!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving and Christmas with all those you love...

see you in the New Year!!

source

Detroit Trip

L. to R. starting at the top...

1. In front of Comerica Park  2. MGM Grand Sign  3. Comerica Park Entrance

4. Hockeytown Cafe  5. Ford Field  6. My yummy dinner!

7. Joe Louis Arena  8. Hockeytown Puck  9. Josh with the Detroit Tiger

10. Gordie Howe  11. Red Wings starting line up  12. Comerica Park baseball

13. Fox Theatre  14. At the hockey game  15. Jimmy Howard

Our overnight trip to Detroit was everything I expected it to be, and everything that

I didn't expect it to be.

Call me a dreamer, but I guess in thinking of Detroit (I hadn't been since I was a kid)

I was envisioning Chicago...New York...a nice big city with tall buildings and great shopping. 

Detroit is a ghost town.

It is run-down, sad, gloomy, and has an almost eerie feeling. 

On one hand there are three multi-million dollar sports stadiums, and on the other

there are 100 year old buildings with crumbling foundations and blown out windows. 

There are season-ticket holders, and there are people who don't have a place to sleep at night. 

It left me with a lot to think about...

Josh and I were celebrating our 3rd Anniversary and this trip left me feeling

connected, appreciative, refreshed,

and in love with my guy. 

It also served to reaffirm a deep unsettled feeling in my heart...

a feeling that I've been wrestling with for a few months now. 

There was a man. In a wheelchair.

He asked us for our change as we waited to catch the shuttle to the Red Wings game.

Josh gave him what was in his pocket- probably not more than a dollar or two.

And as I watched the man wheel away from us and across the street, 

I realized he had no feet. 

So often we judge people and ask questions later. So often we think,

" Oh, he's just looking for booze money."

But what if he isn't?

What if he's a veteran?

What if he's a man who lost his job when the company he worked for sent his job overseas?

What if he has no food? No bed. No hope. 

Some people would call those thoughts naive. Overly emotional. 

But I think what my heart is feeling is

compassion. 

I longed to help this man. I longed to know if there was a shelter he could go to.

A meal he could eat. 

A place he could rest. 

And I've been feeling that feeling for other situations too lately. 

The child sold into sex slavery. 

The mama who has lost her unborn baby. 

The man about to lose his home. 
The orphan with no mama or daddy. 

I guess what I'm saying is that our get-away trip left me thinking about alot of deep things.

And I'm not quite sure I've wandered my way out yet. 

My heart feels burdened.

My hands feel ready to act. 

And I don't want to be the kind of person who says, 

"Oh, what a shame...that's so sad"

and then walks away.

Shepherd

Do you ever find yourself  looking back at life and wondering if things turned out 

just the way they were supposed to...
or if the choices you made interrupted the perfect plan that could have been?

No? Oh, okay...I'll shut up now.
Wait.
Can I be honest?
I think about this alot at times.

I look back at different times in my life and I think to myself
why did that situation turn out the way it did?
Was it my own doing? My choices?
 Did God allow certain things to take place in my life 
to ultimately bring Himself glory?
 Maybe it's both...
Maybe God allowed things into my life, knowing full well what my response would be,
so that in the end the story of his grace, forgiveness, and faithfulness
would make His glory shine.

I guess I start to struggle with guilt when I think about it too long.
And I have to remember that
God is faithful even when his children are not. 
(Max Lucado)


 It's easy to look back and see all the things we would have done differently were we given the opportunity.
It's easy to feel like we don't quite measure up because of  where we've been.
I remember sitting in a college Sunday school class one day where everyone voiced where they thought they'd be in 5 years. I said something along the lines of wanting to be married with a family...I said regardless of what happened in those 5 years, I wanted to be faithful. 


I failed miserably. 


I battled some of the darkest days of my life during those years.
I ran hard and fast from what I felt God asking me to do,
and I still wonder to this day what the outcome would have been
had I simply obeyed.

But I didn't and I can't go back now.
And I guess what I've come to realize is that no matter how far down the wrong road you go,
you can always turn around. 
You'll still have to travel the long road back home...
that's just the natural consequence of choosing our own way,
but you won't walk that road alone.

Shortly before the major turning point I had during those hard years, my sister Katie called me up out of the blue and said that the Lord just kept putting me on her heart that day.
I told her how I was struggling and that I was tired.
I was tired of running.
Not long after that conversation she sent me an email with a story she'd heard...
It's stuck with me ever since.

A shepherd has the important job of protecting his sheep from danger. He must always keep his eye on them, making certain that they don't wander off.  The safest place for a sheep to stay is at the shepherd's side. 

Mature sheep obviously have learned this, or they wouldn't have survived. 

When a lamb insists on wandering away and absolutely refuses to stay where it is safe, the shepherd must resort to a drastic measure in order to preserve the sheep's life. 

He breaks one of it's legs. 

This seems so cruel!! But it is the only way that a lamb will learn. The shepherd binds up the leg so that it will heal, then carries that lamb on his shoulders as the flock moves from place to place. 

Eventually the broken leg heals and the lamb is free to go where it pleases.  But by this time the sheep has become close to the shepherd and no longer wants to wander off. 

That lamb keeps his eyes on his shepherd all the time. 

The things that used to tempt him to run, are no longer appealing. 

He knows the hurt.

He'd much rather stay close to his shepherd. 

I was reminded this week of who my shepherd is.
It's Jesus.
He knows my heart, my fears, my failures, my regrets, my hurts, my joys, my desires.
When I struggle with big questions,
he gives big answers.
When I struggle with great weakness,
he reveals his great power.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul...

source

So Long, Summer

Holland, Michigan 2011

The weatherman says there's frost on the way... Blake and I put on jeans and long sleeve-shirts today and it's a little bit sad to me. I know I've said this before but I'm not a hot weather girl...I really love the way fall romances my senses with it's bright colored leaves, cool air, caramel apples and pumpkins. 

But there's a little part of me that is sad to see summer go. 

Mostly because our summer's are usually filled with trips to the Lake Michigan shore, visits from my out-of-state sisters and their families, picnics, and just a whole lot of togetherness! Fall comes around and we all kind of settle into the new routines and busy schedules

...there's not as much freedom to play.  

But we made one last trip to Holland State Park, just in time to catch the sunset, play some football....and get our legs sandblasted by the wind whipped sand! 

(I was hoping I wouldn't have to shave ever again....not so lucky, wink*)

So long summer, I'll miss your warm sunshine, your bright blue skies, your sandy beaches and crashing waves... I'll miss the watermelon, the hamburgers, the smores. I'll miss the ice cream coated grins of sweet little boys and a pretty little girl...

See you next year Summer....it's time to say

**Hello Fall**

Poetry and Hums

I started taking piano lessons when I was 6 years old, and I've been playing ever since. There were occasional bumps in the road....like the time when I was 9 or 10 and I wrote my mom a letter telling her I wanted to quit; or when I wouldn't practice my scales or warm-up exercises and would fumble my way through my lesson pretending like I knew what I was doing. 

There were times that I would hide a certain piano book in the way back part of the shelf, and then claim I couldn't find it when it came time for lessons....just so that I wouldn't have to play that one song. 

But mostly, from the get-go...I loved music, and I still do. 

When I hear certain songs, no matter how much time has passed, I'm taken back to a specific place, doing a specific thing, surrounded by specific people.  Most are times that hold deep feeling- joy, sadness, hurt, excitement- and the music is filed away in my mind just as clearly as the memories.

Sometimes music was the release of all that deepness.  I'd find myself sitting down in front of those keys and pounding out Beethoven's 5th Symphony as hard and loud as I could. Other times I'd sit down and play some popular love song thinking things would turn out just like in the movies. And there were times I'd play the saddest, most pitiful sounding song just so that I could wallow in the misery of a broken heart.

Music is the voice of the soul...

so now I teach. Three nights a week I'm either driving around town to teach in different homes, or teaching from mine. I remember as a kid wanting to be really good. And I see that same passion in my students...the accomplishment they feel when they've passed a song or filled a sticker chart. The relief in some when I say "Yes!! That's what I wanted to hear!", and they learn, and grow, and advance. It makes me so proud**

I hope someday that Blake will want to learn....right now the piano is just a cool, loud toy to him. But even if it's not piano, I hope that he finds the same love of music that I've found <3

Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. 

And all you can do is to go where they can find you. 

 ~Winnie the Pooh~

Attitude

I knew from the moment Blake sneezed his mouthful of soggy Fruit Loops all over my clean shirt and flat-ironed hair that it was going to be one of those days. My little guy's favorite way of expressing his extreme dislike of any given situation is to throw his Bo-Bo (bink, paci...) as hard and defiantly as he can. By the time we'd finished running a quick errand this morning, he'd chucked it probably 10 times in the car- and I was done. I was so sick of picking that dumb thing up, and I looked at his sweet face and yelled,

"Either knock it off or I'm throwing Bo-Bo in the garbage!!"

 His little face was so shocked...I felt like the worst mommy ever and I started bawling right there in the driver's seat. Which just shocked him even more! I sat there thinking Ok, who's the adult here? You're yelling at an 18 month old over a pacifier for pete's sake....get it together woman!!

Oh how I wish I could just walk peacefully and calmly through life!! To meet every situation with a soft answer, a humble attitude, a joyful heart. But it's not a field of perky daisies every day, now is it?? I long for my life to reflect grace, and yet so often I feel I'm reflecting something far from it.

Before Josh and I got married, we had marriage counseling with our Pastor. He had us take personality assessments-which was actually really helpful and really shocking to me! While my personality in some areas is overly submissive and compliant, my attitude (on a scale of 1-10) was at a 9!!

I prefer the term spunky or spitfire. 

But whatever I call it, at the end of the day, if my heart's full of contention, anger, frustration, and pride...my God calls it sin.

And so many areas of my life are affected by that attitude! By my perspective. So many days I think about what I have to do instead of what I get to do. I have to do laundry, I have to teach piano, I have to scrub the bathroom....

As a stay at home mama there's so much I get to do!! I get to feed Blake breakfast, play, and read books. I get to have a good meal ready for Josh when he comes home after a long day. I get to go to the park, the store, just out for a drive! So many, many things in life are blessings in disguise. But I only see them if I'm willing to be still, to soak it up, to lay down my attitude and take up the joy of serving others. 

The funny thing about little boys is that one minute they are fighting against everything- the car seat straps, the mommy's hand, the word "No"; and the next minute they are planting a big, wet kiss on your cheek. It is humbling. To be forgiven so quickly and loved so unconditionally.

Tomorrow is a fresh start, a clean slate...I'm thankful that Blake is too little to remember today's failures. 

And when I fail, I can seek His grace.
And I'm thankful that when I succeed, I can give God thanks.

And when the day is done,

I can place my head on my pillow and rest.

source: pinterest

Hope

The other night while Josh and I were driving down to Ohio for the weekend, I heard a radio broadcast talking about hope. It picked me up. It made me feel less like I'm alone, and more like everyone struggles with the "downers" sometimes. Even if for no apparent reason...

Most of the time I can't really even say what exactly has me feeling so

restless,

discontent,

so disquieted...

but I know that I feel it and I usually know how I got there.

I tend to talk to myself. Not like out loud where you could hear me (Ok, sometimes in the car when I think I'm less conspicuous until I see someone staring at me at a red light.) But I have these conversations in my head about life, and dreams, and frustrations, and dissatisfaction's. Before I even realize it I've talked myself into being upset about something that really isn't even a real issue! ( This is where you leave a comment saying you do the same thing and make me feel more human and less like I need to be admitted somewhere...)

The truth is in talking to myself I am either going to speak words of truth or words of deceit. I can fill my mind with what is true, what is good and lovely....or I can spend my days believing lies.

This week I am committing to truth. I am committing to talking to myself with authority. I am committing to confronting the lies I find repeating over and over in this silly brain of mine, taking capture of them, and marching them on out.

"Why are you cast down, my soul? Why are you disquieted and disturbed within me?

Hope in God!"

I wonder how different life would be if we hoped more and fretted less. If we believed in real truth, and refused to listen to anything else.

Maybe we'd shine more. Maybe we'd do bigger and bolder things. Maybe we would love more freely, and give more abundantly.

When your heart is filled with hope, your life is filled with peace.