Uncategorized – Page 27 – everything He gives

the little white house

March 24, 2017March 24, 2017 MarthaKimball11 Comments

I stumbled on this song months ago and knew it gave words to our one-day new home. I knew we would probably end up with an old home, a fixer upper, and I find beauty in that. In living new fresh life in old walls. Consider playing this song as you scroll through these pictures. It’s somewhat of a blessing I’ve been humming over this new home.

These pictures are from our first time showing the kids the house, after we had keys in hand. We didn’t want to show it to them at all until it was officially ours, because the process had been difficult for them when offers on previous homes had fallen through. We opened the door for the first time, they ran in squealing. Brandon carried me over the threshold. It was a sweet, sweet moment after a long wait. And how appropriate that we closed on the house and took the kids to see it for the first time on the first day of Spring! I kept thinking of these words:

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
    and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
    the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
    the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
    is heard in our land.”
Song of Solomon 2:10-12

And so, we get to move in and watch everything come to life, turn green, blossom and shine. We feel full of hope for what is ahead, seeing God provide this home for us in His own time and way through miraculous means.

Brandon and I have been working all week getting things ready and clean, and we emptied out our storage container yesterday into the home. I took the kids this morning and began unpacking a few toys for them to play with as I set up the kitchen. They were so excited, seeing our things again and seeing the home begin to take a bit of shape. The furnace decided not to work the day after we closed, so we are still working on getting that taken care of so we can move in officially.

Our last home had the numerical address 23 and for a long time now I have been clinging to Psalm 23. As we’ve walked this journey with Phoebe and her health battle, as we’ve admitted to ourselves that we have a chronically ill child, as I’ve fought gnawing fear in the dark of night, Psalm 23 has been a constant companion and comfort. It was always familiar but now it is personal. Now it is like a sharp sword in my hands against the darkness. When I saw that our house number on this new little white house was 623, I thought immediately of Psalm 23:6 and looked it up. How fitting it is.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

This is His promise to us in this life, isn’t it friend? No matter what we are walking through, whether joy or pain in our current circumstances, surely GOODNESS and MERCY are gonna follow us everywhere we go. AND? We might have just bought our first home, but our hope isn’t wrapped up in these walls, thankful though we are for a place to call home. We are always a bit out of place in this world, always a bit left longing for the house of the Lord. Always pilgrims until we make it there one day. We are gonna make it there one day, friend. We are going to dwell with Him in HIS house forever. If the joy we feel in buying our first home is only a foretaste of that joy, oh what great joy it will be!

I can’t wait to share more of our journey as a family in this new little home with you, readers! Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind. And may our hearts like doors open wide, open wide.

ps. Thank you to so many of you who have prayed with us and for us as we walked out this long journey and as we continue to face battles and uncertainties ahead. We couldn’t have done it without you! Specifically our families, our parents, my parents for letting us live with them in the interim and bring a whole lot more noise to their lives, as well as our church family and specifically our life group. Kim + Time, Heather + Chris, Kevin + Mary Lynn, Tessa + Rod: you guys are OUR PEOPLE. You have blessed us with scripture, prayer, encouragement, meals, muscle and brawn. You are teaching us what it means to live as Christ’s hands and feet here and how beautiful it is to live knit-together lives.

yarn along

March 15, 2017 MarthaKimball6 Comments

Still knitting away on my Campside and enjoying it so much. I feel like I’m close to finishing it already, which seems crazy and too soon! At the same time, it would be nice to cozy up in it in this freezing weather we’re having lately. If you wanted to see pictures of my finished sweater, I shared some here.

I finished Long Days of Small Things last night, savored the last chapter and didn’t want it to end. So good, friends, so good. I’ll post an official review soon. I haven’t even picked up Is the Bible Good for Women this week, haven’t read much I guess. I have read a bunch to the kids, and this one, Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol, that we checked out from the library is hilarious for any knitter or mom surrounded by a brood of children who just wants some time to KNIT (or pursue some other sanity-saving hobby). In the end, the only reprieve from her 30 grandchildren is to find her way through a wormhole in outer space and there she can finally finish sweaters for each of them.

Linking up with Ginny of Small Things and her weekly yarn along.
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Falling Free

March 14, 2017 MarthaKimball3 Comments

You guys. I am so terribly behind on posting a review for this book and I feel awful about it because IT IS SUCH AN INCREDIBLE BOOK! It deserved a really great, lengthy, shining blog post a long time ago. I received it last fall when it released and read it within a week or so. Honestly it was maybe in my top five favorite reads from 2016. It was one of those books you finish and want to immediately purchase copies of for everyone you love. I highly recommend it!

Shannan Martin’s book Falling Free: Rescued from the life I always wanted came into my hands in the middle of our house search. In a sense I was resistant to reading it, since Martin’s book is a memoir sharing about their leaving behind the life they thought they always wanted for something that seemed far riskier, smaller, and challenging. Its good to read something like this while in the midst of your own home search. What Martin was leaving behind–a cute farmhouse, a mini homestead, a comfortable community–these are some of the things my husband and I are looking for and dreaming about. And not that there is anything wrong with having a farmhouse or a homestead or a wonderful church community. But Martin sure does challenge our notions of what we need, what we expect, what we feel entitled to, what we think God would have for us, what we think is safe, what we hope for. She brings perspective. She gives courage to truly abandon your life to the faithfulness of God, even in the face of the risk and discomfort involved. She holds out the glory of Jesus and the life of following and obeying Him as higher and greater than our small dreams, our small hopes for a comfortable, safe, monochromatic life.

An author I have loved, Emily P. Freeman, has highly recommended Martin’s writing, which is what led me to check out her first book. I was not disappointed! She is at turns hilarious, witty, and yet poignant and insightful. She can turn a phrase like few authors I’ve read, bringing fresh insight and conviction to our typical American way of life and thinking. And her taco recipe has become a regular staple in our home. (Thank you, Shannon.)

I can’t tell you more about it because I simply can’t decide what to emphasize most. Just go read it. If you at all feel bound up, go read it. If while you have most comforts and pleasures accessible at your right hand yet can’t shake the niggling sense that you’re missing something, go read it. If you’re hungry for the kingdom of God, go read it. If you’re hungry for more of God, go read it. If you’re just plain bored, go read it.

Read at your own risk. Prepare to be perturbed, disturbed, challenged, convicted, awakened, and set free from the life you think you want to the life God would have for you.

Thank you to Book Look Bloggers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

snow and sweaters

March 13, 2017 MarthaKimball2 Comments

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We saw (maybe?) our last snow of the season on Sunday morning and felt again the child-like wonder and awe that always comes over us all with new snow. My sweater had been finished for about a week but I hadn’t worn it because I’d been recovering from the flu and just wanted to save wearing it for the first time for when I actually felt normal. It’s the first sweater I’ve knit for myself so I was a bit nervous I would mess up the sizing. I slipped it on Sunday morning and Brandon snapped a few photos of me (sorry for the crazy lighting) and then we went out with the kids for a walk in the snow. The arms are a tad bit long, as I added about 2 inches of length to both the body and the sleeves, but I’d rather them be long then short. It truly is so cozy and warm without being too heavy. I loved every minute of knitting it. Totally easy, relaxing, and simple. Shepherd’s wool is so squishy and soft and just 100% wool. The colorway, “sea breeze,” makes me think of the ocean. I could definitely see myself knitting it again.

yarn along

March 8, 2017March 8, 2017 MarthaKimball3 Comments

In the midst of our move at the end of February, Philippa had a high fever. A few days later, I took her to the doctor who confirmed she had an ear infection and also Flu B. A few days later, I came down with the flu as well, and spent the weekend in bed. Everyone else has gone on tamiflu to avoid getting it and so far that has worked. Thankfully, one of the few things that the flu is good for is giving time for rest. So I was able to finish a few things! I finished my lila sweater and love it so so much, can’t wait to share pictures with you. I haven’t worn it yet because it seem sacrilegious to dirty it with flu germs somehow, so I’m waiting till I’m all better. I cast on the Campside shawl by Alicia Plummer and have been literally enjoying every stitch. I always love knitting with Madelinetosh, maybe my favorite yarn, and this colorway is so bright and happy.

I finished Braving It, and it was a great read/distraction while being sick. I enjoy any such story about adventures in Alaska, and this one was interesting because of the father/daughter aspect of the story. It confirms to me my desire to raise our kids to love and treasure the wilderness and gave some inspiration toward that.

I’m almost done with Long Days of Small Things, also literally enjoying and marking up every page. It will be one I will return to and treasure. Such great encouragement for this busy season of motherhood. I wish I could buy it for every young mom I know.

I’m also reading Is the Bible Good for Women, a timely read it seems with our cultural and political climate, though I think that’s probably always been true. I’m only a couple of chapters in and curious how it will go.

Joining with Ginny’s weekly yarn along.
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carrying on

March 6, 2017 MarthaKimball2 Comments

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Buds rise quiet and swell on the branch. It’s the first week of March, everything and everyone is anxious for spring. Some days it’s already been in the low 70s, sunny and warm, and the next day it’s back in the 30s. It’s still technically winter, but spring presses in, trying to burst forth.

It seems like a fitting analogy for my own season. For this wait. Last weekend we packed our home into a large box, essentially, and closed it up, everything on hold for now until we close on our home at the end of this month. We moved our bare necessities into my parent’s home nearby and have moved in with them for the interim. Such wild grace to us, this welcome mat extended to our family, the carving out of space and sharing of everything so that we can walk through this transition with as much normalcy as possible. Because we are here with them, my mom has been helping out even more than normal with my day-to-day tasks. She watched the kids while I went for a run the other morning–such a gift to a momma who normally squeezes in my workouts in the house during the kid’s nap time (necessary but terribly boring sometimes). It does my soul good to get out on a quiet trail and have the solitude of the woods. As I was running, enjoying the movement of feet and legs, the filling and emptying of lungs, the way the wind sounds moving through winter limbs and pines, I was aware of a hush of waiting. I don’t know really how else to describe it, only that I felt my own soul’s wait as I felt the natural world waiting in the dormancy of winter for spring. Everything is still alive, though it has the appearance of death. Everything is holding life though it has the appearance of barrenness. But the life cycle demands that death and dormancy must happen so that new life can burst forth.

We resist our own winters. We resist periods of death and dormancy and waiting. We resist pain of any sort, of course. Yet it is good to remember that it is necessary, this winter, so that spring can come. And spring will come.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19

We are in this beautiful and awkward season of in-between. Our home packed up, waiting for the word that this home we have been working toward will in fact be our own. We haven’t shown the home to the children yet. They’ve ridden out this transition well, but not without some tears and questions and some “I wanna go home!” Meanwhile we are in a period of waiting for answers on Phoebe’s health. She is nearing the end of this three month elimination diet, and soon we will do more blood work and likely another endoscopy. All around the same time as our closing on the home and moving in.

How appropriate it seems, that our own family story would coincide with the seasons, the melting of winter into spring. I can’t help but also think of this lenten season, the time during the church calendar when we remember Jesus’ death and sacrifice for us so that we may that much more enjoy and celebrate the resurrection (Easter).

So we embrace this season of holy hush, the waiting, the discomfort of it, because we know that our own spring is coming. All of the details of our story may not work out perfectly and our circumstances may continue to prove difficult, but we know that somehow God will be faithful to us and will provide all that we need.

And so we carry on. We receive the gifts of this winter season as it comes to an end. We enjoy this special time with my parents and sharing life together. We keep on with school, with our piles of library books, with knitting and other little family rhythms. The kids find new trees to climb and places to make a fort. We look for the early signs of spring, the blooming forsythia, the green pressing up through soil. We pay attention to the birds, noticing how gladly they sing.

yarn along

March 1, 2017 MarthaKimball4 Comments

My lila sweater is blocking, only needs some ribbing on the neck and then weaving in ends. I cannot wait for it to dry so I can finish and wear it! Meanwhile, I’ve been itching to knit a shawl for some time. The Campside shawl by Alicia Plummer has been in my queue for quite some time and it’s a free pattern that seems simple and produces a nice large cozy shawl, perfect for spring evenings. So I’m gauge swatching for that, knitting with Madelinetosh DK in color way Harvest.

Also, I’m still reading Long Days of Small Things but also checked out Braving It from the library and have a hard time putting either book down. I highly recommend BOTH! Not much time for reading this week, but I squeeze in a few pages before bed.

Joining with Ginny’s weekly yarn along link up.
Affiliate links included.

yarn along

February 22, 2017 MarthaKimball8 Comments

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, it’s a gray rainy day here so my camera didn’t want to focus. Anywhoo… still knitting my Lila sweater. I’m thankful for an easy, meditative, mindless knit in this busy week of last minute packing as we prepare to move this weekend. It’s easy to pick up in the evenings and unwind while working on it. I’ve just joined sleeves and am working on yoke shaping. It’s been unseasonably warm here in NC in February so I’m not sure if it will be cold enough to wear it when I finally finish! But I hope for some more winter weather before spring comes.

I am so greatly enjoying Long Days of Small Things (affiliate link). I find myself craving to read it during the day (but no time!!) and eagerly looking forward to squeezing in a few pages when I’m in bed. It’s a paradigm shifter for moms who have found that since becoming a mom there is no time anymore for the pursuit of God. We hear this so often from our fellow mom friends, don’t we? Even from our own hearts–where is the time, the energy, the finances, the brain power to put thoughts together to pursue God as we once did? So many mothers longing to be faithful in this trying season of sacrifice, yet feeling like failures because we feel that we must choose between our own pursuit of God and satisfying the constant demands of our little ones. No matter which we choose, we are tempted to feel like a failure for forsaking the other. Here’s a little excerpt from the first chapter:

“Children are consuming. They leave us with nothing left to give ourselves or anyone else. But this is the perfect training ground for our spirits, the very setting many disciplines are designed to produce. Our demanding, beloved children are what we create–they are our spiritual path. What if we looked through new eyes and discovered that into our very life stages our Creator has placed impressions of himself, reflections of his strength and beauty, a spiritual path laid out just for us?”

What I’m also loving about this book is the “practices” McNiel includes at the end of each chapter. They are simple, immediately attainable and small practices such as paying attention to your breathing throughout the day, walking, eating, washing. All the things we do cyclicly each day, finding these human activities to be worshipful. I have found myself thinking about this as I’ve been going about my usual routines this week and it has so deeply encouraged and helped! Just to realize sometimes that I’m holding my breath in stress–to take a deep breath and to say to the Lord as I do so: I’m breathing in your grace and steadfast love in this moment. I’m breathing out my fears and worries to you. Just this little prayer, over and over throughout the day–how can it bring such joy? But it does.

Anyway.. for any mom in the trenches: READ this book! I’m only a few chapters in but I believe I will love it to the end.

Joining with Ginny of Small Things today and her weekly yarn along.

yarn along

February 15, 2017 MarthaKimball10 Comments

I’m kniting on my Lila sleeve number two, and loving this project so much. I can’t wait to wear it but also never want it to end! 🙂 No second sleeve syndrome over here. I did, however, cast on for a pair of baby socks for a friend and also need to finish up another small gift item for someone else, as well. So I’m forcing myself to set aside my lila for a few days. Maybe.

I am crazy, crazy I know.. because I selected two books to review this month while I’m packing and moving and trying to buy a house because I simply don’t have enough to do already. Actually, I just couldn’t resist these books! I cannot wait to dive into this one on motherhood. I need regular motherhood check-ups in this busy season of Long Days of Small Things. This title grabbed me immediately and I so hope this book lives up to my expectations! I HOPE to review it this month, so I will let you know what I think. I did finish up The Broken Way, I tried to make it last as long as I could. I didn’t allow myself to mark it up at all because I just wanted to savor and read and let it wash over me. I loved it so, so very much, and will be rereading it maybe immediately. And this time mark it up. Please go get a copy of it! Ann is such a gift and such an encouragement to me time and again. And, if you notice, she also endorses the above book.

I’m linking up with Ginny’s weekly yarn along and also Nicole’s KCCO.
Affiliate links included in this post.

keeping rhythm

February 14, 2017 MarthaKimball1 Comment

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Only two weeks now until we say goodbye to this little house and move on out. We have been spending the last number of weekends packing in big spurts, then trying to keep life going normally during the week. We packed the books on Saturday and our home feels a bit colorless and empty without them. There is so much to do, as anyone who has ever packed and moved knows well. But in the middle of it, life goes on, and I try to keep some semblance of normalcy going. Our daily and weekly work–cooking, schooling, reading, cleaning, outside play, trips to the library and grocery store, knitting for me in the evenings after the kids are in bed.

Thus, my random smattering of photos. The children spread out on the floor watching movies. Finding Philippa after nap time on top of her bookcase, having colored all over her hands and dress in colors that actually coordinated her dress. Kombucha batches brewing on the counter, catching the afternoon light. Children playing and snuggling and reading books on my bed. Little random moments that make my heart happy and light and keep me grounded.

I feel that I can share with you now that we are under contract on a home, but won’t close until the end of March. We are excited but also trying to keep our emotions in check until everything goes through. It has been such an up and down journey, certainly not what we ever would have expected. Since we have about a month of limbo between this home and our new home, a sweet friend has offered for us to live in their new home in the meantime. We will put most of our stuff in storage and live fairly minimally during our time there, so I’m not sure how diligently I will be blogging. Be praying if you think of it for the children, that they handle this transition well. I think they are mostly excited and will be resilient in the midst of it, and I’m guessing it will throw Philippa off the most, as she has only lived in this home and has a strong love for being home, not usually sleeping well anywhere else. I’m hoping by keeping some of our family rhythms going, we can provide a sense of consistency.

All this upheaval and change in the midst of our ongoing battle for Phoebe’s health and the uncertain future ahead has me so thankful that we make our home in God alone, wherever we are wandering on this earth. He is our home, He is our security. He is our constant in a wild storm. There really can be peace in the midst of the tumult. Why do I forget this every time? Sometimes every day? I am thankful also for that sense that wherever Brandon is, wherever my children are, that is where home is for me. What kind of walls hold us and who owns them doesn’t matter too terribly much. Trials of any sort always pare life down to the basics, the simple and small things that matter most.

In Him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

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