How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise!
Psalm 84:1-4
I am starting the second color on the lori shawl and loving the way it’s looking so far! It’s such an easy and meditative pattern, and working with the linen is perfect for spring.
I finished Surviving the Island of Grace a few days ago and picked up this novel, The Prophetess, about the life of Deborah. I love biblical historical fiction and the way it opens our imaginations to familiar stories and gives flesh and blood to the bones. I’m more than half way through it and really enjoying it.
Joining with Ginny to share what we’re knitting and reading this week.
Last weekend we stayed all together (minus one sister-in-law and nephew) in this big rustic barn in Lexington, Virginia. As you may be able to tell from the many, many pictures, there was a whole lot of joy over the weekend. We gathered for my youngest brother’s wedding, the last one of us to be married. The cousins had a blast being together, Phoebe and Jericho playing “bride” all week long in preparation for the event, Noah and Asher playing “trucks,” the babies toddling about trying to be a part of everything. It was busy and at times chaotic, but full in the best sort of way. The bride and groom had made the whole weekend special with small, meaningful and relaxed gatherings (a family/friends hang-out thursday evening, bridal luncheon friday afternoon, etc.) that gave us time together and time to mingle. The wedding was one of the most beautiful and meaningful I’ve been to, and I was able to have a small part reading a beautiful prayer over this couple, as well as watching my little girl scatter flowers like a pro for the bride.
I think one of the greatest mysteries of attending weddings is the peculiar way that it confirms and solidifies our own love for one another again. Along with the bride and groom, we cherish the vows again, we remember, we look back with a whole lot of road behind us now. We see a little more clearly, but somehow still dimly, because the glory of this institution requires a lifetime to unveil. We want to sing a hundred songs over this new couple, to tell them to drink deeply of this beautiful cup, in worship to the Lord. We want to hem them in with a hundred warnings, all the hard-won lessons we have learned along the way. They will have their own battles, they will only learn by going their own road.
On the drive up to Virginia, this song played piercingly loud over my heart as I thought of these two heading into marriage. The only safety we have in marriage, the supreme gladness I have over these two is that in the safety of the sovereign care of God, we can trust that they will not be shaken. It’s the best news going into marriage: the battle is going to rage, the armies are going to rise up against them on all sides, but we have the surety of a God who is for us, who is fighting on our behalf, who is fighting for our marriage, a God who is stronger than all that will come against us. We have a God who is redeeming all things, setting all broken things right, a God who is always making new. We cannot trust in frail man, we cannot even trust ourselves, but we trust in our God. I pray that over these two that I love so dearly, I pray this over my own unknown future: Go with God, dear ones. Through His unfailing love, we will not be shaken.
For we trust in our God
And through His unfailing love
We will not be shaken,
We will not be shaken,
We will not be shaken
[x2]Though the battle rages
We will stand in the fight
Though the armies rise up against us on all sides
We will not be shaken
We will not be shaken
We will not be shakenFor in the hour of our darkest day
We will not tremble, we won’t be afraid
Hope is rising like the light of dawn
Our God is for us He has overcomeAll those against Him will fall
For our God is stronger
He can do all things
No higher name we can call
For Jesus is greater
We can do all things(We Will Not be Shaken, Bethel Music)
Click here to listen to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KHPIZOdrjI
It has been a busy week, having spent the last few days in Virginia for my youngest brother’s wedding. The 4ish hour drive gave me a lot of time to knit in the car and I worked on both the Lori Shawl and also this sunsuit for Philippa. I finished the bib last night and working on straps next. I love it so far, but think it may end up being too big?? It’s a really fun and fast knit.
And in the evenings, I’ve been stealing away to Kodiak Island in Alaska. Almost done with this book now, and have really loved it.
Joining with Ginny Sheller’s weekly yarn along today.
This pink yarn has been calling me from my stash, begging to be made into a baby thing. I bought it awhile ago from Michaels and lost the tag/info on it. I’m knitting a little sunsuit for Philippa. Probably not the smartest idea to knit a summery item since this yarn is definitely a wool blend, but I am eager to try baby clothing item besides hats and this yarn is already on hand! I am loving it so far. A friend helped me adjust the pattern to a 18-24 month size, so we’ll see how it turns out. It seems sort of big right now.
I’m reading a stack of things, but just got this knitting book, Home, from the library and dreaming over basically every pattern in it.
Joining up with Ginny over at Small Things today.
We were enjoying mornings and afternoons on the porch last week, snack outside, making mud pies in the sandbox. Temperatures plummeted this week and we expect another frost tonight potentially. We’ve had our foretaste of spring and we’re ready for it now! We get used to the quieter, whispered beauty of winter and then spring comes and the earth is bursting with glory and color we nearly forgot existed.
It’s amazing how much can change in one week! I’ve been watching this beautiful white cherry tree outside our living room window, taking pictures of it every day, watching the buds burst open and the tree fill with blooms in the matter of a few days. The red buds are flowering, the cherry trees, the daffodils and crocuses, pansies sprinkled around front doors. When did I become one of those people who is fascinated with buds and blooms, birds and children playing, finding such beauty in all these small things? The smallest, the things most trampled underfoot in our busy rat-race pace. Yet here they are, day after day, quietly doing what they are supposed to do, echoes of a far country. It’s holy week this week, my sister and her family is in town from British Columbia for my youngest brother’s wedding this weekend in Virginia. We will be caravanning up there mid-week and heading back home to North Carolina on Easter Sunday. The cousins are having the best time together, Phoebe and Jericho are practicing being brides all week, although they will have to settle for being flower girls come wedding day. It is so achingly wonderful to be all together and to see cousins enjoy each other. Our minds and hearts are busy with all that comes with wedding prep, and my soul is meditating on how beautiful it is to be celebrating a man and a woman covenanting in marriage around the time of year that Christ suffered and died for His beloved church. There is a tangle of meaning there that I have yet to extricate.
I finished my first kerchief/mini shawl which seems the perfect size for Phoebe and she loves it. I guess I can share it with her. 🙂 I’m pretty proud of it, already working on another shawl and a couple other knitted projects on the go. Brandon says my knitting stuff is now everywhere, taking over the whole house and I cackled with glee. I wouldn’t want it any other way right now! Books and skeins of yarn scattered everywhere! Also, Brandon let me splurge and order a skein of yarn from one of my favorite bloggers and natural yarn dyers, Ginny Sheller, and it arrived last week. I love it so much.
I hope you’re enjoying your first week of spring!
I finished the age of brass + steam shawl (photos soon!) and have been working on the Lori Shawl. It’s my first time working with linen and I enjoy it but I do miss the softness of the madelinetosh. My friend and knitting guru Jennifer, a friend from middle and high school days who taught me how to knit back in October, is knitting this along with me. So fun! My first tiny little knit-along. She said the drape of this linen yarn will be beautiful and so far, it is! I cannot wait to see the finished product and to wear it! It is lovely and peaceful to knit, just garter stitch for miles and miles.
I’m still reading and savoring Ruthless Trust, and boy is it ever timely and needed. It feels like the Lord Himself put it in my hands for such a time as this. We have had some serious discouragement hit this week, and trust in the Lord is never more needed, it seems. I hate the hard times so much but I cannot tell you how near it is causing me to draw to the Lord and how near He has been, how alive His Word has been, and how much it is causing Brandon and I to cling to one another. All of these, good things. I guess these are a measure of the sweet gifts, the soft hints and whispers of glory in the midst of a rolling storm.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
2 Cor. 4: 16-18
My dear daughter
I see it in the way your eyes frenzy, the way your cheeks puffed red with play now fill with frustration as you recount to me how the other children won’t do it the way you want them to. I see myself in that frustration, that anger, that frantic grasping. Oh my girl, how do I help you when I am just like you? It’s about control, dear girl. Maybe one of your greatest battles as you grow up and even into womanhood will be over the issue of control.
Ask any woman around, and if she’s honest she’ll agree. You can trace that common thread among us all the way back to the Garden, all the way back to Eve. The way she fell for it straight from the snake’s mouth, the lie that God was withholding something better for her. The lure that she could procure a better reality for herself if she only reached out her hand and grasped for it, rather than reach up her hands and ask for it. Wait for it. Surrender it.
It’s going to be about trust for you and I, my sweet girl.
You’re the firstborn, and I don’t know much about being a firstborn because I was a middle. But I do know it’s harder for the firsts. Borne in you is a natural desire and gifting to manage, organize, corral, and lead. These are beautiful gifts, important, and leadership will probably come naturally to you. However, these strengths can be hamstrung by a desire for control and you might as well go ahead and get your eyes wide open to it.
I see it in women around me, I see it in myself. We are so very afraid to trust the hand the Lord has dealt us as His good for us, His love to us. We want so much to see our husbands do things this way or that way, instead of gently being led by them, entrusting ourselves to God in placing us in this union with this man who had all these faults we didn’t see when we married him (never mind all our own faults).
We want so much to pummel our bodies into the shape of this woman or that woman, failing to recognize or accept that God formed and fashioned us with a certain build and we each have a unique beauty to offer, even if it isn’t what mimics the magazine covers.
We want so much to have these kind of children, this sort of lifestyle and income and home, and we bend ourselves in a million crazy ways trying to achieve it, almost until we break.
We don’t want the good gifts God has given us, we look out and see a better life that we believe we can construct and reach out a hungry hand and grasp for it. We don’t like limitations and boundaries and we certainly don’t like surrender.
So often the work of trust is the work of staying empty. Being okay with a temporary emptiness, resisting the frantic urge to fill the void. Instead of reaching out and grabbing that apple, reaching out that hand and leaving it empty, open, waiting, surrendered. Waiting for God to fill it. Enjoying Him instead of the thing we think we must have. Trusting Him as we ask, finding our way to contentment if His answer is no.
The antidote to control is trust, my girl. T R U S T.
When I say this to my own soul, I feel weary with another “do” I must perform, another thing to work at. But the very essence of trust, I’m learning, is that it isn’t primarily a work that I must produce, a work of mustering up feelings of trust, but rather it is a work of remembering and resting. Go back and review who God is, remind your soul who He is, what great things He has done. Start in Psalm 103, if you need a place to start.
“Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s…”(Psalm 103:1-5)
Go on a littler further and see His hands stretched wide on the cross, stretched wide so that He could remove your sins far from you, as far as the east is from the west
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.(Psalm 103:11-12)
Ground your soul so deeply in who He is, marvel over His love and His work toward you and on your behalf. Can you trust this God? Is He not good? Is He not full of love toward you? Are not all His ways toward you grace and love?
“The Lord is good to all,
And His tender mercies are over all His works.”(Psalm 145:9)
You won’t understand how they are love and grace, especially when the rose He hands you comes prickled with thorns. All you can know for sure are His precious promises, His inerrant and unfailing words, and you can find rest for your soul here.
This is where trust is born: remembering again who He is, how He loves, what He’s done for you, then resting in it. Ceasing from striving, from straining, even the strain to understand all the “whys.”
This is no easy task, child. It is a choosing, a literal exertion of will. Choose to stop, to still, to smile, even, in the safety of your Father’s hands. Let yourself be held. That is the work of trust. Doesn’t that sound so welcoming, so irresistible?
“Against insurmountable obstacles and without a clue as to the outcome, the trusting heart says, ‘Abba, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with boundless confidence, for you are my loving Father.'”
-Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust
Gloriously, the outcomes, the trajectory, the end results are not really in our hands. (Walk into any cancer ward and talk with anyone receiving a diagnosis of any kind and you can’t escape that truth.) We can either fight against this reality or we can accept it, and the difference will show in how much joy we have in our time here. You and I, sweet girl, we can run our race ragged and angry and out of breath with fear, or we can run abiding in His love, resting, trusting. He means for us to have joy, joy to the full. He’s a good, good Father.
“He who heeds the word wisely will find good,
And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.”
Proverbs 16:20
“The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses install only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.”
Manning, Ruthless Trust
“The Lord upholds all who fall,
And raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And You give them their food in due season.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.”(Psalm 145:14-19)
I am almost done with my first kerchief/shawl! I am on the last section and have three more rows but I’m debating making it a little bigger and using up the rest of the yarn. I just don’t know if I have enough yarn to do that? So.. still deciding. I have so enjoyed working on it, I don’t want to see it go!
I’m still reading and really loving Surviving the Island of Grace, but yesterday the Lord was speaking to me throughout the day about trust. This book that I read and was deeply impacted by back when I was 18 kept catching my eye from my shelves. I had a much-needed night alone with Jesus last night and read a lot of this tattered book and have been so thankful to find myself in its pages again. I forgot how much I enjoy Manning’s writing. I’m terribly in need of a work of the Lord in my life in the way of trust!
Here are a couple snippets that met me deeply last night:
“Unglued and undone by personal experience of the Messiah of sinners, who searches the noisy streets of large cities and the unpaved roads of small hamlets, the ragamuffin walks the way of ruthless trust in the irreversible forgiveness of the Master. The defenses he has erected against his own truth as a saved sinner wither in the maelstrom of mercy flashing like lighting across his life. ‘If the Lord Jesus has washed me in his own blood and forgiven all my sins,’ the ragamuffin whispers to herself, ‘I cannot and must not refuse to forgive myself.'”
“Uncompromising trust in the love of God inspires us to thank God for the spiritual darkness that envelopes us, for the loss of income, for the nagging arthritis that is so painful, and to pray from the heart, ‘Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind, and spirit and this entire day — morning, afternoon, evening and night. Whatever you want of me, I want of me, falling into you and trusting in you in the midst of my life. Into your heart I entrust my heart, feeble, distracted, insecure, uncertain. Abba, unto you I abandon myself in Jesus our Lord. Amen.”
Joining with Ginny + her weekly yarn along to share what we’re knitting and reading today!
This is what March is like around here. One day it’s snowing, a few days later you’re planting pansies and soaking up the sun in your front yard. I’ll take it all, but it really did feel pretty wonderful to be outside almost all day Saturday and Sunday, watching the kids zoom around the yard on their bikes, or playing on the swing and sandbox. I don’t know quite what got into Brandon this weekend, but he went to town on a few projects for me/us. He made small planter boxes for me (his own design, which I love!) so that we can have a scant amount of veggies, at the very least. The ONLY place in our yard that has light is our porch, so I plan to have a few containers this year of the barest essentials: herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, greens of some sort. It’s just the best growing food with little ones. They are so excited to see the whole process and I do believe it helps with better eating when they’ve grown and tended the plants themselves. For us, it helps some financially and nothing tastes better than our own produce. I really miss our bigger garden space but I’m thankful for at least a little square of sun.
Philippa was attempting to “help” me go through and sort clothes earlier last week, I suppose, or at least making the job easier by dumping all of Noah’s wardrobe contents on the floor. She is for sure the most mischievous of all the children so far, at 15 months old. I literally clean up one disaster, walk into the next room and find another one.
We filled up our bird feeder this weekend and rehung it and it’s been really fun watching at the windows and from the porch, spotting new cheery visitors. The warm sun made me crave getting my fingers in the dirt and seeing some bright new life, so we planted a few pansies. I was amazed at how interested Philippa was in planting flowers. She surprises me with how much she understands and how eager she is to do “big kid” things. The older two were busy rowing their “boat” through the wild seas, so she had the dirt and trowel all to herself. She filled up the little pot with dirt very slowly and plunked purple pansies down in there, smooshing them in sideways. Watering everything was another adventure which completely fascinated her.
Earlier in the afternoon on Sunday Brandon told me he wanted to make me something, a surprise. I took Phoebe on a mommy/daughter date to pick out a craft she had been saving her spending money for (an “Anna” sculpture/piggy bank to paint) and when I came back Brandon surprised me with an Amish yarn swift! I felt so so loved! I put it to use right away last night and it is so much easier to use than the other methods for winding skeins that I had been attempting. Mostly, it just meant a lot to me that he came up with that idea and figured out how to make one. He honestly supports me endlessly in all my little endeavors, even when I constantly doubt myself, and it means so much. I don’t know why he seems to believe in me, but he does, and in this great big world full of critics and naysayers, one of the greatest gifts is having someone who is always, always on my side, someone who is for me, cheering me on, pointing me always toward who + what is best. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect and we butt heads often, but ultimately we are each other’s biggest cheerleaders and defenders in a world full of opposition and difficulty, and for that I am grateful.
everything He gives 