There's No Place I Would Rather Be

I am listening to the live worship streaming at the International House of Prayer as I often do.  Tonight the worship leader is singing this line, "There's no place I would rather be than here in your love..."  As I sit thinking about that, I am really able to sing those words from a deep place of submission to a loving Father.  This has been a difficult year for me in many ways.  Parenting 6 very different kids from a teen to a non-sleeping baby has really tested me on many levels.  Actually, I have come to understand better in the last few weeks that it is not about me and my abilities at all.  It is about Jesus and His crazy love for me and my kids.  I can never be the perfect parent and I can never be strong enough on my own.  Of course I have known these things for years, but somehow that has not stopped me from trying to accomplish them.  Jesus said it so simply when he was asked about the greatest commandment.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.  And the second is like it: love your neighbor (your kids) as yourself.  So why do I strive so much??  I guess the actual doing of it is much more difficult in this body of sin and weakness than reading it, agreeing with it, or even wanting it!
 So I want to know how high and deep and wide is the love of God, to know this love that passes knowledge (Eph 3) and I want to be so consumed with His love, so filled to full measure of God (also Eph 3) that I overflow with His love.  If I really know His love, I can only respond by loving him back.  And as He loves me and I love Him, then His love will spill out of me without all of the striving.  And I can mess up and be weak and still love!  That is the beauty of love!  Jesus didn't say to be perfect or to follow all these rules or to never get overwhelmed.  He said LOVE!  What a beautifully difficult pursuit!
And so as I sit here listening and worshiping, I can truly say that there is no place I would rather be.  Even though this season of my life is hard, and I feel overwhelmed and inadequate sometimes, this is the place where God is!  Right here, right in this hard moment, right in each day of this whole hard year.  There is no place where I would rather be because God is near to those with a broken and contrite heart, because God says to count it all joy when we face trials of many kinds, because God is my rock, my stronghold, my strength.  I would not have chosen this way, but then who would?  I am such a pleasure/comfort junkie!  But God has sustained me in each day of this hard season.  I have many times looked back and marveled at God's grace!  And I don't know how much longer this season will continue, but it's really ok. Until recently, I was really frustrated and discouraged about some of the circumstances I am facing.  But, He led me here and he has sustained me this long.  I can trust Him!  I cling to Jesus and His faithfulness.  Not my strength, to grit my teeth and survive through it.  God is working in me.  "For our light and momentary troubles (if Paul could say this, surely I can, too!) are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."  2 Cor 4:17
So tonight I sing honestly from my heart, "There's no place I would rather be than here in your love, God."  Right here, experiencing your love.

Joyful life in January

The weather has been mild here in the Bluegrass.  We have had a few cold spells but overall it has been nice weather for the first half of winter.  Here are some of our kids having fun together.

Rachel and Abby learned to finger knit

up close :) Using her free time with creativity!  Mom really likes this!

Silas on the "sit and spin" having a good time.

Micah giving Nathanael a ride in the wagon.  Nathanael loves to be outside.  Just today it was really nice again and the older boys were going outside.  He brought my his shoes, telling me he wanted to go out too.

trampoline fun!  I am so glad we have this trampoline.  All of them from the biggest to the littlest love to jump!

More jumping

What a cute pair!  Abby is a baby magnet.  She loves them and they love her!

This was Nathanael's first time on the trampoline.  Everyone sat down so he could get used to the ground  moving beneath him.  He loves it!  In fact after I put his shoes on and let him outside today, he went out and started yelling for Abby, who was on the trampoline at the time, to come get him.  She did cause she's such a good big sister.

A friend made the hat for me for Christmas.  I love it!  Nathanael obviously does too.  He was so cute playing 'peek-a-boo' with me one afternoon.

What a cute kid!  He has charmed us all.  And good thing, too, because he still does not sleep well at night.  I told David just the other day that God had really put a love for this boy in my heart because I can still smile at him even after he's kept me up so much at night!  God's love is deeper still.

December celebrations

Well, I am playing catch up on our family happenings.  We'll see how much I get done today.  God has been so good to us.  We are enjoying this crazy life with a house full!  I live mostly by what is right in front on me so blogging has not been a priority.  I want to try to get a little more regular with it as it really helps me and keeps those of you far away in touch with our family.
I'll let the pictures tell the stories from these exciting celebrations in December.

We enjoyed another beautiful Christmas dance celebration in early Dec.  Here are Abby and Rachel in their costumes.  It was a special performance for our family.  Abby had a ballet solo and Rachel danced her first dance 'en pointe.' 

Micah was also in the ballet performance this year.  Late into the semester, he was asked to be the "boy Jesus."  He had a small solo part, which he loved!!  You can see the proud smile on his face.

The same day as the performance, we were part of a craft sale .  CRAZY!  But worth it!  Rachel had the idea to bake goodies and sell them at the annual craft sale in our small town.  She wanted to raise money for Casa de Fe, a children's home in Ecuador run by one of CornerStone's missionaries.  So along with ballet rehearsal's we spent the week making pumpkin bars, cookies, granola, cupcakes and other goodies, along with friendship bracelets.  We had fun as a family and raised a good sum of money, too!

Here are the four boys with their Christmas nutcrackers.  Grandma Trimble sent these to the the girls, but the boys loved them so much that the girls shared them. 

Micah was so happy to get these two Black Stallion movies for Christmas!

My parents were able to come up for a few days before Christmas and we really enjoyed spending time with them. Here is one of the gifts they brought along.  Nathanael is riding on his rocking horse.

Also in December we get to celebrate Keenan's birthday.  He had a "hunting" party theme this year.  This is his camo ice cream cake.

We did a relay race with hunting clothes for our first game.  This was after  they had target practice with their dart guns. :)

Next we played dodge ball- hunters against "deer."  These are the deer for the first round.  See their antlers??  Abby is far left and Micah is in the middle.  The others are friends that we are glad God brought into our lives.