Rejoice!

"Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say it again: Rejoice!

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything,

but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,

present your requests to God.

And the peace of God,

which transcends all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds

in Christ Jesus."

Phillipians 4:4

Monday

She looks exactly how I feel....only not so cute.

Pearls

"After all," Anne had said to Marilla once,

"I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid,

or wonderful,

or exciting happens,

but just those that bring simple little pleasures,

following one another softly,

like pearls,

slipping off a string."

Driving

When I was 15 Dad took me in to get my driver's permit. I passed, and as I walked out to the car I jokingly said, "Hey can I drive home?"
Dad threw me the keys and climbed into the passenger side. Please note: I had never driven a car before. Also: we had a stick shift. But adventure is my middle name so I gamely jumped in, started it up, put it in reverse, and stalled. Let's just say that it was a long drive home. I made quite a few drivers very unhappy. I ended up in a ditch and Dad took over and drove me home.
I mentioned in a previous post that I've been reading 'Practicing His Presence' by Brother Lawrence (a rewrite of the original). It is a beautiful soul-seeking book of encouragement written by a French "Lay Brother" among barefooted devotees. He claims you can be interactively in the presence of God at all times. Another man, Frank Laubach a missionary, has a chunk of his writings compiled here as well and he claims the same thing. "See how many minutes of the hour you can remember...Christ at least once each minute; that is to say bring Him to mind at least one second out of every sixty."
This is harder than it sounds. I've struggled with lots of thoughts like, "Why couldn't I have been a monk and gotten this down before I had four children!" "I could think about God all the time if I lived by myself," etc.
Then I read, "Faith alone, not a method, and certainly not fear, was able to satisfy me in coming to Him. That was my beginning. The next ten years were very hard, and I suffered a great deal."
Excuse me, did he say ten years...and he didn't have any children!
A couple weeks ago in school I told the kids that they needed to write a thank you letter for grammar. I told them to write to anyone they wanted to thank. A while later I found the following letter on my desk.

Dear God,
Thank you for being with me all the time. I really like that. Thanks again. Love, Grant

So I'm on this road, and I don't know how to drive, but my heart is still up for adventure and Father is in the front seat with me, all the time.

Note: I'm still thinking a parking lot would have been wise.

Flying

It's like going from a trot to a gallop.
You bump along through the first years of marriage, trying to manage this beast that's got a mind of it's own.
You're going somewhere, it's just rather rough riding.
Then something clicks.
You lean forward, merge into the horse, the jolting jolts into a glide.
All the world falls away and you're flying.

Happy Anniversary!

Memorial Day

Today I remember.
Gray-blue eyes like my sisters, like my son's.
Laughter that gave and filled and joined.
A man wearing an imaginary coonskin cap and heading west.
A boy trapped inside a large man's body.
The eager pursuit of Indians and animals.
A man cutting the lawn with the scissors.
My dad, as I first knew him, sitting at a campsite in Alaska, white t-shirt, blue jeans, crew cut.

We walked to the cemetery and left an odd assortment. The kids decorated the stone with flowers, weeds, gravel, roses tied with a blue ribbon. We walked out of the cemetery singing, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord." Hands held, Grant's fingers entwined with mine. Rowan and Posy skipped ahead, hands clasped and swinging, joy personified.
The day grew dusky and ripe.
Dave joined me and asked the four-year old question: "Are you sad?"
I replied, "I'm trying to be."
But really, there's no mourning, only remembering.
Remembering and Laughing and Praising.
Thank you God for my dad!

Testing

I wish it were always this easy.
Avonlea and Grant had state testing yesterday and today for their appropriate grade levels.
They went into a room full of other home schooled children, whipped out their pencils and scrap paper, and tried their best.
I, with about 40 other harassed women, corrected their papers at the end today. I put a transparent sheet with the correct answers on top of their paper and marked the ones that didn't match up. So simple.
The tests showed what I already knew; sometimes the wrong answer looks like the right one.

Sometimes I wish the multiple choice questions of life had less options. Sometimes I wish I had the answer key and I could follow the pattern and adjust the mistakes. Sometimes I wish I could just go Home and not answer anymore questions. Sometimes I wish that I knew, what I know now, when I was in second grade (I'd show them).
Sometimes I think of life in this scenario. God, heavy ink pen in hand, leaving a Holy blot where the correct answer should have been. Filling in my percentile, "Annie is better than 33% of other Christians." Jotting my grade level, "She completed the test for a 35 year old but tested at about 27." Commenting, "Retake gentleness and self-control. Do a refresher in perseverance. Scores in loving were so low she better just forget it, no one can do everything!"

No wonder our nation's philosophy on education is dancing to the mantra of "There are no wrong answers!"

Reading through Job this week in school has brought testing to the forefront of our minds. Watching my children sweat and squirm and doubt themselves has looked all too familiar to me. My own words haunt, "This is not the accumulation of who you are." Because in a sense, the tests/trials we go through ARE an accumulation of who we are and who we will become.
So I pray for grace in the days of testing. Peace over the problem-solving. Wisdom, to live what God's Word has said. Perseverance, to dig deeper into God's word. Faith, to know that God forgives and He grades on the curve of Jesus. Hope, to finish with joy.

"But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth with a 100%"
Job 23:10