au·then·ti·cateVerb/ôˈTHentiˌkāt/

1. Prove or show (something, esp. a claim or an artistic work) to be true or genuine

I really, really enjoy my blog.  It's a wonderful place to share photos and ideas, but I have this real desire to have a place to be real, to have more of a real, journalistic style blog.  Just a day to day normal no-fluff blog.  Not that any part of me is fluffy, hopefully.

Matter of fact I've been running again.  For two whole days.  Ralph leaves for work just after six o'clock so I've been getting up earlier.  I don't need an alarm, I just wake up in the dark.  

Then I have this little conversation with myself about how good I'll feel all day if I just go out and do it.  How I really should run because one day maybe I won't be able to.  How I should go because it's beautiful out there to watch the sun think about coming up, and the hour is mine, all mine to whisper to God and think and just push my body.  

And twice this week I did it.  My coach pushes me hard, I run out of lungs but he doesn't.  He runs harder and I try to race him.  Then he really takes off and I laugh.  I could never race that doggy.

--

This is my fifth year of beginning the school year.  I've been overcome with gratitude, first that  I can even homeschool, next that I get so much good support from Ralph and friends @ Classical Conversations.  

It occurs to me more and more that I really only do have today.  I know loss.  I know huge change.  I know getting the carpet pulled out from beneath my feet.  Mystically, God allows  and wills change and gradually I'm beginning to say yes to all of it.  

So I'm feeling so thankful for all that I just DO have today, another day to teach my boys, hold them and their little hearts.  It won't be forever.  So thankful for a husband who loves & laughs with me, a friend inside my own home.  

---

Feeling inspired I'm planning to head to Goodwill soon to do some shopping for myself.  I doubt I'll get too far from my plain old self but I kind of have a new little desire to change things up and get a new look.  We'll see if I can get so brave.  

So now I'm off to hang out with my photos, get some editing in.  

We only have today, enjoy yours!

~Amanda

not broken

I am not broken.

The book on my hearth gets picked up every morning while I sit with my coffee and that warm blue and white blanket that my grandmother-in-law made so, so long ago. They both warm me and I read. The words make me wonder

Then I tromp off, more awake to my shower. AFterward, I stand in front of the mirror, eyeliner in hand. I like to accentuate the eyes, mine are light and I want someone to see my eyes when they see my face. My eyes, they are not broken. They don't need fixing. But I paint them to add the art and the color, creating what I like to see, what I want you to see.


I brush my hair and I think on my soul and how though it's been pressed and hurt, burdened and smooshed it is not broken. My heart, my mind and my flesh, they are not broken.

That God is not a mechanic who comes to replace the broken parts.

God is an artist. My heart, my soul, my mind are His creation and with brushstrokes He adds to me.

I was always beautiful to Him. And I cannot possibly wrap my brain around this. In the mirror I just see a girl in grown up clothes fumbling around trying to figure the best way. Figure who I am supposed to be.

And I cannot wrap my brain around the beauty that God sees in me now. Well, I can maybe. Because I can see the beauty in my own back yard and the teeny bulb sprouts that push their way up through the winter-dead grass and I can see what it will be, and what it is today.

Those little green rockets that shoot through the sod are promises of life, spring, new and color and I love them, right in the dead winter. And God must look at me and see all those little rockets of promise shooting out all over and just love me for the new, the color, HIM right inside of me.

Because Art is never ugly or unwanted. Lacking, maybe, but never broken. God will not discard us, or fix us. He just grows in us new beauty, quiet and small, painting HIS GRACE all over the canvas of me, and you. Beautiful you.

Swimming today

It's just in the quiet of this good days that I stop.

I am still, and altogether overwhelmed with how much is going on around me and how God is knitting together my life even now.

His work is simpler as I yield to Him. This is not such an easy task. I go all day. I wake up with my feet on the floor somedays and fall into bed at night whispering to Him about the goodness of the day, and how I just know He has all things in His hands.

Evening is ebbing it's way in now, the hard work of the day is done and I am grateful for hard work, I am grateful for smiling people that have wrapped grace around me and loved me in spite of who I am. I am grateful for a dream that I have that hangs out in my mind in moments like these.

All things usual. Work, people, dreaming, busy, pots and pans and wiping that table down again, another load of laundry in and "did anyone feed the dog?" And I love every.morsel of normal and life. It is rich.

God whispered to me a secret this New Year. I will share it with you, I believe it's meant to be shared.

I can swim in His love.

I can not worry.

I can rest in Him, all of the time, every moment of the day.

Do you hear it? He says "don't be anxious"....He means, you don't have to be anxious, you can rest in Him .

I know that takes a kind of faith I don't yet have, but I'm beginning to have glimpses of this.

I can not worry.

I can swim in His love, rest.

the undoing

Some days I wake up and feel slammed with one web of emotion stacked upon another. I trudge forward knowing that there is a day ahead with boys to polish and feed; mind, body and spirit.

i can't find my spirit.

That day, just this week, I had to stop and think on what was so troubling. About the loss and grief I'm feeling over losing my grandpa slowly, his life is ebbing.

As major emotions do, the ground beneath me shifts in my grief and I see another loss.

Lost years. Years, I have been listening to this voice that says that I'm not enough. I can't do enough. I can't be enough. I will always be lacking.

And in a strange way I know this is true. True enough. In my friends' and family's eyes I will always come up lacking. But I remember, my name is Redeemed. I was a lost cause, broken soul of a girl. But God saw me. He remembered how His hands knit me together (Jeremiah). He delighted in me (Zephaniah) and so he did what it took and used His own life to buy me, to purchase my soul. Ransomed.

So sitting on the bed, looking at the leaves against the sky He whispers to remind me that it's not true. "You are doing what I have called you to do." ...and that I am worthy, I am paid for.

My value is not in what I do. I was ransomed. My value is in the eyes of Abba. My creator.

For years God has been peeling away at this belief of mine, that I am not enough.

So I pick up this thought for the moment, tuck it in my pocket to go; ransomed. Enough, I am enough for Him. I head down the stairs to face my day and boys, sticks, math and all.

But I think of this woman I read of, Ann, who prays in and out of the day. I sneak up to my room at 11 and clear a spot on the floor to pray. I read, I look at those leaves against the sky and thank God for all those things and remember that I am ransomed.

I can do a few more hours. He is my manna. And so near. He is Abba, I am ransomed.

and I will drink, if longingly

Here I sit, in the quiet night of my home in pieces all over the place.

It's a tumble me round, pieces everywhere season for me- that's the truth. Don't get me wrong. I love it here.

I love our new ancient home and how it felt like home as soon as I stepped in the door that first day. The beauty of the river every morning hasn't escaped me yet, nor the concept that that beauty so abundantly fills a hole that the mountains left. Only this time, the river, it's a 2 minute walk from here. Our new school has been all that I'd hoped for and arms around me as a new friend, arms around us all. My life is full, my hands are full, my belly is full and my heart is....

My heart. It's, um, what's the right word? It's missing something. Not lacking something. Missing, in the sense of longing.

And I know that while I spin through my days of teaching, and putting old things in new places. Of planning and errands and laughing. I know it's there and sometimes I feel I'll break and sometimes I do.

What to do with a longing heart?

There is a familiarity to this longing. It's not about people. It's mostly about God, and about myself too.

Breaking into a new life is hard. Moving sucks. I do not like hanging my old things on new walls again. I would rather be walking by the river with my wiggle boys, finding the best stick and wondering about the feathery nuts of the Sycamore trees. I do not like wondering where to put these things. I want to pull up a fat book and pile on a blanket, sit in the Autumn sun to waste the afternoon away. But even more so I want to be settled. I want my home to be tucked in so I can go and play.

I work hard to do both. Work here, play here, then rest. This morning I finally answered the call of the sunrise. I ran downstairs in a hurry to scoop up the boys to go, go, hurry before the sun rises. We found our way to our own little patch of the river front and I photographed the little wonderful things and the big astonishing things. I listened to the boys discover and giggle and step through the sticks and leaves to find the perfect stick. I came home and made a fat fire in our stove, somehow sitting there puffing life into that stove calms me. I needed calm. You see I've been hard at work all week. I've really not been resting or playing.

But the longing stayed.

I wonder at what to do with this unresolve. I read some ponderings from a sweet friend this morning, who has gone through all this change and so much more in the last year. At last her heart is settled, full and the questions seem to have answers, if only for now.

And her advice (you'll have to read more to really understand) is simply to drink. Drink from the cup we've been handed.

From this i hear that I should fully embrace the cup I've been handed. The beauty of our new home and the lovely mornings. Embrace the work that is ahead in my day, the family I've been given, the unsettled parts of my life.

A man plans this path but the Lord directs His steps. I will sink fully into those steps, I will look around and see the others that walk along me. I will drink, working and loving and resting and playing. And I will long.

Quiet as a Mouse

These days have been quiet, hard working days. It's a crossroads in life when you move. A season to stop and "Selah" breathe, reflect, think.

And I feel a bit like it's an opportunity to reinvent myself. Not to others, so much. No name changes or historical inaccuracies, but more so for myself. Reinventing who I am, how I spend my time. Or maybe it's just that I just celebrated my 36th birthday and I'm getting older and quieter.

1 Thessalonians 4:11& 12 says:

Make it your ambition

to lead a quiet life,

to mind your own business

and to work with your hands.

My life hasn't usually been an attempt to lead a quiet life. I wanted a full, busy, people life. However these days I'm enjoying the quiet. I'm enjoying my family. Coming home, so to speak. My heart is falling home over and over. Throwing myself into my home, cooking, school, dates with my husband, reading to my kids, taking them for walks and doing fun projects.

But I flounder in it a little. Still learning how to be quiet. How to be content in fewer things, deeper. But I'm making quiet my ambition. I'm glad to be small and quiet, rather than biggish and noisy. Quiet as a mouse...

Loneliness

Moving has a strange way of getting me all caught up, a giant twister of a storm catches me up with my home-family and all and then drops us in a new unfamiliar land leaving me to pick up the pieces, reorient myself, and then find a good local dr & grocery store to boot.

Today I feel like I got the drop part.

In truth, we've been in this new town for 7 or 8 weeks. But I think I just woke up from the blur of house hunting and settling that I've needed to do. In a moment of quiet today I had the strange realization that I'm without friends here.

I've made a friend. I call her pool Jen because I met her at the pool. She and I were kindred's,I both in move-mode with summer days to spend and kiddos to entertain. Now our kiddos have hit the busy road, school, sports and life and I barely see her. I think our paths won't cross accidentally so I should certainly phone her soon so I can stop whining about the no friend thing.

When you leave a town you leave behind people who don't always keep in touch..they're lives keep going and sometimes I think they protect themselves by being quiet. I miss my old friends, I want a new friend. I'm praying to that end. Loneliness doesn't look good on me.

So there you have it. No fancy post with a "cheer up" ending or spiritual content. It's just where I am today.