"I will sing of your mercies that lead me through valleys of sorrows to rivers of joy."
I have one thing to add to my list today. A someone who is missed every day, who has left a hole in a family that will never be filled. He loved passionately, cared deeply, prayed always. This year has been the hardest for our family. Ever. But, God has us in His hands. We WILL sing of His mercy and He WILL lead us through this time. It still feels so fresh, but we will look to the heavens for He will never leave us. I don't know what the next months will bring, but I do know that we have a God who loves us and shows us His kindness everyday. I thank God for Tom, for letting us have him for a time, and I am even more thankful that God called him His own and Tom now spends the rest of eternity with His Savior. "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he LIVE." John 11:25-26
"give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:18
When you don't know what God's will is for you, GIVE THANKS. This I am doing in faith, knowing that God is faithful and will supply all of our needs, never leave us to fend for ourselves, and promises to finish the work He has started. We are weary, but God is good.
So, trusting in our great God, my list continues....
#165-196
almond flour pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream hot air balloon filled sky a visit from Grandma celebrating birthdays from afar chilly mornings soccer games birds still chirping Red Bull and a straw feeling his peace little girl in tulle skirt rain morning after rain walks a girl who wants to please (praying I am a mom who is easy to please) apple cider cozy wraps my Juicy Couture socks thanks to Tom! Ugg boots early mornings hazelnut lattes blustery fall day-reminded us of fall in Maryland colored pencils macadamia nuts a large gift---mysteriously arriving in the mailbox--provision cedar & pine in the fireplace balloon glow cloudy skies fall boots and scarves little girl and her dog visits from family rain and clouds
Fifteen years ago today, I married this man. I was 19. Some said that it would never last, that I didn't know what I wanted out of life....they.were.wrong. I knew it then, and I still know it today.
Wherever this journey of life takes us, I want to be by his side for it all. Here's to the next 15 years. I love you Michael.
I used to be, but for some reason the older I get, the less I want to do things I haven't planned for.
But, this morning we did something spontaneous! And it was so fun.
We got up early, got some coffee and vanilla steamers and drove to a field to watch balloons rise from the near balloon fiesta park. What fun!!
And, I would have missed the gorgeous snowy mountain...one of the prettiest I have seen since we moved here. God is good, and He gives us little graces like this to remind us we are tucked safely in His hands and being used for His purposes. I needed that reminder this morning.
Praying I do more of this...kids are happy and contented and my heart is at rest.
I got this recipe on Pinterest, my new obsession. I have tried to make many pumpkin spice latte recipes, but NONE of them work out too well. Until this one! This recipe for Pumpkin Spice Syrup has made my fall. With a gluten allergy, many, many things bother me. Including one of my favs, the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte! It pains me to speak it out loud. When fall comes around, I CRAVE an S-bucks Pumpkin Spice! I tried this fall, and well....you don't even want to know. So, I have been on the hunt for a new way to satisfy this craving. Pinterest has been an addiction lately, and it has brought such great recipes and ideas. This is one of them! Yum!!! Here is the recipe...
Pumpkin Spice Simple Syrup
1 1/2 c water 1 1/2 c sugar 4 cinnamon sticks 1/2 t ground cloves 1/2 t ground ginger 1 t ground nutmeg 3 T pumpkin puree
Combine water and sugar in medium pot over medium heat. Cook until sugar is dissolved. Whisk in remaining ingredients. Cook for about 6 minutes, stirring frequently. Do not bring to a boil
Strain in cheesecloth. (I did not have cheesecloth, so I used my French press)
So, another way to use this syrup is in a martini!! It was yum...I already tried! Mix equal parts with your favorite vodka or vanilla vodka, the syrup, a little cream or a little Bailey's....it is soooo good! I am sure you could find lots of ways to use this stuff!
As I search for a rhythm to my days, my heart chooses to be grateful...my list goes on.
#157-164
a day at home-ALL DAY reminders of GRACE hearing voices of friends from Maryland remembering that it's ONLY by grace I have been saved a loving and faithful husband quiet moments at home seeing my kids learn & grow a loving God who sustains and uses ALL for His glory
I cannot believe Mikey is 10! It flew by and seems like yesterday he was delivered into our arms. This crazy kid has been the sweetest, most challenging person in. my. life. Maybe because we are so much alike, or maybe because he is the middle, or maybe just because. He has had to face many challenges in his young life...a sick and often impatient mama, which for an extremely sensitive kid, is a very hard thing to take. It breaks my heart whenever I think of how tired and impatient I have been with him. He has been quite sick himself. As a very young baby/child, we spent many nights in the hospital, awake every few hours with breathing treatments...I think he had about every virus and illness a young child can possible get. Then the lyme disease. Oh boy....to see your child in rage all day, or try to physically hurt you and threaten to hurt himself.....I can't tell you how difficult some years were. But, God IS faithful and He is calling our young man to Himself. I see how he is growing, and I often have to remind myself that he is God's first. He is becoming quite the leader amongst his peers. He knows how to take charge when things are getting out of hand with his buddies, and he is quite the athlete. I can't wait to see what God is going to do with his life, and I pray for patience and grace to raise this strong young man in a way that honors God. Happy Birthday Bubba!!! I love you!
So with the hope Christ gives and a VERY full heart, my list continues:
#152-156
kids to run around for a home to return to a loving hug from a friend my boy...growing in grace His many provisions
It seems like it's been a lifetime since I have blogged and it's not because I have not wanted to. I think these last months have been some of the most busy and trying since we started this little adventure 2 years ago....has it really been 2 years!!? Almost unbelievable, and sometimes I feel like I am living out a dream and I am about to wake up any time now. It still seems a little surreal. Our summer was wonderful (I will post pics soon), full of memories and much joy for us. It has been hard to get back here and get back into the swing of life and figure out how to do this in a more busy way. It seems that God has asked us to this hard for now, and so we will do hard. Many little things have added up to become some major hardships and trials for us. They say "when it rains, it pours", and so it pours!!! We have had a car wrecked, a car stolen, pool pump go bad, pool cover break, leaks in the house, electrical problems in the house, sinks break, cars break down, a cabinet of dishes come crashing down, oven break down, taken on two extra jobs; all while grieving the loss of a dad. We have watched dear friends and family lose their parents. We have questioned calling, schooling, loyalties, and just about everything else in the last six months, but one thing we have not questioned is God's unfailing love and grace in our lives. He is faithful and He has promised to walk with us through all the hardships of life. And through His faithfulness, we are discovering how to rely heavily on His grace. In saying all this, we are by no way complaining....this life we chose was one we knew was going to stretch us beyond what we though we could take, and one that we knew was going to push us right into the arms of Jesus. And it has done just that. And it has brought us many blessings as well, ones we did not expect. One of the many blessings that have come about through this, is the fact that I get to have Gracie home for another year. That's right....O'Halloran Academy is once again opened! Grace is doing Kindergarten at home and Kathryn is also home doing a homeschool study program. This program gives her about 9 hours in a classroom per week, and she gets to do the rest at home. The best of both worlds. Though all this, I get to sit down with my girls and pray every morning, read to them, talk with them and spend time I would not normally be able to do. This has blessed me in many ways. One of the things I have NOT done, and boy do I feel it, is give thanks. I have been so convicted these last weeks to be thankful for every grace in my life. I once again picked up my journal and jotted down more of the list. One of these days, I WILL reach 1000....I continue to give thanks today...
#144-151
Perpective
Sustaining Grace
Many new and joyful memories
A VERY generous family
Skype with friends
Watching them learn
Being able to serve
My kiddos on their first days
Death's ugly face is showing itself again in the O'Halloran family. This time, our sister-in-law's mama's body is racked with cancer and is threatening to take her. I think of my precious nephew and nieces and how they may lose two grandparents within a year. I think of my sister-in-law at her bedside caring for her and my mother-in-law, still in the throws of grief herself, giving her time, energy and wisdom to her beloved daughter-in-law and her family. I know God can heal, and He is powerful to do this. But, I also know that He has ordained ALL our days before the beginning of time and He knows just what will happen in the coming days. My heart is heavy. I sat down today to update my gifts list, and all that is on my heart and my mind is this? One thing that is keeping my fingers typing is the fact that I don't have to be thankful for sickness, but I can be thankful that there is a God who loves and cares and holds us up when we have no strength to hold up on our own. I can be thankful that there is a God who has good plans for us and knows each and every heartbreak we will ever face. So....hunting for more beauty in the ugly, my list continues....
Gifts #132-#143
my little girl ALWAYS singing & dancing my husband-for all the ways he is patient with me hands to do the laundry car to take the kids to school old friends and long catch up sessions over the phone a thank you from my boy after I put his clothes away sounds of the dice rolling on the parcheesi board kids laughing and getting along over spring break seeing a dear friend on TV--her own commercial? really?! waking up with energy text messaging and keeping in contact with loved ones hurting a faithful GOD
Who would have guessed at 19, I could have possibly chosen this amazing man and taken this crazy, wild, wonderful ride. I was a child when I married you, and you were ever so patient with your new bride. The first years were filled with incredible love and lots of kinks that needed to be worked out, and you were a man after God's heart and loved me that way. Always the last to raise his voice, the last to say the unkind words, the first to say sorry. I have been more than blessed to be your wife and love you more now than ever. After three years, you blessed me with our Kathryn on this day, and as I sit here and look at her, I am so grateful you asked me to be your wife. Our journey has taken us away from family, away from all that is comfortable, but with you I feel safe and warm and welcome, and I know God has a plan to take this little family and make something great for His glory. I am ready to hang on and continue this ride for as long as He will allow. So...today as my list continues, I remember all the graces that God has given me.....
Gifts # 114-#131:
breath mountatins Fresh baked banana bread Reservations made for a weekend away Watching the tram climb the mountain from my kitchen window Extending family back home-praying for grace in the midst of great struggle 24 hours away with my love A clean house Superbowl parties Friends Robitussin Slow Days Tea A busy 4 year old Party planning Early morning guitar practice Red Bull !!!!! Thanks, Grace, Joy: The triple threat to my melancholy My husband
Life is short. Too short. It seems I have been learning about this for some time now, and God hasn't let me forget. I am grateful for this. Gratitude is something I am learning. Learning to think about all the little gifts that God has given me and to savor each one of them. It has taken me 34 years to discover that life is not about me and what I can do to make things better, it's all about what God has done to make MY life better. The book I can't put down, has been nailing this down for me. Ann writes, "...I hear it well: the only thing to rip out the tape echoing of self-rejection is the song of His serenade. One thousand gifts tuned me to the beat. It really is like C.S. Lewis argued: that the most fundamental thing is not how we think of God but rather what God things of us: 'How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important'. Years of Christian discipleship, Bible study, churchgoing had been about me thinking about God; practicing eucharisteo was the very first time I had really considered at length what God thought of me-this ridiculous and relentlessly pursuing love, so bold. Everywhere, everything, Love!"
Her challenge is this: to begin a list of 1000 gifts of grace in your life. One thousand ways He has loved us. Even in the ugly. And even in giving thanks (eucharisteo) for the ugly, they start becoming beautiful. The dishes in the sink, the dog hair-gifts from God. We HAVE dishes, my children HAVE a dog. What joy this has brought, what peace in knowing that all of life is grace. Every breath, every step is grace. I cannot demand anything in this life, all is grace. All is a gift. She writes later, "Purgation was the first step toward full life in God, according to ancients. Awakened to the chasm separating from God, one prays for divine assistance to purge the soul of self-will. And for me too, eucharisteo had gently slowed me down, opened my hand to purge me of my hold, my control, on the world. With each gift I had accepted and given thanks for, I let go of my own will and accepted His. But my purgation, this releasing of sin and self, wasn't an act of will or effort, but the act of CHRIST and His grace all-sufficient. Overwhelming grace grew me to the Christ full of glory that I might empty of the self." Oh to let go and be grateful. This is changing so much in me. It's the beginnings of a life full of gratitude towards a God to as The Jesus Storybook Bible states has a "Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love" towards me.
I have begun this challenge, will you? Write 1000 gifts of grace, and then keep it going. Everyday. Give thanks for the wonder of this ugly beautiful life.
Below is a link to a video. Ann reads about this book and the challenge. Watch it and remember all the ways God has graced you today. (You will need to turn off the music player at the bottom)
Searching for the beautiful in the ugly, my list continues:
106: Kathryn: for all the ways she is growing up
107: medals after hard work
108: the breath of fresh air that is Angel
109: road trips with my girls
110: American Girls
111: a son that runs into my arms when I walk in the door
"Blessed is the man whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." Romans 4:7,8
