This Week In My Home: Pushing On

In my home this week, I...

....found my attitude wanted less adjusting than in weeks past but still some adjustment was needed all the same.

Things have not been easy. We are all working hard, all pulling together hard and all taking the punches as they continue to come.  The news this week was not any better than that of the last two weeks have been but we just kept right on doing what we could.   Our new mantra in the house is, "That's not my battle to fight just now..." when there's nothing else we can possibly do to help a situation or to face it differently.   It might sound a bit Scarlett O'Hara, putting off until tomorrow what we might worry over today but the truth is that it's the most practical thing we can do at present.  We can't control anything except our own reaction and fears and worries...and so that is just what we do.

Make Mine A Farmhouse

As we drove over to the mountain Friday, I enjoyed myself looking at the homes along the roadways we took.  There were ranch homes, Mobile homes, and Victorian homes, cottages, shanties, shacks and brick Tudor.  Antebellum, Federal and Georgian...But the homes that made my heart go pitter patter were always farmhouse homes.   There's an awful lot of 'farmhouse' this and that right now and I realize it sounds like I'm just another trend follower but when I say farmhouse, I don't mean the modern trend. I mean 'farmhouse' in the way that I knew farmhouses growing up.

This Week In My Home: In the Midst of Storms

In my home this week...

...we'd meant to go to the beach this week and we'd looked forward to it mightily but one thing after another hit us as a family last week.  Saturday morning, after a horrid sleepless Sabath night, John and I sat down and said  to each other, "Perhaps we should cancel..."  Truthfully I can't tell you who suggested it first, but we were both in agreement that we'd each already had that thought.  

In My Home This Week: A Change of Perspective

In my home this week, I...

...have taken a lot of time out for thought.  I do not know just how long this season is meant to be but I suspect it shall be as long as God means it to last...That said between the pull and tug of Mama's needs and attempts to make problems where none should be, children with woes and worries, grandchildren who have been ill all week,  John's job issues, our beloved pastor's sudden resignation and our home situation, I'm about worn down.  I'm suddenly reminded of a psychology teacher's words.  As we grown up students discussed various issues openly in class, he said "They tell me God never gives you more than you can handle but there are times I have had to say, 'Lord my cart is  over full.'"  lol  I can so identify!!

Dear Nasty Trolls

Dear Nasty Trolls:

I wrote "A Broken House" last week after a morning of deep spiritual soul searching.  My purpose was to highlight how God was using this time in MY life to change ME, make ME a different sort, make ME exam MYSELF in a magnified way that is painful.  I am more than well aware that given the opportunity to go into a growing season, my first response is always to whine about it.  I try hard to see the blessings in what might be a very pleasant season overall but which involves change.  Pruning hurts.  Straining to recover from pruning hurts. Healing hurts.  It just does.

But the response from that post was not at all what I expected.  Many of you lovely ones were very sympathetic which I appreciate but it wasn't my purpose.  However, two Troll comments were just horribly nasty and hurtful and hateful and  those two "brazen" souls did the usual and hadn't the courage and conviction to sign their own name to their bit of hate mail.  I did what I always do with unsigned hate mail and will continue to do in future:  I deleted it.  But I can't delete the hurt it renders me right away, nor the questions it puts upon my mind about my purpose in sharing my deepest thoughts.

In My Home This Week: Sweet Scented Spring

In my home this week, I...

...noted on Sunday afternoon, despite the cool rainy day, the Privet was putting out blooms...And so we embark upon the portion of Spring where the air is so scented and perfumed that it's a bit like the young girl who has yet to learn that the best perfume is subtle and not all up in your face across three fields (or parking lots, take your choice).  Well there is no getting away from the perfume of this new season just now.  I confess, I pretty much love the heavily scented air despite the headaches and sneezes and I will happily stand on the porches and breathe in deeply.   

A Broken House

I was sitting in my room yesterday morning, listening to praise music with my ear plugs in to drown out the screeches and yells and screams that are now morning in my home.  I looked out the window between prayer stretches and admired the iris which have been so especially long lasting and lovely this year.  The golden yellow ones are blooming just now in great clumps having multiplied very well over the last few years and they are gorgeous.  I looked at the clump I'd planted just under the trees near the edge of the yard and saw that one tiny portion of my vision for the yard was true at last and good.