"We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us."

Jane Eyre

We have a winner for the book giveaway. Congratulations to Dayna!

"I would like to make a dinner by myself, like pick out the stuff and do it." 

You don't have to tell me twice.  I don't fight people for that job.  Though when the volunteer is under 12 that really means, "I want to make dinner with you helping," which is just as good really.  Better.  

So on a Sunday afternoon we sprinkle yeast in a bowl of warm water and watch it bubble.  

We knead and pound and throw pizza dough high in the air.  

Because….process over product right?  

Because they aren't going to have hours of unspoken for Sunday afternoons forever.

And this one was very, very good.  

PS – Don't forget the book giveaway closes soon! Be sure to stop over here and leave your name. 

A couple weeks ago we talked about Jen's new book, You Are Not Alone: Encouragement for the Heart of a Military Spouse.  It is a book of 30 daily readings designed to encourage, strengthen, and uplift military spouses in the unique challenges they face. Whether it’s a deployment, move, or raising military kids, find real-life solutions and inspiration from someone who’s been there. 

Well, Jen is graciously offering me a copy to share here. Simply leave a comment in the box below. Your email is required to notify/send the book and will not be used for any other purpose without your permission. You do not need to be a military spouse to win!

Each social media share (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) will be worth one more entry.  Please note where you shared when you leave your comment. 

The “fine print”: Each win is worth either You Are Not Alone in Kindle format or softcover (shipping of print copy within U.S., Canada, or APO/FPO addresses only). Winners will choose which format they prefer. The print edition will ship in 6-8 weeks. Kindle edition of the book works on the Kindle app as well as the Kindle device. Winners choosing the Kindle edition will receive an Amazon gift code issued by email, which is to be used only to purchase You Are Not Alone.

Giveaway closes on Tuesday March 7! 

 "…let me walk through the world with a joyous soul. 

No doubt, there is much in it to fill the heart with painfulness; and pessimism has turned to the strifes and sorrows of creation for proof of its dismal creed. 
But the goodness of God is written, too, in letters of gold on hill and lake and mountain and forest and stream.

Not a sunrise, but speaks of His patient and enduring grace. Not a sunset, but stirs the conscience of the sinner, and opens Heaven itself to the saint. So much of His divine glory, the Almighty Maker conveys . . .
  by His sunrise and sunset touches, 
  by His flowers and woodland trees, 
  by His vast ocean and starry sky. 
Therefore let me be strong and of a good courage — He remembers me, His redeemed child! 

The sights and sounds of the landscape ought to be preachers and trumpets of the glory of God. In the cool of the day, when I pass through the country fields, or climb to the summit of the hill, or sit and gaze across the sea — God and my soul should meet and talk."

– Alexander Smellie

Although we are back in the States we have definitely not abandoned our nomadic tendencies. My husband’s career takes him all over. This was once a trial, a big one in fact. Today however we are at a place in life with half our children grown where we can venture out together and still have adults holding down the fort at home.  This year we are doing just that with the children still home.  #worldschoolers! 

  The first trip for 2016 was to Montana where my husband was attending a course on tribal relations being held by the University of Montana and local Native American representatives. My original plan had been to venture out to the mountains a bit and shoot some landscape on this trip.  Landscape isn't really my passion though.  I always gravitate back to people and their stories.  Then the steady light rain that greeted us caused an about turn in my plans which worked out just fine.

That first day we found some thrift shops and then a secondhand bookstore we spent a morning digging through. We walked across the lock bridge when the drizzle let up, thinking of all the hope those engraved initials represent. We watched a man fly fishing in the river down below. We toured the campus which the president had proudly told us was ranked the eighth most beautiful in the US.

And the pool.  It isn't a road trip without reading by the pool while the kids splash. Fun for them. Fun for me. 

I was able to join my husband for the small class dinner with the university president, who coincidentally went to graduate school less than an hour from our own hometown. The keynote speaker from the Salish tribe shared her perspective as both a member of the community and a former Washington DC program head. Another gentleman at the table was married to a Montessori teacher connected to a pilot program in China.  So only iphone snaps day one.  And lots of people and lots of stories. 

The rain did let up up after this first day and the big camera did come out before we were through.  I will share some more tomorrow. 

(Wendell Berry's Fidelity was a nice surprise. Going well!) 

I'm not sure when it happened - though surely it must have been sometime after we began sleeping through the night more or less regularly.  When did my feet hit the floor and move almost instinctively down to the kitchen?  It definitely happens the same way every morning now.  We can stand some tweaking of the time things take some days, but the flow works well.

Coffee, dogs out, prayers and bible, send off my husband.  aka: The grown-up hour. 

Dress, make my bed, start breakfast, wake up children.  (By this time, it's been an hour since husband's alarm began to go off and the coffee has worked its magic.)  

The children pray and eat and begin their morning tidying up.  Ideally.  ; )  

The first load goes in the washer.

Then we all sit down around the dining room table.  If it's a home day it looks like that.  

Need some more inspiration or practical helps to start your day? Growing Slowly shares her morning routine and a printable here.  Flylady's words of wisdom and checklists here. 

I picked up a slim hardbound copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's A Gift from the Sea last month on a thrifting excursion. I vaguely recalled some reference to it years ago and a quick paging through while standing in the store aisle made me sure she had put words to my own thoughts in several places.  

Admittedly I ruined it for myself after reading more about the author's own messy personal life. Still, I have picked it up again and again and scribbled out bits into my notebook. The first day of lent brought back this description of her life and her ultimate goal which I can readily identify with:

“The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; I have a husband…children…and a home.  I have also a craft, therefore work I would like to pursue. The shape of my life is of course determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires…

I want to give and take from my children and my husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world as a woman, as an artist, and as a citizen.  

But I want first of all – in fact as an end to these other desires – to be at peace with myself.  

 I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eyes of God. 

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.

I want, in fact–to borrow from the language of the saints–to 'live in grace' as much of the time as possible."

That is it really.  It is why we fast and pray.  It is to put all those raging passions in their place with hope that at the end of it we find a different sort of peace, that our lives will line up more closely with the will of God, that we will be able to carry out our vocation more sincerely and selflessly. 

In short, grace. 

Today's feast speaks to the very hearts of Irish hearth keepers. The story of Brigid of Ireland inspires us to grace and forgiveness in the face of grave injustice. It encourages giving from our need and not our excess. Generosity.  Absolute trust in providence. 

It is said, "One of the most appealing things told of Brigid is her contemporaries’ belief that there was peace in her blessing. Not merely did contentiousness die out in her presence, but just as by the touch of her hand she healed leprosy, so by her very will for peace she healed strife and laid antiseptics on the suppurating bitterness that foments it."  

"…remind us how to kindle the hearth, to keep it bright, to preserve the flame. Your hands upon ours." – from the prayer to St Brigid

May we too have such will for peace in our homes that contentiousness dies out in our presence, that we learn to lay antiseptics on bitterness. 

St Brigid cross tutorial here

If this thought occurred to you today – a paper version