A good friend recently wrote a short essay extolling the wisdom of older women and the general public's disregard for the elderly, despite numerous scripture verses exhorting us to honor the aged.  I agree with her completely but have been thinking also that age does not necessarily guarantee wisdom, maturity, nor spiritual growth.  This fact should make people like me, who have reached or passed our 'half life' as a scientist friend used to call our late thirties.  If we are very lucky we are in the second half of our lives, though of course we have no certainty that another half awaits us. What have we done with this time?  What plans do we have for the next half?

Ideally the passage of time should find us gentler, kinder, wiser.  It is just as possible however that  the years may have left us with deeply ingrained vices, bad habits that no longer seem so bad or worse, seem virtuous now.  Our ways can become comfortable and a world of possibilities can subtly narrow to our way of doing things. 

I have thought a great deal about all of this over the past few months.  This might well be remembered as the winter of transformation, personally and collectively in our family.  It is a time of turning the familiar on its ear and looking at it in new ways. It is a time of considering whether the years are finding us better or just older.  

I have asked myself: Are you still making goals, having grand adventures, and setting the bar a bit higher for yourself? Or rather have you settled into a comfortable routine?  Have you chosen safety over facing fear? Do you still feel the need for personal challenge or have you convinced yourself that it's no longer necessary?  Perhaps these can all be summed up with the most pressing question - have you considered hidden areas in need of improvement or have you decided you are good enough the way you are? 

It is my sincerest hope that I never grow so old that I stop trying.  I think that I came pretty close.  Sure I had projects in the works rather regularly.  I cannot say honestly that those projects stretched me terribly far beyond my comfort zone.  In fact, even if subconsciously, I suspect I kept my adventuring and my personal growth within the bounds of my personal security.  They were of my choosing.  That isn't living though.  It is maintaining. It is plateauing. It is settling. Worst of all, it is telling God, "Thanks, but I'm good."  I have pleaded with God to do His will and then added the postscript that His will would be painless and familiar if at all possible.  If these are our conditions we may as well just leave it at "Thanks, I'm good."  

This story will be told in time.  Maybe in bits and pieces.  But this is the start anyway.  My prayer today is that the God who began this good work will see it through.  We don't know how much future any of us really has It is my intention to run this race to the very finish however.  No more strolling.   ; )  

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  Phil 1:6

What follows is the answer to an essay question our daughter sent in to school for her Physiology and Health exam:

Question: What are three characteristics of a successful marriage?

Answer:

Three characteristics of a successful marriage are:

Good communication. Couples need to be able to share their feelings and express their needs and concerns. 

Emotional maturity.  People who are emotionally healthy try to understand their partner's needs and are willing to compromise.  

Similar values and interests. When couples share attitudes about the importance of good health, spirituality, ethical standards, morality, family, and friendships, they spend more time together, which strengthens marriage. 

From the mouths of babes. That about sums it up.  : ) 

"…15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20…

…15 there's still time for you
Time to buy, Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star …"  

Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this..

Every day's a new day… 
15 there's still time for you." 100 Years, Five for Fighting

 Time is sifting between my fingers as my firstborn baby girl becomes a woman before my eyes. Such a year 15 has been, and we are more than halfway through it now. She tests her wings and finds them nearly flight ready. It is a pleasure to watch her soar.  

Have you seen this picture? Anna's post really got my attention.  The picture is meant to be a metaphor of sorts, the suitcase representing the baggage we have carried along into our adult lives.  She asks:

  "Aren't we all using one hand to hold on to the ones we love, and the other to carry the suitcase as best we can?"

I have thought so much about this and contrasted it with the yoke Jesus describes, which is not to be a burden but to be light and intended to help us do a great work. A good first question for the new year might well be, "What is in your suitcase?"  Is it possible it may be a weight you were never intended to carry?  Can we really chase after His best for us while tethered, white knuckled,  to the bag?  

"Insmuch as I advance, upheld by God, in the way that He has traced for me, that which stands for me for 'duty' becomes more and more clear to me. The great thing is not to lose oneself in unrealizable plans and projects, not to live in tomorrow, but patiently turn thought into action, goodwill into determination. "

– Elisabeth Leseur, The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur 

Have a most blessed Christmas from our home to yours! 

We celebrated another year with our Tess in the hotel last week.  She is a truly fascinating little person. Full of opinions and ideas.  

We have had an unlikely, improbable in fact, convergence of challenges of late. These have accompanied by completely unforeseen blessings.  So it often goes, doesn't it?  At least if you look for them.  

Among the highlights was the well running dry. Literally versus figuratively.  No water. With radiant heat that meant none of that either.   After adjusting the depth of the well pump we were back up and running but left with a dirty cistern.  Allen had to siphon that out refill and sanitize.  The blessing there is the smile on his face seen as he descended into the tank one cold November morning.  God bless him.  He set a steady, positive tone for the rest of us. 

Even Asher looks game, though the little boys were the ones who truly revel in big, dirty, wet projects. They have had their fill!

One night a while back we heard a loud thud.  Loud.  Thud.   It prompted an investigation of the inside and outside of the house which turned up a lotta nothing.  Weird.  It was forgotten til a ball soared too high and fixed itself on the roof.  Could they get it down?  Please Mom?  So Asher scaled the low pitched roof to retrieve…….. a goose. Hello?  Perhaps the stress of recent weeks caught up with me after all.  Come again?  Yes, there was a goose on the roof.  Dead.  Apparently it was injured or sick or gosh only knows what and fell from the sky.  To my roof.  (I am sparing you that picture.)  Not sure what the odds of that are….

Thanksgiving morning Moira came in from chores to say the coyotes were hanging around yet.  They have been exceptionally bold this fall, lingering into the daylight hours.  We have been keeping Daisy inside or on a leash til noon just in case.  The hens are not leashed however. You probably know where this is going.  Moira chased off the pair of coyotes and came inside.  We walked back out in time to see that one of them had returned to carry off a black hen.  Eww.  Really eww.  Its a ranch.  It happens.  But still.  Eww.

The next morning I went to a park downtown to do a  photo shoot for a really lovely family.  

 When we returned to the lot, full of joggers and dogs, we found this:

That would be my van.  That would be my van minus the passenger window.  And minus my purse.  Hopefully not minus my identity. : /    It was actually my babybag and was down on the floor between the seats.  The family I was photographing had a purse in the van next to mine.  No other vehicle on the lot had been touched that we could see. Again, the odds?  Probably out there. 

Last week we had a freak cold snap.  Sub zero temps the likes of which have not been seen here since we have been here.  The water pump shorted out.  The pipes froze.  We are at this moment writing from a hotel suite waiting for the local repairmen to chip away at their appt's and get to ours. Patience is a virtue.  

And this list is by no means exhaustive. In fact it omits some of the most pressing concerns we have at the moment.  But it brought to mind a conversation I had with a genetic counselor over ten years ago while pregnant with Aidan.  The hospital serving us at that base insisted upon genetic counseling before ultrasound. I sat patiently listening to the 'counselor's' litany of risk factors.  My demeanor was apparently unsettling to her. She assumed I must not be understanding her correctly.  She asked point blank, "Do you understand what your risks are?" To which I replied in the affirmative.  "Yes.  I do.  The best I can figure is that if God intends for a thing to occur then the odds are about 100% in favor of it coming to pass.  If not, then they are pretty close to zero."  She let me have my ultrasound. 

This is my feeling yet today. I don't know why these things are happening.  I do know that we have been visited with singular moments of grace throughout.  There is an odd peace within.  My husband has his hand in mine. We are taking each day as it comes and trusting that the right things are happening.  When he can't stop you, satan often sets a smoke screen in front of the blessing just ahead to muddle your thinking and convince you the journey is fruitless.  We are pressing on through this fog, determined to realize God's best for our family. It is just ahead. 

To read more about Christian families facing trials visit Teri Maxwell's December Mom's corner for inspiring perspective.  Trial is not uncommon, but our response can and should be. 

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."   2 Corinthians 4:8-10

"In the world you will have trouble, but I leave you my peace,