There are a few very vivid memories I have of music 

worship times at church.

And I am pondering why they stand out to me.

So you all get to come along for the ride of me processing here in this space.

Continue at your own risk.

The first memory that comes to mind is being in a congregation the first time I ever heard "Find Me In The River"

Up until that point, I had never heard a song so honest 

being sung in church.  

And I had never been so 

confused by church music lyrics either.

"Find me in the river,

Find me there,

Find me on my knees with my soul laid bare

Even though your gone and I'm cracked and dry

Find me in the river

I'm waiting here"

To be very honest, I'm still not sure I totally understand it.

(What river do you suppose this song is about?)

Or agree with it for that matter.

(Even though your gone - I can't sing that line)

I think I have the same questions I had as a teenager but it still evokes emotion from me it did back then.

"Find me on my knees with my soul laid bare"

Love that.

As I turn my mind to the past I think about how I was 
taught to worship at Winnipeg Centre Vineyard.

And it was a beautiful lesson.

What I took away from my time there was music is art and art is meant to express an emotion/thought and therefore, 

it should evoke an emotion/thought from those experiencing it.

And worship music needs to be authentic art.

Not expected cliches that keep us comfortable in our complacency.

Worship times at church were expressive.  There were painters and dancers and musicians and we were all active participants in worshipping Jesus.

"Here I am again

In this place again

I know that your no stranger to pain

To loneliness

Father here I come

Lay my burden's down

Knowing that you'll take me as I am

So I come

With freedom as your child

And I run into your arms.

My heart is aching for my Father

My eyes they long to see my God

This world has nothing I desire

You are what I am looking for

Hide me underneath your shelter

Cover me and I will say

I am yours

Surely I am yours."

I am struck, again, with the intimacy of these words.

I recognize that my year in that church birthed in me a desire for relationship with Christ that was based on honesty and forever more, I long for intimacy in congregational worship.

For the first time ever, I led a worship team at church last year.

Team.

It was me and my dear friend.

If it had not been for her, I might have walked away from it entirely.  She was so patient with me and my poor timing and choosing songs that no one had ever heard of.

I would try and choose songs that everyone would know but I learned that is nearly impossible!  Unless you are singing hymns, not everyone will know all the songs.

This was so frustrating to me because I am so against church music times being turned into concerts where everyone watches and no one sings/participates.  

Nothing get's under my skin more at church.

Nothing.

How is there supposed to be congrgational unity in worship 

if no one can sing along.

As I type this, it makes sense considering what I just wrote about being at the Vineyard.

Huh.

Late in the game I figured out that the best way to have everyone sing (or nearly everyone) was to teach a simple chorus and sing it lots of times.

I know.  Not rocket science.

But do you know how difficult it is to find singable NEW songs?

I can only lead a service so many times with old hymns,making sure to sing ALL 57 verses so that we fill our time up.

No jokes.  I did that.  

Those old hymns have TONNES of verses!!

New has it's place along side the old standards.

Last year was a bad one for a number of reasons.

As a result, the music and fine arts that evoked a response from me have a certain air about them.

So leading church music was curious.

One time I picked a song that was near to my heart and that resulted in me crying uncontrollably for 30 minutes and I could not get through practising it.

"Say to those who are fearful hearted

Do not be afraid

The Lord your God will come

And with his mighty arm

When you call on his name

He will come and save you

He will come and save you

He will come and save you

Say to the weary one, your God will surely come

He will come and save you.

Lift up your eyes to him

You will arise again

He will come and save you"

On top of my inability to sing it without crying, 

no one in church even knew it!!  So that was unfortunate.

I did not take the time to teach it because, well, I would be a blubbering mess every time.

Instead, I taught this one.

I love it.

Maybe you will as well.

And if you are in the mood,

Here is the video for "I Am Yours"

This past weekend was one of my Foodie Club member's birthday as well as our annual wind-up party and we headed to Tracy's cabin.

We had a wonderful wonderful time.

One thing I took away from this weekend is I am very aware of how active my Foodie Girls are.  

Like, I am a sloth and they are gazelles.

It was good for me!

We did a yoga stretch video, dancing, walking and while two brave ones went out in the kayak's (I might attempt it next time) I was lucky because I got to go in a paddle boat with Tracy!

No joke.  Paddle boats are my new favourite thing.

You can visit so easily and still go out on the lake.

Perfection.

Sunday morning I came out of my room to be greeted by the girls all in their bathing suits.  

I assumed they were hopping in the hot tub.

Nope.

They were hopping in the lake.

They knew better than to ask me to join them because there is no way on God's green earth I am jumping into a freezing cold lake.

While the lovelies hopped in the hot-tub to warm up and I went upstairs to ponder and have some coffee.

And take this amazing series of selfies.

In case you have not clued in yet, I am not super outdoors-y.

And *poof* it's Wednesday already and regular life calls my name.  All the cutlery and plates and bowls and cups are dirty.

Time to get dish washing.

Happy Wednesday All!

It was an early morning around here.  

Jon was up at 5:30am and was out the door by 6:10am.  

This pumpkin came down the stairs at 6:30am hoping to 

say goodbye to her daddy.

We sent him this picture as her belated farewell.

My honey has a very labour intensive, high stress job.

Once upon a time, I was not very understanding of this fact.

Now, it's a little different.

As a sign of solidarity, when he has early mornings, 

I get up with him, make sure the coffee is made, 

make his lunch and stay very quiet.  

No visiting that early.  

Hello.

Naveed went to school when she does, Rohk and me escorted her there and then we went for an hour bike ride to start our day.

Bike baskets.

They make me happy.

We stopped at this wall and looked at all the 

buildings and flowers.

Notice Rohk's hand pointing?

His chosen finger for pointing these days is his middle finger.

I think it's super funny and 

he has no idea what it means!

So he keeps waving his middle finger at all 

sorts of stuff and people.

So. Funny.

Also.

I love pictures.

I love pictures of authentic smiles

with twinkly eyes.

I especially love candid pictures and the stories they tell.

I am against posey posey pictures.

They are often deceptive, straight up lies, feed vanity, 

feed jealousy and a competition mentality.

That is all I have to say about that 

at this exact moment in time.

I am laughing really hard right now.

I have no idea where this came from.

Happy Wednesday all!!

Look at that happy boy!

Jon and Naveed came home for lunch one day and 

we had prepared this lunch table together.

I love it when my people get to come home for lunch.

Mornings are my best time of day and it's fun to

serve them my best offerings of food.

Biscuits fresh from the oven, fancy smoked salmon spread

and a custard kuchen for dessert.

I did not eat with them even though I set myself a plate.

It felt a shame not to at least pretend I was going 

to eat with them!

Rohk is now an expert biscuit cutter.

He is so much fun to have in the kitchen with me.

Nav really wanted to try a new food this week so I gave her a budget of $5 and we headed over to superstore.  She left with 2 foreign fruits, a passion fruit (not pictured) and this.

I forget what it was called.

This is what it tasted like.

The passion fruit was infinitely better.

This week was a good one!

We visited with cherished friends and Naveed was gifted the opportunity of planting vegetables.  My girl was in her glory.

She would LOVE to have a garden.

I tried one year, having a garden at a local community garden, 

and everything died.

My expert gardener friends tell me the soil was not drained properly, the dirt got wet, turned to mud, when it finally dried it was so hard on top that nothing could grow.

But still.   

I am not super keen to try again this year.

Another thing Nav does not get to have, according to her.

Oh my.

What she does get to have is garage saleing with her family!

This is our new family activity and we are all LOVING it.

Kleefeld, a local town, had a community garage sale on Saturday and we walked around for the entire morning, looking at and occasionally buying stuff.  It's so fun to give the kids $2 and see what they get.

Rohk only buys trucks.

Naveed is a bit of wild card - this time she found a beading kit.

I am also a bit of a wild card.  This time I walked away with a cute mug, a body atlas and a magnet toy for when littles come to visit.

Now my honey.

Jon.

He walked away with some tools, marbles and a stereo with a broken turn table, 2 huge 1980's speakers and a radio the size of a 10lb bag of flour.  It was $2.00 for the stereo system so really, how could he not?  At least that's what he said!

I "attended" an online summit this week and a line from one of the speakers struck me.

"listen to your life"

Again.

Because I had taken the above screen shot a few weeks before.

Do you know what your life is telling you??

One thing my life is telling me is that going out at night is  really hard on me physically and emotionally.  So I am telling everyone in my life that evenings, for the most part, do not work for me in this season of life.

I have zero expectation that this will last for a very a long time.  But maybe, maybe it will.

It's not about me saying no to good people and good events.

It's about me saying yes to taking care of my physical body, my mental and emotional health and giving Jon my best that is available after long days of caring for my people.

Listening to my life.

This is worthy of my time and energy.

"Thou dost love me still, in spite of my hard heart, 

ingratitude, distrust."

Some people have prayer closets and 

some wake up super early in the morning to pray.

Me, I take really long showers.

My most profound moments with God are in the privacy and 

isolation of my ugly, toy filled, shower.

Much of my absence from this space recently has been do to the fact 

that I am having some major wrestling's with my life.

My health has given me some major restrictions that I loathe, 

my past years of poverty haunt me and while crying out to God in the shower one day I blurted out,

"I don't want a saviour.  I want to be my own saviour. 

I'm tired of running to You for help."

"Thy goodness has been with me another year, 

leading me through a twisting wilderness, 

in retreat helping me to advance, 

when beaten back making sure headway."

I have had the thought I am just like the Isrealites wandering in the dessert.  God keeps showing up, doing amazing miracles, saving them, and again and again they complain, turning their backs on the Lord who is in the process of saving them.

That's me.

I could fill a novel with how God has rescued me and my 

family from harm and heart ache.

And here I sit, 

questioning where God is in this moment of life,

doubting his care and love for me,

telling Him that I don't want to need him.

Because I don't want to be perceived as lazy and idle.

And that is at the root of it all.

"Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial, as a chosen vessel meet always for thy use."

It matters a great deal to me that I not considered lazy.

And I feel like I live in a society that expects so much from me.

And I am incapable.  I can't.

I'm supposed to work outside the home for money or at the very least a home-based business, be at all the school events my child is in, drive a new car, live in a new house but for sure not in a "starter" home, have a home worthy of HGTV, volunteer at my child's school, have a lovely lawn, a clean house, polite children with good manners, a happy marriage, happy children, money for vacations to hot locations, get a membership to the gym, go to church, volunteer at church, join a small group, visit family across Canada, get the laundry done, walk the dog, make healthy meals, nightly reading with my kids, make sure fun family time is happening, keep up relationships with friends. Sports!  My kids need to be in sports or music or a church group...

Typing this I feel the pressure to perform.

And it makes me want to go to work and start checking of this list.

I'm serious.  I feel the pressure.

Obviously getting job would be the first thing and I have looked.

Many times.

Because it would be super awesome to have more money.

Life would look a lot different with more money!

But every.  Single.  Time.

God tells me no.

No.

It's not time yet.

And I want to fight Him because I can make money!

What is staying at home doing?!

But I listen because Jesus loves me the most and I 

know I can trust Him.

He has shown himself to be so faithful, 

over and over again.

So back to my confession to God.

"But you desire honesty from the heart so you can teach me to be wise in my innermost being."

I know my confession is safe in God's care.

Once my sin is confessed, He is able to start doing a work on my soul.  Living in denial or ignorance does not allow the glory of God to be revealed.

This is my deepest hope.

"Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world, 

and in love didst redeem my soul"

When I pull back my doubts about God and my anxieties about the future this is what I know.

God always shows me the next step.

When I trust him with the details of my life, move and listen for His direction as I walk down any given path, I know he will tell me the next turn I need to take.

And what He thinks of me is more important than if 

someone thinks I am lazy for being a stay at home woman 

serving her family.

I need a saviour.

I cannot do this life on my own.

Left to my own devices I would make a mess of it.

And I have. And will again.

But how wonderful is forgiveness that is never ending.

Amen.

A life time ago, my mom and me took a belly dancing class together.

We had so much fun!!

Those are very happy memories for me.

My mom is kick-ass.

No joke folks.

Here are 2 wonderful articles about motherhood.

One talks about grace for mom's.

One talks about being a mom through adoption.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Platters are my go to meal as of late.

They look pretty, are easy to assemble, facilitate easy conversation and are a crowd pleaser.

Just like me!

Just kidding.

I am not easy to assemble.

My conversations last week revolved around purpose 
and in turn, me internally, 
coming to terms with where I am in life.

And I am so thankful for the women in my life who live 
their lives with honesty and faith.

Also for Oz Guinness.

I'm pretty sure his parents were super hip.
Oz. Guinness.
Such a great name.

Moving on.


I keep saying this prayer.
It's from Valley of Vision (Puritan Prayers)


"Thou has loved me before the foundation of the world, 
and in love didst redeem my soul.

Thou dost love me still,
in spite of my hard heart, distrust.
Thy goodness has been with me another year,
leading me through a twisting wilderness, 
in retreat helping me to advance,
when beaten back making sure headway.

Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead.
Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial,
as a chosen vessel meet always for they use.
Amen."

At this exact moment I hear children playing outside.
Depending on the time of day I have anywhere from 1-7 kids on my year, usually in the sand box. It never ceases to amaze me what they come up to do with sand.

Having neighbour kids running around from yard to yard is the best thing ever!  We are three families, all with an oldest daughter, youngest son.  One family has a 2 year old and she happily tags along with Casey.  (Casey is our dog)

Taco Tuesday prep is calling my name.
I hope your day has been sunny on the inside and out.