Daily Practice

When we lived off grid in an old mobile home with five children and then for a year with our sixth baby, practicing gratitude became a habit for me.  I just knew that God had a plan for us and that He would not give me any more than I could handle.

So while carrying water from one end of the mobile home to the other to wash dishes or while scrubbing clothes by hand in the wash bucket or filling our "refrigerator" with a bucket of snow, or wondering how we would ever manage with yet another baby, I had a choose to either embrace what I had or be miserable.  I did often come to God in tears, but through it all, giving thanks daily and often became a habit.  I would thank God for the food we did have to eat, the clothes I was able to wash, for my husband and children, for a roof over our head, and so on.

Now that our lives are truly much more comfortable, I don't have to be working from the time I wake to the time I go to bed just to meet our family's needs, and now that our business is providing for us plus, now that our home has ample space for all of us, running water, electricity, a washing machine - it is so much harder to remember to give thanks continually - to remember that all comes from God.

I bought this book this past summer and have read it once, but pick it up often to re-read sections and now with the near year, I have begun my own thousand gifts journal.  I need to do this to remind myself of how much I have been given but even more so I need to do this to be reminded of how much I have to give.

"Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble.  Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.  The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring."   --Isaiah 58:10 - 100--

Warm wishes and blessings as you begin the work of a new week,
Tonya

(Ann Voskamp, the author or One Thousand Gifts, has a wonderful blog - A Holy Experience.)

God's Way

With our seventh baby due within the next couple of weeks, I have to continually let go of my wants and my desires of when it would be best for labor to begin, how much I want to get done each day while not being as present as I need to be for my family, not enjoying the precious moments.  I know I need to turn my life over to God each day, each hour and each second.

Today's church service was a great reminder that ~

Man's way is to do what I want, by my power, for my glory

God's way is to do what He wants, by His power, for His glory

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."     Ephesians 2:10

Warm wishes,

Tonya

Morning Prayer and Fathers Day

Let our thoughts, our words and deeds,

ever be pure, kind and good.  Let us live peaceably

with each other, respecting one another in love.

Let us see the good in our fellow man, that we

may love our neighbors as ourselves.

-Amish Prayer-

We usually set Sunday apart from the rest of the week to worship, be together as a family, keep the elecrtic guitars and drums quiet for the day, and to reflect on all of the beauty around us and to give thanks.  Today the sky is just a beautiful shade of blue with the temperature closing in on 70 degrees.  We will all go fishing after lunch at the brook to enjoy this Sunday and Fathers Day.

A Happy Fathers Day to my wonderful father.  I have been thinking of him already a lot today and am grateful that he is such a strong presence in my life and in the lives of our children.  Despite the geographical distance, he makes great efforts to see us all regularly and to plan special events with the children.

Also a Happy Fathers Day to my husband.  I am so grateful for our beautiful children and that they have him to do all the playful silly things that I may not be as likely to do with them.

Love,

Tonya

Beauty that Surrounds Us

Even though the snow begins to pile up outside my window once again,

I am grateful for the beauty of the fresh layer of snow and am continually in

awe of this beautiful land - truly part of God's perfect creation.

"It would go a great way to caution and direct people in their use

of the world if we were better studied and knowledgeable

about the creation of it. 

For how could we find the confidence to abuse it,

while we should see the Great Creator stare us in the face,

in all and every part thereof?"

William Penn, 1692

Joy in the Small Things

Throughtout each day I work hard to cultivate my joy, which comes only from God within me, and is nurtured by taking note of all the gifts of beauty that I come across during my daily repetitive work and this joy gives me strength to get through even the hardest times.

Warm wishes, Tonya

Spiritual Sunday

I am just loving, really really loving this book, "Strength to Love" by Martin Luther King, Jr. As I travel on my journey of being Quaker, I am in more and more awe of people like Martin Luther King Jr. who followed their leadings despite the incredible obstacles and dangers. Martin Luther King Jr., of course, was not a Quaker, but a baptist minister, however there are many parallels between his work for civil rights and the many Quakers that spoke out and actively opposed slavery.

The book I mentioned above, is filled with Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermons and I have been reading through them, absorbing them, and truly being filled with awe and admiration and I can feel the spirit moving in me that I must also listen and learn and act.

Here is an excerpt ~

The hope of a secure and livable world likes with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!

In his essay Self- Reliance Emerson wrote, "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave. Mark well these words from the pen of James Russell Lowell:

They are slaves who fear to speak

For the fallen and the weak;

They are slaves who will not choose

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,

Rather than in silence shrink

From the truth they needs must think;

They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three.

From Strength to Love, by Martin Luther King, Jr.1963