We have s-l-0-w-e-d down around here.  Our days are nice, our screens are off, and our time is well-spent.

Not every day, but most days.

I’ve made time for things that have made my life easier.  I made homemade laundry soap; $3 for 5 gallons that should last us several months.  I bought all of our meat for the month, cooked it, canned or froze it and it has transformed dinner time for me.  I washed, peeled, and chopped ten pounds of potatoes and canned or froze them:  soups, casseroles, side dishes, or breakfast; they’re ready to be used.

We went to the library last week.  I usually only let the boys get three books each…for fear of losing them and therefore defeating the purpose of the library being free!  However, I was feeling brave.  We usually set our books down on a certain round table between the children’s books and the juvenile books.  This also happens to be where all of the really great educational books are.  Everything from geography and history to cooking and camping.  The boys were like kids in a candy store and each started a really great stack of books.  I looked through each of the piles and by the end of our self-check-out we had over 30 books.  I really should have thought about how we would walk back to the car with 20 pounds worth of books, but we made it work with nothing but our biceps.  Sometimes they check out three books each and never really look at the books once we get home.  This time is different.  We spend a minimum of thirty minutes each day reading our library books.

With a slower pace here at Wilkerson Academy, I’ve been able to get a little more creative.  We’ve done word searches that I created online and consist of words from our weekly memory work, we’ve worked through our US map puzzle many times, trying to remember where each state belongs, and we put things back where they belong as soon as we’re finished using them.  This has helped us keep a much tidier house.

With no where to go, I haven’t felt rushed.  When I don’t feel rushed, I’m more patient and have a better chance of cultivating a meek and quiet spirit in our home.  We aren’t busy, so I start to think about dinner around 4:30 and by 5:00, it’s on the stove or in the oven.

We’re not out and about as often as we have been the past couple of months so I’m only filling up my gas tank about once every ten days.  This will save us about $70/month.  When we’re home, we don’t spend money on fast food.  Our Kay Arthur Bible study for kids has been a top priority each morning and no one can discount the importance of starting your day, as a family, in God’s word.

With so many people having constant connection to the internet at their fingertips (literally), we’ve become so accustomed to posting our every thought on the internet through outlets like Twitter and Facebook.  It’s so easy to compare yourself, your possessions, or your life to what everyone else has.  This creates such a spirit of discontentment.  The desire to have the constant approval of others or to have others affirm your every decision is poisonous.

His approval is it. It should be all we strive for and find contentment in.

Every. Single. Time. it comes back to taking our focus off of our heavenly Father.  When I fix my eyes on Him, I am fulfilled; I am satisfied.

So for now, I will remain off-line.  It took me three days to finish this post because I’d start it and realize I needed to be doing something else.

Do what you know is God’s best for you.  Encourage others in His word, with things that actually matter.  Make time for friends and family who are like minded and build you up in your faith.  Cultivate a love for learning in your children, whether they be at home or at school.  Work to make home a sanctuary so your children and your husband can’t wait to get home at the end of each day.

Peace.

Joy.

Love.

A good-smellin’ kitchen. (I just had to throw that in there! )

Blessings,

~audrey

It’s been impossible to ignore a certain disgruntled person around here lately; my sweet, freckle-faced, tenderhearted, blue-eyed, tell-me-he-loves-me-a-million-times-a-day middle child.  Jesse has always been my wild card.  Dramatic, loud, rambunctious (I had to use spell check for that one!), but always willing to serve and give.  I’ve noticed a pattern recently in Jesse’s behavior; really just in his attitude.

He. Is. Never. Satisfied.

I give him an inch, he wants a mile.  I offer him donuts, he wants pancakes.  I take him to the park, he’d rather go to the river.  He asks for something, I tell him no, he hangs his head and works really hard on making an ugly, down-trodden face for as long as he possibly can.  It has gotten to the point where I want to scream at him and take every thing that is his and throw it in the trash; show him what it really feels like to have nothing. It isn’t just the dissatisfaction, it is the ungratefulness.  Not only is he not happy with what he doesn’t have, he is unhappy with what he does have.  I was at the end of myself, right where God seems to prefer me, when I finally asked a friend what to do.  She got to the point and quick.

It’s a heart issue.  He needs to repent.

She was so right.  I’ve been trying to explain to him how ugly his whining and complaining is, but really I needed him to see that his heart is a mess.

Jesse knows the Lord and was baptized less than a year ago.  He did it all without anyone’s prompting.  One night in bed as we said prayers together, he said, “Will you please help me pray to ask Jesus to come into my heart?” This gave me even more motivation to make sure he knew the truth, and well.

We were at my in-laws’ for lunch yesterday after church.  Jesse asked if we were going to go back to the Colonial Times event at the Living History Park that afternoon.  I told him no because we needed to go home and rest.  He hung his head, began to cry (loudly), and I told him to go sit on the back porch until he calmed himself down.  He dramatically headed out to the porch and slammed his fingertips in the door in the process.

*Those are the moments that I so want to pull him in and say, “YOU DESERVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED.  YOU CAUSED IT AND YOU DESERVE IT.” But I don’t.

Instead, I took Jesse by the hand (the one not throbbing), and lead him to the front porch.  He was crying and I refused to say anymore until he calmed himself.  Once he was quiet, I began giving him example after example of his recent dissatisfaction and ungratefulness.  I told him that all of his complaining was not only telling Mommy and Daddy that he isn’t happy with the things we provide for him, but it also tells God that Jesus was not enough.  I explained, once again, that Jesus died for HIM.  I told him that we should find all of our satisfaction in Christ.  I shared with him what Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” I didn’t want to heap shame on him so I made sure I filled him with hope:

Jesse, what comes out of your mouth reveals what’s in your heart.  We need to work harder at filling your heart with God’s word and make sure that thankfulness is most often on your lips.  First, you need to pray and ask God to forgive you for not being satisfied with Him.

He cried and cried.  I knew, without doubt, that he saw his heart for what it really is without Christ.  He dried his eyes and prayed a sweet prayer and then sat with me on the rocking chair for a good, long while.

I saw instant change.  His face looked different and that sweet smile once again graced his lips.

It’s been 24 hours.  I’ve softly reminded him once or twice and all it takes is:

Jesse, let’s be thankful.

…and he chooses joy.  I know it’s an ongoing process. We are never fully sanctified or righteous; but God. He made a way.  One day my children will see that so many of the lessons I taught them were really God’s way of drawing me nearer to Himself.

May we be continually filled with joy overflowing; finding all satisfaction in Him.

~audrey

This week has been fast and long, hard and easy all at the same time.  Josh had a long, rough week at work and that always makes me hurt for him.  Now he has a full day’s work ahead of him tomorrow as we need to repair a few things on the house before we close on our refinance Tuesday.  I wish he could just relax.  Do whatever he wants.  I don’t even know what he would choose to do if given the option.

The boys and I had a fast and fun week.  Co-op, the dairy farm, and the living history park; a week full of adventure and hands-on learning.  I’m exhausted.

I walked through the house picking up towels, messes, socks; taking them to the laundry room one handful at a time.  I began to make a mental list of all the things I would do if I was given the option of what to do tomorrow.

-a box of books to be consigned at 2nd and Charles

-laundry, of course

-clean out the fridge and freezer and make next week’s menu

-sort through the boys’ winter clothes

-clean out the garage and re-organize

-take a load to the dump

-mop the floors

-clean the bathrooms

The list could certainly go on.  The only thing we’re committed to for tomorrow is a birthday party from 10-12:30.  I’m thankful for that and I look forward to spending some time with birthday boy’s momma.

I haven’t put my mental list on paper yet.  The busier life is, especially on the hard weeks, the more I want our weekends to be about family and rest.  We work all week, so what good are we doing ourselves if we also work all weekend to prepare for the next week…or in my case, to catch up?  God intended for us to rest on the Sabbath.  How often do I really, truly rest on Sunday?  I can say almost never.  Never.

I am aware that this needs to change.  This will be the second weekend in a row that I do my very best to get everything done on Saturday and take the entire Sabbath to rest; truly rest.  I realized last week that it is a very hard thing to do; truly rest.  My mind still raced even as my body rested.  I had to resist, several times, the urge to get up and do what my brain was reminding me of.  Mondays are not busy for me, so I should be able to write it down on Sunday and know that I can get to it tomorrow, but somehow that is still difficult.

Time to make dinner and let the weekend officially begin.

May all grace abound to you.

~audrey

It’s been two weeks since my last post. Amazing the things that happen in 14 days!

We heard back from the Netherlands regarding the ‘good conduct letter’ that we’ve been waiting on in order to finish our home study. Some dear friends from Holland translated the letter for us and wired the euros that the government requested. We mailed a copy of Josh’s passport and driver’s license on Friday and settled in for another 3-4 week wait.

All the while, we had another yard sale on Saturday that brought us $700 closer to Zoe! The yard sale was such a tremendous blessing, but I am so incredibly thankful to have my house back. I suppose it’s kind of like when you have long-term house guests. You don’t mind them being there and you’re glad to help (or in our case, thankful for the donations), but there’s just something special about having your house to yourselves again when the guests leave. That’s how I felt as I dusted, vacuumed, and threw away bits and pieces of trash that were left behind by the yard sale frenzy. I had such a wonderful time with our friends that helped us prepare for the sale. Thursday night my friend Sharon came over at 9:30pm to help me sort and bag the baked donations from Panera Bread. We finished up around 10:45pm and were going to sort through some bags of donated clothes when I remembered that I had about six loads of clean laundry on my bed. Sharon graciously offered to help me fold them and put them away so they wouldn’t have to be pushed back onto the floor in order for Josh and me to go to bed.  We sat and folded and laughed for an hour and a half.  My poor hubby fell asleep on the couch!  Ha!  I probably don’t have to explain to you how good it felt going to bed with a clean room, knowing all of my laundry was done!! I think I smiled when I opened my eyes the next morning.  To top it all off, we decided that we need to make our laundry night a regular thing.  Every month we’ll rotate and pick one night to help each other with our household…um…challenges.  Whether it be a closet that desperately needs organizing, cabinets that need to be cleaned out, or two weeks worth of laundry that need to be folded and put away; it’s way more fun to get it done with a friend!  I can’t wait to head to Sharon’s next month!

Today, I received a phone call with some fabulous news!  Due to the fact that Josh was in Holland over ten years ago, our agency has decided that they don’t even need the good conduct letter after all!  Our home study can be finalized and we can move forward with our USCIS application.  Once our home study is approved we’ll wait for an appointment with Homeland Security in Atlanta, get our final fingerprints done, and head to the nearest FedEx with our dossier!  We have another $5,800 in fees due before our dossier will be sent to Ethiopia.

How about one last piece of fantastic news?  My dad and I were texting back and forth a few nights ago.  …Before I go any further, I should tell you that I was just talking with a friend recently about what a blessing it would be if someone donated their frequent flyer miles in order to help us pay for the four airline tickets that will be required to go to Ethiopia twice before we bring Zoe home…. Okay, so my dad and I were texting and he asked me how much each plane ticket costs.  I told him it was somewhere in the ball park of $1700-$2200 each.  He wrote back the following:

“Mom and I received a gift several years ago: two airline tickets to anywhere in the world that never expire.  We have to check on the details, but we want to give you the tickets to go get Zoe.”

This would be a $4,000 gift!

At a time when money and deadlines are starting to weigh heavy, this was such an incredible reminder that God has all of the details worked out in advance.  He won’t let a deadline pass without providing every dime that is needed.  Already, He has used three incredible friends/families that Josh and I haven’t seen in years to bless our socks off.  We’re talking big, we love you, we support you, we share your heart for adoption, sacrificial blessings.

$800

$495

$1,000

Blessings that we will one day pay forward to someone just like us.  Waiting.  Trusting.  Praying.  Believing.  You know who you are and we pray for you daily, that God would open up the heavens and pour out upon you….” good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  Luke 6:38.  I love the promises of God.

I hope you’re encouraged and blessed.  No matter your situation, God is able.  He holds the world in His hands.

~audrey