Sinking Down and Looking Up

It’s hot and I’m tired and our big two (4 and almost 3) who often delight in their baby brother, have spent most bedtimes in the past week, gleefully pushing this sweet boy down, or like tonight, stepping on his back in gaudy, plastic high heels. To believe the best about them, I think they think it's funny for everyone, but clearly it's not. I told her she lost her “pretty shoes” for a month.

My own heart can spiral downward like my poor boy as I try to deal with all this general disobedience in their hearts and in mine. How can they disobey and then disobey again 2.5 seconds after being disciplined? Clearly, just like I do when I raise my voice after I’ve just sworn not to. Have mercy, Lord!

When I feel like I’m sinking in all this muck, feel swamped in these waves, I’m grateful to hear the voice of His Word tell me to lift up my eyes and grab on to his Rescue. And I'm most grateful that when my strength falters and my grip fails, He holds me... he holds me to himself whether or not my strength is there.

Praise, praise be for this faithful Rock, solid Rescue, living Hope!

Tonight I’m grateful...

~ that God is faithful when I am faithless

~ first steps from our little love and his radiating joy in the newfound ability to take them

~ summer reading that has cast many new dreams in my optimistic visionary heart [Russell Moore’s outstanding Adopted for Life, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s For the Child’s Sake, and The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller]

~ The Living Word that breathes life into me

~ That I can receive it, delight in it, be nourished by it like the beggar that I am, hungry for real life, starving for truth and rescue. I don’t need to be a super-star Bible scholar to be satisfied in it, by it.

~ Ambleside online and Ann Voskamp’s Feed Your Brain page to help us cultivate a learning lifestyle

~ that our second visa run is done!

~ and that we enjoyed a fantastic friend, the Grandma to some friends of ours who also needed to cross a border, so she traveled with us and blessed us the whole journey thorough. We love you “Grandma Joan!”

~ a hotel to stay in near the border that was super enjoyable and had the perfect pool for our little swimmers ($12 cheaper than the dive we stayed in near the Seattle airport last summer!)

~ cannonballs

~ crispy bacon at the hotel breakfast... we don’t have any pork in our home here in order to be able to share meals at our table with halal-minded friends. Though we're not huge bacon fans, it was just right last Friday morning!

~ a new bookcase in our room, already mostly filled

~ and for the open space there to be filled in time with excellent literature

~ and BookDepository.com to fill it.... Free Shipping Worldwide!

~ the “happy nursing”, around 4pm when John is intoxicatingly happy after his milk

~ and for the freedom and the “missingness” of weaning him

~ "Sure, you can play with it Marian."

~ "Isaiah, Daddy's coming.... Let's HIDE!"

~ smiles all around for slushy, not-yet-fully frozen popsicles

~ target practice with road signs, water guns on the back of our family 3-wheel bike

~ and the vocal delight after every shot

~ Isaiah and Marian's renewed delight in an old CD of audio stories.... Magic Fish, Curious George, Fire Truck! Thanks Nai Nai!

~ for friends who like to email, and this week reconnecting with one from more than two decades ago.... what a gift!

~ my man praying for me when I'm sinking down, gently encouraging me to look up