Hearts in Service

When winter winds are piercing chill, And through the hawthorn blows the gale, With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale. O'er the bare upland, and away Through the long reach of desert woods, The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And gladden these deep solitudes. Where, twisted round the barren oak, The summer vine in beauty clung, And summer winds the stillness broke, The crystal icicle is hung. Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs Pour out the river's gradual tide, Shrilly the skater's iron rings, And voices fill the woodland side. Alas! how changed from the fair scene, When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green, And the song ceased not with the day! But still wild music is abroad, Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud. Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and

Okay, is anyone else having a difficult time with January? I really am not fond of January & February. This year especially has been blah because we have not had much snow the past 2 weeks. Today it's raining which makes it really dreary. So I decided to pull out some pictures from our hike on the Appalachian Trail which is only about 7 miles from here. These were taken in September. Getting ready to hike. You would think we were going for a week the way they pack! Getting ready to get on the trail. Beautiful views! Ignore the unphotogenic woman in the middle! I love this picture because this is how they both usually are when they are outside. Usually, there is a snake or some sort of creepy crawly there too! There. Don't you feel better? I'm ready to go hiking again.

I write a devotional once a week or so for an online message board. There is a section there for women trying to lose weight. I thought I would post here once a week or so and share my thoughts on the battle of the bulge! "A cheerful look brings joy to the heart." Proverbs 15:30a Good morning ladies! What is the look on your face like as you go about your day? Do you walk around with a frown on your face or a furrowed brow? Or do you have a pleasant look or smile on? The way your countenance looks can affect how you and others feel. Look at your face in the mirror and let your face relax. Do you see frown lines or laugh lines? That will probably give you a good idea of how you look most of the time! Scary, isn't it? Sometimes we don't even realize how we look. As you go through your day today be concious of how your face looks. Make an effort to turn up the corners of your mouth and smile. Do you know it takes far less muscles to smile than to frown? Would you rath

After bumbling around with different writing programs I finally stumbled across something that I love. It's called Writing Clear Paragraphs and it is actually a text for the high school and college level. However, I am using it with all three children and just gearing it for their age. It has been an amazing transformation after just 2 weeks of using it to see the difference in their writing. My pet peeve is bad writing so the one thing I want to accomplish with them is being able to write well. We are focusing on writing a good topic sentence which is specific, states your opinion about something and provides direction for the rest of the paragraph. Emily's first sentence went from "I like painted ponies." when we first started to today's sentence of "Loud vacuum cleaners are annoying when you are trying to watch television." Stephen's first sentence went from "Very funny jokes make me laugh." to today's sentence of "Sometime

Stephen was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder 4 years ago and spent a year in counseling with a Christian psychologist to try and get a grip on it. He has done wonderfully and though he does still struggle with his anxieties they are nothing like they used to be. Stephen wrote about his anxieties the other day and this is what he said. Anxieties. That does not sound too bad. It really is not, just a worry that gets caught up in my head and it stays there making me worry a lot. I am almost 15 years old and struggled with anxieties for many years. My main anxiety is getting sick so it makes me do things like wash my hands too much, go to the bathroom frequently, and be afraid to be around others who are sick or even hear about someone who has a disease. I still have a difficult time getting to sleep at night. I went to a psychologist for counseling for about a year and he gave me relaxation exercises to do which helped. He told me to memorize scripture also. I still have anx

It's Sew Crafty Friday that Shereen hosts over at Waiting for Him . There must be something in the water because all kinds of women are coming up pregnant lately! Here is a baby blanket that I've been working on. It will eventually have a hoody attached. This one has been really easy to make and I should be done with it shortly.

Today is my 46th birthday. I guess having a birthday makes you reflect on things. I was thinking the other day on how much things have changed in the past seven years. Seven years ago I was working 12-15 hours per day and was extremely stressed. Dan & I both helped run an inner city ministry and I loved working but after the busyness of the day subsided there was something missing. I constantly had the feeling that I was trying to be something I'm not. I was trying to be this professional woman who could have it all - a career (even though this career produced very little money), marriage and family. I felt like I had no control over the way my life had turned out. Thanks to the grace of God, I was able to make some major changes in my life. However, when I first started homeschooling, I went through an identity crisis. I felt like what I did counted for very little. Our society tells us that mother's are not important. The only thing that counts is what you &qu

One area that Dan & I have been working hard at the past few years is establishing a regular family devotions time. What seems to be working is having it first thing in the morning before we start school. Most nights seem to be taken up with church meetings which end up messing up our schedule. We've tried different devotionals but ended up just sticking with reading the Bible by itself. We haven't liked any of the canned devotionals we've tried. We have worked our way through Proverbs and right now are focusing on verses on laziness and orderliness. Can you tell what we need to work on here? ;-) We read the passage of scripture and then give everyone a chance to comment on it. It's opened up the door for some wonderful conversations with the kids. It's been neat to see how they are growing in their understanding of God's truths. Here are some pictures from this morning. We had to put the camera way fairly quickly because it was causing way too much

What a wonderful time on Sunday afternoon. Our church had a baptism for 3 new believers in Christ. The most wonderful thing about this whole thing was 5 months ago Randy & Kim were on drugs and happened to live next door to Fred and they couldn't stand each other. The Lord led them to our church separately and to Himself. You should see how much they love each other now! Kim & Randy are off alcohol and drugs and have been clean for 123 days. Isn't God awesome? If you think of it, please pray for these three. Pray that they would continue to grow in the Lord! Terri

Emily had her appointment at the allergists on Friday at a leading teaching hospital in the area. The goal was to see if she has outgrown any of her allergies. Since she was a baby she has been allergic to all kinds of foods. They are dairy products, eggs, sesame seeds, walnuts and peanuts. Some of them are worse than others. If she touches anything with peanuts or walnuts, she can stop breathing. She also has some environmental allergens. We thought it was mostly cats, dogs and dust mites. After speaking to the allergist, she decided against doing the RAST (reactive skin test) because she was afraid that if she put the allergen (like peanuts) on her skin she could go into anaphylactic shock. So she tested for the foods through a blood test. This way she could also see the level of the allergen that way. We are waiting the results of the blood test. She did do the skin test for the environmental allergies. Basically, it seems that Emily is allergic to everything but air!!!

Our church had it's 3rd annual sleigh riding party on Saturday and it was a blast! It also shows us how much the church has grown in a year because instead of the normal 10-15 people, we had 40. I'm afraid I was the butt of everyone's jokes again this year because the first year we did it, I hit a tree with my head while going about 30 miles an hour and ended up in an ambulance ride to the hospital. Dan pushed me on the sled that hit the tree and I still think he was aiming at it but he won't 'fess up to it! Here are some pictures of the day. Isn't he handsome? I offered to give him a push but he wouldn't let me! Emily and her friend, Sarah Everyone acts goofy when they are sleigh riding! Shirley, act your age! Even 70 year olds got in on the fun. We're too cool to sled. Nathan All in all, it was a fun day and everyone had a wonderful time!

Okay, I'm only almost a month late on these but I just got them from the person who took them. This was the first year in our church that we had enough children to do a Christmas program. It was fantastic! The children did a wonderful job and even my shy ones spoke loudly and clearly. Here are some pictures from the day. Emily's dress was made by a lady in our church. Excuse her goofy expression! Dan getting ready to play guitar. Stephen reading scripture. Playing the keyboards We started a girl's club this year, called 3D Girls. It has been so neat to these girls develop in their confidence and ability to stand in front of people. 3D Girl's has 3 components - devotion to God, creative disciplines (cooking and crafting) and dramatic arts. We've tried to provide them with lots of opportunities to share what they are learning with their parents and they are just blossoming. Right now I have 13 girls coming every Thursday night and most of them do not go to chu