Emmanuel

One word from you will still my heart
and silence all my questions.
Perhaps it was I who silenced your voice
and ignored your sweet presence.

Emmanuel, you are always there
help me not to flee from your side.
Let my heart cling to you
and to you always be tied.

Only in the hood...

There are some things that can only be seen in the hood....

Pile of paperclips

This pile of paperclips represents 8 years of my life.

8 years of teaching, creating, investing, thinking, planning, and loving.

I spent the past three days going through old files, reorganizing and throwing things away.  As I pulled paper clips off of different sets of copies, all things I had created for my classes, I realized that the past 8 years has been time well spent.

More than ever I love teaching and love my students.  They are a delight to my soul.  Their personalities fill my heart.  Their quirky comments make me laugh ("Miss Jackson, it's as hot as a thermos in here!").  Their faces make me smile.


It is true what Mumford and Son's says: Where you invest your love, you invest your life.

Lord, let me invest my life well!

Preacher birds

I love to sit on my front steps and read in the morning.  There are several pairs of cardinals that flit from tree to tree, singing to one another.  They sing to me, too, telling me to trust my heavenly Father.  Reminding me that He can be trusted.  His plans are good.  His heart is kind and wise.  His way is perfect.

They sing so beautifully, their tune filled with truth, that I feel compelled to laugh and tell them, "I know!  I hear you!"

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  Matthew 6:25-34

michigan

fireflies
twilight skies
blink and twinkle
passing by

tall trees
sweet summer breeze
sway and dance
clapping leaves

little fish
splash and splish
wiggle and swim
journeying swish

big lake
tall waves break
wide and deep 
crashing great.

Auntie mom

Dakota and Cheyenne spent all of last week at Aunt "Trishwa's" house!

They loved playing Jenga!

We spent several days at the Cordelia Park swimming pool.  Only 1$ to get in!

We made sugar cookies to test out Cheyenne's Princess cookie cutters.

Chey and Dakota both participated in Grace Covenant's VBS: The Winning Edge

Dakota eating one of our homemade popsicles:
sliced bananas, raspberry and orange juice.

yum!

One difference between girls and boys: 
Girls use potholders for baking, but boys use them for BOXING!

Enjoying our cookies

*sigh*

One day while sitting my car waiting for the traffic light to change at the corner of Parkwood and Hawthorne, I noticed a man standing in the median waiting to cross the street. He was wearing the kind of blue uniform that you would expect of someone who works in the dark corners of a factory, where he does the same meaningless task over and over again.  Perhaps he was walking home from the Kellogg's plant down the road.

His shoulders were slumped down, and his eyes looked toward the ground.  His face was sad and tired.

Then, he sighed. It was a deep sigh, filled with loss and hopelessness and despair and weariness. 

I wondered if he had lost his job or if his wife was sick.  Maybe he was tired from so many years of doing the same meaningless job with little hope of advancing or ever making enough money for his family to thrive.

Perhaps the man echoed the sentiments of Job...

For sighing has become my daily food;
my groans pour out like water.- Job 3:24

I thought of all the times I have sighed.  Over disappointment with where I am in life.  With unfulfilled desires of marriage and family.  With tiredness.  With sadness over lost friends, lost time and lost dreams.

I am glad of the truth of these words:

 All my longings lie open before you, Lord;
 my sighing is not hidden from you. Psalm 38: 9

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but  the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. Romans 8:26-27