Happy birthday, Connor!

Eight years ago today a seven pound thirteen ounce baby boy entered our lives and simultaneously stole our hearts.








Happy birthday, Con man. We love you. May the Lord use you in a mighty way as you grow!

An Open Letter to Our Government

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Glenn Beck: The Letter

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And Eli felt no shame.

In the last few weeks my sweet third born has been involved in the following incidents:

Incident #1
As our family is enjoying worship on a glorious Sunday morning I turn to see my precious child removing his shirt. I manage to catch him just as he is pulling it over his head.

Incident #2
Our family is enjoying a lazy Saturday by browsing the model airplane aisle of the hobby & craft store. I notice that Eli is no longer standing next to me so I peer down the length of the aisle. There I see my dear little one shirtless as bewildered shoppers file past.

Incident #3
Our family is enjoying a nice lunch at a restaurant in celebration of Mother's Day. I get up from the table to take Isaac to wash up in the restroom. I hear my sweet blond boy call "Oh, I need to go pee". I turn around to tell him to come along and to my horror (and his father's amusement) he has pulled his pants down already and is standing in the middle of the restaurant with his bare bottom, among other things, shining for the whole world to see.


I love being a Mommy!!

Crown of Righteousness

Roger Martin, beloved Pastor of Stockton Baptist Tabernacle for 10 years, has finished his race. Our family is praying that God would lavish his love and his comfort and his peace on Liz and their children. Roger was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Friday the 8th and left this life for the next on Friday the 15th.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. 2 Timothy 4:7-8

Liz sent a message to the church family. In it she included the family's wishes for the celebration service Saturday afternoon. They ask the men to wear Roger approved attire, a brightly colored tie with striped socks that inevitably clash with the rest of the ensemble. Ladies, no black allowed, wear beautiful, bold colors. It is not to be a somber event, but one of great rejoicing as Roger is in the presence of his Savior.

I feel 2 feet tall.

Yesterday we decided to load the boys up and drive an hour West(ish) to do some hiking at Hamsterley Forest. To sum up the trip: whining children, complaining wife, snapping husband, raining sky, pooping Eli. I'd call it an overall success. We didn't lose any children in the woods. And we managed to make it home with our marriage in tact (relatively).

The excursion left me grumpy (understatement).

This morning (Mother's Day) I was thrilled when Abe got up with Eli at 6:30 a.m. I stretched and promptly rolled over to continue my sleeping. By 7 a.m. I realized the futility of tossing, turning and attempting to sleep through all the noise downstairs.

This disappointment left me annoyed.

I was grumpy and annoyed and feeling unappreciated this morning as we made our way to church.

But God wasn't going to have any of my pity party. He gave me a firm thump on the back of my head as I listened to the news from the pulpit that the senior pastor at our church had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

This type of cancer is often undetected until the very late stages. It is aggressive and rarely responds to treatment. Therefore, Roger and his dear wife, Liz, were with their family saying final goodbyes. We will most likely not see Roger again this side of eternity.

I was overcome with emotion as I listened. God was clearly confronting me of my own selfishness, my pride, my stubbornness. As I was feeling bad about not getting to sleep past 8 a.m., four young men and their wives and children were preparing to lose their father and grandfather to a horrible disease.

Obviously, He is still working on me.

Intentional Mothering

There was a fantastic series on Revive our Hearts (Nancy Leigh DeMoss) recently entitled Turning the Tide: A Call to Intentional Mothering with Holly Elliff. I highly recommend it, what a tremendous resource for mothers striving to raise their children for Christ. One part that really spoke to me was this bit when she was talking about Hannah:

Hannah is one of my favorite moms in Scripture. Do you know why? Because it didn’t come naturally to her. Hannah had to make some really tough life choices. When we see Hannah at the beginning of Scripture in 1 Samuel, she does not look like a Proverbs 31 woman, right? She is miserable and she is unhappy and her marriage is not happy and her home is not happy and she is not fulfilled. She is a miserable woman.

But you know what? Her circumstances were beyond her control. She waited a long time for God to change them. There’s an amazing moment in Hannah’s life recorded in Scripture when she came to the end of herself and she laid down her desires, she laid down her rights. She came to the point of surrender to God Himself.

The Scripture says that nothing in her life had changed, but that she went her way and her face was no longer sad. Some of you this weekend will have moments when you get to the end of yourself and you go before the Lord and you lay down your life. And you will go your way and your face will be changed. It’s the world’s quickest facelift, and that’s what happened to Hannah.

I find myself often thinking of prayer as a way to change God or, at the very least, change my circumstances. In reality, prayer changes me, my heart, my attitude, my expectations. It was such a powerful (and timely) reminder for this praying wife and mom!

A.W. Tozer said of prayer, "What the praying man does is to bring his will into line with the will of God so God can do what He has all along been willing to do."


Check out the Turning the Tide Series by clicking on the links below!
Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

A Plethora of Topics. (I've just finished my second caramel latte.)

Things on my mind lately (Warning: A few of these might be controversial. I apologize if you are easily offended. That's too bad for you.):


* Our pets. It is wonderful to have our dogs home in England with us. Abe was gone for a week fetching them (no he didn't take an ocean liner to get there, flights are much cheaper in the middle of the week and the Ingolds are all about cheap) and they were welcomed home by one very excited Mom and three very excited boys as well as several very excited neighbourhood children. It turns out dogs do get jet lag. Maddie and Katy have spent most of their time sleeping since arriving home five days ago, but have stayed awake long enough for walks around the new town as well as their very first trip to the beach. They loved the sand and sniffing the rocks, but wanted nothing to do with the water (no matter how many times we threw them in the surf). We love our furry family members and it seems much more like home now that they are with us!



* Grammar. Isaac is fluent in Pirate talk. When we were preparing for the move to England, Abe and I were pleased with the idea of our children learning proper English. Well, it turns out we moved to the wrong town in England for this sort of education. We envisioned something like "Dad and Mum, I am quite hungry." Instead we got, "Hey, where's me dinner?" One of my personal favorites is "Give us a kiss". You might be asking, what is wrong with that statement? I overheard it on the school yard as I was dropping off the boys and there was clearly only ONE mother asking for a kiss from ONE child. There seems to be a serious misunderstanding of personal pronouns in our area. So I am contemplating how I break Isaac of this habit. An English accent is one thing (adorable actually), but talking like Jack Sparrow is quite another.



* Worldliness. On a more serious note, I was studying I John recently and kept coming back to verse 15 in chapter 2. "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (ESV) The Lord began to convict me of how much I rely on the things of this world. What if, like Job, I was to lose all my earthly posessions-my wealth, my health, my friends, even my family? Would I still be satisfied? How much of my satisfaction depends on the temporal things of this world, rather than on the eternal blessings of my Savior? If I am being honest, I would say a lot. As Westerners, I'm not really sure that most of us could ever get a real sense of what it is like to have nothing but your Savior to sustain and satisfy you and frankly, I'm afraid to ask God to show me. Then Abe brought home ong>Worldliness by CJ Mahaney with the warning that it is one of the most convicting books he has ever read, which allowed me to share a bit about what God had been revealing to me through the text of I John. And we had a conversation as we made dinner together about one anothers struggle with the sin of worldliness. We must take an honest account of ourselves individually and as a family, are we more concerned with the success and prosperity this world has to offer than with the eternal rewards that the Lord promises if only we will surrender wholly to Him? If only surrendering were as easy as the hymn makes it sound.
"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." -John Piper
I'll take your practical advice on the art of surrender if you've got any....



* Birth control. I am about to run the risk of getting way too personal here, but Abe and I have also been having some serious discussions about birth control. We have decided against using the Pill (or IUD or shot, etc.) altogether because it can work as an abortifacient. This statement was taken from the website of the particular pill that I have taken in the past. "Combination oral contraceptives (COCs) act by suppression of
gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition
of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical
mucus (which increases the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus)
and the endometrium (which reduces the likelihood of implantation)." My Biblical worldview interprets this to mean that in the event that the first two mechanisms were to fail (contraceptive) and fertilization were to occur (meaning an embryo....a human baby created), the hormones in the COC would cause thinning and shrinking of the uterine wall such that a newly fertilized egg would be unable or less able to implant and survive (abortive). If the first two mechanisms fail and the third succeeds, it simply means that a baby is killed. As one who is passionately pro-life and believes that every human life is deserving of dignity and respect and opportunity despite the circumstances surrounding its conception, I cannot in good conscience use the Pill. Does this mean Abe and I will be making a big announcement on the blog in the near future? Perhaps. And it will be a most wonderful blessing, a gift from God. I think this ties in well with I John 2:15. It is time for the body of Christ to stop thinking about contraception in the same way as the world. And if we are serious about protecting the unborn, we'll start with the ones in our own wombs.

Links to where I did some research:
http://www.epm.org/artman2/publish/prolife_birth_control_pill/A_Longer_Condensation_of_Does_The_Birth_Control_Pill_Cause_Abortions.shtml

http://www.albertmohler.com/commentary_read.php?cdate=2004-03-30

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/45/1440_Does_the_Bible_permit_birth_control/



* American politics. Sigh. On a positive note, Vice President Biden has been as entertaining as ever. Love that guy!



* Underpants. All of my boys are wearing them....and keeping them dry. This is the longest I've ever gone (except for elementary and middle school, of course) without being pregnant, nursing or having a little one in diapers. Famous last words? I don't know, but I'm enjoying my new found freedom for the time being. :)



* Dog poop. So if our dogs poop in the grass next to the sidewalk should we pick it up and dispose of it? I say yes. Abe says no, we only scoop if the dog does her business directly on the sidewalk. Do dogs even poop on concrete? I've never seen this. And if no one ever picked up the poop in the grass wouldn't there be an obscene amount of it in every grassy patch on the English countryside? We may need marital counseling to sort this out.

* Summer. I miss it. We went to the beach the other day in our jeans, sweatshirts, rubber boots (wellies), and coats. And it was still cold. I do not miss the cold Peoria winters at all, but I sure do miss the 80s.


*Home. I was prepared to suffer from my first real bout of homesickness while Abe was in the States last week, but what I discovered is that home is where my stuff is, where my family is. I missed him terribly and I certainly miss our family and friends, but I don't think I'd call it "homesick"....people sick, maybe? It is becoming more and more apparent that England is my home, my home away from home!