Today was a mixed bag. A real mixed bag. I thought we might be barf free today but no such luck. We had one or two more barf bouts this morning. But since then it’s been relatively barfless.

And you know, I don’t know if a whole bucket of barf could have ruined what turned out to be our very first truly warm day of the year. We topped off today at right around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and it. was. perfection. I watered flowers and admired all of the new growth that happens each day now. Very soon I should be seeing actual blooms and I simply cannot wait. When your world is colorless for 6 months out of the year you just about squeal with delight when you see the earth coming back to life again.

And to top off that wonderfulness I went and got a haircut today. I really don’t know what it is about a haircut that just makes me feel fresh and new and lovely and spunky. But it just does. (I took a new picture which is up as my new profile pic.) :^) When you feel frazzled and exhausted and worn down and emotionally the size of a wild blueberry, I tell ya… a haircut is just the thing for a pick-me-up. Of course if you feel frazzled and worn down 9 days out of 10, I don’t recommend getting a haircut every time you turn around. Things could get ugly real quick.

Today my little boy (you know, the future doctor?) came and handed me a binder that he put together yesterday and this morning. You see, he’s been reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy over the past few months and yesterday he decided that he was going to write a book in a similar vein. You can see the progress he’s made up to this point…

(Identabits are very similar to Hobbits, apparently, but they are all born with identical twins.)

Apparently I need to buy the boy some more lined paper. He makes me so proud though.

What did you do today?

Not to bore you with all the gory details of sickness but tonight my son came in and handed me these handy little symptom lists which he wrote up in order to help me identify various common family ailments. Who needs Google or advice nurses when you have this sort of thing at your fingertips?

You might consider printing these off for your own use.

Out of curiosity, did you all ever know that noziness is a symptom of an actual illness? I never knew this before. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? ;^P

Plans are always subject to change. Aren’t they? I know this to be true because so far I’ve planned three different trips for this Summer, none of which will be happening!

Last week our toddler came down with a wicked tummy bug. He was over it after about four days. I thought he had managed not to spread it. (Can we spell S-T-O-O-P-I-D?) Yesterday our four year old came down with it. And this is one potent bug. It is only a matter of time before the rest of the boys get it… and well, the thought of being in a car for four days straight with vomit and… other… umm… stuff… is not a picture I want to even imagine, let alone experience!

We decided that we may have to at least delay our trip to Arkansas. Called my in-laws and they agreed that it was probably not the best timing as my MIL is still very weak and is worried that she won’t have enough energy to be able to enjoy the boys.

So as of now we are not going. I don’t know exactly what is next. I’ve planned and canceled and planned and canceled and switched and altered reservations and routes so many times that my mind is spinning from it all and I simply cannot comprehend doing it all again. I don’t know how The Pastor would recruit replacement preachers for all different dates again either.

The Darling Pastor is offering to just send me and my “baby” to California for a much needed escape and I have a good mind to take him up on his offer. My sister is due to have her third baby in the next few weeks and I would be more than thrilled to be able to go and be there with her.

So if I suddenly report in from California, don’t be surprised. But really… I have no idea what is happening now. I’m just rolling with it. What else can a person do?

Do you pass on the music you love to your children? Or when you had children did you immediately stop listening to your favorite music and turn on kinder-tunes and nursery rhyme songs? Growing up I remember listening to Johnny Cash in the car with my parents, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, The Messiah, The Sound of Music and… Camelot of all things. Many of those songs are still with me, every word and tune seared into my memory like a brand. Many of them I still love now and am passing on to my own children. I have a confession to make. I played nursery rhyme songs when I had my first baby. When we had our second we listened to the Wiggles. But never ever did we stop listening to our favorite music.

As a parent, I must tell you, I quickly got sick of nursery rhyme songs (umm… very very quickly) and prayed earnestly that the tapes would be mysteriously gobbled up by the tape deck. And if they weren’t then I had determined to make it look as if they had been. And then look with a frown and say, “Oops.” No, really, I didn’t destroy my children’s tapes. They just didn’t care. I think they liked it about as much as I did, which not so oddly, is about as much as I like the poly-fiber embodiment of evil Barney the Dinosaur and Satan’s Minions The Doodlebops. Captain Feather-sword and his ilk captured my patience only shortly longer. Goodbye Wiggles. Farewell nursery rhyme tapes.  Auf Wiedersehen kinder-tunes. Adieu to all of you. (And as Gollum says, “Go away and never come BACK!“)

So, do you know who my kids identify as their favorite musicians?

U2, Coldplay, Switchfoot, Harry Nilsson, Beethoven, The Beatles, Johnny Cash… etc.
We listen… and even watch them as a family.

Are you passing on your musical taste to your children?

Alternate Title:  When the tummy bug comes to town…

This is my first ever Wordless Wednesday.  (I can’t go completely wordless, I’m sorry…  I would just feel naked.  Or something.)

I love them. Okay… not all of them, but so many. They are so deep and rich and relevant for today. I like my share of modern worship music as well but the songs that bring the most comfort to my soul in just about any kind of hardship are old theologically robust hymns. I do like them better though when set to music that doesn’t sound like it was intended for a funeral. The Indelible Grace CDs are great for this reason.

William Cowper is my favorite hymn writer… a clinically depressed man who, I imagine, faced both external and inner battles of faith, a man who clung only to shreds of hope though most days his feelings and thoughts may have assured him that life was pure crap to the core and therefore not worth living. He tried to commit suicide at least once. And yet he was a man into whom God’s truth continued seeping… seeping into the cracks of his brittle and hateful existence… and the miracle? That same hope and grace that seeped in, oozed right back out of those very same never fully repaired cracks and into the world, onto the paper, out of our mouths and back into God’s ears as sacrifices of praise.

God is good. And life is a true blessing because, though we and the world are broken, God redeems even our darkest of days and even the greatest of tragedies that we could never hope to understand. God redeems even the cracks and broken parts of ourselves and this world that haunt us until we die. We groan, along with all creation, for the day when He makes all things new… not looking to some ethereal glowing heaven where we all float around but to a day when He will make a new heaven and a new earth and He will put all things to rights, even our broken perceptions of who He is and how we should live in light of those perceptions.

Like the Psalmists, reality, and yes, often his distorted perception of it was every present before William Cowper. He was under no impression that life was a daisy chain or that the Christian life is as easy as a set of rules to be followed to achieve everlasting joy and happiness, but a daily cross… and yet in his hymns he offered up a sacrifice of praise. When you think about it, if praise were really all that easy and naturally occurring it wouldn’t really be much of a sacrifice would it?

Here are some of my favorite hymns by William Cowper.

Love Constraining to Obedience

Chorus: To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,
To hear His pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child
And duty into choice.

No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright
And what she has, she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the Law I lay
In bondage and distress
I toiled the precept to obey,
But toiled without success.

Then to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do
Now if I feel its power within
I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done,
A righteousness to raise
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose His ways.

Sometimes a Light Surprises

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord Who rises
With healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after the rain

In holy contemplation
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation,
And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
Let the unknown tomorrow
Bring with it what it may.

Tomorrow can bring us nothing,
But He will bear us through:
Who gives the lilies clothing
Will clothe His people, too:
Beneath the spreading heavens
No creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens
Will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither
Their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the fields should wither,
Nor flocks or herds be there
Yet, God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice;
For, while in Him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice.

Looking Upwards in a Storm

God of my life, to Thee I call,

Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;

When the great water-floods prevail,

Leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Friend of the friendless and the faint,

Where should I lodge my deep complaint,

Where but with Thee, whose open door

Invites the helpless and the poor!

Did ever mourner plead with Thee,

And Thou refuse the mourner’s plea?

Does not the word still fix’d remain,

That none shall seek Thy face in vain?

That were a grief I could not bear,

Didst Thou not hear and answer prayer:

But a prayer-hearing, answering God

Supports me under every load.

Fair is the lot that’s cast for me;

I have an Advocate with Thee;

They whom the world caresses most

Have no such privilege to boast.

Poor though I am, despised, forgot,

Yet God, my God, forgets me not:

And he is safe, and must succeed,

For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead.

Light shining out of Darkness

God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up his bright designs,

And works his sov’reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust him for his grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fasts,

Unfolding ev’ry hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain;

God is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.

Cowper was no blind and deaf optimist. He was (and I, along with him, am) under no impression that anything he could do could earn God’s favor. He was no legalist. He, along with Job and I, didn’t know why God does or allows everything that comes to pass. Still, I think he would have agreed, as I do, with fellow hymn writer, Daniel Whittle, who was incidentally just agreeing with scripture, when he wrote the refrain “But I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day.”

Job 19

23 “Oh, that my words were recorded,
that they were written on a scroll,

24 that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead,
or engraved in rock forever!

25 I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;

27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

I am going to be taking a blogging break. I don’t know for how long. Could be days, weeks, months or possibly forever but probably just days or weeks.  I really don’t know at this point in time. I am working through something right now and, since I’m up at three in the morning because I can’t sleep over it, you can tell that it’s something very close to my heart. It really has nothing to do with my blog but this is just one of the ways that I feel I have to step back in order to process and reprocess and self-examine.

I’m just about to delve into these two books, one that we picked up several weeks ago and one that we just got earlier today.

The Reason for God

This one is by Dr. Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He was invited to Google Headquarters a while back for an interview, known as Authors @ Google having to do with this book. If you have some time (it’s a pretty long video) watch this video. There are some really great questions and I think some pretty decent answers. Tim is extremely humble, good natured and funny in his responses. UPDATE! I just started reading this tonight and am already really enjoying it. He challenges both believers and unbelievers to do some things that will probably make them feel vulnerable and somewhat unprotected by whatever shells they may have constructed but will ultimately lead to more productive dialogue and better understandings of ourselves.  To the believer he says this,

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe what they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.

Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts — not only their own but their friends’ and neighbors’.”

And to the skeptic or the unbeliever he says,

“All doubts however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except for a position of faith in Belief B….. The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts.”

UnChristian

This one is by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. It is sure to be a provocative and searching, possibly painful look at what the church is, what it should be and what needs to be done in order to bridge that gap. Should be very interesting. Here’s a quick interview on CNN Headline News with one of the authors of the book, Gabe Lyons.

Boys like mud.  And when snow melts there’s plenty to be had.  And boys don’t seem to care if they forget to wash it all off the minute they come inside.  They don’t seem to mind that crispy, crusty feeling.  I don’t get it.  But it’s very boyish of them isn’t it?

I realize his eyes are just too blue in this picture.  They were looking very blue anyways because of our blue curtain in this bright room but they got a little too amped up in my photoshopping foray for my taste but I was too lazy last night to go back and fix it.

They just go about their next in order of business.

That’s what the high was for today and we couldn’t have been happier. We decided that we had to commemorate the gorgeous weather by donning shorts (or capris in my case) and going on a family hike to our favorite natural place in our city, Fish Creek Park, Canada’s largest urban park according to Alberta Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture.

This is what Bruce did just as soon as he knew he was coming along. He raced out the door with the boys and the minute they opened the car door, this is where he was found. Ready and waiting.

“Umm… helloooo… are you coming or what?”

I’ll spare you a lot of talk… We had a great time. I took lots of pictures.

First thing we saw was this, only I didn’t have my zoom lens on so I only got this tiny far away picture. Grrr!

Whenever we go on walks there are a great many sticks involved.

And I take pointless pictures of trees. Is it so weird that I love bare branches? (I put a watercolor effect on this one.)

Everyone gets adventuresome and exploratory and very scientific in their discoveries. There are always tracks to be followed, scents to be tracked and surely wild, and probably poisonous, animals lurking around every corner.

In this case, there were “antses” that needed to be examined closely. VERY closely.

And then there are the bugs that Mom likes to chase…

(those are actually two different pictures, not just the same picture developed differently… it sat nice and still for me.) :^)

My toddler insisted on walking for at least part of the way. Because we didn’t want to walk quite that slowly he rode in the stroller for much of it though.

I don’t get enough pictures taken of me with my kids so I shoved the camera over into the hands of The Pastor and he wielded it quite effectively don’t you think?

Branches… logs, sticks… they all are likely subjects for me…

Bruce was in doggy heaven. His nose was about to come unglued it was so happy.

He lifted his leg to about 2,749 trees and shrubs. Really, he couldn’t have been any happier.

I think few people really and truly enjoy warm weather as much as residents of Canada (or maybe Siberia and Sweden too.) When the weather is nice you really feel a part of the community because it seems that just about everyone and their dog is out enjoying it. I love that about the arrival of warmer temperatures here. Nobody takes it for granted. We squeeze every drop of life out of the warm months.