Watching the process of Kaylah learning to walk has made me think tonight of our walk with Jesus.  Really, our life with Him is hugely based on trust and confidence.  If we truly believe He is our loving, strong Saviour who has our best interest in mind, we won’t hesitate keep walking with Him in faith even (and especially!) when life seems bleak.  The last few weeks have been a pretty intense time in our lives and ministry.  We can’t share details here but the situations we have faced and are still facing have been very challenging to our faith.  I love the story of Peter walking on water.  When he took his eyes off Jesus, he began to sink into the waves.  Yet Jesus was so gracious and reached out and pulled him up again.  At times in the last few weeks, I have felt the “waves” of discouragement, confusion and sadness threatening to pull me down and take my gaze off Christ.  He has been so amazing to speak to us through His Word and gently lift our eyes to Him.  I have been greatly enjoying some resources by Paul David Tripp and Timothy Lane.  The book, Relationships, A Mess Worth Making has been such a powerful challenge and encouragement and I just started another one called, How People Change. The material has been so relevant and challenging.  Here is a quote from what I read today in How People Change. It follows on from a discussion of Philippians 1:3-11 . . . especially verse 6 (He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.):

“Life is seldom simple. Growth in God’s grace is a process and not an event.  Tough things are not going to turn around overnight because you have entrusted them to the Lord.  The Bible is honest in its description of how grave and comprehensive our war with sin is.  Individuals, friendships, churches, marriages and neighborhoods don’t turn around in a moment.  The Bible describes life as a journey that often takes us through the wilderness.  You will get tired and confused.  You will have moments when you wonder where God is.  You will struggle to see God’s promises at work in your life.  You will feel that following God has brought you more suffering that blessing.  You will go through moments when it seems as if the principles of Scripture don’t work.  It will sometimes seem as if the wrong side wins.  There will be moments when you feel alone and misunderstood.  There will be times when you feel like quitting.

This passage is meant to encourage you to be full of hope in the midst of things you don’t fully understand.  You don’t have to figure everything out. You do need to know and trust the One who does understand and who knows exactly what he is doing.” (p. 36)

So, like Kaylah is learning to walk, we are learning to keep walking in faith with our eyes on Him.  Never once did we ever walk alone . . . never once did you leave us on our own.  You are faithful, God you are faithful.

Meanwhile we have a couple of children under the weather and we would love to know whether or not they have chickenpox.  Please pray for spots to emerge soon as we need to decide whether a guest coming next week can stay with us or not.  Next week is the Cor Deo Intensive, so we will have a busy week, but hopefully a very positive one!  We have participants coming from the US and Poland, as well as UK folks.  Please pray for all involved.

On Saturday we were joined by four young men from the church and a mutual friend for a morning of Bible study and theological reflection.  The afternoon was spent in conversation with a friend from an hour away, followed by a walking tour of the centre.  We tried to see the Turin Shroud (you can only see the box at the moment), but were thwarted by a mass in the cathedral.  Sunday we all participated in the service, then enjoyed a great pizza lunch before travelling back to sunny UK!

Thanks for praying for us.  This was a good weekend.  This week I have to prepare for a day trip to Scotland on Friday, as well as a couple of significant admin projects, along with a normal week of Cor Deo.

Please pray for safe travels, for the church in Turin, and for family here at home.  Thanks!

Finally, I am posting Hannah’s birthday photos.  Her outing got delayed twice because of Peter and then me, being ill.  She was very patient!  Hannah loves studying clothing throughout history and so it was no surprise she chose to go to the Fashion Museum in Bath.  It was actually a really fascinating place to visit and we got to see a dress of Queen Victoria’s among many, many other dresses from history.  Hannah’s favorite part though, was the dressing up!

I am feeling a lot better since I posted last weekend but still trying to regain my energy.  Kaylah still seems to be struggling a bit.  She has a fever tonight.  Whether its from teething or connected with her cold, I am not sure.  It will be great to be fully healthy again, but we are really thankful we are not dealing with more serious illness. God has been gracious to us in many ways.  I have been convicted of my lack of thankfulness.  It’s so easy to focus on the negative when we have a wonderful Saviour walking through each day with us. The kids and I have had a good week of schoolwork.  Among other things, we’ve enjoyed some beautiful new picture books, finished a story about a dolphin, looked a bit at Rembrandt’s artwork, talked about the Roman Republic, the Battle of Marathon and Herodotus (Father of History) and started a new biography on Cameron Townsend (founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators. One more week and then we’ll have a week off for Easter.

Please pray for Peter as he speaks morning and evening the next 2 Sundays.  Tomorrow evening, Hannah will be joining the worship group and playing her guitar.  Thank you for praying for our family.  We so appreciate it.

My cold is still making me feel pretty uncomfortable and wiped out and I had trouble sleeping on Friday night because of it.  Despite the lack of sleep, I really felt God gave me the strength I needed on Saturday.  However, I had another rough night last night, and really struggled today physically and emotionally.  I still really enjoyed the time with friends but just felt like I was battling to keep my eyes open and keep my body going.  I often have little patches where I worry a lot about what people think of me (fear of man!) and today was also one of those days.  I arrived back from the social gathering this evening pretty wiped out and feeling down.  I could’ve used a long chat with Peter but even though we got to chat a little, he was preparing to preach tonight and then eventually went out.  Then I needed to have a difficult conversation with one of our children which I found frustrating, I had a fussy baby, and one of our children accidentally broke our food processor in the middle of making peanut butter (which we were out of and is a staple around here!).  That was followed by two children being exceedingly silly and disobedient and when correcting them, one responded by getting even more silly and the other one extremely upset.  Result = one mummy feeling like she couldn’t go on.

I share all this because I want to tell you how tenderly our Father ministered to me.  As I was tucking in the silly child and the upset and whining/crying child, I picked up an old little children’s book called, “Little Pillows” by Frances Ridley Havergal. (It’s called Little Pillows as it gives the child a Scripture to “rest” on as they go to sleep.)  I sometimes read one of the little bedtime devotionals to the children as I tuck them in.  Anyway, I opened the book to where we’d last left off and the title was “He Giveth More Grace,” based on James 4:6.  I read it to them and a memory came into my mind . . . Mariah was 2 years old and in hospital with a broken femur.  I was still nursing Joel and going back and forth to the hospital every day.  It was an exhausting and very emotional for me to see Mariah going through so much.  A sweet friend helped me in many practical ways during that time and one day she brought over a framed picture with the words to a song on it and set it up on our mantle piece so I could look at it often.  I will have to check with her to be sure, but I am almost certain the song was, “He Giveth More Grace.” I remember how incredibly touched I was by the words.

1. He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
   He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
   To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
   To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.
2. When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
   When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
   When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
   Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
3. His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
   His power no boundary known unto men;
   For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
   He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

Anyway, as this song came into my mind, I quickly went in the other room, found a youtube video with the song being sung and called Mariah and Joel out of their beds to come listen.  We sang it through a few times and their little hearts seemed to calm down as they tried to learn the song and sing along.  My eyes welled up with tears at one point, just thinking about how amazing God is, that He would allow us to be on that very page in the Little Pillow book tonight.  When I felt my strength was gone, He gave me more grace.  He never stops giving and giving and giving.  Wonderful to think that the same God that helped me six years ago when I was struggling and has been helping me ever since, is still  tenderly giving me enough grace for tonight.  Mariah and Joel both wanted to sing the song again as I tucked them in.  And when Kaylah woke up crying out of a sound sleep a few seconds later, I felt as if I had the strength to go and care for her.  He is so merciful and gracious.

Family Funny for you:  Yesterday was a pretty stressful day for me as the kids were extremely goofy (during school time!!) and also whining and being emotional (at other times!).  At one particularly tense moment, Joel said, “Well, if I was the Mom, I’d desert this place!”  Thankfully, it made me laugh and laughter is always a good antidote to frustration.

I still have not posted photos from Hannah’s birthday since, due to Peter and then me being ill, we have had to postpone her birthday outing twice!  We hope, Lord willing, to go out with her on Monday and then I’ll post photos.