Feb 19, 2012 | The Parenthood
Oh man y’all. Saturday morning the Hubs took the Bear for a walk at Goose Creek State Park (just up the highway) and came home with pictures. And I loved em so much I almost fainted. Twice.
And I realized I’ve been giving you a monthly update on Tiger Tank but not telling you too much about how the Bear’s been doing these days.
So here’s the scoop. And some photos, for good measure.
I find the Bear to be so incredibly clever these days it almost freaks me out.
Listening to him put together complex sentences and use very intuitive reasoning to try to convince me it’s time to read a book instead of nap time, or that it’s time for a special treat even though he’s already had one, just makes me giggle on the inside and struggle to maintain a straight face and hold my ground.
He is incredibly sweet to his little brother … about 57% of the time. He brings him toys and makes him smile, but doesn’t particularly prefer to share so much. And he doesn’t like being bothered when he’s sitting on the potty, either. Not. One. Bit.
He still loves helping in the kitchen, and when we were stirring together some homemade granola the other day, he softly looked up at me and said, “I love helping you, Mommy.” Oh. My. Heart.
He also still does that funny thing when he’s asking permission to do something: “May I please get down, yes, may, youuuu.”
{Serious pose. Who knows why.}
He’s usually grumpy and in need of a cuddle after his afternoon nap and he has a Thomas the Tank Engine book memorized, and he “reads” it to us before bedtime.
He loves his friends at preschool and clearly states a preference for friends at school and church who share. {Oh the irony.}
A few weeks ago he spilled a full dispenser of pez candy on the floor and immediately cried out, “Holy Cow!” It was hard for me to maintain composure… it was like hearing a miniature version of myself repeating something that I didn’t even realize I said so often until it got repeated.
He definitely still remembers South Africa, and there’s a little bit of a wistful gaze that comes over him when he recalls something from our life in Gordon’s Bay.
It sometimes feels like our big move has forced him to grow up a little, just a little more quickly, but really, he seems just like any other kid.
{Goofy, happy, and so deeply in need of love and affirmation.}
We really couldn’t ask for a better Bear!
Although it would be nice if he’d “lissen n’ obaaay” a little more often. 🙂
And if his waist wasn’t so narrow I might be able to put him in jeans that weren’t high waters a little more often!
Can you believe the Hubs and I went for walks in this very park when I was pregnant with the Bear?
Those photos were taken almost exactly four years ago! Kind of a lot has happened since then!
And this little fella is one of my favorite things…
What a gift!
Make sure you enter the Quiver Tree Giveaway between now and Friday if you haven’t already. {And MAKE SURE you sign in through Punch Tab so that your entries are recorded!} Perhaps the Hubs will take you and your fandamily for a photo session in Goose Creek next!
xCC
Feb 18, 2012 | An Expat, Giveaways
It’s hard to believe a year ago today we were expecting our little Tiger Tank to make his first appearance on the outside. Today — February 18th — was the due date, and if he’d decided to come along, he would’ve been born two years and six months to the day after his big brother Bear.
As you may or may not remember, however, the Tank (and the Lord) had other plans. In God’s Perfect Timing our precious second son arrived in a ninety-minute perfect-for-TV drama that culminated in an expedient trip to the hospital, with Mr. Potato Head reaching speeds exceeding 100 mph. And the magical nine minute delivery ensued.
Someone told me the second one grows faster than the first. I didn’t believe them until we packed everything up and started the nomadic journey that began in June of 2011 and finally felt sort of finished in December. I feel so far removed from those days of waiting, our leisurely strolls around the neighborhood, the palm trees, the boats with ropes clanking against their masts on a sunny summer day in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
We sold most of our stuff, we left that home, and we said goodbye to a lot of people whom we love and care for. And since the memories of those precious days seem to be fading around the edges, I am very, very thankful for the pictures we took.
We occasionally pull up a photo or two on our computers to ask the Bear if he remembers this or that. And sometimes I know having seen things again in photos is helping him to remember.
In the car on the way home from Bible study yesterday, he and another little girl were discussing birthday cakes. She talked about hers, and then he recounted his last birthday in detail — mine was at Goo and Gammy’s house. Gammy made my 3 cake!
I hope he can store so many of those moments in his mind — seeing elephants at Kruger Park, playing cars with Goo Goo around the table on the patio in Bloemfontein, jumping on the trampoline in our old neighborhood by the sea.
I’m thankful that if we forget, we still have so many photos to usher us right back into some of our favorite memories at a moment’s notice… traveling around the Isle of Skye in Scotland, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, hiking in the Helderberg region near Cape Town.
More than that, I’m thankful to be reminded of those tiny newborn fists clenched so tight, the way the Bear’s hair curled at the nape of his neck before his first haircut, the glorious shots of the grandparents and grandchildren together — ones I often treasure more than any others.
So, in honor of Tiger Tank’s ‘official’ due date, Quiver Tree Photography has decided to do a special giveaway right here, and I’m excited to share the details with you!
One lucky winner will receive a free one hour, on location photo shoot (a $75 value!) in Eastern North Carolina (within 50 miles of Washington, North Carolina*). You’ll also receive 10 4×6 prints and an 8×10 canvas of your favorite photos from the session (a $70 value!) Boo-yow!
All you have to do is leave a comment telling us who you’d like to in your pictures if you win! Make sure you sign in using the Punch Tab widget below, and read the details below to find out how to get extra entries! USE PUNCH TAB — don’t just leave a comment!!
We’ll randomly draw the name of a lucky winner on the Tank’s actual birthday, February 24th!
Visit Quiver Tree Photography between now and then to have a look around the new site!
*If you live outside of the area and would like to enter, you can pay 50 cents per mile travelled outside the 50 mile radius and we’ll come to you, or we can make a plan to meet somewhere in the middle!
The Details:
You must leave one comment on this site by 11:59 EST on February 23, 2012 in order to be entered in this giveaway. Folks who leave multiple comments will be considered cheeky and will be ineligible to win.
You can earn additional entries for doing each of the following:
- Tweeting about this giveaway on Twitter
- Becoming a fan of Quiver Tree Photography on Facebook
- Liking this giveaway on Facebook
- Sharing the link to this page on Google Plus
MAKE SURE YOU USE PUNCHTAB (BELOW) TO ENTER!!!
We look forward to hanging out with the winner soon!
xCC
Feb 15, 2012 | A Repat, The Good Word
At a conference a few weekends ago, a misconception in my head was corrected. In all my time examining and re-examining the armor of God listed in Ephesians 6, I’d always seen the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, as the offensive weapon. As in, the only offensive weapon we have in this battleground called life on Earth.
But as the speaker, a gracious and grace-filled woman named Sarah Knott, took us through the letter to the Ephesians, she mentioned the two weapons we have in our armor: the Word of God, and prayer.
How I didn’t see that before I’m not sure. Though it’s clearly mentioned, it was always kind of a sideline for me … “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit…” That prayer part was kind of a given — a something that I thought should be going on in the background while the battle was happening.
I didn’t understand prayer as part of the battle. Integral to the battle. Half the weaponry in the offensive arsenal of our faith.
With these thoughts swirling in my head, I sat down to pray one morning recently. Closing my eyes to focus on the Lord, and occasionally opening them to keep myself awake, singing His praise and thanking Him, I apologized that prayer had become a back-burner-yeah-I-ought-to instead of an active, purposeful discipline, and a blessed, beautiful fellowship.
What beautiful times I have shared with the Lord in prayer! Such sweet and heavenly moments! How do I forget and forsake again and again?
In prayer that morning I thanked Him for taking me THROUGH THE STORM and to the other side.
I remembered the story, recorded in at least three of the gospels, usually titled “Wind and Wave Obey Jesus.” In Luke 8, Jesus says to the disciples, “Let us cross over the other other side of the lake.” And they launch the boat for the journey.
But a storm comes down on the lake while they are sailing, and Jesus is asleep. The disciples were really scared (I talked a bit about this story last month, as well) and woke Jesus up, panicking about their circumstances and asking whether He cared about them at all.
And shew-wee, though at first I want to point out how silly they were for that Lord don’t you care if we drown not trusting the Lord who was right there with them all along, yet after a little deeper consideration, I recognize that their actions mirror my own.
If questioning God in the middle of a storm is a path on the road of my life, it is a well-worn one. When things aren’t going the way I think they ought to be going, my first reaction is to question Him. His love… His care and concern for me… Lord, if you love me, then why did this happen? {Sure, I’ll think about what He wants me to learn, how this too will be redeemed, but questioning, for me, usually comes first.}
And it seems a well-worn path right round the world, too — haven’t we all heard, perhaps said, those familiar words: If God is good, then why do bad things happen? If God is good then why…
A good friend of mine once pointed out that those first words of Jesus, the ones which start this story out, are integral to understanding it. Jesus said “Let’s cross over to the other side.” If Jesus says you’re going to cross over, you are going to cross over. He only always ever speaks the truth. His words never return void — and He doesn’t just speak the truth, He is the Truth.
Come what may — storm or trial, peril or sword — His words are a firmer foundation than that rocking boat the disciples were clinging to. They were going to cross over. Because He said so.
He spoke to the wind and the waves, and told them to be still. And they were still. Because He said so.
Then He asked them that simple question — so profound — Where is your faith?
It seems like my soul, too, was on a lake and in a storm — feeling isolated and tossed about as I’ve navigated the waters of re-settling in to life in an old, and new place. Struggling through some disappointment and discouragement, sewing fig leaves and hiding. And out on the lake my words were familiar — Lord, don’t you care if I drown?
And perhaps with the beautiful accent I hear in my mind, when my Mother-in-Love says to me, “My guhl” (My girl) so perhaps being still I could hear those gentle words whispered from the God-who-sees-me, “My guhl, where is your faith?” {Maybe the Lord has a South African accent, who knows.}
When I think on it, I hear those words spoken so gently, encouraging, challenging, good. He wants us to trust Him to bring us through the storm. Where are you putting your faith? He says we are going to the other side.
{And hasn’t He gone before us to prepare a place for us?}
The disciples wouldn’t have heard those words — the ones about crossing over, and the ones brimming with encouragement to trust Him, even in the storm — if they hadn’t gone to Him with their concern.
And surely we must take note — prayer is the means by which we’ll hear that familiar voice encouraging us to trust Him. And we can trust Him, even right in the middle of the storm.
If nothing can separate us from His amazing love, then we can trust Him to carry us through, to the other side of every storm.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
For your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord {Rom. 8:39-39}
Friend, I mean what I say. You can trust Him to see you through the storm.
xCC
Feb 13, 2012 | Reviews
I‘d heard a bit of the story and for quite some time wanted to get my hands on a copy of Heaven is for Real. When I finally did a couple of weeks ago, I finished the book in a couple of days. It was just that good.
A five days overdue emergency appendectomy nearly took the life of Colton Burpo, a precious little boy just four years old at the time. As the months went by after his recovery, Colton’s parents began to discover that something astounding happened in those heart-wrenching moments when they nearly lost their son: Colton had an experience of heaven.
What would seem like a far-fetched tale was consistently (and incredibly) validated by many facts, including Colton’s knowledge of what was happening in other parts of the hospital while he was on the operating table, as well as events which took place before he was born.
Being a bit academically-wired by nature, this simple story, told from the point of view of Colton’s Pastor-Dad, challenged me to let go of the bother I have for the difficulty of reconciling what heaven could be like inside my finite mind. I sometimes don’t like thinking about heaven because I don’t know what to think. But if we’re willing to believe that heaven is absolutely worth thinking about, dreaming about, and looking forward to with great hope and anticipation, this belief will more accurately frame our understanding of our lives here and now — temporary, finite shadows of that glory which is to come.
{And won’t that change the way we live?}
I just thought I’d take a moment to let you know I loved this book in case you haven’t read it already, (thank you, Alison Dameron for letting me borrow it) and if you’re looking for some good reading and some great inspiration, grab a copy and dig in. {Here’s an Amazon link just in case: Heaven is for Real
} I might read it one more time before I return it — it has just given me so much to think about.
xCC
Feb 12, 2012 | Baby Photos, The Good Word
Gosh, is it just me or does it seem like the Tank was only eight months last week? And do you remember when he looked so tiny snuggled inside this pillow he’s now towering over?
It’s hard to believe eleven months have swooped by, but I suppose it’s kind of been a busy year.
 Â
And ya know, there’s a funny thing the Hubs and I have found ourselves saying over and over again about this little boy of ours.
We talk about how being in the middle of a transcontinental move, a job change, and a heap of other transitions doesn’t seem like the right ‘timing‘ for having another child.
You’d think the stress of a new addition to the family would just make all the other changes and challenges too much.
But we’ve consistently found that this little one {and his older brother} have been incredible sources of joy, peace, and even sanity in the midst of what sometimes felt like scary hard craziness.
At times when we were close to pulling our hair out, a giggle, a new trick, even a tear or two, could bring us down to earth again — filling our hearts to the brim with the reminder to savor the moment, even when the moment has ‘hard’ written all over it.
It reminds me of those wise and confounding words in 1 Corinthians 1 — that God has made foolish the wisdom of this world. And though we might decide in our own wisdom that this is or is not the right timing for a child, a change, a choice of any kind, truthfully the foolishness of God is wiser than any wisdom we can muster. The weakness of God is stronger than our greatest strength.
And so fearlessly welcoming children into the world is something I understand now less as a matter of wisdom and more as a matter of trust. Not knowing what tomorrow will bring, I trust God for this day’s bread. The bread that fills our tummies, and the bread of wisdom I need, for knowing how to parent. The bread of grace I need, for knowing how to extend myself in love. The bread of faith I need, for trusting again for tomorrow, and the day after that.
How and why He chooses to give as He does — these grace-filled gifts of parenthood, life as I know it, daily bread, I receive with trembling hands — it is a mystery I imagine we’ll only know on the other side. I want these gifts for everyone — but I can only trust in Him when I don’t understand why it isn’t so.
I can say with certainty that trusting His perfect timing has taught me confounding wisdom. And as it is written, if I glory in this, it is glory in the Lord. What confounding wisdom… demonstrated through the gift of a child.
{And doesn’t it all come back to the gift of a child?}
  
Eleven precious, months laced right round with grace — I might’ve planned this all differently, so I’m thankful I’m not making many plans.
xCC
P.S. Care to comment? Do you struggle with a balance between your own methods of family planning and trusting God’s timing? How do you {or how do you plan to} reconcile the two?
I create resources to help people find deeper, more meaningful relationships with God through pursuing, pondering, and prayer. The "Shop" link above will take you to the home of many of the lovely resources I’ve created to help you keep walking one day deeper with Jesus.