Good morning!

Even after a night with little rest, I am marveling at this beautiful face that I woke up to this morning.

Today I read a newsletter from a dear friend who just had her fourth baby and is raising support to be an overseas missionary with her young family (husband, 6 yr old, 3 yr old, 18 month old, 1 month old). She quoted a book, Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss, which I have not read but have heard so much about. This quote is so beautiful and poignant to me right now as I type at the computer with a weak body, ratty hair and tired eyes. I am inspired and so deeply joyful.

After the birth of a new baby Elizabeth says,
"I shall now have one mouth the more to fill, and two feet the more to shoe; more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure for visiting, reading, music and drawing. This is one side of the story to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God, and the body in which it dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation, my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her life-long prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!"