October makes a comeback

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it is a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked."

~St. Augustine

I recently wrote an email to my friend voicing my disappointment with October. The first two weeks could be summed up with three themes: sickness, rain, and my husband out of town on business. It was lonely and dismal and everything that October should not be. But the past week or so has been pure lovely. We have been outside, played with cousins and friends, enjoyed the park, made crafts together, and had our usual family routine in the evenings (with Andy). God is so good to allow trials to ebb and flow with easy days. I want to be conformed to His likeness, sanctified, and stretched for His glory. But my flesh can only take so much. And just at the moment when I feel I might be pulled to pieces, He relieves me. But He never leaves me the same as before, praise God. There might be a stretch mark or two left across this stubborn, non-flexible shell- but it's different and lovelier some how. The marks of being His child are often not beauty marks, but bandaged broken places. I am still amazed at the beauty He brings from the ashes.

My friend remarked how she realized that she often spends more time in regret over the past, and fear of the future, rather than living in the hope of the present. She was convicted about how that choice has affected her relationships, specifically with her family. The "present" might not be easy or ideal, but we who know the Lord have great hope in these moments! We are given the beautiful promise that he is "working all things out for good for those whom He loves". I wonder if I live as if I believe this truth? I know that I sometimes do not. But I can also recall times when I have chosen to walk in obedience in this area, by God's grace. What a humongous faith-builder it is on the other side of a trial to have "set my gaze directly forward, not looking to the right or to the left". And how humbling it is to see how weak and easily discouraged I sometimes become.



Praying with thankfulness for a beautiful, enjoyable season. Also praying that God would not leave me like I am, but continue to stretch me and leave the marks that testify that He is always at work in my life- for His glory!"It doesn't matter, really, how great the pressure is; it only matters where the pressure lies. See that it never comes between you and the Lord - then, the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to Himself." ~Hudson Taylor

A few beautiful moments pictured above: the view of one of the farm pastures, a great night with family, me behind the wheel of the "hunting truck" on the farm along with orange neon hunting toboggan, a fun art project, Lydie loving the cooler weather in her new little coat