Please Pray for Noah Estes!

Sweet little Noah is extremely sick. From his mom:

We are rushing to the Greenville ER. Noah is vomiting, shaking uncontrollably, and running a fever of 103.5. He is extremely sick. Please ask everyone you know to pray. I’ll update when I can.
Kate

Please keep Noah and his family in your prayers. To become familiar with him (if you aren’t yet), and for updates, see their blog, Our Quiverfull.

Thoughts on Friendship

I have been blessed repeatedly by Amy Scott’s Humble Musings, so this certainly not the first time I’ve linked to Humble Amy. I appreciated her thoughts today on friendship, and wanted to share them with you.

My thoughts have been returning often lately to friendship – specifically to real friendship, as in friends with whom you can be real. I am troubled by the degree to which we (“we” being specifically Christians in modern day U.S.A.) are generally not genuine with one another. We put on our happy face and do our best to be seen as “together.” I am becoming increasingly convinced that our lack of “realness” is extremely detrimental to the body of Christ, as well as to the world around us. How are we to “confess (our) sins to one another and pray for one another, that (we) may be healed” (James 5.16) if we constantly keep on our masks?

The last few years have brought a blessing to my life that is rare treasure. God has given me a bosom friend (as Anne would say), and a friendship in which there is a deep mutual realness. It is unspeakably encouraging to me, as I seek to laid hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus, to know that my dear friend is struggling along beside me. The depth to which we can be spiritually naked with each other helps us both to keep seeking after our Saviour. We don’t have it perfected yet… but that’s okay, because we both know that we’re still “in process” that that He Who promised is faithful.

I’m so thankful for the friendships the Lord has given me. I am blessed to have a wonderful circle of friends who love and pray for me. I am seeking to be more genuine with those in my life. But I’m going to be genuine with you and say that it is stinking hard sometimes. How many people really want to hear that I yell at my children, have forgiveness issues, have self-destructive tendencies, struggle with disturbing sin, doubt my Saviour’s love, and more? And I’m not proposing that we blurt out our deepest and darkest struggles to everyone we meet. But my goal is to wear my “got-it-all-together” mask less often… to be genuine… to be approachable… to be a real friend.

Happy Anniversary!

Thirteen years ago, on a beautiful sunny day, Jonathan and I began our life together. I am thankful beyond words for Jonathan and our journey together. And today, I get to spend the whole day with him!

(I really need to get our wedding pictures scanned):

And a song some friends sang for us at our reception:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQE5PNRLZ40&hl=en&fs=1]

Happy Anniversary, Babe!

The BBC Nursery Project

Last fall, my dear friend Sue and I started working on re-doing the chapel nursery. I forgot to take an official “Before” picture, but here is one in the midst of stripping the old wall paper:

The plain white walls looked so much better!

In April, the upper portion of the walls were painted:

On Saturday (a year after we started!) we finished painting, and on Sunday, Jonathan put the trim back up for us. We’re not totally done, but close enough to show off some pictures:

We love the feel of the room now. It is a wonderfully warm, comfortable, relaxing room for mamas and babies.

There are some lovely faux wood blinds behind the beautiful valance Sue made. One of the things we still need to do is make a curtain for the window, for when privacy is needed (for brides using it as a changing room and such). I’m sure I’ll post pictures when we’re completely done, but, as you can tell, we’re giving ourselves (as mothers of 6 and 7 children) lots of grace on the timing of this project!

BBC Work Day

Last Saturday was Work Day at our chapel. I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked, but here are a few (click for larger versions, of course):

Nature Pictures

We’ve had several opportunities in the last couple of weeks to get some neat pictures of God’s marvelous creation.

Here’s a garden spider that Ellie spotted behind the school barn:

Mushrooms in the front yard:

Two praying mantis at BBC:

A walking stick at BBC:

A walking stick on our back deck:

Nobody’s Got It All Together

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1s5p9tSV0E&hl=en&fs=1]

You can get the album containing this song (lots of great stuff) along with quite a few other albums – for free! – at noisetrade.com.

What do you think of this song and the thoughts behind it?

Do you find that we as Christians are real with each other, or that we try to act like we do have it all together? If the latter, what can we do to be real with each other so that we truly can encourage one another to love and good deeds?

The Big Haircut

I’ve been thinking for a while that it’s about time to cut Stephen’s hair. It had gotten down to his shoulder (when you pulled it straight), and totally covered his ears. So tonight was the big night…

Before:

And After:

FoMM Retreat

We just got back from the 3rd Annual Friends of Missouri Midwives Family Retreat. We had loads of fun and fellowship and accomplished a lot, too! There were over 80 people in attendance, which is almost doubled from last year.

Here are the folks still around when we remembered to get a group picture late Sunday morning:
And a pretty scenic view on the way home: