Redeem and Restore

I just finished reading a section from the book "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision" about forgiveness and I want to share it with you.
The story is about a woman named Margaret, six months pregnant, living amidst the violence of Northern Uganda's war against the rebel Lord's Resitance Army.  One day Margaret was working in her garden with several other women.  A group of child soldiers came out of the bush and attacked and killed the women, all except for Margaret.  They believed that it would bring bad luck to kill a pregnant woman.  Instead, their commander instructed the child soliders to cut off her ears, nose, and lips believing that her subsequent death would not be on their hands.  They did the unthinkable and left Margaret to die.

She was found and rushed to a hospital where she survived and three months later gave birth to James.  She was moved to World Vision's Children of War Center where she received trauma counseling, support, and later training as a seamstress.  You can imagine her surprise when months later the commander who had given the order to maim her was brought into the same center.  He had been captured and brought to the center to receive counseling and rehabilitation.  World Vision worked with this man and continued working with Margaret trying to lessen her anxiety and exploring the possibility of forgiveness.

"After weeks had passed, the man confessed to his involvement in Margarent's attack, even as she worked through her own fears and anger.  Finally, a meeting was arranged.  The man asked Margaret to forgive him.  And Margaret, reaching deeply into the source of all forgiveness - Jesus Christ - forgave.  Here again was the power of the gospel to redeem and restore, and to meet evil and turn it back.  On the wall of the Children of War Center are photographs of that day - Margaret and this man who had mutiltated her.  He is holding little James in his arms as she stands next to them - smiling without lips."

Love..or Something

If you follow my blog you'll know that Tim and I have been together for a very long time

 and have celebrated Valentine's Day together many many times.  Last night being the 20th. 

 We both got it quite wrong with our cards to one another. 

I appreciate the romantic flowery card with gushy words inside.  Tim appreciates humourous cards with gushy words inside. 

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I created this for him:

And here's the beauty he chose for me:

Hand Made Gift for Teacher

An easy, do-it-yourself gift for my daughter's teacher.

Take a cleaned out, de-labelled can.

Measure and cut printed paper.  Adhere to can.

Adhere double-sided tape to ribbon.

Use the ribbon to hide the seam.

Punch out a few flowers and add some pearls.

Embelish with a tag.

And voila....

Fierce

Last year, out of the blue,

Emily - the girl who will not smile or sit for a family photo,

decided to turn into a child model for roughly 7 minutes.

She did it again this week while I was out for the evening. 

 She informed Tim she wanted to "do some poses". 

So Tim took the camera out...and here's a small sampling of her "session":

I don't know where she gets these ideas.

I think Tyra Banks would say she's Fierce.

I say it's ridiculously cute...

and slighty scary.

5 months in advance

Our family loves to camp. 

Both Tim and I grew up camping with our respecitive families every summer.  My parents liked to try new campgrounds out every year.  There were some amazing places and some real duds.  We travelled throughout Ontario and down into the United States too.  My all time favourite memory of family camping was being in Maryland and camping on Assateague Island.  We camped among wild horses!!  It was very cool and we hope to take our girls there one day.

Tim's family usually camped at Killbear Provincial Park with three or four other families.  They all camped in a row at side-by-side sites facing the beach.  They would set up and not leave for weeks.  Tim would roam the beach and the campground with his friends. 

So now it's five months until July.  Ontario Parks won't let you book earlier than 5 months from your arrival date.  Each year around this time in the winter we start thinking about our summer vacation.  Where will we go?  Which week should we pick?  We love Pinery Provincial Park on Lake Huron and Killbear Provincial park on Georgian Bay.  Tim proposed to me at Killbear so it has sweet memories for us.  We camped at Killbear last summer and it is now our families first choice for campgrounds.

Reserving a campsite isn't for the weak, my friends.  Unless you are a one-tent family and don't care about electiricity.  Fortunately for us we have the use of a trailer every year which requires an electrical site.  I love having a freezer while camping because I bring all of my dinners prepared from home and just heat them up and add some fresh vegetables. 

To many of you this isn't "real" camping.  But being comfortable, dry, and well-fed makes for a great vacation for us and so this is our definition of camping.  Don't knock it till you try it.  :)

Anyways, so you need to be well-prepared to reserve a site.  There aren't that many electrical, large sites at Killbear.  They are hard to get.  I am on the computer early...watching the computer time to change from 6:59:59 to 7:00:00.  And "click"  ..I try to reserve the one available site five months from today...and within 1 second I know that someone else got it ..grrr... and now I need to wait again until tomorrow.

Honestly, I hate this part of camping.  It shouldn't be so hard to reserve a site but I guess there are many many out there that love it just as much as we do.

I'll be back on the ontarioparks.com site bright and early tomorrow morning.

Here's to attempt #2.

so very very interesting.....who ARE you?

When I created my blog I left it as an open blog which means you didn't need permission to read it.

I am able to view statistics of the people reading my posts and it is AMAZING.  I have people from ALL over the world reading "A Little bit Everyday". 

People from

United States,

Australia

Malaysia

Hon Kong

Netherlands

Singapore

Germany

Indonesia

United Kingdom

all of these people are reading my blog. 

It's unbelievable!

Tell me a little about yourself....

....and thank you for reading.

In His Shadow

I tend to feel a little down when we have one cloudy day after the other.  Short days, clouds, no playground time, or patio sitting, snow suits and slush, cold cars and runny noses....I start focusing only on that which is negative.  I burrow a little more deeply into my covers rather than waking to join my own 5:42 a.m. club.  And I wallow in my own pot of pity day in and day out.  I am no fun ...believe me. 

And then the sun came out this morning.  I dropped the girls off at their bus stop and as I walked back home the cloudless sky and brightly shining sun filled my heart to bursting.  But it really isn't about the sun shining.  I felt reminded about God's everlasting presence.  Even when the sun is hiding behind the clouds, the sun is still there.  Even when our days are dark with sickness, or any other kind of trouble He is always there. 

He turns my darkness into light (Psalm 18:28). 

Then I walked upstairs into my kitchen and this is what I saw on my blinds. 

A perfectly cast shadow. 

And it  made me think of Him and what He has done for me. 
He sacrificed His Son so that I may live in His light,
 cleansed from my sins, free from bondage, able to have eternal life.

 

And He has promised me that while here on earth amidst the dark days,
runny noses,
slushy streets

He will keep me in the shadow of His wings. 
(Psalm 17:8)

I am so very grateful for the life He has given me. 

Not because He has provided me with everything I need 
or kept me from experiencing any true tragedy

 but because I know that without Him,
my everlasting Son,
my days would be dark...so very very dark.