Potluck Ponderings

Quietness fills our home this Saturday evening.  I can almost hear the walls sighing.  We had such a wonderful weekend last week with family visiting from Tennessee.  Our house was filled with lots of laughter, smells of good food and sweet fellowship, it was nourishment for our souls.  For that we are so thankful. We've had a few weeks of constant noise with constant studying for the written portion of Joe's licensure exams.  Those are finished, now he waits for the date to meet with the exams committee, then the final examination by presbytery February 23.  In a few weeks we will know if he is licensed to preach or if he goes back to study more and re-take exams. Each day this week has brought it's own to-do list.  Today included being an overnight refuge for Aunt Judi from paint fumes, Nate's basketball game, a friend's birthday party, and helping Emily shave her legs for the first time.    In the morning we will be at the church who...

We love the way each of you comes to mind, with the memories of times spent together and the expectancy of times to be shared in the future. Even in this busy time of seminary, work, and school there have been some wonderful opportunities! We spent some time in Washington DC with friends (Loretta's & the kids first visit), spent a summer with a wonderful sitter for the kids and lots of pool time, and took a quick trip to the beach in September. We had visits with cousins, hosted our niece Kayla's high school graduation party, and had a terrific trip to Williamsburg, VA area in the spring, with time for visiting with family. We have also had some visitors to our house, and especially love those times. We look forward to more visits with all of you! Nate seems to literally grow daily, he is seven and in first grade. For him, life is about eating, sleeping and playing. He is enjoying being able to read, but not the process so much. He seems to be a whiz...

We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!  It began w/a pizza and movie night on Friday.  Followed by meeting some lovely ladies for coffee and conversation early Saturday morning and we then took off for the NC Zoo Saturday and made a day of it!  I didn't take the camera, so there are no pictures of us looking at the animals.  It was a good day, even if the polar bear was sleeping and we missed the giraffe feeding...maybe next time! Nate spent most of the day asking a million questions about the A-10 Warthog, working out a plan for joining the Air Force so he can fly one...and building a Nater-ized model with duct tape and recyclables from our bin.  The topic seemed to come from out of the blue, but we finally figured out that someone in his class has a A-10 Warthog pilot for a Daddy. Sunday, we went to Lake Tillery Church .  Joe has been planning to visit for quite a while.  We had lunch with friends at The Boondocks...followed by a refreshing couple h...

is ending quietly... Pizza, the movie Rio...a game of chess for Dad & Em...a game of Sequence between us all...thoughts of a zoo trip for tomorrow... "Gifts" of today:  people who make messes and are able to help clean them up... Growing kids who are able to sit around the dining room table (or wiggle around the table) and play games that require some thinking... clean sheets... a student body government representative race--Lost...and the lessons learned in the losing co-workers who pitch in...work together...and laugh deep & loud... friends who send emails that give the low down on what their week has been like even though you've barely had time to talk... One more final exam completed!

Can I just start blogging again?  Would Miss Manners say a formal reintroduction is required after a 6 month silence with NO posts, no pictures, no words....no documentation of life being lived... I've created at least a zillion blog posts in my mind, usually beginning in the shower...continuing while I'm blow drying my hair and brushing my teeth...pausing while I yell at the kids that we need to leave RIGHT NOW or we will be LATE...until the moment I'm in the car alone, and then the ideas and thoughts become words flowing again...prayers and thanksgivings...sweet moments of words coming together like a mosaic...reflection of smells and sounds of life with husband and children filling this house...poignant moments and observations while waiting and growing and loving...the stories of living waiting to be told, quickly forgotten as I walk through the front door of the clinic and pin the nurses' cap and smile in place.  Evening will come, and any inkling of words to t...

We are ever so grateful to all of you for the prayers, support, love and encouragement that you have showered us with this last year and a half.  It is hard to believe Joe has been enrolled full-time in seminary for over a year! (and even harder to believe he still has two more years, but I know it will pass so quickly and I will wonder where in the world the time went)  Hebrew is on the agenda for summer...along with a few other classes, I'm hopeful that this language comes as easy as Greek seemed to. The next "official" step in the journey will occur tomorrow.  Joe will go before the regional governing body for our denomination to give a brief testimony and explanation of his sense of calling to full-time ministry.  He has already met at length with the candidates committee.  During tomorrow's meeting, he will be presented and voted on as a candidate for pastoral ministry (forgive me if that wording is not exact) and to begin his pastoral inter...

"The life of holiness is the life of faith in which the believer, with a deepening knowledge of his own sin and helplessness apart from Christ, increasingly casts himself upon the Lord, and seeks the power of the Spirit and the wisdom and comfort of the Bible to battle against the world, the flesh and the devil.  It is not a lonely or cheerless struggle for Christ gives the Spirit to the members of his body to help one another."   The Church , Edmund P. Clowney (Pg 89) Just a blurb from one of the ten books on Joe's nightstand this week...not lonely or cheerless---we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to help each other...((sigh))... The busyness of life surrounds us...sometimes lonely...sometimes loud....but always together. Joe is well under way with his second year of seminary.  Em is back to the soccer-mill.  Practice twice a week and games on Saturdays.  She had her first game last week and did an awesome job in position of goalie. Nate had his ...