There is therefore now no condemnation...

"Our shame is ended, for He has borne it! Our punishment is removed: He has endured it all. Double for all our sins has our Redeemer paid. Return unto thy rest, O my soul, and let peace take full possession of thy weeping heart.” Charles Spurgeon

This and that...

Cutest thing - I hadn't heard from Mary Grace in a while (usually not a good sign), so I looked in the backyard and found her like this.

Then of course, Hannah and Sarah wanted me to take their picture.

Mary Grace settled herself in...

Sweetness...

Christopher squinting in the sun.

Hannah and Sarah in a sea of bubbles.

MG covered in suds. (yes, that's tear-free shampoo)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

As far as I know, I don't have a single drop of Irish blood running through my veins. However, in honor of the holiday, I thought I'd bake my first loaf of Irish soda bread. It's sweeter than a yeast bread, but not as sweet as your normal, sticky sweet bread. We ate nearly 1/2 the entire loaf and I may be back for more before the night is through...

And now, in honor of St. Patrick himself, I want to post his "breastplate prayer", which is one of my favorites:

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation.

A 6 1/2 year old's thoughts on the aseity of God

Yesterday evening after all the girls had gone to bed, Christopher and I were sitting in the family room having conversations about random things. After a few moments of silence, he blurted out, "Well, we could walk to Nana's house since we know the way. Right?" I said, "Well, you could, but it's 3 miles to Nana's house." Undaunted, Christopher replied, "So? We walked more than 3 miles on that hike in Colorado, right?" I conceded, "Yes, we hiked 3 1/2 miles...but you'll remember that everyone was falling apart on the last mile back to the van. You had blisters on your feet, Sarah kept tripping and scraping her knees, Mary Grace was crying..." Christopher said, "Yeah. It was like a 6-person Cherokee Trail of Tears." Oh, that gave me a good chuckle. Gotta love those homeschooled kids.

I shared this story with Nana this morning which reminded her of a conversation that she had with Christopher in the car the other day. Christopher said out of the blue, "Nana, you know what I have a hard time believing?" Nana: "What's that?" Christopher said, "I just don't understand how God can have no beginning." Nana said, "Yes, that is a very hard thing for us to understand. But He doesn't have an ending either." Christopher quickly said, "Oh, I can believe that He doesn't have an ending. I just don't understand how He doesn't have a beginning. I mean, when did God come to be?" Nana said, "He didn't, He just always was." Christopher said, "When I get to heaven, that's definitely one thing I'm going to ask God about... Do you think that we'll be able to see God?" Nana, "Well, God is a Spirit and doesn't have a body...but Jesus does, and you'll be able to see Jesus." Then Sarah, my 5 year old, interjected, "Christopher, just talk to Jesus. Jesus has a body and He's the same as God."

Love it!

Finally caught on tape...

As you may have seen from the previous post, Mary Grace started taking steps while holding on to something, but crawling is still her preferred and most efficient form of mobilization. A few days ago, she stood up and took a step toward me before falling to the floor. After we all cheered, she got up and did it again. For several days after that, she had no other such attempts, but then started pulling herself up to stand, letting go and taking a step or two over the last few days. All of these were spontaneous and unpredictable and never on command, so we haven't managed to capture any of these unassisted steps on video...until today!

The next video cracks me up because it also shows MG nodding her head "yes" when I ask her a question, blowing raspberries, and then taking a few more steps after climbing off the horse.

Learning to walk, etc...

Mary Grace has been pulling up to stand, cruising, and climbing for a while now, but she hasn't started taking any steps yet. She still hasn't taken steps without assistance, but for the first time today I noticed her push the ottoman (it has wheels) and walk behind it. So tonight I stood her up behind the activity walker and she just took off...

Looks like she's on the same trajectory as Sarah was at this age. Sarah started walking on her own at 14 months. MG is 13 1/2 months.

The following video of MG learning to eat with a fork was taken about 2 weeks prior to the above video. I thought it was funny that both videos show Sarah being MG's little helper.

The effects of the Fall...

Tonight I was reading the first 3 stories from The Big Picture Story Bible, by David Helm to Sarah and Hannah. We have recommended this story bible before as a great resource for family worship because it so beautifully connects all the stories of the Bible together as God's one big story of redemption. There are probably too many pictures and not enough words for Christopher at this point (though he still enjoys it), but it is at just the right level for the girls to understand. We have read it to them over and over again and they are getting the themes of redemptive history written on their hearts, which is such a joy to see as a parent.

The first story is titled "The Very Good Beginning", which talks about how God created all thing, created people in His own image and established His good rule over His people. The second story is called, "The Very Sad Day", which talks about when sin entered the world and changed everything. As I was reading about Adam and Eve's choice to believe the lies of Satan and mistrust the goodness of God and how sad they were after sin had entered into their hearts, I noticed that Sarah was wiping tears away from her eyes. I stopped reading and asked her why she was sad and she said, "Because it was such a sad day for Adam and Eve...and could you please turn the page?" It really tugged at my heartstrings to see how deeply affected she was and I was eager to get to the good news on the next page as well, where God promises that He will one day send Someone to crush Satan's head and rescue His people from sin. Sarah closed her eyes and said, "Please God, could you send Jesus to crush Satan's head again?" I assured her that Jesus already crushed the power of Satan when He died on the cross and rose from the dead, and that one day, Jesus will wipe away every tear from our eyes (there's a great picture of this in the last story titled, "The Very Good Ending", which I showed Sarah) and we will never again experience sin, sadness, pain, suffering or death in the new heavens and new earth.

Thank you Lord for breaking through my 4 year old's little heart tonight with the hard truths of the Fall and the deep assurances of the Gospel. And thank you for reminding me of those truths through her eyes. May we both continue to recognize our desperate need of salvation and cling to Jesus our Rescuer.

The saga of Christopher's first loose tooth...

BEFORE: Christopher's tooth has been loose and hanging by a mere thread for a couple of weeks now. No manner of trickery, bribery or persuasion has worked. I think the loose tooth was bothering us way more than it was bothering him!

AFTER: Today was the day. I could stand it no longer. He let me wiggle it for 10 seconds and then I convinced him to let Nana do the same. She pulled it without him even knowing or feeling it, it was so loose! You should see how relieved and happy he has been since it has been pulled!

The memory of a golfish...

Yesterday while I was madly trying to get dinner ready, Christopher was asking me to think up something fun to do and Hannah wanted me to read her a book. I came up with the brilliant idea for Christopher to sit down and write a story, which just prodded him to write an 'encyclopedia' of monsters, and got Hannah to sit at the table with him and color. His imagination was going wild as he began to write down these outlandish statistics about these monsters that were bigger than galaxies and Hannah kept asking him what the names of the creatures were in his big dinosaur book that was sprawled out on the table. After repeatedly asking him the same questions (which 2 year olds are want to do) to which he'd already given answers, Christopher cried out in frustration, "You're a FISH! Because fish have a memory of 3 seconds!"

Ever hear the one about the goldfish who declared, "Hey, who put this castle here?? These people think just because I have a memory span of 3 seconds that I'll be satisfied with the same 'ol fish flakes...Ooooo, look! Fish flakes!...That's a nice castle..."

Sarah asks for the blessing tonight...

Tonight as we all sat down at the dinner table, Sarah declared, "Oh, I wanna pray, I wanna pray!" So we all bowed our heads and she prayed, "Dear Heavenly Fah-der, fank you for da food and fank you that we got to go to Colorado...and if anyone else from Texas wants to go to Colorado, You better drive their car FAST! In Jesus name, Amen." Needless to say, there was much laughter that followed...