by Tessa | Faith
Tolerance is a buzz word nowadays. Everyone needs to be tolerant. We need to tolerate everyone’s beliefs and lifestyles etc. But is that really what our goal should be?
As Christians, we should move beyond tolerance. Jesus doesn’t ask us to tolerate our neighbours. He asks us, commands us rather, to LOVE our neighbour.
How does love look different than tolerance?
An attitude of tolerance means you do your own thing and I won’t interfere. I’ll leave you alone and you leave me alone. What kind of effect does that have on society? It separates us. We end up shattered, broken, and crumbling apart.
Love binds. Love means I’ll help you and be there for you, regardless of your beliefs, lifestyle, or the sins you have committed. Love means realizing that God died and rose for your sins as much as He died for mine. It doesn’t mean that I will support your sins, nor should you support mine. It means that we can show and practice love, regardless. It builds relationship and communities.
Our country is crumbling because of tolerance. The only way it can be rebuilt is through us allowing Christ’s love to flow through to us.
A while back I had a dream that I had cancer and was only given 1-2 years to live. I woke up thinking about what I would change if that were the reality. What “legacy” would I want to leave? What kind of mother would I want my children to remember? The biggest thing God impressed upon my heart that morning was that I want them to know and share God’s love. The first way to accomplish that goal is to love them hard every single day (any mom will agree that, some days, this isn’t an easy task). The second is to continually remind them that their mission on earth is to show love. We need to be so full of love that it flows right out and into society.
Fill up my cup, let it over flow with love.
What the world needs now is love, love and only love.
But not just any kind of love. God’s perfect and healing love. Let’s set a higher standard for ourselves than mere tolerance. Consciously make the choice every morning to take a big drink of the spring of Living Water. Fill yourself with so much Perfect Love that it can’t help but overflow. That’s what we can do to heal this world.
by Tessa | Faith
I spent some time reflecting on the past year as I made my Life Plan for 2014 and our sermon yesterday was a review of some of the congregations blessings over the past year. I’ve had “Count Your Blessings” stuck in my head all day. So here are some of my favorite memories and blessings of 2013 (in no particular order):
- The birth of my third son. What an unbelievable experience! He is 7 weeks old now and has made such a seamless entry into our lives.
- Hiring a close friend to work with us on the farm and having him and his wife and kids move just down the road. I love having a friend 5 minutes down the road and their whole family has been such a blessing with the extra help on the farm, support for when I had Baby Bear, and friends for my own boys to play with.
- A bountiful harvest. There is something to be said for irrigated fields. We have never, in all the years we have been farming, seen such an amazing harvest. And God protected our fields from the crazy weather too!
- A new brother-in-law. It wasn’t the prettiest process but my sister-in-law’s new husband is a wonderful addition to the family. And he brought with him two incredible new nieces, who I hope will learn to love our family as much as we already love them.
- The best family Christmas in the last decade. After many years of … upside down Christmases, Hubby and I both truly enjoyed spending time with both sides of our family as well as having more intimate celebrations with our own three boys.
- A new vehicle. I can’t say enough how much I love our GMC Acadia. Not only is it perfect for our family’s needs, it is a truly beautiful machine on the inside and the out. It is the first new vehicle I have ever owned and I feel so blessed to call it my own.
- Miracles and progress on the farm. We went through quite an adventure with moving a whole herd of cattle plus all the machinery last winter and much of this year was spent trying to figure out the new system and farming rhythm here. It wasn’t always easy and it was a steep learning curve but God answered our prayers and we are finally feeling like things are headed in the right direction.
- A church family that completely enveloped my family into their fold. We weren’t able to attend regularly throughout the year (partially due to farm work and partially due to our own fatigue after a long, hard week) but the congregation continually greeted us like we were old friends, with no judgement. It is very exciting to be at a place in our lives when church attendance can become more regular and we are able to leave feeling refreshed in both heart and spirit.
- Growth in my marriage. After 9.5 years of marriage, Hubby and I are closer than we have ever been. It is truly a God-thing to grow closer in spite of the busyness of the last year. Or perhaps it is because of it. I love being on the same page as him when it comes to goals for our family and the farm.
- My own spiritual growth. I’m actually excited to read my Bible. My post partum depression (from after my second son was born) has been defeated. I’m singing in worship again. But most importantly, God has convicted me of the importance of pursuing Him, for both my own sake as well as my family’s.
This year had led our whole family on an adventure of ups and downs and has taught us, once again, that God is in control and the only way to make it through any season of life is to fully rely on Him.
What are some of your favorite memories or blessings of 2013? How are you allowing the lessons you’ve learned in 2013 shape your 2014?
Linked up at:
Time-Warp Wife Ben & Me
by Tessa | Personal Development
A first for me, I’ve been nominated for a blogger award! I have seen these floating around but never knew much about them. So I did some research into what the Sunshine Award is all about.
According to one site, the Sunshine Award is The Sunshine Award is for “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”.
I want to thank Steph from Burbs to Boonies for the nomination. She has blogs about her life in a small town in Kansas, USA, frugal living, healthy cooking, encouragement parenting, co-schooling or supplementing public school education, modern day hunting and gathering, living by faith and getting families outdoors. I love her ideas on getting families outdoors, though, judging by some of the winter activities she suggests, I don’t think Kansas winters get quite as cold as Alberta winters do!
Here are the rules for the award:
1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you (my nominees, you can just answer the same ones!)
4. List bloggers (8-12) that you believe deserve some recognition and a little blogging love, usually newer or up-and-coming blogs.
5. Let all of the bloggers know that they’ve been nominated.
I’ll start with Bloggers I’d like to nominate. I’m nominating them because I enjoy reading their material and I think that you would too. There is some amazing content here by some very talented writers:
1. Adelien from Blessed Learners (and I see that I’m not the first one to nominate her!)
2. Crystal from Wisdom Seeking Mommy
3. Victoria from Creative Home Keeper
4. Tammy from Creative K Kids
5. Ashley from Joyful Thrifty Home
6. Retha from Bible Fascination
7. Stephanie from Abundant Living
8. Jennie at SelkieMum
Questions:
1. What’s your favorite meal of the day — breakfast, lunch or dinner? Breakfast. Yummy foods like pancakes, French toast, and cheesy-eggy wraps. Plus I love the fact that my husband loves to cook breakfast which means I don’t have to!
2. What’s your favorite fruit? Hmm… tough one. Maybe strawberries. Though watermelon and cold oranges or apples are great on a hot summer day.
3. When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up? I don’t remember that far back! Maybe a dairy farmer, singer, or a writer. Those were at the top of my list for most of my childhood.
4. What quality do you find most attractive in others? Honesty.
5. What’s your favorite sport? I enjoy swimming and karate but I’m not really into sports. Especially at this point in my life.
6. Gold or silver? Silver to wear, gold to win 😉
7. What’s your favorite candy? It changes depending on my mood. Right now I could go for some gummy bears. But I also love Reese bars. And vanilla Charleston Chews. And Rockets (or as Americans call them, Smarties). And marshmallow strawberries and bananas. Oooooooh Candy Corn!!!! Can’t believe I forgot about that! ….. Thinking about candy while pregnant is not a good idea! Normally I prefer salty and crunchy treats but, apparently, I prefer sweets when pregnant.
8. What’s your favorite online shopping website? Amazon. If I had a million dollars, I’d buy books.
9. What’s your pet peeve? When people complain about their life but are doing nothing to change it.
10. Winter, spring, summer or fall? Fall. There’s something about the smell and the colors, and harvesting. Cool and crisp and fresh.
11. How many pairs of shoes do you have? About 7, including farm and winter stuff.
11 Random Facts About Me:
1. I’m not very random. I plan everything, even if it’s just seconds before, I have gone over the details in my mind.
2. I love milk. Cold, white milk. I really love it. It’s delicious. I drink a lot of it.
3. I want to grow my hair out. I just love the shock factor of people when I pull waist length hair out of my jacket in the wintertime.
4. I haven’t slept more than 6.5 hours uninterrupted in about 5.5 years. That was just couple days ago. Now I’m back to the regular 2-3 hour chunks.
5. I would love to be up at 5 and have a couple hours of quiet time before the rest of the world wakes up. I truly would! But see point #4 as to why that just isn’t happening at this point in my life.
6. I love vanilla. Candles, perfume, foods, even the beautiful vanilla flower.
7. I don’t enjoy getting dirt on my hands. I would rather scrape poo in the barn than work in the garden. But, alas, my family appreciates the fresh food so gardening it is!
8. My husband and I think scary alike. At the end of the day, we rarely disagree on anything. He isn’t always as vocal about his view points but I love the strength of his convictions. And his arms… but that’s a whole other story!
9. I am the complete opposite of the mother I thought that I would be before I had C. I do so many things that I stood against (extended breastfeeding, babywearing, bed-sharing etc) and I’m so glad that God opened my eyes to the importance of attaching to your children.
10. I can’t not be running a business of some sort. I tried and my mind gets itching to do something entrepreneurial.
11. Even though I am a true blue perfectionist, I have learned the importance of picking and choosing areas to perfect that I can and cannot control. In other words, my perfectionism does not stress me out. I like to think of it as perfecting my perfectionism. I have also learned recently that perfectionism is a gift not a curse or something to change, as I’ve been told much of my life.
by Tessa | Motherhood
I have some great posts that I want to write but my time is not my own these days. Currently my little ones are watching a show so I can type this out really quick and then head to my sewing machine to get some stuff ready for a trade fair that I’m attending this weekend. My house is in disarray, I have frozen lasagna for supper (and that’s the best supper my family has had in the last while!) and I feel like I’m running on fumes. Coffee fumes that is.
Quick update: The farm renovations are nearing completion. Another couple weeks and (Lord willing!) the barn will be ready to go. Which means that I have some more packing to do. God is really showing us His hand in things and, though His ways are hard to understand, I try to remember that He is in control and will take care of His children.
Bought a 20 book set about science and C and I started reading them as soon as they were out of the car. He is learning new words and absolutely loving the books.
Both boys are enthralled with the new kittens in the barn and are learning to be gentle with them. They are the first tame kittens we have had in quite a few years. Their mama is tame but usually she hides her kittens so we can’t tame them. I think that God knew we needed some soft, snuggly kittens in our lives right now.
Motherwort is being tinctured right now, echinacea wil be tinctured in the next couple of days, and herbal teas and vitamins are ordered. Hoping we’ll be able to make it through cold & flu season without any chemical drugs.
Care to share any of your favorite cold & flu remedies? I’d love to add some more natural methods to my arsenal!
by Tessa | Homemaking
It has occured to me how complicated we can make our effort to living simply. We feel that we need to do it all and then some. We read blogs and books and feel like if we aren’t growing everything we eat and making everything we use, we must be doing something wrong. This revelation came to me when I was reading an article on how to simplify your DIY.
Or maybe I’m just talking about myself here. I know that I have a tendency to over complicate things. I have a wonderfully annoying habit of researching the pants off of anything and then trying to dive in head first. I really should remember what my goals are for changing our lifestyle.
I have a number of reasons: frugality, health, appreciating the simple things, teach my kids the importance of work and more. But, when I dream about my goals for my life, I don’t picture money in the bank, or being superfit/healthy. I picture being able to take the time to enjoy my family. Working alongside them without being tied down by the craziness of this world. Slowing down. Peace.
Now I need to ask myself, will what I’m doing lead me to that life? I’m pretty sure that, if I attempted to learn and do everything at once (garden, canning, herbalism, soap making, cheese making, weaving, knitting, sewing, building and wood working and the list goes on) that I would just burn out. We are not designed to do it all. And very few people are able to dive in head first without drowning. That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.
So, instead of my grand plan for our garden this year, I managed to move one step further than last year. The only vegetables I planted were tomatoes and carrots. Oh, and onions because I saw an idea on pinterest and thought it would be a simple way to use up the space where I planted my chamomile (that didn’t come up). I planted in containers because I figured it made sense to have a portable garden due to our impending move. I watered with a bucket from my kitchen sink because I have no faucet on my house. And I watched and waited. I did very minimal weeding (one of my favorite parts of container gardening) and only a little bit of fertilizing.
My garden took about 10 minutes to care for every couple of days and I didn’t lose my mind. I learned a lot about growing tomatoes and carrots. I didn’t get a huge and bountiful crop this year but I did manage to learn enough to point me in the right direction for next year’s garden.
Next year my goal is small: plant enough of a garden so I don’t need to buy veggies through the growing season. If that goes well, the year after next I’ll plant enough so that we can store some for the winter.
But, for now, 10 minutes extra into my schedule is simple. Because simplifying should be simple to do.Another couple great posts that I have recently read that are great grounders when you’re feeling overwhelmed or like you’re not doing enough:
How Do you Know When You Are Natural Enough? (Cheeky Bums Blog)
dear sweet mom who feels like she is failing (Finding Joy)
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