One picture

They say one picture is worth a thousand words.  Have you ever thought about this?  As I was going through and organizing some things I stumbled upon a picture.  That's about all it took for me to get distracted, can you tell I may need to work on my focus?  Or maybe God has just given me a gift that I can easily change my focus, however you perceive it, this is a common story in my life.  Anyways, as I look at this one picture it contains some family members including myself as a child.  One of these family members happens to be my mom.  As I look at this picture I see more than just the people in it, I see their hearts, their joys, their insecurities, their personalities and relationships can be seen at a deeper level.  Sometimes when you see into things like this it helps you to have grace for your present moment.  It helps to see that we are not made to live this life through human righteousness and it helps to see the full benefit of Jesus' sacrifice so that we are made righteous through Him.  All history just exposes the hearts of people in the past and all pictures just capture this history.  So in this one picture it is more than just a picture, it is a glimpse at real thoughts that came from real hearts that tells a real story.  This one picture allows me to see a moment in time that was way past, right now.  What a gift!

Burdick happenings

I am sitting here thinking how much I miss writing in my blog.  Life has been busier than the normal busy and I am taking some time to reflect on life in general.  It has been a good couple of weeks, I did do a lot of teaching between three sub jobs and some teachings at my church.  As much as I LOVE teaching I am more and more convinced of the full blessing that it is to stay at home with my children. This gift of relationship time that I have with them now while they are young is irreplaceable.  So.... speaking of my children, thought I'd write a little bit about what is new in their world. Timmy is starting to walk but he still prefers crawling.  I think it is a speed thing because he is all about going fast.  He probably will just be running once he is actually done with crawling.  It is SO fun to watch his little personality bloom each day.  Today he got so excited when he saw a bird fly by and the hugest smile just popped on his face. We were all reading "I love you through and through" tonight and there was a part in the story that said I love you when your crying and Abbie said, "No, mom's don't like crying, mom's fix crying"  I got to talk to her about how we always love our children even if we don't like the action. Abbie has been entirely obsessed with dressing her dolls up and playing with all her dolls lately, she also and always has loved to color and she is starting to color in the general area of the lines which is pretty cool to watch.  I am so enjoying being a mom right now.  I think about how fast this journey is going to go and I can't even fathom them growing up and even starting elementary school, but one step and one season at a time I am learning even if I don't have all the answers, God's grace is sufficient!

our first duncan donuts trip

some outside time in our amazingly hot weather

I think she likes her pink donut with sprinkles

This picture just makes me laugh!!

Ah...Daddy time, we SO love every moment of this!

Her fish bowl craft from the storytime at the library

influence, authority, worth and grace

I have always been a huge believer that there is SO much going on in this earth that we are not even aware of.  I am constantly striving to increase my awareness but at the same time I am constantly reminded from God how although God is limitless, we do live in an earthly body that has limits. I do believe all things are possible through Christ but I also believe in grace for each moment because we are never going to achieve perfection and if we could be perfect in each moment we would have no reason to have a relationship with God.  You see the great thing about this relationship with God is that it is all by grace.  God knows that we will need His grace and so He gave it to us as a free gift.  We just have to receive it as we know that God loves us SO much that He has made us righteous through the blood of Christ, not at all by our own works.  This has not always been an easy concept for me to accept as deep down I have always thought that my worth was given to be by my works.  What God is continually revealing to me is that He has given me worth, influence and authority in this world which is limitless, but it is not by my own works that I have any of this but only through my faith in Christ. I am writing this out because I want to be reminded in those moments when it is so easy to not take authority and have low self worth that this is the worst contribution that I could make to the world.  It really is a very selfish thing to play victim in life and what I choose do think and do each day is always affecting the world around me. Today and each day I choose grace!  Thank you Lord for truth!