entrusting

The Ayars on our walks :)  Lily reads a book while holding onto a stroller so she doesn't fall in a ditch or get hit by a car, Sofie models whatever fashion piece she chose and chatters, Ben is completely happy as long as he has one snack after another, and Nora rotates between showing us all how fast she can run, and riding in the other stroller, holding all the nature treasures she has found. It's not a fast two miles and looks and sounds like a mini parade, but getting out for an hour or two does us all GOOD.

Matt's mama's been here for a few days and headed back home today...We couldn't show her around much (and we haven't BEEN around much to show, anyway!) but she was especially a blessing yesterday when Wesley needed some family photos and she did haircuts and haircurls!

The last time the girls wore their fancy dresses, Ben's outfit fit :) 

These guys are growing up so fast :( 

This morning Gess sent me a precious picture of Yasha resting on this little swing we had just gotten the kids for Christmas, and so many little things we are missing rushed in...

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I most miss the rich community...not only living in a community-driven culture, but also living on a campus with 120-200 other people all the time and intimately with neighbors, students and staff.  We are all trying to email and text and call, but as you know also isolated from much of your communities, it is just not the same, and extra challenging to reach people who live in homes without electricity.

To be utterly new, and totally unknown past 2 weeks by anyone in the state or those surrounding...it threatens me with despairing loneliness. If many weren't being so faithful to remind us we are loved...if God weren't being so faithful to remind me that I am fully known by Him, and deeply loved, it would be so bleak.

He keeps reminding me--daily through His Word and through some of you--that there are areas in my life that my faith needs deepened, perhaps places not stretched the last 13 years that He might be glorified to work in here and now.  

How beautiful and heartbreaking and powerful this word from Oswald this morning--as I lamented even missing my desk at home, my sacred place, the place where He met me so many thousands of times over the years--the reminder that the places my faith is weak and pitiful, He desires and is ready to work strong. 

He loves us, family, and knows us well. He isn't finished. Entrust yourself to God's hands, with me. 

Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life— throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.

God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet— places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours.