cold

 "It's not normally like this" continues to be how everyone in Mississippi has described the last 9 months...but I guess that means it IS all normal for the Ayars in Mississippi.  So of COURSE it is the coldest, snowiest, iciest winter Mississippi has seen in over THIRTY years. 

With no salt trucks or snow plows or anything else, everything has been closed, cancelled and keeping in since Sunday, praying the electricity stays on.  We are quite used to losing power, but all we've ever had to worry about was losing all the food in our fridge...not staying warm!  

It is COLD (for Mississippi AND for Caribbean us) and all the pajamas, socks, hats and sweatpants we all own have been piled on over and over. No snow days for homeschoolers, but the kiddos have enjoyed every afternoon outside checking up on neighbors and playing with their friends, boogie boards, and mom and dad's socks on their hands and dinners with neighbors who can safely walk here.

We launched into Lent today with Ash Wednesday, though all the Ash Wednesday church services have been cancelled, so we're kicking it off at home. We're reading Amon's Adventure: A Family Story for Easter (really, really good) and have been helping the kids work through fasting and giving up, giving away, being deliberate about offering our hearts and searching Him out. We're also focusing our family prayers on different groups of people each day, and I love hearing the kids lift up beloved friends and family and neighbors and strangers to God. 

I'm digging deep, thankful for this season of spiritual renewal.

Thank you for praying for Claudin and his children...one of our friends sent me this picture from the funeral on Friday of Claudin and Christy, and it's sketched into my prayers.