Here, and Nowhere Else: Opportunities for Greater Faith

Fall is an easy time for me to feel overwhelmed.
Sometimes it's a good overwhelming. My heart tries to soak up every inch of this glorious season, and my eyes want to devour every single color of the clothes and the leaves and the cars and the streetlights. My insides get all bunched-up with excitement when I think about the approaching Christmas season. It's all I can think of when I see red and green stoplights at night, especially with the early darkness that has come along with daylight savings. I begin anticipating what the reaction will be to the presents I am most excited to give, and nighttime car drives that have no purpose other than to look at festive trees and porches that have been decked-out in sparkles and lights.

Other times, it's a bad overwhelming.
Homework seems unending, and my brain doesn't feel like it ever stops scrambling to remember everything on my extensive to-do list. My body is run down from its lack of sleep and lack of food. With Christmas comes another to-do list of presents and cookies to make, and people to see, and decorations to get; obligations continually hounding me for attention. And the wet, heavy blanket over your soul when you feel like you are alone.

Fall is the hardest season for me to be single sometimes. Loneliness is a common thing to feel when it's so glorious outside and there's no one to enjoy it with, or no one's flannels to wear, or no one to watch Christmas movies early with you, or no one to go to a crowded coffee shop and read with you.

Besides that, I think fall is just that sort of season. Every season we long for different things, andsometimes that correlates with the physical seasons. Winter is a dead and grey sort of season; Spring is anticipatory of blossoms and flowers; Summer is warm and slow. And fall, sometimes, is just that dread of the dead season coming, when things are darker and colder and lonelier and sometimes the snow leaves you stranded at home.

But it's a marvelous thing that I can rely on the fact that every season - truly, every moment of every day - is an opportunity to choose greater trust. I ask for greater faith, so I'm given greater opportunities to choose who/what I put my faith in. There are endless small moments to choose whether I willfocus on my own discouragements or circumstances or the lonely, overwhelming feeling of my heart...or trust that I am where I am supposed to be, and that I will continue to be guided to where I need to be when I need to be there.

"Here and nowhere else is the appointed place. If faith does not go to work here, it will not go to work at all." - Elizabeth Elliot

Have a phenomenal week, friends.
Case

A Few Snaps From a Trip to PA

For the first week of fall break my family took a random trip to PA. Our camping trip in VA we had originally planned go rained out, so the P's decided to just pile in the van and "just drive"! We had always talked about driving up to PA, so this was as good a time as ever, right?

I had never been to Gettysburg before. And while this wasn't the only adventure we had over the weekend, these were the best of the few pictures snapped. At least we got a family picture out of it!

Lessons from Being a Mom for a Day

I am the oldest of ten children. Because of that, I can be "second mom" in many ways. As I've gotten older, moved to college, worked a job, though, these responsibilities have decreased some, due to my absence.
Yesterday I was in charge of five of them for 24 hours: the 12, 7, 6, 4, and 2-year-old. And it's incredible how being a mom of five for a day can teach you some things about life.

For instance, I experienced the shell-shock of going from an independent, put-together college student to a half-showered, sweatpants-wearing-all-day, slightly-frazzled, caregiver. I didn't get any homework done, and the time I spent with the Lord was during my quick trips to the bathroom and in between answering math questions. By 9:40, when I was finally sure every baby was asleep, there was no place I wanted to be more than snooze-town. I still had tons to do, but I was whooped.

But, really...
There's nothing like a 2-year-old falling asleep on you and feeling his drool roll down your arm.
There's nothing like listening to a 4-year-old yelling/singing "Let it go" over the cheers of an indoor soccer game that isn't supposed to be happening.
There's nothing like a 6-year-old explaining his drawing of a half-pig, half-bear monster chasing villagers up a tree that has been colored over so determinedly that it's mostly black.
There's nothing like hearing excited screams from the other room when one of them loses their first tooth.
There's nothing like spending time with some of the cutest, freckle-covered, messy faces in the world.

And outside of all the good times and spills and breaking up fights, sometimes you hear the truest things. Like,

"Tasey, he got stronger and stronger because everything got harder and harder."

How is it that a 6-year-old understands that when life gets harder and harder it only makes you stronger and stronger? and it's something that I'm still frustratedly trying to remind myself??

Motherhood is humbling. And fun. And frazzling. And stressful. And full of opportunities to give up on cleaning the kitchen and have a tickle fight instead.

SOMETHING Good

Lately, life's been hard. But it's also been good.

It's a testament to how good our God is that even when we feel completely overwhelmed or completely hopeless, it isn't ever all bad. There are always those little good things.
Even when I have an incredible amount of homework,
ministry takes up more time than I planned,
meetings come up at impractical times,
work is long,
people are tiring,
food is low,
math is hard,
money is gone,
and my head hurts...
The Lord still never gives me more than I can handle. He always provides a ray of sunshine, or a place of rest, or that one encouragement that I need to get me through.

Sometimes it's hard to see, but there's always something good.
It's just a matter of deciding what we look for.