Excellent Encouragement from Colossians 3

I was reading in Colossians 3 this morning for my time in the Word and there is so much good instruction and encouragement in it I wanted to find the time to read through it again today. So I decided I would share some of the verses that are really speaking to me with you. (And I highly recommend taking the time to read the whole chapter!)

Here is a section that I really want to keep to the forefront of my mind this week:

  "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Col. 3:12-14

 That verse seems to be tailor written for young mothers (and everybody else too I realize but I am looking at it through my eyes of a mother with children), the encouragement to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient is so very important as we raise our children! I so often stumble in these areas but my goal and focus is to learn to be like Christ in this way. I hope you are seeking to grow in this area as well.

There are so many good verses to share from this chapter but I'll try and keep this post moderately short. I do however want to share a couple of "Whatever you do" verses:

 "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father." Col. 3:17

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord, rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, It is the Lord Christ who you serve." Col. 3:23 &24

Dealing with to much stuff

Hello again!
It has been a quiet week here on the blog again. As usual, quiet weeks on the blog generally mean that it isn't so calm and quiet here in real life. It has been a good week, just full.

 On Tuesday we started our homemakers group up again for the summer. We are meeting weekly in June, July and August. This first week was a kind of introductory one and the friend and I who are leading decided to have a discussion time on Simplicity or Living Purposefully. That is something I have been thinking on a working towards for a long time but it has become something I feel even more passionate about in this last year.

  More journey towards living more purposefully/simply is a work in progress but I do feel that I am making progress.  My goals are to cut out those things (whether physical items or things that take my time) that don't help me in me in my walk with God and to focus on Him and the things that help my walk with Him.

  I have felt led to have less stuff in our lives which is why I made the choice not to buy anything this year other than what we need (food, gas and a few things like toilet paper mostly) and a few other selected items (like a water purifier and other things that we are trying to have so that we can be prepared for possible emergencies) and instead put money into an emergency fund.

This week to help in our quest to have less stuff we held a garage sale. A portion of the money that we made from it went to help buy a good bike for Jonathan. (Good bikes for the whole family is one of those things that we like to have for fun and recreation but also something that we use for transportation to help use less gas. It was an item that I put under the being prepared category.)

   The garage sale kept us pretty busy much of this week as we were going through stuff, setting up, running it and then putting everything back to rights afterwards. I had talked to a friend who is knowledgeable about running garage sales and her advice was to have it on Thursday and Friday and that close to the first of the month was the best time. She also advised having nice signs. I think I could have done better in the sign category but we followed her advise on the other items and I think it was good. The sale went well and we made more than I expected. What a blessing! Along with the money that Jonathan had already we had more than enough to get him a good (not cheap) bike.

   Here are some of the principles that are helping me (I am still working at it!) get rid of clutter:

• Realizing that we can still remember a person or an event just fine even if we get rid of an item that came from them/that time. I struggle with sentimentality about stuff. It is fine to keep something that I really enjoy and use but to keep something that is basically useless to me just because it came from someone special is silly.
• Realizing that I can make things do double/triple duty if necessary. I didn't need that plastic cake stand (that had been given to me and I never ever used) because if I ever need a stand for a cake I can put a (pretty)platter on some sort of platform (like a big vase or some wood chunks) and it would look nicer than a plastic stand anyway. This applies in so many areas!
• Realizing that not all clothes look good on me and since I don't need them, why am I keeping them??!
• Realizing that just because I enjoyed a book (magazine, whatever) once doesn't mean it is the type that I want to read often or even have available for everybody I know to read. Some books just aren't worth keeping around to take up shelf space. In my opinion many books are very worth shelf space - we have tons of books and I love that - but not all are.
• Setting some "rules" that if things don't fit in the space that is available for it then something needs to go.
• Working gently and patiently with my children to help them see what they really want to have and enjoy and what is just making their life more difficult because it makes it harder for them to keep their room neat and tidy.
• Being willing to listen to my family about what they want to get rid of and not make them keep things for silly reasons. I have been known to have a child keep a shirt that they didn't like just because I did and I thought they might need it to go with a certain skirt but instead it simply stayed in their drawer for months making it overfull. There have been other stories like that in my life.

There are so many other silly reasons that I have kept things and I am learning to have a little less and truly enjoy that. I am striving to only have what I find either useful or beautiful. I do still try to be prepared for most situations but I am beginning to realize that it takes a lot less to be prepared for most things than sometimes we might think. Sometimes when I have that being prepared mindset and have trouble letting go of things we don't use I have learned to think about what they had 100 years ago (most likely not whatever thing that I am dealing with) and they generally lived just fine without it.

Do you struggle with dealing with stuff? What are your methods? 

Enjoying Wild Foods

Morel mushrooms

 The time of year has arrived when we are again pursuing a favorite hobby of ours - Foraging for wild foods. There is something so very fun and satisfying about going on a walk in the woods or lawn and coming back with something that you didn't plant and tend but yet you can eat and enjoy.

  Mara has really been reading up on this (I got her a new identification manual for Christmas and she has read and absorbed it very well) and so she has done the most gathering so far this year. We think it would be fun if we could manage to eat something from our property (whether wild or planted) every day this summer. We have a good start already - now just to keep it up!

 Here is some of what we have been gathering and eating....

Morel mushrooms and strawberry leaves. The strawberry leaves were used for tea (along with raspberry leaf and wild hyssop) and the Morel mushrooms we used to make a delicious sauce/gravy for over steak.

Ken's comment was that was the only way he wants to eat steak now. I am afraid we won't have a big enough supply of mushrooms but it certainly was good!

 The girls have also collected a bunch of fiddleheads from the bracken ferns. These are a little time consuming as you have to clean the fuzzies off (Mara has done that for us) and then you boil them for some time with changes of water.

 The book said to use them like asparagus so I made creamed fiddleheads and morel over toast. It was pretty yummy but the flavor wasn't that strong.

  Yesterday we used fiddleheads in a Chinese pork dumpling. We also put dandelion flowers in that dumpling along with chives from our garden. It was quite yummy.

Our earliest wild foods that we ate this spring were dandelion greens. Mara went to a lot of work to collect them and the crowns a couple of different times. The reward didn't seem quite worth the effort as we didn't find them overly yummy but it was okay and it was fun to eat the wild foods. We added them to macaroni salad one day (which I then topped with homemade goat cheese) and then we sautéed them another day to but in a casserole.

  We have been drinking a variety of wild teas and Mara did also collect little cattail stems one day for us to eat.

  We feel like we have gotten a good start on wild food eating and we are looking forward for the rest of the summer!

   Do you collect or eat wild foods? I would love to hear your stories!

 I am linking up with  The Prairie Homestead  and New Life on a Homestead.

and Clever Chicks Blog Hop

God can work in amazing ways - through us!

  "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly

Trillium

beyond all that we ask or think,

Lily of the Valley

 

according to the power that works within us,

Plum Blossom

to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus

 

Cherry Blossom

to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

Ephesians 3:20 & 21

Apple Blossom

Do you see just how exciting and cool the message of those verses are? God can do way beyond our capacity of understanding. He can do amazing things and He can do it with His power that works within US! I find that completely and utterly exciting!

  God can do amazing things and He utterly and totally deserves all the glory for what He does!

  These verses are such good reminders to me or the awesomeness of God, they remind me to let Him work in me and they remind us to give the glory to who deserves it - God!

 Speaking of wonderful things that God can do, I am totally loving all the sweet smelling blossoms that God has created. What is extra fun is realizing that God created many of those to turn into sweet tasting fruit. How very fun!

Sometimes....

 Sometimes I have time to blog and don't know exactly what I should write about and sometimes I have many, many things that would like to blog about but not so much time available to sit down and write. Lately the situation has been the latter.

  Life has been very full lately. We have had so many things in our lives that I want to blog about but the time just hasn't been available lately to write. Oh well, in good time. Things do seem to balance out eventually.

  Meanwhile a few of the things that have been keeping me away from the computer are:

 ~ Lots and lots of planting. Though basically all trees and bushes - not much in the garden yet.

 ~Searching for Morel mushrooms and other wild goodies.

 ~Helping with a wedding. Hard work yes, but something I do love to do. These were close friends of ours to the help went much further than the normal flowers.

 ~ Messing with goo in the kitchen. (In the name of making a gift!)

~Building - a chicken shed - more details to come.

~Preparing for the summer and a homemakers group and homeschool baseball.

~Sewing - costumes and other fun stuff.

~Holding an end of year homeschool program with our co-op(that was this evening).

And tomorrow we plan on attending a homeschool track and field day which hundreds in our area go to. We have done basically no practice unless you count some family racing done a week or so ago when I lost to my 9 year old (I run horribly while laughing!).

Well I hope to visit more later but meanwhile goodnight and God bless!

Spending time with others who encourage me in my marriage

 Those we choose as companions/friends truly do make a big difference in our lives. I was thinking about that in the context of marriage and realized how blessed I am to have a family, church family and many other friends who encourage me in my marriage. They expect me to strive for a godly marriage and their words and actions encourage me in that area.

  Most of the friends that I have are also striving to have godly marriages so we can encourage each other. It is so helpful when you and your friends/companions can work towards similar goals. Obviously there might be people in our lives who are not doing what is right, who are not striving for godly goals. Sometimes it is someone in our family or possibly co-workers or it may be friends. We do often still have to spend time with them and hopefully we can be a light to them but if at all possible we do need to have a physical support group of people who can encourage us and hold us accountable to do what is right.

   I hope you have that in your life or if you don't that you will search for a church family with people that will encourage you to do what is right.