Do you worry? I do. I’m nearly always worrying about something or other, and I’m not proud of it. During the past few years, as we moved from one farm to another, it felt like I lived in a whirlwind of uncertainties and anxiety about the future.
Moving might sound petty compared to the worries you’re facing right now, and it very well could be. Moving was a small thing, relatively speaking. As complicated and slightly terrifying as it was to move an entire farm… we were just relocating two hours away.
Past worries have a way of shrinking to their proper size as we travel farther down the road and gain perspective. Present or future worries, however, can loom over our heads like tottering sequoias, filling our whole vision and threatening to crush us with their weight.
I hope this post reminds you to take a few steps back from the tree that’s sprouting new branches of worry every moment. I hope it reminds you that you don’t have to (and indeed, can’t) chop down this forest alone, but that you can hand your burden to the Carpenter who is building something beautiful from the wood.
Say you have a friend; let’s call him Robert. He’s a nice enough guy for the most part – good with kids, bad at lying, and a mediocre harmonica player – but there’s this one thing you just can’t tolerate: you’re a Republican and he’s a Democrat.
Annette, on the other hand, is great! You both prefer cats to dogs, you go to the same hair stylist, and she even likes Ken’s Steakhouse Creamy Caesar dressing on her lettuce wedges, just like you! Of course there’s that little detail about her being an atheist while you’re a Christian, but hey, you’ll graciously let that slide since that’s got to be the more loving thing to do, right? Continue reading →
Imagine there were once two small stones who lay near one another in the streambed of a rushing river. As the years went by, dashing water and larger rocks both tumbled over them, and eventually the relentless conditions ground the first into smaller and smaller pieces until it was an unrecognizable heap of sand. But something different happened to the second stone.
Instead of getting worn down by the surging flood, it simply stood fast and let the water polish it into a smooth, gleaming pebble. Instead of getting crushed by the grinding force of the other rocks, it simply rolled past, moving slowly down the river. One day, it arrived at the sea, and all was gloriously calm.
Now, dears, you can probably see where I’m going with this, but let me ask you a question: as the river of life passes by, do you let the hardships polish you or shatter you?
It’s so much easier to shatter, isn’t it? It feels like the constant trials and pressures of life cannot help but grind us into sand. It’s not hard to just give up and give in to self-pity. In fact, it’s far too easy, for me at least. And sometimes it almost feels good, in a miserable way.
But we’re missing the point – or rather becoming bristling full of points instead of allowing them to be smoothed away. How we react to adversity profoundly influences how others perceive us, and this is especially important for Christians. Since we put our identity in Christ, it influences how others perceive Him. If we act like God’s not strong enough to carry us through everyday life, it begs the question, how in the world could He carry us through death? We’ve got to show the world that trials don’t define us – God does.
Here’s another way to look at it. The other week in small group, one of the men was talking about how problems can come between us and God, and he compared it to an eclipse. I thought that was a really good analogy. Our worries are like the moon orbiting the earth, until one day they eclipse everything else. Did you guys watch the last eclipse? Do you remember how the moon hid the sun? Its dark circle looked just as big as the light, even though you knew it was really many times smaller.
So when it’s dusk in daytime and everything slips sideways and you are falling off the edge of the world, don’t forget, dear, the sun will come out again. It’s still there, shining and shining, and however big and dark the moon’s shadow seems, the sun is infinitely bigger and infinitely brighter, and in its blazing light, all shadows fade away.
So when hardships surround us and we do not break, when people wonder why we’re still fighting, we tell them, we persevere because we have a hope beyond this world. We tell them, because when we hit rock bottom, the Lord is polishing this rough stone into a diamond of such brilliance that it will reflect his glory far brighter than before. And we tell them, it takes harsh sand to grow a pearl.
Grow a pearl, dear. Be a diamond. Shine, don’t shatter. And when adversity threatens to eclipse all, hold fast to the Son.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. – James 1:2-4
Surprisingly, it feels right to say that. I’m usually amazed that the next year has come so fast, and I sort of am this year as well, but it doesn’t feel as weird as usual. 2018 doesn’t seem that strange to type or write, it feels good.
But before I delve into this new year, I wanted to recap the last. So here you go! 2017 in review.
Guys this has been quite the year…
~ Highlights of 2017 ~
We bought a new farm.
I started a new Etsy shop.
I reached over 3,000 followers on my blog.
I started my last year of school!
I took hundreds (probably over a thousand) photos, and better learned how to use my DSLR. You can find a lot of my favorite pictures from this year here, here, and here.)
I made so much art.
I (and my friends, of course) deepened friendships both in real life and through blogging. ♥ I especially enjoyed getting to know my blogging friends better – you guys are the BEST, and I love emailing/commenting/writing to you and reading your amazing posts!
My siblings and I raised and sold adorable baby bunnies.
My family went on trips to Assateague, Chincoteague, and Amelia Island. 😀
I played piano for church!
We went camping with family.
We creamed 150 quarts of corn. O.o
We watched the solar eclipse!
And so many more memories. ♥
I learned a lot this year, and I feel like God grew me as well (although not in size – I think I’m about done growing now XD). More and more often I found myself stepping back from the moment and seeing the big picture and the small blessings, and realizing that almost every worry loses its urgency and importance in light of eternity.
Ahem. Anyway, before we move on to the goals/resolutions, we must have the obligatory stats, right? XD
~ 2017 Stats ~
Views: 50,174
Visitors: 16,171
Likes: 10,656
Comments: 8,958
Total Posts (over all years): 456
~ Popular Posts from 2017 ~
Thoughts on… {Beauty} – I was blown away by how popular this got! (At least popular for my blog.) I’m hoping to do more “Thoughts on…” posts next year. 🙂
So those are some of you guys’ favorite posts… here are some of my favorite posts. Actually these are just the posts with some of my favorite photos from 2017 in them. 😉
~ Best Photography Posts of 2017 ~
Summer 2017: basically summer memories + a selection of summer’s best pictures.
Bunnies in Autumn: One of my very favorite photoshoots of the entire year! EEEE THEY’RE SO CUTE!
My County Fair Entries for 2017: The end of this post has some of my favorite pictures from 2017 and maybe a few from 2016 too.
And now for last year’s goals… Let’s see how I did.
Meet at least one more of my blogger friends. Sort of not really? I got to video chat with one of my friends, which was SO fun, and I saw pictures/videos of many others, but sadly I did not meet any in real life. Oh well, there’s always next year!
Grow my Etsy shop. If I was talking about my clay Etsy shop… not exactly. If you’re talking about my new art Etsy shop, yes! (Since I have two sales compared to zero when I started. XD) I think this year was sort of a practice run and I’m looking forward to digging deeper into this business in the coming year.
Start a Bible journal and keep it going throughout the year. Check! So far I’m in 1 Samuel, and I’ve hand lettered my favorite verse from all the chapters I’ve read so far. I cannot WAIT to see all the journals when I’m done, and I’m definitely going to continue this goal into 2018.
So what is my New Year’s resolution for 2018? Well, it ties in to one of the most important things I’ve learned this year: I can’t do it.
You know on Disney movies how they’re always like, “Believe in yourself”? That’s true, to a point… but only to a point. I’m not saying self-doubt is good or you should hate yourself – not at all! That’s way too far in the other direction.
BUT. The thing is, I’m a pretty poor thing to believe in. I’m broken and fallen and weak, and so are we all. But even though I know that, sometimes I forget, and think that I know best instead of God.
Considering moving and selling the farm and other things that are out of my control has shown me that I just can’t do this on my own. I’m not big enough, not strong enough to change the weather or the timing of plans or… well, anything.
But see, this is not depressing or sad for me – it’s a relief. Because even though I can’t do it, God can – and he will. Why would I want to believe in myself and my weakness, when I can believe in God and his strength? I wouldn’t. I don’t.
So one of my “New Year’s resolutions” is to believe less in myself and more in God. I’ll have to put it into practice to even complete it, because I certainly can’t do that on my own!
So yeah. Those are my thoughts (and some pictures) from this past year.
I can’t wait to see what God will do next year. Eeep, it’s so exciting just thinking about it! Happy New Year’s, guys. I hope it’s the best one so far.
“Our finest gifts we bring… to lay before the King.”
Blankets and wool against the cool.
“So to honor him… when we come.”
Kneel down, creaking sounds; bow low, down we go.
My father and the other shepherds knelt beside the manger in awe, but I stood back. I had come to see a king, and here was a child wrapped in dirty rags and laid in a feeding trough. I had come to see a palace, and here was a drafty stable shed. I had come to honor him, but he didn’t even look at me. The baby’s eyes were closed and he slept silently.
But then I remembered what the angels said, and a thrill of fear pierced me again at the thought of their thundering voices and blindingly bright faces, faces that had seen God Himself and yet deigned to appear to us, the lowest of the low. Shepherds. They had said, “You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger,” and at the thought, they had been filled with such ecstasy that they poured out the most beautiful and terrible song I had ever heard, with a thundering, pulsing beat that made my heart ache in reply. And they were right. There you were, sleeping among the stiff rags and coarse hay.
Remembering this, I knelt – out of obedience at first. But when you opened your eyes and looked straight into mine, I knew that you were no ordinary King: you were our Messiah, our Savior, the long awaited perfect Lamb, better than any unblemished sheep we raised for the temple. For in your new-opened eyes I saw the wisdom of eternity, and a love more beautiful and terrible than the song of the angels. Love for me, a lowly shepherd boy, a little drummer.
I longed to give you a gift then, a gift worthy of such a King. But I had nothing.
Little Baby, I am a poor boy too. I have no gift to bring That’s fit to give the King.
I looked down at my feet in shame and there was my drum. The only thing I possessed. It would not do much good to give it to you, but maybe… I raised my eyes humbly to your mother who was watching you with worship on her calm and tired face. I asked her if I could play for you. My father held out a hand to stop me, but your mother smiled and nodded.
The night was silent then. Silent but for the rhythms in my memory, the precious stones I had collected on our journey until I had a chance to drop them one by one onto my drum. Now I let them go.
Tha-THUM. Pa-RUM.Tha-THUM. Pa-RUM. The piece started slowly and softly, to the deep beat of my own heart. Rip, strip; rip, strip. I added the comfortable beat of sheep chewing up grass.
The song was gaining strength, but it was still hungry. I fed it more rhythms, dropped more stones: The heartbeat quickened and pounded as the angels appeared, then the tempo scattered and broke into the complicated, powerful roll of the angels’ hymn that had nearly ripped my heart out when I listened. Finally the heartbeat slowed again, accompanied by the slap of our footsteps traveling to meet you. And then everything sped up and crashed together at the moment when you looked at me and I saw a Redeemer in your eyes.
I thought I was finished, but the rhythm took hold of me and I played a song I did not know, a song I had never learned. The staccato tempo of the donkey’s feet carrying your mother here. The cries of pain as she brought joy into the world. The first breath of a new life and yet a life that had always been. The sound of a thousand thousand hearts beating in unison, aching with longing for a King, a Savior to heal up the cracks where sin seeps through. And the shivering bleat of a perfect, unblemished little lamb who held deep power inside.
The song swelled and grew as I added each new rhythm, flying upwards and outwards until it blended with the billowing, whirling wind outside. The pulses crept under my closed eyelids and traveled with a delicious tingle down my cheeks and into my mouth, where they piled so high that the corners of my lips stretched up to hold them all. Still they kept seeping in until at last they overflowed and burst out my mouth in a jumble.
The laugh bounced off the drum with the rest of the precious stones, then followed them over the side, single file, until the only stone left was the soft, deep thump of my heartbeat. At last, it too danced off the drum and the world was silent once again. I sighed, satisfied, my gift completed.
I opened my eyes and looked at you. And you smiled at me.
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Well, that was fun! Maybe not the best thing I’ve written, but something I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I know, I just posted a Christmas story… sorry ’bout that. (I promise I will cut down on the writing and Christmas-themed posts and get back to normal after December. XD)
But I just love the Little Drummer Boy song. It’s such a sweet and powerful reminder that we, too, have nothing fit to give our King – and yet he laid down his life for us. Though we crown him with thorns, yet he smiles at us. The least we can do is play our life song to him in gratitude. ♥
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the little story and Christmasy pictures. 🙂 And MERRY CHRISTMAS, GUYS! I hope you have an absolutely stupendous one. ♥
Imagine I give you a gift. It’s huge and beautifully wrapped in your favorite color of wrapping paper and topped with a perfect bow. It promises to be wonderful, but when you shred the paper and tear open the box, there is nothing inside. The box is empty.
Beauty is our wrapping paper. It can make a good present even better and add to our enjoyment, but beautiful wrapping paper alone is not worth anything.
Sadly, our culture seems to focus on our wrapping paper almost to the exclusion of the gift inside. The world whispers that if you are beautiful, everyone will love you, you will feel great, and life will be perfect.
And that’s certainly a handy way to get people to buy makeup, skin products, hair products, brand name clothes, and all the other things that the world says you simply must have in order to be beautiful.
But that is a lie. You do not need to have the perfect face or figure or clothes to be happy, hard as that might be to believe. Your Creator made you beautiful from the first, and He is the only one who will bring you ultimate joy.
My dear, you are beautiful even when you skip your makeup. Each and every one of us, boy or girl, man or woman, is beautiful because we are made in God’s image, and God is Beauty itself.
Here’s another story. A boy was born blind. Eventually he grew into a man and fell in love with a woman who was always kind to him. Though he could not see her face, he felt her heart, and she was beautiful to him.
One day, after they were married, the man was given a chance to get his vision back with a surgery. The surgery was successful, and at last the man could see! Everything was so bright and colorful it hurt his eyes. The first person he saw was his wife, who had been waiting for him all throughout the surgery.
What would he have thought? He wouldn’t mind if she weighed too much or didn’t have makeup on or didn’t have clear skin. He had only known her for her heart and her actions. He would think her beautiful.
Now I’m not saying beauty is a bad thing. In fact, God gave us a beautiful world to live in for our pleasure and his glory. Neither am I saying that you can only be either beautiful or good, because that’s not true. I’m just saying don’t lose the gift for the box. Don’t put so much store in your outward appearance that you don’t take care of your heart.
Think about it. What would the world be like if everyone took the time they spent getting the wrapping paper perfect and instead focused it on touching up the gift inside?
It’s Easter! For some people that means it’s time for egg hunts and chocolate candy, for some it means it’s time to devour a huge feast with family and friends, and for some, it is a time to remember the day we were set free. For some, it is a time to remember when Christ was crucified for our sake, how for us he bore the tremendous burden of all sin past, present, and future on himself. And that is no little thing!
If you’ve been a Christian for a while or all your life, truths like this can be far too easy to forget or push to the back of your mind. I know it’s that way for me. But every time I stop and think, really think, about what Easter means, it nearly makes my heart explode.
First of all, I can tend to brush it off and say, “Oh, Jesus was God, so how bad could it have been? And he knew he wouldn’t stay dead in the end, right? I mean, if I knew all that, I could probably do it.” But… nope. I couldn’t. Because even though Jesus was fully God, he was also fully man, something that our puny human selves just can’t get our minds around. That means that he felt every single thorn in his crown and every single nail in his body, and it hurt him just as much as it would hurt you or me. Death by crucifixion was the most terrible way to die there was. Jesus was beaten, stripped, scorned, mockingly “crowned” with a painful ring of thorns, and nailed to the cross. That’s the part that always gets me. I can’t even imagine how much it would hurt to have nails driven through your palms and feet, and then to have to hang there against the rough wood, hour after hour, barely able to breathe, while your blood and life just drain away… it’s terrible to think about anyone undergoing such treatment.
And even though Jesus did know that death couldn’t hold him, he still wasn’t looking forward to the ordeal of proving it. He prayed to God his Father and said, ““Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:43) Later it says, “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22: 44) Isn’t that a terrible picture? It’s terrible to know what’s coming, and to know it isn’t good. You know when you have to take a test for school or something and you’re just so nervous? Jesus was about to take the hardest, most painful, most terrible test ever, and he wasn’t just nervous. The Bible says he was in agony.
What makes it even worse is that Jesus didn’t have to do this at all. It would have been perfectly just and good to leave us to our sin and let us die a well-deserved death. But he didn’t! Think about it really hard: Jesus loved his creatures, his people so much that he was willing to go through all of that agony for them – even though they hated him!
At least it would have made a little more sense if the people who crucified Jesus had a reason to call him a criminal, but Jesus was no criminal. Since He was fully God, Jesus was perfect. He never made a mistake. Not even once! That’s another thing that’s almost impossible for us to completely understand. Well certainly he must have made one teeny tiny little mistake, right? Wrong. Jesus was perfect, and that means he didn’t mess up – ever.
Then why was he crucified? Because we are fallen creatures that can’t see our Savior when he stands before our eyes. We look at his face and we are afraid. Afraid and guilty and ashamed of our sin. We don’t want someone to tell us how sinful we are and to rule over us. We want to take care of ourselves and live our own lives how we please. So we kill him.
Isn’t that terrible? I mean, think about it! It makes no sense at all – we as broken, sinful humans crucified the very one who came to save us from that brokenness and sin. But it’s true.
That just makes it all the more wonderful. If you met people who hated you with every ounce of their strength, who flogged you and beat you and wanted nothing more than to get rid of you in the most torturous way possible, would you want to voluntarily die for them so they wouldn’t have to pay the price of their sin and die a terrible death themselves? I, for one, would never do that. But Jesus did! He died for the worst of sinners, he died for the people who were killing him!
But, of course, that isn’t the end of the story. Jesus didn’t just die for us, he rose for us too. Jesus is the only one who can conquer death itself. I love the part about the resurrection. When Jesus’ disciples see the stone rolled away and the linen wrappings left by themselves inside the tomb, what a shock that must have been! Had someone stolen their beloved Teacher’s body? But the stone sealing up the tomb was so heavy, and there were two guards in front of it. What were the other options?
And then, when they saw Jesus, how amazing would that have been? If you think about it from their perspective, you can understand why they could hardly believe their eyes at first. I mean, here’s this wonderful man that you love so much, dead. Gone. Sealed inside a tomb. Then one day he appears in front of you, inside a locked room! No wonder the apostles thought they saw a ghost at first. Can you imagine how deliriously happy they must have been when he showed them the nail marks in his hands and feet, and they realize that it wasn’t a ghost but their beloved Teacher, risen from the dead?
And that is the Easter story. Jesus died for the criminals that hung beside him on their two crosses, and he died for us, his people, and not only that, but he rose again. I know many of you have heard that phrase “He died for us” over and over and over again until all the life has worn out of it. But don’t let that happen! That truth, that fundamental truth of the Christian faith, that is what sets us free. It is what gives us hope. It is the most amazing thing you will ever hear, and I pray that you and I will remember it this Easter. ♥
Hello, folks! 😀 How are you guys doing today? Bien, no? 🙂
Anyway, I wanted to show you some pictures I took of a huge bonfire we burned. It was so much fun! Dad collected a big pile of scrap wood and such, and our family and cousins and grandparents came over for a picnic after we lit it. (Side note: isn’t it simply amazing that we had a picnic in FEBRUARY?! I don’t know about where you guys live, but it is so wondrously warm here! I think spring is going to be early this year.)
And to break up the huge amount of pictures, I decided to make this a sort of lyric photoshoot with the words from TobyMac’s “Like A Match”. I didn’t use the whole song; just parts of it. You can play this video if you want to hear the whole song.
Alright, now we can finally start. 🙂
I keep hearin’ people say, “I need a getaway.” We got that getaway that takes ‘em to a whole new place.
Won’t leave us empty, won’t leave us craving more, We found that fulfillin’ fire that they been lookin’ for.
If it’s real, we gotta show it… ‘Cause if it’s not, they sure gonna know it.
You and me, we gotta love. Hold nothing back!
You and me, we gotta love. Strike it up, like a match.
Burnin’ for the world, we’re
Burnin’ for the world,
Burnin’ for the world to see.
You and me, we gotta love. Strike it up, like a match.
I call up all my friends, I gotta let ‘em in I tell ‘em, “take a drink of this and never thirst again!”
If it’s real, we gotta show it, ‘Cause if it’s not, they sure gonna know it.
Burnin’ for the world, we’re
Burnin’ for the world,
Burnin’ for the world to see.
You and me, we gotta love
Strike it up, like a match.
This isn’t my favorite TobyMac song ever, but I still love it, and I think the words are so true. It’s one thing to say you believe something, to say you’re a Christian, but it’s another thing to really act on that belief, to “burn for the world to see.” It’s hard to be a “match” and burn like that for others. That’s something I really need God’s help to work on, because I simply can’t do it on my own. But thankfully, I don’t have to! God is the most powerful spark in the world.
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Well, thank you guys for reading this! I hope you enjoyed the post and the pictures. 🙂 Have a wonderful day, wonderful people! ♥
One of my goals or resolutions for this year was to start and keep a Bible journal. So far, so good! I usually read a chapter of the Bible one night and journal my favorite verse from that chapter the next night. Would you like to take a peek inside? Let me say in advance that some of the chapters were harder to journal than others, so some of the verses are a little more abstract. XD But I’m still glad I’m doing a verse from every chapter because it challenges me to look harder at each verse – and it will be really neat to look back on when I’m finished.
I use an erasable black gel pen for journaling. (You can see them on Amazon here.) I got it for a Christmas present and I love it! It’s very useful for things like this. 🙂 And yes, it really does erase! It erases just as good or better than a pencil does, but you do have to apply more pressure than erasing with a pencil.
Anyway, let’s get started. 🙂
The title page.
What a wonderful way to start the God’s Word, don’t you think? I think it’s one of the most important verses in the Bible.
This verse might seem kind of weird at first, but it’s really important. Here God promises us that one day Jesus will return to crush the serpent’s (Satan’s) head, and thus crush evil forever.
Heh heh, this is NOT my favorite page from the journaling perspective. The flower is quite odd and the page is rather cluttered. XD But it’s a really good verse. Man is the only creature made in the image of God, and that’s why it’s wrong to kill a human and not wrong to kill an animal. A very important verse indeed.
I really like how this page turned out. 🙂 I like how simple and clean-looking it is. And WOW, doesn’t it make you fidgety just to think of staying inside while it rains and rains and rains some more for 40 long days and 40 long nights… Phew!
A rainbow is beautiful not just because of its colors, but because it is a promise from God. ♥
Not such a good idea, people… XD
God’s promise to Abram.
Another promise to Abram. I wonder how many people have lived and died from Creation until now. I wonder how many more are yet to come…
I really like this one too. 🙂 God is our shield, a strong and mighty fortress.
And that’s it so far! Which verse/page was your favorite? Do YOU have a Bible Journal? If you do, what are your thoughts on it?
***Allison***
P. S. Goodness, I have so many post ideas! Which of these sounds most exciting to you? A room update (we’ve added some pretty new decorations in our bedroom), another writing tips post, or a random/photography post? I have a bunch more ideas too… XD
Oh well, there’s always next year!
Allison Marie 