It's not about how full your quiver is.

It's about Jesus.

I've had to learn that it's best to not have intentions or preconceived notions of how things will be when you're married and receiving God's gifts as and when He gives them. It is not extraordinary to have many children close together, nor is extraordinary to have few children far apart. What is extraordinary is each individual child being created in the image of Jesus. They, His creation, are extraordinary because they are His. The benefit for us, as their parents, is the ability to be humbled and to serve...and of course to be recipients of slobbery kisses and pudgy hands in ours. 

Fresh start

Our Lord sure knew what He was doing when He gave us the seasons, calendars, the sun, moon, and stars. Isn't it funny how really each day is no more like any other day before it but because of the seasons and calendar we have this comfort, this familiarity to our days. And so with December and the start of Advent came a fresh start. How wonderful to start a year with a penitential season...to take time to cry, pray, and lament sin and death. But after a time of weeping comes the morn of song! Christ has come!

On Christmas Eve my oldest who is now a big 8 yr old said, "Mom, why do we have to go to church tonight AND tomorrow?" After chuckling my husband and I explained that Christmas Eve is when we sit in the darkness and penitence of Advent one more time and watch our sadness turn to joy as God's Christ comes. Christmas Day is when we enter in the light of His coming and He fulfills the reason of His coming: to give Himself to us. Jesus marks the door posts of our mouths with His Holy Precious blood and points us to the cross. Oh what a wonderous time is the season of Christmas!

On another note is the sickness that inevitably comes with the months of darkness and rich foods. For years now I have been studying natural healing through herbs and natural remedies. I have probably read enough herbal text books to become a certified herbalist but who has time for that? Besides, I do it for my family.

My biggest find has been bentonite clay. Haven't heard of it? Click here. Bentonite clay will be your new best friend during the months of not so fun stomach viruses! My family began coming down with it two weeks ago when my oldest dropped with a headache, fever, and then threw up. I ran for my bentonite clay and gave him 1/2 tsp in 5 oz of cold water. I also mixed in 1/2 packet of tangerine e-mergency. I whisked it with a fork hard and he drank it up....right after puking. Think he puked it right up? Nope! Instead an hour later he was up watching Duck Dynasty with my husband and me. :) The whole family took the bentonite and not one of us got it after my oldest!

As for colds my favorite go to for kids is Hyland's cold and cough. It can be found at Target, Walgreens, etc and works even better than non homeopathic cold meds. I know, I use it too. :) It comes in day and nighttime versions, both are great.

For adults my go to remedy is home made tinctures. Whaaaat?! Fear not! It's so easy! I buy pre-mixed combos from www.bulkherbstore.com. This is a young family owned business who home schools their kids and all of their products are wild cultivated or organically grown. My favorites are their "cough tea" and "double E immune". What I do is get some mason jars and fill them 1/3 full of herbs. Fill the rest of the way with vodka. Let sit in a cool dark place for 3 weeks, shake jars gently each day. Then strain the herbs out and keep tinctures in a cool dark place. My husband and I take 1-2 tsps of each tincture at the first sign of colds and if we're getting hit hard we take them up to every hour until symptoms improve. We also drink e-mergency and I make tons of home made soups, esp with home made bone broth.

What's bone broth? Save beef bones, lots of beef bones, esp marrow filled ones. If you buy your meat from a local ranch where the cow is grass fed, healthy, and all from one cow, even better. As your saving up keep them in a freezer safe bag in a deep freezer. When you have enough to fill a large stock pot about half way, put them in the pot and fill with water until the water level is about 2-3 inches over the bones. Add celery, onion, garlic, pepper, carrots, etc. bring to a simmer and keep a spoon with holes nearby for skimming off stuff that rises to the top. Let simmer for 3 days. Yup, THREE DAYS. At night you can turn it down so it's barely bubbling at all and then increase it a tad during the day. Keep a lid on and make sure you don't gave it going too hard/boiling or water will evaporate and you'll have to add water. Every so often you can lift a bone or two out of the water and be amazed as the marrow dissolves into your broth leaving the bone hollow! (See picture above.) I also added beefy soup bones to mine for greater beef flavor. At the end of three days, scoop out bones and discard and pour broth into mason jars. Let cool and then put in the deep freezer. If you have a pressure canner, canning is an option too. Now you have home made broth that can grow back a limb* and bring incredible healing. I thaw and make it the base for any soup with beef broth and a base for beef gravy, etc. I used the left over beef and veggies from the making of the broth to make chili for supper that night.

my broth with a little cutie-patootie. :)

Now, if I'm really desperate...like...REALLY  desperate, I've been known to do some crazy things. Once, while we lived in the middle of nowhere, 2 1/2 hours from any Walgreens, Target, etc. and it was near midnight and I was burning up with fever and felt like I was swallowing razor blades, well, desperate times called for desperate measures. I juiced an onion, got myself about 1/4 cup worth of the juice, added a tbs of raw honey, and threw it back like a shot. Then I sliced up a fresh clove of garlic and put it in the sides of my cheeks and slowly chewed on it while watching TV. An hour later I began sweating, got into the shower, swallowed the garlic with some e-mergency and woke up the next morning as good as new! I haven't done that since but I have been known to mince up raw garlic and swallow it like a pill with e-mergency or orange juice. I HATE being sick.

So here's to health in the new year and learning to bring healing to my family even more without the use of drugs. God has created so many amazing things in our world that help our fearfully and wonderfully made body heal itself and I'm so thankful to have access to them.

* OK, so it may not really grow back a limb and none of these statements have been approved by the FDA, so, you know, use your head and talk to whoever it is you see for medical help/advice/care in your life before trying anything new. I am not a doctor, I'm just a mama with four boys who prefers to strengthen and aid my body rather than drug it, whenever possible.

Maybe you know you've arrived...

When you get to that point in your adulthood/motherhood where you realize you have nothing of importance to say. When you wake up so humbled by life that you just feel a lot quieter.

Writing has been hard since our last miscarriage in August. I might have had another one in September. I had 4 days of light positive tests before they got even lighter and I started. But I had just miscarried two babies in two months so honestly it felt like a continuation of the previous two, if it was.

But life is carrying on. My boys are all having birthdays and will soon be 8, 5, 4, and 2. My second will have a birthday in April and then we'll be able to have the nice even two year spacing until November when the birthday chain starts again.

School is going really well. But that's because we don't do it. I've decided to call our education "freestyle" until I come up with a better name. Basically I pick up things when and where I can use them for a little, put them away, use them again later or with another kid, etc etc. I have each kid practice reading each day using whatever I feel like on any given day, finding tools as each kid comes to a hurdle I can't get them through, but we're finding a lot of success. Our tool with our 5 year old is Teach your Child to Read in 100 easy lessons. I HATED it when I bought it with my first but holy moly, I lOVE it with my second! It gives us what we need, a sweet cuddle time on the couch and it's also great for him to look at my lips while we pronounce "new" sounds and then learn to make words with them. He's always struggled with pronunciation so it's working so well. We also do devotions every day which is the bulk of our education time right now. We read a Psalm, an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading, a church Father writing, and a prayer for the day. Then we sing a hymn or two and then we read through an entire chief part using a "Follow and Do" book. Then we say Luther's Morning prayer and pray petitions for our family and friends.

My oldest is doing copy work through a Memoria Press book and my preschool/5K boys are doing some work in Rod and Staff workbooks but that's our stuff for now. I just love picking and choosing using curriculum like a took box when you're doing a job. The focus isn't the tool, it's the long term goals. For us our goals are Christ and family. Everything else will figure itself out.

I haven't conceived in 4 months now. This is strange, hard, grief causing, and...restful. God is gracious and merciful and while my heart yearns desperately for our family to grow more, it is what it is and Jesus is coming back.

My husband and I were talking tonight as I cried that it's been a year this week since I found out I was pregnant with our Anastasia. I said, "I wonder if it gets harder as we get older, you know, the knowing that things aren't the way they're supposed to be ever...even when we're at our happiest on earth." He said based on the shut-ins he visits he would say yes.

Do you feel it? The sensation that something isn't right, like a family member missing or that odd tingling in the back of your heart that something, something is amiss? I know what it is. It's heaven calling. We know this is not the way things are supposed to be. The Holy Spirit can't help but groan within us for the release from our sin and pain. He intercedes for us and we groan for release from labor into the birth into heaven. Come soon Jesus, come soon and take us home.

When Sin Overwhelms You

You know it all too well. The despair. The agony. The tears. The hot anger. The terrible irony that comes from being at all times sinner and saint.

Earlier this week I was overcome with my sinful condition. What was bothering me could come across to some not as a matter of sin or not but simple life management, you know, adiaphora stuff. But for me I knew it was a heart issue, one that I saw my own sin in over and over and over. I confessed to a Pastor (not my husband) and he did not see the sin in it. He told me I was burdening myself unnecessarily. I was not convinced. And then I felt even more trapped in my sin and sobbed to my husband. The issue I had been struggling with was mutual between us so we both lamented together. Then, a dear dear sister in Christ (if you're reading, I love you dear friend. :) blew me away. She reminded me that sin sometimes is something that has to be endured. It attacks us, it's relentless, and there is NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. When one lives in repentance you can't repent more. There is repentance or none. But you can't be more repentant. And so, when you feel overcome with guilt and death and sin and loss do this: 

HIDE. You heard me. Hide dear friends. As my dear sister in Christ comforted me with earlier this week, HIDE YOURSELF IN THE WOUNDS OF CHRIST. Let His blood cover you and go to sleep in His wounds. 

And read this:

We know assuredly that out of pure grace, without any merit of our own, we have been elected in Christ to eternal life. No one can pluck us out of His hand (John 10:29). He has not only promised this gracious election with mere words, but has also certified it with an oath and sealed it with the holy Sacraments. We can...call these to mind in our most severe temptations and take comfort in them, and with them we can quench the fiery darts of the devil. (Eph.6:16) -Epitome of the Formula of Concord XI

And this:

God has assuredly promised His grace to the humble (1Peter 5:5), that is, to those who lament and despair of themselves. But no man can be thoroughly humbled until he knows that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works, and depends entirely on the choice, will, and work of another, namely, of God alone. For as long as he is persuaded that he himself can do even the least thing toward his salvation, he retains some self-confidence and does not altogether despair of himself, and therefore he is not humbled before God, but presumes that there is-or at least hopes or desires that there may be- some place, time, and work for him, by which he may at length attain to salvation. But when a man has no doubt that everything depends on the will of God, then he completely despairs of himself and chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work; then he has come close to grace, and can be saved. -Martin Luther (emphasis mine)

You are elected, sealed, and certified to Christ. And in your despair, God's Work is able to be done. So rejoice in your despair, it is the work of God bringing you to Him. <3