Perfect Expression of Morning....written by my daughter Tori

My daughter, Tori, wrote this today during her personal time with the Lord and she allowed me to share it with you!

I am sharing it with you for several reasons.

First, I don't think I have ever read a more accurate description of mornings on the farm! 

Second, Tori is the one person that has struggled with our move.  It brings joy to my heart to hear that the Lord is taking this fashion forward, germ-a-phobic, city girl and gently showing her the peace and joy in following His will and His plan.

God is good and is faithful to deliver us.....even in the mornings!!


To Wake Up
Tori Huckabee

People tend to be wary or even say they hate to wake up early
I think this is their loss because they don't understand.
See, I wake up early most every day.
I get to see and experience things as they snore away.
I'm told to rise and shine before the sun ever considers to.

I pray away my grogginess before I push my covers away.
I like to think God smiles down on me as He helps me out of bed.
When I wake up early the Son greets me face to face, not sun through the shades.
People associate the night with darkness, but if they were up early, they'd know they're wrong.

The stars and moon are the brightest an hour before dawn.
The poor people that sleep the morning away don't know what they're missing.
They miss seeing the bunnies hop across the field.
They miss seeing playing goats and prancing deer.
They'll never get to see the white flower illuminated by the silver moon.

But I do.

I get to wake the crickets up, and watch the nocturnal hunt, and the moon travel across the sky.
I get to sing the birds awake.
Tell the sun to rise and shine, and I get to hear the world wake up before I ever see it's true.
I get to see the sun's rays split the sky as if they were knives.
Those who never see a chicken with a bedhead are really missing out!

So next time you go to set your alarm clock, consider what I'm about to say.
God made the early morning special, not something to sleep away.
You can get over the grogginess....just pray!

My Encounter With The Lord

This morning we wrapped up our worship time and had just begun our individual time with the Lord when I began to write out a prayer to God about some things that have been on my mind.  In the middle of that prayer, God gave me an answer, so I wrote it down as I heard it.

It is a very personal journal entry, but I feel like it is something that needs to be shared and might be of some help to someone else struggling.

May it bless you the way it did me.

"Give ear to my words, O Lord, Consider my meditation.
Give heed to the voice of my cry,
My King and my God, For to You I will pray.
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord;
 In the morning I will direct it to You and I will look up."
  Psalm 5: 1-3

9/16/2013
Kristi - God, I feel like I need so much right now, yet I am acutely aware of how blessed I am and how little I need in comparison to so many.  At times I feel guilty coming to You.

Some of the problems I've caused myself.  No clothes because I have overeaten and gained weight.  No money because of overspending.

Do you help us even when it is our fault?



God - It is all your fault.  All sin, sickness, pain, sorrow...even death is your fault.  If you have sinned, it is your fault. And all have sinned.

My provision, grace and mercy are for the sinner.  Struggles of the flesh, struggles with the enemy, they are all a result of sin.

You don't earn my gifts.  They are not a salary which you work for.

They are gifts, which I purchased for you with the blood of my Son.

I knew the path you would choose, the mistakes you would make, the sins you would hide, yet I paid the high price to purchase those gifts just for you.

Sit down and unwrap them slowly.  Appreciate even the special way I wrapped it for you.  There is joy, too, in the process.

You did not earn these.  You couldn't.
You did not ask for these.  You wouldn't know to.

Just accept them and be thankful.

My grace is sufficient.

Taking a Look at the Simple Life

Alrighty, let's move on to day 3!!

I know that I am called to live a simple life  and I know the condition my heart needs to be in to achieve simple living.  Day 2 I looked at actually defining how to live a simple life.

So today I want to write about what it looks like.

If you hear only one thing from this post, understand that you do NOT have to move out to a farm, raise you own food and sew your own clothes in order to live a simple life!!  You can achieve simplicity in the city, suburb or in the country.  It is not about where you live as much as it is about how you live.

So my goals are to spend my days
being content,
loving,
working with my hands,
minding my own business,
and responding in ways that are not dramatic, but easy to understand. 

What does it LOOK like for us?

My family and I get up early. 
     **We get up early for many reasons.  From Jesus setting the example of rising early, to the Proverbs 31 woman, early rising is mentioned favorably in the Bible. I have found that if we are up and working together early our evening takes on less drama.  Probably because we are all ready to plop into bed!!  :) For me personally, this falls under the goal of working with my hands.  I am most productive in the hours before lunch.  And, many times this is the only time I can slip away in the quiet and spend time with the Lord.

We try to work very hard and remember the Sabbath.
     **Teaching good work ethic when children are young is very important.  My girls began chores around the age of two.  Do they always love doing chores?  Nope!!  But chores are beneficial to them and it teaches them to work without grumbling or complaining.  They not only learn the importance of hard work, but it keeps them out of others' business. 

       Another important thing regarding work is to observe the Sabbath.  We need the day of rest that the Lord put into our schedule!!

Serve others.
     **For us this takes different forms.  My daughters do volunteer work for different organizations.  As a family we serve in the mission field together for two weeks in the summer.  My husband  began a new tradition for us a while back that whenever we travel as a family, we find someplace to serve in that area.  Sometimes it is at a soup kitchen, clothes closet, or a church. 

        It is easy for us to get caught up serving those in the community and forget to serve our own family members!  So we really encourage serving each other.  When someone asks for a favor within our family, we try to let our answer be yes as often as possible.

Get outside frequently!
     **I can think of few things that inspire contentedness and love more than seeing the sun rise or set, or watching the flowers blow in the fields!  Even just sitting in your backyard listening to birds sing.  God's presence is so prevalent in the world around us.  He makes it easy to fall in love with each day if we will just slow down and take the time to notice His love notes.

Limit screen time
     **I don't know about you guys, but I have enough worldly influence in my life without adding three hours of television each day to it!  Just the commercials make me blush!! 

       This also includes computer time.  I am the first to admit that things like facebook, Skype, etc. have brought many people closer together.  You can reconnect with friends from years past and keep up with those that have moved away, but be careful my friend!!  Spending hours playing games on the computer or even "researching" on the computer is taking away time to work with our hands and with others. 
 
      I get caught up in too much computer time and it falls under the guise of "research."  I hear about a new way to organize things, decorate things, teach things, etc. and I go spend HOURS learning about it, finding out where I can get it, and so on. 

Guess what?  There is a time and a place for that, but it is not as often as I do it.  Nope, I would say that is another sign of my struggle with discontentedness (I don't think this is a word, but I'm going with it!!)!

Spend time with the Lord
     **There is no way to live a truly simple life without communicating with your chief planner every day.  There have been stages in my life that this time was while I was nursing little ones.  I went through one time, where I spent the entire time on my knees, because otherwise I would fall asleep!

       This time does not have to be perfect, it just needs to BE.  I said earlier that the one thing I wanted you to take away from this was that you can live anywhere and still have a simple life....skip that!  If you take anything away from what I am writing today, let it be that the key to a simple life...the key to a joyful life...the key to a peaceful life...is to start it with Him.

Are we the perfect, simple family?  Uhhhh....NO WAY!!  Not even close :)  I would say that, for the most part, our drama and complications seem to outnumber our simple, but we are striving!

I am excited to share with you tomorrow a way that we applied our simple living guidelines to help our children solve a dispute!!  I was praying through the situation as it happened and it was amazing to see the Lord work!

Solution For My Hysterics!!

Ever have one of THOSE weeks??

Well, this past week was one of THOSE weeks for me!  We had to suddenly build another chicken coop to bring in four new chickens (one of whom ended up being an unexpected rooster!), aCOWntant Willie was sick, DD#3 had a severe case of poison ivy, DD#1 was sick, we had plumbing problems, electrical problems, car problems, and when aCOWntant Willie wasn't sick and went to work, he was working 12 hour days.  Yuppers, it was a week!

This week it just seemed to be one thing after another until I felt overwhelmed by it all and burst into a fit of alternating hysterical crying and laughing!!  And, oh yes, it was the ugly cry!! :)

So after regaining my composure, I tried to figure out where I went wrong.  I mean, we have had weeks like this one continuously ever since we moved almost a month ago.  What caused me to break on that particular day?

Then it occurred to me that for two days in a row I had let my time alone with the Lord slip by unused.

When I get caught up in trying to rely on my own strength, this is where it gets me...throwing my head on the counter-top and bursting into tears!!  I mean, how in the world can I deal with all of these little problems that keep coming and coming without having any idea of how to solve them or even knowing which to solve first!!!  And if I were to have what we consider to be a "big" problem, I would be completely lost.

Praise God that He is here to help!

There are so many scripture that remind us that we have a source of never-ending strength!

Isaiah 41:10 - So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

And one of my personal favorites...

Isaiah 40: 28 - 31 - Do you not know?

Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

So as I go throughout the crazy days to come, I am going to be more diligent with making sure that every morning begins with alone time with my Savior. 

In my next post, I thought we could talk about what that looks like for me and what it might look like for you!!

See ya then!!