Sept. 1 - The soundtrack for my afternoon... As I prepare for a houseful of eagerly-anticipated guests, this beautiful music fills my ears - and my heart.
Sept. 4 - While I took Josiah and David to piano lessons, Moriah helped her daddy harvest potatoes. What a big girl! :)
Sept. 6 - I read this earlier today, and I continue to feel challenged (in a very good way!) by it. These are the words of D.A. Carson: "People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." Yes. And ouch. And "Lord, I need you; please help me..."
Sept. 9 - Tonight's make-my-spirit-sing moment came as Josiah, David, and I drove through the dark on back country roads, heading home from the first rehearsal of the Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir. After we had talked for a while about how rehearsal went (and admired the beautiful crescent moon, which was playing peek-a-boo behind a couple of clouds as we rolled along), Josiah smiled and said, "I'm really glad I'm in Concert Choir. It feels like I'm shaking hands with an old friend." I know exactly how he feels.
Sept. 12 - In the midst of all the solemnity of yesterday came a joyful evening, spent with a friend I've known virtually my whole life. Erin W. and her family joined us at Riven Rock for what might be our last outing of the year to that beautiful spot. My usual delight at being in that little piece of paradise was multiplied by being in their company. I'm grateful to Erin for being spontaneous and meeting us there on short notice!!
Sept. 13 - Jeff harvested a bunch of tomatoes from our garden tonight and is now making homemade spaghetti sauce to can. As a result, the whole house smells like Olive Garden...which is not as wonderful as you might think. It's actually rather torturous. I keep sitting here waiting for the breadsticks and salad to appear, but so far, no luck. I'm probably going to dream about capellini pomodoro tonight!
Sept. 15 - Jeff used his phone to take this picture of Tobin (with his hands in the air) and I while we were at Six Flags, and he posted it to his Facebook
Sept. 17 - When I was a little girl, I memorized a verse that brought comfort in the midst of fear: "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." (Psalm 56:3, in the King James Version, of course, which is what all my earliest memory verses were learned in!) My fears now are different than they used to be; no longer am I scared at the thought of monsters under my bed or Indians sneaking into my house to sleep on the couch at night (seriously, I used to think that if I got up in the night and tiptoed out into the hallway to look down the steps, I would see an Indian on the couch, a fear brought on, I'm sure, by reading Little House on the Prairie a little too vividly!). These days my anxieties center around the craziness of this world and the condition of the church. How dark the world has become! How frequent are the senseless tragedies that inflict deep sorrow on unsuspecting people! How weakened in their convictions are those who supposedly bear the name of Jesus Christ, but instead appear to live no differently from those in the world! How ineffective so many of us, myself included, have become at penetrating the darkness with the light of Jesus! What is to become of us--this country, my precious children, myself? In the midst of my anxious questioning comes that old, familiar verse, and--believe it or not--I actually hear it resound in my head in the voice of a small child. Those words which my parents made sure got planted in my heart so many years ago now return to bring comfort to the soul of a 37-year-old woman. "What time I am afraid..." and I am afraid, Lord, You know that... "I will trust in Thee..." I do trust You, Jesus. Help me trust You more!
Sept. 18 - In a violin lesson earlier today, Josiah started learning an Irish piece ("Si Bheag, Si Mhor"...which no one around here knows how to pronounce!) . So tonight I was looking for some videos of it on YouTube and, in the process, found this toe-tapping piece. Irish music is so much fun.
Sept. 20 - You know how sometimes you hear a mispronunciation so often that it starts to sound right in your ears? Well, that's how I am with the word "potato." You see, my dear Tobin pronounces it "topato," and he's done that for so long that now, every time I try to say it, I have to pause for half a second to make sure I say it correctly. I hope that tonight, when our dinner guests get here, I won't embarrass myself by announcing that for our main dish, we're having sausage and topato casserole!!
Sept. 26 - BEAUTIFUL example of a father's love for the women in his life. (And if you're like me, you won't be able to make it through this with dry eyes...)
Sept. 26 - I have never had as much fun with science as I'm having this year. I can't believe I used to think science was boring! Boring?? Not a chance! Not when there is flat-out AMAZING stuff like this to discover!!! :)
Sept. 26 - I just hopped online and did a task (ordering standardized tests for Josiah and David) that I've literally been procrastinating about FOR MONTHS. Know how long it took me? Well under five minutes. Remind me again why I put this off for so long???
Sept. 28 - I've been hearing the name of "Matthew L." ever since the fall of 2007 when he and Josiah were in the Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir's Beginners class together; but in the past several years, I've been hearing it more and more often. Besides the obvious delight of making beautiful music, one of the things that makes SVCC rehearsal nights fun for Josiah is the chance to see Matthew and hopefully have time to talk a little with him. Tonight, six years after these pictures were taken, Matthew--and his family--finally came over for dinner; we had a blast!
Sept. 29 - Moriah today :)
Sept. 30 - David made me cry this morning. Oh, he didn't mean to, of course; as a matter of fact, he didn't even know that he did. But when he came to me with his music for the Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir in his hands, and he asked me to play the piano for him as he sang, and then with a voice as clear and pure as an angel, he sang "How Far to Bethlehem," I COULD NOT keep the tears from welling up in my eyes. I had to blink really fast and think about distracting things like key signatures and musical intervals so that my emotion wouldn't carry me along any further, and I was able to get myself under control before he - or anyone else - looked at me. But whew, that was close. I'm not sure what exactly made me so teary. Besides the beauty of the music, I suppose it was the thought of this boy, who burst from my body 12 days early (8 years ago) and gave me a new view of what mothering is all about, who is louder and more energetic and funnier and bouncier than I imagined one of my children would be, this boy who is like none other...to watch him grow into a responsible, thriving member of the SVCC and to hear the talent flow from his lips...well, it's enough to make a mother cry. I have a feeling, if anyone glances my way during the Christmas concert when the Prep Choir is singing that beautiful song, they'll see me dabbing my eyes with a tissue and biting my lip to try to hold back the tears. But that's a good thing, after all.
Oh my word. That video of the father and his daughters made me cry and cry and cry. Just thinking about it again is making me cry. What a beautiful, loving and amazing thing for him to do. That special moment of walking down the aisle with my dad is something I will never forget. What a gift for him to do for his girls. Ok I need to go reapply my make up now - after I stop crying.
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