The Routine of it all...

I post this photo today in honor of the fact that we are ALL IN the school routine now.  Fall is flying by already, and I want to enjoy these beautiful days of having my kiddos all under our roof.  This morning on the way to school, we were talking about how fast the year is going, and it hit me again that next year, I will have a HIGH SCHOOLER!  What?!  So thankful for this life God has given us and the precious five that I get to hear call me "mama" every day.

By the way, one lunchbox and two water bottles are already missing.

Such is the life.  :)

Number Twenty-Three

Happy late birthday to our "other son", Desi...we love you and we're so happy that God has put you in our lives over the last decade plus. Praying that this would be a huge year of growth and change, moving day by day toward becoming the man that God has intended for you to be!

Welcome to this year's version of...

...Jeffrey and the ladies!

Brought to you by Cru Inner City Milwaukee :)

(Please ignore my graying hair...it's getting really bad, folks!)

Home Home is...

This happened today: a beautiful summer day, a reunion with Bridget-y, $5 Takeout Tuesday PJ's pizza, and our porch....we're home, people!!!

It was a wonderful summer that we will always remember, but as always, it's so good to be home!

Home is...

It's dark, after midnight.  The fan is running, pulling the cold air from one of two window air conditioners into the living room, where I sleep.

When I was a kid, we only had one window air conditioner.  Serious upgrades are happening around here.

I love being home.  I just do.  Today, Mom and I went to town with the kids while Dad's caretaker was here, and as usual, when we stopped for a quick bite to eat, I saw someone I know.  Or knew at one point, anyway, way back when.

It's always good to see familiar faces.  Always.  This one was a guy who went to my church growing up, and he told me of how he has never left town, always lived here.

That's how I thought I would be.

I had ideas of how to renovate this very house to the kind of dream home that I and my future family could live in, complete with a balcony and spiral staircase.

Instead, I live at 2319, and that is the place that my kids will always think of as home.

This summer, though, home for our little family of 7 was a 622 sq ft apartment...and it was perfect.  It helped us remember the reality of the cliche that wherever we are as a family, that is home.

(Clearly, I'm not remembering the actual cliche.  Work with me, here.)

In just a few days, the kids and I will return home, where we will be reunited as a family, and we will begin to readjust to life in a great big house.  A house that has hundreds of corners where messes can be made and where sibling rivalry and angry reactions will too often take center stage.  By God's grace, though, this year will be one where grace will abound in our house, offsetting in miraculous ways the sin that will abound there, too.

I call two places home, here with my parents and there with my husband and children.  How blessed I am!  May my blessings be used for the glory of God and the good of others, as the Lord leads....His ways are perfect.

Overrated

In the fourth chapter of John, Jesus's disciples are concerned about his need for food, to which he gently replies, "I have food of which you know nothing."  Further confusion ensues among the disciples until Jesus then states, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work."

Tonight This morning, I'm wondering if it would be okay for me to substitute the word "food" for "sleep."

Because that's how I feel right now, having had not one wink of sleep last night.

We are in Montana, finishing up our biking leg today, and last night, I stayed up late to wash our four loads of dirty laundy.

In one washer.

And one really slow-working dryer.

By four-o-clock this morning, I was finally ready to go to bed.  Enter Cher, my new friend.

It's 6:30 a.m., and I haven't slept.  Hopefully Cher is sleeping by now, but I decided that at this point, a little sleep would be more painful than helpful. (We'll see if I agree with myself in a few hours.)

Besides, I'm not really tired.  Doing the will of God is better than sleep anyway.  Don't get me wrong...He has created us in such a way that we need sleep, I get it.  But isn't it awesome that He can give us the strength we need for times like this when He calls us to a different path than our norm?

Cher is a new believer, coming to Christ, I believe, about three weeks ago after having walked through a very dark, low period of life.  And she's so hungry.  But her culture has. effected. her. so. much.

We started our conversation by talking about basic parenting questions.  About seven thousand smokescreens later, including talking about my view on homosexuality and whether or not Jesus is actually perfect, we finally got to the heart of the matter:  Cher realized that she was needy, and three weeks ago she cried out to a God who has proven to be infinitely personal to her.

(I realize that if Cher, in fact, doesn't believe that Jesus was perfect, it's hard to believe that He has become her perfection, but I think that Cher understands about as much as it is possible for her to at this point.  Either way, God knows her heart, and it wasn't my job to figure that all out but rather to just share the Gospel again, pointing out to her the way to the Savior.)

I was amazed at a few things:  1) how difficult it was for me to argue the very good points she was bringing up (Perhaps my exhaustion had something to do with my lack of clarity?), 2) how evangelistic this young believer was, albeit about some of the wrong causes, 3) how easily swayed by the culture she was and how influenced by it her beliefs are, 4) how eager she was to have a more mature believer speak into her life.

It was, no doubt, a divine appointment, and I'm thankful.  Lord, draw her close.  Guide her in the Truth, and teach her, Holy Spirit.

Sleep, it seems, is overrated, at least this morning.  Today, my sleep was to do the will of Him who sent me...what a privilege.

Family Vacation, the Here

GRANGEVILLE, ID--

We made it.  Phew!  That was a long drive, punctuated by a few...problems here and there, but overall, a really good drive.  I am glad that we didn't have to go much further, though, as we were all ready for the drive to be over.

Tomorrow morning, we start biking.  And by "we", I mean Hoffbeast.  And maybe Rex.  Rex will certainly bike for part of it, but he won't start off right away, and he may only do half or so...we'll see.  Either way, Daddy's dream of biking across the country is back on, after a six year hiatus.  SIX years--so hard to believe that it's been that long since we've been here, especially since Hoffbeast and I both remembered things so specifically as we were driving through today.

My favorite thing we saw today?  The motel parking lot in New Meadows, Idaho, where Rex and Neil both learned to ride their bikes on the same day in 2009!  If the circumstances had been a bit different, I would have had the boys get out and pose with their bikes in the exact same location as a favorite pic I have from all those years ago.

Our room tonight is wonderful--so spacious!  It's so great, in fact, that we are going to attempt to alter our housing for the week and stay here for one more night.

And now, let the Hofffamily Biking Adventure 2K15 commence!