Texas - Spring

----- Texas in the Spring -----

HOME

As another semester is coming to a close, my mind has become, once again, preoccupied with the packing up of our home and with the preparations of a move back to Alberta for the summer months. And to be honest, as excited as I am to be with family and friends there again, I am weary - weary of packing, weary of transition, weary of settling temporarily, anxious to have a place to more permanently call home.

HOME

This word has been on my mind a lot lately. 

What is home? Where is home?

In this transitional and temporary stage in our life, there are many places in our vocabulary that we describe as home. Home is here, in Texas, where we have been blessed to make memories, to build friendships, and to spend the majority of our life over these past two years. Home is Alberta where we spent our first year of marriage and have been blessed to escape for our summer months to work and enjoy family and friends. Home is Ontario where we have invested many wonderful weeks visiting more family and friends.

"Home is where your heart is." --- Pliny the Elder ---

"My home is not a place, it is people." --- Lois McMaster Bujold ---

"Where thou art, that is home." --- Emily Dickinson ---

But there are some things that all of these "homes" lack that my heart often longs after; there are things that another move is deepening a longing for: consistency, stability, permanence. When will I have such a place to call my home?

And then, in this longing, the Holy Spirit has been quietly reminding my heart:

THIS EARTHLY TENT IS A TEMPORARY HOME

"For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

--- 2 Corinthians 5: 1 ---

"For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." 

--- Philippians 3: 20 ---

"They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them."

--- Hebrews 11: 16 ---

"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."

--- John 14: 2,3 ---

"Life's a voyage that's homeward bound"

--- Herman Melville ---

Conclusion to the Summer Building Project

Ten months & a lot of fond building memories later, that family project 

(mentioned in previous posts here, here, & here) is completed...

And what sweetens it all is that it is...

Here are some finished-project pictures:

*Photo Credits go to Mandy

The Front Entry

The Front Entry Railing

The Kitchen

The Fireplace in the Main Area

The Den

One of the Bathrooms

The Main Area in the Basement

The Outside (taken back in October)

One Big Happy Family, Texas - Style

There is a reason that there has been a lack of activity on this blog over the last month. We were invaded (in the very best sense of that term, of course). For 2 1/2 weeks we had the privilege of hosting family on the little corner of Texas that we call home. They came in waves: Sarah & Sophia first; Mom & Mandy a week later; and Dad & Mitch a day later.

We shopped; we rodeoed; we visited with friends; we explored the school campus & the popular sights of the city; we got stuck in traffic (too many times :/); we missed the train; and we ate a little bit of chicken-fried steak, some cajun, a whole lot of BBQ, some fresh salsa, and Tex-Mex too. (Notice the attention given to food in that list. Everything's bigger in Texas, including us, as Sophia put it (referring to all the eating we were doing).) We taught them how to say yee-haw and y'all and by the end I think we were plain ol' successful at tuckerin' them all out.

Reunion with the Thomas clan.

Birthday Boys!

Look!

One of the many turtles that entertained us for a good while.

Sophia took the entertainment to another level.

Texas Wildlife

Trying on a little bit of "cowgirl" @ Justin Boots. 

Fried Pickles @ Razoo's Cafe...fried everything down here!

Stockyards Rodeo

Main-street, Grapevine

"What will you trade me for this nickel I made into a cowboy hat?"

Happy family...even though we missed the "real" train...

Caught in the Act of Spring-ing

Every year budding trees seem to catch me by surprise...it almost seems to happen overnight. This time I think I caught one of the first trees on campus trying to break out into spring. :)

I was reminding Mike last night as we were eating dinner outside that this could possibly be the last February we will ever do this. It's probably the last February where we will witness trees budding too. But we'll enjoy it while we can! 

"The Unbearable Silence of God"

Hey Mandy, Mike & Josh - look what I just found! Mr. Rothko made it into the section titled "Negative Theology" in the book I am currently reading. After a personal opportunity to admire his paintings, I would not argue one bit with this classification! If only we would have had insight into Mr. Rothko prior to our vacation in Houston we wouldn't have driven in circles for so long just to find this chapel which the tour book made claim to be one of the "greatest artistic achievements of the second half of the twentieth century."  Apparently Mark Rothko "had the courage to paint almost nothing."

"The familiar identity of things has to be pulverized in order to destroy the finite associations with which our society increasingly enshrouds every aspect of our environment."

----- Mark Rothko -----
 

A Picture of Rothko Chapel in Nancy Pearcey's book, Saving Leonardo

Rothko & A Biblical Worldview of Art:

"What was Rothko saying with these dark panels? The person who commissioned the paintings said they express 'the silence of God, the unbearable silence of God.'

"After completing the panels, before the chapel even opened, Rothko committed suicide. An undefined 'mysticism with nobody there' is not enough. It does not fill the hunger in the human heart for connection with a personal God who knows and loves us.

"Rothko's work reveals the tragedy of the divided concept of truth. The things that give life its deepest meaning, that give us a purpose and reason for living, have all been placed in the upper story, where they are reduced to merely subjective experiences - private, non-rational, and ultimately unknowable. This is artistic alienation at its deepest and most painful. The Romantic hope that art could replace religion by giving meaning to life inspired incredible artistic creativity. But inevitably it failed. As art historian Robert Rosenblum writes, Rothko's 'passionate belief in art's magical power to save souls and to open transcendental vistas' not seems remote, its promise empty. All that is left is the unbearable silence of God.

"Clearly artists like Rothko were struggling with ideas that have life-and-death consequences - ideas they were willing to stake their lives on. We must never treat worldview analysis simply as a way to slap a label on a work of art and pigeonhole it into some neat schema. Historically, artists were not just making pretty pictures but were wrestling with profound questions about life - not through words but through color, texture, tone, and composition. Art is a visual language, and Christians have a responsibility to learn that language.

"All worldviews contain some grains of truth, simply because all people are made in God's image and live in God's world. Christians are called to identify what is good, and pour it into biblical wineskins (to adapt Jesus' metaphor). This explains why Christian artists are able to employ many of the same stylistic elements as secularist artists - taking what is true and pouring it into the much richer, fuller wineskin of a biblical worldview."

----- Nancy Pearcey in her book Saving Leonardo, pg. 205-206 -----

Discipleship through Writings

Elisabeth Elliott

When I think of the godly, older women who the Lord has used to disciple and impact my life incredibly, one of the most influential women I have never actually even met: Elisabeth Elliott. I read so many of her books, so many times through when I was in Jr & Sr. high school and was always impressed and challenged by her simple, godly wisdom as well as the testimonies of struggle and growth that accompanied her growth and study. It was her story (and that of her husband Jim Elliott, one of five missionaries killed in Ecuador in the 1950s) that deepened my desire to go into some sort of full-time  ministry. It was her writings that gave me a hunger to know God like she did. It was her books & story that had a profound impact on how I viewed dating and my relationship with Mike. She encouraged me, rebuked me, challenged me, and deepened my understanding of who God was and what a relationship with Him meant & looked like. I can't wait until heaven when I can share this with her & thank her!

I have recently picked up one of her books for the first time in probably 4 or 5 years: Secure in the Everlasting Arms. As I read through it again (for the sixth time because I think I read that particular one about 5 times in high school - this is saying something because I am not one normally attracted to re-reading books...I'm always to anxious to move onto a new one!), I was awakened to the memory of the impact that her writings have had on me and of how I really need to get back into that discipleship relationship with her & other godly, female authors. Going back to her wisdom reminded me of how in life, in relationships, and even in other study our "minds{can} be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." (2 Cor. 11: 3)

I am so thankful for the bridge that books give us into other people's life, worldviews, faith, and wisdom.  I am also thankful for my addiction to reading and really do pity those who do not enjoy it...you are missing out! This community, called the church, in which a believer's growth is to take place, is both expanded and made smaller through the writings of other believers. When you can't find an older, godly woman to disciple you in the place that you are at, let an older, godly woman disciple you through her writings!

Below is a list of some of books that I would recommend, however, this is not an exhaustive list of all her writings. There's more out there for me to yet delve into!

Biographical:
Through Gates of Splendor - biography of the 5 missionaries who were killed by Auca Indians
Shadow of the Almighty - biography on the life of her husband, Jim Elliot
These Strange Ashes - her struggles & growth through the first year as a missionary
A Chance to Die - biography on the life of Amy Carmichael

Relationships & Biblical Femininity:
Passion and Purity - Her dating story intermingled with wisdom from Scripture on relationship
Quest for Love - Collection of stories about dating & marriage & God's plan & involvement
Let Me Be a Woman - written for her daughter, teachings on Biblical womanhood

Devotional/Teaching:
Secure in the Everlasting Arms - Collection of reflections on life & a relationship with the Lord
The Music of His Promises - Collections from her own personal Quiet Times
Path of Loneliness - dealing with loneliness Biblically

For Young Kids:
The Fate of the Yellow Woodbee, written by Dave & Neta Jackson - a biography written as a story & based on the life of another one of the missionaries killed along with Jim Elliot - I think it was the first book that exposed me to that missionary story and eventually led me to an interest in the stories of Jim & Elisabeth Elliot.