Daily Blessings

The Lord's lovingkindness never ceases

For His compassions never fail.

They are fresh every morning.

Great is His faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Every day we get to witness God at work in our home.  There are new blessings each day.  We are so grateful that we serve such a generous God.  Here is a peak of some of the blessings in our home...

• We took Davina to the beach for the first time.  I enjoyed watching her excitement and joy as she picked up (seemingly) every hermit crab and shell on the beach.  I loved hearing her say, "Mommy, mommy, look at this!"

• We also went to the Gulf Marine Specimen Lab in Panacea.  They have a variety of tanks, some of them with crabs and other sea life that may be picked up.  All of the kids loved the personal encounters.
  
• Davina is quite a cook...and an artist.  It is really fun to see her combine the two!  For a recent dinner she made radish roses to garnish the dishes.  She also looked through a cookbook and found a recipe for apple pie.  She had never had apple pie, but wanted to make it.  With a little help, she made the pie, but the decorations on the top were all her own...(it is hard to see, but it is a smiley face).  Oh, and the pie was yummy!

• Watching my other girls love on their sister, minister to her, extend grace to her is really amazing and a huge blessing to be able to witness.
  
• I know I have mentioned that Davina has a silly streak.  Here are a couple of photos that capture that:

  

  This was taken at the Florida History Museum and the rest of the family is up on a replica of a Steam Boat.  We are in the water trying to swim to them.
  
  

  

  Also at the Florida History Museum...just more silliness to show you that Davina fits right in!!
  
  

I took these two on a hike...thinking it would be a fun, wholesome activity.  They acted like we were on the never-ending journey (all in good fun, of course).

• There are the little daily blessings that are hard to capture in words and photos...
• listening to Yuly tell Davina about Colombia and asking her about China
• Davina's daily work copying passages from her Chinese-English Bible.  She was copying the creation story in Genesis and I started praying about picking another book of the Bible because of some of the content in Genesis.  Without my knowing it, Todd was also praying about suggesting a different book.  He had decided to suggest Proverbs.  When he went to talk to her about it, she told him that she wanted to change to a different book and suggested Proverbs.  :)
• getting glimpses of her life in China.  We are beginning to hear little stories from her time in SWI as well as small snatches of her life before...like she told us that she had seen snow when she lived with her first family.
• watching Savanna teach Davina how to make hair bows and then having Davina make bows for her two younger sisters.

We thank God for the amazing privilege of parenting these five beautiful girls.  We make many mistakes as parents and are grateful for their sweet forgiveness and God's fresh mercies every day.

(Re)learning to trust

Praise be to the Lord,

    for he has heard my cry for mercy.

7 

The Lord is my strength and my shield;

    my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.

My heart leaps for joy,

    and with my song I praise him. 

           Psalm 28:6-7

God continues to show Himself throughout our family's journey.  Recently, He has been revealing Himself to me as trustworthy.  Yes, I know He is trustworthy.  A hymn from my childhood echoes..."Only trust Him, Only trust Him, Only trust Him now."

I like to think I trust Him, but really, I fail in this area many times every day. Every time I try to find solutions to my problems, take matters into my own hands, become anxious about my situation, I am demonstrating a lack of trust.  God has been relentless in showing me my sinfulness as I refuse to trust.

Thinking about God objectively, it seems ridiculous not to trust Him.  He is Sovereign!  He is LORD Most High!!

And yet, like Paul, what I want to do (trust God), I do not do.(Romans 7:18)

I am learning that trusting God is not a once a day event.  It is a minute by minute, breathing in, breathing out decision.

Some minutes I trust God, but many other minutes I do not.  And really, I am learning that I cannot trust without the power of the Holy Spirit at work in my life.

And yet, God is so merciful.  He continues to lead and guide me.  He continues to reveal Himself to me.

We recently came through a tough 24 hours with our daughter.  She was withdrawn, non-communicative.  And I felt totally helpless.  Finally, I realized that was exactly where I needed to be.  Helpless.  Acknowledging that I had NO IDEA how to get through this situation.  I had nothing to bring to the table.  Helpless, yes, but not hopeless.  I chose to put my hope, my trust in God.  The One who could whisper to Davina's heart.  The One who could meet her needs even when I could not.

When we came through that situation, I understood what the psalmist meant!  God helped me and I, too, was leaping for joy!!