Lessons from God

There's something soothing about settling down on the couch by a roaring fire with my lazy Snoop Dog Lima Bean and my trusty MacBook Pro. It's the new Waltons, I feel sure. Once behind my Apple, after I've checked emails and posted a status update on Facebook, I check on my blogs. Not my personal blog where I am now, but the other people's blogs. I have favorites, and I've bookmarked them into four categories.

Craftiness
Hominess
Blogginess
Teaching ~ I'd call that one teachingness, but it's just too mouthy.
Teachers don't like mouthiness.

Most of my favorites are updated daily, and the favorites of these are found under blogginess. Since Christmas, I've noticed an interesting pattern in the blogs I've read - the ones I simply must check on day after day point me straight to God's grace and love. I think my Father is using them to teach me something.

From Kayla Aimee

I've learned to pray harder. Kayla Aimee gave birth 15 weeks early to her baby Scarlette. Now Scarlette is two months old and nearly 3 pounds. I don't know Kayla Aimee or her precious child, but I do know that she needs prayer. God is using me and thousands of other readers to lift this child to him. And so I pray with more intention, with a greater desire to stay awake during my nighttime prayers, with a knowledge that God will hear our collective prayers and answer them. I am learning to pray.

From Edie

I've learned to count my blessings. Edie has written such a beautiful blog for a few years now about her family, homeschooling, decorating, and cooking. Her photos are inspiring and beautiful. Her obvious love for God is a shot in the arm on a dreary day. A few days before Christmas, Edie's house burned to the ground. Nothing survived the fire except her entire family. And she found grace in God's gift of saving her family right from the start. Yes, she writes about the grief of losing her entire home and everything that surrounded her for years, but she is a role model for keeping the faith and knowing when to count your blessings.

From Pioneer Woman


I've learned to pay more attention to my family. Pioneer Woman taught me how to cook when I was convinced I could only whip up a batch of snow cream and a cup of hot cocoa. What's a mom to cook in the summertime, huh? Pioneer Woman's Ree writes about her family life on a ranch on Oklahoma, cooking with step-by-step instructions and pictures for the cooking impaired, photography (she's an amazing photographer), homeschooling, and even the love story of meeting her husband. From Ree, I think God wants me to see glimpses of Him in the lives of my children, my husband, my pets, my own back yard, and even the meals I manage to plate for my family.

I confess that I probably spend too much time checking out the blogs. Sometimes I'm known to blog hop from the favorites of other blogs. I know I need to spend better quality time being with my family and not just alongside them, reading from my laptop. I want so much to be the wife and mother God created me to be.

But I can't get over the idea that I have something to learn from at least a handful of the blogs I like to read. So, I'm going to put this out there, in hopes that you will keep me accountable: I will check my craftiness, hominess, blogginess, and teaching blogs no more than three times a week instead of every dingdang day. And when I'm not reading my blogs, I will be with my people. I will take pictures of them, play with them, talk to them, check homework, cook, clean, and, of course, keep up this blog so that I will remember all this family time when I'm 90. God is so good to show all this to me, even through strangers who have become virtual friends.