Lately

what have i been doing lately?

::meeting jade ::

 

Last Saturday, I got to go meet Jon and Jenni’s newest little addition, Jade Lydia.  

the smiths are like family to me, and it is always fun to be the pseudo-aunt again, especially since I can’t see my niece Kate very often.  (boo-hoo!)  Being “Auntie Em” is awesome.  I can love them, snuggle them, pamper them, and then give them back when there’s a poopy diaper or screaming waaaaaaa…just kidding, of course!  I don’t mind it at all.  In all seriousness, though, I really am hoping that I get to spend lots of quality time watching this little one grow up.  

In fact, Jade has been quite the inspiration lately for a new business/ministry I am contemplating.   Not really anything to do with babies or baby-sitting or caring for infants…but, her name itself.  More to come on this soon…I am in the process of  pulling my thoughts together, and then I will post about it in the next month.

What else have I been doing lately?  

I was talking to Chuck Nam today and he told me I needed to post more about what is happening in my life.  I suppose there is always something going on, because obviously, God is always at work.  But when I thought about his question, I realized that to be perfectly honest with myself, I must say that my life is pretty simple right now: work, eat, work, eat, work out, eat, sleep!  

God is teaching me much through this seemingly mundane existence.  I am learning to not only accept the boundary lines of my life as perfectly ordained, but to truly cherish the boundary lines.  And there is a big difference.  As my Mom told me tonight (she is so wise!), “Emily, you can’t stay on the perimeter…you have to go into the garden.”  What does this practically look like in my life?  Cherishing my relationship with God through much prayer, making the most of every opportunity at my job, valuing the fact that I still live at home and can spend lots of quality time with my family, building into relationships at my local church, and of course, seeing my single years as a season to explore my gifts and talents for God’s glory–not as a bitter woe or some mess-up, off-track period of time that God didn’t quite get right.

Contentment.  I suppose that word always come around full-circle for me!  This morning, I read the following by Octavius Winslow, a Puritan theologian whose commentaries I highly recommend:

My times [are] in thy hand. – Psalm 31:15

Let this precious truth divest your mind of all needless, anxious care for the present or the future. Exercising simple faith in God, “Do not be anxious about anything.” Learn to be content with your present lot, with God’s dealings with, and His disposal of, you. You are just where His providence has, in its inscrutable but all-wise and righteous decision, placed you. It may be a position painful, irksome, trying, but it is right. Oh, yes! it is right. Only aim to glorify Him in it. Wherever you are placed, God has a work for you to do, a purpose through you to be accomplished, in which He blends your happiness with His glory. And, when you have learned the lessons of His love, He will transfer you to another and a wider sphere, for whose nobler duties and higher responsibilities the present is, perhaps, but disciplining and preparing you. Covet, then, to live a life of daily dependence upon God. Oh, it is a sweet and holy life! It saves from many a desponding feeling, from many a corroding care, from many an anxious thought, from many a sleepless night, from many a tearful eye, and from many an imprudent and sinful scheme. Repairing to the “covenant ordered in all things and sure,” you may confide children, friends, calling, yourself, to the Lord’s care, in the fullest assurance that all their ‘times’ and yours are in His hand. 

Praying that God may somehow use this post to encourage you through whatever difficulty or trial or temptation you are facing this week!