Reading Plan

At the end of 2010, Pastor Tom encouraged the members of our church to have a Bible reading plan as we enter 2011.  A couple years prior, our church was reading through the Old Testament together, and we were encouraged to buy a book, For the Love of God by D.A. Carson, which includes the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.  The M'Cheyne reading plan, if followed as intended, will result in you reading all of the Old Testament once, and the New Testament and Psalms twice, during the course of one year.  Going into 2011, this was my plan.  This was a very ambitious plan for me.  I have never read through the Bible in a year.  There are portions of Scripture I have never read.  When the year began, I did a pretty good job of staying caught up.  But over time, I started getting behind.  This summer was especially bad.  After our vacation weeks, I was almost two months behind.  I'm excited to say that I just got caught up! 

I am not a morning person.  But since school has started, I've committed to getting up before the kids and reading my Bible.  And I can only give God credit for being able to do it faithfully for the last 2 weeks.  I'm feeling very grateful to Him because for so long, I didn't have a strong desire to be in the Word.  And I felt guilty about that, but still didn't make myself do it.  And over the course of the last couple years, I've seen God working in my heart on that.  It started with me asking him to give me a desire.  And then making myself spend time in the Word, even if I got nothing out of it, knowing that even my effort was honoring God.  I'm definitely not to the point of having a passion for being in the Word.  My motivation right now is completing my goal of reading the Bible in a year, not growing closer to Jesus.  But I can see God using my own selfish motivations to get me where I need to be.  And being in the Word DOES bring me closer to Jesus. 

So, who can create an app for my phone with the M'Cheyne reading plan? 

Walking

Now that both boys are gone every week day morning, I'm able to get outside and walk again!  Three times this week, I've gotten up with Anelise and gone for a good, brisk walk.  By my estimates, I've walked about 6 miles this week.  Anelise seems to enjoy it too, especially if we take breakfast along.  I pack a sandwich bag with some dry cereal, grab her sippy cup of milk and a banana, and out we go.  She gets especially excited about seeing dogs.  And part of our neighborhood route goes past a pond that has ducks.  Almost as soon as we're out the door she starts saying "water?" "duckies?"  It's very cute.  I'm hoping that by continuing this routine as many days as we're able, it will become a fun, whine-free form of exercise.  For both of us.

Goodbye, Summer!

The 2011-2012 school year has officially started.  Ethan started with a half-day on Monday, and Caleb had his first day of kindergarten this morning.  Since kindergarten has a staggered start, he'll stay home tomorrow and be back on Friday with the whole class (just kids with last names A-K went today).  After Ethan's first day, he came home and said "it was awesome" because they didn't have any seatwork.  (He was singing a different tune yesterday.)  Caleb has been SO excited to start school.  In fact, when I came home from parent orientation yesterday, he was disappointed that I didn't have any school work for him to do.  This morning we could tell he was a little bit nervous once we got to the classroom, but he cheerfully did what was asked of him.  We took a picture and left.  I had been very emotional after dropping Ethan off for his first day of kindergarten, but not this time.  Jonathan and Anelise came along, so after leaving Caleb with Miss Curry, we wandered around for a few minutes and found Ethan's classroom too. 

Was Blind, But Now I See!

Late Saturday night we returned from our marathon two-week vacation.  Week #1 was with the Bakers, week #2 was with the Ippels, with a quick weekend between visiting our good friends, Joel and Shontel, who recently moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, conveniently located between our two vacation spots! 

On the first full day of vacation, we were in Lake Michigan at Michigan City, Indiana (how confusing is that?!) and I was venturing into the large waves.  I had kept my glasses on, because as a fully-grown adult, my footing is quite good, and I was not planning on putting my head underwater.  My husband, however, though he is also a fully-grown adult, acts more like a playful puppy sometimes, decided to tackle me, just as a very large wave crashed over both of us.  And in an instant, my clear vision was gone.  We looked for my glasses for several minutes, knowing full well that the likelihood of finding them was very small.  That afternoon, I spent a good chunk of time looking online for places where I might be able to get new glasses.  The only place remotely close had a wait time of 7-10 days from the exam until the glasses would be ready.  I ended up making an appointment in Grand Rapids (location of vacation week #2) and spent the vast majority of vacation week #1 without (decent) vision.

Last week Sunday I was in and out of Eyeglass World within 45 minutes, with newly examined eyes and two fresh pairs of glasses (which I like very much).  And the bill for all of it was only $117; significantly less than I was expecting to pay.  And now I can see!  And you can't put a price on that.