Pink

Live to the hilt

Live to the hilt

of every situation

you believe to be

the will of God.

- Jim Elliot

My Girl....

A New Birth Announcement

You can find this new birth announcement on my Etsy Site (www.jennydixon.etsy.com)

Lenses

I've had glasses and/or contacts for as long as I can remember. My first pair of glasses was pink and they were on the large side. I can still remember how excited I was when I finally reached the glorious age of contacts. It is my personal opinion that overnight contacts are one of man's greatest inventions. They are so convenient that I lose track of how long I've been wearing them. My optometrist says I should take them out at least once a week to clean them and rest my eyes. I'm busy. I usually remember to take them out when I can't see out of them anymore :). Yesterday they were getting a little cloudy, so I took them out and put my glasses on. My current glasses aren't as horrible as my initial pink ones, but they aren't "current" either. Not the right prescription and definitely not cool. When I first put them on, everything appears to be a little off (because they are ). But after just a few minutes things appear normal again, as if I'm seeing perfectly well.

Last night, tacky glasses firmly in place, I fell into bed and opened my bible to the book of John. Noah will be studying John when we crank school back up in a few weeks, so I figured it would be good for me to revisit it. Ten verses into John I read about how Jesus came into the very world that he created, only to have that world not recognize him. The very world that he created rejected him. Even "his own people". And I'm struck once again by the injustice of this. And then I start to wonder how often I fail to recognize him when he comes to me now. And it doesn't take me long to know the answer. Daily. Hourly. Because I know it is daily that I fail to recognize him in the face of the Chick-Fil-A employee, the college student, the easy to judge celebrity, the fellow church member, the child, my child, my friends, the orphan, the widow, the man walking down the street with all of his possessions slung over his back, and the list goes on.... And I'm saddened.

Each time I remove my glasses and place a new pair of contacts into my eyes, I'm taken back by how clearly I can see again! And it surprises me that it wasn't bothering me to wear my funky old glasses. But I guess that's just the way it goes with lenses...

This morning as I blinked and opened my eyes to my contact restored vision, I couldn't help but think about how much I would love to have such a quick fix for my heart to see clearly. But selfishness and busyness and the things of this world seem to constantly cloud my vision. And even worse, sometimes they don't cloud it at all. Sometimes the eyes of my heart easily adjust to the lenses that the world freely provides. And when that happens the orphan crisis looks like a hopeless cause. And the man walking down the street with all of his possessions slung over his back seems scary and dirty. And the Chick-Fil-A employee was placed there to serve me, not to be blessed by me. And the strung out celebrity is reaping what they've sown. And the fellow church member should wise up and see things the way I see them. And the college student just needs to grow up. And my child just needs to shape up. And before I know it, I can look all around and not see the face of Christ anywhere on anyone. And that scares me.

I really need some new glasses. I haven't replaced my old ones because I can never seem to swallow the cost. They are so expensive! I guess that's why I keep my worldly lenses around too. Maybe I haven't been fully willing to swallow the cost of replacing them. No doubt it will be expensive.

I plan to get some new glasses soon, but today I'm just praying for new lenses. Lenses that will allow me to recognize him. Lenses that will keep me from rejecting him. Unlike my wonderful overnight contacts, these lenses probably won't be convenient. They will open my eyes to things that my worldly lenses protect me from. They will take me places and show me faces that my worldly lenses can't see. But deep down that's what my heart desires. Lord give me your eyes.

Back from Blogcation

Oh my, it's been a while. Since I last posted we have been quite busy! We moved into our little apartment a few weeks ago. I often have people ask me, with a hint of pity in their voice, how apartment life is going. My answer to them is that I love it! Most people probably see it as quite a hardship to live with 3 kids in an 1100 square foot apartment, but I say NO WAY DUDE. Having your washer and dryer IN the kitchen has a lot of advantages. Plus, it only takes me 15 seconds to mop my kitchen floor. (The kitchen is a little smallish, but you can't have it all, right!) The phrase "less is more" has taken on all new meaning for me. My kids don't miss a single toy that they have in storage. And they still don't play with half of the ones we brought to the apartment. We always joked in our big house that it didn't matter how much space we had, we all ended up in the same room most of the time anyway (this joke was usually made when we were annoyed that we couldn't seem to get 5 minutes away from the kids to have a conversation). But it's so true. We haven't missed the space one bit. Of course half of our stuff is in storage. Which can only lead me to one obvious conclusion. We Americans think we need big houses to comfortably hold all of our people. But in reality, we need them to hold all of our stuff. Half of which we wouldn't miss if we never saw it again. Just a thought I can't seem to get out of my head. I guess that was a really long, too many details way of saying that apartment living is going quite well!

Noah is on the swim team and Micah is taking lessons, so that has occupied nearly every one of our mornings this summer. Add in sports camp, dinners with college students, beach trips, swim meets, house plans, dossier, etc. and I'm starting to think we will finally get some rest when summer is OVER! Isn't that backwards??

Update on the kids: Sophia is carrying on full conversations and developing a little bit of an attitude. Micah has learned to swim this summer and officially seems like a big kid, rather than my baby boy. Noah is really growing up. One of my favorite sounds in our house right now is listening to him reading books to his little brother and sister. Don't get me wrong, there are some less pleasant sounds that go along with his new grown up self too, but let's just be honest and admit that we like to paint a pretty picture on our blogs :).

We have a contract on land and are finalizing house plans, hoping to begin construction across from West Circle very soon. And our adoption paperwork is finally in Ethiopia! Now we just wait and continue to raise funds for our travel expenses. These expenses have increased now that they will be requiring us to travel twice instead of once like we were originally told. But that's no big deal for God! We are so excited to be at the this point in the process.

I'll post a random selection of pics from our trip to the beach. We had great weather and minimal tar balls! As always, we are so thankful to mom and dad for arranging this trip where we can spend great time with our family! More pics in my fb album. NaNa, you're just gonna have to get on Facebook :).