Cabin Fever

My children are witnessing to the dog.

Do we need any other evidence that cabin fever has set in with a vengeance? Creative excuses to get out of home school for the umpteenth cold day in a row runs rampant by this time of the winter season. Their great desire to assure that Lady goes to Heaven probably has little to do with the state of her canine soul and more to do with dealing with their fear of sending their good friend off to her new home. Besides Lady, there are her brood of barking offspring that are just about ready to find somebody else's house to chew everything in sight and demand potty breaks numerous times a day from their lucky new owners. Eight weeks of puppies and I am about dogged out.

The heralding ground hog saw his shadow over the weekend, assuring us that there would be several more weeks of this glorious winter wonderland. Honestly, I am glad. I have taken somewhat of a personal responsibility on myself for torturing all the rest of you in the northern region with such a ferocious season of cold and snowfall. You see, I have needed just such a winter and have prayed often to ask and thank God for it. The longer days have only added to the realization that the time is short to finish the work at hand.

In the midst of our big move I have been convicted to finish several huge projects before the weather turns nice, and the deep freeze has provided the opportunity to stay home and work on them.  Eight picture books are officially completed as of last night and just waiting for the finances to get them printed. Eighteen hundred and some collages later, with an average of at least ten pictures per page, (which doesn't even include all of the pictures taken in the last six years) and figuring that those pictures needed to be handled at least six times before their final format, means that in the last three months I have viewed and sorted some 110,000 pictures give or take. Hmmm.... anybody else convicted that we mothers just might take a few too many photos? But I wouldn't trade a one of them, nor do I regret the many hours behind the camera or the computer screen, other than the fact that my children are tired of not seeing my eyeballs and my back has become a tangled knot from being so hunched over as I peer into the little box of blinking lights.

The collages have been a therapy for me. A grueling, heart aching therapy. To relive Trent's life, and our life, before and after the accident has been emotionally exhausting. One that needed a long, cold winter to sort through.

My next project is to finish the two books that I have been plugging away on for too long now. OurCrazyFarm the Book is our story of life at the farm. Probably just for the family, it chronicles our move here and all the crazy adventures that were lived. When Hope Survives is a devotional book based on First Peter 1:3-9 that lays out God's glorious hope for the sufferer. After those accomplishments, I have great ideas that I feel God leading me towards to continue to write, write, write. Knowing that the time is short, I long to be faithful.

As far as the farm, we *think* it might be sold. A family who looked at it last summer has been trusting God to lead them to their desired farm, and this just might be it. Final details are working themselves out and we await a signed purchase agreement, but the tentative plans are to close by the end of March and move by June. I'm trying not to hold my breath while I anticipate that it could be this easy.

Everybody is starting to get nervous about the move. Living in limbo is so hard, and fear seems to be the first response to the unknown. That and witnessing to the dog. Upset children about getting the room that is minuscule inches smaller and has the window in the wrong direction are really screams to long to be in control. To give up every earthly thing that brings comfort is one of God's hardest and most gracious ways to pry our fingers off of this world. As I try to give the right answers, I am praying that it's the heart that will be changed rather than the living accommodations.

As for myself, I am almost refusing to let my brain race ahead. I am committing myself to the tasks at hand, trying to finish well here at the farm. Wrapping up the photo albums and the books are top on my list, along with home school, college planning, and a graduation in the Spring. Longings for what the new place will mean in terms of serving and seeking God continue to pop up, but I force them to stay in their little compartmentalized places until the other priorities are taken care of. But I can't help it. I am so ready to have our lives poured out in ways that we can't right now due to financial and time restrictions. To live as if Heaven is reality and this life is a mist. To be able to store up treasures there rather than building our Kingdoms here. I can't wait.

So for now we will work diligently on the tasks that God has given us. Continuing to plug away and wondering if this will be the day that Jesus returns. Hoping and praying for it, while at the same time attempting to be faithful until it is.