Inspiration

This book is one of the most beautiful additions I've made to my home library, ever. It's chock-full of creative inspiration and makes you feel good about wanting to do nothing but sit around at home and knit, or sew, or bake, or garden, and that it's not wrong or degrading to women to want to do these things, it's a lost art. I LOVE IT. Mom would be proud.

We close on our house this afternoon! As of this weekend, I will finally have my own kitchen where I can get my cook on, and a craft room where I can read, write, sew, knit, and collect snippets of inspiration for future projects. Then Elska Aprons may actually launch one of these days. Score!

Update: As it turns out, we did not close on the house this afternoon. The bank wants to do a three-day review of the documents, so now it won't be until next Tuesday. A week late. This is indeed a frustrating process. All I can say is that I hope all the putting off of the paperwork resulted in the lower interest rate we were told we could get.

Untitled, 1/5/09.

I don't even know what I'm doing awake right now, because it's almost midnight and I don't feel well and Cody is downstairs baking cookies for a work "retreat" tomorrow and I have all this stuff on my mind. I just read 1 John 1 and one verse in particular jumped out at me in such a way that I can't help but beg for God's help not to be this person anymore:

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. (v. 6)

I have been walking in my own darkness for longer than I ever should have; dark enough that I feel like I'm not who I say I am, and I know there are others who have thought that of me because of it, others who are as imperfect as me, just in different ways. I have been hurt and judged and gossiped about behind my back and turned into something I'm not by people who are supposed to love me because I messed up and yes, I am guilty of less-than-godly behavior. I could go on and on to justify myself but the bottom line is that I need to forgive. I don't know how but I must, because God knows that bitterness will shred me to pieces until there is nothing good left in me to show what happens when we actually live out the life He has for us.

For now, I am so thankful to have dear, dear friends who are living proof of God's redemption, because they give me the hope I need, and that's the first step.