{ 10 things }

1. He is my one in six billion. I'd rather have a bad day with him than a good day with anyone else.
2. Nothing says home, like his arms. 
3. He loves sacrificially.
4. He works tirelessly and without complaining.
5. He has made me his standard of beauty + and I feel " safe in my skin" with him.
6. We are his hobby.
7. He is the truest and greatest earthly example of unconditional love to me.
8. As Anne Shirley told Gilbert Blithe, "I don't want sunbursts or marble halls, I just want you.”
9. He is my favorite and my best.
10. I love him far more than I have ever found the words to say to him. 

And now here's our "to-do" for the next 10+ years:  More flirting, more dancing, more laughing, more, much more time spent and memories made with our littles, and ever more loving, knowing and serving Jesus together! What a way to spend our one wild and beautiful life. I still pinch myself that I get to be his wife. It's such a honor and my absolute delight.  
For over a decade now I am happier than I ever imagined I could ever be, a deep down, more noisy than quiet, more messy than perfect,  more chaotic than calm and more often than not sort of happy. Truly. Thank you Jesus, and thank you Mr of mine. This is love. xo

{ the first one }

Nov.  15, 2002

Boy that I Love -

  I understand the love of God better than I ever have now that I am thanks to you, a recipient of the human counterpart. And grace, I feel so fully embraced by grace. That's what you make me feel, unconditional love + deep grace, my strong, quiet man.

  I am getting reports from reliable sources that you are turning into quite the conversationalist. :) I think you have been seeing too much of me. My talkiness is rubbing off on you. Scary thought. They say you have a perpetual smile. And oh that makes me happy because I love your smile more than any other smile in the whole entire world. I can see it 450 miles away. It brightens up any cloudy day, dark night or fearful thought. Because perfect love casts out fear. I have always wanted to experience a perfect love. Jesus love is perfect. And do you think David that just maybe sometimes He might us the love of a man and a woman to reveal that perfect love? I am full of wonder and joy over the possibility of that. 

You just keep holding onto Jesus honey...He's really all we need.

This is the first real love letter I have ever written. I always hoped that it would be to you.

Jesus, you are faithful and true in every way. Your love overwhelms me, Your mercy brings me to my knees, Your kindness humbles me.  Help us love you back like as you first loved us.

I love you so much that it makes this hyper girl calm. Figure that one out. 

Gladly Yours,
Chelle

  And the rest, ten plus years later is history as we proclaim how good and faithful the Lord has been to bless us with each other and a beautiful marriage, plus four small and crazy beautiful people that call us Daddy and Mama and share our last name.That is nothing short of a gift and the work of His gracious heart! I type this with tears streaming down my face, humbled by His perfect faithfulness and grace as we seek to build our lives and home around Him, " rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. " Colossions 2:7 
For He is love. Perfect. Amazing. Love.

{ Excerpt }

 I have been reading this book called Grace for the Good Girl, Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily Freeman, who writes at Chatting At the Sky and it is hitting me hard, every page and I mean that in the best possible sense, as a compliment to the author. It's spooky how sometimes I'll read a page and wonder how she got into my head, because she just described me so to a T. It has impacted me like no other book since 1000 Gifts has.I have underlined and circled and written notes on nearly every page. And could not recommend it more highly. Especially for those of us who are second generation Christians.
So here is a snippet from one of my favorite paragraphs so far:
" When you're used to wearing a mask, you are comfortable with compartmentalizing life. Mask-wearing good girls put worship in a slivered-up pie chart, dividing our lives into segments of importance. We assign percentages for work, service, prayer, school, exercise, PTA, meal planning, bill paying, dog walking, toilet cleaning, church and rest (if we're lucky). But the woman who has freely received the abundance of truth from Jesus abides in that truth as her very life. In other words, the lines of the pie chart disappear, and worship covers the full circle. Free women respond with worship in everything. We receive love, and extend worship. We embrace children, offering worship.  We comfort, we laugh, we mourn, we dance, we read, we dream, we exist- all worship. We pay the bills, we go for a run, we enjoy a good movie, we make dinner, we welcome friends with open arms- worship, all worship. We send money and offer prayer and sit with a lonely neighbor, in Jesus name. We wait for love, we long for home, we pour out our hearts and hopes and fears and longing; we create with words and photos and colors and food, all beautiful beautiful acts of worship! "

Or as Romans 12:1 say " So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. This is truly the way to worship him.   - The Message/NLT

{ Game...errr Name Changer }

 The name of my blog, it gives me away. To most of you it will come as no surprise that I have a reputation for and a tendency to more often than not, see life through rose colored glasses. I have always been known as a little goody-two-shoes, since I was a little girl I have carried around this weight of feeling like I need to make and keep everyone around me happy. I thank Jesus for kicking that all out from under me. For showing me how useless my attempts at joy are apart from Him. Like never before I have come to realize that my identity is not in how cheerful I can be. ( even as a proponent of true cheerfulness as opposed to being fake ) I feel as if joy has been an idol of sorts in my life. And by that I mean self manufactured, counterfeit joy, not true joy that is the overflow of Jesus in me. And so I am changing the name of my blog. As a marker or altar of sorts of the way God is working in my life. As He takes the broken mess of who I am,  the good the bad and the ugly and transforms me by this glorious exchange of my mess for His love, my emptiness for His joy, my striving for His peace, my impatience for His patience, my hardness for His kindness, my ugliness for His goodness my selfishness for His self-control.


I am so humbled by the way He takes the ashes of our sin and by the beauty of grace and the gospel turns them into beauty and joy. I am so humbled that He is opening my eyes to the truth of knowing Him in my head versus the experience knowing Him intimately and I never want to go back to that place of being stagnant by just going through the motions of being " a Christian." Once having tasted that freedom and abundance of life in Jesus, there can be no turning back. Only a going deeper.

{ Grace Storm }

Up ahead: Heavy duty soul baring sort of post. You've been warned. ;)

“ There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” Willa Cather

  Since becoming a family of 6. Since our fourth child was named for this very word. Since almost by default it has become my “ word “ of the year for 2013. Since I wear it on a charm around my neck ever day…“ by grace alone!“ Since, as the book of John says.." A person can not recieve even one thing unless it is given him from heaven" and I have written in my bible next to that verse, the this phrase from the beautiful Ann Voskamp:

All. Is. Grace.

  In the past 6 months, I have experienced some really dark times and by dark I mean, secret... in the hidden corners of my heart dark. I tried to push through. I've tried to grin and bear it but I’ve felt: stuck, overwhelmed, discouraged, defeated, drained, exhausted. At times I have felt powerless, I have yelled at my kids, like I told myself I would never do. I’ve felt that it was impossible to do life well or to live a life of love, on my own…I have felt desperate. At times in the past six months I have gone into hiding, been fearful, and my soul has felt lifeless, I have been in survival mode, and I have been blind to the depth of my selfishness.  But thanks be to God, in His perfect faithfulness + loving kindness that leads to repentance, I feel like he is beginning to open my eyes to seeing the condition of my heart without Him and waking me up to the ugliness that is in me, apart from Him. Because as I am learning by experience, as a recovering "good girl" that really, actually, in my own strength I really do not have what it takes to grow and thrive!

“ Therefore He says, Awake O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine on ( make day dawn) upon you and give you light! Eph. 5:14 ( Amp )

  In my case, it’s been a storm of grace. This past winter has been hard. I have felt overwhelmed as a mother. We have battled a lot of sickness. Some days it's seemed as though I barely have my head above water. And I have grown so sick of my self, and not feeling like there is way to rise above the mess and noise and fighting and moods to a place of joy. My prayer has become a desperate cry for help, that the Lord would soften my heart and give me the desire to wholeheartedly seek and desire Him like I never have before. And hope to keep praying that daily. That I would be led higher and deeper into Jesus. That I would quit putting Him in a box. That I would learn the secret to living the Christian life, is Christ in me, not me in different set of circumstances ( which today happens to look like bad moods for my three oldest children and a house that is anything but clean, full of laundry that is anything but folded and put away ) or anything I can do beyond opening my hands and accepting His love + grace, His amazing grace and living out of that. And in that place of grace, I have found freedom! In Jesus I have been set free!

He is teaching me that life doesn't have to always be "hard." That if I let Him, He will shoulder the stress. That His burden is easy and light!
 

He is teaching me that the less time I have, and the busier life is, the more time I need to spend in His presence!

He is stirring my heart and showing me how important it is to not fight harder for the idols in my life than I do for His glory.

He is teaching me that the goal of daily time with Him is not consistency but intimacy!

I am experiencing a renewed joy and gladness in the joy of His presence!

He is teaching me that without Him I am a complete mess. But in Him I am loved as Christ is loved. I am blessed as Christ is blessed. I am embraced and adored as Christ is embraced and adored.

He is whispering to me that I am free from religion and trying hard to perform for God. Free from shame and condemnation. I have listened to this sermon probably a dozen times now and it has become my mantra.

  This week Jesus is using the Gospel of John, reading through the bible in a year, the book Grace for the Good Girl, this you tube clip called Jesus loves Barabas that a dear friend shared with me, and my loved ones to rock my world!

Jesus please shine your thrist-quenching, life-giving love into every corner of my heart! Jesus help me to know that even if all I have is You, that is More. Than. Enough.

" Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase but I must decrease." John 3:29 + 30

Look at how much they've grown in the seven months from my last post! And goodness sakes do I adore them!

{ every good + perfect gift }

{ Image curtsey of the ever lovely Andrea of  Take Joy Designs }

  She's been here for a little over three weeks now. Three wonderfully sweet, Ruby-Grace filled weeks. She is an easy baby. And when she does make a peep, which isn't very often...she is easily calmed. She has been smiling at us since one week old. She was born at home at 9:50 p.m. on Sunday September 9th...our first bedtime baby as our other three were all born in the morning...and it was so special to get to crawl into bed with our freshly born baby and just soak her up in all her tiny newness and glory and to fall asleep with her in my arms and to get to sniff her soft little head all night long.  She is our smallest baby, at 7lbs 5 oz + 19 3/4 inches long, and I have loved getting to dress her for the last three weeks in NB sized clothes. She's small and delicate and has captured our hearts. I love that she is so mellow. So mellow that she was born asleep. I  love how she snorts when she's hungry. I love how much she moves in her sleep, which through me off, because I thought all the movement before she was born meant she was going to be hyperactive.I love that her Daddy calls her Lucy's skinny twin, because she is so easy going like Lucy was as a newborn. I love how downy soft she is. I love that she smells sweeter than than any perfume. I love that when I brush my fingers across her eyes, she falls magically and instantly asleep.
I love how her little feet are long and skinny like a rabbits foot and can fold in half lengthwise.

   Annabelle, Jack and Lucy came home to meet her first thing in the morning. They had stayed with their Auntie Roo who they love and adore the night Ruby was born. We all do. She's is amazing and beautiful and such a huge help to me in every way. I don't know what I'd do without her. They tip-toed ever so quietly in to the room and were so sweet and gentle holding her for the first time. Jack is just so tender with her, he has a sweet little crush on her. Annabelle is such a big help to me with baby and so capable. I love it when she sings to Ruby. And I have taken hundreds of pictures of Lucy kissing Ruby because it's just that sweet. She is crazy about her. She calls her sis-sis. And comes running to tell me " wah-wah...wah-wah..."the second she starts to cry. I love to imagine how close they are going to be. Never having a sister myself growing up, I am so excited for them.

  David was only able to take one day off after she was born but we were blessed to have Debs come Monday evening, and stay all week to help us and make it possible for me to truly be off my feet. It was an incredibly special to have that time with her and while she was here she deep/spring cleaned my house and went through and organized every drawer for me and matched up all my missing pairs of socks, hauled off bags to the thrift store because well, she's just amazing like that. It took a village to care for us that week as David's other sister Rachel, bless her beautiful heart...stayed home and took care of  Deb's three littles, so she could come take care of us. Thank you girls. More than I can say. Your and the moms are right up there with Granny Annie, on my list of the most wonderful women that I have ever known. Deb, I'll never forget that week with you and how you so willingly cleaned up all that poop, even especially poop of the not so newborn variety. For talking Annabelle to school. And the morning the mouse jumped out of my underwear drawer. For how you love to kiss and love on my little people as if they were your own.
  And I cried when she left but thankfully my Mom had just arrived as Deb was leaving and I had her wonderful company and help and cooking for the following week. And for two days both Moms were here. Which really was too special for words for me and my kids to have both grandmas at once to love on us in every possible way. Mama B. brought Mums for my front porch and tucked chocolate away in the cupboard with my name on it and spent the day with Annabelle at school, kept up on the laundry, read to Jack, grocery shopped, mopped my floors all in a days work.  Every morning the week my Mom was here she would wake up early with Lucy and let me sleep in. It was a sweet tradition for the two of them that included sharing a blueberry lara bar...I have these amazing ladies to thank ( including some really dear + amazing friends who have scrubbed my house until it sparkled and fed us along the way and blessed us with treats and and brand new amazing triple stroller ) that I was able to rest and recover fully and helped ease us through these first weeks with David gone working long hours until dark and Saturdays. 

  

 My Ruby-Gracie girl, what a truly beautiful + treasured gift to us you are. 

There are no words to describe how much your Mama loves you!

" Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father..." James 1: 7

{ First day of First grade }

   How can it already be time to say hello a new school year? And how can it be that we already  have a first grader living under our roof? Excited for all this year holds for her and for me as one of her teachers. Pintrest has a world of information and resources to offer, which I am loving. But to be really honest, in a lot of ways this school year looks like it's shaping up to be rather crazy with a new baby girl to arrive on the scene any day/week now, and I have to admit that I am feeling more than a little bit intimidated by the challenge of homeschooling while also mothering other the three under three. She's going to be going two full days a week to a local public school that partners with homeschooling families. I am so thankful for this best of both worlds option for her right now. And feel so privileged for the opportunity to be her teacher on the other three days we are at home.  My prayer for her and for myself over the course of this next school year and all the ones to come, as much as I want to foster in her a love of learning and make sure she is up to speed in every subject for her grade and age, that I wouldn't lose sight of what's most important and that we we would before all else " grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. "  2 Pet. 3:18

So here we go1st Grade.
Ready or not, here she comes.
Please be kind.

{ Making cherry pie + a peek into my cheery kitchen }

There is nothing quite so quintessentially summer to me as baking pies. Domestically speaking, that is.