unworthy

“will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘come at once and recline at table’? will he not rather say to him ‘prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? so you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘we are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'”

luke 17: 7-10

the Lord used that scripture the other night to really test my heart on a not-so-great day. it made me think about what it was exactly that i have been commanded to do.

if i am a follower of the Lord, then i commanded to love Him with all my heart, soul and mind. if i am a wife, then i commanded to respect and serve my husband. if i am a mom, then i am commanded to raise my children in the knowledge of the Lord. if i am a member of God’s family, then i am commanded to build His church and His kingdom.

these commandments are the basic duties of what it looks like for me to serve the Lord. they are not things i choose to do as a favor to my family or those around me. they are not the things that i should be praised for doing. they are not the things that i do with a spirit of martyrdom. but how often i get that wrong.

and yes, the good news of  Jesus is that there is grace and love so undeserving. but, help me remember i am an undeserving servant when i am acting like an entitled child. especially when i acting like an entitled child. help me remember that you freely give these gifts, but that it’s on no merit of my own.

give me a heart to serve that’s only motive is obedience. a heart that says “i am an unworthy servant, i have only done what was my duty.”

steadfastness

“Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” james 5: 11

productive

life has been very busy and very full and very fast. most nights after winn goes to bed i have plans to be productive and most nights those plans end with me being, well, not productive. so while my head and heart are overloaded with all the ins and outs of our life right now, i thought maybe a little photo update was in order.

even during the crazy weeks, my days look pretty similar. a lot of hang out time with this girl. and i’m pretty okay with that. sitting up like a big kid.

i’ve been never been much of a fan of the color pink, but there’s something a little magical about a little girl and that soft pink color.

she’s started crawling. kind of. she can make her way all the way around the room, she just gets inventive on how she does it. like this.

thankful for the best mom and technology that lets me pretend she’s hanging out in the living room with us.

winn is so, so curious. she wants anything and everything that’s in front of her or in our hands. including our food.

so, we decided to let her try out some food of her own. she seemed to like it, but also seemed just as interested in eating the spoon as she did the rice cereal.

and since learning to eat means ending up with most of it on her face and clothes, bath time usually follows. winn really likes bath time and really likes splashing. as for me, i really like her dad.

also on her list of likes, sticking out her tongue.

and just being all around cute.

well, at least i can say i was a little bit productive tonight. : )

day at the fair

this past saturday we ventured down to the south carolina state fair with winnie and jared’s parents. we knew winnie was too young to really even notice we were at the fair, but it was still fun to bring her along and pretend she cared about the rides and the animals. plus, is there a better people watching spot than the fair? i don’t think so.

we had a lot of fun and ate a whole lot of fair food. i’ll warn you ahead of time, i had a hard time editing myself, so this post may contain an overabundance of pictures.

i said we ate our fair share of fair food but we did draw the line at deep fried butter. deep fried cinnamon butter balls. i don’t even understand.

chicken gyro. yes, please.

winn hung out in the stroller most of the day. i can’t get over how big she looks.

we bought some chocolate chip cookies from a stand inside. they were SO good.

jared and his mom post tilt a whirl experience.

i know this one is a little blurry, but it was our best attempt to take a picture of ourselves. we got in line to ride the ferris wheel. i don’t ever remember being put in the same ferris wheel cart with strangers before, but we were seated with a high school couple that had made out the whole time we were waiting in line. not ideal, but made for a very interesting and awkward ferris wheel ride.

winnie fell asleep in her stroller with her little legs crossed. so sweet.

lauren got off early and came to meet us. she’s such a celeb in this pic.

best aunt ever.

perfect day

oh, hello again.

today was the most perfect early fall day. we spent a lot of time outside at the park and we even went out and got some pumpkins (fail on our part for not taking pictures.) i love this season.

she looks so old in this picture. it actually hurts my heart how beautiful she is.

later in the day, we went to park with lauren and beulah. winn and beu have had limited interaction so we let them get to know each other a little bit. winn was mesmerized by her.

until she wasn’t anymore.

just gettin’ a little beulah love.