What Does Hope Look Like?

Hope - to expect with confidence of future fullfilment

If you live somewhere which is perpetually green or at least mostly perpetually green, you might not get this.  Here is what hope looks like to me...

Those little green shoots poking out of the ground are the brave little daffodils which have started appearing in the last week outside our house.  Again, if you're in a location where there's even a bit of green year round, these tiny sprouts probably don't look very impressive to you, but they are to me.

I've been going outside to see them at least once a day, sometimes more.  They represent my hope for the future...I am hoping for green leaves, green grass, juicy tomatoes, warm breezes, tanned kids with scraped, dirty knees and nights of sleeping with the window open.

After a long, cold, dark winter, I am confidently expecting new life to arrive outside my door.  Soon.  Please let it be soon.

What else does hope look like to me?  Like this...


The Young'uns in the Fall of 2009.  Photo by Hailey Brautigam.

The Young'uns.  Five of our greatest gifts from God.  I have hope that "he who began a good work in you (them) will be faithful to complete it." (Phillipians 1:6)  Sometimes during the day, I look at them and get excited to see what their futures will be.  New lives.

Finally, for me, this is what hope looks like...

In the cross I see hope.  I confidently expect the fulfillment of my hopes soon...in Easter.  The best new life of all.

Frivolous Friday: Things We Do to Our Kids

Despite all my best efforts, I am sure I've done many things over the years which have traumatized the Young'uns.  Probably for life.  It's hard to be a great Mom all the time.  We have weak moments.

However, I can honestly say I've never been this weak... at least not when my camera has been around.

Poor kid!  This was his mother's cure for sunburn.  I think it is cornstarch.  Apparently, his left hand escaped the sun.  Maybe he was in a Michael Jackson phase and was sporting the sparkly white glove at the beach that day. 

Whatever is going on here, it made me laugh.  Happy Frivolous Friday!

Once again, thanks for the laugh Awkward Family photos!

Sometimes I Think We're Too Trashy Around The Farm

A Disclaimer:  In posting this I am not wanting to enter into some debate on Global Warming and such topics.  Really.  I am not.

Sometimes when I am hauling yet another bag out to our trash cans...  Or better yet, sometimes when I am yelling for one of my sons to come and haul yet another bag out to our trash cans...  I get a bit sad.  Well, maybe disgusted is more the word for which I'm looking.

We recycle an overwhelming majority of our paper, plastic, aluminum, glass, etc. We compost an overwhelming majority of our veggie and fruit scraps.  We do most all our cleaning with clothes and not paper.

We still have trash.  Lots of it, it seems to me.  (Yes, I know there are 7 of us living here.  It still seems like a lot of trash even under these circumstances.)

I'm not prepared to go to the lengths of the family in this video.  I don't think human trash will lead to the utlimate destruction of our planet and life as we know it.  But I can't see how it couldn't be a good thing for everyone, including this earth God has given us, for our family to use and throw way less.

The family has gotten me thinking.  Check out the video and some of their ideas on the website.  They are pretty inspiring.  Their first line of defense is rather shocking:  Refuse!  They simply refuse to bring things into their home.  Wow!  How simple and yet, how revolutionary.

Don't worry Big Guy and Young'uns...I'm still very partial to toilet paper.  I won't go THAT far.