My 'Raison D'Etre'

The French have this great way of expressing things in concise phrases. One of those phrases is 'raison d'etre' which literally translated means 'reason of to be'. I like that. It causes me to be pensive and searching, probing my heart to dissect my motives. As a human I'm inclined to 'encourage myself' into believing I'm A-OK. I've never killed anybody and I always try to be a nice person. RIGHT. As a Christian I have looked into the 'mirror of truth' only to find the dark reality of my 'wonderful efforts'. If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit there are holes, gaping at that, in my humanity. As much as I'd like to think I'm all that, I'm not. That's exactly why I ran to Jesus when He opened my eyes to see how awful my sins really were. My favorite part is the follow up. He then showed me His mercy by not allowing me to stay there, shackled to my guilty sentence of death. He stretched out His hand of forgiveness and offered His nail scarred, blood stained hands, and I accepted. Thus began my journey of reconciliation with my past, my present, the people in my life and most importantly, my God. And what a journey it has been! (I'M GRINNING EAR TO EAR NOW :D)
More on that later...

(down shift, fast forward)
As for now and this blog, I'm in major overhaul mode. I am still working out the visual changes as well as the content. I felt too creatively confined only posting about knitting. My life is SO MUCH MORE than that. As you can see, I'm not frequent in my posting and I think that was one of the major reasons. (Trust me, you'll come to see it is a truly rare occasion when I have nothing to say!) One of the other reasons is I was worried about sharing things from my faith and having that cause people to shy away and not visit. Honestly, I have no idea why that was even an issue as I'm not normally like that. I believe the discouragement came when I realized there are a LOT of knitters, nay, a TON of knitters out there who are liberal in their beliefs (or run from having any meaningful beliefs at all) who blog. I wasn't finding a whole lot of like-minded people. At first.

I'm now to the point where none of that matters. Even if only one person, or even NO ONE EVER reads this, I am content with that. Why? Because I am not blogging for anyone else. This is MY creative outlet and if anyone visits me and maybe even responds to something I've posted, well, that'll just put a big ol' grin on my face and a little squeal of excitement in my voice and it'll be great.

My prayer is for the reader who stumbles across my blog. That they would find something that touches their heart that encourages them to walk a better walk, try a different recipe, hug their husband, snuggle with their blessings, read their Bible, knit a hat, take a great photo, move them toward something more than themselves or even have a quiet moment with the Lord. A scripture that comes to mind is Colossians 3:23-24, "And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ."
Sounds good to me. Real good.

So what's your "Raison D'Etre"? Why do YOU blog?

As I Sit Here...

i can hear the gentle roll of occasional thunder and the drip, drip, drop of rain. ok, it's a little more constant than that and even with all the windows i have it's almost dark enough to turn a light on-but i'm resisting. outside, my garden is burgeoning with ripened goodies that are anxious to be picked but, alas, it will have to wait for a dryer time. in the meantime...

behind me i can also hear the very faint attempts at chirping by our new baby finches. there are 2 right now. it's an amazing thing. yesterday we got a sneak peek at baby #1 in all its newborn glory. it came complete with tiny beak, tiny head, tiny arms and so on. simply too adorable for words right down to its Albert Einstein 'hairdo'. since the proud parents are named Westley and Buttercup it seemed only fit to name it Waverly as my astute daughter pointed out. (ahhh just warms the heart huh?) we were no sooner all a flutter with 'baby news' than all of a sudden we realized another little something. yep, another little baby was making its little presence known to us! baby #2 has joined us but is yet unnamed. we're open to suggestions (anyone?). it may actually depend on what their genders will eventually reveal themselves to be, but i'm open.

we are now knee deep in amazing life and tiny cuteness. there are 3 more eggs and as you can imagine we are on pins and needles waiting to see if there will be yet another little biddy baby bird birth. i haven't really been able to get a real clean pic of the happy little growing family yet, but when i do, i will most definitely post it.