Day 3 of 10 Days Of Proverbs 31

...She provides food for her family...

Proverbs 31:15

Now most all of you know we are a large family.

A very large family.

Seventeen of us in all.

Since my topic for the next 8 days is creativity I thought I would share some large family logistics and how needing to be creative in almost every area over here is a necessity!


When we were first praying about adopting we already had seven children.

Seven children seems large to most but we were comfortable financially maybe even had a little splurging wiggle room.

Jeff had a good stable job.

The economy seemed stable to us.

We knew adopting would cost money up front and we knew living expenses like groceries, etc...would go up. We knew we would need to tighten our belts some. God had called us to step forward in faith. We stepped. We knew God would provide. Yet, it was scary. We had no idea at the time just how much and fast our family would grow. We did not realise just how much belt tightening we would need to do. Now we know. It is a very tight belt!!

There has not been very many things we directly asked others for if we were in need. We have usually trusted God and he would provide it for us.

I have clung to this verse over the years. Some months I clung tighter than others.

I was once young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging for bread.

Psalm 37:25

I could wow you with the cost of utilities, groceries, how much toilet paper we use,but for today I will just wow you with my creative Proverbs 31 woman breakfast!

One way that God provides for us is gifts of food from others.

I LOVE that!!

We are so thankful!

We use EVERYTHING!

We sometimes end up with a can of this and a can of that.

Sometimes we get very special cans of things that usually we can not afford.

It might be silly to most but I spend a lot of time thinking and asking God exactly what is the best use of our food. I really do.

For a week I have been pondering how to use these five cans of fruit pie filling we were given. They are almost like gold to me. Of course, one of my teens could just open up a can and down it in a few minutes but I wanted to make something very special. Something that honored the gift we were given. I wanted it to be something the kids would step back and notice how kind God was to give us these five pie fillings.

No laughing!

Ok, so they are just a few cans of pie filling.

You see pie filling.

I see God's faithfulness.

I decided on a warm breakfast cobbler.





Ugh...Nicki you are distracting me from my cobbler making! Is there a reason you are pathetically clinging to the door like that?



Ah...this looks very tasty.



See, isn't this a nice special breakfast.



God's faithfulness demonstrated.

Practical creativity at it's finest.

Warmly,A Patchwork Mommy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are the other twelve blogs joining in on this 10 Days of Proverbs 31 adventure.

Enjoy!!

Contributing to family income/2 better than 1

The Fear of the Lord/ Satisfied by Love

Using time wisely/BlessedBeyondMeasure

Taking care of needy/ Shadow Wonder

Using money wisely/Jennifer Sikora

Keeping an eye on home/Just a Glimpse

She can laugh at the days ahead/faith filled food for moms

Clothed in strength and dignity/One thing I’ve Learned

Taking care of others/ 2 savvy gals

Bringing Variety to Family/ Karen Dawkins

Extending your Hand to the Poor/ Women’s Fellowship House

Organization/Teaching what is Good

Day Two of 10 Days of Proverbs 31

I have to admit that I struggled greatly with being involved with this 10 day blog event.

First off, I am not a writer.

I am a very poor communicator.

Ha ha. Sentence structure and things like spelling and punctuation are SO very over-rated!

I have a lot to say about things like sewing, laundry, raising a large family, orphans, adoption, homeschooling, being a wife. All which developed from the lengthy list of what I have done wrong in those areas.

In fact, I can communicate very passionately about a few of those subjects.

But when it comes to God's word I get very flustered and my thoughts jumble up. Yes, even more than they usually do.

If you ever met me in real life you would know how much I ramble. You would also have been caught in one of the 'Tina never got to the point or answered the actual question' conversations.

A simple question on your part like " How is the weather?" would commit you (unknowingly) to ten minutes of odd obscure rambling that had absolutely nothing to do with the weather!

To top it all off I am sort of a Proverbs 31 woman rebel.

Did I just hear a few gasps?

It is not because I do not agree or desire to have the character traits this woman has.

I do.

Maybe a more accurate statement is that I rebel against the 'look' of this particular woman. You know ,the stereo type image of the Proverbs 31 woman that pops into our minds.

For years I felt that to be the best wife/mother/christian I could be, I would need to 'look' like her.

I would strive.

I would try.

I would fail.

How dare she (really meaning God) put me in a small box, a box so small I can not even move about in and to top it off, create me with my own unique quirks, oddities, talents,etc...but say sorry Tina here is the mold. You need to be her.

No!

I am me!!

So I rebel.

I thought how unfair is it that here is this woman, this standard so seemingly lofty and hard to obtain in my own life.

Then it clicked.

Even without Proverbs 31:10-31 being included in the Bible everything she demonstrates, the character qualities she possesses can be found and also modeled in other areas of the Bible.

And to top it all off, this is the real zinger, If you get to the core, to the bottom line of who/what exactly this Proverbs 31 woman was about you will find it has little to do with whether she sews, or buys fields, or makes terrific meals for the whole city.

No.

Look real close.

It is about this:

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

John 15: 13-14

and this

" I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it will produce many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it,while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

John 12:24-25

I think that her whole life was a purposeful choice to die to herself and serve others and most of all Love God with a confidence and depth that not many do.

That I want to do.

So whether my sewing machine breaks down, my dinner burns, I over sleep, or my kids wear un-matching hand-me-downs, I can live my life with a purpose, with a choice. A choice to serve, to love, to die to myself. Most of all I can cling on to a very powerful, strong, compassionate, understanding, patient God.

The God who made this quirky, odd, rebel named Tina

Warmly,A Patchwork Mommy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are the other twelve blogs joining in on this 10 Days of Proverbs 31 adventure.

Enjoy!!

Contributing to famHeily income/2 better than 1

The Fear of the Lord/ Satisfied by Love

Using time wisely/BlessedBeyondMeasure

Taking care of needy/ Shadow Wonder

Using money wisely/Jennifer Sikora

Keeping an eye on home/Just a Glimpse

She can laugh at the days ahead/faith filled food for moms

Clothed in strength and dignity/One thing I’ve Learned

Taking care of others/ 2 savvy gals

Bringing Variety to Family/ Karen Dawkins

Extending your Hand to the Poor/ Women’s Fellowship House

Organization/Teaching what is Good

10 Days of Proverbs 31

I am back!

I took a little blog respite this last few weeks.

I kept up with blog posts in my mind but they never made it to my actual blog!

I bet you were all wondering what I was up to.

Well...

I sat on the couch a lot...

Thinking

And just enjoying the slow down after the holidays.

I have not been called in for Jury duty yet. Just 3 1/2 more months left!

Our Christmas tree is still up.

I have not washed our bed linens in what seems like years.

I decided I have a special gift. It is called Poopy Sense. You know like Spidey Sense but instead of being able to swing from building to building using spider webs, I can smell a poopy diaper in my sleep. It is a handy gift. I have not had to buy diaper rash cream for years.

See...

Lots of thinking.

Ok

Ok

On to the actual real part of today's post.



For the next ten days I am going to be doing something new on my blog.

A sweet friend of mine over at 2 Are Better Than One organized a group of 13 of us to participate in 10 Days of Proverbs 31.

Each of us 13 will address a particular attribute of the Proverbs 31 woman for 10 days.

The attribute I will be sharing about for the next ten days is being creative.

I LOVE being creative!!

There are many attributes of the Proverbs 31 woman that I fall very very short with.

I am not an early riser.

I have a hard time taking my worries about tomorrow to God. I tend to hold tightly to them and am most of the time pretty sure the sky will actually fall tomorrow.

I do eat the bread of idleness. In fact,it is one of my favorite dishes.

but I love to put on my creative thinking cap. I have so many ideas that flow through my head that sometimes my head feels like it will explode.

In my opinion, there is almost nothing as exciting as taking a bunch of scraps of this or that and making something beautiful out of it.



Creating something out of a bunch of nothing.

Seeing a seed of an idea in my thoughts become a final product.

Do not laugh, but sometimes I get so exited in the process of making something that it is hard to breath.

I am very thankful God saw fit to include that part of himself in us his created ones.

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

Hmm...there are SO many ways the Proverbs 31 woman demonstrated her creativity.

Her creativity was not just confined to sewing garments and robes.

I will post more tomorrow!

Warmly,A Patchwork Mommy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are the other twelve blogs joining in on this 10 Days of Proverbs 31 adventure.

Enjoy!!

Contributing to family income/2 better than 1

The Fear of the Lord/ Satisfied by Love

Using time wisely/BlessedBeyondMeasure

Taking care of needy/ Shadow Wonder

Using money wisely/Jennifer Sikora

Keeping an eye on home/Just a Glimpse

She can laugh at the days ahead/faith filled food for moms

Clothed in strength and dignity/One thing I’ve Learned

Taking care of others/ 2 savvy gals

Bringing Variety to Family/ Karen Dawkins

Extending your Hand to the Poor/ Women’s Fellowship House

Organization/Teaching what is Good