A new blog

It's time.

Since I began blogging 5 years ago so much has changed in my life...
and this blog
just doesn't seem the place to, well,
blog anymore.

My new blog is called Planting Trees. And if you click them there words, you'll find it.

Hope you come over...
I'd love to have you.

much love,
April

Peace

Each night, as I'm laying my daughter down in her bed, I speak these words over her:

May the Lord bless you and keep you,
May He make His face to shine upon you,
and give you peace.

Her second name, middle name, Irina, means: Peace.

And so, mercy bleeds into peace. The kind that means something, the one that echoes: don't fear! don't fear!
I am closer than the air you breathe...
and over you, I breathe
peace.

**Image found on Pinterest via illbeasunbeam@tumblr.

My Prayer

Have mercy,
I pray with the rhythm
of a rosary~
each bead
the rock of my chair
as I nurse my child.
Have mercy.


Linking up again this Thursday with Imperfect Prose...

The Mercy of Sight

Over 6 years ago I returned from a 4 month journey to Kolkata, India. It was a life-changing trip, to say the least.

I didn't have a digital camera back then, so no photos to go with this post...but what I did have with me was a heart that was expanding with the possibilities of mercy. I find that I'm still carrying that heart with me.

Here's a story from those days:

And there was this baby. her hair was light with malnutrition and she slept in her older sister's arms. I touched her face and it felt warm even to my hot hands. She wouldn't wake and her sister begged for money. I wanted to grab that child and run- the longing of it, the pain of it piercing so deeply that I was brought to tears.

The next day we visited St. Thomas' Mount in Chennai (the place where Thomas of the New Testament supposedly died). A man was begging at the top of these steep steps. He said: have mercy on me. I smiled and said: maybe later.

I shivered in the India heat at my words: maybe later I would have mercy on him when I myself have been shown mercy before, after, and during this little life I've lived. The pain of his plea for mercy wrapped itself tightly around my heart and squeezed- not so that I would show him mercy, but because my very life depended on it as much as his own did.

The day afer I met this man, I read in Luke 18 where a blind man calls to Jesus: Son of David! Have mercy on me! He asks this even after he has been silenced by the crowds. Jesus turns to him and asks what he wants. He says: I want to see.

I find myself sitting on a street, in rags, unable to see. And I call to a Humble King: have mercy on me! I want to see again! I want the sight to know what matters. I want to know how to see so that I can truly love others. Give me vision so that I can see You.

Who wouldn't want to see such goodness as belongs to Him?
Who wouldn't be willing to give what is in both hands if it meant seeing Him more clearly? I pray for mercy that I might be such a woman.

And we are still caught in this place of waiting, asking for mercy.

Doamne ajuta.

Finding that while we sit and wait, we learn to see. While we lean on the cane of our insecurities and inability to trust, we find what keeps us from hope. And peace.

This is a mercy. To see what keeps us from sight.

Image taken from Pinterest, but orignally comes from: www.etsy.comlisting71605280happy-life

Mercies in Disguise

Have you heard THIS song by Laura Story?

Right now, I think it's our theme song.

And the other day I thought: I've been praying that He would have mercy on us.

What if this is His mercy?

What is this?
the waiting...the quiet...the dreaming...the longing...the hoping...

I have to believe it is.

**the print came from 517 Creations. Click to get the free printable!

The Return of: Things my Husband says that make me Laugh

The other day Bela said to me: I don't make you laugh like I used to. You don't write about it anymore.

I corrected him and said: That's not true, I just don't write them down anymore so I forget and then, well, they don't make the blog.

I mean, look at this picture!!! How can I not laugh at that face? Every time I need a laugh, I just think about this photo and I chuckle...



And then, there was the other day when we had this conversation.

Let me set it up for you.

We were getting into the car. The hot car. On a hot day. I was driving and Bela said: Can you PLEASE turn up the air conditioning?

I said: Yes, but why didn't you wear shorts? It's so hot out!!!

He said: My legs aren't hot, my head is!

HAHAHAHAH!!!

Truth is, and I'm sure you know this well, that when you're stuck in a place like we are, even the little things that make one laugh are a mercy.

Especially that photo.

Mercies new...

I love this photo of my little niece feeding my little girl.

The way they are looking at each other.

The tiny hand, unaccustomed to holding a bottle, and yet successfully giving what is needed.

Baby, trusting and believing that this other little one will care for her...will see the feeding through until the end.

Beauty exists here.

And love.

Even in those so little.

I feel like that tiny one, looking to my God, trusting and believing that He will care for us...will see this through until the end.

Because His mercies are new each day.

Beauty exists here.

And love.