PAUSE

Selah.

I remember when I first heard the word, my father is a musician, so I have always had a special place in my heart for the Psalms...for David. The words and the praise he pours over the pages, I often wonder about the music that flowed through David as he wrote.

Selah.

It was described to me as a musical pause, a rest in the music, perhaps for emphasis. Perhaps he used it to soak in what was just said, or what I like to imagine, to let God resonate and move in and out of the words and to give us  a moment to stand still and watch.

Selah.

When our girl Selah was born, Steve and I both had an urging in our heart to make this year a year of Family. We just left a season of busyness, a year where we said "Yes" to a lot. We both resolved to soak in as much time as a family as we could. If our life was a song, then this was the Selah moment. This was the time where we want to take a pause and think about what's been happening in our lives, what God has done for us, where he is leading us and our family. In this Selah moment we are focusing in on God, we are letting his words resonate in our hearts moving through out us. 

I'm learning that even if you can't proclaim it a "Selah" year, sometimes you just need "Selah" moments in your days or weeks...a whisper in your heart "Selah" to take pause and see what God has done.

Selah. 

MEMORIES

It's funny, but most of my memories in life start when I was 5. I remember things from before that, but for the most part they are just blips in time, little memories here and there. Life however, for most of what I know started when I was 5.

 

Henry is quickly approaching this benchmark in his life, and I think about this often. These will be his memories, this is what he will think about when he's older reflecting on his childhood. I think about what he sees for the first time, who he is meeting, what we do. I think about the things I say to him, the time we spend together. I take these things to heart, the very idea of it gets me excited. It is easy to move through life and forget to take in all the beauty and wonder that God lays before us. We've been there done that, but for a child, there is so much to discover, there is reason to pause and take things in.

Here is what I like about memories, the joyful ones we look back on and they have the capability to bring up those same feelings, often times we try to forget the painful ones, but in them all we can look and see what God has done. We can see where God has delivered us from we can see moments in our lives where we may not have realized but God was moving, protecting, pouring his love over us.  

 

"When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, make sure you don’t forget how you got there—God brought you out of slavery in Egypt."(Deuteronomy 6:11,12)

 

I am grateful for the memories we get to create with our children, the moments in time he will get to look back on and hopefully with his own grateful heart, see that God was in those moments.

 

WE SURVIVED DISNEYLAND - DAY 1

So we took our first vacation as a family of 5! Before I overload you with pictures (that was your warning!), let me tell you...we are not fancy vacationing folk, we could not have pulled this amazing trip to SoCal and Disneyland, without being blessed by our family. I'm so grateful that we have family that opened their home to us, we are quickly growing as a family, but they let us crash in a spare room, fed us, let us use the showers first...you know...all the amazing stuff amazing host do! We also were blessed with tickets into the park by my cousin and as an extra bonus, my parents and my sister and her boys switched some plans around so they could join us too! Extra hands never hurt!

 

Now, I'd like to think that Steve and I could have handled the trip on our own, after all, we are two very responsible adults, raising the next generation of responsible peoples, but I'm grateful we didn't have to. If this could be a metaphor for life, Disneyland obviously being heaven, you can try to get their on your own, even after extensive planning, but every now and then you need a little help and a little good company on the way!  

 

So on with the show...and be warned, this is only our first day in Disneyland...it was pretty epic, because Henry is finally tall enough to ride most of the rides...for us it was the year of Star Wars, which meant riding star tours a gazillion times (only an estimate). We conquered the newly done Thunder Mountain, we survived the Jungle Cruise, tried our first Dole Whip and basically became like the Mayors of Toon Town when we avoided all the crowds there!

 

okay...now on with the show...

 

 

 

Oh...and no one got food poisoning!