Tunes Thursday :: One Silent Night

I meant to share this song on Tuesday but the day kinda slipped away from me, and then yesterday too, so here it is today. 

It's one of my favourite Christmas songs, I love how it just feels so quiet and still, I can totally see the story happening. The song is so simple, so sweet, and has several lines that make you stop to think about them again. 

It helps me to feel quiet and still before the LORD, to think about how 'heaven came down and changed everything', and how there was 'no one to kneel, and no one to sing'.  

FFH - One Silent Night

Quiet and still was the whole world that night
The stars and the land and the sea
All were enjoying the quiet moonlight
Spinning so effortlessly
And the wind blew tender and sweet
Through the manger stall
Over one new tiny heartbeat
That would save us all
One silent night, one holy night
When all was calm, when all was bright
With no one to kneel, and no one to sing
Heaven came down and changed everything
Let all the earth receive her King
His mother there holding Him close to her chest
Rocking the Savior to sleep
Sleep, baby Jesus, You need all the rest
You can get, there are people in need
For a moment Heaven stood still
As the midnight watch was kept
As on that Bethlehem hill
The savior slept
One silent night, one holy night
When all was calm, when all was bright
With no one to kneel, and no one to sing
Heaven came down and changed everything
Let all the earth receive her King
One silent night, one holy night
(Oh, come let us adore Him)
When all was calm, when all was bright
(Oh, come let us adore Him)
With no one to kneel, and no one to sing
Heaven came down and changed everything
Let all the earth receive her King
Oh, come let us adore Him
Oh, come let us adore Him
Come let us adore Him
Oh, come let us adore Him
Come let us adore Him
(Silent night, holy night)
Oh, come let us adore Him
(Silent night, holy night)

May you be blessed today and during this advent season, this time of preparing our hearts to receive the King who has come for us. May we not be too busy with all of the things to do and miss what is really important. 

Anyone else have any favourite Christmas songs? Please let me know, I'd love to check them out! {I loooove Christmas music!}

blessings,

love Emma

31 Days :: {20} :: the root of celebration

Hey there friends! thanks for stopping by! You've found us at Day 20 of my 31 Days series on Celebrating Life. If you'd like to see all the other posts so far, you'll find the introduction here {includes post-list at the bottom} or the posts all here :) 

I will admit, that while this topic is certainly something that I feel passionately about, and try oh so very hard to practice, the first half of the month, I really struggled. I felt kinda fake about this. And it super-bothered me especially because I'm trying to write about it and felt kind of hypocritical.

I considered that maybe trying to write about it every day was the problem, but nooo, it wasn't. It was my reasons and my priorities. 

Even doing something right for the wrong reason turns it into something wrong. When I started this I was all gung-ho to learn lots and glorify God, but as I went along it kinda turned into something else. 

This is supposed to be a follow-after of what God is teaching me. A way to process and keep learning. But when you start to make this more important {of course, I would never say that but my actions showed otherwise} than Bible reading and prayer and learning from God? Well then it becomes words of my own mouth, not real and empty. That's what happened. 

And then on the 16th, I realized, my goal here - why I'm even celebrating life at all - is to seek and glorify God. I touched on this a little bit yesterday, talking about how to celebrate and enjoy life is a way of thanking and honouring God, and it's so true. 

He gave us this glorious gift, and the best way to say thank-you to Him is to use it so fully. If you gave your friend a dee-licious cake, and they said thank-you, maybe even wrote you a nice little card, that would be nice, wouldn't it? But would you still think they were thankful for it if they just set it on a shelf in their kitchen and didn't eat it? Would you really believe they were thankful for it? I wouldn't! 

But if they ate it up, maybe all in one sitting, maybe asked for the recipe, gave me back an empty pan, then yes, I would know they were thankful for it, and that they enjoyed it. The same is true of our Father in heaven. He gives us this gift of life, and all the little gifts within that. When we walk right by them, when we don't eat them up, bask in the luscious warmth of the sunshine, does that show Him we are thankful for them or not?  

But when we taste the flavour of the food, when we inhale the scent of the woods, and notice it, when we pause in the middle of the street because something is so beautiful, when we dance because music makes us need to move - then we are saying 'THANK-YOU GOD', with our lives!

The other reason we celebrate life, the gift from God, is to seek to know Him more. I love love love how Caroline put it. {<please go read her whole post!! :)}

"Look for the gifts and truly see them, and you’ll better see the Giver."

Amen!! This, this is what I need! I look for the gifts, so that I can see the Giver better. Last fall what God placed upon me to learn deeply was contentment, this fall I'm learning to seek Him first. {Matthew 6:33}

And the last thing, something very important to remember, is that we cannot do this all on our own. We need to take the initiative to do this celebrating and thanking, but if we try to do it on our own strength, we will fail. We will become weary and we will give up. But through the power of Jesus, we can indeed do this through Him! So make sure you're doing this with Him. :)
  

"Each one of our lives is shot through, threaded in and out with God's provision, his grace, his protection, but on the average day, we notice it about as much as we really notice gravity or the hole in the ozone. So what I'm trying to do is learn to see the way Sister Carmen sees. Because once you start seeing the faithfulness and the hope, you see it everywhere, like pennies. And little by little, here and there, you realize that all of life is littered with bright copper coins, that all of life is woven with bits and stories of God's goodness." ~Shaua Niequist, Cold Tangerines (pennies)

Don't celebrate for the wrong reason - do it to thank God for this beautiful gift of today!


On another note, my grandfather's surgery was postponed from today to next Thursday... and my great-grandmother is very weak, still in the hospital, but holding on... prayers are appreciated!


blessings friends!
love Emma

linking up with Chantel and Elizabeth :)

31 Days :: {16} :: intention, part 2

Hey there friends! thanks for stopping by! You've found us at Day 16 of my 31 Days series on Celebrating Life. If you'd like to see all the other posts so far, you'll find the introduction here {includes post-list at the bottom} or the posts all here :) 

On Thursday I told y'all a story. Yesterday, I started talking about one of the things that I've been learning because of it. Today, I'm gonna keep on with that thing - intention.  

 The hardest part that I have found is starting. It takes slowing down and pausing. But if you have been coasting along, through habits, perhaps aimlessly, maybe at a high speed, how do you even remember to slow down and pause? For me, that often means setting alarms just to pause, and give thanks. Or maybe do something special, something like taking the time to play a game, or taking kids to the park, or having a little 1 or 2 song dance party, or anything that means you're not on auto-pilot anymore.

And I hope what you'll find - I know what I've found - is that the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Is it an oxymoron to say that living with intention can be a habit? Because I think, maybe it can. 

One of the benefits of intentional living are things like feeling more satisfied with your life: instead of getting to the end of the day and wondering what you even did and if there was a point, you can know that you took the time to do things on purpose, which means there was a point.

And once again, I'm going to say the same thing... come back on Monday and we're going to continue with intention. Maybe we'll even make a week of it? ;)

So today, do at least one thing with intention?

blessings,
emma  

linking up with Chantel and Elizabeth :)

31 Days :: {10} :: sleeping in

Happy {Canadian} Thanksgiving! thanks for stopping by! You've found us at Day 10 of my 31 Days series on Celebrating Life. If you'd like to see all the other posts so far, you'll find the introduction here {includes post-list at the bottom} or the posts all here :)


Sometimes, it's important to celebrate the things you didn't intend to have or do. For example, I didn't intend to sleep in yesterday. It resulted in my not being able to do all the things I wanted to do before work yesterday {including a blog post}, and I could have chosen to be frustrated. Also: I hate the feeling sleeping in gives me. :P But instead, I chose to celebrate it and enjoy the extra rest, my comfy bed, and the great dream I had {which of course I cannot for the life of me remember now lol!}.

Unexpected and unplanned things can be beautiful if we choose to see them that way. I know that I for one tend to become frustrated when things don't go as planned, but I am trying to learn to embrace the way life flows, and celebrate things I didn't intend to happen. It's a discipline that takes lots of practice. 

So sleeping in gave me more practice, something extra to write about this weekend, and did I mention my bed is so warm and comfy and cozy? ;)

what unexpected things have you celebrated lately?

blessings,
love emma


linking up with Chantel and Elizabeth :)

Today...

...Today, I am enjoying 

the colours beginning to change, 

the bright sunshine coming through my windows,

that my school stuff for this year is not finalized so I don't have much of that to do at this point,

cleaning the kitchen, 

taking the little girls to the park,

don't forget to enjoy the moments, doing whatever you are doing today. each moment, the present, right now, is a sacred holy gift from God. 

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." ~ Colossians 3:17

love emma xoxo

Blue Sky & the Clouds

This morning I went to sit on the porch for my morning time with God, as I often do. When I went out there today, the sky was dark and heavy with clouds, the wind was raging, and trees were shaking from the wind. There was a little patch of thinner cloud down by the horizon to the east, and I could see a little hint of the forgotten sun.

It was chilly. I wrapped my blanket tightly around my legs, and tried to wrap both my hands around my tea mug :) I spent a beautiful time with the LORD this morning, reading from Psalms, Zechariah, and Colossians. I prayed for many things, including an MAF family who I met yesterday.

do you know how hard it was to keep the pages from blowing lol?

 And when I finished, I continued to sit out there, looking around me. And what I saw, was behind me, there was a little patch of blue sky, and as I watched, the wind pushed the clouds, and the blue sky expanded. The wind pushed those dark clouds right out of my view, until all I could see was a brilliant bright blue sky, with a few light fluffy clouds illuminated gold by the sunrise.

And it made me think. It made me think of days where I am all overcast. When my temper is short, my brainspace is cloudy, and I am not doing well. And then, sometimes, even through all that, I can hear the LORD telling me to come to Him. To lay it all at His feet and let Him blow the clouds away. Sometimes I listen.

And when I do? It starts with prayer, maybe a little Bible reading. A little blue sky creeps out. Turning my thoughts away from myself. Those heavy clouds start to shift a little more. Giving thanks and praising the LORD. Those clouds are running for dear life as the blue sky chases them away to take over. And suddenly, look at where we are compared to where we were before.

It continues to blow my mind, how God can turn a day around.

If you're having one of those days, turn to Him, trust Him. If you let Him, He will bring out that blue sky ~ just for you!

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
    extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
Psalm 68:4

blessings, friends!
love Emma

on a slightly ironic note, now that I'm finished this post, I looked out the window, and what do ya know? clouds again. with a little patch o' blue sky in the corner, slowly growing. some days are a battle, and those clouds will just keep coming, but don't let them stay there!

 Linking up with Elizabeth and Chantel

Tunes Thursday {lol} :: holy

We got back from a little trip to MacGregor Point/Port Elgin late Tuesday night, and there was no time whatsoever to write a post. Now we are in the throes of canning peaches for the rest of the week, on top of usual things. So here is my quick post for the week.. :)

me and my girlies with the sunset over Lake Huron :)

As I mentioned here, I tend to listen to a lot of an artist or two for a long time, then switch it up. So today's Tunes post is Addison Road again.

Addison Road - What Do I Know of Holy

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

[CHORUS]
So What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
So What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

[CHORUS]
So What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
So What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

[CHORUS 2]
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life it's name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

[CHORUS]
So What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?  

Take some time today and ponder the completely awe-inspiring holiness of God today. Just sit and feel the power of His presence. If you're having trouble, ask Him to help you keep your eyes focused on Him, ask Him to show Himself to you. 

Let us never forget the perfect holiness of God. It truly could change the way we do everything! 

Blessings,

Emma

Linking up with Elizabeth & Chantel :)

Tunes Tuesday :: the constant :: late edition

 I was working on this post Monday and yesterday, but of course I was interrupted several times and didn't manage to post it. So here it is late :) {better late than never, right? ;)}

For me, as you may be able to tell by the number of posts which include music on this blog, including this post, music is very important in my life. It is very powerful, and for me, it has the power to work with the Holy Spirit to transform my day, or my outlook on a situation. While I do love a little bit of my country music, I listen mostly to Christian music because I know the impact music has on my life.

So my goal here, is to share a song and why it's special to me, every Tuesday :)

This week, it's I See You by Love and the Outcome {yes, this album is still playing frequently! ;)}

 I see You, yeah

I've seen the view up on a mountain
Where trouble seems a million miles away
And I know the lonely of the valley
When sorrow is close enough to taste

I've had my share of suffering
I know the pain that life can bring
I've gone through some things
I may never understand (never understand)
But You've been good when life was not
Through battles won and battles lost
And when I look back
On everything I've been through
I see You (I see You)

I know that all things work together
For those of us who choose to call Him God
He might use calm, He might use chaos
He'll use whatever leads us to the cross

I've had my share of suffering
I know the pain that life can bring
I've gone through some things
I may never understand (never understand)
But You've been good when life was not
Through battles won and battles lost
And when I look back
On everything I've been through
I see You (I see You)

So now when heartache comes around
Surrounds me like a cloud
I know, I know You're standing next to me right here
I'm gonna hold Your hand right where I am
Yeah, yeah, yeah

I've had my share of suffering
I know the pain that life can bring
I've gone through some things
I may never understand (never understand)
But You've been good when life was not
Through battles won and battles lost
And when I look back
On everything I've been through
I see You
Standing next to me (I see You)
Standing next to me (I see You)
I see You

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been in a reminiscent sort of mood. And as I look back on my {albeit short}life, I can see that there is one thing that is the same all throughout. God. Sometimes when you're in the middle of life, in the moment it's hard to feel God's presence with you. I know this to be true! But when I look back, without a doubt, I can see God. That He has been with me, I have no doubt.

I'm not talking about how I can see Him working at weaving my story {although I can. mostly. there are still a few things... :P}, I am talking about the fact that His presence is the greatest most amazing thing I can have, and I have had it with me my whole life. I am talking about the fact that He is with me whether or not I feel it - which is hard to grasp sometimes, in my heart and mind.

And because He is God, He is also with each and every one of us. He has been with you throughout your whole life and is with you now, whether or not you see it. I challenge you to take some time, and ponder, reminisce, and see how the LORD has been with you. If you can see Him, thank Him. If you can't - take some time to pray, ask Him to show you, and He will. It's not always easy, but He will come through!

blessings on your day!!
love emma

Linking up with Chantel over at A Harvest of Blessing :)

Morning Prayer

Bless this day, LORD. Help me to do what You will. Give me strength and patience and endurance. Open my eyes to the many many blessings that surround me; may I be a blessing to others, too. Let me feel your presence close today, God. All we ever have is now; help me to ever be present in this moment. LORD, you are awe-inspiring, and I praise you! Amen!

take a moment this morning, before you jump into the endless rushing, pause, be still, and talk to God. let His presence surround you, feel it.

blessings on your day!! :)

Soak it In

I was listening to this song the other night as I was washing the dishes, and even though I have heard it many many times before, God kind of used it to speak to me again, so I wanted to share it with you.

I was just beginning to make this post and I realized that this is very much connected to Cassidy's last post 'Slow Down'. These days DO go by and they are gone before we know it. So let's take the time to slow down, soak it in, and thank God.

Psalm 118:24
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Washing dishes is not something that I particularly dislike but nor is it something that I would choose to do for fun, but why I am I going to grumble about doing it and waste the time? I can NEVER get that time back.

And like it says in the song, 'like a September morning, like snow without a warning, like how the summer feels upon your skin'; I don't know about you but for me it is often very easy to take all those things for granted. 

I decided to enjoy the feel of the nice hot water on my hands. Today I challenge you to find 5 things that you are taking for granted and enjoy them!

God be with you!
Emma