My Garden: A Short Photo Essay

Posted September 27th, 2009 by Jen in family life, the ranch
4 Comments »

Our garden brought a smile to my face all summer long.

Funny carrot shapes.

Edible toys (a pea pod turned helicopter).

A great job for a child.

The joy of finding the first fruit.

Best of all, food for the table.

You may also enjoy these past posts from Diary of 1:
Gardening With Children
Fun With Seeds and Seedlings

Technorati Tags: Central Oregon, gardening, gardening with children, nature study, outdoor activities

It’s been a long month

Posted September 25th, 2009 by Jen in education, family life, features, religion
6 Comments »

I see it’s been exactly a month since I posted here. I look forward to October and a time when September will be but a memory. This past month has been long and arduous, painful and exhausting. Sleepless nights, numbing days, and the kind of stress that makes one physically ill.

It’s been a month of classic “what not to do” trials as I have undertaken starting a new Christian school. I will not post any advice here except to say that you should begin with a rock-solid vision that you don’t compromise on. There are lots of great visions out there, but you have one unique to what it is that you want to accomplish, so stick with it.

It would also be a great benefit to have a mentor who has gone before you to help in navigating the known and unknown. How I wish I had had this person at the beginning of this venture. I have her now, and she has been incredibly valuable. A former administrator with a great deal of experience and expertise in education, she brings a lot to the table.

Imagine that the tablecloth had just been jerked out from under an apparently lovely meal, and food went flying and every dish was broken. This mentor came and swept up the mess, repaired the dishes as best she could, pointed out that the food wasn’t that great to begin with and not really food I even liked, and set about restoring order to the kitchen. I was handed a classic cookbook and began, with her practiced oversight, to prepare a simple meal of all my favorites. I learned, among other things, to not order caviar when what you can afford is rice and beans. Like I said, she brings a lot to the table.

Above all, God has been meeting me in this place. A dear friend sent me the following passages from 1st and 2nd Corinthians to encourage me in the midst of my trials:

1 Corinthians 4:11-14 (New American Standard Bible)

11To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless;

12and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure;

13when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12

7But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;

8we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;

9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

10always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

11For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

12So death works in us, but life in you.

I am so grateful for my friends who have called and said, “For some reason, you’ve been on my mind and I’ve been praying for you,” and for those who have helped out in some other very tangible ways. I am walking in that perplexing truth that when we are weak, He is strong.