Joy Leanne

I look around and the world feels like it is falling apart. There is evil every where. Paris is broken. Isis is powerful. There are refugees that no one knows what to do with. There is hate and racism and deep-seated distrust in our country. And that is just the world out there. At home it is my cousin's cancer. And the broken seatbelt in the back seat. Sales numbers that need to double and only nine selling days left. There are exhausted outbursts at the end of the school day. And home work that feels too hard. A toddler who won't give up her bottle. And a cavity in my back molar that irritates the corner of my brain more than my jaw. And if I can't do anything about the small things close to home, how can I even hope at having an impact on the world out side my front door? I drive down the highway flipping between bitter debate and saccharin music. So the radio goes off leaving me with my own thoughts. And my father's voice plays over and over shuffling between two th

I am a planner. It is in my nature. I have an unhealthy obsession with school supplies and get down right giddy about back to school shopping. Nothing makes me quite to happy as an empty notebook or blank planner pages. So much so that I collect them. My wildly disorganized office is full of stacks of notebooks and planners in use, discarded, or waiting for their time. I can schedule and map out action steps with the best of them. Making to do lists and figuring out what needs to be done to reach a goal are a piece of cake. But the best laid plans. You see there is a flaw in all my planning. Though I have been a mama for almost 8 years, almost with out exception, I make plans failing to take into consideration this crazy bed head and her two big sisters. Despite careful thought and planning I am rarely able to accomplish all I set out to do. With this toddler's big sisters starting school last week I set out to take steps to grow my blog, as well as submitted my application for the

Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. I don't have a well thought out, edited post for you all tonight. I have tried but my brain is just not working the way it needs to. I am lucky to be getting this up. Some days are about simply doing the next thing. The thing right in front of you. Doing the right thing because it's the right thing. Some times faith is big and bold. Some times it's folding the laundry and baking bread and sending an e-mail. And it's easy to get weary when the work is mundane. Some times doing good looks a lot less changing the world, and a lot more like changing my heart. And so you play JJ Heller music way louder than was ever intended and brew your third cup of tea and keep on keeping on till harvest time.

It was our last day of Summer together as a family. The girls started school Monday and since Josh doesn't get Saturdays off, Wednesday was our last day to do something fun. And so we did just that. We sat around in our pajamas till 11 and then got chicken nuggets for lunch and surprised the big girls with a trip to the movies-complete with a large soda and extra large popcorn. They loved every minute of it. Since we had a long promised sleep over scheduled for tonight we came home afterward to do some cleaning. The kids weren't too thrilled, but together the four of us managed to knock out basic cleaning in the basement, kitchen, and living room.   Dinner was prepped, the big girls were playing, and since Tacy was with my mother in law I was presented with a unicorn of a concept - free time! Yes there was more work that could be done (isn't that always true), but Josh suggested that enough is done for now and it would be a healthy thing to do something enjoyable fo

Abi at Kindergarten Open House 2013 First Day of Kindergarten and First Grade 2014 Today was back to school open house for my girls. They got to see their classrooms and meet their teachers for the first time. Josh and I got to fill out paper work and stand in lines to figure out bus schedules and when and where to get finger printed. (Two years in and I still haven't done this. Bad mom, I know.) Abi is thrilled and cannot wait while Maddie is in denial and walks around dejectedly stating loudly that she doesn't WANT to go back to school. And I am in the middle. I am ready for summer to be over. I am ready for routines and set bed times and wake up times. I am ready to know what we are doing every day, rather than trying to concoct a plan exciting enough to entertain a 6 year old at the drop of a hat. Selfishly I am even looking to have some down time with Josh on his days off and going back to our favorite walking path as soon as the weather cools off a bit. I am not ready

      I have three amazing little girls. Each one a unique individual in their own right.    My oldest developed speech early or so I am told. She had complete sentances by a year and would follow my younger brother around the house demanding that her "Unce Etcher" give her a "cacker" By three she had a vocabulary that more often than not left me shaking my head.   "Mother, there is a situation with Madeline and the body lotion." A situation? Seriously? The kid had emptied an entire tube of Bath and Body Works body cream into her head.   My middle one was a little slower, though pretty standard when it come to speech. Her first sentence was "I la oo" on Christmas day at 18 months. Once she picked up on the whole talking thing she loved it. Thought we could only understand about 1/3 of what she said until she was nearly 4 that didn't stop her from a steady stream of communication. I once tried to count how many questions she could string of i

I heard a sermon once on mountains and valleys in our spiritual journey. It was a great lesson and has stuck with me over the years. The pastor talked about our spiritual journey and the highs and lows and the contrast and importance of both. Mountain top experiences are important in our walk with God. There are a number of stories in the Bible recounting God meeting with and speak to people on the top of mountains. We all want those experiences. Conference, summer camps, sermons, and personal devotions. Seasons where God is so close we feel as though we could physically touch Him. Those moments when we know He is speaking to us with startling clarity. In contrast valley's aren't as popular. When we think of the word valley in the Bible I think it's safe to say many of us jump strait to Psalms 23. Valley's are the low places in our journey. It's where we encounter pain and doubt and questioning. The speaker pointed something out that we often over look the fact that

Years ago my dad started a tradition. Whenever one of his children gets married he writes two letter. One for his child and one for their spouse to be opened on their wedding day. Being the fourth to get married I knew these letters were coming and looked forward to reading them. Though my father wrote about many things in those letters, there was a common theme in both that has stuck with my husband and I through nine years or marriage. Dad wrote about cultivating a home that was focused on people. As he put it "We chose to clutter our life with people not things." In that one sentence he summarized a family culture I knew, but never knew how to articulate. Josh and I have tried to make this a motto in our own home, though often it isn't always as easy as I wish it was. In many ways I am a perfect storm when it comes to the need and desire for community. I truly believe that God places in his church a call to walk to through life with others. I think this is especially s

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with a group of local creatives and just enjoy each other's company. We shared our stories, our backgrounds, our business and creative struggles and our hopes for the future. I normally love these meetings, but for whatever reason my heart just wasn't in this one. My brain jumped from thought to thought, not entirely sure why I was there or even if I fit with this group I normally love. And then my attention was caught by the story one woman told. She is a women I admire and respect personally, creatively, and spiritually. I have never heard an unkind word from her. She is unfailing positive and kind, always encouraging, always offering a smile. She is one of the most welcoming women I know. Any one who meets her at the shop she works in, or a show where she is selling her beautiful work, walks away feeling like they have bee seen, like they matter. She was telling her story about how she got to what she was doing now and how she has a

We are a few weeks into break and we have been summering hard. It's been a crazy week full of spontaneous activities and reworking plans. Nothing has been set in stone and we have been successfully embracing the spontaneous (not always my strong suite). I have been having a lot of fun using my nice camera and I can't wait to show you all those photos. But until then here are a few of my favorite Instagram photos of our summer so far. Happy mail coming and going. Lots of time at the sewing machine.  Legos, legos, and more legos Reading for hours on end. Lots and lots of time at the pool.

I was cooking dinner with a dozen different, semi-related, thoughts running through my head. I stood over the stove, fork in hand, turning bacon and trying not to get grease all over everything. My thoughts felt scattered and disconnected. Over and over I went back to the story of Jesus telling the disciple to throw their nets over the side of the boat. I am horrible at remembering details so as the bacon drained I pulled up Bible Gate way to search for the story. Turns out there are two similar stories recounting two separate events. The first one is Luke 5. After fishing all night Simon is told to go put his nets into the deep water. Despite having nothing to show for a long nights work, Simon did as he was told and ended up with so many fish he had to call for help pulling them in. The second story takes place after Jesus is resurrected. After all the miracles and amazing things they saw at his side, Christ's disciples have gone back to fishing. Again they have caught nothing wh

It has been pretty quite on here. Not unusual I know. But it seems like a very long time since I have been here. Five months to be exact. It doesn't feel quite that long, but dates don't lie. The last time I shared here we hadn't even had snow yet. And now we are in the middle of a heat wave. We have already hit 90 a few times this spring and we are due for a few more 90 degree days in the next week. When I sat down at the start of the year one of my few goals was to write more. Granted this is always a goal of mine but I had a slightly more concrete goals this time. Write a rough draft in 2015 and grow readership here so when I finally go to a publisher I have a decent size platform to present.  (You can read about my 2015 goals here .) Best laid plans and all that. There are a lot of reasons it has been silent here. * In February and even a bit of March we had a number of heavy snows that kept my kids out of school for nearly three weeks. Not a whole lot gets done when yo

I only have  short window of time while dinner cooks and the kids watch Hercules, but I felt the need to write a bit more after Tuesday's post. Like I said in my last post I am slowly finding a balance between serving in my local church where I see a need, and finding other ways to use my gifts and talents to minister to others. Obviously serving looks different for every one depending on their church, their gifts, their talents and their life phase. But I thought that maybe it would help to see what that looks like for me right now. Aside from serving in our church nursery and, of course, taking care of and ministering to the members of my family these are a few ways I have found to serve God, bless others, and worship Him with my life. I have taken countless spiritual gift tests over the years and the outcome varies. I do believe that, in part, God equips us for a task at hand. But, I also think many just have a God given bent toward certain things. While I have had a number of

I have been having an ongoing dialog/struggle with myself for the past few years. Mostly it takes place in my head or journal. Occasionally it will spill out and I will include my husband in the conversation. But lately I have gotten just a teeny tiny bit braver and started to share bits and pieces of this conversation with other women. And I realized is that I'm not alone. In fact, I think a LOT of women are probably having this same conflict with in themselves. But it's not an open conversation yet. It's shared in whispers in the hall, quite sighs in our living rooms and guilt ridden confessions over text messages. More and more I am hearing women cautiously admit that they don't feel like there is a place for them to use their spiritual gifts in their local church. It's an awkward position to be in. It can happen for a number of reasons... *Really big churches where there are so many people that it can be very difficult to really plug into active ministry. *Small

Well with out meaning to I seem to have taken a three month (!) break from blogging. It definitely wasn't intentional, but it was very much needed. 2014 was a crazy up and down year and the last two and a half months of it were a crazy whirlwind of busyness and processing. It may not have been a "quiet" season but it was good to take time to think through things on a more personal level and not share every thought that came into my head. (I have always had a habit of oversharing). We are now two weeks into 2015 and while dealing with a crazy case of cellulitis in my ear I was able to do some thinking and reflecting. God and I have been talking a lot about what the future looks like for me and while I still have some things up in the air I feel like for the first time in  long time I have a little more direction and focus. I have always struggled with a bit of creative ADD and have a habit of picking up every new craft trend that crosses my path. There is something in me t