Lunar Phases (A Less Serious Lesson)

~ I am taking off for warmer weather and coastal air. For the first in my life I am leaving all my babies and husband behind... for a whole week! I will be spending my moments with some of my favorite west-coasters. Our school room has been in a flurry of extra projects and pages and a few fun tastes, in preparation for taking a week away from structured learning. This moon-phase project was a winner with my students! They all know the Lunar phases and the Latin terms most accurately now, along with the lesser known  vocabulary for the moon cycle using highly intelligent terms such as quarter oreo, or gibbous chocolate! We were driving as a family a few evenings ago and our six year old started explaining in 'cookie' terms exactly what stage the evenings moon was in, my poor engineer husband, he did not know quite how to handle the moment, wondering what exactly goes on in our gabled school-room all day! My somewhat hesitant reply was, 'We were having fun!' ~

Gentle Whisper

~

And so it starts, everything afresh, lively with the hope of newness.

In the waking days of last year, the Lord sweetly gave me a word, a song to hold on to,

Immanuel,

and the whole of last was held fast in the simple truth

God is with us.

For every month had a new sadness, loss, more ache, and this girl's heart can turn away from the pain. Immanuel steadied me with comfort. When last year's days ebbed away like the frail light of winter, I tuned my heart to hear, listen for His voice. And it came, it came like it's promise,

Soft and Gentle the whispers of Divinity

1 Kings 19

the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.

Is that not what I have sought all this year...

A God who whispers

with nature

tears slipping way

at the emptiness of graves

in adoption

and the other soul, a sibling of our own sweet youngest, lost in abortion

My years earthquakes and the wind that has howled around my heart.

Yet my holdfast whisper for this new year is not a God who is in destruction, but a God who comes and

whispers gentleness.

~