"If you don't read the Word and memorize the Word and meditate on the Word daily and delight in the Word and savor it and have your mind and emotions shaped by the Word, you will be a weak Christian at best. You will be fragile and easily deceived and easily paralyzed by trouble and stuck in many mediocre ruts. But if you read the Word and memorize important parts of it and meditate on it and savor it and steep your mind in it, then you will be like a strong tree planted by streams of water that brings forth fruit. Your leaf won't wither in the drought and you will be productive in your life for Christ (see Psalm 1). Christian living means living on the written Word of God, the Bible. In true Christian living, our relation to the Word is intentional, not haphazard. It's active not passive. We pursue it and don't just wait for it to happen." - John Piper

^{psalm 1:2} But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
       and on his law he meditates day and night. 

O, how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! psalm 119:97, 103

this is something i've been thinking a lot about lately. even though i know all of this to be true, i often need to be reminded. it's easy to get caught up in the busyness of life - crossing things off the to-do list and running from place to place, without really meditating on God's Word daily.

book

David Platt has a burden—a burden to see believers in America acting like New Testament Christians. But for the most part, he says we're not. Instead, we are pursuing the "American dream" rather than Jesus. Jesus told his disciples not to lay up treasures on earth. They were to take up their crosses. They were to live for others. They were to be willing to die for others. But we live for ourselves. We live for security, for comfort, for ease, for entertainment, and for retirement.

i'm intrigued. 
just started reading this...
i'll share more soon.

check this out - what an amazing deal! if you're a runner, you really need one of these! i really can't imagine my life without one now. i think they are great to have for biking and walking too. a great christmas present idea!

latest

• hosting three leaders from honduras for the next 2 weeks at our house. we're so thankful for the space to be able to do it.
• bre qualified for the state gymnastics meet. she's so excited!
• our front door is getting close to being done. the frame is in, and we're almost finished staining. hope to have pictures soon.
• it has been such a beautiful october! we are really enjoying living by all the trees, especially with no raking!

i better get back to preparing for our guests.
hope you are having a great week!

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::gotta love race photos. i'm usually looking down, or look like i'm ready to keel over.

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sherri finished in 6:56!!
i waited for her to finish, so i could be there to capture the moment and congratulate her. it was pretty exciting! a year and a half ago, she had a hard time running even one mile.

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yesterday was a great day!
the weather was absolutely perfect for running. high's in the mid 60's, and low 40's for the start.

here's sherri and i at the start of the race. i wasn't quite awake, or that excited for my race. running 13.1 miles when you haven't trained much at all, just isn't that appealing. i was feeding off her excitement though, and i was just so happy for her and how hard she has worked this year to get to the starting line of a full marathon!

we took some pictures, and went our seperate ways at the starting line.

the 1/2 went pretty well for me, especially considering how unprepared i was. i did a lot of talking to myself throughout the race: "ok, wendy you can do this." and, i tried to distract myself by looking for runners ahead of me that i wanted to pass, that worked pretty well. at mile 11, the winner of the full marathon blew past me. he was amazing! that gave me the little boost i needed to get to the finish line. i kept thinking about how he had just run 25 miles in the time it took me to run 11. wow!

i ended up finishing in 2:18 - definitely not a p.r., but i enjoyed the race, and felt good about it.

next up: sherri's finish....

new recipe

trying this tonight, and i am hopeful. it was the perfect option for a busy night. let's hope it's worthy of making again sometime.

two more football games, and then we have a little break before basketball begins.

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::a quiet morning before the school day begins. i've been getting back into the habit of having everything set out the night before. everyone gets a checklist of what needs to be done for the day.

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::a peak at our new door. we'll be staining it this week, and hope to get it installed on saturday.

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::it's raining leaves here.

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it's race week! i am running the 1/2 on sunday. i had a training plan, but never really followed it.
moving on top of an already full life made it extra hard.

however, i'm still getting excited. the weather is going to be awesome...low 50's at the start. i plan to enjoy the day, and be thankful i am able to run.
oh, and i can't wait to see sherri finish! i'll be sure to take pictures.

saturday, we're having a family party for
my two oldest. bre wants a gymnastics cake. i'm going to try to replicate something kind of like this. bryce wants an ice cream cake, so that will be easy.

really hard to believe i'll have one in double digits.

cake idea found here.

another good read...

i loved this article.


How to Raise Boys Who Read
Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes
The Wall Street Journal

Education was once understood as training for freedom. Not merely the transmission of information, education entailed the formation of manners and taste. Aristotle thought we should be raised "so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education."

"Plato before him," writes C. S. Lewis, "had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful."

This kind of training goes against the grain, and who has time for that? How much easier to meet children where they are....

One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn't go very far.

a good read

i thought this was really interesting, and so true.

last week, i went to the grocery store and spent almost $200.
i felt sick to my stomach. so much money sucked out of our bank account. even with my menus carefully planned out, list in-hand, i still spent way more than i anticipated.

i know groceries are a necessity. it's not like i'm getting my nails done. we must have groceries. but still. i'm still spending too much.
driving home, i began to think how nice it would be if I could just take one week off from grocery shopping.

it's not like my cupboards are bare except for the things i'm putting in each week. they are still stocked with rice and beans and cans of soup and pastas and..... there are the odd cuts of meat in my freezer. i have flour. and sugar. and yeast. and butter.
it's just that i often ignore those things in my pantry for what i feel like making that week.
i'm not using what i have.
so my challenge: i'm not going to the grocery store next week (except for milk). i'm going to make do with what i have in my cupboards and freezer. i'm going to get creative. i'm going to do my best to put together some meals with what i have on hand. i'm going to save a little money this week.
sometimes my best meals are the ones created when i think "I have nothing to make for dinner".

anyone brave enough to join me?

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::the beginnings of a fun fort the kids are making.