Valleys and Broken Hearts

I feel compelled this morning to express how great my God is. I am calling Him Almighty today. Because I am little and weak and He is strong. For a couple of years I have been walking in this valley..well, sometimes it wasn't walking. Sometimes it was a crawl. Sometimes it was a roll in the fetal position. Sometimes it was a screaming , stomp with fist raised against the One Who loves me. Many times I have forgotten He was here.
The valley mostly consisted of me learning to live above circumstance. Because really it doesn't matter what is in the valley or how you get there. It is just about living in His joy while you are there. I belong to Him and this is where I am. He is here too and He sees all I do and has experienced the pain of being human. I am done raging against the circumstance and ready to be open to what He has in each day. I fully understand this valley may go on for several more miles and that I won't "feel" so surrounded by Him each day because I will forget I am not alone. It won't be because Almighty has gone but because I took my eyes away from Him to look at circumstance.
Almighty broke my heart in this valley so that He could make me who I need to be for Him. I had to see that there is no me without Him and that what He wants me to be is better than anything I could create.
Probably most of this sounds esoteric to anyone who has not yet been in the valley with Him but I needed to say it. For Almighty. As a praise for Who He is. And I don't think rocks would sound as good saying it as I do. Love You Almighty ...You really are everything.

Long Time No See

Now that the holidays are over and life is returning to the day to day grind, I feel the need to update this sadly neglected blog. For the two of you who follow the happenings in the Handbasket I am sorry to have been so neglegent. Sometimes I just can't seem to put it in words. Sometimes I think I just can't tell people that. Sometimes it just seems so much everyday happenings that I wonder why would you want to read about it. The first picture is a hat I knitted for Brittney and Kelly's new baby due in May. I am kind of crazy about cables since recently learning how simple they were.

The pictures are representative of what I have been busy with. Janna and Morgan like the fingerless gloves. They are nearly as difficult as they first appeared.

I like doing things like this for these girls because they do more for me than I can ever thank them for.

Random Life

It is the pictures taken of daily life that seem to mean so much later on. When you can look back and "remember when" with your family and friends. Pictures act as milestones in life to mark the passage of time and declare growth. It is too bad that they seldom catch the essence of the moment because only human memory can know what that moment caught in digital form or on film meant to the one who was there. It will never look the same in that picture as it looked to your eye.

Birthday Weekend

Morgan participated in the 2009 Missouri Archery Association Outdoor Adult and JOAD Championship tournament on August 22. She competed in the Junior Girls division.

The targets for this competition were set at 50, 40 30 & 25 yards.

Morgan won first place in her division, Junior Girls Recurve. She set a new state record in this division. She will have her name added to a plaque as the best female Junior Girls Recurve archer for 2009.

On Sunday Morgan celebrated her birthday with her family at home. We all enjoyed her chocolate chip yellow cake with chocolate fudge icing. Unfortunately she had to bake it herself. Luckily for the rest of us because she is a wonder in the kitchen.

Don lighting the candles of Morgan's sixteenth birthday cake. Please ignore the obviously incorrect date at the bottom of the birthday pictures.