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michellekrol

December 27, 2016 134 Views 0 Comment

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  • I needed a joy infusion, a remedy for these emotional heart contusions. Searching in the holy waiting, looking upward toward the heavens, seeking the kind treasures abundantly offered in this season. I can’t seem to find them. Why?. + I return to the usual places where I have come across the gold, frankincense, and myrrh before. I say no to say yes. I create with my hands to bring life to my heart. The glimmer of hope appears. + Rolling about in the waves, lungs filling with water, can make us forget how to come up for air. Sometimes we turn to the ones we feel are safe, and we find more water when we desperately need air. Add the expectations of the season and we lose the horizon. We lose sight of our Bethlehem star. + Keep searching the skies, hands and heart open. Find the pockets of air. Return to what you know breathes life into you. + simple traditions. + time with family, no expectations. + children singing, laughing, playing sweet Christmas songs. + prayer in hopeful anticipation. + calm, quiet, less hustle, more holy. + hold space for one life-giving thing every day. + Fill your lungs with the divine air. To adore Him, we must first behold Him—Christ, our Lord. ✨ #joyfulanticipation #holywaiting #advent #hopewriters #boymom #celebrateboyhood #raisegentlemen
  • Saying wisdom comes with age is naive, saying it comes with experience is incomplete. + Wisdom is a posture of the heart. Understanding the brevity of this life. Acknowledging our true self—faults and all. + Some of the youngest, most innocent souls have taught me the most about life. While some have lived an entire lifetime unable to see who they truly are. + I have watched adults traverse the hardest of things and come out unchanged by what was intended to change them. I have walked with children through the hardest of things and witnessed a clarity of life so profoundly beautiful. + The ability to speak to a felt need or pain that impacts more than just ourselves comes from our openness to it. Where we are in the journey isn’t as important as what we see while we are within it. + Use the wise heart you have gained to help others when you know you are ready, don’t wait for permission. God has already granted it to you.+ #amwriting #hopewriters #writenow #raisinggentlemen #boymom #momofboys #wisdom #numberourdays #eyesopen
  • this is Christmas magic.✨ #fullheart #brotherskeeper #howwerise #boymom #momofboys #brothers #allboys #raisinggentlemen #upstairstree
  • I don’t know exactly what you brought into this gorgeously tough thing called motherhood—expectations, scars, promise, hope, dreams—possibly all of these and a few more. + I am not certain what has you up at night while everyone else sleeps peacefully—you the night shift keeper. Planning, plotting, making things happen because it is what you do, how you show your love for your people. + I have an idea of what haunts you, it haunts me too if we are being brave and looking it in the face. We wonder if it all will work out in the end, if they will be who we have taught, disciplined, prayed, believed for them to be—if we will all still be standing when all is said and done. + My God, you have given us a good life, we wouldn’t trade it even with all of exhausting and unexpected and hard things. For it is making us who we are as it is making them. + As Bethlehem draws near, the weight of the to-dos seems to grow each day, along with the noise—not the beautiful music but the voices belonging to ghosts of Christmas past—failures, worries, anxiety, fear. How to make it all happen. This time of knowing to scale back and slow down and still finding ourselves scattered and swirling about. + And still we pause time and a photo holds our breath, could it be this is the life we didn’t know to imagine all along? Do you see it? In all of its glory? Hands marred from the battle and heart worn but beating? + It is this laid out right before you. Before me. Everything we brought in to it and everything we’ve held within it, it’s all here. We don’t allow it to shame us or overtake us or confuse us. We use it to see what we only can now, at this moment. Because of what we know and how we have grown. + We look at our people. We let the photo catch our breath, the song tug at our heart, the lights brighten our eyes. We treat ourselves kindly. We rest in beautiful grace...All is calm, all is bright... Sleep in heavenly peace, may you sleep in heavenly peace. #motherhood #boymom #momofboys #momsofinstagram #bethlehem #christmas #silentnight #amwriting #hopewriters #raisinggentlemen #motherhoodrising #treefarm
  • I’ve walked with Him out into the wilderness before—tugging on His hand like a child who leaves a party early. Looking around wondering, why does everyone get to stay? + There’s something out here He needs me to see, to receive. I can only do so in the quiet, in the silence. Expectations I have been carrying must be shed, opinions of others released. A focus less on self—exterior, worth, motivation out in this fallow land it carries no weight. It’s just Him. And me. He has something for me. + This field in the wilderness has been left without crops, a season without harvest, intentionally planned. Allowing the land to rest, recover its fertility, to rebalance, replenish, and to fight the forces that threaten to erode it. + Fallow, barren, unseeded, this practice from ancient times led to abundance and health. No quick fix, no way but through the darkness, the scarcity, the unknown, the barren and parched. I am reminded He planned it this way, intentional with purpose, just me, God, and the wilderness. Oh, lead me Holy Ghost. + #preachingtomyself #wilderness #fallow #rest #abundance #replenish #restore #hardwork #goodwork #harvest #amwriting #hopewriters #letitsnow #intentional #trust #holyghost #celebrateboyhood #raisegentlemen #mercyme
  • This crew. We had five parent/teacher conferences in one day. (Teachers I see you.) Every year while they do great academically, my hope is their teachers get to know who they are—see them as a whole person. The older we get and the older they get, I realize how the answers to the questions on how they treat others, their emotional iq, their grit and choices are even more significant. This is what we treasure. + They all led their conferences this year and my younger four had to fill out answers on a scale, if they are accountable, how well they work with others, if they respect their teachers and classroom and while they gave themselves the highest score for most, they responded honestly to the areas they struggle with—that’s the gold. In this world of inflated egos and untouchable demeanors, we are raising boys who can look at themselves honestly, it starts now when they are young. + Friends, the older they get their achievements can be less noticeable and less celebrated, sometimes when the firsts have long passed. In the flurry of sports, music lessons, homework, parties, games, it is so good to be still for twenty minutes and listen, to celebrate not only their achievements and hard work, but who they are becoming. 💙💙💙💙💙 #celebratingboyhood #raisinggentlemen #boymom #momofboys #quadruplets #brothers #bigbrother
  • Happy Friday! My first introduction from a bathroom ha! But this wallpaper! 😍 The fun damask pattern with fire hydrants and parking meters was too cute not to snap a picture. The perfect little quirky touch to this gem in Geneva that’s been on our list to stop into. We love our bookstores, and Harvey’s Tales is a new favorite. The bookcase under the stairs reminds us of Harry Potter of course and my boys loved exploring all the sweet nooks. The owner talked with them so kindly and told my little architect that her son designed the place, he mulled over that the whole way home. ❤️ + Being fall and talking about books reminds me of The Little Shop Around the Corner in one of my favorites, you know the one 💻📬🦊📚 + I recently saw A Star is Born and it was so sadly beautiful. If you haven’t seen it GO! If you are a creative, a dreamer, it will resonate so much. I love the soundtrack too. + Last night we had our first date night in forever at a Rend Collective concert and it was incredible! My Irish heart was smiling. The Christian Mumford & Sons (their humble joke), if you haven’t listened to them you need to they are full of joy. If I could hang out with them every week my perspective would shift. Riding the fumes of that concert for as long as I can. + Growing up I attended so many amazing concerts from Moody Blues to the Jackson 5 to Depeche Mode, U2, and Pearl Jam. I won tickets off a local radio show to fly to The University of Colorado to meet Bush and attend that concert. I always found my way to mosh pits and music has always been that soundtrack to my life —it moves me greatly. Now I am a Christian band groupie and proud of it.😉 Music fills up what I pour out in words. + I listened to Annie Down’s Remember God this week on hoopla (do you know about hoopla?) and I don’t listen to many books but I love her voice and hearing her story in her voice didn’t disappoint. Her story doesn’t end all wrapped up neatly and thing is that’s for Hallmark Christmas movies (and that’s ok) but life. Life is different. + We had such a fun Halloween, my oldest was over dressing up but friends got him out in costume 🙌🏻 and the boys just had the best time—
  • Today’s the day!! If you’ve been following my stories you know I adore + appreciate the beautiful wisdom in these pages, things that can actually be put into practice. This book is form + function, not just another pretty coffee table book, one that you will use and return to again and again. I often hear, “but I just don’t know where to start,” unsure on how to get the look with what you have, how to edit, how to make it work for you. With Cozy Minimalist Home it won’t feel like a big secret anymore.💙💕 *This chapter on The Decorating Trinity (rugs, drapes, lighting) is so smart on the basic anatomy of a room.💗 #cozyminimalisthome #cozychairgiveaway

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