Life

Month in Pictures, Week 2

May 16, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

Wednesday, May 8:

One afternoon, all the younger ones were busy playing Lego—such fun! (And I couldn’t decide which picture to keep, so you get both.)

Thursday, May 9:

The table next to my desk showed remnants of the day’s work: Time spent on some studies on American History, and my first handwritten letter in ages! (So much fun to do! I hope you get it soon, Marlène!)

Friday, May 10:

Our dishwashers. Such a fun bunch!

Saturday, May 11:

Building a shelf in the lean-to garage (for holding a car engine?). My brothers are hard workers!

Sunday, May 12—forgot about the challenge

Monday, May 13:

Our enthusiastic laundry sorter. I love this boy so much!

Tuesday, May 14:

Cake- and pie-baking, little sister style. It’s a good use of time when you’ve finished school, but everyone else is still working!

It’s been a fun challenge to try to remember to take pictures of each day—and it’s fun to look back on things that already are nearly forgotten! It’s the mundane and ordinary of life that makes up all those years we look back on…and how precious to have a few pictures to remember those moments by!

One interesting thing I noticed this week, as opposed to last week, is that it was a lot harder to remember to take pictures on the second week. Hence, several evening/nighttime pictures with not the greatest lighting. I remember noticing this before with other challenges—what is it about the second week that makes it so hard to keep up? During NaNoWriMo, if there’s one week where the going is especially hard, it’s the second week.

If there are any spiritual applications, they’re escaping me right now. I was away at work all day, and my brain is tired. It’s been very windy and rainy here today, with racing clouds overhead, and the sun peeking out for a few seconds or so now and then (“Look, guys, the sun is out! Look outside quick, because it might be the only sunshine you’ll see all day!”).

For now, keep pushing through those second weeks, and I’ll see you again next week.

What has your weather been like today?

Month in Pictures, Week 1

May 9, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

Well, my grandma has inspired me once again. Last month, she decided to do a photo-a-day challenge, and I had such fun seeing pictures of her normal life! I’ve done something similar before, but it’s been a few years. Somehow, I always got caught up taking flower or landscape pictures because I couldn’t find anything else worthy of photography (or so I thought). After seeing Grandma’s lineup, and especially enjoying the pictures she shared of parts of the family I don’t see very often, I thought it would be fun to try the challenge again.

So, without further ado, here goes:

May 1:

The strip canoe project my brothers have been working on for nearly a year now—ready for more epoxy coating! They brought it out in the sunshine one afternoon so the epoxy would harden faster.

May 2—forgot about the challenge

May 3:

An impressive lump of coal a local miner gave my boss’ family! It burned for nearly 24 hours on their open fireplace.

May 4:

Several years ago, I bought our first copy of a book in the Pleasant Valley Farm series, Shadow the Barn Cat. It quickly became a favorite—a great series of picture books! I’d be tempted to replace Shadow now, because our first copy has been so well-loved that it came apart last week! Mom just ordered the last two books, to finish off the series, and my two youngest siblings were thrilled! This is their first look at the new books.

Bonus picture: Little sister helped me mix up a brine to soak a pork leg in. We’re looking forward to seeing how it turns out and if homemade ham is something we want to do again! I’m pretty excited about this project.

May 5:

Sunday evening: Playing Skipbo Golf with Dad.

May 6:

Monday evening schoolwork and reading. A fairly typical evening around here!

May 7:

Making peanut butter while sitting in the chair he made (didn’t he do a great job on that?)—and fresh peanut butter can’t be beat!

Have you ever done a photo-a-day challenge before? What has been happening in your normal life lately that might not be normal for some people?

Blessings This Week

April 26, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

I have so many thoughts that I could jot down and share with you. Today, I thought I’d give you a random collection, and perhaps something will inspire you where you are to keep going on for the Lord more!

1) We’ve just come through the Easter season, and oh, what a refreshing reset that has been for me personally! We’ve been attending an Easter conference the last five years as a family (hosted by a church group we’ve grown to love quite dearly), and this year we were blessed to go down there and worship with them again. It’s so good to remember what the Lord has done for us. To have rich fellowship. To laugh and sing and share together. What a blessing!

2) I’ve been listening to a lot of songs from past years of A Cappella Gospel Sing lately, and it’s struck me over and over again how much we have to thank the Lord for! It’s amazing how songs can lift our spirits and refocus us on what matters most! If you need a bit of encouragement, I’d recommend reading chapters from the Psalms or picking up a hymnal and studying the words to the old hymns. There’s so much depth there.

3) This week has been a quieter week at home, so I’ve been able to do a bit of sewing and scrapbooking—two things I love doing, but rarely make time for. It’s so refreshing to be able to sit down and see something come together from a pile of mismatched pieces, or look through pictures and remember how the Lord has been faithful in the past. God is so good!

4) On our five-hour trip home from Easter conference, those of us in the van listened to probably 3-4 hours’ worth of a dramatized version of Christiana (Pilgrim’s Progress, part 2). I’m very familiar with the story, as I virtually lived on recorded stories when I was younger, but it’s probably been a good 4-6 years since I last listened to the story. It’s so good to be reminded of how the Lord uses different circumstances to bring us closer to Himself, that He is well able to take care of us, and He is the One we need to constantly focus on if we are to ever find victory!

5) I’ve just come through reading Ezekiel, and though I got a lot out of Isaiah and Jeremiah, this book has been a bit more dry reading for me. Probably because it’s a lot of prophecy I feel like I can’t understand so well, and I also haven’t remembered to pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit as much as I need (ever met the trap called “I Can Do It Myself?”). HOWEVER, this morning I read the portion about the river running out of the sanctuary and into the Dead Sea and how everything that lives in the water was able to live in that river. This passage has always been precious to me, for two reasons: 1) To me, this river symbolizes God’s wisdom. There’s always more of it coming, and the further you wade into it, the more there is. You’ll never run out. 2) In Jesus’ love, there is life. And like the river, starting out as a trickle, and then becoming a full flood with all kinds of life in it, so His love brings all kinds of life to our souls.

Now, I may be terrible at allegory, but these are things my heart is mulling over right now.

What have you been blessed with in this past week?

Commit Your Way…

March 29, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

This morning, I woke up feeling ready to go, wide awake and encouraged for the day ahead. I had gotten just enough sleep last night, and was ready to hit the day with a vengeance. Which was fortunate today, because I had a full day ahead at work teaching school, making lunch, and getting some cleaning out of the way.

Note: The pictures are from a birthday party we had out at a local beach last Sunday evening.

And this evening as I was finishing up, the song Be Unto Your Name got stuck in my head. So as I scrubbed bucket tops, mopped floors, and cleaned out the vacuum (again), I sang.

But some days…I don’t wake up feeling refreshed. Or I plan on doing one thing in my day, and it turns into something else. I don’t appreciate change enough as the medium for blessing it is.

So today, I thought I’d share a few verses that have encouraged me lately, and perhaps would be a blessing to you, too.

“And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me…” (Ezra 7:28)

“Thou art the Lord the God, who […] hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous:” (Nehemiah 9:7-8)

Commit Your Way... 03 — Cleaning fresh-caught fish

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” (Psalm 43:5)

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:71)

“Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.” (Psalm 119:114)

“They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.” (Psalm 125:1)

Commit Your Way... 05 — Fish baking on the fire—yum!

“Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38)

One thing that really struck me when I read through Ezra and Nehemiah within the last month or so was the amount of times the phrase “good hand of our God” appears. I’ve found it at least five times between the two books, and I’m pretty sure there may be a couple more, yet.

And today, I was encouraged with the thought that the “good hand of our God” that was on Ezra and Nehemiah is on us, too. We have hope! He is faithful, and we can commit our ways to Him with confidence!

Tasmania 2019, pt. 5: Detention River, Dip Falls, and Unique Rocks

March 15, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

And here is part five and the final instalment of my trip’s pictures! It was so hard to choose which ones to share, and which not to. I’ve delighted in looking through the ones I was able to print, but seeing them here is special, too.

We took a walk down to the Detention River one warm afternoon, so the children could enjoy cooling off in the water. It was a beautiful setting, and I enjoyed seeing the little “peek” out to the ocean across the river flat! This particular river, at least near the sea, is a tidal river, and it was nearing high tide when we were down there.

Sometimes I wonder what makes one place stand out to you as being extra-special, and what makes another one just, well, ordinary. I think it has a lot to do with where one feels loved and accepted (such as my family home, for example), but I’m convinced there’s more to it that I don’t see, too. Perhaps it’s spiritual, or some other sort of tie like that that resonates with me—I don’t know. But whatever it is, when I am able to connect with others and share in the joys and struggles of walking this walk of faith with them, even for just a short time, I come away feeling very enriched.

Our last evening there, my “family” and a few other additions to the crew drove about half an hour inland to Dip Falls. It was a beautiful, fascinating place. I’ve never seen rocks quite like these before!

During the winter, the water flows over the entire expanse of the falls, from bank to bank, but since it was mid-summer when we visited, there was only a little bit coming over. Even that amount was pretty, and I loved the rock’s colors on the upper portion of the falls, especially!

Tasmania 2019, pt. 5 05 — You can see how high the first level of the waterfall is by the two girls in this picture. (And yes, those are good-sized logs leaning against the rocks that were brought over the falls during the winter.)

And, of course, since the rocks looked like pretty easy stepping stones, most of us decided to climb up to get a different perspective.

The most intriguing part about this particular waterfall, for me, were the rocks. They were like pillars, all jammed up against each other vertically, and seemed to go straight all the way down to the rock underneath (wherever and whatever that was) in this pillar formation. There was no vertical distortion that I could see—it was all at a 90° angle in reference to the earth.

They were also sliced cleanly horizontally, some in slightly larger than 1 ft/30 cm slices, others more like 5-6 ft/1-2 metre slices.

And then, I counted the “sides” on the pillars, and a lot of them (the ones that weren’t round) were five-sided, or pentagons. I did see a couple hexagons, but they all definitely were made with a similar pattern!

I did not end up going on the upper level of the falls, but they seemed to be made of similar stone, lots of rocks stacked and packed together in the same sort of regular symmetry, but with smaller “columns” and more were four sided instead of the five sides further down. These were also warped and twisted more, as if they had been laid down, pushed up at a different angle, and tweaked some as they were going up. I wondered how two similar, but very different rock formations ended up right next to each other—and how, scientifically, their appearance can be explained! Fascinating to study, anyway. Shows how great our God is! (If you have any information on why these rocks might be like this, I’d be interested to know!)

In the end, after a too-short two weeks in Tasmania, I left for the States with mixed feelings. I looked forward to being with my family again, but these people had showed me another side to the body of Christ, which was very special. I’m hoping that someday, I’ll be able to go back and visit again. But we’ll see what the Lord has planned!

Have you taken any memorable trips lately? What kind of unique natural formations have intrigued you before?

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4: The Nut

March 8, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

Before I ever set foot on Tasmania, the girl I was traveling with told me I needed to see the Nut. And before you think that it’s some place where there are a bunch of almond or cashew or walnut trees, no…there are trees, but it’s a mountain along the northeastern edge of Tasmania that is a wildlife reserve. Apparently one of the best times to go there, wildlife- and beauty- and amount of people-wise, is at dawn. So, one evening just a couple days before I was supposed to leave, we arranged to meet up at 5 am the next morning and drive the 30 minutes or so to the Nut.

(Need to catch up on the previous posts? Here are the links: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 01 — The Nut—the lights at the base are the little town of Stanley

I think we ended up leaving about 5:10 or 5:15, which was pretty good, since at least one person who ended up coming wasn’t even awake until 5! We had a beautiful, peaceful drive out there.

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 02 — About two-thirds of the way up. I loved seeing the ocean coming in on both sides of the peninsula!

It really felt like we were climbing a mountain with this one! There were three (very) steep upgrades to get to the top (I believe we were climbing on the slightly more sloped face you can see in the first picture). I didn’t take it as slow as I should have, and well—let’s just say that I don’t recommend climbing a steep mountain at five in the morning without having had breakfast yet!

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 05 — We are waiting for the dawning….

We waited at the first lookout for a while to see the sunrise. Eventually, when it became apparent that it wouldn’t be very spectacular, we moved on to the bushier part of the reserve, where we saw a bit more animal life.

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 06 — There ended up being a layer of cloud just above the horizon, so this is about all we saw of dawn. It was a beautiful morning, anyway!

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 07 — Mutton bird burrows—I saw several fields like this. (This is of particular significance to our family, since we love the book *Castaway* by Bill O’Brien.)

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 08 — Likely my favorite picture from the Nut.

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 09 — One of the first wild wallabies I saw, although I had already eaten some. I saw quite a few more before the trip was over!

Tasmania 2019, pt. 4 13 — The Nut from the west.

In all, though we were disappointed with the lack of a beautiful sunrise, it was a gorgeous morning anyway. I was really thankful to get to see a bit more of Tasmania’s scenery, and it was great to get to spend a bit more time with the folks there.