The Grays

Philipians 1:7 –  " Even as it is right for me to think this concerning you all because you have me in your heart, since both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel you are all fellow partakers with me of grace."

Since we have been homeschooling, it has become very important for me to make a way for the boys to be with other children. It has not been an easy road to go down, as people are busy, kids we know are going to school full time, and other reasons I cannot think of now. I have been contemplating the last while how to take care of my visiting people, be it for friends for the boys or for myself. What is the Lord after in these visits, as we do not want to do to much for ourselves. Most people that I visit are Christians, and it is wonderful to go to the homes of fellow believers, or having them over to our place. That is even better, as we really love having our home open to others. 

The biggest desire on the Lords heart is the Building up of His Body. He is after a Corporate expression.

Ephesians 4:12 – "FOr the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ"

So for us Christians to get together on the base of socializing, I feel is not adequate. What are we here for, for our own desires, or for the desire of the Lord, what is on His heart. I have been before the Lord, to be clear on who I should be visiting during the week, as in one week I received 7 invitations, and obviously one cannot tend to that many visits. I feel much peace to go out to visit others twice a week for the rest of this year, and then when next year gets busier with school, to then reassess. 

My feeling is really to visit people, and then get into the Word of God a bit as well, be it reading one verse and fellowshipping about it. What a joy that would be to our dear Lord Jesus. 

May our days be to enjoy the Lord together, to be built up together into one Body, and may we go to bed in the evenings, knowing that our Dear Beloved is really satisfied.

I have been wondering what to write…and realized that I usually write best when I just blab on about life! I have been doing a lot of parenting reading online, mainly about homeschooling, but also about how to deal with the criticism around homeschooling. It is not and easy journey to take, and explaining to people who for the 100th time are asking – when is Daniel going to school, as he is nearly 4, is not an easy thing to do. I have tried to explain the situation, no he wont lack in his social development, no he wont fall behind in climbing jungle gyms, and no, he wont struggle to adapt with other children! All I say now is, these are my kids, this is the decision we, their parents, made, and we are very much at peace about it. They are doing very well, and until anything different happens, our situation will remain as is. 

I read a very sweet blog post from a friend last night, and all I could do was strongly agree to it. It was mainly on moms needing "me-time" and how mothers these days feel they can be better mothers, if they are away from their children. Well, I sometimes do feel like that, but not often, and when I get to have "me-time" I end up just missing the boys so much, that I just rush back to them.

I love being with them, I love educating them, I love teaching them and instilling values into them. I love painting with them, and making a mess, I love baking with them, and letting them eat all the dough, I love going to the park with them, and letting them get dirty, I love sleeping in the same bed with Daniel, napping and having "me-time" with him close to me. I love it when Nathan creeps in bed with me early in the morning, and sleeps tightly against me, I love the fact that we never have to rush, to get to school, where another women who does not know my boys have to teach them something. I love watching many many episodes of "Shaun the sheep" with them. I do get mad with them, I do feel like running away sometimes, when it all feels like it is getting to much….

….but then…..they are mine, they are my blood, I wanted them. And the Lord has commissioned me! And I do feel very much at peace! They have so many years to be away from me, from their home, why at the age of 2 and 3 rush it? For the sake of socializing? But don't they socialize best with their family – their little brother – who is incredibly bothersome – learning to share their most precious possession – their mommy? Why the rush to get them out of the door…for the blessed or as my friend calls it monster "me-time"…..

Until they know how to take care of themselves, until they know how to make the right decisions about the friends they make, until they know how to make any kind of decision, I will be there, right beside them. I will love them, nurture them, teach them, and make sure they know our dear Lord Jesus, and learn to love Him. What a privilege! Thank you Lord for these two boys! They are Yours!

I just want to ad, in no way do I intend to criticize or look down upon anyone who sends their kids to mainstream schooling! Each one of us has different children, we are all different, and the Lord has commissioned each one of us differently.

I was wondering what I should be writing next….hoping not to bore any of you! Our days are regular days, of waking up and enjoying the Lord, enjoying watching some snippets of Shaun the sheep, drinking coffee and tea, and just enjoying each other. Then breakfast, clean up, sometimes schooling, sometimes playing outside, and then naps/rest, and then visiting a friend or playing some more! I dont have a particularly interesting life, but yeah we do like it simple.

Off late we have been doing a lot of fun things, we went to Monkey town, where we saw chimps, and some very small monkeys. The boys just loved it! Daniel, everytime you ask him about the Monkey town, he loves chatting about the chimps. They must have made an impression on him. 

As a mommy, we all like to brag about our kids. Well, I would like to do some bragging! Hehe! Daniel is such a lovely boy! He is 3 years and 7 months old now, and can count to 30! Backwards and forwards. When I ask him what he wants to do, he says he wants to draw the numbers on paper! He now writes from 1-4 with a smile! So funny! His favorite thing to do is write in his new Kumon book, connecting the dots. He loves painting, and I am still working on him building with blocks etc. He also loves building puzzles. We are also working on that. Schooling at home is a real joy to him. He asks for it, and it makes me happy knowing that he is happy in the choice we made for him. And his most favorite thing to do is drive in our new Camry! He is quite a bit like him mommy in that regard, loves going out, BUT, not to long, then he asks to be taken home again. He has a few nice friends, Rebecca, Daniella….funny, they are all girls, and hoping to make some guy friends soon. They are totally lovely though, and we love spending time with them most every week. 

Nathan is our little fire cracker! He is a busy little boy and at 2 years and a month old, he knows exactly what he wants in life. He is in the midst of Toddler tantrums, and I realize often times it is because I just do not understand what he wants, or I do understand, but due to me not giving in to him, he screams! Shame, I know it will pass, so I am not giving it to much attention. Other than that, he has mastered the wooden puzzles, he loves reading, and he LOVES balls, and bikes. When he sees a bike, we always have to stop and have a chat about it. We bought him a little ball from Mr Price home, and that is just great. Bikes is also great! As you can see him on the picture, that is one of his favorite hobbies. I love him to bits, and even though times can get tough, I will not swop him for any other Nathan. He is my lovely baby!

This picture was taken by me! I am not the best photographer sorry! And I need to get used to the camera! Jason is forever arguing with me, who the boys look like. I feel Nathan looks more like Jason, and Daniel looks more like me. Even though both boys have bits of both of us in them, they do look pretty much like one parent. We went on a lovely walk at the Radloff park, a park where people take there dogs, and where we realized are the most awesome patches for kids to bike, or learn to bike in our case. There were about 4 other families with their kids, one little girl was learning how to bike, and the rest was just loving getting full of mud. 

I love my little family! I am so happy the Lord gave them to me, to share in their growth and development, and having the opportunity to actually be their teacher, mommy and everything. My the Lord grace me in teaching them, and being the best mommy they can have! They are such a blessing to me!

I have so much enjoyment in the Word the last few weeks, I cannot even start describing it! Wow! Zion, God's desire for Zion with Christ. Isnt that just amazing? So often we think that we are the ones with desires, the only ones, we want this, we want to be good Christians, etc etc, but what about our dear Lord Jesus, what is His desire? To have Zion, His heart is set on Zion, the City of God – and with Christ within it. We are on our way, in our journey on the highways to Zion. 

Psalm 84:5 says, "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion." Psalm 84 speaks of our praising, our trusting in Jehovah, and our having our strength in Him. When we praise the Lord, we suddenly realize that our strength is not in ourselves, but in Him. When we start praising the Lord, we touch real strengthening from Him and in Him. Highways should be something on the outside, something that we take as pathway or a road for our journey. However these highways to Zion are in our hearts, they are within us. 

I was really impressed with the fact that the highways to Zion are in our heart means that we need to take the way of the church internally. Our practice of the church life should be something of the inner life, something internal, something in our heart. We cannot be in the churchlife only in an external, outward way. To take the way of the church, we need to internally touch Him, and experience Him as LIFE! Automatically, He will lead you to the church. In Song of Songs it says: "Draw me, I will run after thee"(S.S1;4). We need to be drawn by the Lord, as we enjoy Him as the inner life, he will draw us to the church life. 

The last point. We need 3 things in our Christian life that is very important. EATING, LOVING, and TESTIMONY.

Eating: We need to eat Christ as the Tree of Life, enjoying Christ as our life suply. We need to ENJOY Him as our food. To enjoy Christ we need to

Love Him: We need to love the Lord Jesus with our first love. If we leave our first love for the Lord, we will lose the enjoyment of Christ, and lose the testimony of Jesus. 

Testimony: We need to be a testimony to the Lord, by eating Him and loving Him.

What a sweet enjoyment! The Lord just wants us to love Him. I love you Lord Jesus. 

May the Lord be so sweet to us, for all the days of our lives.

It has been a month and 5 days since I last updated my blog. BUT, it has been really busy, and hopefully things will start slowing down a bit now, and settling into a nice routine. Especially with the homeschooling. I thought of posting some pictures then the fun can be shared!

Grandma came to visit us for Nathans birthday all the way from Australia. It was a great time with her, and the boys adored her. 

Both boys going on the new bike – YBIKE - that Nathan got for his 2nd birthday! Nathan was not so happy with the idea of sharing!

Its my party and I will cry if I want to!!!!

Birthday cake: It was supposed to be a lady bird, but because Nathan was running a 42 fever most of his birthday, we felt it best to keep it simple.

We had some lovely visitors: Sisters Marianne, Elsa, Luca and Timo!

We did some schooling – this was week C – fun fun!!!

Water play! Nathans most fun thing to do!

Being outside in the garden with our beloved Lynette!

Even though the boys do not go to school, we are very busy everyday. Learning, playing, having fun mostly and resting in between. 

We need to really get a new camera. Ours is a bit on the old side, and just leaves the pictures with what looks like smudges. I suppose that is on our to do list. 

I hope to be posting more regularly, esp about our homeschool adventures! I am excited! 

I was reading a portion from someone this morning, who was asking how can she be the perfect wife for her husband? I was considering….how can we be just that, and the Lord reminded me this morning, we should stop our doing, we should stop our trying, and just LET HIM. The more we try the more we fail. We cannot do it, the old Adam, the old creation cannot do it. The more we enjoy the Lord, the more we let Him live Himself through us, the more we will be able to be the "good wife", the "patient mother". The more we try the more we will be discouraged, as we realize we just cannot do it. The main thing is our enjoyment. When I spend time every morning to enjoy Him, touch Him and just be filled with Him, the more I can be everything the Lord is. Without Him we are just nothing. It is only the New Creation which matters, everything else is dung. 

Thank you Lord for this reminder this morning. Live yourself, Lord Jesus through me! 

1. NOT I, but Christ, be honoured, loved, exalted;

Not I, but Christ, be seen, be known, be heard;

Not I, but Christ, in every look and action;

Not I, but Christ, in every thought and word.



2. Not I, but Christ, to gently soothe in sorrow;

Not I, but Christ, to wipe the falling tear;

Not I, but Christ, to lift the weary burden;

Not I, but Christ, to hush away all fear.



3. Not I, but Christ, in lowly, silent labour;

Not I, but Christ, in humble, earnest toil;

Christ, only Christ! no show, no ostentation;

Christ, none but Christ, the gatherer of the spoil.



4. Christ, only Christ, ere long will fill my vision;

Glory excelling, soon, full soon, I'll see — 

Christ, only Christ, my every wish fulfilling — 

Christ, only Christ, my All in all to be.



Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord,

Oh, to be lost in Thee,

Oh, that it may be no more I,

But Christ that lives in me

After a wonderful year of many up and downs in our small family, we welcomed a new year with a smile! Welcome 2012…a new year of growing in the Lord, being measured, judged and  enlightened, and having our dear Lord increase in us. 

I havent posted for a while, due to the fact that I could not remember my password for my WordPress admin page. But, thanks to a friend it is re-set and I can start again. We have had an exciting holiday, with Jason home for about 2 and a half weeks. We just spent a lot of time together, going for walks, swims, coffees and being home! Resting and getting ready for a new year. 

I wonder how to start with my first blog for the year, and what to say. But hopefully it will all just flow. After having many struggles towards the end of last year, how to go on with our growing family(age wise, not size wise) we have realized that as parents one can try a few things, see if it works, if it doesn't, stop and start again! So for this year a few things has fallen into place, and I feel so much at peace. Nathan has become a real fire cracker, busy, opinionated, bothersome(in a good way) and we felt it best for him to go to a little playgroup 2 mornings a week. He started yesterday, and after being a bit worried that he would not take it so well, he totally surprised me, and made me realize he is most certainly the outgoing one in the family. He went, chin up, and stayed the entire morning, without shedding as much as a tear! I could not believe it. Picked him up, and he was just saying "Hi Mammy"…in his loud voice. What a relief. 

Daniel will be homeschooled. He loves being home, and he loves being in a routine. At home. For now. Nothing is set in stone, so I really just want to go along with my child, and his personality. I know many people do not agree, and find it strange that we are sending our baby to school and not our oldest child. But in the end, it suits Daniel. And that is the most important factor. We tried schooling last year, and it did not work, it left us all stressed and unhappy. Now Daniel can laze, "work" when he is ready and up to it, and learn through every day lessons. WONDERFUL!

For Jason and myself: Our lives are just for Christ and the Church. We just consecrate our days to the Lord Jesus! We find a lot of restriction in our lives, being in a small church life, with many different situations in each saint in our localities lives, which makes for a small less regular seeing of each other. But as it says in Ezekiel the Lord likes to measure and judge us, which means the more He measures us, the less we are free to do our own thing, have our own agenda, go along with our own will. Grace increases, and the enjoyment of our dear Lord increases! What Grace the Lord has for us, and is to us. We should rejoice in restriction, and enjoy the Grace and the infilling in our daily lives. The more Grace, the more filling and the more flowing of the rivers of water of life out of our inner most parts. Praise Him!

I hope to post at least once weekly. With pictures of our daily lifes, and enjoyement of our precious Lord Jesus. 

May this year be for the Lord to increase in us, our kids to grow up in a happy and peaceful environment, and Jason and our relationship grow from strength to strenght! 

Here is to a great 2012!

Song of Songs 2:10-13:

"My beloved responds and says to me,

​Rise up my love, 

​My beauty, and come away;

For now the winter is past;

The rain is over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

​The time of singing has come,

And the voice of the turteldove is heard in our land.

​The fig tree has ripened its figs,

​And the vines are in blossom – they give forth their fragrance. 

​Rise up, my love, 

​My beauty, and come away."

The Lord is so sweet to us. When we struggle to turn to Him and have sweet fellowship with Him, He comes in a soft way and speaks to us again. By responding to us in our introspection and our down situation, Christ comes and encourages us, in His appreciation of us, to rise up and come out of our situation to be with Him. He encourages us by letting us know that the winter time(the trials) is over and that the time of spring(resurrection) is coming.

​The Lord is there, calling us, encouraging us, to come to Him in our down situations, so we can live a life in resurrection. The voice of the turtledove, the ripened figs and the blossoming vines indicate the flourishing riches of Christ's resurrection. The life of the cross is lived by the power of resurrection(Phil 3:10) and is encouraged  by the riches of the resurrection.

​Further more in Song of Songs 2:14 

"My dove, in the clefts of the rock

In the covert of the precipice"

Here Christ considers us(My dove) His simple lover, and he wants to see our lovely countenance and hear our sweet voice in our oneness, union, with the cross, signified here by the clefts of the rock, and the covert of the precipice. This is Christ's call for our oneness with the cross(Luke 9:23). Only the cross can deliver us from our down situation, and our situations that causes so much negativity and turmoil. He then wants us to remain in the cross, in a crucified condition, continually(Gal 2:20, 1 Cor 15.31, 2 Cor 4:10-11). 

From footnote 14 – 1 in Song of Songs 2:14:

"In order to empower and encourage His lover to rise up and come away from her low situation in her introspection of the self, Christ empowers her by showing her the power of His resurrection, and He encourages her by the flourishing riches of His resurrection. It is by the power of Christ's resurrection, NOT BY OUR NATURAL LIFE, that we, the lovers of Christ, dertermine to take the cross by denying our self. It is also by the power of Christ's resurrection that we are enabled to be conformed to His death by being one with the cross(Phil 3:10). The reality of resurrection is the pneumatic(breathable) Christ(John 11:25), who as the consummated Spirit indwells and is mingled with our regenerated spirit. It is in such a mingled spirit that we participate in and experience the resurrection of Christ, which enables us to be one with the cross, to be delivered from the self and to be transformed into a new man in God's new cretion for the fulfillment of Gods economy in the building up of the Organic Body of Christ" 

​We do not need to remain in our negativity and in our self, and introspection. We merely need to open ourselves to this wonderful one. He is there to encourage us, to love us, and to bring us to live a life in resurrection, which is just a life of enjoying Him, spending time in Him and being filled with Him. It might sound like hard work, but the Lord is so sweet and simple. We can just come. ENJOY, and BE FILLED WITH HIM.

What a Christ we have. 

I am going to confess….I am an addict! Plainly said. Nothing else, no way to make it sound nice, it is hard facts, I am addicted!  What a terrible feeling to realize that you cannot actually go without the internet. What an age we live in. The internet is so wonderful, what a tool towards information, contacting people you know continents away, in different time zones, being able to learn from other cultures, and yeah yeah, dear old Facebook and Calorababy! As addictive as they get!

After some precious time with my Beloved this morning, I felt very strongly in my conscious that I need to stop being online so much. I have been feeling a tad bit depressed lately, and it might very well be as my view of life has become that of others. I havent been living my own life anymore. It is either removing some spammers from the forums, or liking some ones page, or voting in some random child's competition, then hating the begging afterwards. So yeah, that is what internet ting is all about. Dont get me wrong, I have made very very dear friends online, to be honest I dont have many friends that I see regularly, I have Arenda(love you!!!) and mmmm, my mom is my best friend, we see each other about everyday, and then Hestrie, who is a great friend…then I have my online friends, Tasja, Amie, Arenda, Pamela….and I so wish they lived closer, so that we could be the support network to each other in real life, and not internet life!

So from now on it is internet for me only from 12pm till 2pm and then from 7pm till 9 pm…the rest of the time is for my boys, my home as I am a homemaker/homeschooling mother….and to the Lord…which is most important! And give me some time to read. I dont want my boys to remember me sitting infront of the computer. And the worse of it all is, they will probably end up just the same. 

I am so thankful for new beginnings.

So if you want to chat to me in the time I am online, you are welcome to contact me, I am on Skype and will be on Gtalk and Facebook!

There, now that feels much better!

I was just considering today, day by day we go on with our daily duties of raising children(in my case), going to work, shopping, enjoying what life has to offer, going through numerous struggles, and finding a way to get through it, or having everything we can have, and still not being very content with it and always complaining. Is it our right to be here, to have what we have, to be what we are, or is it due to privilege? That brought me back to a very sweet, yet simple verse in the Bible:

"But by the grace of God I am what I am" – 1 Corinthians 15:2

What is the grace of God actually? Is it what we get when we are "good" people, is it a nice house, or even being in a successful career, or always having it good, and never going through hardship? That is the question.

If I refer back to my Bible in footnote 1 of verse 2 it says: "Grace, mentioned three times in this verse, is the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit, to bring the processed Triune God in resurrection into us to be our life and life supply that we may live in resurrection. Thus, grace is the Triune God becoming life and everything to us" – Recovery version of the Bible.

So Grace is not something we get because we are good people. It is something that we can enjoy. When we became Christians, we received this life-giving Spirit into us, by calling on HIs name, or believing in His name. Now we are qualified to enjoy this Christ. The One who became a man for us, lived a human life on earth, then died, resurrected and ascended, and is seated now in the heavenlies. Wow, isn't that just awesome. Grace is not something physical, that has early value, and whose joy runs out, and enjoyment is just temporarily, but it is something we can all enjoy, by just calling "Oh Lord Jesus" So simple. So Enjoyable.

We had to take Nathan for some tests today to see if he is glocuse intolerant. . First I though, ag, he is fine and a healthy little boy. It is simply routine, and to tell people that he is fine, and we can show the results of it. Then the nurse took a sample of his blood and tested it, and he was slightly above the normal(normal and beneith being 5.2 and he was at 7). I was a bit taken aback at first, but then I walked back home with Nathan in his stroller and just talking to the Lord(while trying to digest it)…and I realized, it is only by the Grace of the Lord that we are here, it is only by His Grace that I have healthy boys. It is only by His Grace that we can enjoy HIm, and what He is to us. I fall so easily into depression, or pity-parties because I am so lonely. But what am I, without the Lord? What am I without His Grace. I can have the nicest car, the greatest friends, the best environment to homeschool in, but if I dont have the Lord, and enjoy His infilling daily..what am I? 

Thank you Lord for what you are to us, thank you we can enjoy You daily, we can set aside all our happines, our struggles, and just ENJOY You!! What a privilege!