Being a Stay-at-Home Daughter Means...

Being a Stay-at-Home Daughter Means:

Doing laundry. Lots of laundry. In fact, doing more laundry than you thought 4 people could generate.

Sometimes trying to help with the cooking. Even if it does take you twice as long as your mother, and you make even a bigger mess than your father.

Cleaning: Vacuuming, polishing, and dusting. And trying not to break anything in the process.

Driving your brother around when your parents can't.

Spending time writing that story that you just know will be a national bestseller someday. ;)

Teaching lots of piano lessons. And realizing the interesting ways God answers your prayers for patience.

Babysitting & nannying for church families. Getting invaluable experience for when the kids you spend time with are your own. : )

Playing the piano for an hour at a time...just because you can and you love it.

Getting to know Jesus more and more every day.

Realizing that God's plan and timing are PERFECT.

Making new friends and cherishing old ones.

Realizing that no family is perfect, not even yours, but yours is pretty amazing anyway.

Diving deeper into God's word.

Communicating with God daily through prayer.

Realizing that as great as your dreams and plans are, it's not about you. It's about bringing glory to God.

Why I Won't Go to College

This post is specifically for all those wondering why I haven't gone to college, or why I'm not making any future college plans.
I have committed to living at home with my parents, specifically under my father's headship, until I get married. Lord willing, I would someday like to get married and raise children of my own. I am waiting on Him to provide that for me in His timing. Until then, I feel it is very important to stay under the leadership of my father until he gives me away to my husband. That means I am not going to move out on my own. I also am not going to go away to college. There are other reasons that I don't want to go the traditional college route, but I won't get into them here.
So yes, I am almost 20 years old, and still living at home. And I currently have no plans of moving out. I love my family. I love being with them during these years. I love serving them. I love the lessons that both of my parents teach me. I love knowing that my father is here to provide for me and protect me. It would be much harder for him to do that if I decided to leave his household.
No, I am not just sitting around the house, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Prince Charming. I am doing laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning the house, making my best attempt at cooking (which is getting better), teaching piano lessons, and numerous other things. I am trying my best to use the special years to serve. 
So that's why I'm not going to college. The Lord has called me to serve where He's placed me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Good evening readers!! I realize it has been a very long time since I posted here for you. Things are going well in my life. I am enjoying the cooler weather of fall. One of my favorite things is to stare up at the clear, star-filled sky at night. Being out in the country, I have a wonderful view of the amazing works of God's creation. I'm even secretly anticipating the first snowfall, which I'm sure will come sooner than any of us would like. :) Well here we are with Thanksgiving almost upon us. It's a wonderful thing to be thankful and count the blessings that you have. In the spirit of the season, I decided to list the 10 things I am most thankful for.

1. My Saviour; His love, grace and mercy. I am so thankful that God sent His son to die for me. I am thankful for the relationship that I have with Him-I am growing in Him each and every day. I love Him so much.
2. My family. I have a wonderful family. I am so thankful for them and the continuous love and support that they give to me. I don't know what I would do without them.
3. My friends. The Lord has blessed me with some wonderful, amazing people as my close friends. They love me, support me, encourage me, and pray for me. God has pushed many of my older friendships deeper, and given me many new friends. I don't know what I would do without these people!
4. My karate family. I'm thankful for the people at my karate club- my karate "family." They have always been supportive of me and are just great people. I am so thankful to be able to continue my martial arts training.
5. My piano studio. I have my own piano studio, and I am so thankful for that means of earning some money and being able to teach some children the beauty of piano music!
6. Writing opportunities. Recently I have been blessed with some different writing opportunities, even winning a writing contest. I am so thankful for these opportunities to continue to develop my writing skills.
7. My church family. I am blessed to be in the same church for all 19 years of my life. There are some really great people there. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of them and serve the community with them.
8. My health. I recently had a very bad cold, but it made me realize how thankful I am that I am healthy and how blessed I am with good health.
9. My pets. We have 3 funny dogs, and I love having them around to play and cuddle with. :)
10. My material possessions. I am so blessed to have a house, a bed, a car, and sooo many other things.

May you all be blessed with a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, and contentment.

A Winning Story: The Greatest Gift

Hi everyone!! I'm excited to tell you that I recently entered a small short story contest, and I won!! Glory to God for this wonderful exciting news. :) It was a wonderful moment for me as a writer. Many people have been wanting to read the winning story, so I am sharing it with you all here. It is called "The Greatest Gift." I hope you like it. Enjoy!! :-)

The Greatest Gift

I will never forget the year that we gave away Christmas.

Scott and I had been married about 10 years. At the time we had 5 children: David was 8, Abigail was 6, Timothy and Sarah were 5, and Peter was five months old. We had chosen to homeschool our children, so that kept me really busy while Scott was at work.

One day in early December Scott came home to the usual hubbub: Timothy, Sarah, and Abigail running around the house playing some version of tag; me rocking Peter on my hip to stop his crying while simultaneously trying to explain pronouns to David.

He stood there for a moment and then loudly announced, “We are going to give away our Christmas this year.” Everyone stopped. Even Peter stopped crying.

I stared at Scott. “What…are you talking about?”

He sighed. “We are so blessed. And we take it for granted. I feel convicted- we need to give away our Christmas this year to people who need it more than us.”

Over the next few days the two of us had many conversations. Originally I was not on board with his plan. He wanted to give away everything: our Christmas tree, all the Christmas presents we had bought (both for each other and the kids), and even all the food that was planned for our big Christmas Eve dinner. I was against nearly all of this; I saw no reason why we needed to go to this extreme. But he kept insisting that this was what we needed to do. Finally after much prayer, the Lord convicted me that I should submit to my husband and do this thing he wished, even if it seemed extreme to me. When I told him this he smiled.

“I love you Annie. This is going to be so amazing. I just know it.”

I couldn’t help smiling back. “I certainly hope so. But Scott, who are we going to give our Christmas to?”

He considered this for a moment. “I don’t know yet. But I’m sure God will provide us with some opportunities.”

And we left it at that.

It was not as difficult to explain it to the children as I thought it was going to be. Scott told them that this year we were going to give Christmas to people who wouldn’t have a chance to have it otherwise. Together as a family we talked about how God wants us to be giving and unselfish. The two older ones weren’t sure about it at first. Scott assured me that they would come around. Every night I prayed that they would, and that God would send us the opportunities that Scott was so sure about. We took all the presents we had bought and marked and sorted them as either for a boy, girl, woman, or man. Scott said that if we didn’t get the opportunity to give them all away, whatever was left over on Christmas morning we would keep. I could tell he was hoping that wouldn’t happen though.

For a while nothing happened. Then one day in mid-December, Scott came home extremely excited. The first opportunity had shown itself. One of his coworkers had a 5-year-old daughter who had cancer. As she had needed to have many costly treatments over the year, her parents now had no money to buy her Christmas presents. As Scott told me the story, my heart went out to this family. Of course we had to help. We loaded up all the presents we had, bundled up the kids, and paid a visit to this family.

Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were very welcoming. We sent the kids to go play while we sat and talked with the parents. It amazed me how much they had been through in that year. They had watched their daughter, Mackenzie, go from a normal little girl to a very sick little girl. As we talked I realized I wanted to do whatever we could to help them. When we gave them the presents they didn’t want to accept them at first.

But Scott was adamant. “We want you to have these. The best Christmas gift we could have is knowing that we helped you.”

I hugged Mrs. Anderson and told her I would be praying for her family. As we drove home that night I started realizing that Scott’s idea might not have been so strange after all.

Another week passed uneventfully. I prayed for the Anderson family everyday. We had put up our Christmas tree and decorated it. Seeing its twinkling lights always made me smile.

One afternoon I was at the dining room table checking some school work. The younger 3 kids were down for a nap, while the older 2 were playing outside.

Suddenly David and Abigail came running inside screaming, “Mommy, Mommy, the neighbor’s house is on fire!!!”

“What?!”

David had a horrified look on his face. “No Mom! It really is! The Stanleys’ house is on fire!” I jumped up.

“Stay here with the younger kids!” I commanded. Then I ran out the door into the front yard. The Stanleys lived 2 houses away from us. And there were large, orange flames rolling out of the front window. I called 911 from my cell phone, then ran over to their front yard. Their whole family was standing there, just watching in disbelief. Mrs. Stanley saw me coming.

“Oh Annie it’s just horrible!”

“Sarah- what happened?”

She shook her head. “It was the Christmas tree I think. I hope the damage won’t be too bad…”

I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. The fire trucks drove up then. I realized there was nothing more I could do, so I hugged Sarah and went back home. I told David and Abigail that the Stanleys were okay.

“How did the fire start?” David wanted to know.

“Well they think it started with the Christmas tree.”

“They won’t have a tree for Christmas? That’s so sad,” said Abigail.

They were both silent for a moment. Then David had a sudden inspiration.

“Hey Mom! Couldn’t we give them our tree?”

I considered this for a moment. “Well I don’t know why not. But we’ll talk to your father about it when he gets home.”

Later that evening Sarah called to let me know that everything was alright. The fire had not spread very far, so they had very minimal damage. But their Christmas tree was all but ashes.

When I approached Scott with David’s idea to give our Christmas tree to the Stanleys, he was surprised.

“But you love the Christmas tree.”

I nodded. “Yes I do. But they need it a whole lot more than we do right now.”

He grinned. “Let’s take it over right now.”

So we did. The Stanelys were very surprised, and very happy.

“It’s so beautiful,” sighed Sarah.

“And the best part is, it’s artificial, so I don’t think it will burn down easily.” I smiled at her.

We went to bed that night with a big empty space in our living room, but our hearts were full.

It was only 1 week until Christmas. The excitement of the holiday was upon all of us. It didn’t even matter that we didn’t have any presents. No one cared that we didn’t have a Christmas tree. Not only was our family excited regardless, but the children kept talking about the gifts we had given away.

“Do you remember the look on Mrs. Stanley’s face when we brought her our tree?”

“Won’t Mackenzie be surprised when she sees all her presents on Christmas morning?”

And so on. It was at this point that I was incredibly thankful that we had decided to do this whole thing. I told Scott some of the things the children had been saying.

“You know, I wasn’t really sure of your idea at first. But now, I’m so thankful we have done it. It has really helped to show the kids, and me, how we should be unselfish and ready to help others,” I told him.

He smiled at me and took my hand. “I can’t take any credit for this. It was God’s idea.”

A few short days later, it was Christmas Eve. We normally made a big Christmas Eve dinner and enjoyed it together. At about 2 in the afternoon I started thinking about fixing this large dinner. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that we didn’t really need a huge dinner. But maybe there was someone who did. I thought about this some more. I called our pastor. Did he know of anyone in the church who would benefit from a Christmas dinner? He said he did. One of the elderly couples in our church, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. They had no family living nearby. Normally, one of their children would come visit them on Christmas, but this year they had to celebrate alone. I thanked him, hung up, and got to work. Four hours later I had an elaborate feast prepared! There was ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, rolls, yams, and pecan pie. Scott helped me pack it all up and we took it to the Johnsons. Once we got there, we rang their doorbell. Once they opened the door we all started singing “Silent Night.” Then we brought in all the food. Mrs. Johnson’s face just lit up. She looked at her husband.

“Now we can invite all of the neighbors over for dinner!” We all laughed.

That evening our family ate a normal meal of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. But everyone agreed it tasted amazing.

The next morning, it was Christmas. Our whole family gathered in our living room where Scott read the story of Christ’s birth. Then we talked about what we had done to give away Christmas, and how that was a way to show Christ’s love to others. We had barely concluded this when the doorbell rang. Scott and I looked at each other. We hadn’t invited anyone over. I opened the door to find the Stanleys, with steaming dishes of food in hand.

“Merry Christmas!!” They all yelled.

“What’s this about?” I asked laughing.

“Well dear, your family was so kind to us, we just had to return the favor. So we were wondering if you would like to share Christmas dinner with us?” replied Sarah.

We invited them in and had a delicious meal. As we were finishing up, the doorbell rang again. This time, it was the Andersons.

“You were so kind to us,” said Mr. Anderson. “We wanted to do something for you. So I brought something for the children.” He revealed five hand-made wooden sleds. The children squealed a delighted thank you.

As I stood outside watching my children sled down every hill they could manage to find, I thought about what I had learned that Christmas season. By submitting to my husband and giving away Christmas, God had retaught me one of His basic truths: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” I thought of the Gift He had sent so long ago, the reason we celebrate Christmas. And I realized that the greatest gift we can ever get, is to give.

By: Brooke Reninger

A Grandmother's Legacy

This is a post previously posted on my first blog, Becoming Abigail. Recently a friend of mine lost their grandmother. It reminded me of losing mine and writing this post, so I decided to share it with you. 

Many of you know how I love to write poetry. A few years ago, I found out that my grandmother had also written poetry. I decided to share some of her poetry with you today, in a tribute to her. You see, she passed away last night after battling cancer.

My grandmother was a very talented woman. She was a wonderful cook and baker, and a talented seamstress. She passed these talents on to her daughters. She believed in the family. She came from a family of 13 children, and with the help of her husband, raised 7 children of her own.

My grandmother made a very special gift for each of her granddaughters. A bride doll, with a handmade dress and veil. (See attached picture.) I am her youngest granddaughter, and will be the last one to get married. I believe that my grandmother had a vision- a vision of a family for each of us, that we would each continue the family that she helped to start. I believe in her vision as well, and when God sends me my husband, I will remember her vision. I am thankful for the legacy that my grandmother passed down to her children and grandchildren- that of faith and family.

Here is a poem that she wrote to her own mother:

Dear Mother

From your deep and peaceful sleep,

You climbed the stairs; Or Lord to meet.

And as they dressed you in a long white gown,

Just a soft sigh, but not a sound;

A tiny tear touches your face,

As they pin your wings in place.

And above your beautiful soft white hair,

A halo shines in all its glory there.

A glorious walk down that golden street,

Your husband and all your friends to meet.

To express your many joys and gladness.

No more sorrows, worries or sadness,

Where love, faith and hope is the key.

what a beautiful, wonderful place to be.

You take your chair on the righthand of the Lord.

"So children, look at me,

An angel, I am to be."

So cry no more and dry your tears,

For to me you shall come through the years;

So continue to have patience and strong love,

Someday we shall meet in our heaven above.

Your Loving Daughter,

Doris Ruth

Originally posted on Becoming Abigail on June 11, 2010.

Blessed by Beautiful Friends

Hi readers, I know I've been promising posts about camp...and here I am about to go to camp again and I still haven't told you about the last time! Well I will tell you soon...but not today. Today I just wanted to write quickly and say: I am so blessed. I'm not talking about things- though the Lord has given me every earthly thing I could ever need and then some- I'm talking about people. He has put such beautiful people into my life. Sometimes, in ways I could never guess or imagine. He has put me in a beautiful family- I am SO blessed to be a part of them. He has given me a wonderful church family that I am blessed to have grown up in. He has given me some really great, amazing, wonderful friends. Some old friendships and some new friendships. I'm the kind of person that doesn't have a ton of friends. But the ones I do have...I am extremely thankful for. I would do almost anything for them, and I know they would do the same for me. I am so thankful for my friends!! I don't know what I'd do without em! :) The Lord has brought these friends into my life in such beautiful ways. I can only praise Him for them. Do you have a really good friend you just love? Praise God if you do!!

~Brooke 

Enjoying Today

Well readers currently I am enjoying the first day of our family vacation! The weather has been wonderful, if hot, and the water sure felt good today!! You know, I really enjoy "getting away" with my family. We all get to hang out, no one has to worry about work or school; it's just really nice. :) And I can't help thinking, I really don't know how much longer I will be here with my family. I don't know what God has planned for my future. I may be married and living in a different state in a couple of years, who knows? But I should take advantage of these years with my family while I still can. =) So remember that- make the most of what you have right now. Cause you never know where you will be tomorrow.

~Brooke 

19 Years of Blessings

Recently I turned 19. I had a great birthday. I spent it at camp (which I still promise to tell you about). Before I left for camp, we celebrated with my family here. We went out to dinner and had cake that my mom drove 2 hours to pick up, homemade by a good friend of ours. The next day my brother and I left for a week at camp.
THEN on my actual birthday at camp: My day started by my best friend waking me up and saying, "Good morning and happy birthday!" =) Then at breakfast my brother and 2 friends sang me a birthday song. :) Of course, there were all the happy birthday texts and comments throughout the day. It was a wonderful day. :) I'm so blessed to have the wonderful family and friends I do. God has truly blessed me in many ways, and I am grateful.

~Brooke