Author Archives: Joy
Life…with a side of childlike perspective
The verbal and facial expressions seen and heard between my boys are some of the best material. You just can’t make this stuff up. Yesterday was no different.
This is the conversation had between my four and six-year-old while driving home at the end of the work day.
Caden (4 years old): “Ri, how long do brothers take care of each other?”
Ri (6 years old): “What do you mean?”
Caden: “How old will I be when you stop taking care of me? Six?”
Ri: “No, ten. When you’re ten you can do stuff cause you’re grown.”
Caden: “Like what kind of stuff?”
Ri: “You can drive a car…eat what you want…stay up late and get a job.”
Caden: “Oh.”
Me: “Ri, you can’t actually drive a car when you’re ten.”
Ri: “What?! Why not? I’ll be grown by then!”
Me: “You can drive a car when you’re sixteen.”
Ri: “SIXTEEN?! That will be forever!”
Caden: “Bella’s sixteen.”
Me: “No, darling, she’s fourteen.”
Ri: “WHAT?! Isn’t she in college?”
Me: “No, honey. She’s in high school.”
Caden: “Will I still be with you when I’m in college?”
Ri: “Yeah, we can live with mommy and daddy forever.”
Me: “Um…well…it doesn’t really work that way. When you go to college, you usually live on or near campus.”
Ri: “What kind of beds do they have at college? Are there fluffy, comfortable beds?”
Me: “You will probably take your bed when you move.”
Ri: “WHAT?! I’m not big enough to carry my bed!”
Me: “You don’t carry the bed, you pack everything in a truck…never mind. You don’t have to worry about college right now!”
Caden: “How old are you, mommy? Twenty-one?”
Me: “Do I look twenty-one?”
Caden: “No. You look twenty-five.”
Me: “Okay, I’ll take that.”
Me: “Ri, why are you so concerned about growing up fast?”
Ri: “I want to drive my girlfriend around.”
Me: “Who’s your girlfriend?”
Ri: “I haven’t found her yet.”
Priceless.
My Prayer for You
Downloadable Version My Prayer for You
1-Minute Meditation: Today
I read this earlier on Anita Esch Montgomery‘s facebook page. It is quite fitting for many of us and the conversations we have been having lately. I hope that you too will find that it meets you right where you are…today.
Today Is Your Best Day
In God we boast all day long, And praise Your name forever. Psalm 44:8
Here are four reasons why today is your best day.
– Today is your best day because you are here. God has placed you in this moment of time for a purpose, and the things that happen to you today will be an unfolding of that purpose.
– What happened to you yesterday, however easy or difficult, was used by God to help prepare you for what He has for you today.
– God will use what happens today to prepare you for what He has for you in future days.
– God has used your past and worked it all together for the good, and He will use this day to add to the good that He has already worked in your behalf.
~ Roy Lessin, Today is Your Best Day.
Sunday Post: People
Children are people too… just smaller
“People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.”
~Mother Teresa~
I think children have a much greater concept of this beautiful reading from Mother Teresa. I learn so much from the many children who I am blessed to have in my life.
Are you thinking about a great illustration for Jake’s challenge this week?
Join in by clicking the badge below.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary
“We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land.
It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other,
to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is:
each the others opposite and complement.”
~ Hermann Hesse ~
“I don’t fit into any stereotypes. And I like myself that way.”
~ C. JoyBell C. ~
“Insist on yourself; never imitate.
Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force
of a whole life’s cultivation,
but of the adopted talent of another,
you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
This third picture is one of my favorites of the dove on the wire with the crows.
There are times when one can be surrounded by others yet still solitary.
If you have experienced this you know exactly what I mean.
Wanna play along? Click here
Related articles
- Weekly Photo Challenge – Solitary (kattermonran.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary (babyjill7.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge – Solitary (pakos.me)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary (beijingcityphoto.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge : Solitary (cherylandrews.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary (jinancitydailyphoto.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge – Solitary (melonpops.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary (myjourneywithdepression.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary (danajoward.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary (speakingabouttravel2.wordpress.com)
Travel Theme: White
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence.
See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…
We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
~Mother Teresa
(Peacemaker) 



If you would like to join in this travel theme in honour of the International Day of Peace, here’s what to do:
Create your own post and call it Travel Theme: White. Put a link to this page in your post so others can find it. Don’t forget to subscribe to keep up to date on the latest weekly travel themes.
May peace and beauty be yours wherever you go.
Related articles
- Travel Theme: White (laavventura.wordpress.com)
- Travel Theme: White (francineinretirement.wordpress.com)
- International Day of Peace: A Conscious Act of Courage (omtimes.com)
- International Day of Peace (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
- Travel Theme: White (ahecticlife.wordpress.com)
- 7 things you may not know about Mother Teresa… (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
- “A Prayer by Mother Teresa” (faithfulnibbles.wordpress.com)
- Quickie: Mother Teresa & God (menmyselfandgod.com)

