"The Church's One Foundation" {and then a bit of a blogging break}

 
Something for your Sunday . . .      

The music is gorgeous . . . but the words elevate the music to something much deeper and soul-filling! 

I.  The church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

II.  Elect from every nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

III.  Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.

IV.  Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with thee.

And now I'm going to step away from the blog for a few weeks. Summer is always busy . . . but this one is . . . WHEW! 

Grand #15

 Katrina Hope

She has been a part of our family, and a part of our hearts, since she was three weeks old, but this week it became official!  Meet Katrina Hope, our fifteenth grandchild! ♥

Katrina is welcomed and wanted and loved!

Family and friends who witnessed the formal adoption.

I have shared this photo before. It is from our most recent whole-family photo shoot, taken in May 2021. But this time I don't have to blur Katrina's beautiful face. I have been waiting for that day! 

Ron and I with 14 of our 15 beautiful grands.
(Ellie had not yet been born.)

It is a beautiful thing when an earthly family opens their home and arms and hearts to a precious soul who was not a "natural" part of their family. It is an earthly picture of what our Heavenly Father has done for us. He took us when we were not His "natural" children (because by nature, we are all unholy and unrighteous), and He adopted us into His family and gave us the righteousness of Christ! 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 

Having predestinated us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 

To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 

Ephesians 1:36

Summer Birthday Celebration | 2022

 

On the final Sunday of July, we hosted our family's annual 

Summer Birthday Celebration!

We celebrated TEN summer birthdays, but we paid a little extra attention to one that was a milestone year. Our son Ryan is turning 40 this week!

🎉 Our party game was a little True-False with facts about Ryan.

🎉 We gave him a funny card. 

🎉 And we all gave him a special gift: an Irish Aran sweater. He has wanted such a sweater since he studied in Ireland one summer and visited the Aran Islands, but as a poor college student, a sweater was not in the budget. (He did manage to purchase a Claddagh engagement ring for Sarah while in Ireland, but that's another story. ♥)

 

I wish I had a better photo, but this one captured Ryan's joy at receiving his sweater!

Ryan told us the legend of the Irish cable knit sweaters, and then he shared this clip from the late Rich Mullins. It is laced with humor, but there is a message within the tale. 

Our Ryan has always been a joy to us! He is thoughtful, kind, gentle, hard-working, sensitive, talented, honest, and hilarious! He is a loving husband and father, and he faithfully follows Jesus! 

The father of a righteous child has great joy;
a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him.
(Proverbs 23:34) 

 

Then all ten of us were celebrated with singing and blowing out candles and ice cream cake!

There are a couple of other milestone birthdays. Maddie is 18 this year, and Owen is 16!

(Baby K is not a summer baby, but she will officially belong to our family this week, so no one was going to remove her from the celebration table!)

And I will close this happy post with a bit of total sweetness!