Appreciate God's Blessings!

Last month continued to be a busy and emotionally/physically draining month. Of course, 'as luck would have it', I came down with a terrible cold which turned into a sinus infection during a hectic two-week seminar! I've also been finding myself getting teary at odd moments, as I'm still coming to terms with our recent miscarriage. A friend, who's been through the unspeakably painful experience of losing a newborn, lent me the book Grieving the Child I Never Knewby Kathe Wunnenberg, which I highly recommend for anyone who has experienced the loss of an unborn or newly born child.

In the meantime, I continue to thank God for the three, beautiful blessings I already have. The other day, I was looking through an old journal and I came across this poem I wrote for my eldest daughter, who's now eight years old. I'm guessing I must have written it when she was about eighteen months. Now, I'm the first to admit that I'm not the world's greatest poet, but I just wanted to share it with you in the hope that it might be of some blessing, especially to busy mums with toddlers at home:

Every day there is so much to see,
 to learn, to watch, to listen to.
A stone, a pine cone, a dog barking,
 a car alarm.
What happens if I swirl this twig in the water,
 or throw it on the ground?
Let's count the steps or the trees;
 two, three, four, six.
Why is this piece of paper stuck to my finger?
Where has Mummy hidden the biscuits?
Every day there are so many words
 to copy, to practise, to remember - 
 Nose, Chair, Food, Ice Cream.
I'm sleepy, but I fight it.
 I don't want to miss out on anything!
But here is teddy and my sheet.
 I can start again tomorrow.

Abide in Him!



 Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net/ Maggie Smith

Miscarriage and and the Miracle of Life

It had happened again. In fact, it was the third time in four years that the same woman, performing the ultrasound at the gynaecological clinic, had turned towards me, shaken her head, and told me that our baby was dead; that there was no heartbeat. Not allowing the tears to fall, not yet, my husband and I edged our way through the queue of other pregnant women, all in various stages of swolleness, waiting outside. This baby would never swell my belly in that way any more, not now. It wasn't to be.

Practical matters to attend to pushed aside the desire to dwell on our sorrow. We needed to act fast. Unlike last time, when we were taken by surprise by the bleeding, we had a few days before anything would happen. We collected the children from their friends and greeted them without the happy smile they were expecting. Another sibling in heaven now. That makes three, waiting for them up there. It wasn't to be. God had other plans.

Wonderful husband spent the afternoon on the phone; phoning friends for advice, clinics, the insurance company, the airlines.... I spent the afternoon cleaning. I had to keep busy, and we would be having friends to stay in our house to look after our kids while we were away. I had to do something. Anything but wallow. I wasn't ready for the tears yet.

The next day we flew to Moscow, the two of us. Was it wrong to enjoy being on a plane without children for the first time in a long while? We made our way on the metro to the apartment of some gracious friends. The next three days were spent visiting the western clinic. We marvelled at the difference in the standard of care compared to last time. There was sadness, yes, but there would be no trauma. It would be straightforward and trustworthy. We even got a little picture of our baby, something the clinic in our home town had assumed we wouldn't want. A general anaesthetic and my baby and I had been parted, for now. There was no fault, no blame, just 'one of those things', 'something to be expected at your age'.

We said goodbye, physically, to our baby on February 4th, exactly 7 months before its 'due date'. Since then we've had a chance to reflect, to grieve, to pray, to question and to be comforted. Here are some of the lessons I've learned from this experience, and I wanted to share them with you:

1) Life is Hard
It's a cliche, but it's true. As Christians we can't escape the sadness and the hurt that there is in our fallen world. God never promises that life will be easy. I've heard it said many times that He is interested not in our happiness but in our holiness, and it's often through the painful experiences of life that we grow most in our faith. He shields us from many things, and only in heaven will we realise exactly how many, but, in His infinite wisdom, He chooses not to shield us from all that is wrong with the world.

2) Life is in God's Hands
How comforting to know that God is in control! Even when we don't understand why He has allowed something to happen, we can trust Him that He had some higher good in mind. We may never know this side of heaven what that higher good was, but we can trust our lives into His hands. Yes He is sovereign and all-powerful, but He is also good, and He loves us. Sometimes He wants us to pray for miracles, because He is a miracle-worker, and times like this shouldn't stop us from continuing to pray for those miracles, but when those miracles don't come we don't have to look around for someone to blame. We can trust Him that He knows what He's doing. Even in the midst of a painful experience we can see how God is in control. My husband and I will always be thankful that we took the ultrasound when we did, and not when we'd wanted to a week or two earlier. In making sure that the clinic was all booked up until February 1st, God allowed us time to find out the sad news long before the bleeding would start and I would have to be rushed to the local hospital in an ambulance, like last time. He was also in control when he cleared our friends' schedule in Moscow for that very weekend, giving us a safe haven in which to receive prayer and comfort during those few days.

3) Life is Shared
God created us for community. The church is the body of Christ, and if one member is hurting then all the members feel it. God ministers to us through others coming alongside with words of comfort, with prayers and with offers of practical help. How wonderful to see the body of Christ rallying round. How thankful we are for our sisters and brothers who willingly share our pain. We certainly experienced a lot of love and care during that week. Perhaps the most comfort is received from those who have also gone through similar, painful experiences. The Bible says that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received, and just as those people have ministered to me in a special way, I know that one day I will be stronger and better-placed to comfort another who may be grieving in a similar way.

4) Life is Precious
Finally, if there's one thing you come away with after having a miscarriage, it's that life is precious. It's a miracle. It should never be taken for granted. Just a few days later I heard that a close friend had lost her baby in the second trimester....again..., and that a friend of a friend had had a still birth. How fortunate I am to have three, beautiful, healthy children already! Every day we need to thank God for the children we already have; every day we should appreciate them and appreciate the wonder that they bring to our lives. We don't know how many days are numbered for us or our children. It may be a few weeks, a few months or many long years. For this baby its days were already numbered at eight weeks old pre-term. Let's enjoy and be thankful for each day of life that God gives us. Life is precious, so precious.

Abide in Him!



Photo credits: freedigitalphotos.net/ worradmu - sad woman, Victor Habbick - decaying rose

Blog at Home Mom - Book Review

When Christin Slade asked if anyone would like a free copy of her new ebook Blog at Home Mom: Balancing Blogging and Motherhoodin return for reviewing it on their blog, I jumped at the chance. Not only because it was a subject that really interested me, but also because I know Christin a little already from her blog Joyful Mothering, and I love her writing. I know that she has lots of experience and wisdom to offer.

Her new ebook didn't disappoint. She writes in her introduction: "Pursuing our passions doesn’t mean you sacrifice less as a wife or mother, it simply means you focus more on all the different facets."

In the ensuing chapters she covers topics such as setting goals and having a plan, organising your days, prioritising, and how to avoid sloppy days. And these aren't just ways to organise your writing and blogging. In each chapter Christin discusses how to set goals for your blog and for your children; how to organise your blogging schedule and how to organise your children's time. Throughout the book she weaves a careful balance between our responsibilities to our families and our homes and our desire to spend time on our computers developing our calling and gifting as writers. The final two chapters focus on caring for your marriage and caring for your spiritual walk, which are so important if we want to live a happy, balanced, intentional life.

Christin is well-connected in the blogging world, and I love that each chapter ends with some words of wisdom and insight from fellow bloggers on each topic.

If you're a Blog at Home Mom then I encourage you to buy this book, and as a bonus, all the profits from sales of the book go towards the Slade's Adoption Fund, as they try to raise $2500 to bring their two daughters home from Ghana.

Abide in Him!

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

It's my privilege to be hosting the latest Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. Many thanks to all those who sent in contributions. I enjoyed reading them all and hope you all will too.

The topic for this particular round of the Carnival was Born Persons / Nature of a Child, reading from Chapters 2 and 3 in Volume 6 of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series, and many of the posts submitted were based around this theme.




First up we have Mama Squirrel at Dewey's Treehouse. Taking a comprehensive look at Charlotte's comments about Intellect, Imagination, Reason, Beauty and our children's natural intellectual desires, Mama Squirrel asks the question: "How do our children's schools, home schools, Sunday Schools, or other learning situations provide for a healthy balance of these mental servants and desires?"




Then we have Brandy at Afterthoughts
Brandy applies Charlotte Mason's emphasis on Atmosphere, Habit and Life to problems she is encountering in their daily Circle Time. This admission made me laugh: "Recently, my seven-year-old daughter kindly taught my four-year-old son how to fake burp. He has decided that Circle Time is the best time to practice his new talent. No matter how funny you do or do not think this is, I'm sure you can understand that it is emphatically not funny the five thousandth time, and during prayer at that!"



Nebby, over at Letters From Nebby, comments on two differing views of children prevalent in Charlotte Mason's day and takes it a step further, asking if our generation is guilty of 'micromanaging' our children's learning. She astutely observes:

It is as if we have said, “Children are naturally programmed to learn so much before age 3! Let’s maximize that by giving them this and that!” And we have forgotten that children are naturally programmed to learn and that they do the work; we need only provide the most basic food for their minds. 

Silvia writes a beautiful post about falling short of your ideal of the perfect homeschool. I love this quote from Silvia in her post: " there can be too much of focusing on the grass less greener in my side of the fence, at the risk of missing the beautiful flowers that are blooming in a shady corner."




Barb has lots of wisdom to offer us over at Harmony Fine Arts.  
She quotes Charlotte Mason:  "It has been proved that the joy of knowledge itself is enough to carry a child successfully and happily through all twelve years of school.”

Barb testifies to the wisdom of this saying of Charlotte's and invites us to look at three of her posts which expand on this theme of feeding children's minds with living books.



Nancy, writing over at Sage Parnassus, has offered us two posts. In the first, she gives eight lovely suggestions of books to read for the Lent and Easter season - which will soon be upon us as Easter is early this year.

In her second post, Nancy reflects on Charlotte Mason's comments that the authority we have as parents should be 'present but not in evidence', like the foundations of a house, and that it is both a gift and a grace





Lanaya over at Delightful Education completes her three-part series on her family's experience with pottery. If you're looking for some inspiration for what to do in handicrafts then head on over here - it's really interesting to read about the whole process from start to finish.

Still on the theme of handicrafts, Patti, writing at School Days Scrapbook, believes that drawing and painting are learnable skills, a bit like learning to ride a bike, and that it's worth persevering, even if you think you're 'artistically challenged'.


   Another Patti shares some thoughts on Mary Cassatt, Chopin and William Wordsworth at All Things Bright and Beautiful, as she is thinking about spending more time on Artist, Composer and Poetry study in their homeschool.





Amy, writing at Crossing the Brandywine, makes her debut at the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival with a very thoughtful and insightful post about 'Why "Focusing on the 3 R's" is Not the Best Approach'. She talks about what to do when you have a struggling reader, and I love what she says here:

You can't stay in emergency mode for long: it ignores the beauty of life.

Christine from Zing Day has an amazing opportunity to visit her State Capitol building with her kids and stand up and speak for the rights of homeschoolers. Read about her experience and see her photos here.


Amy, our honourable carnival hostess, puts forward some of her reflections on Chapter 2, asking "How can you test the mind?" You can read her full post here at Fisher Academy International.



Tammy, from Aut-2B-Home in Carolina, addresses a feeling that we all have: being pressed for time! Her solution? Restore your sense of awe. Read more about what she suggests here.


And last but by no means least, Carol from journey-and-destination reviews two of her favourite read-aloud books with her boys that were not only exciting adventure stories but also encouraged the family to delve further into the geography and history depicted in the books.


Well, I hope you all enjoyed this week's carnival! The next Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival will be held on February 19th over at Delightful Education and the theme will be 'Proper Use of Authority', continuing with our reading in Charlotte's Volume 6, this time looking at Chapter 4, which you can read here. For more information in general about the Blog Carnival go here.

Abide in Him!

Curriculum Choices

In my last post I set out the weekly timetable that we are currently aspiring to (with varying degrees of success!) Now I'd like to share with you some of the specific curriculum choices I've made for each subject. Please note that the images are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to click and buy then I get a small percentage towards our homeschooling budget :-)

As you know, we follow the Ambleside Online Curriculum, which I'm really enjoying. The website is super helpful, it's free, there's an online forum for discussing all your questions and connecting with other Amblesiders all over the world, the curriculum is broken down into weekly reading suggestions for you, the book list is wonderful - so many interesting, living books - oh, and did I mention that it was free? As a Brit, I've also found it very easy to tweak the curriculum to our specific cultural needs, and make substitutions where appropriate, although Sophie, my 8 year old, and I are loving the set history book: 'Our Island Story' by H.E. Marshall, which is taking us through the history of England. One of the great things about homeschooling is that I'm learning so much, whether or not my kids are!

Ambleside Online leaves you free to make choices in certain areas, so here's what we do:

Phonics and Reading

I have to admit that I haven't tried many different approaches to teaching reading, so I can only comment on what works for us. Once the child is familiar with the letters of the alphabet and the accompanying sounds, we spend some time blending three letter words (sometimes using the Charlotte Mason approach too). Then, sometime after their 5th birthday, we start with a mixture of Peter and Jane books and Explode the Code. This has worked really well for us. Many of the Peter and Jane books were mine when I was learning to read! The children love the pictures in Explode the Code, and it's helpful having the two side by side. By the time my eldest finished level 12 of Peter and Jane she was off reading her own books happily.

Maths

At the moment I use a mixture of Singapore Maths and MEP. I love the Kindergarten books for Singapore, although it feels like a bit of a waste of money sometimes because the pages are so colourful that the child only needs to write one number on some of them! We used MEP for Year 1, and I love that it's free and all online. I just print off the next 30 or so lessons and download the teacher's guide to my Kindle and away we go. I find it very rigorous, but sometimes there are a lot of sums that the child has to do in one lesson. Just for a change I ordered the Level 2 of Singapore Maths 'My Pals Are Here'. (For the UK I order from Ichthus Resources) Immediately I realised why it's helpful just to stick to one maths curriculum if you can help it, as we weren't ready for adding 3-digit numbers yet, but once I remembered I didn't need to do everything in order, I started a bit later in the book with simple multiplying. We're now using both, as I find that one reinforces what is learned in the other, but I think ultimately I'll go back to MEP.

Foreign Language

See this post here which explains what we do with Foreign Language. Since I wrote the post, though, a friend helped us to get set up with Rosetta Stone, so I currently have Charis (5) doing Rosetta Stone Russian and Sophie (8) doing Rosetta Stone French. So far I like it, although it's frustrating when the microphone doesn't always recognise what they're saying. Sophie also has a 30-minute Russian lesson once a week with our nanny.

Extras

You may have noticed some subjects in our timetable that are not on the Ambleside curriculum. They're weekly optional extras that reflect some of our own family values. 



Mapwork - Being a globe-trotting family we want our kids to have a firm grasp of Geography right from the word 'go'. This term we're looking at Europe. We have the Geo-puzzle of Europe, and once a week we look at a different country in our Children's Atlas and try to remember the capital city. Later we'll also learn the flags.



Mission - This is close to our hearts also. Once a week we read about one of the people groups in Window on the World and pray for them. Since our focus is on Europe this term, I'm currently choosing people groups in Europe.





Astronomy - I know this is covered later in Ambleside Online, but I already bought the book and it looked so much fun. The plan is just to very slowly get started with it, so that we have a head start when the time comes.




 
Character - This book was recommended over at Simply Charlotte Mason. I choose three character qualities we'd like to work on each term, and we read one of the stories each week. If they want to, I'll photocopy the accompanying picture and they can colour it while we talk about it.



Scripture Memory - I love this approach over at Simply Charlotte Mason! It's very quick and simple, and we enjoy doing it as a family each morning. It's amazing how quickly it sinks in without too much effort. Even my 3 year old is quoting along with some of them.


Bible - In the afternoons I read the Year 2 selection from the 'actual' Bible, but in the mornings, in our family Bible time, we read from a Children's Bible, to keep all ages interested. I cannot recommend highly enough The Jesus Storybook Bible, but we also rotate a few others.

Extra-Curricular Activities

Piano - We'd love for each child to grow up knowing how to play at least one instrument, and the piano seemed a good place to start since we have one at home. We tried paying for a professional teacher to come to our home once a week, but Sophie didn't take to that very well, so for now I know just enough to help her through the John Thompson books that were mine when I was her age. She's loving it, and I don't need to nag her to practise. These books have a 'living book' feel to them because she gets to play actual tunes rather than go through lots of drills.

Dance - Other than having them run around the back yard or join in with my morning DVD workouts, I wasn't doing any proper 'physical education' with them, so we chose to send the girls to a local dance class. It's called 'sporty ballroom dancing', and it gets them moving with a bit of 'cha cha cha' thrown in! They go twice a week and enjoy it. When Nathaniel (3) is a bit older I plan to send him to gymnastics.

Art - The girls also attend an art class in town twice a week. Sophie showed a real flair for art at a young age and I wanted to find a way to encourage her and develop her talent without her having to rely soley on her creatively-challenged mother. Charis is in the same class and has also developed a love of art. Ordinarily, driving into town four times a week for extra classes would be a bit much, but we decided they were important a) for developing these special skills b) for interacting with other children in the local culture and the local language and c) for learning to be under the authority of another grown-up other than their parents in a classroom setting.

So, there you have it! I hope that was useful for some of you. 

Qu: Do you use any of these materials? 
Qu: Do you have any particular suggestions that I haven't mentioned that you love? 
Qu: How do you do extra-curricular activities in your homeschool?

Abide in Him!

How We Plan Our Days

I don't know about you but I'm forever tweaking our daily schedule. I love having set routines and predictability, but life just isn't like that. Interruptions happen, guests arrive, children get sick, classes get cancelled....However, it doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't try to establish some order and 'normality' to our days. I believe that kids thrive on routine and feel safe with predictable schedules. As homeschooling mums it also helps us to feel like we're ticking all the right boxes and being diligent in our job.

In the early days of homeschooling I spent hours on the internet reading and researching how other mothers ordered their days. I don't want to pretend that I've got it down pat and that mine is the perfect schedule by any means, but just in case it might be helpful to a few people out there then I thought it was about time I shared my daily timetable with you all.

My eldest is 8 and is in Year 2 of the Ambleside Online curriculum, which I love. My second daughter is 5. She's in a kind of kindergarten year, but listens in to a lot of what the eldest is doing. My son is 3, and mostly hangs around the schoolroom playing with his trains or his cars, although recently we've started looking at some letters together.

The times below are very loose and flexible. Usually, when we've finished one activity we just move onto the other, but it helps me to keep track of where I think we should be.

8.45am Family Bible Time (using a Children's Bible), prayer and Scripture Memory
9.00am Phonics (during this hour I also have the weekly composer music playing in the background if it's not too distracting)
9.15am Maths
9.45am Reading
10.00am Copywork
10.15am Snack time in the living room while I read the daily poetry selection and we recite one of the poems we've been learning. We also drill our weekly 'Times Table'.
10.45am Literature (one of the weekly reading selections followed by narration)
11.15am French (Tues, Thurs), Russian (Mon,), Artist Appreciation (Wed), Book of Centuries (Fri)
11.30am Reading time with my 3-year old while my girls practise piano.
11.45am Outdoor time - usually a walk around the village. This can include a 'nature walk' on one day.
12.30pm Lunch preparation time while kids play
1.00pm Lunch
2.00pm Quiet Half Hour
2.30pm Bible reading (Ambleside selection), followed by Monthly Hymn and Folk Song
2.45pm Mission (Mon), Mapwork (Tues), Astronomy (Thurs), Character (Fri)
3.00pm Literature (another of the weekly reading selections followed by narration)
3.30pm Snack
3.45pm Nature topic and nature notebook (Mon), Handicrafts (Fri)
4.30pm Free time

 On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the girls have a dance class in town, and on Wednesdays I have a nanny come so that I can have an afternoon off. During that time Sophie (8) has a half an hour Russian lesson with the nanny. I'll also need to tweak the timetable when we work out the new schedule for art classes in town, which the girls used to go to twice a week. Unfortunately things keep changing here!

I hope that's helpful for some. Every family is different, so you need to find what works for you, and as I say, my schedule is forever changing because....well....life happens! Also, I often drop some of the 'extras' if we're having a busy period, like the Astronomy, Mission, Mapwork, Character and Book of Centuries.



In my next post I'll talk through some of my curriculum choices for the individual subjects.



Qu: I'd love to hear how you plan your days! Please feel free to give a quick outline or link to a relevant blog post in the comments below.

Abide in Him!



P.s. I just wanted to clarify again that this is my ideal schedule that we're working towards at the moment, and it doesn't always happen! In fact, the morning I posted this we had some unexpected guests and that was it - the schedule went to pot for the day. Also, this is a winter schedule, since we can't get outside much at the moment and it's nice to have something to fill the whole day. Once the weather gets better we'll be scheduling much more outdoor time. So please don't feel like I'm some superhero mom - very far from it!

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles

Hope for the New Year

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but I love fresh starts. Our local weather here in Russia seems to agree with me, because you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful couple of days. The sun is shining in a clear blue sky, and on the ground the fresh, white snow is sparkling and glistening. Everything around me speaks of hope…..hope for a great year ahead.

Hope…….It was one of our themes represented by a candle on our advent wreath over the Christmas period.

What do you think about when you think of the word Hope and as you look to the year ahead?  

Perhaps we have hopes for our children; we hope they will one day ask Jesus into their hearts, we hope they will grow to be wise, godly men and women, we hope they will look back and remember a happy childhood, we hope they will develop wonderful talents and use those talents for God, we hope that they would be willing to follow Christ’s call to the ends of the earth (but at the same time we secretly hope that they will stay close and give us lots of grandbabies!)

What hopes do you have for your homeschool or your children’s education? Perhaps we hope that this year little Danny will finally be able to read a sentence of three-letter words. We hope that Bethan will stop being so grumpy and just learn to get on with her schoolwork without us constantly standing over her. We hope that Hayley will succeed with her high school maths. We hope that the new curriculum we bought will be worth the money we spent on it, or that something of what we’re teaching each day really is connecting some wires inside their heads behind those glazed eyes.

What about the future? Perhaps your family, like ours, is facing some uncertainties. We hope that things will turn out OK. We hope that God will show us clearly the way ahead. We hope that we will make wise decisions when the time comes.

In the Christmas hymn ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ one of the lines goes:

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

How true it is that hopes often come alongside fears; fears that what we hope for might not come true.

We know a local family that has very little hope. They seem to be stuck in a pit they just can’t get out of. With five children to feed they struggle to have enough money just to buy food, let alone nappies and clothes. Their hopes and fears centre around whether they will get sick this winter, or whether they’ll have enough money to pay the gas bill. Last winter the temperature got down to minus seven inside their bathroom. We help where we can, but it’s hard to see how they can get out of this pit. It’s hard to know how to pray away the despair we see in their eyes. The hard thing is that they are believers and yet they feel that God has deserted them.

God impressed it on my heart to pray diligently for this family, especially the wife, and also to share Scriptures with her. We had recently enjoyed doing Ann Voskamp’s thanksgiving tree as a family, and I really wanted to share with her how Ann’s book ‘One Thousand Gifts’ had really helped me in the bleak days following my miscarriage in 2011. Unfortunately Ann’s book wasn’t available in Russian at the Christian bookstore in town, so instead I bought a pretty journal and copied out all the Thanksgiving scriptures onto some of the pages. I handed the book to my friend and asked her if she’d like to try writing down one thing to be thankful for each day. She seemed grateful and willing.

I don't know if my friend will keep it up or not, but writing down all those scripture verses was a powerful experience for me. God’s word really is living and active! When hope is lacking in our lives, God’s word can lift our eyes up out of our circumstances and into His loving face, which reassures us that He has everything in control and we do not need to fear.

Where is hope? It’s in the form of a tiny, helpless baby who was born over 2,000 years ago in an obscure town in the Middle East. It is because that baby was born that we can be sure that God has a plan to put everything right, and He’s working that plan out today. We may not see immediate results, but He asks us to TRUST Him. He asks us to leave our despair at the foot of the manger, to look into the sweet face of the divine baby - God incarnate - and allow Him to fill our hearts with hope.

"..that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.."   Ephesians 1v18b

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10v23

These are my prayers for you for this coming year. May God fill your hearts with his Hope as you look to what lies ahead.

Abide in Him!

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles