Why Life is Different Here

1. My husband and I grew up in Alabama and now live in Minnesota. That really explains most of the differences.
2. Sometimes a summer day in Minnesota looks very much like a winter day in Alabama.
3. There are many people here who love cold weather and really, truly hate hot weather.
4. It always snows at Christmas. Now there is a positive difference!
5. Minnesota is different in many ways that are not weather-related, and these dissimilarities will surely be the topic of many-a post.
6. We have five children, considered by some to be a lot of kids. (We are very aware that our family is small next to many families, who have been even more richly blessed!) We are extremely thankful for them, for too many reasons to list!
7. There are seven years between the oldest and the youngest of our children, so at one time we were a baby parade. Now we’re just loud.
8. I am a stay at home mom by choice, and thankful for the opportunity. I hope that it is a choice we would have made even if our circumstances had made it much more difficult.
9. We home school our children. That is another way of saying that most of us are at home most of the time. This is more often than not a good thing, though sometimes I am tempted to complain about it. Then I remember reason # 6.
10. We are a family of sinners saved by the grace of God. Thank you, Jesus!


Ephesians 2:4-10
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.