A Place Of Connection

I was first introduced to the world of fiber arts, when a great grandmother gave me curly hair ribbons.  This little gift made a huge impact on my life and soon I was learning to crochet.  I remember the first thing I crocheted was a green scarf, that turned out to be two different widths by the time I finished. 

My mom was the greatful owner of that new scarf. She must have truly encouraged me, because I continue to this designing and creating and I am thankful for her love of color and design and her investment in my life and the lives of everyone she meets.  She instilled in me, that Art is to be a place of connection.   

Pictured are some of the things I have enjoyed creating throughout the years.

I really enjoy fiber arts most, because it is a place where people can sit together and have great growth in conversation and creativity, and it is a place where people can be encouraged and learn new things.  

It was about 12 years after I crocheted that scarf, before I met the love of my life and I began to crochet rag rugs and placemats, and connecting straps of fabric to crochet and sell. As my children grew, I found our home to be a place where, I could teach them.   Soon I would teach them what I knew...crocheting and connecting strips of fabric...fiber arts became the place that I spent with our daughters,, connecting and learning and growing...and designing and creating clothing for them.

In 2005, our family grew and we were blessed with a son.  There have been many adventures and many different avenues of growing and sharing, besides fiber arts.  Animal husbandry and spindle creations have been, some of the things we have been able to share with our son. 

Our children have all grown and our family has grown too. and fiber arts has, in some way or another become new avenues of creativity in all their lives!  

As the seasons flew by, and in the midst of music and studies, fiber arts continued to be a tool to create and soon I learned filet crochet design.  Which was a great tool for supplementing income and helped me through long hours away from my family at work.  I began to share filet crochet with new moms at the hospital I worked at, and made many banners for new babies born there.  I also learned to weave on peg board loom and this became a wonderful avenue for my coworkers and I in the middle of long shifts.

Here in this new season, within the last five years, a sweet opportunity has been afforded, through my husband's sweet love, we have been able to enjoy and learn about fiber animals and the tools of processing their fiber into beautiful yarns.  So In this part of the journey we have been learning and growing and stewarding animals together.  We have a sweet dog named Sam,  who is our livestock guardian and so far we have had, Navajo Churro, Shetland sheep, and Angora goats and Angora rabbits.   There are many challenges and opportunities to grow.The thing I have enjoyed the most about fiber arts, has been in the experiences and the people that I have met and walked with along the way.  Growing with them and learning and creating.  Maybe you have a fiber arts journey to share,  or maybe you are just beginning.  

Remember Who You Are

Remembering who you are is going to take some very specific work, and may encompass things like healing and forgiveness fasting and prayer, repentance and rest. For me, to remember who I am, has meant letting go of certain mindsets I had picked up along the way.  There has also been a great shaking and removal of certain blockages or, false ideals that had been established early on in my life.  Remembering who we are, is relevant to moving forward as the Author of Life intends us to move forward.  Therefore, remembering who we are is a work and a breaking in and breaking forth of the Holy Spirit.  The expression of this work, when it happens, will be different for each one of us, but it will be beneficial  to all.  As I think back through the years of creating different art pieces with textiles and fibers, I have come to realize that these have been the material that I have used to express His Spirit as He guides me in remembering Who we are.  It is my hope and my joy therefore to continue to bring forth pieces and patterns  and blogposts to share here with you.  Stay tuned.

A Farm In The House

  A Farm In The House.   A place of growing and learning, rebuilding, restoring, renewing!  Our family moved to Oklahoma in the spring of 2016.  It is hard to believe that time has past so quickly.  It has been an amazing and challenging 5 years since we moved from our place in NM.  Our story is unfolding,  as are all of your lives and our corporate LIFE that we find in each other, hidden in Him. We are excited about our farm and our growing family,
   watching and experiencing changes to the farm and to our lives in in these seasons of the past five years has been paramount to our growth and maturity..  welcome to A Farm In The House.   This Farm In The House, is a place that we have been blessed with...a place of resources and in our hearts, a purpose of rebuilding,  renewing and restoring others....via this canvas of farm and fiber arts. that we hope will bring rest to others. Welcome..

Roots Down Deep

What is the Plan?

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

He has not forgotten or become sidetracked from His plan for His Sons in the earth in this generation.  As you go through your day, remember that HE is bringing forth His nation of Kings and Priests, of Sons.  

Seek Him out and He will place you very strategically, in the midst of training you up in His plan and promise of rule and righteousness in this generation.  

The reason that He is doing this work is for His name sake, so that His name will be lifted up before the nations of the earth through your life.  

In order for lives to be changed and the economy of His Kingdom to come forth, He will, set the nation up, in a very orderly foundation, household by household.  So that the weary will look and be lifted up by the light on the horizon.  

He is working this thing, in the midst of the chaos, side by side the turmoil, because those that will be lifted up will be waiting in the middle of their sorrows, looking about for a glimmer of hope, in the tumult of their storm.  for a LIGHT that they have never seen before.  An unmistakable light of Hope and Restoration, and Surety of Victory.

Come out of what has bound you in the traditions of men, Sons of the Lord Most High, so that you can be established in His household.

His Grace is sufficient for us!

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me  2 Corinthians 12:9

Faith is not merely "the evidence of things not seen", etc.,

"and is not a revelation (that defines only one of the indications of faith, is not the relation of man to God(one has first to define faith and then God, and not define faith through God);  it is not only agreement with what one has been told one(as faith is most usually supposed to be), but faith is a knowledge of the meaning of human life in consequence of which man does not destroy himself but lives.  Faith is the strength of life.  If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, he would not live.  If he does not see and recognize the illusory nature of the finite, he believes in the finite;  if he understands the illusory nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite.  Without faith, he cannot live.

And I recalled the whole course of my mental labour and was horrified.  It was now clear to me that for man to be able to live he must either NOT see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.  Such an explanation I had had;  but as long as I believed in the finite, I did not need the explanation, and I began to verify it by reason.  And in the light of reason the whole of my former explanation flew to atoms.  But a time came when I ceased to believe in the finite.  And then I began to build upon rational foundations, out of what I knew, an explanation which would give a meaning to life;  but nothing could I build.  Together with the best human intellects I reached the result that 0 equals 0, and was much astonished at that conclusion, though nothing else could have resulted.

What was I doing when I sought an answer in the experimental sciences?  I wished to know why I live, and for this purpose studied ALL that is outside me.  Evidently I might learn much, but NOTHING of what I needed.

What was I doing when I sought an answer in philosophical knowledge?  I was studying the thoughts of those who had found themselves in the same position as I, lacking a reply to the question, "why do I live?"  Evidently I could learn NOTHING but what I knew myself, namely that nothing can be known.

What am I?  A part of the INFINITE!  In those few words lies the whole problem.  Is it possible that humanity has only put that Question to itself since yesterday?  And can no one before me have set himself that question so simple, and one that springs to the tongue of every wise child?

Surely that question has been asked since man began;  and naturally for the solution of that question since man began it has been equally insufficient to compare the finite with the infinite, and since man began the relation of the finite to the infinite has been sought out and expressed.

All these conceptions in which the finite has been adjusted to the infinite and a meaning found for life~the conception of God, of will, of goodness~we submit to logical examination.  And all those conceptions fail to stand reason's criticism.

Were it not so terrible, it would be ludicrous with what pride and self satisfaction we, like children, pull the watch to pieces, take out the spring, make a toy of it, and are then surprised that the watch does not go.

A solution of the contradition between the finite and the infinite, and such a reply to the question of life as will make it possible to live, is NECESSARY and PRECIOUS.  And that is the only solution which we find everywhere, always, and among all peoples:  a solution descending from times in which we lose sight of the life of man, a solution so difficult that we can compose nothing like it~ and this solution we light heartedly destroy in order again to set the same question, which is natural to everyone and to which we have no answer.

The conception of an Infinite God,  the divinity of the soul,  the connection of human affairs with God,  the unity and existence of the soul, mans conception of moral goodness and evil~ are conceptions formulated in the hidden infinity of human thought, they are those conceptions without which neither life not I should exist;  yet rejecting all that labour of the whole of humanity,  I wished to remake it afresh myself and in my own manner.

I did not then think like that, but the germs of these thoughts were already in me.  I understood, in the first place, that my position with Schopenhauer and Solomon, notwithstanding our wisdom, was stupid:  we see that life is an evil and yet continue to live.  That is evidently stupid, for if life is senseless and I am so fond of what is reasonable, it should be destroyed, and then there would be no one to challenge it.

Secondly, I understood that all one's reasonings turned in a vicious circle like a wheel out of gear with its pinion.  However much and however well we may REASON, we cannot obtain a reply to the question; and 0 will always equal 0, and therefore our path is probably erroneous.  Thirdly, I began to understand that in the replies given by FAITH, is stored up the deepest human wisdom and that I had NO right to deny them on the ground of reason, and that those answers are the only ones which reply to life's question."

Leo Tolstoy (My Confession, chapters 8 and 9)

Building A Firm Foundation

The picture above is nothing like the cinder block garage that my Grandpa Glenn built! I recently had a dream about the building of my grandpa's garage. There he was in dream as he is in true memory, painstakingly placing each new brick. And when the garage no longer met his needs, he would move a wall and reconstruct. As a child, this was one of the things that made Grandpa Glenn who he was to me. I loved to watch him work with his hands on the garage or in his the garage at his gas station. Often times I would also see him landscape for Grandma Carol. Grandpa's care and touch to me as a child was a comfort and a safe place in the midst of my tumultuous childhood.

When I woke from my dream, I contemplated the reason behind the dream. I do not often dream about my Grandpa. As I thought about the garage and my Grandpa's touch to the world about him, I knew that he lived a life of specific purpose. His touch was gentle and his words gentler still, and the most magnificent word that I ever heard my him say was, "hmmm." He said it often, when others were hustling and bustling about him and telling him of their lofty plans. I never heard him speak a condemning word, although he too was human as you or I. Yes, I am certain that Grandpa had some choice words concerning lofty plans. Grandpa knew what I seldom see at first. He knew that even his words must be used to build a strong foundation. Just as he laid every brick down with great care to create that beautiful, large garage...so were the foundation bricks that he laid down for his household.

Father, help us to build our house on the strong foundation that you have provided through your Son. Help us to sift through the things that do not matter. Teach us how to grow in grace, come and abide in us with your spirit so that we do not tear each other down, but lift each other up in your love. Help us, in this generation to take hold of the Life that you give and help us to escape the enemy that surrounds us. Bring forth your Kingdom and your Household of Sons in this Generation. Establish us Father, in that household, the very living and breathing stones of your body, your temple.

Cease from strife

We are coming to the close of one season and the beginning of another here in the Foley house. When I think about all the places that the Lord has brought us to this last season, my heart is filled with joy and praise and awe. We have lived this past season watching Him mold and shape us and sharpen us. There have been many opportunities to cry out to Him in this season of traveling and singing and studying. Some days have seemed too overwhelming for words and some days there seemed to be no end to the books that consumed our time and our thoughts. What will come in the season before us? The Lord is surely quickening us and continues to mold and mature us. It is our hope to continue here, with the people that He has brought into our lives. To grow strong in His name, amongst the people that we know and love. In the midst of it all, He has given Carl and I a great peace. Because we know that His grace is sufficient for us, even in such a time as this. And I think, through that grace, He has given us determined purpose and a specific purpose for each member of our household. The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10