Publisher: life{in}grace — Seeking and finding grace at every turn.

Y’all! Come on in! familyfunnies I’m Edie and I’m honored to have you visiting my online home. If you stay around too long, I’ll probably make you pose for crazy family photos or sing karaoke with me. Mostly, I hope to inspire you a little and encourage you in your own wild journey! It was nearly six years ago that I started this blog and I do not take for granted the privilege to write here. I used to have a job that required me to actually get dressed and leave the house in the mornings but most days now you’ll find me at home, teaching and raising children, cooking up a storm, getting lost in classic books, and learning to enjoy the beauty of ordinary days. I’m obsessed with art and design, all things Texas, banjo music, cowboy boots, colorful, quirky home decor, New Year’s resolutions and Southern-ness. Six years ago, I decided to give up my career as a family practice physician to stay home full time with my family. I’m not gonna lie. It ain’t been easy. The next year, I began homeschooling my girls. Whoa, Nelly. There were days I wasn’t sure I’d make it. The good news is, I firmly believe in inspiring spaces, so we school in this workroom/craft room/laundry room. It’s a pretty great place to spend hours on end, even when the days get long and hard. In short order, this southern belle became a blogger, a homeschooler, a Lutheran, and a self-proclaimed goddess of the domestic arts. I taught myself to cook, to sew, to craft, and am trying to learn how to garden. There just never seems to be enough hours in the day to do it all but I don’t go down without a fight! I love teaching my girls to be keepers at home. They made this pom-pom wreath recently and are learning to be industrious little women. I am humbled and grateful to be right where I am doing just what I’m doing, with all its trials and joys. I document my faith journey, my mother love, my insatiable appetite for classic literature, lipgloss, cooking, C.S. Lewis, and my eclectic, retro-cottage, Southern chic decorating style. I look for the divine among the mundane and cherish the sacred grace moments that spring up through the stony ground of everyday living. I view my vocation as a wife and mother as nothing short of miraculous—-that God would entrust His beautiful created life to me is an honor of which I am not worthy. We are one blessed, blended family! I am making this journey—this amazing life—with my husband of fourteen years, who continually inspires me, who never ceases to ‘raise the bar’ to deeper levels of love and understanding. And who always grabs the book I was just about to read next. Marriage is so hard sometimes, but I’m so thankful to walk this road together with someone who loves us so deeply he literally walked through fire to save us. (I know what you’re thinking….he’s so darn cute. Yes, yes he is!) We are truly living LIFE-IN-GRACE— a dream that we do not deserve. So, welcome to my online home. I am thankful that you have come. I hope you will find here some inspiration and encouragement for your own journey. Stay awhile and I’ll make some coffee and we’ll sit and chat in my favorite room of the house, the screened in porch. An introduction wouldn’t be complete without telling you about December of 2010. Our lives drastically changed, 3 days before Christmas, when we lost everything but a turquoise chair in a devastating house fire. I thought my broken heart would never mend. Tragedy changes us and if we are willing to see it, God will show us that His grace covers it all. We learned to say thank you for the winter grace. And we rebuilt our dreams while He rebuilt our hearts. (there are links on the sidebar to various rooms in the house!) I also recently wrote a 31 Day Series on Hospitality , which I converted into an ebook! It’s finally ready for purchase! You get both the pdf and the digital files for $5. And I almost forgot to tell you that BETTER HOMES and GARDENS shot our house in September and will featuring our rebuild story in the January 2013 issue. I nearly died when we first found out they were gonna run the story. I wrote about the experience here and here. I haven’t seen the article yet but I’ll be the one squealing at the check out line at Ingles. I’m real subtle like that. You can sift through six years of archives, if you dare! If you’d like a particularly long laundry list of stuff about me, which consequently is about as exciting as doing your laundry, click here, and here, and here. If you’d like you’d like to read a few posts that would give you the ‘essence’ of lifeingrace, visit here or here or here. If you’ve always wondered about finding your calling in life or whether what you do everyday matters, it happens to be one of my favorite topics. And in case you get any crazy ideas that our life must be wonderful and gracious all the time, let me clue you in to a little tidbit. This is a blog—-a online journal, if you will, of our lives and my thoughts. This is not reality. My house gets dirty and disorganized, my children scream and fight, the dogs run through the house soakin’ wet and chew all my outdoor cushions; and I am convinced, at times, that my showering schedule is a little lax. We are an ordinary family plagued with the same stresses and messes that you are. We are trusting God to restore the years—–the years the locusts have eaten; the mess we’ve made with the gifts he’s given us—the disgraceful way we’ve trampled on his goodness time and time again. He makes all things new. For the sake of Christ, alone. I leave you with these words that sat on my kitchen counter for years. I am so glad that you have come. I will pour out everything inside me so that you may leave this table satisfied and fortified. Blessings on your eyes. Blessings on your children. Blessings on the ground beneath you. My heart is a ladle of sweet water, brimming over. The Red Tent, Anita Diamanti May God bless you with every good and perfect gift. Read more at http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/2008/06/about-me/#smy9BpvsDUPKt7YW.99

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