The Lord is doing so much and as I have time, I am compelled to share.  Can’t contain the beauty and magnitude of His love.

And, feel free to contact me (top of the page) if you desire.  I will still have the email account connected to the blog.  I received a wonderfully encouraging email from a reader last night.

Okay, this first one might seem random, but I want to highly recommend Another Blessing to you.  This is a family business that sells ovulation kits and pregnancy tests at a fraction of the cost typically paid at a local store (we’re talking less that $2 for two!).  We have ordered from them a few times (both products) and they’ve been wonderful (the tests AND the people).  Good communication, fast shipping, and detailed instructions included.

Blogs (in no particular order)

Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet – Be prepared to meet God here.  God works through Sara’s writing and she has, in many ways, become a mentor and friend.

10 Million Miles – Laura has been tremendous in her helps for mothers.  I have a lot of respect for her!

Dance and Be Glad – I LOVE Leah’s heart to love God with every ounce of our being, and “to help support and raise up dancers for the Lord.”  Another friend.

Generation Cedar – This woman loves her children–and desires to help other believers understand God’s heart for children as well.  I love her passion.

Passionate Homemaking – A practical and encouraging blog for a wife and mother at home

Guarded by the Gospel – Another practical and encouraging blog for a wife and mother at home

Keeper of the Home – Stephanie has worked hard to provide many great writers to help the Christian homemaker.

Frugal Granola – I really appreciate Michele’s heart to be Christ-centered in everything she does.  We have many similarities!

Naturally Knocked Up – Donielle has a heart to help other women achieve fertility (which she’d agree is really in the Lord’s hands) through knowing our bodies and nourishing them.  She is offering a 60% discount for her Naturally Fertility Workshop through tonight at midnight when you sign up for her newsletter.

Heavenly Homemakers – I just love Laura’s sense of humor, transparency, and very helpful, practical resources.

Happy Brown House – Sara is a college friend who is extremely crafty and talented.  (Purchase something from her shop to help with their adoption!!)

Casual Cuisine – my friend Nancy’s cooking blog that has LOTS of delicious recipes (I know because I’ve made a lot and many have become go-to recipes)

A Holy Experience – Ann’s writing is both inspiring and convicting.

LAF/Beautiful Womanhood – A wonderful resource for promoting Biblical womanhood.

Raising Homemakers – Another great resource for mothers of daughters.  Practical and fun!

The Gospel Coalition Blog – For the thinker, a wonderful blog promoting Gospel-centered thinking and living within the body of Christ

Striving to Serve at Home – This girl rocks.  She is at least 9 years younger than me and has recently married. Her heart is just beautiful.  I would love, if we lived near one another, for Tara to spend time with her. What a godly young woman.

1+1+1=1 – A wonderful homeschooling resource

Forever ‘n Ever ‘n Always – I came across this blog after seeing repeated encouraging, edifying comments on another blog.  I just had to know who this woman was!  What an encouraging blog she has.  She has blessed me through her building up another believer.

Ministries

Sovereign Grace Ministries

Desiring God

International House of Prayer (I love turning the live stream for the Prayer Room on throughout our day)

Vision Forum

Family Ministries

Today I am going to attempt to continue sharing my heart regarding why I’m not going to blog (indefinitely).  In addition to breaking all the blogging rules about the ideal length of a post (this will be very long, your fair warning), it’s also a little scary for me.

While I want to share the beauty of the road I have traveled, I don’t want to share the ugly.  But, I suppose that since both beauty and understanding can come from a tumultuous road, I should.   And something I feel strongly about is being “real.”  So, here goes…

I have walked 8 months through a very, very difficult time.  There are several factors involved, but one of the primary ones is my struggles with despair (or others would say depression).  Now, I’ve never kept it a secret that this is a tendency of mine (but I don’t tell everyone when I see them, either).  I have written about it a bit and talk openly about it with safe people.  It is a “bent,” if you will, that I have.  Whether it is due to personality or a recurring “thorn” for me, I don’t know.

Typically, I’ll be mildly affected by little bits of this invasive despair, but it has been a long time since I have experienced it in the way I have most recently.  It’s nearly debilitating.  It affects everything, and it does not relent.  It seems to be an impossible foe to escape from, much less to defeat outright.

Interestingly enough, I don’t think that it kept getting worse and worse and worse.  The feelings of despair seemed to stabilize at a constant, but still discouraging, level.  This level ebbed and flowed somewhat, but was relatively steady for 8 months.  Yuck.  Even so, God began to break in, and that is why I believe I didn’t continue spiraling deeper down.  There was a real battle.  While I didn’t feel like I was moving forward, the Lord was helping me battle against the downward pull.  When you tread water, you usually stay in the same exact spot.  But in order to stay there, a lot of work is being done underneath the water.  In fact, it’s really tiring work and vitally important.  If you quit, you’ll sink.

About two months into it, the Lord began to move in the midst of my emotional bleakness.  In one night, the Lord broke in and began to change me and my perspectives.  I was broken and recognized my need for the Lord to conform my unrighteousness into His righteousness through His grace and by His power.  My love for Him had grown cold (in my opinion), and He was jealous for my heart.

Fast forward to this past December.  I began seeing many of my prayers of those 8 months being answered.   It has been quite interesting, exciting, and hard, all at the same time.

I have become extremely, painfully aware of pride in my heart.  And really, this one sin is the root of everything else I’ll share which has led to the decision not to blog.

———————————–

I have discovered that I love writing.  It is a way for me to process what God is teaching me and to respond to Him, and to share with others.  I love sharing with others things that have helped me, brought me joy, etc.  I don’t consider myself a “good” writer, but I do enjoy it.

However, I’ve also discovered (recently) that it has also been an outlet for pride to be manifested.  God hates pride.  I believe that God does not want me to use blogging as a means to exalt myself, even if the exaltation is hidden from public view by residing only in my heart.  I believe that, for now anyway, God does not want me to blog.  In a sense, He is taking it away and moving me in a different direction.

I consider the need I feel to give up the blog to be both discipline from the Lord and the gracious leading of the Holy Spirit.  And I am so thankful for it.  The decision to cease blogging has been quite freeing.  If I really want to live a life for the Lord (I do), than His glory should be my goal, not my own.  He has shown me that I have been seeking my own glory through blogging (though I wouldn’t have said that was what I was doing—consciously it wasn’t).  I have wanted to be known, to be respected, and to be made much of (not sure I would have said that either).  Funny what the Lord sees that we either won’t admit or can’t see ourselves.

I was seeking my validation from everyone else but the One whose validation really counts.

And God would not have it.  Not for His sake, and not for my sake.  You see, He knows that I am most satisfied when I’m feasting on Him, not consuming more of myself.  It’s what I was created for: to glorify Him, to make much of Him, to make Him known.  I have not been truly happy when I have been serving myself.  In fact, the last 8 months have been little more than spiritual wandering and emotional gloom (my poor husband!).  God wants me to be satisfied—in Him.  It’s the ONLY way I’ll ever be satisfied.

I do have to say that the smiles you’ve seen in pictures over the last several months haven’t been fake.  Anyone who has struggled with feelings of depression knows the yoyo feelings that accompany it.  Some days are great while others leave you feeling like pond scum.  It hasn’t been constant misery.

And the praise of man is empty.  It does not ultimately matter one iota if someone thinks anything of me—good OR bad—if I am walking in obedience to Jesus Christ.  What matters is what the King of the Universe, My Creator, and My Redeemer thinks of me.  He wants me to understand and believe that.  Because when I do, I will act like I do, and my life will look very different than it does when I am busy worshipping the idol of man’s approval.

So, I see the end of this blog as a sweet discipline from my Father.  He knows what’s best for me.  He knows that only destruction would have come if I continued in my pride.  He also knows that the only way joy, purpose, and true discipleship will come is if my validation comes from Him alone.

He is lovingly showing me that he wants to give me something so much greater.  The decision to stop blogging was not initially my own.  It was the Lord’s.

———————————————

I want to walk in the meekness of Christ.  That is not possible when I am making much of myself.  Through false judgments toward me, the revealing of my own pride, and some pretty awesome teaching I’ve received, I have realized that I have not been a meek woman.  I want to be meek because Christ is meek. It is the meek who are blessed.

I don’t believe that at this time, I can accomplish that goal and have an online presence, in large part because of my pride.  But, there’s more to it than that.

We did not have the Internet in our home until after Tara was born a little over three years ago.  People thought we were so strange.  I had to go to the library, which was inconvenient, to check email or do anything else online.  Later, it took about six months of deliberation before getting onto Facebook.  We chose to live that way for a number of reasons.  And looking back, I miss it.

I have wasted time.  When I need a break or just want to rest, it’s a quick, easy, and fun way to spend my time (or was).  But ten minutes leads to twenty and twenty minutes easily leads to an hour.  And can I tell you the amount of time it takes me to write a post?  By the time this one is done, it will have been several hours. That is time that I will never have back.  That time could have been spent investing in my family and things that will have eternal significance.  In the truest sense, I have been grieved over this.

The instant change I have experienced with regards to my desire to spend time online has astounded me.  It’s been awesome!  And it’s come, I believe, as a result of prayers not directly about being online, but about other things in my life.  Spending less time online has been the answer to several things I’ve been seeking the Lord about.

So, while I got off Facebook nearly 7 months ago, I have also deleted blogs from my reader, and have blocked some from my browser.  I want to help myself, not hurt myself.

But in addition to the fact that the time I have spent blogging has resulted in little fruit, it has also become very selfish.  I wanted to write because I enjoy it.  I wanted to write about subjects I enjoy.  Me, me, me.  Like sin is wont to do, my selfishness was in the process of ruining my life.  Blogging was beginning to grow to be what I wanted to do more than serve my family.  I began to want to blog more than I wanted to play with my children, care for my home, or look for ways to help my husband.  Laundry piled up.  I felt overwhelmed by neglected dishes, etc.  The things God has already given me to do weren’t getting done.  Ahh!

Instead of denying myself to serve my family, I was indulging myself.  I realized this fairly early on and was praying for help, for a desire for my family and children—for the roles God created me to fulfill.  But two competing desires can’t exist for long.  One cannot serve two masters.  I want to serve my Lord, not digital words and an Internet idol.  For me, one of them had to go.  So, this is another reason I must stop blogging at the present.

My family is my primary ministry.  Right now, I have no overflow.  I am in process of learning some pretty basic life skills that many people learn when they are still children so that I can be a good wife and mother.  It’s taking every ounce of my effort (that and trying to teach my children these things at the same time).  When that effort was being poured into the blog, it was not being given to these character issues.  This is another reason the blog is ending.

I am jealous for the souls of my children, that they would know Jesus Christ.  Instead of wasting my time online and exalting myself, I want to humble myself by crying out for them in prayer.  I want to equip myself to better serve and lead them to Jesus.  I want to invest in relationship with them that can only come by spending time with them instead of my blog reader, HootSuite, and WordPress.

The bottom line is this: I have one shot at this life.  I have one opportunity to know Jesus and become like Him and to sow for eternity.  I believe the more I invest now, the more I’ll reap then.  The more I enjoy Him now and become like Him now, the more I’ll enjoy Him then.  I don’t want to have regrets.  I already do, but from here on out, I want to do whatever it takes to avoid them.

It will be costly. And I do mean costly.

I am learning what Jesus really meant in Luke 9:23-27.  I want to deny myself so that I can follow Jesus, in “radical” ways.  (I may be misunderstood.  That is ok with me as long as Jesus is pleased by my actions.)

Denying myself earthly pleasures (even being known, respected, made much of) so that I can know Jesus and be conformed to Him, and actually hear the Holy Spirit because I’m not stuffed with the things of this world, is actually quite indulgent.  It may seem sacrificial on the front end, but it is laying up treasures for the day of reaping in eternity.  It may hurt some on this side of the eternal divide, but I’m willing to endure the temporal pain for eternal, everlasting pleasure.

Can I just tell you of the amazing fruit I’ve already seen over the past few weeks because of this change?  It’s blown me away.  And this is only the beginning!

So, dear readers, I thank you so much for your grace toward me.  You have been most kind, encouraging, and generous in your comments.  I am humbled thinking about what I have undeservedly received from you.

I don’t know if or when I’ll be back, but I feel confident that if I do begin blogging again, it won’t be at Domestic by Design.  Who knows what the Lord will do.  It might be that He has no intentions of giving my any sort of public outlet for my writing, but desires me to be totally unseen.  I’m super excited about that—it’s definitely what He has for me right now.

I want to leave you with a few songs that have spoken powerfully to me during this time.  Tomorrow, I’ll have a post up with a link to resources that I really believe will bless you, so do come back for that.

But otherwise, may the Lord bless you and cause you to grow in your knowledge of His love for you, and therefore, in your love for Him.  It changes everything.

However, it is my goal to reflect upon and evaluate the previous year and purposefully step into the new year with a fresh outlook, goals, and plans.  I love new beginnings, and the start of a year does seem like a wonderfully crisp place to start.

This year, I believe, is very different from years past.  As I look back over 2010, there is much to be noted.  It was the year that God broke in and, in a new way, began ravaging my heart for the purposes of His pleasure.

I have known the Lord for nearly 15 years.  But in so many ways, I feel like my soul has been awakened to the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ like never before.

What does this have to do with my decision to stop blogging?  Stick with me, and, by the end, I think you’ll understand.

*****************************************

I have mentioned before that this blog began under the encouragement and blessing of my husband.  It was his idea for me to blog about things he thought I have to offer other women.  The purpose of blogging was to share things that I didn’t have much opportunity to share, with the goal of working toward supplementing our income.

We see women working under their husband’s authority to bring income to the family modeled in Scripture (Proverbs 31:18, 24, Acts 5:1, Acts 16:14), and Blane felt comfortable leading us in this way.  I was happy and excited to work toward being a financial asset to our family!

But, since I began blogging, I have felt a tension (of which I’ve written about a few times over the last few months).  For months I wrestled with it, trying to figure out why it was there.  It really bothered me.   I waffled back and forth about whether or not to do blog, spoke with my husband several times about when to blog, what to write about, etc.   I was not experiencing peace.

I didn’t know what to do, and I was in near constant angst over it.  However, my husband wanted me to stay committed (at least long enough to be able to evaluate things over time), and I wanted to stay committed instead of just quitting.  But I didn’t want to continue if the Lord didn’t want it.

Well, as the Lord has been working in my life through many circumstances and ways, and as I’ve sought Him regarding the blog, He has been answering me very specifically about a number of things, including what role blogging has in my life.

To be exact, December 12 was when it all came together and I knew what the Lord wants for me at this time.  And in a nutshell, it’s this: I am not to blog for now.  I don’t know if or when I’ll resume.  But for now, no blogging.

There are several factors contributing to the conclusion the Lord brought me to, which I’ll tie up in the end.  To get there, I’m going to explain things in list format, beginning with the most practical.

1.       Writing doesn’t come easily to me.  Not only do my circumstances need to be just right—quiet, uninterrupted, etc., I need editing done before a post goes up.  Instead of being independent in my writing, Blane has to be very involved (as my editor)—which takes away from his working time.  In addition to working full-time, he has his own online business that he runs when he is at home.  I not only want him to edit for grammatical errors, but to evaluate the tone in which a post is written.  This is especially true since I’m not only representing myself, but him as well with what I publish online.  He is my leader and I want to act like he is in this realm of life, too.

2.        Writing takes time.  Whether it’s playing with my kids, cleaning my kitchen or a bathroom, folding laundry or reading—something has to give in order for me to write.

3.       I am a relational kind of gal.  I usually sink (or at least feel like I am sinking) in surface relationships and thrive in relationships with depth.  The time it takes to maintain a blog like this one takes away from real life relationship.  I want to be active in the body of Christ—pursuing relationship, serving others, knowing others.

4.       Since I began blogging, the amount of time spent on my computer and online has grown—a lot.  This must change.

5.       God has made it clear that I am not to blog right now.  Period.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish sharing my heart and pull it all together in conclusion.

To hear the long story, come back later this week for details about why and what led to this decision.

We enjoyed the annual Christmas get together with Blane’s dad’s side of the family on Christmas Eve and came home to my family who had arrived from MD while we were gone.  It was a pretty quiet Christmas at our house then next day, to which Brant woke up with a fever and felt pretty crummy.

I am horrible about remembering to take pictures when we are with family, so I’m thankful for my sister who got a few of the kids with everyone. She took some absolutely precious shots of Brant (in my opinion!)

Did I mention that we had a white Christmas?

An attempt at a family shot. Next to me is my sister Laura, my mom, and my youngest brother, Michael (we are nearly 11 yrs apart)

I'm snotty and I need a hair cut!

Mimi (my mom) and Tara

In case you were wondering, the child does have ALL of his teeth.

Tara was *intently* listening to Daddy read on Christmas morning

Tara received a fish, affectionately named Nemo. Here she is showing him puzzles she received from Mimi.

Caught red-handed on Mommy's computer. Which is why...

He received his own from DeeDee (Blane's mom). I put this picture up choosing not to fear the opinion of man (or ahem, women)at the fact that we all have computers.

We have an insane number of stuffed animals. But *every* single one of them is played with, and they are Tara's favorites! (And apparently Brant's, too)

That was our Christmas in a nutshell.  I’ll return soon with some explanations at to why it’s been quiet around here and what things will look like in the future!

In the waiting room, again, I felt like leaving as they both bounced around the room, happy as could be with their snotty noses and yucky coughs.  But we stayed.

I’m happy to report: nothing.  The kids are fine, just a virus. So it goes!

But, I have to tell you about my new, exciting miracle herb/oil: Oil of Oregano.

I have absolutely no information for you on it today–which means you’ll have to research it yourself (sorry!), but it’s simply amazing.

Thankfully, to God’s grace and His provision through herbs, I am still feeling pretty good.  Tired, but good.  Here’s hoping that we’ll have an illness-free Christmas!

I’d covet your prayers for my kiddos.  Since late last week, they’ve been coming down with something, but on Saturday by noon Tara was in bed with a fever of 103.2.  It went down a bit that night but was up again to 102 on Sunday.  It broke in the night and then by noon yesterday it began creeping again and was at 104 by 6:15.

So, in comes Children’s Motrin (cringe) to help stabilize her fever.  I wanted to to get down to around 100/101 and thankfully, it did pretty quickly–and it’s stayed at 101.5ish since around 9p last night.  She’s still sleeping as I write this, but at 4am when she woke up for water, it was still there.

It is my preference to avoid the doctor’s office if possible–simply because it’s a breeding ground for germs.  I believe our bodies were designed to fight off most sickness and even infection, and that we can often times treat naturally at home.

However, with a high fever lasting a few days, it’s beyond what I’m comfortable with and believe a visit to the doctor will be the most wise thing to do at this point–I’m so thankful that their there when we need ‘em! My thought is that it’s the flu or walking pneumonia if it’s not just a nasty cold (but it seems like it’s more than that with a high fever since Sat.)

So, please pray for their healing.  It is God who is the Healer–and we’ve been seeking Him since the get-go, so please ask for His hand to touch my children and heal them completely.  And that Blane and I won’t get it–Blane feels like he’s starting to, but thankfully at this point, other than feeling like my body is trying to fight it off, I feel good.

Mom’s can’t get sick anyway, right?

Forgive my long explanations for why I’ve linked to them!

Balancing Nutrition and Priorities, Part 1 and Part 2 – I cannot recommend this article highly enough.  I would like to say more, but believe it should be left to Lindsay and Natalie, who have together done a marvelous job.

A Hopeful Theology of Miscarriage – Earlier this week, I eluded to a miscarriage, so when I came across this post, it served to encourage me.

How Writing Is Like a Bell- I love this post.  I struggle, for a few reasons, with feeling condemnation as I write.  It’s like a cloak that at times  is heavy and unshakable.  I was encouraged and reminded that my writing, as shabby as it may be is an act of worship to Him.  Just like dancing, it is a way for me to respond to the Lord, to process, to communicate with Him…and to offer to you a part of my heart that desires for You to savor Him.

Can Words Really Change the World? Similar to the above post, I really appreciated this post by Ann Voskamp and Holley Gerth.  You can follow this series here.

Preparing a Place Ministries – So this isn’t a blog post, but it’s so worth your time. I shared my heart about adoption last week, and I absolutely boo-hood through the video on the first page of this ministry’s website.  “As many as the Lord will give us…” Those sweet little brown faces make me go crazy!  I just want to squeeze and love on them.

This year, the winds have changed.

I gave in, mainly because I really wanted to design our letter and the cost of having a pre-fabricated one was just too high.  And the thought of buying the number of stamps I would need was so unappealing to me.  Particularly because it’s hard enough to get to the post office these days.

So, for you below is a PDF version (click the link) of our Christmas letter whose design was inspired by Shutterfly.

Merry Christmas from the Tarrs