Homestead Abundance and Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you and your kin!  I hope you find the homestead abundance in your life today.  There will be no Free Homestead Kindle Book list today.  I am celebrating Christmas with family and friends at Joybilee Farm.  We will return to our daily Free Homestead Kindle Book Lists on Thursday December 27th.  Have a Merry Christmas.

Each evening on my Facebook page I invite you to share with our community the homestead abundance that was in your day.  I find that if I am mindful that my abundance does not lie only in money and cash-flow, I find JOY as I realize that I have been blessed with so much more than money can buy.

Remember the story by Charles Dickens, The Christmas Carol.  In it Ebeneezer Scrooge bah-humbugs his way through Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas Future, until he is transformed.  When he only had his riches and his miserly life, he was an unhappy wretch.  But those in the story, like Tiny Tim’s family,  with very little money, had abundance of love, joy, peace, and contentment.  However, their joy wasn’t full until Ebeneezer found his abundance in a changed heart and a generous spirit. The story ends happily as Ebeneezer learns to “keep Christmas in his heart”.  He finds his abundance in his joyful giving and his new kindness toward his fellow man.

(Free on Kindle)   A Christmas Carol

Some folks mentioned that they feel hurt and left out when I ask about your Homestead Abundance each evening — they see only their lack and their pain. I do understand.  We have lived on $500 a month for our family of 3, for several years. Our income came from cleaning toilets at a business in GF. (sometime I’ll tell you about that.) Since we own property we don’t qualify for assistance. Our farm feeds us, but it doesn’t profit us beyond paying for the animal feed. And if you’ve been following us for a while, you know that we get frost year round, so our garden abundance is limited to a few varieties. (Friends and Barter are wonderful, though) Last year when we sold our lambs it cost us an extra $25 per lamb over what we actually sold the meat for. (Yes, that was a painful lesson about setting the price below the cost of production.)

So I have a lot of experience of living well below the poverty line. And lots of frugal living experience to share on my blog.  But I want you to know, I’m not whining.  I have never lacked anything that I needed.  Honestly, that’s the truth.  God has always provided for us.  Our cupboards have never been totally empty.  We have never been so wretched that we had no wood for the stove — we live in a forest, afterall.

I haven’t always looked for the abundance that God puts in my life every day.  20 years ago, when I was a young wife and mother, I longed for a large family.  Today I have three adult children, but at one time I experienced the deep grief of losing a baby, not once, but 5 times.  It was very difficult in those days to see any abundance in my life.  In fact, many times I wanted to join my 5 babies in heaven and leave the three on earth to God’s care.  Going through the Valley of the Shadow of Death was hard for our family, and I don’t share my story flippantly, but I want you to understand that I have lived with deep sorrow, loss, and lack.  This is my story and it is a story of the abundant love of God for his children.  God held my hand through the grief, through the hard work of recovering from a life threatening illness, and even in the hard work of farming and exploring ways to earn a living here at Joybilee Farm.  God is part of every minute of my story.  That’s why I talk about Him.  If it wasn’t for His kindness, I would have joined my 5 babies, 20 years ago.  If you are at a place right now where you can’t see any abundance in your life, please ask God to open your eyes to the abundance that He has put there today.  And then thank Him for it.

Another word for gratitude is “thanksgiving” and “praise”.  The Bible says that God lives in our praise and gratitude.  Gratitude is the key to flip the switch in your mind and change your life.  While you are staring at your lack, and your poverty, you miss out on what God is doing to change your circumstances and give you abundance.  Don’t let it happen when its so easy to just ask Him.  Don’t believe in God?  Ask anyway.

My husband fell out of a pear tree in 1997 and broke his back in 2 places.  While we were grateful that he could still walk, the accident left him in severe pain.  He had to resign from his teaching position at BCIT, teaching accounting,  because he could no longer handle the long commute in city traffic, with the amount of pain that he experienced daily.  When we moved to Joybilee Farm we were hoping to find a healthier lifestyle where his back would be strengthened and he would have less pain.  The move reduced our income severely.  Farming without a regular income, has taught us so much about what is really of value.  We have more joy and happiness than we had in the city.  I’ve had 8 wonderful years of having my husband at home 24 x 7.

In July, my husband was miraculously healed of the effects of his broken back from 15 years ago.  (I’ll share more of that story another time) In November, he started a new, full time job as City Administrator for our small city — after 8 years of living 100% off of our farm income and the part time cleaning job. Its been an awesome 2012!

Abundance is what you have lots of and can share. It doesn’t have very much to do with money. You may have an abundance of love, an abundance of friends, an abundance of water or snow, an abundance of creativity. What you have in abundance has to do with how you think about what you have. That’s why I ask every day what is your abundance today. When we think differently about our lives, a miracle happens and our lives change for the better. I want you to have hope today, no matter what your income or living situation. Good things can come if you are still breathing.  God can change your circumstances in a moment.

Homestead Abundance Link Up:

This is a blog hop

Welcome to Homestead Abundance Tuesdays, this is a blog hop! If you are a blogger, please feel free to link-up and share as many posts as you would like pertaining to:

• Urban or Rural Homesteading
• Anything DIY
• Cooking from scratch
• Preparedness/Survival
• Repurposed Projects
• Upcycled Frugal Finds
• Animal Care
• Natural Gardening Tips
• Herbal Remedies
• Green Cleaners and cosmetics

Anything that speaks to you of your Homestead Abundance, that you think will build and encourage our community.

I will share my personal favourites on my Facebook page this week. And next week I’ll pick 2 posts to feature right here.

This week’s Featured Posts

from Last Week’s Homestead Abundance Link-up are:

Frugal Tips from the Watkins’ Ranch

 Keeping a Price Book from Kristina at Proverbs 31 Woman

Ladies, feel free to grab the button to display proudly on you blog and lense. Or just use a text link “Featured on Homestead Abundance”

<a href=”http://www.joybileefarm.com/”_mce_href=”http://fiberarts.ca/blog/homestead-abundance-1″><img src=”http://fiberarts.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Homestead-Abundance-Featured-post-button.jpg”_mce_src=”http://fiberarts.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Homestead-Abundance-Featured-post-button.jpg”alt=”Homestead Abundance Featured Post” width=”125″ height=”125″/></a>

It’s Time To Share Your Posts

Bloggers, use the linky tool on the bottom of this post to share your best post about your Homestead Abundance. Non-bloggers, feel free to add a comment here with any ideas or thoughts you have concerning homestead abundance. Every week I will be featuring the most viewed posts so link-up your best ones 🙂

When linking your posts, there are only a couple simple guidelines I’d like for you to follow:

1. Please link your posts back to this blog hop, not just the blog in general. Linking back here helps build our community by sending your readers to all of the other shared posts. Grab the button below by installing the html into your post or create a text link somewhere in your post.

2. Link to a specific post and not just to your blog’s homepage, so that future readers can find your post when they look.

3. Please make your linked post relevant. Don’t link to posts that are time sensitive, like giveaways, and limited time offers.

Grab my button:

<a href=”http://www.joybileefarm.com/”_mce_href=”http://fiberarts.ca/blog/homestead-abundance-2″><img src=”http://fiberarts.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Homestead-Abundance-Grab-Button3.jpg”_mce_src=”http://fiberarts.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Homestead-Abundance-Grab-Button4.jpg”alt=”Homestead Abundance” width=”125″ height=”125″/></a>

Or just use a text link:

Homestead Abundance Tuesdays #3