A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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Sallie Borrink

Life With Little Miss Peanut


I haven’t done a Caroline post in a long time so thought I would sneak a few pictures in and share a little bit about life with our 33 month old daughter.

Yes, 33 months!!! I know some of you have been reading here since before I was ever pregnant and wondered if I ever would be. My Little Miss Peanut is going to be three years old in just a few months.

We’ve noticed in the last few weeks that Caroline’s lost that toddler look and is looking more and more like a preschooler/little girl. I will admit to feeling very slight pangs of “where is my baby?” but for the most part I am totally fine with it. I am enjoying the toddler stage so much more than I thought I would. In fact, it has been almost the opposite of what I expected. I thought I would love the baby/infant stage and dreaded the toddler stage. I have enjoyed the toddler stage much more than I expected and found the baby stage less enjoyable than I would have thought. Go figure.

Caroline also recently hit a growth spurt in terms of her language. I was SO looking forward to when she would start talking enough to have conversations with us. I absolutely love it! I love not having to wonder what is going on in that little brain of hers. LOL! She is a little chatter box, has a huge vocabulary, and loves to learn. I absolutely LOVE having conversations and being able to “discuss” things with her.

Lately we have been dissecting Pride and Prejudice. No, I am not joking. I watched it several times when I was sick and she is enthralled with the dancing and Mr. Darcy. She ASKS to watch Mr. Darcy with me. She puts on her fancy dress up dresses and prances around during the dancing scenes. She knows about Mr. Bingley, knows Mr. Wickham is a bad man, and probably knows more about the culture of that time than I did when I was eighteen!  LOL!

So my “complaint”? I can hardly get her to wear anything but a dress. And not just any dress. She has four casual cotton dresses I bought last year on sale from Land’s End and saved for this year.  She doesn’t want to wear anything but those four dresses (unless it is the jumper Grandma S. made her (which is not summery and looks awful with white sandals) or one of her nicer dresses for church. The only time she will put something else on is if she is going outside to help in the yard or going outside to play. Then she’ll put on her “outside play clothes” (denim capris and a top or something like that) without any argument. But as soon as she comes in, she wants them OFF. She wants her dress back on NOW. She couldn’t even sit down to lunch the other day until we had changed her from her outside clothes to her dress she was so distraught about it.

Now on the one hand, I’m a total girly girl. I vastly prefer dresses and skirts myself. I never thought I’d be in a situation where I would wish I could get her out of dresses and into some jeans! Oh well. I’m glad she likes her dresses. I just try to keep them washed. Hopefully they won’t be in shreds by the end of the summer from such frequent use!

The pictures of her in her blue and white checked dress are from the Frederik Meijer Gardens earlier this week. While we were there I was reminded yet again of the fact that I am a Girl Mom. I was never designed to have boys. There were so many active little boys there in the Children’s Garden that it just made me stand back and think all over again how grateful I am for my girl! God bless you moms with boys! One of you out there is raising up a godly man for Caroline to fall in love with someday and I’m so thankful you are there to do it. I’m just glad you got the boy job and I got the girl job!

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Listening To What Your Child Is Really Saying


We recently went through a period when Caroline was acting out a lot. I had been physically unwell for a few weeks and was feeling awful. My mom was staying with us for the week to help out. Nothing was “normal” around here. Every mealtime became a battleground. Caroline would come completely unglued if her chair wasn’t in the exact right spot at the table or if we weren’t sitting exactly where she thought we should be. I was already feeling terrible and this happening at almost every meal was adding significantly to my stress.

Some people would say that Caroline needed a spanking. She needed to be whipped into submission. She needed to put a smile on that little face, say “Yes, Ma’am” and sit wherever we deemed fit. Some would go so far as to put her where she doesn’t want to be just to prove that we’re in charge and she has to obey us immediately.

(Can I just say that even typing those words makes me sick to my stomach?)

Looking For What My Child Is Trying To Tell Me

Thank God, literally and truly, that we were not inclined to handle it that way. Whether it was the Holy Spirit, my mothering instinct, or my better judgment, I don’t know. But I knew deep down inside that she wasn’t being naughty. She wasn’t defying us. She was acting out because her world was turned upside down. The normalcy she expects in life was not there. Her mother was not available to take care of her in normal ways.

It was completely unlike her to be like this. The only time she has a meltdown is when she is over-tired or over-stimulated. Normally she’s a happy, helpful, compliant child who only occasionally tests the boundaries in a normal toddler way.

Somehow we got through those couple of weeks. It was extremely stressful at times, but we tried to accommodate her as much as possible and give in when she insisted on things like the fact that our placemats HAD to be touching at the table.

In fact, it was the insistence that our placemats be touching that confirmed to me this was a control and security issue for her. She was frightened by the way things were and trying to keep some level of control in whatever way she could.

Listening To What She Can’t Say

I’m happy to say that in the past two weeks since I’ve been making steady progress at getting better and life has been mostly normal, we’ve not had any meltdowns. Last week we had an almost normal week and did normal out and about things. We went to church yesterday.

Caroline has been a very happy camper.

I shudder to think the damage we would have done if we had cracked down on her and insisted on “happy obedience” when she was acting out those few weeks. 

Caroline is just a little person who can hardly understand all the emotions racing around in her heart and mind. It was hard enough for me as an adult to deal with the emotions and stress of being ill. How much more for a little one who has barely begun to grasp her world and how it works?

So among the many things I’ve learned through this physical trial, I’m thankful to have this experience that reinforced the importance of listening to what my child is really saying. It is something I’ve always believed, but having the opportunity to put it into practice in a situation that was already difficult and stressful reminded me again of how important it is to back off from a situation and really try to understand what is being said.

Have you had an experience where you had to take a different approach to listening to your child in order to understand what he or she was really saying?

This post is part of my larger collection of essays on raising gifted and 2e children as a Christian parent.

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God Cares About It All


I mentioned recently that our church has been bringing us meals three days a week the past few weeks. It has been a blessing and a big help. On Tuesday I was thinking how good mashed potatoes and gravy sounded. (Mashed potatoes and gravy is a food group in and of itself in my world.) But I “knew” no one would bring us mashed potatoes and gravy. It’s not practical for taking to someone’s house.

That evening one of the women from church, Karen, brought over our meal. She brought it in one of those glass 13×9 dishes that has the top and then the insulated carrying case. She said, “I thought you might be tired of casseroles and such so I brought you Sunday dinner.” She gave us a few other things and then left.

When we opened it up to eat, guess what it was? Roast beef, carrots, and mashed potatoes and gravy. One of my favorite meals.

Why do we ever doubt that God cares about us?

What made it even more amazing was that her roast beef tasted exactly like my mom’s. I mean absolutely the same. You could have served it to me and I would have thought for sure my mom made it. I’ve never had anyone’s roast beef that tasted just like my mom’s.

That meal was such a blessing.

God Cares About It All

God also strengthened my faith two weeks ago in another way. I had an appointment with the sedation dentist. I had made it about a month prior and was supposed to send in my payment. (You have to pay in full, in advance.) I put it off and put it off. I wrote to a friend that I just had a check in my spirit about the whole thing and I wasn’t sure why.

Finally they called about ten days before and I had a bad feeling about the whole thing from the phone call. I told them to go ahead and cancel the appointment. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I just felt the restraining hand of God had been at work.

Well, two weeks ago I knew why. I was way too sick to go to the appointment. I could never have made it through the procedure with all the neck problems I have been having. So God was watching out for me there as well, saving me the hassle of getting my money back and paying a cancellation fee.

All of this happened and came to mind when I read Brenda’s comment on a recent post:

I love the Streams in the Desert devotional. I used it during a time we were going through terrible circumstances and it spoke to me like nothing else.

I’ve had people write and ask how I developed such a deep faith. Going through the same kind of circumstances you are going through right now and “seeing God” at work in the trials.

I was reminded then of another post I had written recently.  My conclusion was this:

The only security we can truly have as we head into whatever we are currently heading into (and, yes, I think this is a long way from over – and hope I’m wrong) is our faith in God.  That’s all we have…

So while it is all fine and good to follow all the advice everyone is giving out right now, don’t miss the most important prep of all.  Strengthen your faith. Cast all your anxieties on Him. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith. Even though the current events can threaten to overwhelm us and cause us much stress and anxiety, they are nothing but a blip in history.  But the lessons of faith that we learn during these times will be with us throughout all eternity.

Be Still and Know That I Am God

I was struck by the fact that right after I wrote that, my health seriously went south. And as Brenda mentioned in her comment, this has been an experience of growing my faith. Over and over again in these recent weeks God has brought to me “Be still and know that I am God.”  It has popped up in readings, in cards people sent, etc.

And so that is one of the things I have been truly trying to concentrate on throughout this.

  • Be still and know that He is God.
  • Be STILL and know that He is God.
  • Be still and KNOW that He is God.
  • Be still and know that he is GOD.

Like most trials, this one has changed me. It is still not over as I am still trying to regain my full health. I still am not able to do everything I normally can do. But my faith has been healed in some ways and has grown stronger in new ways.

God cares about me. He cares about you. He cares enough to direct my steps and decisions. He cares enough to prompt someone to bring me Sunday dinner.

God is good.

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We Know Not What We Should Pray For (Rom. 8:26) | Streams in the Desert


We Know Not What We Should Pray For (Rom. 8:26) by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

“We know not what we should pray for as we ought” (Rom. 8:26).

Much that perplexes us in our Christian experience is but the answer to our prayers. We pray for patience, and our Father sends those who tax us to the utmost; for “tribulation worketh patience.”

We pray for submission, and God sends sufferings; for “we learn obedience by the things we suffer.”

We pray for unselfishness, and God gives us opportunities to sacrifice ourselves by thinking on the things of others, and by laying down our lives for the brethren.

We pray for strength and humility, and some messenger of Satan torments us until we lie in the dust crying for its removal.

We pray, “Lord, increase our faith,” and money takes wings; or the children are alarmingly ill; or a servant comes who is careless, extravagant, untidy or slow, or some hitherto unknown trial calls for an increase of faith along a line where we have not needed to exercise much faith before.

We pray for the Lamb-life, and are given a portion of lowly service, or we are injured and must seek no redress; for “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and opened not his mouth.”

We pray for gentleness, and there comes a perfect storm of temptation to harshness and irritability.

We pray for quietness, and every nerve is strung to the utmost tension, so that looking to Him we may learn that when He giveth quietness, no one can make trouble.

We pray for love, and God sends peculiar suffering and puts us with apparently unlovely people, and lets them say things which rasp the nerves and lacerate the heart; for love suffereth long and is kind, love is not impolite, love is not provoked. LOVE BEARETH ALL THINGS, believeth, hopeth and endureth, love never faileth. We pray for likeness to Jesus, and the answer is, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong?” “Are ye able?”

The way to peace and victory is to accept every circumstance, every trial, straight from the hand of a loving Father; and to live up in the heavenly places, above the clouds, in the very presence of the Throne, and to look down from the Glory upon our environment as lovingly and divinely appointed. –Selected

I prayed for strength, and then I lost awhile
All sense of nearness, human and divine;
The love I leaned on failed and pierced my heart,
The hands I clung to loosed themselves from mine;
But while I swayed, weak, trembling, and alone,
The everlasting arms upheld my own.

I prayed for light; the sun went down in clouds,
The moon was darkened by a misty doubt,
The stars of heaven were dimmed by earthly fears,
And all my little candle flames burned out;
But while I sat in shadow, wrapped in night,
The face of Christ made all the darkness bright.

I prayed for peace, and dreamed of restful ease,
A slumber drugged from pain, a hushed repose;
Above my head the skies were black with storm,
And fiercer grew the onslaught of my foes;
But while the battle raged, and wild winds blew,
I heard His voice and Perfect peace I knew.

I thank Thee, Lord, Thou wert too wise to heed
My feeble prayers, and answer as I sought,
Since these rich gifts Thy bounty has bestowed
Have brought me more than all I asked or thought;
Giver of good, so answer each request
With Thine own giving, better than my best.
–Annie Johnson Flint

Streams in the Desert: 1925 Original 366 Daily Devotional ReadingsStreams in the Desert: 1925 Original 366 Daily Devotional ReadingsStreams in the Desert: 1925 Original 366 Daily Devotional Readings

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