Thursday, February 28, 2013

Hat's off to you.

Grabbed the girls and went out for a jaunt to do this and that.

I finally bit the bullet and got my engagement ring sized...... up, that is.

Ahhh that just feels so freeing, typing it.

It did make me feel so lovely when the jeweler just happened to mention that the normal ring size for a woman was a seven, and mine, well for almost fourteen years it has been hanging around at a size

5 3/4.

Yeah it's been too long in coming, but it slides and looks lovely.

Yes you should. You are wondering if you should do the same.

Yes.

And while you are at it, give those old skirts, you know, the ones from college...

to the teen girl in your church.

And carry some chocolate in your purse for the first time she walks in with one of them.

Or you could just burn them.

Just an idea or two.

We stopped in at the mall to get my ring and afterwards I went to one store and my hubby and a little went to another.

Something about hats on sale.

I found a sweet white jacket for a steal and met up with Joel to find him sporting a cute new hat. He never buys things for himself so I was tickled that he did so.

The girls felt sucked into Clarie's to look at pretties and Joel excused himself to use the restroom.

Yeah not the best topic for blogs, but hey, it goes with the story.

Once we had our fill of headbands we went out to sit on a few chairs to wait for Joel and then he came and we were off to the next store.

And it occurred to me that he wasn't wearing his hat.

"Oh, yeah, well the man cleaning the restroom said he liked it, so I gave it to him."

I am half startled and half smiling.

"And I gave him a tract and told him that Jesus loves him."

What a wonderful thing.

And he went on to tell me that the money he spent on that hat is well worth the possibility of a soul coming to know the Lord.

I found words to ask him what the man said.

"He didn't really know what to say. He just kept telling me thank you."

"Thank You."

Thank you, nice man, for caring more for me then your new hat.

And I would look at him in the car in the dark with the littles half in dreamland and say thank you too.

"Thank you God."

Thank you for a man who loves people, me included.

Thank you for how his heart drawn close to you draws mine too.

I imagine the story that that worker told to his wife or friend that night,

possibly when they said,

"Hey, nice hat."

:-)

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Unworthy

It's the end of February.

The littles are refusing to wear socks and getting the most out of their Saturday.

Older brothers are bargaining that if we do school today we can have off the whole day Monday and go to the zoo.

Family radio is streaming and jammies can be seen on no one but me.

It is a good day.

Not because it is Saturday, not because we have food in our bellies, not because we all slept well.

It is a good day because God made it, made us, and has a plan for our lives this very day.

I am pondering the life of Jacob this fine day.

There is still laundry to do, ironing to do for church tomorrow, reading to do with the kiddos, but I am stopping and thinking on Jacob for a bit.

What a guy.

A deceiver.

A runaway.

A wrestler with God.

The Bible says that he prevailed.

He being, Jacob. Prevailing against God and begging him for a blessing.


Surely I am not the only one who finds this amazing.

And then after he wins, God asks Jacob what his name is.

He knows but he asks him anyway.

He asks him so he can tell him what is name WAS.  It will forever be changed from here on out.

 Jacob will forever be changed.

Then Jacob, in turn, asks God what HIS name is.

And God only asks him why he is asking.

How often we see something that only HE can do and still ask, "Is that YOU, Lord?"

And He blesses him there.

What a sight. Wrestling with God, wrestling really his whole life with situations, tricking and being taken advantage of....

And we would say that he made his own bed and should lie in it, and write him off.

But God blesses him.

God comes from heaven in bodily form and in my mind's eye I can picture him thinking as he looks down on Jacob, "Alright. You want to fight, you got it."

You've been there.

Wrestling with life.

Somehow thinking that if you wrestled your last bit of strength out you would no longer be frustrated, angry, bitter, tired of those around you.

Tired of being taken, getting out of your own messes.

And in the midst of your miserable God blesses you anyway.

And God sees our brokenness and asks us what our name is.

We tell him all of our inadequacies and he says, "That's not your name anymore."

Hmmm.

He's right. Christ's  brokenness for us changed our standing, our worthiness to God.

And we see, and we are humbled that he would even want to bless us, and we walk with a limp in our spirit the rest of the day.

And Jacob prepares for a hard day.

And says this, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed  unto thy servant;" Gen. 32:10a

And my heart echoes Jacob's.

And the littles prepare for a play....

Good Saturday to you friends.




Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Every pot has it's lid.....

It's February. One of my mostest favoritest times of the year. (and yes I did that just so I could see the red squiggilies tell me that was "wrong.")

I love red and all things love and it just may be because I was allowed to watch more Anne of Green Gables than one should be allowed in three lifetimes. : )

And my hair is no longer even able to be swept up like Anne's and I don't even want to know what size skirts she was fitting in, what size I am not fitting in, and I saw somewhere sometime that Gilbert is balding and has ginormous crow's feet around his eyes.

Just sayin'.

(pardon me as I reach for another brownie...)

And the friends on facebook are running miles and I have miles of laundry that just never ends.

And I somehow lost my spunk for the season.

And it's sad, really.

And talks about school work have replaced gazing into each other's eyes. Well my coke bottle glasses that I have to wear because of my lack of contacts might have hindered that a bit too.

But on the flip-side we can always start a fire with enough direct sunlight.

I digress....

And the cardinals, the males, are feeding the females, and I am wondering how on earth we missed that concept????

The littles are at Chinese class which may really come in handy even if they never make it to the foreign field. Some nights when couples discuss family vacations and bills found under the couch it really is like you are speaking different dialects.

And we are late for the church activity and need to get the roast done like last night, so out comes the pressure cooker.

We throw in this and that, what we think will be good and snap on the lid like pros.

So like marriage, is it not?

We just KNOW it all. We have been around the world after all. Well only as far as Indiana, but that can't be that different from the rest of the world, now can it??

And we give our opinions and rationalize and carry our flowers down the isle of wedded bliss.

More like weeded bliss.

And we realize that toothpaste caps and socks on the floor can turn us into the Incredible Hulk, and little after little after little can make us kiss goodbye to the college wardrobe that we swore WE would stay in til our thirties.

And the thirties come and we are still living and loving and making things stretch and not missing those first years that we now see our friends go through. Who by the way seem to us to be getting married in their teens??? Were we really that silly and missing it??

uh, you-bet-your-bottom-dollar.

And we look at our parents like they are amazing to just have survived potty training, and why haven't we asked them more things and why are they not spending all of their time signing autographs?

We argue over how much steam is supposed to come out of the pressure cooker....

We have so seen our steam in our marriage.

And by steam of course I mean pride.

Something like, Only by pride cometh steam.... or something like that.

And the cooker is steaming and we busy ourselves with things to get ready to take to the activity and sure enough it is time to take the roast out.

We look at each other as if to say, "I thought you were going to tell ME how this all ends."

I mention something about " well it would help to read the manual.."

And that has helped.

Where would we both be, our family be without it?

And there are days when you almost wished Ephesians 5 was still written in Greek.

Life, marriage, is responsibility.

Loving takes work and risk.

He heads towards the sink when I mention something about running cool water on it right off of the stove.

We have the fright of our lives when it squeals and I am half into the other room fearing it blowing it's top.

I scramble through the manual..... whew. I was right.

That washing of water by the Word is the only thing to cool things down....and fast.

We giggle like we did in college over the sink.

Me feeling so justified in my "rightness" and he mentioning that I was "outta there" and didn't even care to rescue him in my hurry.

Bottom line, we need to refresh ourselves with the manual if we are to make some scrumptious meal out of life together.

We pull the roast and add sauce for sandwiches and tell each other we should cook together more often.

Indeed we should.