Life Experience

The girls were looking through their scrapbooks.  You know.  The fancy kind that I spent hours on each page cutting out paper and stickers.  The ones that I could only keep up for a few years and now do digital because it is WAY faster.  Sissy made an observation followed by a question.

Sissy:  "Why does Precious have so many more than me?"  (Some day she will realize how much harder two kids are than one.  And how you intend to do all the things you did with your first with your second until reality sets in and you realize you barely even have time to shower, so cutting out pictures does not make the list.)

Well Precious thought she knew the answer.

Precious:  "It's because I have so much more life experience than you."  Yes, Precious, you're right.  You have been through so much more in your extra 20 months of life than Sissy.  You have way more life experience. :)

Extremism

Sissy can be a bit of an extremist sometimes.  Everything is black and white to her.  As the kids were playing outside today, BubbaJ did something to hurt himself.  Sissy comes running in telling me that I needed to go get him because he wanted me.  Now, don't judge me, but I sat there waiting to see how serious the injury really was.  If you know BubbaJ, you know that he spends half of his life falling on the ground.  Sissy could not believe that I didn't hop right up to his rescue.

Sissy:  "Would you rather rescue your son, or play on the computer?"

Well, when you put it that way.

He Speaks

I know there are those of you out there that do not believe that God speaks to us.  I  know He does.  Here is one example.

Sometimes in life, God waits until your most dire moments to reveal himself to you.  Jogging is sort of like that only in short bursts.  I always start out my jog feeling pretty confident.  Thinking, "I'm getting pretty good at this.  I think I could do this forever."  Then four or five miles in my thoughts change to, "How in the world am I going to keep going?  What was I thinking signing up for a half marathon!"

Today I was on my seventh mile thinking all of my post-four-mile thoughts.  My knees hurt, my arches hurt, my toes hurt...pretty much my whole body hurt.  Then, all of a sudden a rock jumps into my shoe.  I'm not kidding, it's like it just hopped right in there.  All of the aches and pains dulled in comparison to the pointy rock poking my foot with every step.  I could hear God telling me that sometimes it feels hard and things are difficult, but it could always be worse.  The rock made me wish all I had to worry about was my aching body. 

In the middle of these thoughts, a car pulls out and waves at me.  It drove by too quickly for me to see who was driving and I didn't recognize it.  On the back window written in the dirt was, "Love U."  I could almost hear God speaking those words to me.  He wanted me to know that even though I was hurting at that moment, He still loves me.

It reminded me of how in life sometimes God doesn't just swoop right in to rescue us in our moments of despair.  Sometimes He wants us to realize how good we really have it and that He loves us in the midst of our trials. 

James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Greatness

This is Bubbaj's first painting. It could be like Picasso or Rembrandt's first painting. Or maybe not since he says, "ewe" when he looks at it.

I know he is destined for greatness. Who knows. Maybe it could be in painting?

New Favorite Phrase

Sissy:  "I know...right?"

Definition:  I concur.  Who in their right mind could possibly disagree.

Hard Work

It was so beautiful here the other day that I got absolutely nothing done.  There are two things I try to do every day no matter what.  1) Pick up the house and  2) make supper.  Neither one of those things got done.  People talk about the memories of their mothers cooking them delicious food and baking them yummy snacks.  Well, my kids won't have those memories, but I hope they have memories of the times we ate out for supper because I was too busy spending time with them to cook.  That day, we took the kids for a walk around the lake.

As we were walking, we visited with the kids about their days.  Precious started telling us about working on a group project at school that day.

Precious:  The boys sat down and told me this is how it should be.  The girls doing all the work.  So, I told them, "Not at my house.  At my house, Dad does all the work."

I could see my husband smiling, trying not to laugh because he knew that would bother me.  And I'm sure he knew how absolutely untrue that statement was.  As I started to speak in protest, Precious realized her mistake and started to further explain.

Precious:  "I mean not everything.  I just mean that he goes to work and you don't."

I guess I should be happy that she recognized that I do actually work hard.  Of course, I hadn't really that day, so maybe she has a point.