Sweet times...Lord continue to teach me

Days around our house have gotten sweeter these days. I am still not sure what God's purpose is in us losing our baby, but I know that there have been a few changes in me. I am enjoying some extra special time with my girls. Things like reading books, curling hair, coloring etc have taken on a whole new light for me. I am finding that I am spending more time doing with them rather than shooing them while I complete a task. I'm not sure how this is all occurring, but I am still keeping on task with my everyday chores etc., but I am just loving my time with the girls. God is keeping me strong about the loss of the baby too. I am having to answer occasional questions and listen to occasional cries from Stephanie and Katie about the baby's death(none of which are brought up by myself or Chris). My girls have always just seemed to have impecable memories. I guess that God is using this to help us teach Stephanie and Katie that we don't always know why things happen and things aren't always as happy as we want them to be, but we still have to trust God. That is a hard lesson for a mature adult, much less a 5 and 3 year old(of course they only can comprehend so much of it). Anyway, I just thought that I would share a little of what God is doing in us as a family. We are still waiting to see what God has in store for us. We know that no matter what it is it will be great. Because we serve a GREAT, GREAT God.

Live and Learn

This is one of those wonderful recipes that you make one time and then never attempt again. I found this recipe in the Family Fun Magazine(love that magazine). You use prepared pie crust and cut out your shapes. You then are supposed to fill the middle with mini chocolate chips or whatever you choose(marshmallows etc). Then brush the edges with an egg mixture and place another cookie cut out on top and then pinch together. They turned out great and tasted wonderful, but there were two problems. First of all, one shell only makes about 10-11 cookies. Second, they took forever to make. I think that if I ever try this again I will use bigger cookie cutters. It was just really hard to get the candy to stay in such a small place. Everyone raved about them though so maybe it was worth the effort.

Teaching

I have been praying lately with a friend. I usually pray at night after my kids are in bed and last night my friend had to do something else, but forgot to tell me. So, she called today to let me know that she forgot and boy did she call at a good time. I shared with her some struggles that I am going thru right now. It was not a good time to pray because my kids were running around, but she told me that she would call me back while Katie was napping. When she called, I told Stephanie that I was going into my room to pray. This set her off with the questions..."Why are you praying? What are you praying about?" I tried to explain the best I could for a four year old. (I should have just left her alone and she would never have noticed I was gone!). Anyway, I went into my closet(yes, literally the closet so that she couldn't find me). In the middle of our prayer time, I hear her come in and start calling my name. She proceded to call my name throughout the whole house and then outside. After I hung up the phone I had to be gentle with her and try to explain the situation to her. Here is how I explained it...I told her that there would be times when mommy wants to spend time with God and I want to do it with just God. Just like when she and daddy or she and mommy go out on a date. I asked her why mommy and Katie couldn't go with her and daddy and she said because they wanted it to be just them. I think maybe a small lightbulb came on.

• I just hope that she understands. I don't often steal away to prayer during the day because I generally have my quiet time early in the morning or late at night. But today I realized that it is just as important sometimes for my children to see me praying, or even crying. I want them to know that we don't just pray at night or at meals, but that knowing God is about talking to him all the time, even when it doesn't quite fit into our routine.

God's word to me

Today we completed our Bible Study by Beth Moore, 'Stepping Up'. I have to say that the video today spoke more to me than any of the others. I'm not sure if it is because I wasn't as attentive the other days or the message was just aimed right at me. We've been studying the Psalms of Ascents and during the videos we have been studying about the 3 Feasts that the Israelites(pilgrims) journeyed to each year. Today we focused on what we need to do to make our pilgramage to Zion the most satisfying. Of all the times to hear this, today we focused a little on Hebrew 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us."Heb 12:1 I think that many of us have heard this time and time again, but today we did not focus on 'the sin that so easily entangles'--this is what most of us focus on. Today, we talked about the 'everything that hinders'. Beth made a statement that 'We cannot do a thousand things to the glory of God'. Wow! What a powerful statement for me. I am struggling so much right now with the busyness of every day life. You know, all the good things we do that keep us so busy...I am sure I am not the only one in this whirlwind. I am just thankful that today God chose to speak directly to me about an issue that has been so pressing on me in this season of my life. He speaks always, but today I was listening!

A Hard Lesson

Today we were faced with one of many of life's hard lessons for Stephanie. Tonight while at dinner I was questioning Chris about who was on the answering machine. He told me that my friend G. had called just wondering if we had accidentally come home with a certain ring that had been given to her daughter L. last week by her brother. This prompted the whole thing and here is the background... The girls and I went to G.'s house yesterday for a 'play date'. The kids all played really well together and G. and I were able to talk for most of the 3 hours...amazing, huh? Anyway, when we got home I discovered that Stephanie had returned home with some lip gloss in her pocket that did not belong to her. I immediately confiscated it and reprimanded her for taking things that don't belong to her etc. I then proceeded to question her about what else was in her pockets to which she exclaimed that all she had were her hair bows(which she did pull out and show me). Trusting her, I then dropped it. So, tonight when I heard about the phone call I immediately asked Stephanie if she knew where Mrs. G's ring was. This is a whole other story as I thought the ring belonged to my friend and not her daughter and that perhaps Stephanie had been playing somewhere she shouldn't have. Ok, sorry for the side track. Anyway, Stephanie tells me that yes the ring is upstairs. At this point I am very angry and I immediately send Stephanie upstairs to get it. When she returns I tell her that she has to call and apologize and then daddy and I will decide about her other punishment for lying to me yesterday about the contents of her pockets. Stephanie called and apologized thru many tears and then I got on the phone. G. was of course not mad and totally understood, but I was of course mortified. Side note...G. would not have particulary noticed the loss of this piece of 'play jewelry' except that her son had just been out of town and brought this back just last week as a gift for his little sister. You see, my girls have a tendency to fill pockets and pocket books with whatever they want and then I have to empty them later. This often happens while playing with the girls across the street and we always have to have 'the talk' about not taking other people's stuff. I'm not sure that this is always innocent as I am sure they are often trying to be a little sneaky. Anyway, this was a lesson that was very hard to learn for Stephanie and equally as hard for Chris and I to teach. Let's just say we were all glad to see this lesson learned over with...it would be nice if we didn't have to reteach it. Fat chance though!