Sunday Snapshot

These were taken last Sunday at the property we are trying to buy.  

I have to confess that for a while I was driving out there every day but as I get more nervous that it might not happen, I am trying to go less.  We are trying to buy it from the bank and they aren't exactly easy to work with.

For you non-Texans, tortillas are just as good as bread when you are feeding the ducks.

I hope it works out.  It is a great piece of property for our family.  We should know something this week.  I hope.

The Miracle of Giving

So first let me throw out the disclaimer that this is not me tooting my horn.  We are all givers to some extent and most of you are probably bigger givers than I am.  I just had a cool 2 days of giving illustrations that I wanted to share with you and share what they remind me about God and our role in giving.

Scenario 1- The precious 18 year old daughter of a dear friend of mine is going to Uganda this summer.  She sent us a letter asking if we may support her in some way.  Our family recently started a giving account that we consider our children the board members of.  So we sat down for a "board meeting" to see how everyone felt we should respond based on our resources and how we felt God was leading us.  I had a number in my head and as we opened in prayer, I asked that God would confirm my feeling if it was right.  As soon as we said Amen, Sam yelled out the same number I had in my head but had not voiced out loud.  Such a cool moment of seeing God work and affirm his participation.

Scenario 2- A friend of mine works in Honduras and is raising money to send hearing impaired children to school there.  I felt like I was supposed to respond and again I had a number come to mind.  I sent that via Paypal and then sent my friend a message to be watching for it but I did not tell her the number.  She messaged me back that they are waiting on a certain number for this one child to be able to go.  That number was the exact number I sent the night before. God is good!

2 thoughts on giving:

1. When we give we are not tipping our hats to God or just helping out a friend.  Instead, we are joining in for a very specific role to participate in what God is already doing.

2. God uses our giving to remind us of His daily presence in the details of our lives and the lives of others around the world.

The Redeemer and The "Stupid" Maker

What is your favorite attribute of God? As you can see from my title, mine is God as Redeemer.
Jack and I were talking about this just the other day when he asked the very legitimate question of why should he worship God when God gave him his "stupid" legs?  I don't blame him for asking that and I am glad that he is comfortable enough to go ahead and say it out loud.

I explained to him that God did not give him the "stupid" part of his legs.  God created him perfectly in His image.  God is perfect creator.  Then Satan the perverter (or "stupid" maker) took God's creation and perverted it to give us things like cancer and hereditary spastic paraplegia.  Then comes the really good part of the story.  It doesn't end there.  God is not only creator but after the Fall, He is also Redeemer!  I explained to Jack that God is going to use his challenges to make Jack into an even better person who can do even greater things with greater purposes.  I don't know how He is going to do it, but I know that He is because I have seen Him do it before and that is who He is.

I was working on my Bible study and saw a great example of this in the New Testament.  If you look at Acts 11:19-21 you see where the early believers were being persecuted and so they had to flee and scatter to other places.  Satan meant this to interrupt the message of Jesus.  Do you know what happened next?  Yep, God the Redeemer used this for his purposes to deliver the message of Jesus Christ to lands far away who had not heard of him yet.  The "stupid" maker had one plan, but the Redeemer always wins.

Yep, my favorite attribute is Redeemer.

My Star Student

Sam was chosen to be the Star Student in his class last week.  This might sound like a normal routine Kindergarten experience for most of us, but for this kid, this was the event of the year.  He has been dying to be the Star Student.  Every Monday he would come home and tell me who his teacher picked that week and how sad he was that it wasn't him.

Then on Monday he climbed into the car with a "guess what mom!"  Our conversation went something like this.
Me- So how is being the Star Student?
Sam- I think everyone in my class was pleased with how I did.
Me- What was your favorite part?
Sam- Being line leader was fun but it was hard knowing when she wanted me to stop.
 

Sam's teacher told me the next day that when she announced him being Star Student that he stood up and said, "I am really excited but I can't help but think of my classmates who still haven't gotten a chance to be the Star Student."

And to finish up his exciting week, he got to bring home the class alligator for the weekend.  Oh how I love that little guy and how he takes in every ounce of every experience. 

So There is This House...

...And I REALLY like it.

It just fits my family so well.  We have gone to see it several times and decided that it is such good fit that we put ours on the market today to see if we can sell it quick enough to get this other one.  Yesterday when Trent and I were leaving the dream home home we want, we prayed a very specific prayer that our home would sell this week so we could make an offer on this other one and either rent back from our buyers while Jack recovered from surgery in late March or close quick enough to move in the week before his surgery so he could recover in his new room.

Yes I know this is big and I have real faith that God can do this.  Why? Because I have seen Him do it before.  This is the 3rd house that we have sold and each time God has answered very specific timing needs.

It occurred to me later that I have more faith for God to sell our house quickly in a down market than I do for Him to heal my son.  Why is that?  I think the first is obvious and it is because I have seen Him do it.  The 2nd though is more interesting.  I was talking to my friend Julie about this and she made the point that our self-sufficiency in modern day America makes us depend less on God for miracles of healing and so we see it less.  If you go to other countries where they don't have our health care, you see God heal all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for our health care, but it makes me sad that my self-sufficiency has put me in a category like Jesus' parable where he said (Matt 19:24) "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  I don't think Jesus is saying here that if you have money you won't go to heaven.  I think what He is illustrating for us is that our wealth and ability to meet our own needs make us less dependent on God and thus less likely to seek Him. If we don't seek Him, we can't know Him.

I wonder what other areas my comfort and self-sufficiency have kept me from experiencing the goodness and greatness of God? Food for thought.

My Fancy Nancy

We are waiting on some tests and test results for Jack and honestly I am going a bit stir crazy.   Today I took that nervous energy and set up a fun photo shoot with Ruthie.

Lately Ruthie has been watching me do my make up and she asks, "what's that?"   When I ask her if she wants me to put some lipstick on her, she giggles and runs out of the room.

So I took some lip gloss along and let her play

I mean what little girl doesn't like to dress up all fancy, put on lip gloss, and look at herself in the mirror?

That's my fancy girl.

Painting Rainbows

For the 1st stage of Ruthie's therapy to learn how to use her new elbow flexors, we are working on gravity eliminated flexion.  The OT told us to run a toy car back and forth for 15 minutes 4x a day.

Well that got old real quick so we started rolling play dough balls and then that got old too.

So this week we are painting rainbows.  She is working super hard and making great progress.

So proud of my girl.