All in all, a blessed day

Who knows why the Lord had me take the 2 year old today, but it was nice to be over at my parent's and not be trying to get work done. It was nice spending that time with Grandma and B. I do believe she was blessed by it, and my parent's enjoyed having B. there as well. It amazes me just how much the Lord blesses my time with B. He is an extremely mellow child when he is with me, and it allows me to take him places without too much concern. We went for a walk around the block and he was perfectly content just to sit in the stroller and watch things, pointing out a car every once in a while. I was slightly concerned about when he woke up from his nap, because he is normally very cranky, and when a kid is not in his normal surroundings, one never knows how he is going to react. But the Lord was gracious and he was clingy, but not cranky. Even his mother was blessed to hear that.

It was interesting as the Lord showed me what it was like to take care of a kid "on my own turf" so to speak. Usually I am at the 2 year old's house, taking care of him and the girls, but this time I was at my parent's house and had brought some work to do (in case he took a nap). This may seem oversimplified, but it is amazing how you are not able to get anything done except taking care of the kid, when you are taking care of the kid. Not that I was chasing him around the house or anything, but even when he is playing by himself, there is a certain part of your attention that has to keep an ear or eye open to what he is up to. Not the sort of environment that lends itself to serious study. So..just another interesting experience.

It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord has had me minister to this family, and how He continues to work, teaching me new things and drawing me closer to this family. And even the fact that the 2 year old's personality fits together with mine so well. And then to think that the Lord knew this all ahead of time, orchestrating things so that we would end up where we are today. Even when you take into account the trials and "bumps in the road" of getting to where we are today, it is still pretty amazing how the Lord works.

Ok, I'm rambling on way too much, but it will be interesting someday to see just how the Lord uses all this for His glory. And I do pray that the more my parents and grandmother get to know my friends from church, the more the Lord would use them to be a witness. Who knows, perhaps it will be a 2 year old or a 4 year old who tells them about Jesus and leads them to Christ.

Saturday aka Life Happens

Guess my plans for today were not what the Lord had in store for me. My plan was to get up and go to Eastman for the morning, then go over to my parents and Grandma sit. Well, at 8:45 this morning I received a slightly frantic call from the 2 year old's mother asking if I could come over and watch the kids because her husband needed to be taken into the doctor. So the long and the short of it is that I ended up bringing the 2 year old over to my parent's house while the girls went to another family's house. Needless to say, no work for Eastman has been accomplished, but we have spent time with my Grandmother which for right now is probably a more worthy pursuit in terms of lasting value. There is a part of me that is like, "Oh Lord, I really am trying to get this done...." but I guess this is the point where the rubber hits the road as far as trusting Him to help me finish the grad work. The 2 year old did finally fall asleep on the couch at 4:45 and by that time I was ready for a nap myself!

Just Plain Tired

After being at school and working for 11 hours, I am just plain tired. Not complaining b/c I got a lot of work done...but sometimes it is a bit overwhelming. Whoever says that teachers have it easy because they work "8-3" and have summers off has not spent much time in a classroom recently.

Passion and Purity.

So I have recently finished reading Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. While I've started reading many Christian type books over the past few years, this is the first one I've completed. A friend of mine and I have been both reading it and discussing it as we go, which has been a huge blessing. It amazes me how many things she talks about that I've thought about, but never heard anyone else verbalize. At one point towards the end of the book she talks about how "the custom of 'going steady' is another form that impatience takes" (p.153) and says that "unless a man is prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention?" Since college I've not been into the whole dating thing and have had a "wild" idea that it would be great to skip the dating phase and go straight from friendship to engagement. So it was pretty awesome to hear someone else echoing a similar thought.

Recorder Music Fuge Around the Clock

Eastman Here I Come (Or So I Thought )

Now that teaching is winding up, I'm also trying to get back into the grad work thing. The only way I can access SPSS (a program I need to use for the next step of my project) is to go to the computer lab in the dorm--not much fun when you don't live "on campus." So I thought I'd go over for an hour after school and check it out. Well, as I was walking towards Eastman, I saw one of my former students and stopped to talk with her. Then her mother came by and proceeded to talk to me for the next half hour. In the course of that half hour I saw another one of my students. After finally ending the conversation with the mom, I ran into a person from church. By the time I actually walked into the building it was 5:15. At this point, I ran into my adviser who said to me, "What are you doing here?" "Well, I thought I'd stop by the computer lab and check out SPSS, but after being waylaid by various people, I'm thinking of just going home." Her response was, "Yeah, the computer lab can wait for another day." At this point I figured, might as well listen to my adviser, who just happened to be giving me some advice. Needless to say, after 45 minutes and four conversations later, I gave up and came home, not once stepping foot into the computer lab.

Saturday Morning

When I find myself tired and discouraged, it is often hard to "lean not on your own understanding" in a situation. Granted, I know that the Lord is at work in all the situations in my life, and that He works "behind the scenes" in so many ways that I can't even contemplate. But in the rebellious state of my heart, I don't want to rest in that knowledge and trust Him to know what He is doing.

There are times when I can only cry, "Lord, what is going on in me? What are you doing in my life? and Is it always going to be like this?"

Emotions are a scary thing and I realize they need to be brought under the control of the Holy Spirit, but there are times when, in my own weakness, it feels like I can't take it much longer.