A Wonderful Day

 Today is a wonderful day. Today my son Lucas graduated from high school. There is no more relieved or happier mom than me on this graduation day. Of that I am sure. The education that Lucas and I both acquired on the road to this day is definitely one for the books!

 For Lucas, I hope that he learned that he can do hard things. Lucas had many things against him, more than most, but he also had many things going for him like friends and family who prayed for him. I believe in the power of prayer and  Lucas graduating is a huge answer to many of those prayers. You know who you are and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope that he learned that he has parents who believe in him and who love him and who will never stop praying for him. Most of all I hope Lucas learned that God loves him and that God is for him. God has a plan for his life, plans to prosper him and not to harm him, plans to give him hope and a future.

As for me, I learned mostly the same things. I like doing hard things and getting to this day was even harder than I thought it was going to be. But it makes finishing that much sweeter. I like praying but I have never prayed harder than I have prayed for Lucas. I learned about grace and more grace that comes directly from Jesus. Mostly, I learned that God is faithful and God is good, so far beyond what I deserve or can imagine. It reminds me of the words to this beautiful song:

All my life you have been faithful

All my life you have been so so good

With every breath that I am able

I will sing of the goodness of God

Is it smooth sailing from here on out? Probably not, but I've spent a lot more time out on the ocean and I know the one who can calm the storm. His name is Jesus.

Saddle Up Your Horses

Saddle up your horses 
We've got a trail to blaze
Oh oh oh
Through the wild blue yonder of God's Amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the Glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa
This is the great adventure

Truer words were never sung by one of my favorite Christian artists, Steven Curtis Chapman. It's definitely 90's music but I still love it! Because it's true! 

 Just when I thought my life was taking a turn for the normal then BAM! 2020. The teens were clicking along, blow-ups getting fewer and farther between. So much so that I took a part time job at Loft to fill my time. Even in lockdown, God provided meaningful time with family, including the teens! We established virtual school habits, worshipped online together, watched movies together, even painting the kitchen since what else was there to do? If there's time, I will fill it, not only for myself but for my charges. Mr. Jakstadt has his own list and it's usually bigger than mine so I learned long ago to not attempt to fill his time.

Then, the teaching job of what dreams are made of appeared before my eyes. I had a virtual interview of course, and next thing I knew I was on a speed train to teaching in 2020. Despite working way more than the "part-time" job I signed up for, I love everything about teaching second graders. I had forgotten how much I love being in the world of seven year olds with their eager young minds and open hearts. So I'm set, right? I have a challenging job that is a gift from God when He has another adventure that I'm pretty sure I'm not equipped for. Turns out, that's exactly what God is looking for.

Eric's dad is 92 and had been living alone since his wife died almost three years ago.  One Saturday evening, we went to visit him and he unexpectedly told us that he was not making it alone anymore. It was apparent that he had had a bad day and he told us to put him in a nursing home. I had never seen him like this and I knew it must have been very hard for such an independent man to admit this to himself and to us. Eric told his dad after his mom died  that he could come live with us but he had always refused. I honestly couldn't blame him not wanting to move in with the two of us and three teenagers! I had been tempted to move out myself! Eric told him again that he could come live with us and this time he said ok. Little did I know, he meant right then! He told us that he would not be staying with us long as he was on his way "home". One week later, he was moving into our two story, no master on main, house. Yikes!

I did not know what to expect or how our life would change as we would become Eric's dad's primary caretakers. I was definitely not prepared for the great adventure that God had in store for us. Having Eric's dad in our home has given us a front row seat to God's amazing love. This man who is now very dependent on others to care for him, nevertheless, exudes the joy of the Lord with every breath he takes. It is humbling beyond words to witness and a gift to our whole family. It reminded me of a quote from  Corrie Ten Boom's book, "The Hiding Place", "And so I learned that love is larger than the walls which shut it in." We could have not have a more gracious guest in our home. Every time I see him, he greets me with a warm smile and thanks me for taking him in. He is somewhere between heaven and earth I think, sleeping a lot and dropping the cares of this world to spend more time with his Savior and Lord. It reminds me of when Moses came down from the mountain and the glory of the Lord shone on his face. 

Eric is caring for his dad the way he cares for all of us with incredible patience and love. He is rock solid, doing what needs to be done in his methodical reasonable way. I have never loved my husband more than now, watching how lovingly he cares for his dad and how he is trusting God with all things.

It happens every time. God's ways are higher than our ways. I had no idea of the blessing He had in store for me. This is the great adventure!

Love in the time of Corona - week 3

I knew it was coming but I realize that I was still hopeful that school would resume after Spring Break. I am a hopeful person. Hope is good. Still school has been cancelled for the remainder of the year, meaning I will never be alone in my house again. ever. Also, every trip that I had planned has also been extremely cancelled. And I like to take trips. I need to take trips. I used to take trips apparently. I am still taking trips, around the neighborhood on foot now. Lots of them. But I soldier on. I find myself relating to Easy Company on Band of Brothers that we are watching with Ben and Kristen. You do what must be done and don't complain. Complaining is not an option and what's the point. That may or may not be my Enneagram number coming through.

Today is the first day of Spring Break. We will be spending it in my house. I walked by a neighbor who set up a blow up pool, umbrella, and lawn chairs to give her daughters some kind of spring break, nice. Another neighbor is making Micky Mouse pancakes and taking them on a virtual spring break at Disney complete with a parade. She needs to be a Preschool teacher!

I decided to egg Kristen's house.  Before you call the police, it is actually a good thing. I filled plastic Easter eggs to hide in her yard for Wyatt and Piper to hunt. Inside the eggs were items related to Bible verses about each day from Palm Sunday to Easter. So sweet to look at the Easter Story through the eyes of little ones. Piper also came over to dye Easter eggs which was fun since she is adorable and in desperate need of diversion like everyone else. Piper has a tutu for everyday!

Every member of our family is handling our quarantine differently. Eric's life has hardly changed at all since he has worked from home for several years and loves it. He is slightly annoyed that there is more noise and activity in the house, but he is very capable of tuning us all out very well. Thank goodness for our basement!

Summer has taken to writing letters with stamps to friends and family and is still in denial that school is out. She gets down about not being able to go to school but her attitude is mostly, " this is not happening". One of her friends that she has identified as her new "best" friend is sending letters and care packages daily with ramen and stickers and balloons with confetti! Summer doesn't deserve this friend.

Lucas is doing pretty well as he has more time to go outside and play tennis, soccer, etc. with Wyatt who is loving the attention he is getting from his older uncle. Lucas is perfectly fine to spend minimal time on school work with minimal expectations which is what the school is requiring right now.

Stormy's classes have moved exclusively online so has school work to do and she is not working. She is communicating frequently with her boyfriend who is equally bored with no job to go to.

I am so very thankful for streaming strength and cardio classes, yoga classes and our treadmill! They are a necessary escape and so much cheaper than a Target run! I also love the additional prayer zoom chats with various prayer groups and more time to read the Bible and memorize scripture. The time is definitely uncovering the useless things in my life that will burn up and not last.
 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Deut. 4:24

The biggest challenge for me is watching my teenagers not take advantage of all this extra time that they have and put it towards learning something like a foreign language or a musical instrument or making face masks to donate or anything besides watching memes! Even reading a book with some literary value would make me smile.

We are spending more time playing family board games and watching movies together, cooking together, doing virtual church together, basically doing everything together. It's like Little House on the Prairie with memes and Zoom. Conflict resolution and bearing with each other are daily themes and a great opportunity to teach them without outside influence/temptations of peers and social pressure.

 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way,and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deut. 11:18
God is serious about this and seems like He is trying to make a point if you ask me.

 I actually love the challenge of being in quarantine. I love a challenge and this is one. It is a challenge that I can choose to be content where I am in my house, with my family, with my God. I accept.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Running the Race

It's been awhile since I posted on this blog. The thought has crossed my mind but I never could come up with a light and positive spin on the teen years that our kids are currently in. I always felt I would come off as whining or complaining which I detest and refuse to do. This does not include venting to a chosen few but it's altogether different in my mind. Venting in my mind is courage summoning and strength renewing for whatever current battle is before me. I love a challenge and boy do I have one or three to be exact!

We made the decision to put our two youngest in public school last year. They graduated from the sweet cocoon of Christian school education to the carnal world of Public school education.Truly, Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing on Public School, but it does have special services that our kids need to hopefully graduate with a high school diploma. It also has wonderful loving personnel like Officer Brunson, the police officer who my kids adore and who is a kind but firm adult on campus.

Public High School is the first real testing ground for who a person chooses to be. It's a giant social experiment where there is mostly self doubt and fear driving teenagers to find a place, any safe place to land. While these pressures are hard for any teenager to navigate, they are especially difficult for our adopted children who already struggle with self doubt and trust issues. Their faith and values are the very picture of James 1, blown and tossed by the wind, compounded by misery when their bad decisions are found out and consequences follow. These actions have also uncovered serious issues with communication which is of vital importance for any real or lasting relationship with anyone. Are we having fun yet? These are the scenes not shown on the Lifetime movies. And if they did, I would definitely change the channel. I can see though that these struggles while difficult and not fun are necessary for the final lessons we can give to our children as parents, how to have really hard discussions and look seriously at insecurities and temptations. As of yet, a light bulb hasn't come on and not one of them have come running to us repenting from (insert bad decision) thanking us for our incredibly wise counsel. I'm not holding my breath for that and that's not what's important anyway, although it does sound lovely. What's important is that we are still here loving them and trying our best to show them the way they should go, the way of Jesus. We are running the race every single day to win the prize! The race is long and sweaty, tiring and sometimes we want to give up but with God’s help we’ll keep running.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self -control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified

Aunt Cecelia

 I had the privilege today of transporting my mother and father in law to visit their ailing sister/sister-in-law. She was diagnosed three years ago with a rare blood disease and is in hospice now, so we were there most likely to say goodbye. While it was sad to possibly be saying goodbye to a much loved aunt of my husband and myself, best anyone could ask for, I found a precious beauty in our visit. There was something so beautiful watching Eric's mom, Mickey, 82 and her sister, Cecelia, 74 reminisce while holding hands about the wonderful lives they shared and express their love for each other. There was more tenderness and appreciation than I've ever seen. It was a beautiful picture of the strong bonds of their relationship and the power of their love for each other. Their parents would have been so pleased to see their daughters live their lives loving each other as much as they did. I know I would be. These sisters incidentally couldn't be more different (Aunt Cecelia, the adventurer loving traveler, and my mother in law, the homebody, dog loving, piano teacher) and they couldn't love each other more.

I married into the family an unbelievable 33 years ago, (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm indeed getting old myself). In fact, Aunt Cecelia is the very first person I met even before Eric's parents. I was super nervous to make a good impression, but she has a wonderful natural ability to put people at ease and welcomed me with open arms. It's a God given gift and she shares it with everyone she meets. She's one of those people everyone wants to be best friends with and thinks they are! She and Bob her husband have three daughters who are now grown and married with children. Each one of them, just as gracious as their mother. Of course, they had the very best example in their mom. It warms my heart to see them lovingly step in and care for all the logistics of arranging meals, home health care, and even emailing to update the family on their mom's status. I was touched by the capable care of her sweet daughters today, Ashley and Jennifer and Hayley who are each setting aside their own busy lives just like their own mom did for her mother to care for their parents. We were even served one of Hayley's famous bundt cakes when we arrived. We are in the south!

As we drove into the long driveway to their farmhouse, memories came flooding back to so many visits to their house. Each visit they tirelessly saddled up their horses for any and all of us who were visiting/ feeding the chickens. I remember hiding my terror fairly well as I cantered on one of their horses for the first time ever! Cecelia loved teaching all our children and grandchildren about riding and taking care of horses and chickens and they loved learning from her.

We couldn't visit very long but we did visit long enough to share sweet memories and appreciation for her and pray with her. Even as she found it hard to speak, she couldn't help asking about how we were doing, always caring so much about our lives. Uncomfortable as she is to be on the receiving end, she is giving to us still the chance to love her and pray with her and be with her which is the best gift of all.

Brigadiers Will Live In My Heart

The more time I spend on this earth the more dear friendships are to me, especially life long friends I've had since childhood, friends I shared a small day bed that she had growing up and even shared boyfriends with! We live states away and go years between visits but our friendship remains strong. Must be the long hours spent on the hot hot Brigadier practice field, bonds you for life. Or maybe that terrible performance we did with those mini raincoats to the song, Rain on my Parade. It's becoming clearer to me why the Brigadiers are no more!

Spent a short but sweet time with two of these friends on our tour of Texas this week. They graciously hosted the five of us at their beautiful mountain home. And by gracious I mean Allen bringing out a back hoe so my son Lucas could dig a hole because he thought Lucas would enjoy that. He did. And Diane serving amazing barbecue shrimp and German chocolate cake on a table setting worthy of Southern Living Magazine.

We talked of how in the world is it that we are grandparents now. In our minds we are still the same super cool teenagers we were in high school (ok, Allen was cool and still is while Diane and I were at best the Baytown version of Laverne and Shirley) just slightly more weathered. We talked of our now grown children and exceptional grandchildren and our new responsibilities of taking care of our aging parents that is weighing heavily. I got to visit with their sweet Sherry and her family as she and her husband are raising their four precious boys. What a treat our time was!

Until we meet again dear friends. Let's make it longer and sooner next time.

Pretend Food and Soft Baby Feet

I just returned from spending five days with my first born, Laura after the birth of her third born, Josiah. The experience was a mixture of deja vu, joyful gratitude to God and a reality show, Lifestyles of the Exhausted. I have to admit, I also found myself barely able to keep my eyes open at 9:00 PM! Not really sure why. The same thing happened to Summer who was visiting when Laura went into labor and she's only twelve years old!

 As I was braiding Lucy's hair every morning to get her ready for Vacation Bible School, I was transported to when I would brush Laura's hair as she stood on a step stool. Lucy has beautiful hair just like her mommy and she loves for me to braid it. She also volunteered that her mommy forgot how to braid.  Then I brushed her face with a little sparkly blush. Lucy is a girly girl and loves make up of any kind! I  also brushed her little sister Bridget's blond curls into a spout on top of her head with a bright yellow bow as she lovingly held her precious panda bear. I Fixed Panda's "hair" while I was at it! Such an ordinary thing to brush their hair but not ordinary at all. God is so kind to me to give me these precious moments with my little granddaughters, to see His faithfulness in the life of my daughter and her precious family. I even found Bridget's dinner time melt downs and Lucy's after dinner time hysterics, entertaining. I'm confident that God has equipped Laura and Jason with everything they need to train them up in the way they should go, but I would recommend large regular doses of caffeine.

Somehow cleaning is more fun at Laura's house than my own. I couldn't get over how super organized Laura's house is. I spent my days cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping (going to Starbucks) eating pretend food that Bridget served me, reading books to both of them, watching Lucy and Bridget make tents and watching Bridget create and run through Toddler American Ninja Warrior. We also ventured out to Target and made it into the store after a 12 step process just getting out of the car. Not sure how Laura is going to swing that alone but I'm confident she will try. How happy I am that they can spend each day with Laura who loves and cares for them and a daddy who comes home every day, plays with them and reads them a Bible Story every evening before bedtime.

I tried my best to keep Laura from doing too much but I wasn't nearly fast enough. I found her once cleaning the floor under the kitchen table on her hands and knees and blowing up the splash pad on the deck for the girls! She never has understood the concept of taking it easy. She was working on a website while in early labor!

We all couldn't get enough of  tiny, perfect Josiah and I held him as much I could, knowing how different he would be already before I saw him again. I loved holding his warm little body, marveling at his perfect pink lips, and I watched him stretch and make sweet newborn sounds. This surely must be what heaven is like.

My grandmother used to say that newborn babies remind us that God has not given up on us yet. Josiah would be her great, great grandson. She was so right and she would have loved our newest miracle, baby Josiah.