Surprise Date #2

This time I took Aaron to Barnes and Noble for our surprise date. On the way there we stopped for ice cream. I chose to go there because we like to do our own thing but together. After we get our coffee, Aaron grabs a few of books, I grab a few magazines, and we head upstairs to sit in our usual "comfy chairs" to read. Every now and then we look up to people watch or talk about what we're reading (or in some cases viewing). This time we stayed in the coffee shop and you can see what happened once we got there!

Earrings!!

Mazie got her ears pierced yesterday!! She was not happy about it either. But like my Grandma Frost always says, "It hurts to be beautiful." Sorry Mazie. You're a girl.

Lunch Boxes

I'm always amazed when someone tells me they are watching my life. I guess it's because I feel pretty common. Our neighbor recently gave her life to Christ an now works at our kids' school. She told me she loves seeing what I put in Gabe and Judah's lunch boxes because it's healthy and creative. Well that might be a small detail of my life, but I know that it's much bigger than that. It's possibly changing her future generations. Instead of feeding her kids whatever they want, teaching them poor eating habits, she has begun to think about what she buys and feeds her family. She is showing her kids that she cares about them. She is teaching them that their bodies are temples of God. Her kids will in turn do the same or better. I love that!

And that's the beauty of being a Christ follower. He chooses and uses the most common of us all to influence the actual path of other people's lives. When I look at myself I wonder how this is possible, but then I remember that it isn't my greatness that affects their lives. It's Christ in me that influences. I don't need to worry about changing other people's lives to be great. I only need to focus on Jesus changing my mind and character through my relationship with him and people all around me will be forever changed. What a privilege!

Learning To Cherish

Learning to Cherish

by Moyra Jean Stiles, mother of three

Four months ago, my friend was diagnosed with aggressive stomach cancer. And my life has been irrevocably altered by the days I have spent with her during her illness. Days that confine her to her bed or a recliner all day, very heavily medicated for pain, physically unable to do daily tasks as she moves through the letting go of the work that was hers as a woman, a wife and a mother.

 

"I want to be the one to love
my family in these tangible ways"

In the hours when we sit together and pray, her heart desires remain very clear: "Please, Lord, please, let me be the one that gets to dress my girls. Please, Lord, O please, let my hands be able to once again prepare a meal for the man I love and the children I cherish. I, Lord, I want to be the one to love my family in these tangible ways." Of all the things she's lost in this season, this is what she mourns the loss of most: caring for the ones she loves with the energy and creativity of her unique and committed heart.

Oddly enough, those are the very tasks that most often garner grumbles from me. I, who have an abundant amount of health and energy, grow weary of endless meals to prep, laundry to fold and diapers to change. And yes, these tasks can be tiresome. But because of my friend's beautiful spirit and grace, I'm discovering just how precious they are, just how much they mark me my husband's wife, my children's mother. And those are roles I never want to lose.

 

Dear God, thank you for my family. Show me how to love them through the big and the small, the exciting and the mundane. Remind me to cherish them always. Amen.