Bits: Remember, Ask

Oh brother, last Monday I lost it.

I was tired from weeks of packing and travel, maybe.  Probably so, I was more tired of the ongoing rounds of, "Hey, stop it!  It's mine!  Give it back!  Maaaaaammmmma!" followed by tears or screeches or worse. 

It makes me tired just thinking about it. 

Later that evening Joe got home in time for dinner and I guess one little look at my face was enough to merit a slow, "So, how was your day?"  I told him it was hard... and then.

Wouldn't you know my sweet girls start giggling and twirling and dancing with each other?

To which Daddy gently responds, "Well, hopefully you had some moments like this too?"  I started thinking about it and sadly shook my head with a, "No, not too many I'm afraid."

I went and sat on the couch and watched them for a while, smiles lighting up their faces as they held hands and landed in big happy heaps upon the floor.  I called them for dinner and while we encouraged them to eat their BBQ chicken, corn, and rice I was floored.  The tone of day had completely changed.

We got them on to bed and I landed in a heap myself on the couch with the last chapters of another Francis Chan great, "The Forgotten God."  I read for a bit when his words hit me hard, hot and square in the face:


Would you be willing to take thirty seconds right now just to dwell on the fact that God is in you?  Astonished?  This is not a distant, loose connection.  This is the Spirit of God choosing you and me to be His dwelling place.  I might wake up on a particular day feeling physically tired or stressed or impatient, and humanly speaking, those things would probably define my day.  But the reality is that I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit.   And because of this reality, stress and tiredness and impatience don't have to define my day.  If you have received by faith the promise of the Holy Spirit, you are also His temple.  As you drive your children to school.  As you go to work every day.  As you embark on a new, unknown season.  As you go to school.  As you face tragedy or pain.  As you buy groceries.  As you give of yourself in relationships.  As you walk the dog.  As you make decisions.  As you live your life, the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you.

There is more, but in it all I remembered my Monday.  I remembered that after a day of mostly going about it on my own, forgetting what I have been given, doing it in my own strength-- I was spent.  But that afternoon just before Joe got home, I finally-- finally-- uttered the words, "God, will You please help us today?  We are really struggling and we need more of You!"

Therein was the dancing, the giggling, the joy.  It was there all along, actually.  You would think I would remember this by now, but it's the simple that can so often elude me-- especially when I am caught up in the day-to-day.

All I had to do was remember, was ask.
******
Bits:

:: This very cool student brought this most gorgeous gift to our Maddie Girl.

:: I scrounged around until I uncovered two other terra cotta pots for H and A, and now the front porch gives off a new happy hello, even if that hello has gotten a little droopy in the scorching summer sun.

:: Then Joe brought ME flowers just because!  If I was rich and just had to spend something frivilous on myself every day, my house would be covered in an eclectic mix of vases filled with blooms.  They could be free wildflowers from a field for all I care, but so far I haven't found unlimited access to such a place.
 :: A little change up or two and I did get into some nest feathering.  Amazing how $2 tea towels and hot glued fringe can inspire me.

:: Plus feathering leads to inviting over friends we haven't seen in a while. Sometimes, after a dinner party, I like to let the mess linger for a bit.  The upturned napkins, empty glasses and bread baskets, wrinkled table cloth... they all speak to having had your house full of people and conversation and, hopefully, lots of good laughs.

On that note, Maddie's decorations may or may not be still be up under the deck

Other things we're liking this week in no particular order:

:: Paying library fines to enjoy borrowed friends in porch forts

 Next time someone tell the bees there are NOT invited, though

:: Banana pudding for Family Night

:: Accessorizing foreground; Lego family construction background

:: Playing "Miss Nelson"-  the book that I fondly remember being the hot item to check out from the school library long about second grade

:: Breaking in the "kindergarten desk" {stolen, along with much of Maddie's party decor, from Nana's basement}

:: Squeezing in a "Mama Date" with Maddie-- as much as I love our whole family together, there is something so special every now and then to spend one-on-one time with each of the girls.  I always have enough ears and hands for one undivided hour or so.

New birthday purse holding lip gloss, a soft wallet, and a few of her favorite little people.  Hope and Leese, you're up next!

:: An unexpected jammy wearing, lazy Saturday

:: Sonic happy hour

3:58 pm, baby 

:: Using up the last of our annual museum membership

:: This girl, filling out the middle of our HAM quite nicely

 A: I hit my knee!
Me: On what?
A: Not on the papuss (purpose).

A: I haf'a stinky poopy.
Me: Well, that's okay.  We all do sometimes.
A: Yeah. {laughing} I do stinky ones when I angy (angry).

A: {putting a skirt on under her gown} I'm sooooo fanswey! (fancy)

Fanswey bedtime twirling

Was our week perfect, even after the remembering and the asking?  Nah.  Was it perfectly imperfect, though? 

 Probably so.
~Katrina