Resiliency

He speaks of resiliency to us, during this season of sickness for me and long hours of studying and classes for Brian.  So much teaching, so much counsel to our hearts.  “Rely on my strength.  Be perseverant.  Know without a doubt that joy is coming.  Seek those natural boundaries; be self aware to know what you need and when you need it, rely on natural consequences for those dearest little children, who are both in trying phases right now.  Be full of grace, patience, and longsuffering when working diligently with those littles.”  We cannot do it without Him.

There are promises of fun things He has planned for us.  He reminds us to have THANKFUL hearts.  Sweet unexpected words of comfort from friends and each other are provided.  He spoke to me as I passed through this sinus cold and allergies (when exactly did I get these???)….through a Matt Chandler film on Philipians–“colds, sickness is a GIFT to you to remind you that THIS IS NOT YOUR HOME–it is not God’s wrath.”  I needed to hear it once again.  I sat that morning at PWOC next to another woman who looked at me as I was sneezing and coughing and said, “I was so sick throughout my pregnancy–I think my immune system was just not as strong during that time.”  Another comfort that this will soon be over!  As my sense of taste came back the other day, I was much more thankful for the gift to be able to TASTE sweet food!

And then, A fun day in between of playing in the MUD with the kids!   I had been telling Lewis that this day would come soon when the time was right as we would head out the door for different things and he wanted to get dirty…he waited patiently.  And that day came!!!  I miss those days as a child of being covered from head to toe with mud with my very best friend: my brother.  We did everything together.  Everything he did with me was so much fun.  I was thinking of him that day, wishing that I too, could get covered in mud and that he were there with me  🙂  Hannah went first in the mud to get a baseball (what a surprise!).  She got stuck and so buddy went to rescue her.  He tried, but instead pulled her down into the mud and she began crying.  I went in to save them both and buddy planted himself in the mud like Hannah just to have more fun.  We were all giggles at this point and just had a blast playing in the mud while daddy was studying.  He was really sad he missed out on our mud day 😦  I guess we’ll have to have another one really soon 🙂

He’s giving us encouragement to keep reaching for the stars, to continue the path of cultivating that Holy Discontentment, and gave us a SWEET GIFT from Lewis’ mouth the other day that I shall write about soon.

As the day ended last night…and we were all so weary, Hannah looked into buddy’s eyes and said “Buddy, you are my best friend.”  We started off for bed and I picked up a book to read to them and unexpectedly turned to the page of Reaching for the Stars.  It was a lovely ending to a challenging day…and trying 2 weeks.