A reminder…

I called to check on her, a dear long time church member and friend.  She is recuperating from body maiming, life threatening, cancer.  In the course of the conversation, she asked about my daughter, son in law, and grandbabies that are moving away next week.  I got teary over the phone and told her how difficult it was for me, when suddenly I remembered.  She had been deprived of all contact with her grandchildren after her son went through a bitter, nasty divorce.  Mine are moving to pursue further training to return to Ghana as missionaries.   Sometimes God uses the suffering of others, to remind us how very, very much we have to be thankful for.

my continuing gratitude list #546-556

-birthday wishes on facebook

-birthday phone calls from friends and family far and near

-birthday prayers and songs from my grandbabies

-shapely glass bottles filled with flowers

-making potato salad with my grandbabies and them gobbling it up afterwards

-cards filled with loving words

-picking berries with oldest granddaughter

-campfires, s’mores, campfire games, and kids performing Bible skits

-good camping weather

-playing in the river

 

-a dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer to help with the after camping clean

Gratefully yours,

Elizabeth

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Longing…

“The Creator places longings within us which can only be answered by and in Him.  He then answers the longings in part, giving us  just enough satisfaction to sustain us in the pursuit, and leaving just enough of an ache to keep us on the journey.  The nature of being wooed demands an ebb and flow of desire and satisfaction.”

Mike Bickle The Seven Longings of the Human Heart

Still following,

Elizabeth

I simply remember my favorite things…Friday’s favs…I’m lovin’ GIANT marshmallows!

We are heading out for our annual church campout.  Yes, for two nights, we “rough” it tent camping with whosoever wants to come and “rough” it with us. 

We all gather in the evening around the group campfire and play silly games, followed by toasting marshmallows, and eating s’mores.

This year, I’m bringing these…

They are GIANT marshmallows! Each one is the size of 2 or 3 regular marshmallows!

They make the gooiest, yummiest, s’mores ever!

  

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

Elizabeth 

I'm linking here~

Come winter…

Come winter I’ll remember when the yard was full of daisies…

and grandbabies.

 

I’ll remember the day oldest granddaughter gathered old perfume bottles, and shapely bottles that once held olive oil, vinegar, syrup…

how she soaked them in sudsy, bubbles that filled the kitchen sink, and she scraped all the labels off.

I’ll remember how Papa and only grandson came in the back door carrying arms of the daisies…

and how grandson helped remove the bottom leaves…

and how we filled the sparkly, clean, shapely bottles…

and how they transformed the house with sunshine and summer and love.

Come winter, I’ll remember…

 

Still following,

Elizabeth 

When you’re kind of mad at God…

It’s hard to hear Him when my own emotions are so loud right now.  I wake up in the night, and think of my daily life without them near, and it’s like God has asked me to continue living without the sunshine, and I cry and inwardly groan, “not fair, not fair.”

Their mama, my one blond blue-eyed baby sandwiched between her two brown-eyed sisters, told me she was going to be a missionary to Africa when she was five years old.  She never waivered.  She took her first missions trip to Africa while still in high school.  She went to Bible college clear across the country.  I had time to let go.  I’ve been letting go since she was five.

But the grandbabies…I’m kind of mad at God about them.  It was a long, long, wait for us to have grandbabies. Then, He brought this one into our lives, with her smile that lights up my world, and she was the one who filled the empty place inside that hadn’t had a little one to love since my own babies were small.

Then a grandson!  A boy in my life!  Me, who raised three daughters, finally had a little boy to love.  What a totally fascinating thing that has been.  He turns an ordinary walk in the neighborhood into an adventure.  When I see him again, will he be too old, too cool, to hold his nana’s hand like he does now?

 

I let go, visualizing laying them on the altar, during Sunday morning worship.  Monday, I untie them, take them down, and clutch them to my heart again.  “Too hard! Too, too hard!” I tell God.  Who is this God who gives you a promise, and then asks you to give it back to Him?  “No backsies, God…not fair, not fair.”

I go on my walk and the song on the IPOD says, “joy is found in the letting go”, and I wonder how, and I wonder when.  “Right now, God.  I need it right now.”

I tell Him, “You aren’t going to just need bottles to collect the tears I’ve cried over this,  You are going to need buckets!” and through the tears, I have to grin with Him at the thought of the shelf marked with my name, lined with buckets of my tears.  I cry easily.  Sad tears, happy tears.

And even though I’m still kind of mad, really mad, I have no where else to go, but to the One I’m mad at.  “If I lay them on the altar, and leave them, promise me there will be a ram in the thicket God…promise?  (Genesis 22:13)  You’ll be my Ram in the Thicket, Jesus…promise?  No backsies, God…no backsies.”

Still following,

Elizabeth

My birthday unwrapped…

I wake up too early.  It’s garbage day, and the noisy garbage truck is the culprit.  I tell myself to sleep in, to sleep all the live long day if I want, after all it’s not every day you turn FIFTY. THREE. (How did I get here?  I was a young wife and mama and BLINK, here I am.  FIFTY.THREE.!)  I can’t fall back to sleep.  I check the computer and see lots of birthday wishes already on Facebook.  It makes me smile. 

The phone rings.  It’s only 7 a.m.  I see that it’s youngest daughter calling from Missouri.  I expect that she’s calling me with happy birthday wishes, but my heart drops when I hear tears in her voice. She’s been hurt by someone.  Twenty seven or not, she’s still my baby, and I want to go to her, comfort her. (And possibly give the other party involved a piece of my mind and a punch in the nose.) She’s sorry to bother me with her problems on my birthday.  I’m sorry I can’t protect her from life’s pain.

At 8 a.m. the phone rings again.  It’s my 85 year old mama.  I expect that she’s calling me with happy birthday wishes, but she is calling to ask me to pick something up for her at the store.  I grin to myself.  Mama hasn’t remembered my birthday for the past several years.  She forgets to flip the calendar pages from July to August until several days into the month, so she doesn’t see the day with my birthday marked until it’s past.  She asks what I’m up to today.  I tell her it’s my birthday, and ask if she wants to come over for a birthday barbecue tonight.  She’s been a little under the weather, so she isn’t sure.  She wishes me happy birthday and closes the phone call by saying, “I love you, Honey.” 

Hubby brings me my morning coffee.  I LOVE my morning coffee.  LOVE.  He asks me what I want for breakfast, but he already knows the answer.  Birthdays are not for dieting.  Birthdays are for warm cinnamon rolls smothered in cream cheese frosting to go with the wonderful hot cup of morning coffee.  He brings me my mooshy, love words filled, birthday card with my breakfast…and in it the print out of what should be arriving in the mail in the next day or two.  A beautiful new leather briefcase/bookbag that I’ve had my eye on.  I am excited about the bag, but I like the card best.

After enjoying a slower than usual start to his day, hubby heads to an appointment.  One of my best friends calls and we talk quite a while.  I am notorious for doing chores while I talk on the phone.  I clean up the bathroom and start a load of laundry.  When I hang up the phone, it rings again.  This time it’s my long time best friend.  We’ve been friends since we were both pregnant with our youngest ones.  We talk a long, long, time.  We lament on how we live less than two hours away from each other and are too busy to get together.  We calendar a tentative date for later this month and pledge to make it a priority.  I hang up from her and the phone rings again.  My two oldest grandbabies sing happy birthday to me.  My heart melts.

I get on my walking clothes, grab my IPOD and my ever present camera, and head out the door on my walk.  The day is beautiful, perfect.  My cell phone rings.  It’s my oldest brother calling me with birthday wishes.  He hangs up with the words, “I love you”.

The two oldest grandbabies come over for the afternoon.  They decorate the house for my birthday dinner with flowers, filling every vessel we can find.

 

 

They make crayon signs.  My grandson says it doesn’t look very birthday-ish without balloons.

 

Hubby buys london broil and corn on the cob for dinner.  Oldest daughter is making my favorite dessert…berry cobbler served warm with ice cream.  Middle daughter is bringing a caesar salad.  I marinate the meat and decide to make a potato salad. The grandbabies help scrub the potatoes, peel the boiled eggs, and eat the pickles faster than I can chop them for the salad.

 

 

The family arrives bearing gifts. 

 

 

The oldest grandbabies both want to pray  before dinner.  They bless the food, and bless me too, in their praying.  The phone rings.  A sweet friend from church calls and sings, “On the day that you were born, the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true…”  I giggle and comment that I never knew she had such a good singing voice.  The family eats dinner out on the deck.  Grandson eats three huge helpings of potato salad.  I guess helping to make it took the mystery out of this food he never cared for before.  After dinner, Uncle plays football with the older grandbabies. 

 

 

 

Youngest granddaughter watches and wants in on the action.

 

 

 

The family sings “Happy Birthday” before we scoop up big bowls of warm cobbler and top it with ice cream.

 

 

Overall, the day almost made turning FIFTY. THREE. worthwhile.

 

Still following,

Elizabeth

I’m linking to Tuesday Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.

Touching the eternal…

As I watched my two oldest grandbabies playing on the beach I felt God speak to my heart.

“Of all the things of this earth, the only thing you touch that is eternal, is other people.”

Seven years ago, this brown eyed beauty with her contagious smile came into our lives.

She captured my heart from day one.

Six years ago, I was there on the day my little buddy was born.

I told everyone I met, stranger or not, “I have a grandson!”

My daughter, her husband, and these two miracles have lived not far from Papa and I ever since.

In two and a half weeks they will be moving to the east coast for preparatory missions training before going to Ghana.

Even the anticipation of the separation is heart rending for me…from my daughter, from my grandbabies.

I remind myself that some parents/grandparents have never had their grown children or grandchildren close by.

Some have lost a child or grandchild to far worse than trying to pursue God’s will.

I remind myself to thank God for every precious moment He let us have them near.

I pray that my touch in their lives made an eternal difference.

I know their touch in mine certainly has.

I am so grateful for the privilege of being Nana. (#534)

my continuing gratitude list #535-545

-a beach trip with the grandbabies

-the beautiful sea

-collecting the sea’s treasures

-that God heard this Nana’s heart cry

-cool morning air blowing through my office window, squirrels playing and chattering in the tree outside,  bird song

-little buddy learned to ride a bike this week

-red barns

-youth camp/changed lives

-a lazy morning after a late night

-ripe blackberries

-daisies

Gratefully yours,

Elizabeth

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