by We took the last of the colts to pasture this weekend and ever since our lone mama cow has been bellering for her buddies. Plus, she’s not due to calve till June, but her udder is tight and she looks suspiciously close. But what do I know?
We skipped the trip to town for horseshoes in favor of more playtime outside. Can’t take these sunny days for granted with all the rain we’ve had lately. I filled up a big aluminum pan with water balloons and we had a free-for-all! The girls were outside from 11 am till 6 pm, and they’ve eaten and are happily ensconced under their covers. What a great way to wear out!
I was talking books with a girlfriend who is helping me with VBS. She has no idea I’m writing. She made the comment that she didn’t like Karen Kingsbury’s Redemption Series because the Christians face so much turmoil. She tossed her head and rolled her eyes and I about died laughing. I was glad to know that not ALL readers out there have to have back to back conflict. But it got me to thinking. We all have our own unique areas of testing…whether it seems to always be health, job, or finances, or family conflict. Maybe your vehicles are always breaking down. I don’t know. Some people seem to be like Job…everything at once. When we were self-employed I had to hang on to that verse about contentment…Godliness with contentment is great gain. I learned a lot in those lean years. I have one painful memory of the humiliation of a bank overdraft that I didn’t know how we were going to cover, but that’s the only really bad memory I have. And yes, I’m kind of glossing over it (no need to mention how I sank to my knees in the corner of the kitchen and wept, so sick of it all) but it was a big deal to me. When I think back to those times of wracking my brain for creative snacks for the kids, or how to stretch point A to point F…or looking at other families with two incomes and wondering why God wanted me at home? Now, instead of all that, I remember the good things. Like the piles of bagged popcorn in my upper cupboard that had accumulated year after year from our farming neighbor…just waiting to be used as a last resort snack…which became the kid’s favorite! (Ever make cinnamon popcorn with red hots?) Or how I had to get in the habit of baking homemade bread out of sheer necessity…which was like a delicacy that I’d been too lazy to discover! I remember devouring Tightwad Gazette volumes 1,2, and 3 and being amazed at all the ways I wasted money! Even now that I don’t have to I still wash out my ziplock baggies, not the sandwich ones, but everything else! We discovered the best beans out there–Anasazi beans, that require hardly any soaking and they’re SO pretty in glass jars!Are there any Christians untouched by suffering? If there are, I bet they only appear to be. Our pastor had a great message on Sunday about loving one another. He said some lady did an experiment in a well known city in Nebraska. She visited 18 churches consecutively and sat up toward the front. Her purpose was to score each church for their friendliness factor. I can’t remember the exact “point system” she used but suffice it to say they got around a 100 points for each person who came up to her and shook her hand. They got even more if they introduced themselves to her. And even more, like 500 if they said, “Hey, you should meet so-and-so”…there were all sorts of simple ways for these church folks to gain points. And to make it easier on them, this gal made her way slowly from the front pew where she sat to the back at each church, making eye contact with whoever she could…essentially being friendly herself to pave the way for a return on her investment! Sadly enough, the highest scoring church had only 100 points.
Now that’s hard for me to believe. Our church is pretty friendly, in fact, that’s one reason my dh and I kept going back…we were made to feel so welcome. I know I’m guilty of being in too great a hurry to run back to the nursery, collect my kids and get home for lunch…but what’s the deal with 18 churches in the same town all being too inhibited to be friendly to a newcomer?
What a ramble. Guess I should put my soapbox back where it belongs now!
Gonna hit the book,
Mary
