My prayer for myself and our family is that each of us will seek first Him and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
In Elisabeth Elliott's book "Keep A Quiet Heart" this quote struck me this morning as I meditated on what it really means to seek first Him and His righteousness. I hope this gives you something to ponder also.
"If through losing what this world prizes we are enabled to gain what it
despises - treasure in heaven, invisible and incorruptible - isn't it worth
any kind of suffering? What is it worth to us to learn a little bit more
of what the Cross means - life out of death, the transformation of
earth's losses and heartbreaks and tragedies?...God has allowed in the
lives of each of us some sort of loss, the withdrawal of something we
valued, in order that we may learn to offer ourselves a little more
willingly, to allow the touch of death on one more thing we have clutched
so tightly, and thus know fullness and freedom and joy that much sooner.
We're not naturally inclined to love God and seek His Kingdom. Trouble
may help incline us - that is, it may tip us over, put some pressure
on us, lean us in the right direction."
Matthew 6: 33But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
If you were to walk into our house right now you'd be hit by the powerful smell of paint thinner.
James, our ever curious and busy, busy, busy, toddler had been playing with Ben and two of his friends. Kurt had asked the boys to watch and play with James.
(The girls and I were at SIL for a craft morning.)
As it goes, I'm told the boys got busy playing legos and forgot about James for a while.
....they found him downstairs dipping tools in a gallon of paint I had used yesterday to paint a shelf. (How James knew the paint was down there is a mystery. He wasn't with me yesterday when I was working on that!)
I thought I'd closed it up well. Guess not!
James was 40% covered on his body in white, oil-based paint; the basement floor had paint on a fair portion of it, little white footsteps led outside, some of our screwdrivers and a hammer were white.....
I received a text from Kurt "Call Me". So I called him, found out what had happened and decided I should come home to help the guys.
When I arrived, James was pretty well cleaned up. Kurt had purchased three bottles of paint thinner to clean up James, the floor and the tools. I finished washing James by giving him two showers with lots of shampoo and soap to get the remainder of paint off around his eyes, and get the smell of paint thinner off him. He cried through most of that and promptly fell asleep after I got him dressed.
Ben, Michael and Jadon learned a good lesson for when they become fathers in the future....never leave a busy toddler alone....toddlers by their very nature are active, inquisitive and some are down right quite industrious to figure out how to open paint cans, etc....
They did a great job cleaning up all the mess James made and I really appreciate all their hard work!
Michael, Ben, and Kurt cleaning paint off the basement floor
Ben, Michael, Jadon, and Kurt cleaning paint off the basement floor
Michael and Jadon hard at work
Our tools before they were cleaned
Proverbs 27:23 was rolling around my head as I watched the boys cleaning. James is not a flock but he is one very busy, busy toddler.
"Know well the condition of your flocks,
and give attention to your herds,"
Now you know why I'm praying for us to be able to put James in a toddler preschool program 2 hours a day!!!! He needs energy outlets!!!
After School Football started last night. There are about 40 elementary kids involved in the program and many parents.
The program runs twice a week for 5 weeks. The kids really enjoy it.
Ben's favourite sport is football (soccer)!
Elise and Amy, THANK YOU for taking photos while I coached!
It's amazing how painful something like a broken big toe on your left foot can be.
Last Thursday I hurt my left toe and thought maybe I'd broken it when it happened. Then on Sunday I accidentally ran that same toe into a chair leg....ouch.....Then yesterday, helping with soccer just aggrevated it all the more.
As it has been becoming more painful I finally went to see a doctor today and he confirmed, yep, it's broken.
Not much to do for it except wear shoes, buddy tape it to the other toe, and take tylenol as needed. So that's what I'm doing. It should take 6 - 8 weeks to heal up.
Thanks for your prayers!
Jerard really enjoys his OT at Resources for the Blind
Kurt at work
Kirsten and her friend, Meranda, at the beach. The kids had no school
on Friday so we went to the beach for a few hours!
James, ready for fun in the water!
Ben and his friend, Joel, playing in the sand
Mikayla, cooking in the kitchen!
