Heading out

Last week Bob emailed me from work with a strange urge to play golf with his old friend who lives way up on Georgian Bay, Ontario! We used to cottage with Laurie and Carolyn in Muskoka north of Toronto when our girls were little. Long story short, I got on the phone and God has opened the way for us to be up there next weekend.

First, though, we will see Maggie out the door, heading to Atlanta together with another young lady from here. They will fly to Johannesburg, South Africa to intern with mission www.sebenzela.org for the next 5 weeks. She is floating on air, and with her usual cheery last minute-itis, pulling it all together. She amazes me.

As soon as they have left we will pack ourselves and drive east to West Virginia, then north to Niagara Falls to enter Canada, circle Toronto and drive due north. We are to rent a cottage June 25 for a week, next door to my dad and Magdalene's cottage near Perry Sound. On our way we will stop for a night or two with our dear friends.

Hopefully, the guys will golf - a first for both in several years! Carolyn and I will of course TALK, and the three boys will get acquainted with their Canadian roots, the True North Strong and Free. Then it's a drive around the corner of Georgian Bay and up to Perry Sound.

....A week at the cottage there will mean time to laze and talk with Dad/Grandpa and Magdalene, dangle our feet from the dock, paddle a canoe alone in the early morning light - a dream come true! Then, God willing, we will head to Rochester to the old homestead. and along with our two New York girls will gorge ourselves on new baby Will and big sister Mia.

During that Michigan week we plan on crossing the border to Windsor to visit Grandma and family. Perhaps we will even stay on a bit for the boys to connect with second cousins. Bob will need to be back to work July 10, when his leave of absence ends.

....After running and playing the other day, a little friend said, "Oh, Mommy, put your hand on my heart. I can feel Jesus in there!" So, in the midst of all our running around, this summer, may it be 'Jesus in there' who keeps us going.

May His heart keep steadily beating inside Maggie and her team in Africa, and in ours here in America, as we drive along in our car, talking, laughing and loving each other, and others we meet on the way.

Please, for Your glory, Lord Jesus, may it be so.

"Poke!"

Maggie says she and her friends periodically 'poke' each other in their spaces online. A poke means, 'I still think about you, Friend, and I care, even if I don't write often.' Wow, I could poke so many people, especially my daughters, sons, and grandbabies so far away in the North.

In order to devote more time to poking my own family, I have reluctantly withdrawn from the adoption forum on line. God bless all those dear people who are waiting in pain and faith for the Ukrainian government to get things sorted out, so they can finally go over to get their children. Some of those kids have been crying over the phone, "When are you coming?" And all of those parents, I know for a fact, are crying, "Soon, I desperately hope!"

God help them, and God help every family everywhere who is struggling to be normal and together and strong and joyful. I noticed recently that there is not even one struggle-free family recorded in the Bible. Every single one is 'disfunctional' in some way or other.

We can all be glad that, despite our disfunction, we have a very functional God, Who continues marching on with His beautiful eternal plan for Planet Earth, His favorite small speck in the Milky Way. He calmly moves forward, bowing to use us to accomplish His dream, imperfect though we are in our smallness, little cogs in the great wheel of His will.

The comforting thing is that inside His loving and wise heart, He has a unique solution for absolutely every predicament, sin, weakness and hurt we families possess, and that we can't sway Him one inch from His Great Purpose. With the smallest whimper from us, He sends help, sometimes within seconds, or minutes.

While God is busy spinning worlds and problem solving for us, we can do the easy part by 'poking' each other now and then. Kind of like placing a hand on each side of a dear one's face, looking at them tenderly and saying, "I really do love you."

Down in the Boondocks

After waking up last week to the old song, Count Yer Blessings, I set a spiral notebook on the counter and began recording the full half of life instead of feeling sorry for myself and everyone else. It has been a wonderful adventure "tradin' my sorrow, and tradin' my pain...for the joy of the Lord."

So this morning, instead of being miffed when Bob and Rob decided to be homebodies, when I had a picnic lunch prepared, I hopped in the car with James and Peter and off we headed down to hunt gators at the state park.

We were careful to obey Bob's admonition to watch out for "logs that moved," but did not encounter any aligators. We did shoot James' new sling shot out into the Pearl River though, for practice, just in case.

We scared a rows of seven turtles off a log, and stood in awe at the top of a bluff overlooking a lovely sandy beach. Watching in awe, we saw a blue heron and a white heron spread their wide wings in slow motion and lift off the river and fly briefly before landing down again. We saw an abundance of Spanish moss hanging from cypress trees, and we hiked through everglade type swamps and bamboo thickets and swung from a thick vine dangling across our trail in the woods.

Crowning our day with some manmade fun, we stopped in at the town Family Festival, and while I stood by grinning, the boys bounced grinning on moonwalks and banged and bumped themselves, grinning and laughing on bungees and down slides and round the park on a kiddie Choo Choo train ride. Finally they climbed up a wall to ring a bell. "It ain't as easy as it looks, Pa Paw!" All this to the crooning of Billy Joe Royal himself and in person in the band shell.

It was a fun day "down at the boondocks." Then before bed we all lay on our backs on the deck and watched the fireflies while Rob took pictures of Jupiter's bands through his telescope. About time for bed the Lord treated us to two shooting stars.

That comes to quite a few blessings to record, and all in one day!

Eyes

Today was the boys' annual eye doctor appointment. It was a hard time for them to have the drops in and be blurry and dilated all day, but they were troopers and persevered.

The nice thing was that James' bad eye was not as out-turned as it was a year ago, and He really does not need glasses for the other eye. I would like him to be convinced to wear glasses simply to protect his good eye. If he just won't or can't please pray for his protection and healing.

Peter has the hardest time with these examinations, I think because he has limited hearing and feels a bit like Helen Keller during the dilation, but the doctor discovered that his eyes have improved. When I asked him for any reason that both boys would have improved he said, "No reason, just lucky I guess."

I begged to differ and explained to him that both boys are spiritual little guys and we believe that Jesus Christ still heals. That, no, they are not biological brothers, and it was no coincidence that they both came with bad left eyes, and that that was a God thing, that He brought them to us. And that we will start more diligently to ask Him to heal them some more.

Then we told him about the story on 700 Club yesterday about the lady who put mud on her blind husband's eyes like Jesus did, and how he suddenly could see.

It struck me just how serious a thing this all is with the boys, but if God instructs me to do the mud thing, you can be sure I will let you know. :)