An Awesome Night

  Thursday night I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the Chris Tomlin concert at the Nebraska State Fair.  This was the second time I've seen Chris Tomlin in concert.  He's one of my favorite musicians to see, hear, and sing.  But what made the evening truly special was that I was honored to share it with my oldest niece and first god-child, Nikki.  It was her first "real" concert.  I'm so grateful her parents let me take their newly 9-year-old all the way to Grand Island and stay out way past bedtime on a school night for something so awesome as a packed (standing room only) auditorium of people singing praise in unbridled worship led by one of the best Christian musicians of our time.

I confess it was emotionally and spiritually overwhelming as I watched her wide-eyed try to take in the scene, process the view of thousands of people all standing and cheering and singing together, and the joy and excitement on her face when she recognized songs.  What an amazing moment to share with my god-daughter!  There are very few people with whom I can share this type of thing who would actually want to be there and who would get something out of it.  What a blessing Thursday to share this with my niece!

She was impressed to learn later that these types of events happen all the time and that every year the Thursday concert at the Nebraska State Fair is a Christian music artist or band.  We decided to find more of these and she thought it would be okay to bring along her sister next time.  This might have to become a tradition!

It occurs to me as I write that there are a plethora of paths my life could have taken, places I could have been, people I could have been with.  So many of those alternative paths would not have left me with an evening like Thursday.  It was definitely one of the highlights of this particular path.  Who knows if we'll have opportunities like that one again?  God willing there will be many, many more.

Recent Changes

As many will attest, a constant in life is change.  We've had some around here recently.

After 16 years sponsoring a child in Guatemala (whom I visited last summer), the agency has decided that area is doing well enough they were more needed elsewhere in the same country.  My sponsorship will be ending about three and a half months earlier than expected.  After so many years, it is really hard to imagine not having Carlos as a part of my life albeit from a distance.  I've decided to go ahead and sponsor a new child in Guatemala.

Another change around here: new car!  My new baby is a Subaru Forester Limited.  It's fancy pants!!  I'm loving it and have become almost paranoid parking farther away, having the overwhelming desire to clean it, so on and so forth.  It's name is George after the Looney Tunes sketch with the monster who grew attached to Daffy ("I will love him, and squeeze him, and call him George.")  My car's name is George...and yes, I am special, but my mommy loves me.

The biggest change was in our household.  After about exactly five months, one of my foster-daughters was moved to a different home where there were closer ties to her relatives.  It was a little sudden, but a little expected at the same time.  We'd all gotten used to a full house, so it is strange to have a room empty again.  I pray the new placement works out well for her and that she continues to improve and grow and excel.

And now we wait to see what God has in mind next.  Meanwhile, I hustle to make sure my trainings get done in time to keep me legal and I keep my eyes and ears open for the next indication of the proper path.  I'm sure there are many more changes to come and who knows how soon...or not.

Book Review and Food for Thought

I recently read a book titled I Don't Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton (Zondervan Publishing, 2016).  It's caused my brain to do all sorts of thinking.  I generally don't mind thinking, but it's left me doing more of it than usual, I think.  There was a lot of good food for thought throughout, but some things really, and I mean really struck me.  Thoughts about the choices we make (how and why and when) and the perspective we take on our lives are rattling around in my brain like crazy.  I need to share a bit.

"So you see it comes down to one thing.  Every day I have a choice.  I can focus on how life doesn't look like I wanted it to, how it's moving at a crawl, the way the road's too slippery, the way the outlook on the ground is gross or frustrating or exhausting for miles and miles.  I can worry if something much worse is going to happen if I walk on into what's ahead of me.

Or I can choose a song.  I can choose to sip my coffee slowly and keep my eyes on the goodness tumbling down from the sky, choose to keep my heart in a place of total, unwavering praise."  (pgs 172-173)

Okay, so I can't relate to the coffee drinking, but the musician's heart in me was piqued.  Most importantly, though, it reminded me that I have the choice: frustration and worry, or peace and joy.

 "Ann Voskamp says that our time is precious, like diamonds.  It's short, friends.  It's short.  Even if you were to live a full ninety years.  If a .05 carat diamond were used to represent each week of those 90 years, they'd barely fill up a tablespoon.  That's a really, really small amount of very precious time. And we aren't even guaranteed that much.

We don't have time to settle.  We don't have minutes to just throw away.

It would be a sad way of spending our spoonfuls, she says, to waste eah diamond wishing we had a better one, thinking that this one wasn't good enough.  Thinking that God wasn't good enough.  Thinking everything would be better if..."  (pgs 187-188)

This passage had probably it's desired effect.  Three words: sense of urgency.  Time (and life) is too precious to waste.  It's frustrating in a way for me.  Now I'm thinking, "How much time have I wasted?  How many times should I have picked a different path?" and, the most plaguing thought: "Now what?"

"At every moment of the journey - not just the forks in the road - there's an opportunity, a choice.  There's the chance to choose the normal, and there's a chance to choose a story.  So often we don't even recognize that the choice is there."  (pg 204) 

And that word "choice" is back again.  It happens over and over and over.  Choices matter - some short term, some long term - but they matter nonetheless.  And I have frequently said I'm glad I'm not and don't really want to be "normal."  Not that there aren't days (don't get me wrong) when "normal" sounds nice because theoretically "normal" would be easier.  But I'd prefer having a good story with a happy ending, thanks anyway.

So the book is aimed at people along the lines of my demographic (being single and female), but there's something to offer for others as well.  I would highly recommend it for my single female friends, though.  And beg a level of forgiveness from the rest of you who wonder what has happened to my brain and attitude.  Must have been something I read.

An Interesting Interview

This was really interesting.  This is not for the liberal among you...if there are any who actually pay attention to me.  Or maybe it is, because it might prove to be food for thought.  And don't assume this means I want to go out and buy a bunch of guns and arm myself and my home.  I just think it's right that my fellow citizens get to arm themselves.  (You know who you are.)  Enjoy!

http://www.billoreilly.com/video/public-appearances?pid=20751

A Neat Moment

Some moments make some choices totally worth it.  We had some of those the other day...well, I did...or I recognized the moments even if the girls didn't.

I have these girls in my house who just needed a safe, healthy place to be.  They have families out there and even if they don't say the words to my face, there are definitely "you aren't the mom of me" moments and attitudes.  But the other day I got to overhear being called "foster-mom" and they referred to each other as foster-sisters.

In those brief moments, in their choosing of those words, we were a little family unit and it seemed like maybe, just maybe, my choice to do this wasn't so hair-brained as some might have thought.  I have witnessed transformation in these two girls and hope to see even more.  If  nothing else, at least for a time, I gave them a safe and healthy family.

The Big Project

This Memorial Day and week was busy.  There was a lot to do and luckily I had some awesome help...misadventures and all!

Hey.  At least I mowed.

Before #1

Before #2

Go, Mom, go!

Team work!

In Process

So much better!

And then for something completely different...plumbing fail!

First we discovered the water running under the sink...

Then we discovered it was running into the basement and making it rain.

So we shut off all the water to the house because we couldn't get it to stop and went back to work on the yard.

More of the process

Getting closer!  Almost done!

This part is done!

And this part

Let there be gate!

Finished product!

Putting together a new toy...

Look!  I made fire!

We did some other things here and there, but those are the highlights and the big projects that got finished.  Thanks so much to Dad, Justin, and Mom for being the best helpers/workers ever!  The garden and yard look great and I think Samson is enjoying having the extra space to run.

Some Things That Make Me Smile

• Hearing my 12-year-old foster-daughter (unbeknownst to her) singing along to her music.
• Hearing the pitter-patter of rain on the roof.
• A tasty dinner.
• Receiving a compliment from a practical stranger.
• My smart, young foster-daughters saying clever and funny things.
• My dog resting his head on my lap.
• An exciting episode of a favorite TV show.
• Remembering how lucky I am to have the family I do.
• Seeing the excitement on my foster-daughter's face at something so simple as getting to make a frozen pizza for dinner.
• Seeing that one of my favorite foods is on sale - time to stock up!
• Pictures of my god-children.
• Out of the blue hearing from a good friend.

And so much more.