When Life Stinks, God is Still Good

Lately life has felt like one of those spinning tea cups at the Iowa City Park. Seriously, if I list all the bad, I shock even myself.

• our lead pastor resigned at church
• my electric knife quit
• my stove totally kicked the bucket
• our van's back door stopped closing correctly
• we had a water leak in our upstairs bathroom, totally unknown to us, and it seeped under the floor, until the ceiling sagged and came down in the downstairs bathroom, so for the last 3 weeks, we only use the upstairs shower
• the dryer had a frightening noise every time it started
• the porch railing completely fell apart and we had to wait an extra 2 weeks for the new posts to come in and then we had to wait another 2 weeks for it to get repaired
• the electric guys decided our open trenches waiting for them to put in underground lines were no big deal, and so we have had a portion of our yard torn up for weeks and weeks now
• the chicken house building project continues and keeps adding various stress to my dear husband
• Leon has spent hours and hours in the combine this fall, and I totally felt like a harvest widow
• I got the sorest throat I've ever had in my life and felt sick for over a week
• our two adorable baby kitties both died due to our naughty puppy's antics

But unless you should even squeeze out the tiniest bit of sympathy for me, let me be the first to tell you that God is good. And we are incredibly blessed. I don't think it was a coincidence that in the last several months I read an amazing book  called Face to Face With Jesus. Hearing her tell her personal story of being a Christian in the middle East was completely thought-provoking! I am so thankful that the same Jesus who performed countless miracles on her behalf, is the same Jesus I serve. And He's doing miracles right here in America, too. I also read The Hardest Peace.  Wow! What an incredible story of a mother of 4, dying from cancer unless God does a miracle, and how in the hardest places we find peace. I was inspired and encouraged so much- to live each day intentionally, and to just be kind to my children. We admire people who have gone through intense difficulty and come out with an amazing Jesus story. But I want the Jesus story without the pain. I'm forgetting that the deepest peace comes out of the deepest pain.

I told Leon recently that I just want the hard to stop. He reminded me that as long as we have life and breath, we are engaged in a battle. We can fight with our arms hanging down, or we can fight like the warriors God has called us to be. It's true. We are never promised easy. We are promised that God will be with us. And it's Him living in us that makes all the difference. He lives through us, wins our battles, and fights for us. But we can't walk around in defeat.

A lot of my list of hard stuff at the beginning of this post is so, so trivial. First world problems. I would be lying to say that I took each new 'broken' piece in stride. But that stuff cannot take my peace. My peace does not come from my circumstances all being honky-dory. My peace comes from the One who holds everything in His hand.

My husband fixed the electric knife, the van, and the dryer, and the bathroom is still an on-going process, our youth group blessed our socks off and gave us a monetary gift to replace the stove, the porch and trenches are out of my control so I may as well not fret.......and harvest is OVER for this year!!!

We had a lot of HAPPY mixed into this tough stuff.

One Sunday we just took the day off- for us. We had a special meal at a Mexican restaurant, hiked and took photos at the reservoir, and came home and watched a movie.

We had a couple family game nights sprinkled in too. We took advantage of every rain that kept Leon out of the field.

And there are always good books to read....

Brooklyn is learning how to read like a pro-

We enjoyed the baby kittens for a short time.

We took the day off of school and toured the Herbert Hoover Museum.

Here we're posing after a Sunday afternoon run-

 This is how Leon feels sometimes when the women in his house get crazy!

And this is how certain family members eat their caramel dip.

God is good! All the time. God is good!

Just Stuff

 How Many Times A Day Do I........
-shut off lights
-sigh
-laugh at some hilarious child
-put someone's shoes away
-say "Please close your mouth while you're eating."
-close the inside door
-clean up a mess
-empty the farmer's chore clothes hamper only to see it full again. (slight exaggeration)
-cry out to God for help
-say "no"
-thank God for health, my family, my LIFE
-say  "Put your things away."
-dwell on Heaven
-complain
-say "Treat your sister {brother} the way you want to be treated."
-spread joy when I feel grumpy
-compliment someone
-dwell on less than perfect situations
-praise God
*******************************************************************************

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins baked this week- 28
Beautiful spring days- 1
Piano lessons- 4
Loads of laundry-8
Breakfast cooked- 3
Gallons of milk consumed- 1.5
Walks I took- 1
Kissed my husband- oops, forgot to count (aren't you glad?)
Fractions explained-7
red x's made in my children's books- 30?
Science lessons taught- 2
Chapters read to my children- 8
Memory verses reviewed- 13 verses, 3 x each= 39
Floor swept- 2
AND IT'S ONLY WEDNESDAY!

Here are some pictures of our first glorious spring-like day-

The first fire of the year, they roasted and ate a whole pack of hot dogs at 2 PM, and I had just fed them lunch.

Meet our dear caterpillar friend. Today is probably the first time all week that he/she has gone for an hour without being fed or held or sang to or carried around exuberantly in circles through the house. I think I hear sighs of relief coming from her/his direction. The insecurity it is feeling due to having it's name changed at least 4 times already, well, I can't even imagine. Meet Fred/Speedy/Patch/Sophie- he is perched on the top of Brooklyn's stick.

Brooklyn- "Mom, why are you reading a magazine?"
Me- "Because it's for home school mom's"
Brooklyn- "Oh, I thought you were just being lazy."

Family

Family- for many, that is a painful word.

For me- it evokes warm, fuzzy feelings and lots of good memories.

Last night, my family celebrated Thanksgiving. It was a very loud gathering of people. The young boys were playing football in the basement, the younger children were playing school, and loudly trailing the 'cow bell' through the house, the adults were having various conversations throughout the house, some of them talking loud enough to be heard above the din. There were several quiet conversations sprinkled in too. Little Josiah was trying to fall down the stairs. Mom/Grandma's delicious food was devoured. It was a special evening. There were 40 of us there, which means about 25 were missing. Like I said, it was loud.

My family looked like this 30 years ago-

Now we look like this-

The siblings-

The grandchildren-

Random fun pictures of my family-

I am very blessed. I have some of my best friends in this bunch of people. There has been a lot of pain in our past, losing Dad being one of the big ones, but it has brought us together. We will never see eye to eye on every issue. But like a wise person told me once, "If we can't love when we disagree, we have nothing to offer anyone." And I keep coming back to that.

Too often our preferences or beliefs can completely divide families and friendships. It's the 'I'm right and you're wrong every time' mantra that gets us into a lot of trouble. We can accomplish a lot more by taking our concerns for our family to God and letting Him change hearts than we can by trying to be the Holy Spirit in their lives.

And so today, I'm thankful for my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews and every in law, and out law :) in my family. My life is so much richer because of them. I am blessed.