Jason and I signed up to help out with VBS since they were short on volunteers...the kindergardeners are kicking our butts. But I guess that's what service is all about...
235 kids learning about Jesus is a beautiful thing! I hope that I'm leading well, but it's kind of like the blind leading the blind...

A Very Happy Birthday

Tomorrow I will (God-willing) wake up and be 31 years old, and I will be completely happy about it! Over the course of the last few weeks, I have been realizing a feeling of contentment. I'm sure that this is a feeling that God has been trying to lay on me for years and years of my life, but I am so stubborn that I just wouldn't let it in. I couldn't wait for the day that getting a bigger house, complete with my dream kitchen, plenty of space to entertain family and friends (and don't forget the mud room!) would be a real possibility in my life. I couldn't wait for Maddie to be out of diapers so that we could have another child. I wanted to be thin again. I wanted to have a new car, rather than driving my husband's '96 Chevy Silverado that guzzles gas faster than Maddie chugs her milk every morning. But now, I don't know how it happened but I praise God that it did, I will go to bed tonight with a feeling of aaaaaaahhhhhhh...
This feeling of contentment, of wanting what I have rather than wanting something more, is truly amazing. It is the greatest birthday present ever!

Why?????

The "why?" game has officially been discovered by my two-and-a-half year old daughter. Every other conversation, especially one that involves me telling her to do something, evolves into either really creative banter or complete frustration, with me finally saying, "Because I said so!"
Does she ask why because she is really curious, or because she knows it pushes my buttons? Maybe she is trying to stall for time so that she doesn't have to do what I have asked her to do.

I was considering her motives and recalling one of our many recent conversations, when I began to wonder if this is what God goes through when we ask, "Why?" And maybe I play the "why?" game with God for the same reasons that my daughter does with me. Sometimes I am curious...Why am I here? Why am I so blessed? Why did you bring that person into my life? Why did you spare my life through all of the stupid things that I've done?

But sometimes I'm just being a brat, stalling for time or rationalizing why I shouldn't have to do what He wants me to do...Why do I have to tithe? Why do I have to love that person? Why do you forgive everyone (rapists, murderers, child molesters) that accepts your Son as their Savior? Why can't I judge them? Why can't you show me something miraculous, so that I know that it was you and only you that did it? Why does my friend have cancer?

God must be patient and perfect! Imagine the "why" questions that he fields each day. And we see the world as only our own world most of the time, not the lives of every Earth inhabitant over the span of time. Just as it is impossible right now for my daughter to understand why I have to go to work each weekday, it's impossible for us to comprehend God's reasons...but someday that will all be clear to her, and to us.