Do not grow weary

Dear Faithful Laborer, This morning, my son was walking toward his classroom and he spotted you. On a busy Monday morning, you stopped, you smiled, you showed him love. You didn't have to stop, but you did! He is not one of your "charges" Monday through Friday from 7 am till 5 pm, but you still stopped. Why did you stop and wave to him and make his whole day? Because you heard him say, "Mommy, das my Puggas lady." Translation: Mom, that is the lady who greets me with a big smile EVERY. SINGLE. WEDNESDAY night at Puggles at Church! Thank you, Puggles Lady (yes, I know your name but I think Joel's name for you means so much more) for pouring into my little pint sized church-goer. He has yet to learn all the big doctrines that you and I hold so dear, but because of your efforts every week, he is starting to learn little lessons about the BIG God who loves him dearly. It was in your class that he learned that God made the moon. Doubtless he will not remember the impact you left on his life...but his mom will never, ever forget. Thank you, faithful nursery worker. Every Sunday, morning and evening, you give up your time and energy to be locked in a room with 10 two year olds (more than half of them are boys). You don't complain. In fact, you love on them, feed them too many cookies (because how can you say no to those cute faces), take them outside to play, and cuddle them when they are tired and sad. All the while, their moms and dads are in the service, child-free and able to listen and soak in every amazing word from the pulpit. They get refueled for the week while you pour yourself out for them. You are a blessing and you are never told enough how much we thank the Lord for you. I know there are Sundays where every kid poops, sometimes twice, the room feels too small, three kids have wiped their noses on your pants, and you just think you cannot do it any more. Keep on doing it!!! You are serving an absolutely vital role and each mom and dad can go into service knowing their little munchkin is going to be loved. Thank you, patient Sunday School teacher and children's church worker. Every Sunday you do your best to lasso those two year old boys and attempt to teach a lesson to them in the two-three minute window that a toddler attention span warrants you. Somehow, you have managed to teach them "Jesus loves me" and the nativity story and who knows what else (because often the story gets some toddler re-writes when we ask him what he learned at Church). At the end of the day, if he is already learning that Jesus loves him...well, does it get any better than knowing that? At two years old? All the while, you take time to help us reinforce manners and potty training, and manage to clean up the "accidents" when they don't make it in time. Thank you, faithful PK2 teachers. Goodness, some days you actually spend more hours pouring into my child's awake hours than I do. You are not only teaching A,B,C's and 1,2,3's, but life lessons, Bible truths, and manners. You have taught him his first "before we eat" prayer, most of his toddler songs like Old MacDonald (although his version almost always includes Old MacDonald's farm having a dolphin...but hey, we live in Florida...it fits), and even some science and art. He is always so proud to show us his art and we are still laughing at his performance at the Christmas program (and blushing over his unplanned dance recital at Grandparents Day). We are thankful for you, for being there while we aren't and knowing we can trust you with our precious treasure. Dear workers, whatever ministry God has placed you in, do NOT grow weary. All those diapers you change, noses you wipe, boo-boos you kiss, and tears you dry...they matter! The children you serve may forget you, but the impact you make on their parents does not go away. You are so important to us and we love you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the energy and effort you put into caring for them. God sees your sacrifice and labor of love...and this mommy is seeing it too! Until next time Amy

A Beautiful Mess

The first thing I hear in the morning is, "Mommy, I get up". Since he has not mastered the fine art of crawling out of his crib yet, he still cannot get himself up in the morning (and I am in no rush for him to figure that out). We scamper into the living room for a quick episode of Daniel Tiger (but only the episode where he goes to the potty or where he tastes veggies because little man knows what he likes and does not like). Yesterday, he was willing to eat the yogurt that comes in the little monkey cup, but today he won't be willing to eat that, it will have to be the yogurt that comes in the pouch. We get dressed and go to the car. He asks for his favorite songs on the radio, which I deny because my only chance to hear anything going on in the world is on the radio going to work (because I cannot stand the talk show host on the radio on my way HOME from work). He fusses at me for 1.5 seconds and then begins the battery of daily questions. "Mommy, I go shoot (school)?". Yes, baby, we are going to school. "Mommy, I see friends?" Yes, baby, we see friends. "Mommy, I see (and then we name each friend)?" Yes, baby, you will see (and I name all the friends). We talk about the "bus shoot" (school bus) as it passes our car window. He talks about his beloved teachers (who's names he still cannot say right so he calls by his own specially created (and totally adorable) nicknames). He asks for a bite of my breakfast (which is, somehow, always more interesting to him than his own). This little ritual is how he got introduced to coffee cake, coffee (black or with cream, he drinks it both ways), cutie oranges, granola bars, and cold cut sandwiches (I know, I have wonderful breakfast eating habits--- come on, people, the title of the post of "beautiful mess"-- you had to see this real world confession coming). I go through my day teaching about World War I during first hour, Cold War during second hour, Sectionalism and Antebellum period third hour. By fourth hour I get a little break and I have time to run my errands around campus and I usually have time to see him on his little playground with all the friends we so dutifully named on our way to school. I can see him running and screaming and jumping and being 10000% boy while he plays (bless his teacher... she deserves a metal). I hurry back to my room to cover my study hall, lunch duty and a final government class before my day ends. After all the students have been taught, my room cleaned (because there is always, always, always 500 little shreds of paper on my carpets by the end of the day), and some grading done, I get to pick him up. Most days, he is busy doing his favorite thing, playing outside, when I come for pick up. I love getting to be the one to pick up because I get the biggest smile from that little man and a screaming "Hi mommy!!" when he sees me. I usually brush the wood chips from his hair (he likes to throw them up in the air in true LeBron James style and for which he also tends to have to sit in the "Finking chair" as he calls it (timeout chair/thinking chair). One day after we got home, I found woodchips IN his pull-up--not sure what he was saving them for... but there they were. Then we are home and the nighttime race begins. In a frenzy of activity (dinner, bath, pajamas, and bed) the evening hours slip by far too quickly. Soon, the house is quiet and I have a moment to reflect. Our life is busy, there is a lot of rushing around on any given day. However, our life is beautiful. I am not talking about our physical life. The house needs painting, the lawn needs trimming, the car is dirty and my bedroom is still the terrible purple color it was when it moved in (6 years ago). The important parts of our life are beautiful. We love each other and we have the most wonderful son anyone could ask for. He is high energy with a splash of naughty... but he is a token of the goodness of God in our lives and to me, that makes him one of the most beautiful children I have even seen. Sure, he has a penchant for mischief (in one week alone he colored on my bedroom door, poured juice on the floor on purpose, and filled Buzz Lightyear's helmet with yogurt which I then had to clean out with q-tips because Buzz is a treasured friend) but he also can be incredibly sweet and loving. However you look at it, our life has a lot of color and a lot of flavor. When I look at it, though, all I can see is something beautiful... and messy. It's just our beautiful mess. Until next time --Amy

Unless I had seen

I find that from time to time, I get stuck on an idea or a concept and I just keep thinking on it, pondering over it and generally chewing on it until I have it all figured out. For the last couple of weeks now, I have been stuck on the goodness of God. In the world we live in, there sometimes isn't a lot of "good" to talk about. Scroll through Facebook sometime and really look at the posts objectively. Yes, there are the "we just got engaged" posts and the cute pregnancy announcements; but more often it is posts pleading for prayer because of loss or a really serious medical prognosis and you just want to close Facebook down and never open that door again. On the other hand, every so often, there is a little glimmer, a little ray in the dark clouds and you remember, HE is good. When all the THINGS in life seems grim...HE is good. Sometimes I think people miss just HOW good He really is. Hang with me here. We get saved and we start to really dig into faith. Then, wham, out of the blue, life gets hard. Not just a little bit... it gets soul crushing, agonizingly, depressingly hard. We run to the Bible, we look for that promise of hope. What do we find, though. We find that God never said, "Just trust in me and all of your problems will vanish and nothing will ever be hard and nothing bad will ever happen to you." If you have found that verse, let me know. Here is what I have seen. Jesus told his followers, "In this world ye shall have tribulation; BUT be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.". Furthermore, we are told that Paul had a "thorn in the flesh"... something that gave him (I am sure) pain and trouble. He asked God to take it away, but God didn't... because HIS grace is sufficient. Now is when the skeptics say, "well, that doesn't sound very good to me". Dear reader, let me say to you that it IS good. Without that thorn, Paul even said, the tendency to be puffed up in ourselves would be incredible. Here is where it gets so good. The writer in Psalms said "I had fainted, UNLESS I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart." I can't tell you how many times in my own personal walk where I have come close to "fainting". Another trial, another hurt, another hard time... and yet, there is that verse staring me in the face and I think about the goodness of God. I can't escape it. It is all around me. I wake up in the morning and my eyelids flutter open and I can see the comfortable four walls of my bedroom all around me... the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. A little voice from the other room starts to yell (each time little louder until I respond)" Mommy, I get up".... the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I roll over in my bed and there is the one person out of the 7 billion that was made for me... the goodness of the Lord. I walk past the memory box we made for our precious babies already in heaven and I rejoice that I have the hope of a resurrection... the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I walk past my fridge and see the faces of the children of friends that I prayed for, begged the Lord to give to those friends, and there those little cherub faces smile back at me... the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I see the save the date cards for former students ready to get married, who are choosing to live for God and love God... the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Ok, Amy, that's all well and good, but what about me today? I have suffered loss, tragedy, family struggles, financial woes. I don't feel that goodness. Friend, I totally understand how that feels. I have been there. Some days I am still there. Grief and trials and disappointments don't just go away. Grief, particularly, kind of moves in and never really moves out. It becomes less noticeable, but it is always there. But, grief, no matter how overwhelming, can't erase the goodness of God. Goodness is part of who He is. Even in those times where your heart feels ripped in two, He is still good. He does not promise that all things are good...some things in life, thanks to the curse of sin, will never be good things. BUT HE WORKS ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR GOOD. That promise... it just gets sweeter the more I read it and think about it. I used to think, before I really knew Jesus as my own Savior, that that particular verse (Rm. 8:28) meant that "for them who love God" things somehow would be easier or less painful or good all the time. Now, I see it. Those things that aren't good in and of themselves like grief and tragedy, they work to make us more conformed to the image of Jesus. More than anything, they cause us to see how good He really is. I don't know what difficulty lies in front of you tonight, my dear reader (all 23 of you), but I do know this. The Word promises that in the Last Times, things will get harder and more difficult. Friends may fail you, even desert you. Being a true follower will probably even involve sacrifice, maybe even persecution. Cling to the truth, in those times, that He is good and His mercy endureth forever. And cheer up, my friend. As much as it may depress you to watch the news and the grim conditions we may see in our own nation and around the rest of the world, God is still on the throne and still looking to save souls. Even in the midst of the evil that we see all around, the goodness of the Lord is there on display. I see His goodness in the truths my son is learning (already) in AWANA and school about God. When he sings, "Jesus loves me..." Well I pretty much turn to mush. Jesus died for that little boy and I cannot wait for him to understand that truth. I see His goodness in the students who got saved this school year and are wanting to learn more. I see His goodness in the couples who are choosing to follow Jesus even if that means saying goodbye to the comfy American life for a third world village. He is good... always, only good. Look for the evidence of His goodness this week.