40 Days

Ever read a bible verse that you’ve probably read/heard 100s of times and all of a sudden, it’s like you have a major light bulb moment?

I had one this morning. Tuesdays are my busiest days, I’ve really got to boogie to get myself ready, Jill to mom’s, and be at work on time! (What? You think I should get up earlier on Tuesdays? ) Plus today is Jilly Bean’s 5th birthday AND for some unknown reason I decided since I had exactly 30 minutes before I needed to leave the house it would be a good idea to do a 20 minute elliptical workout. Okay, the reason was that my trainer suggested I should but I did do it! And yes, that left me 10 minutes to shower and get out the door…which I barely did in 15 and with no makeup and wet hair.

Anyway, all of that means I read my devotions online today at church and, yes, we’re finally getting to the story. Let me set up the scripture, Elijah has just destroyed the prophets of Baal and Queen Jezebel has told him he’ll be sleeping with the fishes by this time tomorrow. So Elijah does what most of us do, he complained! He cried and whined and then he went to sleep! Then an angel wakes him up, feeds him, he goes back to sleep, eats more, and then travels for 40 days! Finally after he finishes his journey God speaks to him (and then sends him back the way he came which is a whole other story).

If you’d like to read the devotional and the actual scripture go here!

The ‘a-ha’ moment for me was I truly realized that Elijah prayed, slept, ate, slept, ate, then he traveled for 40 days and THEN, THEN God spoke to him. Over 40 days people! And I often get frustrated when God doesn’t give an answer or fix a problem in two minutes!

I know in this situation Elijah truly felt alone and his very life was being threatened, but yet God took time to send an angel to prepare food for him and he rested. Sometimes the mundane, routine things of life are the very things that keep us sane.

Currently I’m praying for direction as to how the Lord will use me when my last little chick leaves the safety of the nest for Kindergarten in the fall (the same day as my oldest chick heads to high school…sigh…). And I want an answer NOW.

But tonight I’ll do laundry, bake a birthday cake, clean the kitchen and I will do my best to patiently wait for God’s answers and His divine direction in my life.

Has it been 40 days, 40 weeks, or 40 months for you? Hang in there…the answer is coming. And for that I’m grateful today!

For more Gratituesdays head on over to Heavenly Homemakers!

Stuffing the Colliers

We occasionally play a game after dinner we affectionately call ‘Stuffing’ and D thought tonight would be a great night to break it out. We got the idea from a parenting book we read in our Sunday School class.

Here’s the game. We pick one person (in birth order, reverse birth order, how we’re sitting) and we go around the table and everybody says one nice thing about that person. Then we go on to the next. The goal is to ‘stuff’ each person with compliments. Usually we try to keep it to a one or two sentence statement, no repeats, and no saying ‘they’re nice.’ We like for it to be as specific as possible. For example, today Josie (8) said to Josh (13) “I like it when you help me with my homework.” Nice job, Josie. Josie said she liked her dad because he said she could have a bunny (I totally called that one in advance!) I said to D, ‘thanks for calling the fridge people today, I really appreciated it.’ (He totally called that one too.)

One of my favorite parts of this game is what the kids say about Daryl and I. One day I’m going to ban the phrases ‘she cooks dinner’ or ‘makes good food’ from my list! But overall it’s a lot of fun and occasionally eye opening. Yep, we enjoy a field trip to the corn fields every now and then, people…all right, all right, we’ve bought property there (add this to my list of ever growing second homes..I still haven’t sold my Egyptian waterfront home). Mercy! I’m following some huge rabbits tonight, sorry, back on topic!

Of course, there are those moments when, well, I don’t even know how to describe it, except to just tell you. We went in birth order tonight so Jill (4) was our last stuffee. And it was Jared’s (11) turn. Jared said something nice about her being funny and then he says “I don’t mean this to be mean or anything but Jill is like Smegal from Lord of the Rings.” Okay, we all just about lost it then but his explanation was even funnier. He said “you know, how she’s got like a nice side and she’s all helpful and sweet but then sometimes she’s like ’It’s mine! My precious! It’s like she’s two different people.”

So we are all hee-hawing out loud at this! And of course Jill, who craves the spotlight anyway, just loved it that Jared was talking about her, she didn’t care. Thankfully she doesn’t know who Smegal is or she’d probably have thrown her plate at his head.

So on this Tuesday, I am grateful for my family and for memories made around the dinner table and if I get my nerve up and am not embarrassed by my children's weirdness I will link this post to Gratitude Tuesdays at Heavenly Homemakers.

Swapping Buns

I mentioned yesterday we’re enjoying spring break this week at the Messy Manor House. Last night we had some errands to run so we treated ourselves to dinner out at a local hamburger place. They serve the tastiest burgers and our favorite part is one basket of fries ($3.50) feeds our whole family of 6!

I’m a bit of a plain jane when it comes to my burger condiments. I don’t like mustard or mayo, and I’ll usually skip the onions too. I always remember to ask for no mayo, but last night forgot this restaurant puts mustard on their burgers. Lots of mustard. I mean a true heaping pile. So I scraped what I could off the bottom bun (applied more ketchup) and started chowing. I could still taste it but being the hamburgler that I am, a little distaste wasn’t going to deter me. It diminished my enjoyment but not my enthusiasm.

My darling hubby noticed my dilemma and asked me what I was doing. (Okay, I was probably embarrassing him with all my scraping and wiping w/ the napkins --making a serious mess.) When I told him I forgot to ask for no mustard, he promptly took his top bun from his burger and offered to switch with me. I didn’t ask. He offered. I even got an extra dose of cheese from his bun--bonus points!

So today I am grateful for my hubby. He knows me, understands me (as much as any human being can), and wants me to be happy. Even if making me happy is doing something so simple as swapping my gross mustard-soaked bun for his delicious sticky-cheese one.

And in case you’re wondering the trainer (aka hubby) forced a Bowflex AND two elliptical workouts on me after our greasy (but oh so yummy) dinner. Okay maybe forced is too strong of a word, he encouraged me, no I think he ordered me, is that any better? Either way I tried to work off my bacon-cheeseburger, two Pepsi’s, and a large quantify of fries. Did I mention they make killer homemade onion rings too?

This post is linked at Gratitude Tuesday and reposted here.