Praying for Change

Awhile back, I went to the car wash to sweep out the van. We'd just returned from vacation and it was a mess. And in the three years since we bought it, this was the first time we'd completely taken the back seat and back storage out. I figured I might as well give it a good cleaning before putting it all back in.

Court offered me some change, but I said I had plenty. The day before I did. Where it was now that the sweeper was beeping at me, I don't know. I didn't find it in time and it went off. That meant instead of putting an extra quarter in, it was full price again. I dug around in the van and in my purse and found 2 quarters, but still needed one more. I got desperate and started looking on the ground and just asking God to help me find a quarter.

Then I saw it...a quarter? No, a dime. Dang it! But I grabbed it anyways and searched my purse again. Still no quarters in there, but I did find a nickel and another dime. AHA! I quickly grabbed my coins and asked the smart guy with lots of quarters from the change machine if he'd trade me for one of his quarters.

Moral of the story: Always have lots of quarters (or one dollar bills for change machine) when you go to the car wash.

Nah, really, it got me thinking of something bigger. It made me think of how many times I call out to God asking Him for exactly what I "need". And did I actually need to find a quarter? NO. He gave me exactly what I needed, the dime. So, instead of putting limits on God, I need to try to just let go and let HIM decide what's best. I tend to get overly excited when God shows up and answers my prayers in a big way. Or, I think, like the dime, "that's not what I asked for". Who am I to decide, really? To think that the God who created the universe cares about my silly prayers is pretty amazing! But he hears every single one and they matter to HIM.

Am I the only one who tends to put God in a 'box'? Tell me what you're thinking. :)

Ever tried to give a cat a bath???

You know how when you try to put a cat in water the claws come out? They fight with all they have to avoid going in the water. Well, this was the case yesterday...except it wasn't the cat. It was the first day of school and it was Isaac. He cried, he hid, he was shaking, he begged to stay home, etc. It was horrible.

Andrew, on the other hand, was delighted to start 5th grade. This was also not settling well with Isaac, who was frankly getting annoyed with his brother's happiness.

By the end of the day, Isaac decided it wasn't so bad. His biggest fear, he said, was being sent to the principal's office if he was bad.

The best part of the whole story is our prayer before school. He was literally on my lap trembling, so I started to pray with him. On a whim, I decided to ask God to have a friend be right there when he got to school. I figured if he saw a buddy, he might seperate from me easier. Sure enough, as soon as we walked into the doors of the school, there was a familiar face. And not just any familiar face, his best buddy Zach. God is good!

The note and an update

I was on the phone briefly tonight and I see Andrew writing me a note. It said, "I dropped my flush bag in the toilet. What do I do?" Needless to say, I had to hang up. He had to get the bag out, which filled up with toilet water while it sat in there. Yuck! We have a huge box of 300 of the bags he fills up for his flush. The problem is, due to his mickey button, he has a special attachment for his stomach. We only get these one at a time in our monthly Clarian delivery. We opened up the only one we have, so hopefully nothing will happen to this one. Never a dull moment around here, I tell ya.....


Today was our last day of "freedom" since school starts tomorrow. But, due to our electrical issues from the weekend, we had an electrician lined up to come today. He called last night and changed the time to 7 am! The good news is it was a bad breaker and an easy fix. And it also gave us our afternoon back to do something fun before school starts up again.

Wow, I cannot believe school is already starting!

Giggling in church

We had a great sermon today, about the not-so-popular sermon topic of money. However, at one point, Seth was trying to make a point about how good we have it in this country. He said something to the effect of everyone having transportation, electricity, air conditioning, etc.

What he didn't realize is that we'd had electrical problems the night before in our house. Bad problems. The upstairs powers kept turning off and on and when Court went out to check the breaker, it was SIZZLING! Bad problems...

So, he turned of that breaker completely until the electrician can get here tomorrow. And we camped out downstairs.

But it made me giggle a bit when he said we all had electricity. And air...the poor inlaws house got struck by lightning, so they are without a/c right now. So we all had our own little chuckle in our pew when that was said.

And eventually, things will be back to "normal" around here (if there is such a thing!). And we'll be back to living better than 90% of the world. But the timing was just kinda funny for today.

When in Sulpher, IN...

You know that old saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do..." Well, we had our own version of it recently. We were traveling with these 5 cute boys to Lexington, KY for a family get together.



At this point in time, we were traveling down 64 with five boys who needed a bathroom break. And it was getting more desperate by the minute. A few exits didn't appear to have anything at all, so we continued on. Then the need turned immediate and we said we'd take the next exit and find something. That exit just happened to be for Sulpher, IN. (Who would name their town this, really?) And why did the sign for the gas station have to say "1 mile"? And by this time, it's raining, or else we would've just unloaded the 5 boys for a roadside break... Finally, we came into town and saw the gas station was no longer there. There was a mercantile store across the road, so we pulled in.

And this is the facilities offered in Sulpher...






And this sticker just cracked me up...lol.