Dancing in the Rain

I'm one of those people that love the rain.  I love the sound of rain.  I love the feel of the rain.  I especially love the smell of rain.

Rain has a calming effect.  It's rhythmic pounding soothes my soul.

Rain refreshes.  It seems to wash away all the troubles of the day.  It gives new life and new hope. Rain replenishes.  When the ground seems so parched and everything is wilting, the rain comes and everything perks up and looks fresher, cleaner.

Just when I think I am all dried up and can't go any more, a rain will wash over me.  I feel like God is watering me and bringing me new life, showing me the newness that comes with the water from above.

Sometimes it's a slow, gentle rain.  It may last the whole day.  The earth needs that steady watering.  I need to see that constant.

Sometimes it's a huge downpour!  It comes in quickly and leaves just as quick.  I needed a wake up call to look around and see that the Lord is God!

My favorite rain is a slow rolling thunderstorm that rolls in at the wee hours of the morning.  I hear the grumbling of the storm as it slowly moves toward me.  And then, as I get comfortable to the sound, a huge bolt of thunder will wake me up!  And then, as I slowly rise from my bed, I sit on the patio and watch the rain come down in buckets.  Washing away the dirt, washing away the muck.  As the lightening strikes it brings energy and strength to me.  It shows the awesome power of my Creator.

And after the storm has passed, things begin to happen.  Birds start chirping. Flowers start to open. And you might just look up in the sky and see a beautiful rainbow.

Camping Memories

My family has always enjoyed the outdoors.  I grew up spending weekends camping with Girl Scouts and my family.  I love spending time outside in nature.  I'm so thankful to have married a guy who grew up with the same love of camping, hiking and all things outdoors.

We raised our kids to love camping in Colorado. There's nothing like camping to cultivate a child's sense of wonder and adventure.  While at the same time teaching them preparedness, safety and survival.  Not to mention relaxing and getting away from the busyness of life and sitting and staring at the fire.

Larry proposed to me while camping in Colorado!  We are at 10,000 feet camping in the mountains with Larry's parents, when he took me aside in his shorts and long johns and popped the question that would change my life forever!  Fun times!

I remember one of the first times we went camping after we had our first daughter.  We lived in Colorado and it was summertime, but I had forgotten how cold it got at night.  I didn't bring any warm clothes for the baby!  So we wrapped her up in all our clothes with sock on her hands and everything!

One time, I surprised Larry with a camping trip.  I had everything packed up in the car and the kids all ready to go, and when he walked in the door from work I told him to get back in the car we were going on a weekend trip!  We went up in the mountains to a cute cabin.  It ended up raining on us the entire weekend but we didn't care.  We hiked around in the rain and had our adventures.  Larry always says this was one of his most fun memories!

Larry came home from work one day and said he had some bad news, he had been laid off of his job.  Well, just the time off we needed for a long camping trip all the way to the Grand Canyon!  We loaded up the kids and the suburban and headed off! We camped along the way in all sorts of byways and highways.  One place was in the middle of nowhere.  There was some sort of business with these concrete tee-pees.  We asked the owners if we could spend the night in one.  He said sure!  So we brought all our stuff in, made a big pallet on the floor.  We stuffed all our bags into the doorway (because there was no door!)  It was so cold that night, but with us all huddled together, we were snug as a bug!

One of the best places we saw the night time sky was in a place in New Mexico called Chaco Canyon.  It was in the boondocks of the boondocks!  I mean, we drove down a dirt road at least an hour to get to this state park.  Middle of absolutely nowhere!  We saw beautiful ancient ruins there.  But the best part was when the sun went down!  We could see stars from the horizon all the way around us!  The most intense and clear depiction of how awesome our God is!

There have been many more camping stories.  We've caught critters, watched wildlife, fished, hiked, slept under the stars, saw meteor showers, ate s'mores, stared at the fire, swam in the lakes and creeks.   And along the way, learned to have fun together, enjoy each other, and explore this beautiful world God has given us.

I encourage you all to go out and enjoy the outdoors!  There's so many great state and national parks!  It's a great time to spend with your family.

Being Still

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees.  You get bogged down in life. Life is draining sometimes.
Laundry.  Work. Kids. Launching kids.  Money.  People. Problems.

But there's a saying that I love.  Stop and smell the roses.  This requires you to do three things.

First, Stop.  Breathe.  Relax.  Take a time out.  Stop doing things and just stop.

Next, smell.   This is a sense you may not normally use.  We touch things all the time.  We look at things constantly.  There's no end to the noise coming into our ears.  But smell,  take a moment to take a whiff of the world around you.  And not necessarily in your son's bathroom!  But go outside and smell.  Close your eyes and other senses and use this incredible sense that God has given us.

Next, find a rose.  Find the beauty in the moment.  Sure roses have thorns and you may have to step through the mud to get there but once you get there...there will be a rose!  The rose is an incredibly fragile flower. It is also amazingly beautiful.  It's intricate.  It's delicate.  It's aroma is like none other.

So what are you finding time to stop and do today?

The other night my husband took me out on a walk to a tall bridge so we could see the moon rise!  It was so fun!  We took our camera and hoops (of course!) and took a short walk to the top of an overpass and stood there and watched a beautiful red moon come up over the horizon.  It was stunning.

We took time to stop and enjoy something.

I know there's a million things to do, places to be, stuff to accomplish.  I love accomplishing stuff too!  But next time you see a flower blooming, or a child playing, or any one of a thousand moments that we miss every day....take time to stop and observe.

Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God..."

It's time for us to do something

We spent the last week in New Orleans with the group Operation Save America doing pro-life ministry. What an encouraging, inspiring, challenging week it was!  We spent time at 2 abortion mills standing for the truth and proclaiming Christ, peacefully and prayerfully.  Young people, old people, people from every stage, age and walk of life came together to proclaim Christ. During the times at the mills you could find spontaneous worship, prayer, praise, pleading with women and men, holding of signs, and the truth being preached.  Thankfully the mills shut down for the week!

We also spent time at a proposed Planned Parenthood site.  Fortunately,  it hasn't had any work done on it for over a month.  We spent time there reading the Word of God out loud.  By the end of the week, the entire word of God and been read aloud over the site!  Men and women and kids spent many hours there in the pouring rain and in the heat of the sun reading God's Word.  How powerful!  God's Word will not return void.

Teams were also sent to Shreveport and Baton Rouge as well as the City Hall in New Orleans, Canal Street and other places throughout the city.

   

Abortion is the holocaust of our day.  59 million children have lost their lives.  Countless women have died. Many women and families are wounded emotionally.

To see how many babies have died Click here

This was only a week out of our lives.  We didn't do much.  I could do so much more.  Others sacrifice daily.

It's Time for us to Do something!

Being around men and women and teens that are serving God with their whole heart is inspiring.  It is also challenging.

What can I do on a daily basis to help others around me? We only have a small amount of time on this earth. I want to spend my time here doing something eternal.  Something that will have an effect on others.  It can be small or it can be big, but let's Honor the Lord in our lives. Let's be salt that is shaken out of our comfortable salt shaker. Let's be light to those in the darkness.  Serving others, praying for others, helping others. You never know how they will affect you, and how you might affect eternity.

What will you do this week to make a difference?

To find out more about the group we went with click here.

Love of travel started young

I've been thinking about 2 things lately.

One, traveling. I absolutely love it. Don't make excuses. Go do it!

Two, preserving the stories of our history. Yes, names and genealogy are great! (My mom has done some excellent research in this area) But it's neat to have stories to go with the names.
So I'm thinking I may blog for a while about some family stories that I remember.

Back when I was just 19 years old, Larry and I moved from Texas to Seattle. We had only been married a year. I had never lived anywhere else but Texas. Now just imagine, this was back before cell phones and the internet. We had no idea what it would be like to live in Seattle. There was no way to research housing and apartment prices, costs of living, best areas to live in etc. We just packed up everything we had and loaded it into a small u haul trailer and headed out west.

Our little Nissan pulling the U-haul didn't even make it to Amarillo before the car overheated. We stopped for the night and in the morning it was cool enough to travel some more. We got into the middle of nowhere Colorado when our car finally said..nope can't do it anymore and it died. I sat there and cried and cried. Remember, no cell phones. We hadn't even made it half way to our destination yet. I was leaving behind everything and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere! Well, after some prayer and Larry's quick thinking, we flagged down a pick up truck going the same direction and asked him to hook our trailer onto his truck and we would follow him into town. With the extra weight off our vehicle, it started right up and off we went! I said to Larry, "Did you get their names?" Nope. They had all our worldly possessions and could have just taken off with them but thank the Lord they didn't. They pulled our trailer into town. Larry had some friend in town who "happened" to be wanting to sell their pick up truck. We needed a pick up truck! We swapped vehicles! Perfect!

Off we went again!
We got to see Yellowstone, Montana, Idaho. Absolutely gorgeous country! Amazing to see!

We made it to Seattle, found a hotel to stay in and the next day Larry went off to start his new job. Here I am, 19 years old, never been this far away from home and Larry sends me out to find a home for us. Now back in Texas, we had been paying $175 for a small home that we rented. I had no idea the costs of apartments in Seattle. We hadn't been able to research and find out. Well, I was in for a shock! They were very expensive! I was finally able to settle on an apartment for $500 a month (which today would be a bargain there!)
We got settled in and it was just the beginning of a lot of adventures for us. We made friends there, found a great church, saw lots of sights, drew closer to each other, closer to the Lord.

I'm thankful for our year in Seattle. It taught me that I can do whatever I set my mind to do. It taught me that Larry believed in me too! It taught me that there's a whole world out there just waiting to be explored and discovered.

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Still learning

When I had kids I knew I would be teaching them a lot of things, but I never realized how much 

they would teach me!

I have 3 beautiful young adults now that have taught me many lessons along the way. 

Here's just a few:

Enjoy the moment

Don't worry about going to bed and getting enough sleep when you're having fun!

If you want to accomplish a goal - go for it!

You are never to young or old to start something new

It's good and healing to talk about things 

Stop and spend some time wading in the creek and catching minnows

Laugh and laugh some more

Spending time just chillin' is good

Learn something new and try it!

Getting hurt is part of life

Work hard

Be resourceful - you don't have to do everything the way everyone else does

Be yourself


I love the people my beautiful young adults are becoming.  They show me and teach me in so many ways.  I taught them for years and it's nice to have them shine their lives brightly so that others can see.

What things are you learning from your kids?

True connections

Here's a comment I hear more and more often when I see people face to face:  "Oh yea, I saw that on Facebook".

Everything's on Facebook now.  We feel like we are connecting with people because we post stuff and people like our statuses.  When we finally see someone what do we talk about because they already know everything that's going on in our lives from facebook.  They know what our dinner looked like, what our kids are doing, what our workout was like.  So is there even a need to get together?

That's a rhetorical question.

There's a scene in the movie "Wall-E"  where everyone is rolling around on little hover crafts (because people don't walk anymore in the future) and they all have a screen in front of them where they can talk to images of people.  Then one day one of the person's screens turns off and they look around and see that there are other actual living people out there!  And stars!  And a real living world out there!

I do enjoy the convenience of social media. It's a way we can communicate with lots of people at the same time.

But let's not forget the human element.

We need face to face contact with people.  That's the way God designed us.

We need interaction and real communication with each other. Not just "oh I saw that on Facebook".  But getting down to a deeper level with people.

Communication can be divided into five levels:

1. Level of acquaintance
2. Sharing of information
3. Sharing of ideas
4. Sharing of emotions
5. Gut level sharing

Social Media, texting, and email pretty much stays at level 2. How can we get past this and get to a deeper level of communication with people?

It's tough because it requires an element of vulnerability.  I don't like sharing my heart on my sleeve. 

But it's nice to be truly connected to people in a way that social media can't fulfill.

Some ideas on how to get past level 2:

Pick up the phone and talk to someone
Ask them more than "How are you?"- Ask how they felt about something
Talk about more than just the weather or facts...get down to opinions and emotions
Write a card or letter and snail mail it to them
Pray with someone

How have you connected with someone today?