Family Time

I am in the suburbs of Chicago visiting my sister and her family. It has been fabulous to be able to hang out, meet her new baby (how tiny she is!) and get to know her growing toddler who is just starting to become a separate personality within the home. The older boys are terrific as well, but I must say that the little ones tend to draw more of my attention since my visits with my sister are so sporadic and the changes that occur between visits are dramatic with the younger kids. My nephew is finally of age to be interactive with me, and I delight in getting to know him.

As I have spent time in reflection this week, I have begun to observe the similarities and differences between my sister and myself. Several little things that we have laughed about together when noticing how we are becoming like our mother in many little ways. Other things one of us does but the other does not are also fun to observe. I am more "Norwegian" in the way I prepare meals (our mother was Norwegian and moved to the U.S. after marriage), she is more like our mom in the way she loves her shoes. We both find weeding flower beds to be relaxing and were grinning this morning when discussing how we used to hate helping with our grandmother's beds each summer in Norway. It seemed so unjust to have to spend a few hours or a couple of days at their house in the town tending the gardens when we would much rather have been at "our" house on the beach playing...the silliness of self-centered youth. Gosh we were so spoiled then. :-)

In my musings I kept realizing how at home I feel with my sister. It is like putting on a favorite old shirt that is soft and comforting. Walking into my sister's life is a homecoming of sorts each time we get together. The familiar patterns and relationship, the comfort of unconditional love ~ knowing there is no pretense or competition between us ~ the joy of celebrating each other and supporting one another's burdens...This all comes so naturally to us after the years of growing together.

This legacy is one I pray to pass on to my kids. We all need people who really know us well and really love us anyway. Black or white, we belong. Isn't this what God intends for our relationship with Him? The ease of familiarity, the joy of return, the comfort of knowing acceptance, and the awesome power of transforming love. Though God expects obedience, it flows naturally from this form of love. I naturally want to do for my sister whatever she needs, I naturally want to serve her and support her while I am here...isn't that how we feel when we are really visiting with God versus just passing through? Resting in Him, talking with Him and listening to what He has to share? Seeking His input, sharing familiar past history, delighting in the present while musing about the future. It forms in me a desire to spend even more time getting to know Him ~ inside and out ~ to have spent enough time and become so familiar that He truly is family in the deepest sense of the word. Innate experiential knowing that I belong to Him versus a head knowledge that He is my Father.

As I typed that section, it occured to me that this is kind of like when I was getting to know my youngest nephew here...I had a tough time the first two years of his life really "knowing" him. I often dropped him off my radar when visualizing my sister's family in a quick thought, I had not spent enough time with him or his family, and when we were together at our annual gathering, he was so young that he was less "visible" among the many kids in our family (12 kids, 8 adults until our recent 13th addition). Lack of time together, lack of phone time discussing the kids, busy separate family lives ~ all led to less familiarity than I had known with the other kids.

Isn't this the same with getting to know God as He longs to be known? As we prioritize spending time with Him, the more familiar He becomes. As we spend more time daily reading His word, talking with Him in prayer, listening to Him in silence, the easier it is to know Him intimately and the more easily we shake off desire for independence. Praise God for His grace, mercy, and tenderness that makes this relationship possible. Thank you, Jesus, for your incredible sacrifice of love!

Gazing at my Garden

This year has been a wonderful year for my front yard gardens...each year more and more volunteers come up to join ranks with the perennials I have planted and spread the joy of color and texture. I love the blends. I could sit for hours just gazing at the intricacies of the different plants and critters that invade them. I share some of my hosta, azaleas and bulbs with the deer, but have found a new spray that will discourage snacking which has allowed for more blooms...I am blessed.

I spent an hour the other day taking snapshots of caterpillars, beetles, moths, bees, and other (unknown) critters visiting my plants. I had to laugh as I used an entire role of film and could have taken more...it just delights me so! I was using a regular 35mm camera, but am eager to get a memory stick for my ancient digital camera ~ I have always used a floppy disc, but those are not as easy to come by any more and I do need to become more techno savvy~ then I can take pics to my heart's delight. Plus, this camera has an amazing way of zooming in on plants that is sometimes breathtaking. I have several of my photos framed in my office and they bring me refreshment when I desire to look away from the mess of papers and computer screen.

I leave tomorrow for a week with my sister (playing with my newest niece and my nephews!). I am blessed to be going and eager to see her, but today I started wondering how my gardens would be when I got home. It is the time when the sunflowers are bowing their heads in submission to another end of their growing season. The birds are delighted as the seeds will soon be dropping (all of my sunflowers were volunteers this year ~ it was amazing and wonderful to see so many come up on their own after thinking they would be annuals!). My zinnias have just peaked as well as the blackeyed susans and echinacia and cosmos. I have about twenty five rose buds about to burst into bloom, and creeping pansies going wild. The coral bells are shedding, and various annuals are in full bloom...I am only waiting on my bachelor buttons which got a late start this year, and my grassess that are a reddish color and the coleus that was a bit dry before the rains. I think I may return to another color scheme and design. I am hopeful...

How gracious God is to provide such a variety of growing seasons for plants. We can be blessed with colors and leaves throughout the year. Those like me who love plants and color can slowly add blooms and varieties to their gardens to maintain some kind of life all year long. I enjoy the winter time when most are dormant except the evergreens and some rather hardy plants, but my delight is in the profusion of colors, textures and scents...I think if there were not that period of dormancy, I wouldn't appreciate as fully the new life each spring, summer and fall...what an awesome God we have ~ "Look how the wild flowers grow. They don't work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn't as well clothed as one of them. God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a fire tomorrow. He will surely do even more for you!" (Matthew 6:28-30)

Little Things

I have been so busy with my God-ordained role of mommyhood this summer that so many cool insights I have had have been passed by...I have journaled some of them during my prayer time (so if I am really on top of things this fall, I may revisit them), but have not taken the time to actually sit online to type. I generally try to limit my computer time when the kids are home.

Anyway, I had another fun moment during my girls' cotillion classes. As I was driving off one day another mother flagged me down to say "I really like your license plate...I saw your van last week at the grocery store and started to think about what yours said and how I represented something totally different." Her license plate read "2 Stinkrz" (or something like that, I can't recall the spelling but that was the jist). My license reads CR8 LV. When I had originally gone with a vanity plate I sought every option for "Be Grateful" as well as gratitude and thanksgiving themes. Create Love was the only option that could be found in a vein of what I wanted to encourage while driving (and I have thought often about my driving while displaying this, such as when I am feeling impatient ~ how can I drive one way and speak another?? What a hypocrite! It has been good for me.)...

In sharing with this mom, I talked about why I wanted to focus on what God could do within our lives versus what my perception was at times, and how I felt that my kids were reflected in her license as well at times, but I did not want to have that as their label and encourage it, but to have another aspiration to encourage. She spoke of a feeling of conviction/contrition when originally seeing my license and left saying maybe she needed to think about changing hers... How incredibly awesome that moment was! I was thrilled at our Heavenly Father's use of my simple efforts to convict and encourage another mom. It reminds me, once again, that as we continue to walk in love and share that love in small ways, God can be blessed and He then can work in the opportunity to be a blessing to others. He is so cool!