My husband’s exhortation as we prepared to take the Lord’s Supper together last Sunday was about how God loves leftovers and makes a point with them. Scripture recounts the exact number of leftovers in the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand. There were lots of leftovers. We have leftovers every week after breaking the bread. This symbolizes the atonement. God never runs out of grace and forgiveness. There is enough for the whole world.
Monthly Archive for May, 2011
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Some of you may have been wondering how you can help some of those families who lost all they had in the recent tornadoes in Alabama. Here is just one of the churches in Alabama that is helping several families in their area who have lost their homes or loved ones in the catastrophe.
Yes, we’re going to have a Femina Conference! You can get the details here, and we certainly hope you can all come!
I had the pleasure of listening to my son give the commencement address at New St. Andrews College last week, and of course I came away with a new spiritual lesson to apply. He told the graduates that they had developed calluses from all the hard work of studying, and he charged them not to let those calluses get soft.
Those of you who are young moms have plenty of calluses as well. You are working hard to bring up little ones, and you’ve got some impressive signs of this work in both body and soul. But what about the older women like me? I’m finished with all the diaper and discipline duty. It is tempting to think that I can coast a little and take it easy. Women my age might imagine (in our dream world) weekly pedicures and shopping expeditions to the big city. Quiet days pottering in the garden. Hours on the porch sipping tea and flipping through magazines. You get the idea?
But all of us older women in particular must not let our calluses get soft. There is still much work that needs to be done, and the young women are supposed to look to us to set a pattern for them. So back to work I go, whistling while I’m at it.
Every once in a while I realize that life around here has gotten a little easier. For one thing, I haven’t fallen asleep in the clean laundry for a long time. Yes, I have done that possibly three times. I am fairly confident that all three times was during nap time for the big girls when I was preggo with the twins. Sitting on the couch with the laundry to fold, waking up drooling on the clean pajamas twenty minutes later. Yeah. Not doing that anymore! Probably just because no one naps anymore though…
Last Sunday at church I suddenly remembered a Sunday about a year ago. I was largely pregnant with Blaire, which makes the twins two. This particular Sunday things had not gone incredibly smoothly on our way out. I had not eaten enough for breakfast. The kids had the wiggles on. We were late to church, so we were sitting in the back, which enhances the wiggles. I ended up with Titus on my lap. Luke had Chloe on his, and the other two girls were between us. The children were just full of beans. Nothing big – just lots of me whispering things into the ear of the boy who was sitting on my pregnant belly. I was hot. It was sort of dreamy and breathy and hair in my eyesish. By the end of the service, I was done. Totally and completely done. Continue reading ‘Flashback!’
This funny shot was taken last night on our back deck, right before the other five cousins rolled in for ice cream cones. The Merkles are out of town (Quilt Market!), and we have their five kiddos for a few days. Ten children under our roof right now. Showering, doing hair, homework supervising, laundry. Lots of laundry. Oh, and then the food! I have one word. Locusts. There is not much breathing room between breakfast and snacks and lunches and snacks and dinner and snacks. You can practically watch them growing. Shoveling mashed potatoes into their mouths to keep their faces from getting stretched too thin as they get taller. I absolutely love the food issue. Love to throw some help to the growth spurts. Kids wander into the kitchen and ask (hiding their desperation with a vague smile) what is for dinner. But when I answer them, a cheer goes up. They wheel around the corner yelling to the other kids “Guys! Potatoes! Lemonade! Bread! Steak! Cantaloupe! And then….. ICE CREAM!”
If that doesn’t make a person stay up late to make cinnamon rolls I don’t know what does. Cheers to all you out there making food for hungry kids – our time couldn’t be better spent!
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