God uses our weaknesses

I love this story I read in "The Emotionally Healthy Church" by Peter Scazzero. He's talking about, "The world treats weakness and failure as terminal. It says, "You are a loser." God says, "This is a universal human experience, cutting across all ages, cultures, races and social classes. It is my gift specially crafted for you so you can lead out of weakness and brokenness, not your own strength and power." My understanding was that God wanted to heal my brokenness and vulnerabilities completely. Few consider brokenness as God's design and will for our lives!"

Here is a story called, Walking as a cracked pot, told in this book.

A story I heard wonderfully illustrates this countercultural truth.

There once lived a water carrier in India. He used two large pots for his task. He suspended a pole across his neck and attached a pot at each end of the pole. One of the pots had a big crack in it while the other pot was perfect. The perfect pot always delivered a full portion of water from the stream to the master's house, while the cracked pot arrived only half full each day.

For two years this water carrier made the same journey. The perfect pot became proud of its accomplishments. The cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. Finally, one day by the stream, the cracked pot spoke to his owner about his bitter failure, "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize that I have only been able to deliver half my water to your house. There is a crack in my side which causes water to leak out. Because of my flaws, you don't get full value from your efforts."

Then the water carrier replied, smiling, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."

On that trip from the stream, the cracked pot looked around.

"Did you notice there are flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?" the water carrier commented. "That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we passed these spots, you watered them. Now for two years I have been able to pick those beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, I would not have this beauty to grace his house."

It's just the way God works!

Isn't it amazing that God takes what people could consider a handicap and uses it for his glory? We may not feel as talented as someone else or feel like we don't lead as well as someone else, but God may think we are just what He's looking for. Don't let your weaknesses be used to make you feel weak, realize that they may be the best blessing God has given you. "For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:10)!

Last Field Trip of 1st grade

Typically there are only 3 parents drawn for any field trip. I didn't expect to go with Sydney's class because I got to go on her fall field trip. I found out that I could come if I just paid the admission to go. It was at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum which is a fabulous place to have photo shoots, so I decided it might not be a bad idea for me to go and scope it out in the spring in case I get a client on the south side of the cities. Sydney woke up not feeling great. She didn't have a fever, but had been up all night coughing. Since I was driving separately and the field trip was outdoors and not in an confined area, we let her go. The poor girl had no energy. This place is huge and requires a lot of walking. I ended up giving her a piggy back ride almost the entire time we were there. She was happy and trying to have fun, but was completely worn out from being up all night. They get the chance to walk around for a couple of hours and explore whatever they want and then they listen to a presentation. They got to plant two different plants...an annual and a perennial. The annual was a sunflower and the perennial was a coca bean plant. (They both died ended up dying before we got them in the ground at home...ok truthfully, I put them on the porch, way to close to the ground and Rio found them and chewed them up...oops). Then they got to go around and take a closer look at spring flowers and trees. They do such a great job with their presentations! The time flies by when we are there and before we know it is already time to go home. I gave Sydney the option to ride home with me or on the bus (which she seldom gets to ride on). I knew she was really sick when she decided to ride home with me. She ended up staying home from school the next two day :( At least she got to go and have fun. I was thankful I went with so I could help her enjoy it more by being her own personal horse :)

Girls weekend

Arlie and Jordan went away on a camping trip with the Royal Rangers from all across Minnesota. This left Sydney and I home for a wonderful girls weekend. On Friday night Sydney had a sleepover with two of her friends. She had an agenda (poor girl is so much like me, she can't help herself). I tried to explain that her friends might not want to go according to her schedule and she could maybe just suggest things to do and see what they want to do. She went with that, but really wanted to go according to her list...she even checked it off her list when they did something from it. Saturday after the kids left, we went shopping for some summer clothes and then drove up to Sandstone to pick up plants for our garden from my dad (and we got to see Great Grandpa too!).

The weather was looking kinda scary in the morning but we when we headed up to sandstone it was sunny. We stayed at Grandpas for a couple of hours and then headed out to dinner. Our new thing while waiting for whatever is to play hangman. Sydney likes to use "sweet" words for the words she chooses.

By the time we got done with dinner, the clouds were crazy and I knew I had waited too long.

The rain started shortly after we left. I drove slowly home because the rain was so strong, the lightening was amazing and there was a lot of it. I had to pull over a couple of times because it was too bad for me to drive. We were so thankful when we got home safely (finally!).

Sunday we went to a bead store to get some beads to make jewelry. While we were there, the tornado sirens were going off. It was in Maple Grove and apparently there was a touch down about 8 miles from where we were. I had no idea the weather was supposed to be that bad again. Craziness. We waited out the storm in the jewelry store. I've never been to an actual "bead" store. It's so cool. You could totally go crazy in one of those places. They had beads for every possible kind jewelry you could think to make! I can't wait to go back (unfortunately it's one of those places you have to really watch because it can add up fast if you're not careful). When we got home the boys were back. Sydney and I, despite all weather, had a sweet time together. We did lots of laughing, talking and just hanging out. I love that little girl!

I wasn't expecting that.....

My kids came home from school in April with a flier for a run/walk club that was going to be taking place for 6 weeks at school. I looked at it and thew it away because they haven't liked going for walks or runs with me and I figured of all things, this would be one thing they would have no interest in. Boy was I wrong. I couldn't believe it when they both almost begged me to allow them to be in the run/walk club. I sat down with both of them and said, "You do realize that you have to run or walk the entire 30/45 minutes...right?" They said they knew it and wanted to anyway. I was happy because I want them to like to walk more, but inwardly I wondered how they would do. They had it for 60 minutes (including all the checking in and extra stuff) every Thursday for 6 weeks. The first week they did a lot of instruction and only ran about 15 minutes, but they ran the whole time. The next week, they ran for 30-40 minutes straight. As the weeks got warmer out, they ran less and less. They were always moving and I think may actually enjoy running to some degree (Jordan says he loves talking and hanging out with his friends, but not the running). I was just proud that they did it. The run/walk club was the largest in the schools around here. There were 163 kids that participated in it. It was a huge success! I think my kids may even want to be in the fall club. I wasn't expecting that!

Random: A beautiful Turkey I saw

I have a very ridiculous fear of birds, duck, geese and turkeys. I just don't like to be anywhere near them. I can enjoy them from a distance, but I don't like when they come close to me. I blame Lucy the Goose (a friends pet goose growing up) but I still know it's pretty silly. I saw this turkey and thought it was so beautiful that I had to photograph it. I stayed right close to my car for protection and used a zoom lens. See...I can enjoy things I'm scared of....as long as there is a car or something blocking me from a direct attack from any such flying thing :)

Spring Fling

Sydney had the opportunity to do a mock gymnastics competition. They had routines they worked on and performed for judges (and all the people that came to watch) and got scored similarly to how they would in a real competition. Sydney was really nervous but extremely excited. A fun thing that they did to raise money was have sucker notes. You buy a sucker and attach a note to your child and they read it in front of everyone. Jordan got one for Sydney that said, "I can't believe you got two 9.5's. That's awesome." She glowed! I have to say Arlie and I were pretty nervous because we had no idea what he wrote...we were hoping it was kind! Fortunately he didn't disappoint. Sydney did great for her first competition. She remembered every routine and seemed pretty confident after the first beam routine. She loves performing even though she gets a little scared. I love how proud she looked when she was done. That look alone was worth the whole day. Every kid got a trophy and ribbons for every event. You can't go wrong with ribbons and trophies :)

Sydney and her coaches

Wes and Jen's Wedding

Arlie's cousin Jenny got married. Sydney's first question of course was, "who is going to be the flower girl?" (she hopes everyone will want her to be the flower girl :)) The wedding was in Sauk Center, a little over 2 hours from our house. We finally replaced our DVD players in our car for the kids so Arlie and I now have peace and quiet while we travel. We love it because we always have great talks in the car. See the big smiles...peace and quiet :)

The wedding was small but nice. My favorite thing about weddings is watching how the bride and groom look at each other. You can tell a lot about a couple by the their looks. It's always fun to see the differences in weddings. It can be very entertaining. You could tell it was a small town when a guest came to the reception wearing a nice dressy shirt, jeans, and white socks with sandals.

We had some time to kill in between the ceremony and reception. Thankfully we had Arlie's uncles and families to chat with as well as playing cards.

We had several great games of cards before the bride and groom came. Jordan spent plenty of time talking to Arlie's uncle Ken. They bantered quite a lot. He also found something else that entertained him...although the tables didn't look quite as pretty when he was done (apparently the bride gave him permission...).

Arlie's dad, probably telling froggy stories...the kids favorite.