Summertime time warp ...

Time seems to warp and bend in the summer. (Einstein probably already discovered this, but leave me alone to my rambling.) Have you ever noticed that you're supposed to have more time during the summer to do all these things you've been meaning to do, but somehow in reality you seem to have less time than ever? How is that? Take blogtime for instance. I seem to never have time to blog these days. I find myself thinking, "I haven't blogged in ages. I need to sit down and do that." And then the time warp kicks in and I find myself carried away into three days into the future. You shake your head in disbelieve, but I tell you it's true!

During the school year, I have much more going on. I'm running down 15 or 20 tracks at a time. I can blog and clean and cook and sleep - all at the same time. No problem. But not during the summer. No-sir-ree. I think there's a scientific explanation for it - something to do with chemistry or physics, or something.

My car

Here's a pic of my sweet, green Jaguar.

There's a story behind this car.

You see the kids and I started seeing this car almost every time we drove to school last year parked in front of the courthouse here in Kokomo. I very much admired it and commented thusly every time I saw it.

Soon my admiration grew into delusion, and I began to believe that the car actually did belong to me. I just never got to drive it. I had other people working for me who drove it for me.

Time wore down the kids' grasp on reality and they started to believe that the Jaguar was mine as well. Each new time we saw it one of them would say, "Hey Mom, there's your car!"
And I'd say, "Yes, I had someone wash it this weekend. Looks nice doesn't it?"
"Yeah, looks real good."

I told my husband, and later, my visiting mother-in-law, and they all believed me.

So it is time to share my car with a wider audience. What do you think of it?

In the hiding place of thunder

(Written earlier this morning.)


Couldn't sleep to the normal wake-up time this morning. My eyes popped open and I knew I had to get up. At 5 a.m., I gave up the fight to go back to sleep. Now the dull light of morning is chasing the darkness away.

::Gets up to fetch her bifocals.::

This is a new thing for me - having pieces of glass in front of my eyes. I've had them a few weeks now, and being a person who's never had to wear glasses, it comes as a sort of absent-minded habit now to sit down to read or write just to immediately get up and find the glasses in order to sit down a second time to begin again. It's my normal routine now. A minor inconvenience of which I'm very thankful.

Out of my living room over the hospital and down the street, the beautiful moon shines. I've been a moon-watcher for as long as I can remember.

I haven't told you about our sunroom yet. It's the breezeway that connects the garage to the house. With windows on either side, this bright room houses some of my larger houseplants. A couple of hanging baskets dot the ceiling. A foosball table sits on one side and a table and chairs sit on the other. I like to sneak out there in the early morning when I can to breath the fresh air, listen to a dove, and read my bible.


Last night, Chili and I sat in the sunroom and experienced a thunderstorm together. You don't just watch a thunderstorm, you experience it. You hear it, you smell it, you feel it. The storm was right on top of us when we first joined it. I came into an encounter with the huge sky last night. This encounter was not visual, but aural. As peals of thunder rumbled across the large expanse of the heavens, I could hear the awesome claps of thunder mark their clear progress across the sky. That was the first time I've noticed that rolling thunder can communicate the expansiveness of the sky.

Not to mention the rain. I mean, the Lord does such a good job of watering the ground. Just a couple of days ago the girls and I were watering the flowers of a friend who is out of town. Last night, the Lord watered those flowers much deeper in less time than we could have done. Our God is an awesome God!

6 o' clock is drawing closer now and I think I'll make my morning cup of green tea and take it and my bible to the sunroom. I hope the Lord will meet me in the quiet of the morning as He did in the thunder of the night.

(Title for this blog entry was taken from Psalm 81:7, "You called in trouble, and I rescued you; I answered you in the hiding place of thunder ...")

Uuughh!

(Isn't that a famous Charlie Brown line?)

I still don't have time to blog today - but I want you to know that you're still important to me, my precious, and I haven't forgotten about you or forsaken you completely.

We'll catch up later. Bye!

Off to Kentucky

Yesterday was spent packing - so this morning we're ready to go.

Our family is leaving this morning and driving to Kentucky to attend a 5-day conference called Covfamikoi (pronounced ku-vu-ma-koi). The name stands for Covenant Family Koinonia (Greek for Christian fellowship or communion with God or with fellow Christians). It's sponsored by our Presbytery - so people from churches all around the Mid-West and all the way down to Florida will attend. We'll have the chance to get to know a lot of people while we eat together, attend morning classes, play games in the afternoon, and have various activities at night.

I'm going in the official capacity as the Nursery Coordinator. Sounds impressive, huh? We traded our mini van with the York's huge 15 passenger van so I could carry 5 porta cribs and some big wipes and animal crackers, etc. I don't have to man (or woman) the nursery all the time, I just have to recruit others to do it. So I'll make public announcements and comb the dining hall armed with my trusty clip board and sign-up sheet.

Should be a great way to break the ice with new people. "Hello, I'm Suzanne. Would you like to volunteer to watch some cute little babies?" Aught to be interesting.

Talk to you when we get back.

Daily light

Everyday life suits me fine.

You know, I'm not one of those people who has to have an exciting "event" always brewing on the horizon to keep me interested in life. Real life is amazing enough. I mean, just think about it. Every morning, the Lord renews His mercy. He keeps on giving me the gift of faith. I can't think of any thoughts that inspire me more than those that anchor my everyday life. Christ is my center. Christ is my foundation, my source for all things, my fountain of life. My life is so bound up in Him, I have no life without Him.

Just living in this light, this realization, transforms my life into more than everydays.