I am not normally up and writing on a weekend. These are usually my times to sleep in a little and catch up on early mornings, but not today! Lately, if I get woken up by a child in the middle of the night, I have been finding it impossible to get back to sleep, so I'll lay there for up to two hours trying to fall asleep. My thoughts won't relax. This can be a positive thing as sometimes I ask the Lord, "Who should I be praying for? Why did you wake me up?" This is part of the reason I haven't been writing as much this week as I just haven't been getting a lot of sleep.... This includes today! I was woken up at 4:30 this morning and immediately thought to myself, "Well, that's all the sleep I'm going to get." I tried my hardest to go back to sleep, but alas here I am at 5 am and the night is done.
Lots of neat things went on this week, particularly with my friend who I wrote about that is not giving up on what appears to be a hopeless situation with her marriage. A few days ago, her husband ended up in the hospital after being in a car accident that should have taken his life. He only ended up with a broken collarbone and by the grace of God no one else was hurt. My friend wrote to tell me how she didn't know how she would deal with all of this including the fact this left them with only one vehicle. All of this happened during one of her busiest work weeks. But, more power to my friend, she has stood by her man and has taken this to be an answer to her prayers.
The love she has shown to her husband has been noticed by both her husband and her daughters. They all know he doesn't deserve any of her attention or care and yet she has allowed this to be the way God can show His love through her. I keep reminding her of Hosea and how he was married to a prostitute. It was supposed to be a picture of how God loved Israel who was sinful like a prostitute. I think her husband's heart is being drawn to her's in a new way as she continues to model love to someone who doesn't deserve it. How wonderful, isn't it?
As for paying for it all... she isn't worried. She sees how God is providing for her through some new listings that she never expected to come her way and she is experiencing hope for the first time in a long time. Praise God! He doesn't always answer the way we expect, but He does answer our prayers! When she first told me about the accident, I'm sure she wasn't too pleased with my response as I said, "That's wonderful news! This is what we've been praying for!" At that time, a car accident was the last thing she felt was an answer to prayer! But literally only a few days later, she is seeing how God allowed a car accident to move in her husband's life.
This was also a week of tomato staking and I'm not talking about gardening outside, but inside our home, with our children! Stephanie reminded me this week of the importance of tomato staking our kids. I first heard of this idea years ago when I only had 4 kids. One of my friends came across this website that talked about "tomato staking" with respect to raising children and shared it with me. If we keep our children close to us and monitor their every move as toddlers and young children, then they won't become like a tomato plant that grows up, isn't staked and has all the tomato fruit fall to the ground and rot. Staking is a lot of work though. It means consistency, constant effort, not letting a single thing go by without dealing with it right there and on the spot. It means training, training, training and it means staying home sometimes to make sure you can be as deliberate as possible for a long as possible.
My little Jonas, the 7th child, has been staked for sure, but some tomato plants are a little more work. Stephanie was over this week and her little guy came with two of his favourite toys to share with our little boys. That was so nice! Except my little boys' true colours came out and didn't really feel like giving the toys back..... ever. Stephanie and her son, who is being very well tomato-staked at home, was very patient and watched me parent my tomatoes with effort! After she left, I told my boys that I was not impressed with their behaviour. I said, "You were not very well behaved today. I heard yelling and crying as well as stomping and pouting. Not good." It was hard not to laugh when Jonas piped it, "Don't forget kicking, punching and pinching....." "Oh yes, that, too!"
So, I need to tomato stake my plants a little more it seems. It's a wonderful principle though - to have our children near us in order to monitor their behaviour. We prefer to send them away and have them play where we can't see or hear them, but then so much gets missed. That is one of the reasons, I have to say, that I love our small little house. I love that we don't have a basement that is useable. I love that our playroom is on the main floor. It is much easier to monitor behaviour when they are in eyesight and listening range.
Weeds can ruin any garden, especially the garden of our family and the hearts of our children, so it is essential to keep working on my little garden here at home. The picture of Spring and any garden outside is obvious.... if I let the weeds in my potential garden get overgrown, no fruit will be produced. But the back-breaking effort is so hard! I can't say I love weeding, but if I stay on top of it, then it isn't so bad. Having 4 tomato plants get well on their way has been very fulfilling and I'm so pleased with the fruit we are seeing in their lives. It gives me hope with the remaining 4 who don't have quite as much fruit yet. Perhaps these last four plants aren't getting the exact same attention that the older four received.... what a call to action! We had better not let up on these plants!
I wonder what kind of tomato plant Jonas would be if he had a name.... he wouldn't be any mini-grape tomato that you could just pop in your mouth. He is a force to be reckoned with, perhaps a Beef Steak tomato! One that requires a little more effort to grow! But I love him and his spunk and his matter-of-fact personality. I shake my head at the things that come out of his mouth, but at least he is honest about his sinful nature. The tomato staking means I must take the time to remind him why he needs Christ and how he can ask God to help him overcome the little weeds in his life. He may not fully comprehend that all now, but I want it to be the language of his life, that it becomes normal to call upon the Lord.
He is always the first child up and often within minutes he is needing a reminder to be better behaved. Perhaps God brings him to me first so I won't forget about him.
Meanwhile, Stephanie is up to all sorts of interesting things besides just tomato staking...... she introduced us to "Secret Church", too. In the spirit of remembering the persecuted church, David Platt, a well-known pastor/writer/speaker from the States, holds what he calls "Secret Church". It is a night of singing, worship, prayer and teaching just like the persecuted church would hold. It is often too dangerous to get together in some countries for prayer and worship, so when they do connect as believers it is for long periods of time to help them get through the times they aren't together. So David Platt organized Secret Church to model that longer period of time of serious worship and teaching. I think it started perhaps at 7 pm last night and was meant to go right to midnight. My oldest daughter and her friend joined several other young adults as they met in Stephanie's apartment, just like the persecuted church would have met. They then watched a live simulcast of David Platt and his church leading them through a time of singing, teaching, and prayer.... right up until 12 am. I was so excited to have my daughter go to this. Platt was going to be teaching on Christ in the Culture and a Call to Action. He wasn't going to mince words as he planned on speaking about poverty, widows and orphans, abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexuality and what a Christian's response to all of these issues is supposed to be. I can't wait to hear how it went.
This should be the last week of pruning. We had to take a week off as Spring took a week off, too. It was so cold we couldn't get ourselves out there to finish it off. Hopefully Spring will return soon!
I'm on my countdown to my little mini-vacay with my sisters, sister-in-law and my mom. We'll leave for Sarasota on Thursday morning and will come back Monday night. Hard to believe. I had to shop for a bathing suit which I hadn't done in 8 years. I haven't needed one as I always had a baby or a toddler so I was never in a pool and if I did go in I just literally jumped in with whatever I had on! I left all the swimming up to the kids as I would watch them from the sidelines. The weather promises to be warm, so I'm excited as it isn't warm here anymore!
It is now after 6 am - I still won't see people up and at 'em for awhile still, so I will enjoy perhaps another cup of coffee and take this as my Saturday morning vacation!
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