Pictures

Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks...

Sunday afternoon water balloon fun.
Sibling fun

8 months. She is now doing the army crawl at amazing speeds and is also almost crawling on all fours. I've seen her do it, but then she drops to her belly again. She now pulls herself to standing. She loves it, but it causes us to run when she starts crying because she can't get down or because she falls down. She has several bruises and scrapes on her face from her tumbles.

Callie and Pappy. Like the hair? :)

Flower of the Family

Note: the following has been rolling around in my head for a few days. I finally just typed it out. If I don't write these things down I'm afraid I'll forget them.

In the summer of 2006 my mom gave me this African Violet. It had almost constant blooms on it for a year and a half. Then we went to Rosedale for 6 weeks and when we came back it was no longer blooming and refused to bloom again. It was suggested to me that I should replant it in a bigger pot, but I didn't feel like bothering with it so I just kept it on the window sill above my sink and kept watering it.


This spring I bought a bag of potting soil so I could plant flowers in hanging baskets for outside. I had plenty of soil left over so I dug out a large pot from the basement and replanted the violet that wouldn't die, but wouldn't bloom. I had little hope for blooms, but figured it was worth a try.


I kept watering and what do you know, it started to bloom! Not just one here or there, but lots of beautiful flowers. This picture was taken soon after it started blooming. There are so many more blooms now.


I guess I'm a PK or something because I see teaching moments in things like this. As I was washing dishes one day and marveling at the beautiful violets I was struck with the realization that I am sometimes like this violet.


I may not be dead, but I'm not bearing much fruit. For whatever reason God will let me sit like this for a season. I'm sure he doesn't want me there, but he lets me choose to be there. Then a time comes when He seems to say that's enough sitting around girl and He starts to replant me.


I feel like I am in a season of replanting right now. I feel like my roots have been tugged out of their comfort zone. My comfortable pot has been replaced with too much room to wonder where I am and where the comfortable walls are that I love so much.


There's new dirt around me that I don't know and I don't like. I'm sure it's good for me, but I'm not used to it.


Slowly I'm recognizing that all this is good for me. I've often prayed for humility, God is giving it to me, in abundance. I hate being repotted and pruned, but it is allowing me to experience God in a depth I haven't known before.


Jeremy and I were blessed to attend the Conservative Mennonite Conference this past weekend in Ohio. I missed some of the worship times because I was often getting Callie settled in childcare, but the times I was able to attend were so good. Sure the musicians and worship leaders were very gifted, and I enjoyed listening to them. They were doing their part. However, it was the sweet attendance of the Holy Spirit that caught my attention. Each time I stood to worship I found myself weeping.


I have wept before from fear, from disappointment, from deep conviction, from frustration, but to weep while in worship of a Holy God that is so close and so real to me is indescribable. Even as I write this I wonder why I'm trying to tell you about it. I hope you have experienced this so you can understand the sweet moments I experienced. So safe, so precious. I take no pride at being able to say I was moved during these times. This is not something that I can create or work hard enough to obtain. It is only birthed out of a loving God uprooting and rearranging my heart to realize once again that I am nothing, can do nothing, nor can I ever produce fruit aside from His working.


Other's must have wondered what my problem was. Have you heard the joke about the girl that was the flower of the family? She was the blooming idiot. Maybe I'm a blooming idiot. If that means all this replanting is someday going to produce some kind of fruit, then bring it on!