Lucy and Ethel Jump Off the Cliff

Okay, I am admitting my age by using this scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.. I remember watching this movie as a teenage girl in high school and I'm sure I was drooling over Robert Redford.  I haven't seen it since, but this scene is the one that played over and over again in my head last week as Ethel and I took the jump off the cliff. (if you haven't been around my blog much, Ethel is my precious friend and I am Lucy... we have experienced life together for decades... tears and laughter)

I need you to change the characters to Lucy and Ethel instead of Butch and Sundance.  You can take the gun out also... we would probably harm ourselves more than do any good with a gun.  We both were in the same situation.  Each had an enemy coming after us...and no, we aren't outlaws.  We were feeling the heat down our backs.  We both needed to make a jump.

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Last Tuesday we both nudged each other off the cliff.  Yes, afraid of drowning!  Yes, afraid we are going to die! Yes, afraid of failure!  Yes, afraid of the unknown!  Yes, afraid we are too old!  But what could we do?  So we grabbed each other's hands....took a running start....and jumped.   Either the jump will kill us, or the rapid waters below, or those swirling waters will take us to a new destination.

Ethel jumped back into college. Yes! at the age of 57 she re-registered for college classes.  She hasn't attended school since the 70's... right about the time of this movie.  She is now a co-ed!

Lucy marched herself down to the courthouse with forms in hand.  She went straight in and registered not ONE, but TWO DBA's.  Doing Business As!  After reserving her business names she went straight to the bank for her new business account.  By the afternoon she had two clients!  You see Ricky still isn't getting any gigs to play his bongos....so you know Lucy, always there with a plan.

The screaming ladies were still kicking and yelling at the end of the day, as they were falling into the waters below.  What had they gotten themselves into!

Ethel went to the bookstore.  Lucy went to the bookstore and library.  They both have a lot to learn.  While Ethel is now a new CO-ED, Lucy is now a business owner.  Lucy has been a business owner before, but then it was for fun.... unemployment has made this venture a necessity.  Lucy typed her fingers off setting up to business web-sites, ordered business cards and even purchased one of those dumb magnet signs for her car.

The texting and phone calls haven't stopped since last week.  We both express our anxious feelings, our doubts, our excitement and the realization that life is now changing faster than our old bones can adjust.  She is writing out notes in class.  I am writing out a business plan.  She is meeting new classmates. I am learning to network with strangers.

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Last summer, I filled my sand pail with intentional living.  I learned how you have to be intentional in life or it just drags you along.  That lesson will go into this summer as I balance my new businesses, time with family, time with Benjamin, my teenage son taking college classes, my teen's work schedule and just normal life.  Instead of a sand pail this summer, mine will be a mop bucket and a bucket of paint.  You see my Leah and Rachel businesses are a cleaning business and decorating business.  One is regular weekly work, while the other will allow my creative side to come out from time to time.  They are coming together as I learn how to market myself...oh, my....so out of my comfort zone.  I am being stretched...so if the jump didn't kill me, the rocks just might!

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Hopefully this summer will be clean and bright as I use my buckets!  I wish you a fun-filled summer...maybe you are needing to jump off the cliff.  Who knows where the water will take you.

Saying Goodbye in Order to Say Hello

Friday was my last day as the teacher of 1st grade at Sonlight Enrichment School.  The ten weeks I taught fourteen first graders left a mark on my heart.  The miracles of this time will forever be one of those altars to the Lord that I have erected.   I watched God's faithfulness to me personally at a whole new level and depth.

• The Lord provided daily curriculum...even if it came in the middle of the night.  
• He provided the energy needed for any teacher of 1st graders, more less one at age 52 with a room consisting mainly of boys
• He provided new friendships
• He provided financially
• He let me see a part of me that I had lost confidence in
• He allowed my ending of home schooling to be bittersweet....I can say that I close my doors after 24 years of teaching with satisfaction
• He met me..............that really says it all

As we enjoyed field day on Friday, I also enjoyed first hand something I have never had...teacher's gifts.  It was so much fun.  The precious hand-made cards and letters... the gift cards allowing me to enjoy special tea, cupcakes and yogurt... the gift sack that reminds me to relax.  Look at the "duct tape" rose... she doesn't know how many times I have talked about needing duct tape on this blog... duct tape to keep my mouth shut... so this rose just made me smile.   Each gift will remind me that this year marked a place in my heart.  

Some precious parents told me that I did a good job...a pat on the back...WOW! home school moms don't get many of those.  To see their kids respond to me with a hunger for learning was truly an unexpected gift.

This summer many of us will continue to get together to allow Benjamin time with his friends and additional learning opportunities.  We have decided to have a camp-out.  We are also going to continue our study on author/ illustrators with a Book Club and swim day.

My heart is still pulled as God closes my individual home school room and Benjamin enters a classroom full time next year.  Benjamin keeps confirming God's word, but my own identity is in being a teacher.  I look at my bookshelves and wonder how I will adjust...Benjamin will be fine.  It is time to say goodbye in order to say hello to what God has in store for both Benjamin and me.

I don't know how next year will progress, but I do know that this year will go down in my memory book.  Truly, God sees our needs and meets them... not only the financial, but also the heart's needs.  My first grade class and the women of Sonlight Enrichment School  met a heart's need I didn't even know I had.  

Another Trip to Cambodia

One year later and our oldest son returns to another city in Cambodia to build Dreamers Park Playground.  You see him here in his trademark glasses and cap...that have been his trademark since high school.   Behind him in the background is the man (in orange) who organizes the trip and takes the team...he has known Kenny since Kenny was eight months old.  He also was the Pastor who married Kenny and his wife.

One year later...........last year he left behind his wife to finish her year of teaching.  Last year they were still praying the Lord would bless her womb.  Last year they were praying for a family.

One year later he leaves behind a son who is two and a pregnant wife.  WOW!!! what a year!  This year she finishes up teaching, while he builds... halfway around the world.

My First Born with the drill.   God is so faithful.

Both are ministering in the way God has called them.  My son is using the gifts God has given him to bless children who haven't had an easy life.  My daughter-in-law is ministering to their adopted son.  She and my grandson are bonding as Daddy is halfway around the world.................both are fulfilling God's calling in their lives at this time.  She chases a two-year-old, while nourishing a baby in her womb, fulfilling her calling.

We are each called to different mission fields.  Sometimes that mission field calls us to another country, but for most of us that mission field is in our own back yard.  Both are callings of God.

Tonight I pray for my son and the team in Cambodia, while also praying for my courageous daughter-in-law who is back here being faithful to her calling.  She faithfully serves her son, her students, her unborn child and keeps the house running while her husband serves for over two weeks in Cambodia.

Also praying here in the United States, for the victims of the recent tornadoes here in Texas and the even more deadly ones in Oklahoma.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning!!!

This morning I woke to sore muscles from a very long and tiring week.  My brain has been running over time as I move from one job to the next.  I have exercised every part of who I am...wife, mother, business owner, and teacher.  As I collapsed in my chair  wanting to start a "self-pity" party this song bounced in my head. I couldn't help but start to sing it to myself.

It truly is a beautiful morning!  I have taken on the thought process that I am to learn to fake it until I make it mentality.  Don't tell hubby that...he won't believe it.

Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day!  I have a beautiful feeling, everything's going my way!

So if you are a little worn from wear this week I hope you listen to this song.  Besides we are breathing and for that alone it is a Beautiful Morning!!!!!!!

He Speaks through Nature - Note Card Party

I am running to the party. I just didn't want to miss this month. 

 Is there anything more refreshing, when life is busy, than time with friends and a party?  

Joining Vee for her Note Card Party today.

This Note Card is to remind me that even as life transitions there still needs to be time to smell the flowers.

This little one will not stay little long....I need to find the balance.

God meets us in nature.  As Benjamin said, "where you go and there isn't anything made by man, that's nature!"

The cross that is noticed in this picture wasn't made by man...it is by nature, for those who can

see it and God met me there.

Again...He speaks through nature.  Even in the storms of life He brings beauty.  We just have to look up and see things through His eyes.

There are times to record what the Lord has made. Drawing or writing allows us to 

document His goodness and beauty.  

May I stop and take the time to do just that.

May you all enjoy what He speaks to you through nature and this spring season.

My word for the year is "transition"...I had no idea how many transitions there would be.

So my Note Cards today remind me of the past lessons, as I continue to walk this new journey of transitions.

Leah verus Rachael

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The Biblical story of Jacob always amazes me.  It gives me hope, while also making me say, "really, really Lord?"  I am sure if I was God, I wouldn't have given Jacob all the chances he was given...and in that, I then see the hope I have.  If God was patient with Jacob and can bring something good out of a deceiver's life, then He can make something out of my empty rags also.

Years ago I heard a sermon on Jacob's wives.  I say sermon because it wasn't one of those that he used cross references, strong-concordance, Greek and Hebrew nor history knowledge to explain what he had received out of the scripture.  He just took the story of Jacob's wives and applied it to his own.

He brought a new slant into this story that has stayed with me for decades and this week I feel it is where I stand.  I stand looking at the Rachel in my life and the Leah.

Leah was the wife that produced the offspring that would fulfill the promise that God would make a nation from Jacob.  She wasn't the wife that Jacob cherished, in fact, she was the wife that he had be deceived into marrying.  She, however, was the wife that God would bring forth many offspring.   She was fruitful.

Then there was Rachael...Jacob's true love.  The wife of his passion.  The one he gave years of labor to his father-in-law to have her hand in marriage.  Unlike her sister Leah, Rachael didn't have the offspring to produce a nation.  Jacob's love for Rachael didn't go away and later the Lord blessed her with two sons.  Her sons are special to me since I named my late- in-life son after them both.  Rachael produced fruit later in her life, yet maintained the love of her husband from the first day.

There are choices before me for income for our family.  One choice is my passion.  It energizes me.  It excites me.  It allows me to be creative and use my gifts, however, it isn't bringing in income.  This is my Rachael...my decorating business.

The second choice has the potential to bring in a good income for my family.  It will be work.  It will stretch my energy and my comfort zone. It isn't glamorous and will not bring forth my creative side. It is my Leah.

There are seasons that the Lord produces fruit in our life through things that aren't exactly our choice.  This week I will lay down my Rachel in exchange for a Leah.  My prayer is that while I am obedient, that one day the Lord will allow me to again enjoy my Rachel.  I also want to rejoice in the fruit of Leah.  I am sure there are things God wants to teach me that can only come through the Leah season of my life.  These things maybe the things that allow me to totally enjoy my passions and deep seed dreams in the future.  Who knows maybe my Leah will become my Rachael as God changes my heart.

Have you had a Leah and Rachel in your life?  As you look back aren't you glad you allowed the Leah to produce the fruit God wanted in your life?  Have you also had your passion returned through a Rachel?