Lot's Going On

I feel like there is so much going on, I don't even know how to collect my thoughts and write a blog entry!

#1) Caleb used to be "busy", and now he is "busy-er". He loves to stand up on his chubby tippy toes and reach up on the kitchen counters for whatever he can grab. This has included plates of left over food, a ramiken of salsa, glasses of water. At my Mom's, he pulled a basket of wooden blocks off the desk and onto his little noggin. He also loves digging in the kitchen cabinets, and tonight he found a large box of spaghetti noodles. After he emptied the entire box on the kitchen floor, he started stomping on them with his little chubby bare feet to make a nice, satisfying crunching sound. I told my Mom, and the first thing she said was, "Did you write that down for his baby book?" No, I don't think it is that funny just yet.


#2) Not wanting to be outdone by his little brother, Seth has been high on the "questionable" behavior scale as of late. I picked him up from school one day last week and showed him a DVD that Caleb and I had picked up at the library. As we are driving home, his cup fell between his car seat and the door. He said, "Mommy, get it!" and I tried to reason with him that I was driving, my arm was not long enough to reach back there, and we were only 4 minutes from the house so can't you just wait? 

So he starts letting me know (loudly) how he feels about the cup still being out of his reach, and I promptly put his window down to give him a nice blast of fresh air to the face. This has worked in the past. This time, he decided to throw the library DVD out the window. Now, to be fair, what really happened was that he held it out the window in a threatening sort of way, like he was saying "I am going to let this go if you don't get my cup for me because I am really, really mad!" and he either let go or the wind ripped it out of his hand. I am not exactly sure, but either way, I am sure the people driving behind us were none too thrilled to have things pitched out the window at them!

So after I *calmly* reprimanded him, I made a u-turn at the next light to go back and get the DVD. It had only been run over by about 3 cars, and the mangled case was about 50 feet away from the actual DVD. But get this....the DVD...nary a scratch. I couldn't believe it! This is what the case looks like:

The same day, Caleb had an appointment with his speech therapist (he is 19 months and still not talking. Although this is not cause for major alarm, I opted to enroll him in the same in-home program that Seth was involved in because, well, basically I can, and it is free. So why not?) So we are out on the play set with Krista, the therapist, and Seth is playing on the fort and we have Caleb strapped in a swing where he can't get away. We do this because otherwise, he spends the entire hour running away from Krista. All of a sudden, it was very quiet, and I looked up and couldn't find Seth.

So I go running around like a crazy person. To clarify my reason for hysteria, our play set is not in our fenced backyard (this is something we hope to remedy very soon with an ad-on to our fence). So I go running around the house screaming his name, and my parents just happened to be coming out of their house next door. I get them involved in the frantic search, and I am just panicking inside because we also live on a road that has a 55 mph speed limit. So I go past this old barn at the back of our property, for the third time, yelling his name and all of sudden I see something move out of the corner of my eye. And there is Seth, squatted down and hiding from his crazed mommy with a look on his face that was part glee and part mischief mixed with a tinge of fear. Relief can be followed very quickly by extreme frustration!

#3) Steve came home from work one day and told me that he was thinking of volunteering to take over the youth group at our church. For those of you who might not know, my husband is on staff at New Hope full time as the Worship Pastor. Our full time Youth Pastor moved on to a new season of his life 9 months ago, and since then, a couple from our church has been filling in as the Interim pastors. To be honest, my first reaction was, "Huh? What? No hable...." but God was quick to speak and began to rapidly change my heart. I went to a Women's Conference with my friend Julia at Gateway Church in Southlake, TX called Pink Impact.

It was a pretty amazing weekend...the two speakers were Dr. Lois Evans, Tony Evans wife, and Christine Caine from Hillsong Church in Australia. Christine was a very to the point, tell it like it is communicator, and I LOVED her. She was so challenging and inspiring. And she talked about how most of us, if we are honest, are much more concerned about our comfort than we are concerned about the things that are on God's heart. Concerned about how much any given act is going to infringe on our ability to live life the way we like to. We might miss our favorite show! We might be tired when we get home. We might be asked to really LISTEN to someone's problems when we say "How are you?" but don't REALLY want to know. Someone might derail us from our to-do list or tight schedule we are trying to keep. It was convicting stuff for me. She challenged us to "Cross the Street" like the Good Samaritan did, to not be so busy about our "business" (some of that even being in the name of "Ministry") that we forget to look along the way at the people God wants us to really SEE every day. Our neighbor, the checker at the grocery store, the person in the cubicle next to you, the other Mom dropping off her kid at preschool, whomEVER you come into contact with during your day. Not to look at them like a target for a convert, but to genuinely show them the love of God through meaningful actions that just might take some sacrifice on our part.

She has a new book called "Stop Acting Like a Christian; Just Be One". I love that.

So, all this to say, I came home from the conference with a confirmation in my spirit that we were supposed to lead the youth group until a permanent youth pastor has been found. Last night was our first Gathering and it went great! We definitely were hit with the reality of the time and energy it takes to plan a creative and meaningful youth service. Steve had this great idea to have an American Idol competition with the youth, and then we had three adults (including Keith, our pastor) play Randy, Paula and Simon. It was a blast and the students loved it. We had some amazing people that stepped up and committed to helping us. We could not have done it without them!

So PLEASE pray for us as we lead the youth for this interim time, and also continue to lead the worship ministry, as well. I am thankful that I have a husband who has a heart for others and is willing to lay aside his personal comfort to do the work that God puts on his plate. This was a great lesson for me to learn (again) and one that I am sure I will have to learn again in the future. It really isn't about me.