July reboot!

Its so incredible to me how quickly time flies these days!!! I love the warm days of summer and today, I just spent it outside, reading, wandering around the yard and doing a lot of thinking...I don't get days like these often enough so I am deeply grateful when I do!!!

Lately I have been reading the old testament.  Sometimes I just love to dig in there and read the stories of the characters that built our faith. I have been reading about Abraham and Lot and marvelling at their human-ness! Oh my goodness...at one point I looked up to heaven and chuckled with the Lord, "oh Lord, how simply sinful we are and yet you love us anyway!"  Its amazing to me how He used such basic people to accomplish such extraordinary things!  At one point I was reading where Abraham was talking to the Lord about Sodom and Gomorrah, God had told him he was going to destroy the city. He knew his nephew lived in this horrid city and wanted him spared so he went to God and said, okay, if there are 40 (or something like that) people who are righteous will you spare the city?  And God says, yes I will....Abraham came back with a smaller number (apparently having done the math and knowing there can't be that many righteous people in that city) and God agrees to the smaller number....finally Abraham gets down to brass taxes and says the number 10...I have read that story before, even had a bible study with Nancy once on God changing His mind, but I kept thinking, God knew how many people were righteous in that city, God knew that Lot and his wife and two daughters were maybe the only ones (and thats loosely counted people) he had two other sons who were married that laughed at the admonition to leave (via angels visiting the city to vanquish it)...He knew that all would struggle with what they possess.

That got me to thinking.  In the last 6 months I have begun this journey, in fact, our whole family has, of really looking at where our world is headed, what is going on, opening our eyes and looking at the truth and not just accepting the given explanation for things, it has been a very interesting and sometimes painful choice we have made to look at our world through the eyes of ones who may be part of the end times, part of the End of Days....whether we are or not isn't really what is important but what IS important is figuring out exactly that...WHAT IS IMPORTANT????  

I've been thinking...If everything ceased to be the way it is right now, if in fact we are in the end times and bread costs a days wage and the enemy is seeking to kill all the righteous in the cities, what is important to me?  What will I want to take with me? What will I want to count in my life?  Some pretty big questions and I have had to wrestle with the love of my possessions.  You see, I at one time felt a little like Lots wife, who when told not to look back, did so anyway, and was turned into a pillar of salt.  I wonder, did she look back because all of her life was in that city?  Her favorite bowls she put food in? Her favorite blanket that her daughter had sewn her?  or her table that her husband had hewn out of wood for her to serve her family on? As I have looked at what is important to me these days it isn't this house, although I am so very grateful for the shelter it provides and the comfort that comes from living in it.  It isn't the things I own, although so many of them (as some of you know I am terribly sentimental) hold some amazing memories and special meaning for me, and it isn't my garden, perhaps my favorite place to be in all the world when it is sunny outside. Its my family, my relationships and the people that the Lord has given us to serve and to love.  As I thought about Lots wife this week I thought to myself, I do NOT want to be like her, wanting my things, my comforts, my "investments" I want what God wants for me...to lay down my wants and even my needs and think about what He wants for me to have and to do....I believe that one day, maybe not that far away, all of this will end and we will be living a completely different life, a completely different way. I don't feel fear at the rising cost of food, I feel empowered to find ways to make our budget stretch, to learn to make and do things on my own I would never otherwise have considered (what a total blast it was making soap with Lindsay the other night!). I have been working hard to ensure that if we must feed our entire family on a little, that it will be good and nutritious and amazing food....Its not fun to think about how much things are changing in this world we live in these days. Unprecedented weather changes, extreme national debt and a whole host of things are wreaking havoc with our world, but the Lord is on the throne and as I read today in Thessalonians,  He wants us to be wise, to watch and pay attention and not be taken in by the lies of the enemy. Sue said it in her sermon on Sunday, anarchy is brewing and God is up to something.  I am excited, I am energized and I am wanting to protect the only investment that is worth anything in this whole world to me, my family.  I don't care about the latest clothes any more, having the coolest stuff or eating whatever I want (that too has undergone some serious changes in the past few months), or watching tv or shopping. I am finding myself wanting to know, more and more, what the Lord is up to, what is He doing, what does He want me to do and how can I help others.

Back to Lot and Abraham....Abraham interceded for his nephew and his life was spared. Lots wife looked back with longing at what she would miss and lost it all, and Lot, he obeyed and ran and was given a second chance at life. These stories of the giants of faith are full of their human frailties and missteps but the Lord judged their hearts and judged them faithful, faithful enough to build nations, faithful enough to put their names in the list of the hall of fame of faith and faithful enough to bless and bless and bless.....I hate to say it, but life is changing at a very fast pace and though its hard to watch, we must be ready, we must pay attention and we must not hide our heads in fear but stand upright, ready in battle, armor on and standing firm in our faith, no matter what we see, no matter what comes at us....

On a lighter note~ It has been a wonderful summer so far! John and I are heading out for a two week vacation next week and I am so excited, we both are.  It has been awhile since we left town.  I am more than ready!  Our little Brynnie, our miniature stick of dynamite, just turned one yesterday and we are celebrating that on Saturday and then Kales will turn 25 in two weeks!!!! We will celebrate that at Diamond Lake, an old tradition of sorts.  Kaylee and Bryce are expecting another little girl and we are so excited to meet her. I can't wait to hold a tiny one again.  I wonder how jealous the other girls will be? hahaha!  And our biggest news yet...Aaron and Alexis are getting married on September 24th (I believe) and we are very ready and excited for that!!!! We have watched them and seen them both grow so much and be such an amazing couple full of integrity, honor and grace towards one another. It will be a great day (yep, I am already trying to find the mother son dance song)....