Entertaining Angels

July 29, 2015

I have humbly noticed that I tend to post money related answers to prayer, and have felt convicted to post more “Ebenezer Stones” related to the spiritual realm. So often, prayers are made that are answered directly through some financial blessing, and these types of answered prayers are very concrete and instant, and often times more obvious. However, this isn’t all that God is up to, and I want to be sure to speak of the more subtle things He is doing. 

Sometimes, the prayer requests and answers are things I haven’t even begun to think of praying for. Sometimes, they are things that are answers to other peoples’ prayers. Sometimes, things are happening, and I know God’s hand is at work, doing something huge and divine, and I am an oblivious bystander, just incredulous because He is awesome. These are the things I want to tell you about also. Because He is always at work. Are we able to hear and see? Are we able to witness, and represent? I want to be, although I am a complete idiot at times, God forgive me.

So, today was normal, and yet unusual towards the end.

After the awful sickness from the preceding month, I was playing a lot of mom catch up on things to do. So, today, I caught up on some emails. At around 2pm today, I was going down my to-do list, and got to:

“Print Jack and Lily’s test scores”

Elias, Jack, and Lily were home schooled this past year, and even though we live in Charlotte now, out of comfortability with that which is familiar, I chose to have their annual testing completed in Fayetteville, where we resided for the past 10 years.

A very wonderful woman named Ronda oversees the annual home school testing co-op in Fayetteville, NC, which we had been a part of for almost 10 years, I want to say, and I loved it. Why rock the boat, when you’ve got something good, I say? So we stayed with relatives near Fayetteville, and tested there, like usual. 

Have you seen our Jack, lately? This kid is great. 

He makes quite an impression on people. Especially boys his age. They say he’s just so great. He is so nice. He is so kind. I’m old enough to know better (or maybe I’m just jaded) but I tend to not let it go to my head. I hear nice things about my kids, and I just try and assume every parent thinks their kids are awesome and well-mannered and make the same kind of impression on the other kids, and so yeah, right?

So I’m catching up on some emails today, and I find an email from the testing coordinator, back in mid-June, about another mom, whose son encountered the awesome Jack, and wants to keep in touch. Unfortunately, we have moved to Charlotte, and so we are no longer in close proximity to Fayetteville to maintain friendship for the boys. But I email the mom, on July 29, 2015, anyway, to let the mom know that I appreciate her email and to let her know that we are open to hang out and let the boys play whenever, if we are in Fayetteville, or she is in Charlotte. I thought it was incredibly sweet that another boy would want to hang out with Jack.

Hilariously, the mom responds, and just so happens to be in Charlotte. This afternoon. Can they hang out, even for a short time, this evening?!?!

Of course! I tell the mom our address, cell phone. It doesn’t occur to me till moments before they arrive, that I don’t know this lady, or her son, from Sam Adams. But, in laymens’ terms: my kids’ testing coordinator, Ronda: she’s got street creed. Like incredible creed. Enough creed that I’m giving out my cell and address to an absolute stranger that wants to bring her son over. 

Only hours later, after the short, sweet visit, does all this occur to me.

But this brave Mama. This Mama that listened to the requests of her son. I gotta love her for that. This simple, sweet, soft spoken Mama, whose circles I have walked on the outside edge of for 7+ years now, seeing her and her family at church and home school events, and not knowing them: Thank God for this quiet Mama’s courage, to contact an absolute stranger just because her kid hit it off with another kid. We’ve passed each other on the play ground and in the church hallways for years, always smiling and quiet and gracious. And Thank God for His absolute, amazing, perfect timing, where He arranges divine appointments with people who live hours away from one another, to meet in a large city unexpectedly. 

They showed up at 8:00, after Jack and Lilly’s swim lessons. They were in town to see missionary friends, who are headed to Sierra Leone. They only had a short time to visit, but the child just said that if he could see Jack just for a few minutes, it would be worth it. God hears 8 year old boy’s requests, you know? God pays attention to these sweet children, and blesses the Mamas too in the meantime. We were able to share a few small moments, and not even an hour went by, and they were gone. Her children were sweet: the girls played with Lilly and the boys ran around playing nerf guns with Jack. If it weren't for this kid, we'd never have this time.

Thank you God, for the moments. Thank you God, for the brief, still moments, where we just sit, and enjoy company for a small time, and none of it makes sense till later, but it’s all good anyway. Because You are all good.

Illness, Paused...

June 29 2015

My immediate family and I try to get together with my step-dad and my siblings one Sunday a month for Sunday dinner. I am so thankful for my Step Dad’s wife, who cooks amazingly delicious meals and hosts this monthly event. This past month we got together on June 28, a Sunday afternoon. Our eldest son, Ethan, was visiting us, and it was very special for all of us to get together, enjoy Betty’s delicious cooking, and fellowship with each other. 

Even though it was a typical Southern summer day, which translates to hot and humid, I was oddly cold, and dressed warmer. I was wearing a shirt, light jacket, blue jeans, scarf and shoes, and freezing! I should have known something was up. In reality, I was running a fever, unbeknownst. i froze all day, and went to bed with check lists’ in my head of all the next day’s plans, because it was Lillian’s birthday on Monday, June 29. 

Little did I know, I was about to embark on a 14 day summer illness, along with the rest of my 5 member household. You see, when a big family gets sick, it’s never nice and neat: for example, everyone gets the same illness, at the same time, at the same rate, for the same extended period. No, that’s too easy. What typically happens in a big family is that each person gets sick in stages, like 3 days apart. Which translates to half a month in mom language.

Long story short, however, I woke up on June 29, 2015, at 7:30am, feeling just fine, and worked all day long to make it the most special day an 11 year old birthday girl could dream of, beginning with breakfast in bed, and a party and Grandparents visiting from Sanford, to a fantastic sleep over with friends, rocking out till 11:40pm when i finally turned in for the night and left the birthday girl partying with a friend for an epic sleep over!

       

And I woke up the next morning with a fever of 103.8, wishing I was at the hospital; the first of almost 14 days straight of a horrid summer illness.

Thus began the first leg of the illness, that took over our family from June 30, 2015, till around July 15, 2015. This was the worst summer sickness we’ve ever had! But the Ebenezer Stone is this: even though I was running a fever on June 28, I woke up June 29, like God paused the illness, and was able to do a pretty fine job of making a fabulous birthday for Lillian physically and mentally, and I just want to thank God so much for making that possible! Even when I was sick the following day, all I could think about was how awesome it was that Lily’s birthday was just fine! Mothers out there: y’all know how much you just love your kid, and want their birthday to be the best one ever…well, God made this possible this year for our girl. As a Mom, I couldn't hope for a more beautiful Ebenezer Stone, than to see how wonderfully God worked it out for me to be just fine and do so much for our daughter's birthday! It makes me so thankful for our health, and all that we are able to do! 

Plus, we are over that awful virus, or whatever it was.  Thank you God!