Goodbye to my Brother--and Blown Tire

Our last evening together with  my brother was a very happy evening.

I managed to catch his three youngest boys together on a chair--and got their picture!

We had thought of going to see Garden of the Gods, but the children preferred instead to play games outdoors in the cold with our children and the Hagertys. So I only had to make runs to the park and back. Rose galloped back on the horse to meet puppy customers. The one set of pups are 8 weeks old today.
For supper, we had turkey and rice,

succotash which Elizabeth had brought,

pickled beets, and brownies.

We wouldn't want to mention how every crumb of brownies disappeared, even though we had made two big pans of them! And we certainly wouldn't want to say how many pieces a certain girl--I mean, child of Gabriel's who has the same name as one of our children--ate. 

She--I mean she/he ate six pieces all by themselves!

Thankfully someone caught one brownie left in time to get it to Jonathan!

Elizabeth having fun tickling Aaron's feet.

Gabriel's children have an unusual sweetness and lovableness--and I am incredibly impressed.

We talked about how we as parents need to love, value and cherish each one of our children, 

and not just the cute ones, the little ones, or the more mellow ones, but all of them.

Each one needs us to pay attention to them.

They need our discernment and discipline, too. It's so easy to want to please a cute little kid--and to quickly try to please them when they throw a fit. We love to see them happy, but caving to their fleshly desires, especially when they express those desires in wrong and fleshly ways, will hinder them from learning obedience to parents, older siblings, other authorities, and God.

However, the emphasis needs to be on positive things. I think that concentrating on keeping children busy and happy (and rested, which means putting them to bed at an early hour every evening,which we did most evenings here) will take care of probably 75% of discipline problems. 

As parents we can't spend 90% of our time with other people and their problems, ship our kids off to babysitters or daycare or grandma or older siblings, and let them stay up with older children and adults till all hours of the night, and think that when our kids cause problems that it is their fault or someone else's fault.

While they are young, they are our priority. Then when they are older, they will bring us blessing and joy and not shame as we reach out more and more to others. 

The last evening here, Gabriel's Carrie decided to run a hair dressing salon for my boys.

Timmy kept peering into my purple hand mirror to see what on earth she had done to the back of his hair!

Then Carrie started in on Sam, which did not turn out very well, shall we say.

Meanwhile, I had procured this huge cardboard box from the driveway from I don't know where, and the little children were cutting a window in it and playing inside it.

 You do not need to buy expensive toys for your children if you have a few huge cardboard boxes around!

Well, morning came too soon, and Gabriel's family was scurrying around to try to leave about 6 a.m.
We all got up early to see them off. Three-yr-old Benjamin did not like for anyone to see him in his "jams," but I told him I love little boys in jammies!

Gabriel asked Jonathan to pray for their family, and then he prayed for ours.
I don't like to be sacrilegious, but I wanted a little picture of us praying together, so I quick snapped one. I really appreciate Gabriel's willingness to lead spiritually, and ask to pray.

We had such a good time together this week--and they plan to come back in September!
Gabriel and Elizabeth felt the time they spent this week at Caring for the Heart was very worth their time. There was only a small group at CFTH this time, but two of them were conservative couples, including one couple from around Canon City who works with a ministry for babies of mothers in prison. The ministry provides a home for the babies with one "nanny" for each baby.

Well, we said our goodbyes and hugged around, and flew through the house to check for anything they'd left behind, and then waved them off. There go their taillights in the dim light of morning!

Five and a half hours later, our children were skyping with them when a tire blew on their van!
The tire had a bubble on it when they had arrived here, and we all forgot to prioritize getting a new tire. Well, Gabriel had to fight to get the anti-theft thing loose and the spare tire out. The children said it  must have looked a sight by the road with their suitcases out by the van while Gabriel tried to change the tire! They lost over 3 hours having to buy a new tire, etc. and didn't arrive to my sister Kezia's place in Illinois till after midnight. Long day!

After they left, we sat down to breakfast, dolloping on our scrambled eggs some of this delicious homecanned salsa that my brother Fain's wife Regina had sent us.

Here is a thought that came in yesterday from John Piper...
"...when the trial comes. There will be resources of endurance in that moment that we do not have any other time. Take heart."

"Peter says, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). This encouragement from Peter says that in the hour of unusual threat (whether insult or death) there will be “a Spirit of glory and of God resting on us.”...Peter went out of his way to say that those who suffer “for the name of Christ” will experience a special “resting” on them of “the Spirit of glory and of God...Pray that this would be your experience."