Do you ever doubt God? Question Him? Wonder how in the world He will come through? Grumble, complain, whine because He doesn't seem to be working fast enough or taking care of your every need at a moment's notice?
Yeah, me neither...
Oh wait...
I was really convicted today as I listened to Numbers 10-14 this morning while I walked on the treadmill. The Israelites have been freed from Egypt and 400 years of slavery, and then here they are mumbling and grumbling about wanting to go back -- because of the fish and melons and cucumbers they could eat there. They're tired of manna day after day after day after day. They want some meat, and so they whine to Moses about it. Moses flat out tells God that he doesn't want to deal with the Israelites anymore, to go ahead and kill him.
God assures Moses that He can handle the Israelites' request and promises to provide meat for them. Moses questions His ability to have enough meat for over 600,000 people for a consistent period of time. God's response really got to me, "HAS MY ARM LOST ITS POWER?!"
Yeah, think I will just go ahead and shut my mouth...
You would think that the Israelites had seen enough of God's miraculous works to know that He can more than take care of them, but just chapters later we see them doubt His ability to give them the Promised Land. Only Joshua and Caleb stand up to say God will bless them and guide them into the land flowing with milk and honey. Everyone else is focused on the giants and trembling in their boots, too scared to believe God will help them conquer the inhabitants.
God doesn't say it again, but I can't help but think He wanted to shout, "HAS MY ARM LOST ITS POWER?!"
Instead, He promises that everyone who doubted Him will die in the wilderness. Only Joshua and Caleb will get to enter the Promised Land.
Bummer for everyone else.
Bummer for me when I don't trust God, when I doubt and question and whine and grumble and complain.
Maybe I should just shut my mouth and remember all God has done, all that He can still do today. Maybe I should just trust Him and believe He can do what He has promised. Maybe, just maybe...
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
My Little Princess
I think I must have blinked too many times because my oldest child just turned 4 this weekend!
I could still walk you through her birth, minute by minute, if you wanted me to do so...
The past 4 years have been some of the busiest, most stressful in my life, BUT they have also been some of the most blessed, wonderful, memorable in my life as well.
Coralyn holds a special place in my heart as my firstborn (though I love all my children equally). I can remember when I was pregnant with her, and we prayed for our little girl to be observant, inquisitive, curious, adventurous, bold. A go-getter. Boy, did God answers our prayers!!!!
The girl notices EVERYTHING!!! We'll be on a walk, and she'll spot a tiny flower and stop to pick it. We'll be playing in the yard, and she'll shout, "Airplane!!" as she points to a speck in the sky. We'll be driving, and she'll notice that the construction workers added 3 more shingles to the roof of the bank they've been building.
She doesn't forget anything either. She can tell you how to get to the park, how to get to her friends' houses, where to turn on our way to either grandparents' house, or where we went to celebrate a birthday, to get a sonogram, or get license plates for the car. Direction wise, she is definitely her father's daughter.
Memory wise -- that probably comes from her mom. Seriously, the child remembers every single word that comes out of your mouth. Which is pretty scary. And she picks up on the littlest of things too. Which can be kind of funny at times. Like when she overheard Lawrence say, "I got some things wrapped up at work," and immediately reminded him that I wrapped him at our old house not at school. Things like that help me remember my little girl is only 4, that she is indeed still a child. Thank goodness!!!
She is growing up though. As she can now pour herself a cup of milk or keifer (and add a scoop of greens to the later) without any help (but my close observance for sure). She can make a peanut butter sandwich. She can brush her own teeth. She can get dressed all by herself, though the outfits she picks out some days are not color coordinated and can make quite the fashion statement. She can identify all her letters and numbers, writing many of them as well. She's got her name down, with some of the letters backwards or scrambled together so it doesn't exactly look in order, but still... She's beginning to show an interest in truly reading, not just listening to me read to her or flipping through books on her own.
One of her favorite books is the Bible, and she has her favorite stories even then. I'm not sure why, but Jonah is the one she always requests. And she can tell the story verbatim from her Bible. She also knows about Adam and Eve, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, David, Daniel, Zaccheus, Peter, Paul, and many others. I love that she loves to read her Bible, sometimes "too much," as she will stay up for over an hour reading in her bed at night.
She LOVES going to church too and always gets so excited when we tell her it's time to get ready. She LOVES her classes and teachers and comes home telling us all about what they learned. Another reason she likes church, I think, is that she gets to wear her pretty, fancy dresses. The girl may enjoy playing outside and doesn't get phased by playing in the dirt, but she sure does like her dresses. She is a princess through and through :)
Hence, we had a princess party for her this year to celebrate her 4th birthday. Being a tom-boy myself, all the pink and purple about did me in, but my little girl was thrilled. And that's all that's important!
Seeing Coralyn smile and laugh and have so much fun with her friends was priceless. I had to laugh that above all else she wanted to play in her castle, held together with countless pieces of duct tape. I do like that she's a pretty simple child, content with the "little things" of life.
I pray she stays that way as she grows up, that she continues to find joy and pleasure and delight in the small, simple things - like finding a rolly polly and holding it in her hand, like getting candy at a parade, or making a craft for Daddy by coloring and cutting and gluing paper together in a random way (at least it seems that way to me, but I know she has a specific purpose for every thing she does).
I just want to stop time and remember the precious memories of my "little girl." Like when she rode her new princess bike for the first time:
Thankfully, she has a few more years before she'll be behind the wheel and driving a real car!
Lawrence often jokes with Coralyn that she needs to stop growing up, that she needs to stay this size forever. She did assure him the other day that she would stop when she turned 10! :)
I did have to remind her to slow down a bit in her desire to get to that point, though, as she asked me yesterday, "Mommy, when will I be 5?"
All too soon, my child, all too soon...
I could still walk you through her birth, minute by minute, if you wanted me to do so...
The past 4 years have been some of the busiest, most stressful in my life, BUT they have also been some of the most blessed, wonderful, memorable in my life as well.
Coralyn holds a special place in my heart as my firstborn (though I love all my children equally). I can remember when I was pregnant with her, and we prayed for our little girl to be observant, inquisitive, curious, adventurous, bold. A go-getter. Boy, did God answers our prayers!!!!
The girl notices EVERYTHING!!! We'll be on a walk, and she'll spot a tiny flower and stop to pick it. We'll be playing in the yard, and she'll shout, "Airplane!!" as she points to a speck in the sky. We'll be driving, and she'll notice that the construction workers added 3 more shingles to the roof of the bank they've been building.
She doesn't forget anything either. She can tell you how to get to the park, how to get to her friends' houses, where to turn on our way to either grandparents' house, or where we went to celebrate a birthday, to get a sonogram, or get license plates for the car. Direction wise, she is definitely her father's daughter.
Memory wise -- that probably comes from her mom. Seriously, the child remembers every single word that comes out of your mouth. Which is pretty scary. And she picks up on the littlest of things too. Which can be kind of funny at times. Like when she overheard Lawrence say, "I got some things wrapped up at work," and immediately reminded him that I wrapped him at our old house not at school. Things like that help me remember my little girl is only 4, that she is indeed still a child. Thank goodness!!!
She is growing up though. As she can now pour herself a cup of milk or keifer (and add a scoop of greens to the later) without any help (but my close observance for sure). She can make a peanut butter sandwich. She can brush her own teeth. She can get dressed all by herself, though the outfits she picks out some days are not color coordinated and can make quite the fashion statement. She can identify all her letters and numbers, writing many of them as well. She's got her name down, with some of the letters backwards or scrambled together so it doesn't exactly look in order, but still... She's beginning to show an interest in truly reading, not just listening to me read to her or flipping through books on her own.
One of her favorite books is the Bible, and she has her favorite stories even then. I'm not sure why, but Jonah is the one she always requests. And she can tell the story verbatim from her Bible. She also knows about Adam and Eve, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, David, Daniel, Zaccheus, Peter, Paul, and many others. I love that she loves to read her Bible, sometimes "too much," as she will stay up for over an hour reading in her bed at night.
She LOVES going to church too and always gets so excited when we tell her it's time to get ready. She LOVES her classes and teachers and comes home telling us all about what they learned. Another reason she likes church, I think, is that she gets to wear her pretty, fancy dresses. The girl may enjoy playing outside and doesn't get phased by playing in the dirt, but she sure does like her dresses. She is a princess through and through :)
Hence, we had a princess party for her this year to celebrate her 4th birthday. Being a tom-boy myself, all the pink and purple about did me in, but my little girl was thrilled. And that's all that's important!
Seeing Coralyn smile and laugh and have so much fun with her friends was priceless. I had to laugh that above all else she wanted to play in her castle, held together with countless pieces of duct tape. I do like that she's a pretty simple child, content with the "little things" of life.
I pray she stays that way as she grows up, that she continues to find joy and pleasure and delight in the small, simple things - like finding a rolly polly and holding it in her hand, like getting candy at a parade, or making a craft for Daddy by coloring and cutting and gluing paper together in a random way (at least it seems that way to me, but I know she has a specific purpose for every thing she does).
I just want to stop time and remember the precious memories of my "little girl." Like when she rode her new princess bike for the first time:
Thankfully, she has a few more years before she'll be behind the wheel and driving a real car!
Lawrence often jokes with Coralyn that she needs to stop growing up, that she needs to stay this size forever. She did assure him the other day that she would stop when she turned 10! :)
I did have to remind her to slow down a bit in her desire to get to that point, though, as she asked me yesterday, "Mommy, when will I be 5?"
All too soon, my child, all too soon...
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