faith not sight

2 Corinthians 5...
My devotions were taken from the verse in 2 Cor 5:7 about how we walk by faith and not by sight. I thought that's really what we needed to hear as we're transitioning into moving overseas. There's a lot of "what if's" and unknowns. So we choose to walk by faith and not by sight. God has called us and we will walk in faith.

Well that got me to wondering just want the Bible is talking about when it says that. What is the whole chapter about. So I was about to look it up when another thought crossed my mind. Back when Joshua's 10th birthday cam around in May, I read some verses that stuck out to me and I'd forgotten what they were. So I wanted to look that up right away before I forgot about it. I had to decide which of the two things I wanted to look up first... I decided to look back to the beginning of May where my 2 year Bible devotions were...

Guess what chapter it lead me to? 2 Corinthians 5! Heh. They were the same verses! I love it when the Holy Spirit leads you. What a treat. I and a nice moment with the Lord there.

So the chapter the Holy Spirit lead me to when we were thinking of Joshua was about how we'll have a heavenly body and here on earth we long to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling... then it leads into how we walk by faith and not by sight. Pretty cool. Heaven should be what motivates us as we live here on earth, huh? Always hope.

noodles and pencil boxes

Okay, we have four kiddos and each of them are all different from the other. Let me share two quick examples through pencil boxes and noodles. I made those curly, colored noodles that come in yellow, orange, and green. After I passed them out and went to get the fruit or veggies, I noticed that Benjamin had scooted his over to the side to make room for all the other food to have a proper place on his plate, Hannah and made a pretty design with hers, Ruth took hers off the plate and separated them out by colors and was counting to see which pile had more, Elijah had already eaten half of them! Our kiddos.

Then and I was preparing for some homeschooling stuff I gathered up the kids pencil boxes. Elijah's was empty, Ruth's was full of her summer nature collection, Hannah had only crayons and colored pencils, Benjamin had each of the needed school supplies like a scissors, glue, pencils, crayons, etc... Our kiddos! :)

that's for sure

A lot of the time, Lijah has some little quirk or phase that he's going through. For a few weeks there, he had learned to make a half burping half puking sound that we heard all the time. (Not my favorite and one of Kev's top annoying sounds...) Well, we're hoping that he's moved on from that quirk. Now his favorite phrase is, "That's for sure." After a lot of his comments, that's what he says. " I'm a big boy now, that's for sure." "I'm hungry, that's for sure." "I don't want to pee my pants, that's for sure."

ping pong

Ruthie is a ball of energy. Kevin goes up the The Attic youth center every Wed night and sometimes after the kids are done with Missonettes and Royal Rangers we'll head up there to say hello and play some games. The kids favorites are ping pong and air hockey. Ruth usually wants me to play with her since the older two play and Lijah's pretty little. So I "played" ping pong with Ruth this last week. She just swings and runs around after the balls. When she misses the ball she runs in like three circles and skips around to pick it up. Then she hits it (or throws it) back to my side. If I miss it I look like I'm going in slow motion going to pick it up. I don't run in three circles and I have to bend over a lot farther to pick up the ball. While Ruth waits for me to go pick up my missed ball, she's usually jumping up and down or running over to say hi to someone else as she waits. She is our ball of energy.

being a mama

Hannie was thinking the other day as we were diving around down about what she wanted to be when she grew up. She told me that most of all she wanted to be a mama. I told her that was great and that she could be a mama and something else, too, (like a gardner like Ruth told me she should be 'cause she was so good at it...). Hannie said there was too many other things she wanted to be like a teacher or a dancer....

Then that night Hannie hugged Ruth and tucked her into bed for me while Ruth was super tired and needing help. She's a compassionate helper. At the same time, Elijah threw a big fit and I was trying to get him back to bed and settled while he was still crying and unhappy about it. Hannie's voice whispers to me in the dark room, "That is the part I don't really like about being a mama..."

bees are buzzin

One day I explained to Benjamin that I needed to get my devotions and homeschool preparations done during nap time before everyone was up and running. I needed to do those things while it was quiet. Well, Benjamin just got a watch and when he saw it was almost 4:00 and nap time was almost over... he came out to announce to me, "Mom, better finish up, the bees are about to be buzzin!"