It's Raining, It's Pouring, The Kitchen is Flooding

We came home from church and the kitchen was flooded.  "Well, I'm glad we came home before we went to Mom's."  Mike put his swimming trucks on and headed to the roof to clean the gutters.  That probably would have been easier in the sunshine...but wouldn't everything?  Sometimes it just rains.  We piled the towels on the floor, grabbed what we needed for a drop-in reception and dinner at Mom's.  Somehow we weren't all that flustered.  We just did it.  We just kept moving...even in the rain.

It felt like a really long day.  By 8:30 after some snuggling and reading the kids were finally in bed.  Although Mike and I liken bedtime to trying to keep lightening bugs in an open bucket! (That's what our crazy kids do!)  We bellied up to the table for our favorite summer past time...games and the Reba McEntire station on Pandora.  Country just feels good in the summer.  All the oldies rush back...George Strait (LOVE HIM), Tracy Lawrence (Loved him briefly) some Reba (Fancy don't let me down!)...maybe some Travis Tritt...good stuff!  So, I dragged myself from my comfy chair (here's George Strait now...dancing in my chair...he's got a fool-hearted memory) to the kitchen chair and remembered I never wiped up the floor where Big C ate...and then deposited all of her unwanted food onto the floor.  Unfortunately my dog doesn't eat his veggies either!  "UGGGG I never wiped that up."  This won't last forever. 

Yesterday I caught up with my friend Hazel from up the street. I've mentioned her before and I always leave her porch with new and refreshing perspective.  She raised 3 kids in her little house, buried her husband 25 years ago, and always has time for us to sit on her porch.  Listening to Hazel talk about her children's children gives me that dose of "all life is a vapor" that I need.  She's the one that told me when I was pregnant with Ella that "the Lord always makes room for more children."  How right she was.  We are trying to remove those things that are taking up too much space and bring some order and beauty to our little abode, and it's exciting and daunting.  Mike has a HUGE task for the summer, building shelving for our living room (which is really our house) and it keeps raining. I don't feel like it's going to stop, and we sort of need the sunshine.  But, what are we to do?  In the south when it rains this is what everyone says, "Whew, would you look at that rain. Well, we sure needed it."  We always do.  We always need the rain, but it sure makes the sunshine brighter! 

So, to keep from rambling...sometimes it just rains.  We have to just keep moving.  This is a tough time of parenting.  The constant training and teaching, but then I look at my older children who are growing and changing and becoming such cool people to be with and I see the Son-shine.  The wonderful thing is that He sends the rain because we need it.  We need the rain to water our ground so that all that is green can survive.  He is planting things in our lives that will not survive without the rain.  So, we keep moving and growing and thriving and enjoying our baby and growing children amidst the mess and chaos and noise because the rain is just as much of a blessing as the sun.

Isa 45:8 -

"You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; I, the LORD, have created it.

Ho 6:3 - We sang this verse in Africa, and I have always loved it!

Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."