Learning the Sweetness of Sundays

The Lord has been to doing a great work on my heart regarding the JOY of the Sabbath day.  It's plain and simple Sunday can the busiest, craziest, most stressful, and often times the unhappiest day of the week, if I allow it.  This dread of Sunday mornings all started the first Sunday we took Levi to church.  He was four weeks old and was being baptized.  It took me over TWO hours of non-stop WORK to get us out the door on time that morning.  I am a very slow when it comes to changing so learning this JOY has taken over two years and still needs much work.     

Levi's baptism was delightful!

Everyone was able to come, even G.G. Anne & Pop Pop.

One of my favorite Sunday activites has become playing "dress up" with my sweet girl.  (What was I thinking when I thought I wanted her to be a boy?!?!  I would have missed out on so much!)  I have gotten to where I have to restrain myself...we were running late after taking pictures this morning and I forgot her hair bow.  I didn't realize it until we were singing the first song in church.  I began to stress.  My first thought was to go dig through the diaper bag to see if I could scrounge one up.  Thankfully the Lord reminded me that I was there to workship HIM and my worship would be just fine without a hair bow. 

What a treat to have Bear-Bear sit with us at church!  He was and always is a JOY to sit with, especially when Josh has to work.  We never would have made it through church in one piece with out him today.  Both kids had a bad case of the "wiggles.'' 

This week I have had a few friends praying that I would learn to rest in the Lord.  Today at nap time the Lord gave me a very tangible lesson on how HE ALONE keeps it all together for me.  He's got it.  He doesn't need me stressing and planning and stressing and replanning.  At 1 o'clock I laid Mary Kathryn down for her nap and I decided to turn a movie on for Levi so that I could rest on the couch for a few minutes.  Well, that rest turned into an hour and a half comatose type of sleep.  I was O.U.T. and Levi had free reign of the house.  I remember the movie going off and him saying, "Upstairs.  Time for nap."  But I didn't move.  When I finally woke up at 2:30 the house was quiet and I was FREAKING OUT!  I could only imagine what I would find when I got up.  I laid there an eatra minute and prayed.  The Lord was gracious and had been taking great care of Levi.  I found Levi and BeeBee resting on the couch in the playroom.  Levi was so very excited to see me because he knew nap time was over .  He squealed with delight, "Mommy, wake now!" 

Part of resting in the Lord is trusting my husband.  I had a test in that area today and I passed!  I don't pass very often, but today I did and the reward was better than I could have imagined.  The test: I had been planning to go to our Home Group at 5pm, but when Josh woke up this afternoon with a headache he asked if we could stay home and have family time.  My answer:  OK!  Sounds great!  My reward:  One of the most fun conversations I have ever had with Josh.  I'm not really sure how it all played out, but he started talking about how hearing certain songs on the radio bring back memories and last night he heard a song that made him remember this really fun night in college.  As he was talking, I was putting all the pieces of his story together and realized I knew exactly what he was talking about.  There was this one Sunday night back after Home Group at the Bradford's and we had gone over to the Sullivan Building at Anderson College to swing dance with a bunch of people from RUF.  I looked across the table and said, "I remember that night!  I had a BIG crush on you, but hadn't told anyone."  As we continued talking about the fun we had that night my heart flooded with all the giddy emotions I remember feeling that night. 

In the midst of dinner and getting Josh ready for work Mary Kathryn let us know that she may not be crawling but she is very mobile.  I was standing at the sink and it sounded as if her little babbling voice was getting closer to me.  I turned around and there she was!  I had left her in the livingroom and she had some how made her way to the hall.  Delightful to see her little personality coming out!

After he left for work the kids and I had a fun evening enJOYing the playroom dispite that disaster it was.  It is so nice to see Mary Kathryn actually playing.  She is picky about her toys.  She knows when you give her a baby toy, she wants big kid toys. 

        

 Levi loves "booming on the drums"

   the rest of the family can only take so much of the drums...

Our day of rest was concluded by giving Mary Kathryn a "sink" bath.  I LOVE that she is a steady sitter and can take sink bathes.  So much easier on the kness!