Rain, Rain....don't go away (too soon)

We've had some unusually beautiful rainy days here - you know... the kind of rain that just falls, gently, all day long, and really soaks the ground. The kind of rain that quenches your dry and thirsty soul and makes you just want to curl up on your bed with a good book, a cup of tea, and an open window - before you take a long nap! :) With four little ones (well...some of them aren't so little anymore :) that nap doesn't happen - but it's nice to at least be able to imagine it! :)

As I type this, Lillian is surfing around the chair I'm sitting in, babbling "Mamamamama" over and over again, laughing and slapping the window excitedly every time she hears a magpie or sees a chipmunk run by .... Jenna is running some bathtub water ... Ian is sleeping away (or, reading his assigned summer reading for his upcoming high school year- hopefully the latter! :) ... and Julie-Joy should be on her way home from swim practice with a friend. Life kind of hums a long, gently, and the comfort and routine of it all is as nurturing and soothing as the gently falling rain outside the window.

It seems all the more important as I know that routines are about to change - and new routines will start up. It always takes a while to adjust to new routines doesn't it! :) 

My sister Julie arrives on Saturday and we're all so excited to see her.  Then Tuesday late morning Reid, Lillian and I will head to the airport and fly out to California for Celebrate Recovery's training program at Saddleback church. We're looking forward to spending some time with the other members of our church who are going as well and covet your prayers for the days ahead and for the kids while we are gone (Ian will be on a high school back-packing trip for part of that time). We get in late

Saturday and take Julie to the airport the next morning. Then Monday we leave for Mt. Elim Bible Camp for the annual three day Timberline staff retreat.  And as soon as we return life explodes with school meetings and Classical Conversations preparation meetings and Bible school prep etc.  In the middle of it all we have some other decisions we need to make prayerfully as well e.g. about housing etc.

That's life in a nut shell. I hope to post a brief update from the conference next week and will close with this thought - in just a few weeks, a new group of students will be coming to Timberline to study His Word and grow in their relationship with Jesus. It's a good reminder to me of what Isaiah 55 says:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall break forth into singing,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 

On that note, may we all find time to sit and soak in His Word today - may it succeed in the thing for which He sends it and produce much fruit in our lives!