Is the Son in Your Eyes?

Boy, ....for a woman who decided to take the weekends off from blogging I had another moment this weekend that I just had to share.

So one of the things about living in New England is that Winters here are not only cold, but drab. Thickly overcast skies and bland colors in shades of brown, white and gray really don't make for a very cheerful atmosphere. However, they do make you appreciate the sunlight, ANY sunlight, more. After a long succession of drab dark days where barely a hint of blue sky is visible the normal sunny days seem almost glaringly tropical. This weekend we had two of those days. It was still cold out there, but soooooooo bright and sunny, it was WONDERFUL! Driving out in it though, well....when your eyes are acclimated to the dark gloomy palette, AND both pairs of your dark sunglasses are at home because you have to replace screws that fell out...you may feel a little less than thankful for the extremely bright sunlight that's blinding you.

So that was kind of my dilemma this weekend, especially yesterday when I was fighting a migraine. So many times I have been irritable when trying to drive or even when riding as a passenger and it seems that every couple of moments the road curves in such a way that another blinding shot of light finds a space to shoot through causing me to squint and bob my head like some parrot doing the boogie to Rockin' Robin. LOL
In those moments I crave the overcast days because it's convenient and less interfering with MY plans.
Enter my God moment, stage left.
So as we were driving along and I was silently complaining and whining to myself for one stray cloud somewhere over the entire state of Connecticut to get the blasted sun out of my eyes, I had an epiphany. Sometimes those of us accustomed to living in the light are so blinded by the inconvenience of the brightness that we forget what it's like to appreciate the presence of the light at all.
A few years ago during the bleak Winter here we had several weeks of nothing but gray, overcast, dark days.....so many in a row that I remember being in tears because I just wanted some sunlight......ANY sunlight. ( I would NEVER be able to live in Alaska! Three months of darkness....oh no...no, no, no...not for me.) Then late one day we had a break in the skies and the tiniest patch of bright baby blue streaked with the most amazing shades of orange, pink, yellow and red appeared just as the sun was setting. It was the only beautiful color within eyesight and even though it was small and seemingly insignificant in the vast expanse of gray sky, it was GLORIOUS! On that day I would have PAID to have sunlight blinding me!
HMMMMMMMM........So I was thinking.........I was frustrated by the sunlight streaming from seemingly every angle and filling my eyes, but do I shine enough of the light from THE Son that it dispels the bleak darkness for those I come in contact with who are CRAVING light?

Ephesians 5:8 (New Living Translation)

For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!

Yeah sure I give off some light, maybe even more than some others, MAYBE, but I would be a fool to ever think it's enough. ANY Christian who isn't constantly growing to be a better example of our faith by truly reflecting the heart of Christ to those around us needs to remember what it was like to be in the darkness and crying out, craving the light. Instead many of us, and I'm including myself because I'm just as guilty of this, get irritated by the inconvenience of our faith. How often do we say things like, "Well I didn't invite them to church because they probably wouldn't come anyway..." or "Well I didn't want to tell them about my faith because I didn't want to offend them..." or maybe some harder to identify ones like "I would have gone to church today, but I'm just so tired..." or "Well I would have volunteered, but they looked like they had enough help..." Then there are the REALLY hard to spot ones like "I'll pray for you..."...and then promptly forget about that when we are out of sight. OUCH....how many of us have done that one?


That verse in Ephesians I posted above says we are to LIVE as people of the light, not just hop in and out of our persona as it's convenient. We need to keep the memory of what it was like to have no hope, have no joy, have no peace burned on the frontal lobes of our brains so we NEVER forget it. That way we will always remember to shine the light of our faith by actually living it, even when the brightness seems inconvenient to us. I need to remember that too......random people, and some not so random are put in our lives and across our paths on a daily basis for us to shine light to....I pray that you and I both reflect a light so bright that they need sunglasses.

 

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So I know I said I wasn't going to blog on the weekends, but I had to share this because it made me smile and made me think deeper too. Saturdays are one of the busiest days of the week for us because we go out with a team of others and  feed the homeless and low income in our city. Well, that may sound simple, but it takes a lot of prep work starting very early in the morning. Since Ben has been feeling ill he actually opted to stay home today, THANK YOU LORD! He usually pushes himself, but today he realized it wouldn't be wise to go out in the cold.

Well, usually we bag up bread that has been donated to pass out, but because we won't be going out ( I have a migraine that keeps subsiding and then returning...ugh) we went to the home base to drop everything off so they can bag it for us. While we were there I saw one of my girlfriends that I don't see very often, mainly because we just live so far away from each other. Well as we caught up on things her daughter was running around talking and playing. (Here's an old picture I took of her almost 2 years ago...Lord has it been that LONG???) Meanwhile Ben had gone out to the car to wait for me and since I didn't realize how long I had kept him waiting, (you know how it is when you get talking to someone you haven't seen in a while) he came back in to see where I was. Well, little Heather came running in to tell me he had come back in and I told her something to the effect of thank you, I'll have to hurry. Well she toddled off and a minute or so later after Ben had gone back out to the car she came back in and with a big grin and wrinkled nose, told me, "Your prince went outside again".
Now, you know by now that one of my nicknames for Ben is my Prince Charming so I was thinking she must have heard me call him that, plus her mother calls her dad that nickname too. Well, after my heart finished it's "awwwwwwww.........so sweet!!" moment, Sarah proceeds to tell me that Heather calls ALL husbands princes. I've got to tell you, I LOVE that!!! What a great mental picture for her to have of a dad and a husband! The full gravity of that didn't hit me though until after we had left. How many crotchety and biting women do I know that practically demand that their men treat them like queens and then make the men feel like sleazebags if they don't meet their expectations. I can name quite a few unfortunately, but on the flip side how many of those women start off treating the men like their own personal prince charming? Men WANT to be their woman's hero, true, a lot of men have a hard time showing it because they were never shown by their fathers how to express those things, but most women are so busy trying to prove they are self sufficient that they never give their man a chance to be their prince charming. Then they wonder why things go sour in the relationship. How sad.....
Now for those women reading this who are going to be mad at me because you think I'm coming from some naive point of view that has never seen bad relationships etc, you're wrong. I've seen more bad relationships than good healthy ones unfortunately so get your panties out of a bind, but I know that truly happy relationships are possible and a lot of times our own actions or lack thereof dictate the course of things.
So cheers to all you women who willingly and JOYFULLY see and treat your men as the hero he wants to be and to all the men who are their prince charmings! Also, for those of you women out there who treat him that way and haven't seen him turn his heart yet, don't get discouraged....you keep doing what you are supposed to do and eventually your unfailing love and respect for him, even when you feel he doesn't deserve it, WILL turn things....I've seen it happen too many times to think it isn't true. Same goes for you men that have a witchy woman. 

 

 

1 Corinthians 7:16 (New Living Translation)

¹⁶ Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you?

Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin and Romeo

Sigh.....sorry folks, it's been a couple of days I know since you heard from me. I think I must be catching what the bear has or some energy sucking germ, because I have been absolutely EXHAUSTED the past couple of days...today as well actually. Without further ado, let me catch you up on the latest.

Wednesday I worked the early shift which is always a blessing since it means I get out of work at 2:15. Still a full days work, but doesn't feel like it. So after work I went to visit Rachel, aka Rapunzel for the next few weeks. She and Allan have become so close to us that they have also been relegated to that status of family. Only a few more weeks till their little sprout is welcomed into the world and I can't wait. Their close proximity to us will enable me to lavish on the little one all the extra hugs and kisses I have stored up for Beth and Sean's new little sprout since they are so far away, can't let them got to waist. LOL  I am absolutely ecstatic about being asked to be in charge of her baby shower too so Wednesday was our first planning session. We got a lot accomplished, I was concerned she would feel like we hadn't done enough, but to my surprise she said it was more than she had expected, so that was good.  Afterwards I was so tired when I got home that writing a blog entry that night was simply out of the question.

So Thursday was a nice quiet day for the most part. Ben stayed home sick that day, which for him, means he's REALLY sick, which he was, he has been fighting it all week actually. Poor thing was just feeling horrible, to the point that I considered staying home to take care of him, but opted to go in and just let him sleep all day. It was Devon's last day at work. She is going to pursue college and eventually wants to go into a career with helping children. I think she'll be perfect for it. I was able to get out of work a little early and as I drove home I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion, so I had the plan to get home, check on Ben then lay down for a nap till it was time to make dinner. Well, those plans got altered a bit because after I got home I needed to go pick up a prescription for the bear and get a new humidifier since our old one decided to finally give up the ghost. I'll be honest, I was exhausted...I really didn't want to go back out. I quickly reminded myself though of how much Ben does for me when I'm sick and never complains. Well, I ran those errands and grabbed a Chinese soup for myself then came home. After I knew Ben had everything he needed to rest comfortably and the fuzzboy was fed and watered, I ate my soup started to write my blog entry for the night. I still felt a little tired though and it was still early, only 7 or so, so I decided to lay down for a little while and take a quick cat nap. Well, when I was finally woken up from my nap, it was over 4 hours later...it was after 11! I couldn't believe I had slept that long...and I couldn't believe Ben hadn't woken me up. He said he knew I was tired though and needed it so he let me sleep. I considered sitting up and writing my blog entry then, but I was still feeling pretty zonked, so I decided to just go to bed for the night. Sorry all you daily readers.....sleep trumped typing.

Which brings us to Friday, not just any Friday mind you, no I'm happily bringing back MHR Fridays!
(for those of you still unfamiliar with the MHR circle of bloggers please click the title of today's blog entry to be taken to Katy Lin's blog explaining it and feel free to join in the fun.) So this morning Ben woke me up with a kiss on the cheek and whispered in my ear that he had breakfast ready for me. My first response was, "Why are you up? Why aren't you in bed?" Apparently that one prescription and the humidifier were what he needed to get him back on his feet. Thank you God!! I was very thankful to hear that because honestly I worry about him when he's sick. Anyway, a little while later when I finally emerged from the bedroom to come into the kitchen where I heard him rattling around he proudly walked over to me and hugged me. "Look, I made you breakfast! I wanted to take care of you since you took care of me so much this week." (Insert warm fuzzy encrusted AWWWWWWW here) Suddenly I flashed back to yesterday when I was internally grumping about having to go back out because I was so tired and thinking how glad I was that I had kept my mouth shut. He does so much for me all the time in big and small ways, from the basics of working hard to make sure we always have a roof over our heads and food on our table, to doing things like making me a thank you breakfast, it's really a small thing to be able to give back to him when he needs it. So my husband rocks because he never fails to make me feel cherished.
I love you bear, XOXOXOXO
Night all,