Every Boy's Dream..

Last year, my boys were whining and complaining. Every other boy gets to go hunting with their dad. They were just poor boys who would never get to hunting. They would be damaged for life. There was just no hope for them. 😏

I told them to pray about it instead of feeling sorry for themselves.




See the thing is, they have pics of M (my late husband) in their bedroom. They have a pic of him at 13 with his first buck. M was an obsessive hunter. He was either enjoying hunting or counting days until the next hunting season. I really wanted my boys to enjoy hunting. This was a special connection for them. Tho they had never met M, his legacy lives on in them.


                                            
So the poor boys thought they were destined to life of never hunting.. which would probably require years of therapy. :) but God knows the desires of our hearts...

Last fall, their friend Mr. S offered take them hunting, but somehow I had dropped the ball and did not get them to their hunter safety course.  So they were quite unhappy. In the spring of 2017, I took my oldest 3 to get their hunter safety course done. 

Now the problem remained.. they wanted a crossbow.. They begged and pleaded, but mom refused.. So Aunt M and Uncle A came to the rescue. The bow made it's way all the way from Ohio, via some furniture delivery trucks. My boys were quite tickled that the delivery guy didn't bat an eye that two young, black men would pick up a bow send from the amish grandpa in Ohio. 

So Mr. S, our neighbor took the boys hunting. He took Lee out the first night. They went about 30 minutes away, spend an evening in the tree and didn't see a thing.
One rainy fall evening, Mr. S stopped by and asked if David wanted to hunting up on the hill behind our house.  It was a rainy afternoon.. They headed out, David's first hunting adventure. After only an hour in the tree, a nice 10 point buck, stepped out in front of the treestand. A quick shot and the deer leaped up, flipped over and ran off. They searched for the deer for hours and hours in the rain. Finally at dark they gave up.

The next morning, Mr. S, his son J, and my 4 oldest kids went tracking after this deer. They searched for about 30 minutes before finding the deer. David was so amazed, he could not believe that HE HAD SHOT A BUCK!

The boys wanted to mount the head, but that obviously was not in moms budget, so we googled how to do a skull mount. The boys have worked together as a team to skin the head and prep it for rotting away the brain etc..

It's the moments like this, when I know that God cares for the fatherless and he cares about every little detail.

Summer Fun

I am way on behind with my blogging. I really need to update from our summer fall! We have had so much fun in the past couple months! So many fun things that I need to document! :)

First there was the eclipse, then I took the girls to a Secret Keeper Girl Live Event. Meanwhile the boys got to hunting and Jeremiah shot a 10 point buck. I took the boys to see Nicky Cruz at a local fundraiser and a friend took the girls and I to a Chris Tomlin Concert! (We had floor seats, it was AWESOME!)

I will start by sharing some of our pictures from the eclipse. Thanks to a friend, who wanted me to pick up glasses for her,I was prepared with eclipse glasses. (prior to her asking me to do that I had no idea we needed glasses). We invited our friends to join us in watching the eclipse.

We watched the eclipse  coverage live on NASA for hours. 

The kids noticed the strange leaf patterns! This was really cool.
It was rather cloudy so we did not get to fully enjoy the eclipse. But it was a neat experience. 

This was our viewing deck! 

I took the girls to a Secret Keeper Girl Live Event. We left the boys and Abi with friends. First we stopped at Sweet Frog and ate entirely to much sugar and junk. 

Despite the looks on their faces, they had a lot fun.

My two beautiful daughters! I am so thankful I get to be their mother. WE have all done so much growing in the last year. I love seeing them become young ladies who love Jesus. 

Cape Cod..

In Sept a dear friend of ours, blessed us with a week of vacation at their timeshare in Cape Cod. Many years ago, M and I had gone to Cape Cod for a vacation and it was one of m favorite vacation spots.

We had such a relaxing, delightful week. We stayed in a small resort right on the beach. We had a tiny cottage next door to the indoor pool and the playground. The beach was only a short walk from our cottage. We made some incredible memories...

Ask not what God can do for you, but what you can do for Him.

Something that a friend said to me.. and again came up in the books I was reading this week. Don't ask God to bless you, to give you what you want. Instead start each day by asking what you can do for God. So I have been mulling over this a lot lately. I am constantly asking God to help me, to provide for me, to fill in the gaps for me. I need Him in order to do what I do... He answers frequently with blessings beyond what I could ever imagine. Sometimes He says no. I have learned to trust. But now I am trying to start each day with asking God what I can do for Him. Instead of asking for my needs to be met, I am praying that I could do something for for Jesus. Which is mostly showing His love to my kids and the people I encounter in the day to day, it's nothing big or extravagant. It's small, little everyday things.

So then the question has been in my mind of, how then do I present my needs to my Father when my goal is to have a relationship where I am serving more than I am asking for my needs to be met. I have not come to a good conclusion.. but I had this little thing happen tonight that bolstered my faith and gave me confidence to continue on this road. So every 6 months we butcher a jersey steer that we raise. We ran out of hamburger 2 weeks ago. We eat approx 10 lbs of beef every week. So this is kinda a big deal. Today I was menu planning. I went down to see what I have in my freezers. I had a pile of freshly butchered ground sausage and scrapple(another God story for another day), some turkey sausage (yet another God story) and 2 pks of chicken, along with prepackaged burgers. Our next steer will butchered in about 4 weeks. So I said it once "God, I am sorta out of meat for dinner. Thanks for the ways You have provided before." I did not fret or worry. I was able to menu plan for the next week with what I have here. I also asked God how he would have me serve him, as my goal is to change my habitual prayers to praise and the desire to serve instead of just asking for my needs to be met. Several hours later, we were having a loud and chaotic dinner conversation when we heard someone knocking loudly on the door. It was a neighbor, I don't know them well. But they are always friendly and kind. They own a farmer's market stand. They had come bearing a bag of fresh meats!! Yummy meat from their meat stand. They had no idea that I was out of beef. They had no idea of the prayer I had breathed as I menu planned for dinner meats. They had no idea.. yet... they showed up with these blessings. Now sometimes it's hard for me to accept these gifts. Especially when I have no way of repaying them. This is not the first time they have brought meat with divine timing. I know it's just meat. But when you have four hungry preteens, it's sorta a big deal. So what I learned today is that we are to serve Jesus, to look for ways to do things He needs us to do. But He also wants to bless us. He cares about these things. He really does and if we are obedient He will give us good gifts. (Another God story) So these same neighbors... back in April on the day that would have been our 12th wedding anniversary, I had had a long day. (it's a day that is really only remembered by me, as it has little significance to anyone else.) At the end of the very long day, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to see this same neighbor family, they brought us meat and sub rolls. They had no idea, none that the significance of this day. But they had felt led, and they brought us this blessing. It felt like this little God hug..