I miscarried on July 3 and had a D&E yesterday to complete things, so I’m supposed to be resting, not blogging.
But what a perfect day to try out “Five Minute Friday.”
The first lesson I’m learning is how the mundane is truly the great. My heart is grieving the loss of this little one. I will never rock this child to sleep or read her board books or feed her baby cereal or take her to t-ball or teach her about my loving heavenly Father. Our tendency is to think of all these things as mundane, the things we do every day, every minute–until we are confronted with the opposite possibilities–of all those opportunities being taken away. And then we realize the things we often grumble about are the things we treasure the most.
The second lesson is having “open hands.” When we learned that a miscarriage was inevitable, at 9-1/2 weeks, my husband and I prayed that God would give us “open hands.” That we would not “cling” so tightly to the good gifts He has given, that His power and glory could not be seen by us, in us, and through us. Our children are His, gifts on loan from God. Their days are numbered, by Him. He has a special plan.
A third lesson: So thankful for my husband these past two weeks! “For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health . . .”  What a sweet and beautiful mystery that, in looking to Christ together, the “for worse,” “for poorer,” “in sickness” times are sometimes the most precious!

And finally, a fourth lesson, His promises are true. God is always good. God is always loving. God truly walks beside us in the fire
My five minutes are up. So I’m going back to rest. . . More another day!

My favorite part of t-ball just might be picking clover with the littles!

I told Rissy to pick two books to read before bedtime, while I went to put David down for the night.

When I returned, she had made her selections:

I said, ‘TWO books!’ Little Miss Innocent!

Still full of hope, she switched the order of the top two. . .

Picking two books sound simple enough, but it can be a real challenge!

It is that time of year again! We literally could have shoveled the flower petals off our sidewalk this morning. The girls told me they were “flower princesses.”

The kids had a great time tossing handfuls of petals into the air!

Our retired next-door neighbor seemed excited for the chance to get out his leaf blower.

The kids wanted to help, but the neighbor kept insisting that he would sweep away/blow away all the petals.

And yes, you can see Micah clocking his little brother in the face with the broom. . .It was unintentional. But still. David is amazingly resilient! But about this time, I decided we needed to get going to Target and Shoprite. . .

We returned to find our kind neighbor had cleaned off all the petals–and a whole new layer had already fallen.