Ladies, Ladies…All the Ladies!!

One of the things I LOVE about school are all of the fun EXTRA activities that y children do.  It’s probably one the things I miss most since Will and I have been doing the homeschooling thing.  I mean, we still paint, draw, and color, but I don’t really get the ’surprise’ little treasures stuffed into his book-bag at the end of the day.  I am enjoying Josh’s projects; one of which today made me smile. 

All About Me!–by Josh Pruitt

My favorite food is…..blueberries.  (true)

My favorite song is….I can’t remember  (not a song, just really couldn’t remember one. ha!)

What do daddies do at work?……They help kids that are sick

What do mommies do all day?…..They clean and play on the computer all day

(at least I got one for the cleaning, but seriously 80% of my computer time is when the kids are asleep… PROMISE!)

What would you do if you had a million dollars?….buy a lot of guns and race cars (this is what living in Alabama has done to my child)

What would you like to be when you grow up?…..I want to be a daddy (makes me cry)

I am special because…….Jesus loves me (that’s ALL I would EVER want my children to feel special for.  He will never disappoint!)

I set out this morning to go for a walk downtown Charleston.  Ah!  It’s so good to be in the Low-country again.  It’s so good to feel an ocean breeze on my face.  Stepping out from the Planter’s Inn, I eventually found myself at the Battery.  I love, love, this place.  I love the ships.  I love the beautiful houses.  I love the oaks and the moss.  It’s ALL SOOOO Charleston!  I was flooded with memories.  I remember walking with my friend Sheri along the sidewalks with our boys in tow.  I remembered how on Sunday afternoons Chris and I would bring the boys down here and we would take pictures and watch them play on the cannons and point out the boats.  Yes, I love this place.

I stepped up along the great wall and sidewalk overlooking the water and began walking along it’s edge.  It was silent.  The only sounds really were the footsteps of joggers, the breeze blowing off the water, and the waves slapping against the stone wall.  So peaceful.  All of a sudden I saw some dolphins up in front of me.

Wow!  I thought to myself.  I stood there as I watched them approaching me.  I have never been this close to these great creatures.  I mean, I’ve seen them in all of those Sea World shows, but I’ve never been in the “silence” alongside one.  They were swimming right toward me!  Three of them!  I listened to them gasp for air and them watched the water erupt from their blow holes as they rocked up and down along the top of the water.  Finally they were directly beside me and suddenly a spray of fish flew out of the water and the great beasts dove down, their tails spanking the water and sprinkling my shirt with the spray.  I suddenly found a man standing beside me and I couldn’t help myself, “that was amazing!”  I said.  Then I felt sort of stupid for using the word ‘amazing.’  Clearly, I was a tourist this day.

However, much to my surprise, he was equally in awe for he immediately replied, “They’ve been traveling the wall this entire time!”  Apparently, he had been following them down from the very OTHER end of the Battery wall.  He very quickly passed me by and I turned and watched those porpoises reach the actual “end” of the wall and turn to go back out to the deep water.  Hmmm.  Why is there a tear sliding down my cheek?

I don’t know why I had such an emotional reaction.  I suppose for so long I’ve felt like I’ve been traveling a wall.  Some days I have felt like all I do is come up for air, and then it’s back under the water.  I am forced to just follow the course set before me due to my ‘wall.’  God used those precious dolphins to speak truth to me this morning.  I needed to watch those mammals reach the end and return out to sea.  I wonder if they zig-zagged.  I wonder if they did back flips.  What freedom to be free of the wall.  Walls are temporary.

Everything in this world ends.  The Great Wall of China, which extends for miles and can be viewed from space, ends.  The ozone and atmosphere covering our world eventually has an ending as rockets blast through it’s layers.  All things have an end.  All things except for Christ and our salvation in Him.  When I am up against a wall, or a season of hardship, Satan constantly lies to me telling me this is forever.  There is no ending in sight of this.; that what I am struggling with is NOT temporary and that Christ has no power over it.

However, our precious Maker and Creator is a God of resolution.  He is a God of completion.  It is why when sin first entered the world in the Garden of Eden, God didn’t leave that work incomplete.  He followed through with His plan as He sent Jesus Christ to correct that which had been destroyed.  It is why he screamed, “IT IS FINISHED!”  when the work was done.

I don’t know if any of you are up against any walls at this present time in your lives, but I just want to say that the walls are temporary and they are going away.  They DO in fact end.  How do I know this?  Because the first chapter of Revelation states,

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come..” (v.8)

Wherever we find ourselves up against, HE is ultimately going to finish it.  HE is having the last say.  Whether we experience our resolution on this earth or not, for those of us in Christ, our pain will be put to rest.  It will end.  We must close our ears to the sirens of that devil luring us to believe we have no hope.  When Christ resurrected on the third day, it was the birthday of our hope!  It is everlasting.  All else comes to an end, but our Lord God endures forever.  We must pursue THIS amidst our pain and our struggles..against our walls. 

As I watched those dolphins pick up their speed and swim out in the wide open water, I realized something.  Without a wall, we could never really be able to experience and grasp the freedom of the vast sea; or fully appreciate and understand the freedom of Christ, in whom we believe.

Travel your wall, but remember……. walls end.  Stand upon the walls that never crumble or end; the truths of Christ. AMEN!

Oh, today, today.  Where to begin.  Honestly, I can’t really tell you all what I’ve been dealing with today because it would literally gross you out to the max!  Therefore, I will just say, it’s been a day and I’m glad that it’s over.  I don’t really have anything “enlightening” to share (not that I ever do.)  But if you’re bored, if you’re curious what was going on over at the Pruitt’s while “the Doctor” was away at work, enjoy!

Top 10 reasons I know I am so over this day when…..

1.  A neighbor comes over to our yard while walking her dog and all the kids want to pet it.  After watching the dog steal a quick lick in Josh’s face (gross), she says, “Oh, watch that son, she’s been running diarrhea all day”  (I’d wished I’d not known that information at this point.  This sort of information would have been beneficial prior to the lick.. after, not so much.)

2.  After hearing the word diarrhea my children begin giggling and Emma Faye starts singing “ooooo, diarrhea… ooo, diarrhea!”  All out in our front yard.

3.  Another neighbor calls me out to tell me I need to take down my hummingbird feeder because it’s time for the hummingbirds to migrate and if I keep it up they will stay and die.  (what?  it’s like 85 degrees still.)

4.  After giving my daughter an apple and stepping away for a moment, I return to find she has eaten the entire thing.. core AND ALL.. but spit out all the peel.  (who is she?  a goat?)

5.  Will meets me at the stairs as I walk up after dinner ready for baths and the typical bedtime routine, “Mommy, I’m sorry to say, the playroom is a disaster again.”  (great)

6.  My daughter has been carrying around an entire ball of yarn calling it her “night night string.”

7.  My middle child is bent over naked after his bath singing “shake your ‘hi-nee!’  shake your ‘hi-nee!’”  (where does he come up with this stuff?)

8.  My oldest is watching his younger brother doing this and is yelling, “Mommy Josh is showing me his pirate parts again!!”  (what the heck are pirate parts… then I finally realized he’s meaning “private” parts.)

9.  After reading a bible bedtime story about Jesus calming the storm I say to Will in this order, “Ok, Will get in the book.  I mean the bible, Will, get in the boat…THE BED!”

10.  Finally my daughter takes off running out of the room and totally eats it on the floor, gets up and resumes her run… “Good job, Emma Faye, you run like a cheetah,” applauds Josh.  “Mommy, Emma Faye sure is tough,” comments Will.  “I tough!” declares Emma Faye.  “I am not, GOOD NIGHT TO ALL!”  commands Mommy.

I have always felt very blessed to have gifts in music.  I have never accepted any talents as something I’ve earned or worked for, but something merely given to me by my precious Lord.  Tonight after placing all of my sweet children in their cozy beds, my heart was heavy.  Heavy for prayer.  This week has been so crazy that I haven’t really had “face time” with Jesus.  I hadn’t really taken time to be with Him.  Chris was working and so as I began getting ready for bed I started singing a phrase “hide me in the shelter of your wings.”  I knew this was from a passage somewhere in Psalms…. Psalm 61.  It was a word that I needed tonight.  I read this chapter and was reminded of the Lord’s love for me.  I was reminded that nothing going on down here is being overlooked or forgotten.  It was one of those special times when I really felt the Lord’s presence and I was moved to tears.  I sat in my closet and pulled out my guitar.  It’s sort of sad that’s where it stays mostly, now.  But then, again, now my music is truly for my Lord.  My songs need no special formula or crafty radio “hook.”  Boy, could I share VOLUMES of my struggles in Nashville, dealing with those record label people.  No, tonight I just pulled it out and played music to that little line that I had been singing while my bible, open to Psalm 61, rested on my knee.  This was what fell out of my mouth.  It was exactly what was on my heart-nothing less and nothing more.  May these words comfort you tonight. Those drained.  Those needing comfort and rest.  Those longing to be strengthened or healed. Be reminded.

Hide me in the shelter of Your wings

Lord, hide me in the shelter of Your wings

hear my cry, heed my prayer

Your rock is high, lead me there

and hide me in the shelter of Your wings

Keep me in the tower of Your strength

Lord, keep me in the tower of Your strength

From this earth, I call to You

my heart is faint, but Your word is true

and You keep me in the tower of Your strength.

Whew, life has been difficult here these past few weeks.  Just a LOT of stuff going on!  We have begun the interviewing process for Chris’s “real” job.  He would laugh at me if he heard me say that.  I mean, he’s been working this entire time, but not as an official ER Dr., you know?  He’s still a Fellow.  So it’s just been busy.  He’s finishing up his research, I’m homeschooling, Josh is back in preschool and Emma Faye, well, is everywhere.  Busy is an understatement.  But God is good.  He is sustaining us.  I know this is where He wants us and I know He has His hand on us.  I see traces of His fingerprints on so many things.

In Jeremiah 42 all of God’s people who had been rebellious against their Lord became terrified of the wars that were going on.  They were fearful of the Chaldeans, and the king of Babylon.  They pleaded to Jeremiah, “Please let our petition come before you, and pray for us to the Lord your God, that is for all this remnant…. that the Lord your God my tell us the way in which we should walk and the thing that we should do.” (v.2,3)  So Jeremiah did, and after ten days the Lord answered, “If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you.  Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him, for I am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand.  I will also show you compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own soil.” (v.10-12).  But the people were untrusting.  They couldn’t understand why God would have the sit still in a land that was clearly about to be under attack.  They wanted to flee to Egypt, where they felt would be safer for it was not under attack and food was plentiful.  But the Lord warned against this saying, “if you really set your mind to enter Egypt and go in to reside there, then the sword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt and you will die there.” (v.16).  Still, they left for Egypt.

Wow.  Sometimes I feel like I am those people.  Why do I feel like my idea of protection is safer than God’s?  When given any battle, I’m most inclined to flee to the nearest “safe” place.  But what is “safe?”  What if my Lord is asking me to remain in the war zone as my protection.  Is this most safe?  This was what God’s remnant was facing.  Stay in the battlefield or flee.  Trust in your Lord and endure the hardships of war and exile holding fast to His promises of eventual restoration.  So often it’s my desire for instant results that rules my actions.  For God’s people temporary peace would only lead to death.  Should they stay, God would mold them, grow them, carry them away, then bring them back; strengthening His legacy….. resulting in life! 

How am I making my decisions?  Am I living for temporal fixes, or am I battling through for eternal favor?  The latter of course is the most worthy.  I need to be reminded of this as I sit tight on the battlefield of homeschooling.  It’s a war zone out here…conflicts between my son and me, and conflicts within my heart and my own insecurities; my feelings of inadequacy.  But when I come before the Lord as God’s people begged Jeremiah to plead to the Lord, when I ask the Lord in the way in which I should go, He is ALWAYS faithful to answer me.  And time and time again I have heard His voice telling me to stay put.  I hear His promises.  I am reminded to not fear.  What my own insecurities or Satan’s lies have torn down, the Lord rebuilds.  He has shown compassion to me and He has caused others to extend compassion toward me.  It’s a beautiful thing.  Is it easy?  No.  But if it were easy and not scary, I wouldn’t need Him.  I’m glad I need Him.  I’m glad that I’m safest in war under the mighty hand of my Lord, than out on my own somewhere in some peaceful land.  How else do I learn how to fight, BUT on the battlefield?  I want to be where He wants me.  So I unpack my bags and fight …as I rest, here, in this place…. and in Him.