So the bottom line is - I LOVE SUMMER!!! I love the warmth/heat (sometimes), fruits and veggies (I feel very health-minded writing this), the abundance of flowers, swimming, flip-flops, long evening, and the list could go on and on... Oh yeah, and foggy, cool summer mornings:)
I did have much fun shooting these melons, they were so photogenic as most fruit can be.
A recent search at the local goodwill yielded this lovely glass 'fish' bowl. The first thing I envisioned was a whole pile of flowers in it. So I brought it home rinsed the dust off it and promptly went to pick my flowers. Thankfully this time the bouquet turned out basically like I had envisioned it, unlike previous attempts to arrange flowers. Yes, this thing is HUGE and I ended up sticking over 20 stems of hydrangeas into it to fill it up. Below you can see the finished product as it graces our table.
Moving on... Contentment: What does it look like? Its something that looks different for everyone. This summer I've been on a journey of FINDING it. This summer is only a chapter in my life, but its also a very important chapter because of the lessons learned.
While I was at SMBI, God showed me very clearly that He was calling me to be at home. There was no one moment that I can point to and say 'that was God telling me that He's calling me to be at home'. No, it was more a gradual awakening. I think especially of 4th term tour to Mexico (to those of you who don't know we were gone nearly a month). While on tour I missed my family like I had never before missed them and sometimes it was to the point of just quitting tour and going home. Those of you who know me very well, know that I'm a very independent sort of person and that I very rarely struggle with homesickness. But this time was BAD!!! Is it impossible for God to make a person like me homesick? Absolutely not! I'm sure it was Him. By the time I got home, I was so ready just to be with my family. But in the months following those feelings began to fade and well lets just say that I became very discontent with were I was in life. Believe me EVERY mission opportunity started to look appealing (that's a bit abnormal, not?). And can you guess what happened? Yes, God slammed every single door. For some odd reason every time, it didn't feel like it was the right timing. Slowly, it began sinking into my thick skull that God did indeed call me to be at home.
One morning on my way to work (which happens to be a very short walk). :D I remembered something that I had heard a while back: being discontented is telling God that I know where I need to be and that He doesn't know better. That pretty much stopped me short in my tracks. Then to top it off I happened to read the story of Joseph in my devotions. Well believe it or not some things started to fall into place. While I was reading, God seemed to be saying, ' look here and see what I did in Joseph's life. I had him go down to Egypt and while he was waiting on me do act, he didn't sit around twiddling his thumbs. He was very productive right where I had him, even though I waited years before he became Pharoah's right-hand-man.' That was when I realized that there has got to be a higher purpose for being called to be at home.
I am currently enjoying being at home. My focus has changed from where I can go serve God elsewhere, to learning to serve God right where He has me. And I'm beginning to see a bit of God's reason for having me here: being at home while a HUGE dream of our family's is being fulfilled in building a house and working on relationships here and in the church and youth group. I'm still very human and make mistakes, but that's the beauty of serving such an awesome God because He never gives up on me. And recently I told God that He is in charge of finding somewhere else for me to serve, in His time. So I'm back to the waiting, but this time I hope to be productive in the waiting.
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
-Maria Robinson
Bless you all as you live fulfilled, fruitful lives right where God has placed you!
