Thankful....

Well, its not Monday, but I do have a memorial box story to share....

It is funny (funny odd, not funny haha) that lately, my heart is so raw or tender, that just a few minutes by myself and God, like walking down the sidewalk yesterday out of the office to go to my car and pick up my kids form school, ...I just start crying. It feels like I don't have time to cry...and I am not quite sure what it is I want to cry about....it is just that I feel so raw-hearted. (Part of it is all the Guatamala posts I have read this past week.)....

Some of it is how my heart aches, in love and hopes and prayers, over my children. Which brings me to my memorial box story...

First, I have to say, I won a memorial box from Linny a year ago...it sits on my mantel, with sweet note written on the back, ...but sits there EMPTY. :( Yep. I often read other's happenings..and feel, think, well God does not move that way in our lives, in my life. What would I put in there? But just like when I say, I think God is silent to me...then after a bit I look back on ways he has spoken to me, I think also, He is moving, working, if I just open my eyes to see it.

So here is the first thing I am going to put in our memorial box and the story behind it.

I have been through a season of great struggles, frustrations, heart-ache, rope-endings (ie coming to the end of my rope, often)...and crying out to God in desperation regarding my little family and our interpersonal relationships. Then, recently, thinking God was silent, He actually led me to some great help through a couple of Christian authors (Paul and Ted Tripp). Now I would have never imagined my "wild" children would focus and be willing to spend time together in the word every morning, or even that we could pull it off, with the hectic get up and get ready for work and school.

But.... and I thank Jesus...that He comes in and meets us with that, But God ....

But, God answered prayer and led me to start with my family the reading of Proverbs every morning. Just a baby step...but now, for several days, my children gather at the morning table, each with a new NIV Bible and highlighters. We read 5 verses from the proverbs for that day...and they highlight what ever jumps out at them. We chat a bit about it...pray, then start our day, with God's word in our heart. (I wrote more about it here).

Yesterday, we were running late for school, when we needed to be early, and did not get to do proverbs. It bothered me during the work day, and I thought, well, we could do it at dinner tonight. Yesterday, on the way home from school, before I could even mention it, my little wild Taddy says, "Mom, can we read Proverbs tonight, since we did not get to this morning?" My heart grew two sizes. :) And we did.

This morning, as I looked at all their faces, each reading a verse...one in stumbling English with an Amharic accent, one in learning-to-pronounce first grade reading...each highlighting something in the set of verses...I thought, Yes God. Thank you.

So this is new, this is a start...but I am putting a highlighter in our memorial box to mark when we first started reading the word together as a family. (Better late than never!)