home and heart

Ahhhh.

Matt spent all day Monday re-screening all the windows, and now we have good screens! (and an outdoor cat).  Several good friends came yesterday, not just to visit and catch up, but ended up spending the day helping me with laundry, mopping, dishes, everything.  Shay is taking Advil, and our gracious pediatrician friend caught us up on some of the girls weird rashes, we hooked up Dodo and Bubba's sprinkler (miss you guys!), a good friend church is sending us a fan, and suddenly, we are at home again.

Yesterday was just plain beautiful.  In small groups throughout the day, good friends came to see us.  Lily, who I thought had forgotten everyone, started dancing and squealing the moment she saw Gertha walking down the drive, and couldn't keep herself from running to Micheline when she rounded the bend.

When I was giving Lil a bath yesterday morning, she noticed that we were out of toilet paper.  "Mom," she said, "we need to go to Sandy's house...SOON!  I LOVE Sandy's house!"

Sandy is the penny-ride horse at Meijer, and running to Meijer in Ohio quickly was replaced with running to "Sandy's house."

I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.

Here was my little girl, whom I love so dearly, and she wanted to go to Meijer, and I felt like I had taken that away from her.  Took her away from things that she loves to be here.

But the moment her squirmy butt and bobbing pig-tails ran down the driveway in sheer delight, and as she talked to us all evening about her "friends", told us that "Maxi loves me, Kerline loves me, Gertha loves me..." and as she waved each friend good-bye with a loud, "Where is my friend going?"...I felt the Lord replace the concern in my heart with joy.  I'm not the only one learning that it's about the relationships, not about stuff, and just as He has been faithful through the years to give us so much true joy in being here, He is giving it to Lily, as well.  (Now if only we could get our families to move down!)

We had a wonderful time with lots of laughter with many friends...Pehpay, Vilmer, Belo, Naomi, Sheila, Micheline, Gertha, Luke, Abel...followed by Maxi and Kerline for supper.  Lily fell asleep joyful and grateful, and we did, too.

My devotional time yesterday afternoon when both girls were napping (ahhh) drove it home...

Following the reading of the rich young ruler... "Everything counts as naught until the Lord gets us absolutely remade from the inside--until the disposition of holiness is planted within us...holiness of heart and life.  Jesus is the enemy of every love, every relationship, and every aim that does not aid the sanctification (consecration, set apart as holy) of the soul."  

So exciting that He doesn't just offer us change or a good bleaching, but offers to "absolutely remake" us from the inside...create in us a NEW heart.  Praying for that planting again and asking Him to clean house of whatever He wants to, just as we've been cleaning house these last days!

And not a moment too soon, because there is a LOT to do!