Times of Refreshing

Jeff just said, “Wow hon you haven’t blogged in awhile.”  I know. I know I know I know.  Right now my eyes are burning they’re so tired, the washing machine is humming, Heidi is asleep in the closet, and I’m feeling totally overwhelmed with preparing to speak at the women’s luncheon on Saturday. I know what I want to say but have no idea how to say it.  So I just sit here and pray. And wait.  And fold laundry.  And try not to look at the stack of Jeff’s shirts to iron, that is now overflowing the edge of the laundry basket.

Today I had my last mentor meeting, handed in my final tally of internship hours–all 140 of them–and picked up my cap, gown, and hood. This hooding thing is strange.  But that’s really irrelevant so we won’t go there.  Yes, it has been four long years finishing my master’s in seminary.  Yes, I’m excited to be done and to walk next Friday.  But our life is so full right now I can hardly focus my blurry eyes let alone celebrate.

Here’s a fun snapshot of how life is–in the past five days I have scrubbed butt paste off two dozen surfaces, toys, books, clothes, quilts, bedding, and body parts.  We had a marathon trip to McMinnville to get the last of our stuff, fix up some things, sign closing documents, and carted a trailer full of stuff off to park for five days. Jeff taught at multnomah, we havea stack of papers to grade, then we drove to Bend for a quick vacation before coming back Saturday, heading straight to church, staying up late to celebrate a birthday, heading to church services all morning Sunday, then a real marathon of delivering stuff to people’s houses to store for us, then going down to Corvallis to do a walk through with our renter who moved out and stage that house for sale.  No details are needed but let’s just say that trip was one of the most emotionally exhausting things I’ve done in a long time.  Jeff was mowing the lawn in the pouring down rain while I nursed Heidi on the floor and resorted to etertaining Dutch with Bob the Builder playing continuously on the laptop.  We ate peanut butter sandwiches Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Yeah.  Today Heidi and I braved the torrential downpour and went to the registrar’s office, the library, the computer lab, the seminary building, and then had dinner with my mentor.   It was then, as I was sitting talking to my mentor about serious seminary matters when I shook my head and thought to myself, “Hm, that’s funny I only feel one earring dangling.”  As she spoke I slowly lifted my hands up casually to my ears, trying to be sublte.  Sure enough.  One and only one big dangly earring.  Awesome. Par for the course. Sure enough, I got home and there was the other one sitting on my nightstand. 🙂 So now I’m home and blurry eyed and asking God for grace to teach the women’s luncheon this Saturday.  SO excited for it–but so tired.

But in the middle of all this we had the sweetest time of refreshing.  An elder at church gave us a two night stay at Sunriver in their cabin.  I was totally dragging my heels about going–with so much going on, it kind of just felt like another thing on my to-do list. Plus packing for our family of four includes a LOT of diapers and clothes and toys and sippy cups.  In the midst of the busyness what suffered was apparently my attention to packing FOOD–we had two totino’s pizzas which I bought at walmart in Bend, two cans of soup, a loaf of bread with peanut butter and some oatmeal.  Mmm.  Nothing says luxurious vacation like sharing a can of soup with your toddler for dinner :-).

But it was SOOO great. I sound like I”m joking but I”m not. It was the most refreshing, sweet time we’ve experienced in so long. Just to sit in the car, with the kids occupied, and being able to actually talk, catch up, sing our hearts out to Chris Tomlin and Rend the Heavens, watch the fluffy white clouds against the brilliant blue Central Oregon sky.  We lounged in our sweats, spent hours at the fantastic kiddi wading pool at the Sunriver aquatic center, and laughed our heads off as Dutch splashed and “swam” and slid down the water slide and ran around like a crazy boy.  We hooked up with old friends, staying up late talking about how good our God is and what He’s doing in our lives.  We walked for miles, thanking God again and again for our double stroller.  We sipped tea. We napped.  We prayed.  We searched for houses online and dreamed and prayed some more.  It was SO good.

So no real lesson here, I Just wanted to touch base.  I’m drooling with anticipation of the wide open calendar I see in the very near future, after Saturday. For now I need to focus, study, pray, and be faithful, trusting God will meet His women on Saturday.  But in the midst of a really crazy time, I’m so thankful for times of refreshing.  And thankful for generous people who have Sunriver cabins. 🙂 However, just for the record, we’re not partial–we’ll take free vacations anywhere! Any offers?