The things the Lord reveals

Had a pretty good day today. I am an outdoors person and so is my 20 mo. old son so it's getting hard being indoors so much now that it's been below freezing so many days. I like the fresh air and exercise and taking my son out in his "car", a red car with a steering wheel, horn and handle so I can push him. Well today we were finally able to go out and we took our half-hour morning walk. It was a little cold at 27 but the wind wasn't bad. Julian chatted away while we were walking and I like to use the time for prayer. Julian and I had some time later to worship as I found a really great CD with 100 classic Bible songs for kids. He loves music and I love singing to him. He moved and grooved a little bit but then was off playing with his Little People.

Julian still takes a morning nap (what a blessing) so I had a nice quiet time. I'm moving along in my Women of the Bible study and this week we're reading about Deborah from Judges. I've done a study of Judges in the past so this is good review. It amazes me how the Lord puts her in an incredible place of leadership and she has such a heart of faithfulness. It was pointed out how Deborah makes herself available to the Lord and this is where I started getting convicted ... I thought deeper about that and asked myself, am I making myself available to you Lord? Really available? Or just available for things that "suit me" or that I like to do (or have to do). I feel the Lord stretching me in this area to really lay some things down and open myself up for other areas & ways he may want me to serve him.

I had some worship time and it was really nice. I haven't for a long time just sat and been still before the Lord in this way, listening to worship music and opening my heart for whatever the Lord may speak and bring to mind. I was especially moved by Fernando Ortega's song Give Me Jesus. I've heard this so many times but today it really touched me. Being still before the Lord and listening to this I thought about the lyrics "you can have all this world, give me Jesus" and again felt the nudge of conviction. I was asking myself, can I really say that and have it be true for me? Am I that surrendered to the Lord and not in love with the world or are there some things in the world that are capturing me and pulling me away from Him? I can come up with a few areas of my life (eating/leisure time/prayer time) where I battle to have Him first. Thank the Lord that he continues to show me these things, but better still Lord give me a heart so on fire for you that I act on these convictions and take ground in these areas I struggle. That is my prayer. So it was a really good time with the Lord today.

We had an invitation for lunch so we joined my friend (and babysitter) Karen at Culver's, literally our favorite restaurant. It's great for kids. Plus we get free ice cream with the child meal which he and I share. All he really ate were the fries! He ate a few bites of cheese & some crackers but kept going back to the fries. He loves to say hi to people when we're out it's so cute. Later we ran some errands at Target and he kept saying hi to people he saw in the aisles. He kept asking for different things off the shelf saying "tank-oo" which is the way he says thank you, as if by saying thank you I'd grab it for him. We came home and the first word out of his mouth was a pretty close "groceries". He loves helping me put groceries away. If he can lift it out of the bag he's all over it. He hands it to me, I say thank you and he's off to get the next item for me. It's one of the things I look forward to now after shopping. My little grocery partner.

He had an afternoon nap and when I got him up he surprised me with his game of peek a boo. Normally he hides his face with his blanket and says "peek a boo" and I say "Where's Julian?" and he pulls the blanket from his face. Well this time he put his blanket over my face! He's never done that before so it caught me off guard but within a second or two I was the one saying "peek a boo". It's wonderful to see him initiating games.

What a fun day.