Blessed in my prayer time today

Since we didn't get to go over the weekend, this morning I put together my menu for the week and took J to do our grocery shopping. He's still my little helper in putting things away.

In my devotional time, I continued in Luke 9. I am already more than halfway through the study. One of the things this study is about, Beth says, is being able to put ourselves in the shoes of Christ's disciples. I started to pray for my time with God and was turning my heart and mind to him and it was like I could feel him turning to me like he was taking my hand to draw me close. It was a really neat moment. The study today was about the transfiguration; Jesus takes Peter, James and John upon a mountain and his face changed and his clothes became bright. They were witnessing his glory. Then a cloud came and a voice said "This is my son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." (Verse 35). Just as Jesus revealed more of himself to his disciples, as our relationship with him deepens, he reveals more and more of himself to us. There is always more to learn about him! I also read from Ecclesiastes ch. 4. In the last chapter, we were learning that God has a wonderful plan for each life. In ch. 4 the question is raised how can a loving God allow certain things to happen? I think that's a good question. The author shares that if we accept that God's motives come from a loving heart, we can enjoy all of life, even the painful parts.

It was a really hot day today. It got over 90. After lunch, we went outside and J played with his lawn mower while I raked up the grass left over from mowing. I used the grass as mulch in my little garden. J helped me lay it on the plants. I got J's pool out of the box and started blowing it up. That was a lot of work! J ended up getting too hot so I let him cool off inside for a bit and then finished blowing it up and putting the water in the pool. I think we'll use it tomorrow since it got a bit late.

When J saw his pool from the window after his nap he wanted to go swimming. It was hard to tell him we'll need to wait until tomorrow since he seemed so excited. He's been enjoying a See and Say talking toy that has numbers 1-10 in different colors. It has him pick the number by its color and press it. He rushes through it when he does it on his own, but as I played with him for a while he would follow the voice and pick out the colored number as I encouraged him. He's beginning to move from learning to say (most) of the numbers 1-10 to just starting to learn to recognize the numbers by sight.

I had a good workout at the Y tonight running for 20 minutes and walking for 10. For J's bedtime story, daddy read from the Jesus Storybook Bible I learned about from my blog friend Tea at Homemaker's Heart (http://myhomemakersheart.blogspot.com) There are wonderful stories of the bible with each one pointing to the underlying theme of Jesus. Yesterday at church J was learning about David and Goliath. After church, he was talking about the giant and showing me these little paper David sandals he "made" with help. So daddy read him the story of David and Goliath. He was excited telling me how the giant went crash.

I just saw the temp and it's 80 at 10pm. I'm thankful for our A/C. We can't keep it very low but it still helps with the humidity. High of 86 tomorrow! The little pool should feel good for J.

As a postscript I thought I'd add something encouraging I just read. This is from the website of the magazine Thriving Family, a Focus on the Family publication. They have some really good articles from time to time that really speak to me. Here's an excerpt from the post "Mommy Tasking": What we moms need, what our minds miss most and what our hearts intensely seek is the seemingly lost ability to monotask. We long for a quiet moment on a porch swing to laugh with a child, a chance to linger over dinner with our husband and the satisfaction of allowing a burgeoning idea to playfully work its way through our brain....
The article is about multitasking and how that can take over a mom's life. She continues: Multitasking isn’t just a solution for improved productivity; it's a value statement that says more is always better and quiet times are unproductive times. I suspect that God couldn’t agree less. The Bible does not say, “He leadeth me in the path of astounding productivity and dizzying accomplishment whereby He is exceedingly impressed.” No, God wants us to lie down in green pastures, and He wants to lead us beside still waters to restore our souls. This really spoke to my soul.