**The Work of Art "Bee" by AEP**
It’s funny how sometimes we don’t even have to try to be like our parents, some of them learned, some of them just because we are their kids, some of them because we have their genes… whatever the case is, we sometimes just don’t have to try we just are like them. Yesterday I was watching the movie, “Dan in Real Life”. Again I’m not promoting movies, just borrowed it from HB. Didn’t know it was about a widower, but he said something toward the end of the movie that made me think about this. He was telling his girls that he sees his late wife all the time… in his eldest’s goodness, in his middle’s passion, in his youngest’s eyes… and he just talked about how he would or actually couldn’t ever forget his late wife.
I see so much of P in A, actually I see both of us in her. I love the way she is like P and laugh at the way she is like me. It’s great that someone is like you, but I also think of how P would like the ways she is like me and just laugh at how much he loved me and how much he loved A… and how much more he would love her at the way she’s growing. He always said that he wanted her to be like me. And sometimes I think of if the tables were turned, P would do the same things I’m doing now… realizing how much she is like me without me even being there.
A loves to sing, which is like P, but she also loves to dance like me. I love it. A loves to draw like P and she’s quite good at it. The other day she brought me a picture and said it was a bee. I looked at it and was so surprised at how good it was. She and her friends will sit down for a long time drawing. A likes to fix things and put things together like me and her Aunt AP, which there is no blood relation, but funny how both of the P men got married to women who like that. So A will walk around looking for things to fix. She’ll ask if she could borrow my hammer and tools… One time she sat with her broken toy, can’t remember what it was now, but was working on it with my real tools to fix it. ha ha… Of course, I got that from my mom. A has beautiful long gorgeous lashes just like her daddy and cute little flat nose like me. A’s outgoing like both of us and loves people like both of us. A loves fishing, which neither of us loves, but P did grow up going fishing. A loves to read like her daddy, now mommy likes it, but before I did not. A is real quick at things like me… P would definitely agree with this, that my common sense surpasses his. Ha ha… A has a real gentle spirit like her daddy and cares for so many hurting people, she’ll remember who is sick at night and pray for them. She will also stop me at the grocery store if someone is crying to pray for them. I could go on and on… but I say this to say… that one day A will probably think or even ask if I have forgotten daddy, but I just have to look at her and he’s there. He’ll always be a part of us… even some of the things that I do… I do now because of him.
I was sick yesterday. I wish I could tell you what was wrong, but I woke up a little of the not so good side. Anyway, I was in bed all day yesterday and then today I woke up so much better. I went about my usual morning stuff and then took a shower so I could take A to school… and I felt light headed and not so good again. So our helper took A to school and I stayed home. I sat in our tv room and did my quiet time.
Now let me explain about my quiet time. I felt like for a little while, it’s been a little dry. Today I figured out what it was… I have been doing my quiet times, reading and writing down scripture and thinking about it, but for a while… can’t really think how long, I haven’t been praying about it. I would pray, but today as I was doing my quiet time, I would write down a verse and pray that verse over myself or the person I thought of or a situation I knew of… something I learned from P… anyways… today as I was doing this, I thought… why this is so good. And I felt the Lord tell me, “Be still and know that I am God”. That was it… I cut my quiet times short because of how busy I was, but I really need my quiet times to get through the day… and I cut it short in the most important way… my prayers. In a way, I was glad I was sick… to just sit and relax with God and hear from Him what He has to say to me.
I read Romans 8 today… I love His word. So in verses 5-6 it says, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” I’ve been praying through some things about our future. I’m not sure which direction the Lord is leading us after our year here, but as I read this, I had such a desire to be spiritually minded that I may have life and peace. How I do not desire to live in the flesh… how meaningless and what it leads to is so not worth it. Just a makes me reflect how much of my mind is flesh and how much of it is spiritual. I was talking to a few friends and just talking about how our life would be so different if even in the little things we sought what the Lord wants from us. My friend, KS, e-mailed today to tell me that God knows even how many steps we take… He wants to know even that from us, enough to put it in scripture to tell us HE knows, so of course He wants to be a part of our decision in whether we should buy the red shoe or the black one.
There is so much to share with what I read, but that’s all I’m going to share right now. I wanted to actually talk about how much God is able and get so frustrated when people say things like, “that was just in Bible times”. Maybe I said this before, but if Hebrews says that He is the same yesterday, today and forever, why wouldn’t He do such things now. Again KS e-mailed like last week to tell me that she was reading Exodus and said something along the lines of, “the Israelites were walking through a huge freakin wall of water”. Sunday my pastor talked about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel 3. I mean seriously a huge freakin wall of water and surviving a fiery furnace. Why don’t we call out for these things now? Me included… I was talking with a friend Monday night and we were discussing how we just have this conflict with ourselves on being from the states and seeing what God does here… How sometimes it’s hard to have faith that He will do what He asks us to do… Fear is what it comes down to. Ugh How I pray the Lord will strengthen me to what HE wants me to do and not chicken out. LORD let me only fear you.
