A weekend of Camping Out at Home

A blessed weekend. Boy did we camp out a few times (read about it further down). My home is a perfect retreat center and a place to relax, get away from the busyness and the noice and for me it doesn't mean going anywhere. Cecilia and her two children came to hang out for the weekend. It was real relaxing for me as well as for them. Cecilia commented that it was relaxing because there were no real visable clocks. Her husband was out of town and when she heard the need for me to have someone with me she called and said, "We are coming. " They live about 45 mintues from me.

I really relaxed and enjoyed the children (Cecilia too) very much. They gave me so much love, hugs, support, help, and attention. Cecilia feels it is a very good experience for the children to learned to help those who are sick. I was feeling pretty good and quite up to normal so I could enjoy baking cookies withe the kids, watching the World Cup games, watching the kids have fun in the backyard with the water ball sprinkler, enjoying my food, having company, playing hangman and connect four and other games. Taking some nice walks. Walking the dog. Went to church and then out to eat.

Saturday evening we were blessed with some visitors from Colombia. A dear family to me taht I stayed with for a bit in Colombia came over . I am thankfuol for the time they found to come and see me with their busy travel schedule. Rita is a cancer survivor and recently has been on this road but a much fore difficult one due to a different type of cancer. Went for a nice walk, enjoyed the homemade cookies, enjoyed their company, the children enjoyed walking the dog and building with the blocks. It was an enjoyable evening.

One of my special times with the children was when I read to them a bed time story about, "Can we hear God?". All weekend long the message we repeated and really spoke to my hear to was the story of Elijah (God was not in the fire, not in the earthquake, not in the wind, but in the gentle quiete wisper.) The children were able to grasp this concept and hold on to it and repeat it. This was blessing to me. I spent some quite moments with God on Tuesday night waiting for the gentle quiet whisper and God granted it and I gained better perspective after several days of feeling discouraged and having lost perspective. God has blessed me so much the gift of a positive attitude so a few days of feeling down here and there shouldn't be things I complain about. Instead I am leanrning to look up to God to regain perspective.

We did have some real camping adventures. The water was off for several hours on Saturday morning when we wanted to shower, do laundry, and run the dish washer. But finally it got up and running again. On Sunday at 6:00 am there was a big bang outside the house and the electricity went off for us and our next door neighbor. It was a miracle that it was restored by 9am. I was about ready to go to church as a wethead.

Thank you Lord for a blessed weekend and a weekend of normality and also a weekend of feeling more myself.