whew!

we made it through vbs week! okay...so i'll admit, i was optmistic in the beginning, saying things like, "its just 3 hours with fourth graders, how tired can that make you?" and "it can't be as exhausting as keeping up with kate and elizabeth." yeah right!? by the time i got home and got the girls in bed for naps i was spent! my house is sprinkled with tell tale signs of just how exhausted i was...leaving us quite the "project" for today. and i woke up this morning at 7:30 feeling like i'd just run a marathon hours before. but let me tell you, it was all worth it! i so enjoyed the time working with those 40 some fourth graders...seeing their energy and excited to learn about God and Jesus...their excitement to learn the memory verse, hear the stories, craft and run and laugh and sing....such exuberance. and oh how thankful i am for all that elizabeth learned in her class...the songs, the Bible stories, the crafts...and the fact that they fed her lunch everyday (of course, i didn't realize this until yesterday...and it definitely helped me understand why i'd been having to force lunch into her for the past week--even the chick-fil-a kid's meal i'd splurged on the day before! oops! :) how sweet to listen to her singing "the gospel fuzzies" song on the way home yesteray..."gold stands for heaven, gold stands for heaven, gold stands for heaven, and i want to go there!" how wonderful to pick a smiling, giggly kater gator up from the nursery and know she'd been loved and cared for by wonderful ladies.

and friends...it was simply refreshing and encouraging. i think part of that was having some perspective about what i spend my days doing. you see, it is so hard to look past this stage...the toddler and baby stage...the discipline and training phase...the keeper of the cheerio phase...the nose wiping, diaper changing, alphabet singing phase. don't get me wrong, it isn't that this phase is drudgery; rather, it is a phase filled with so much joy, so much wonder, so many amazing things...BUT it is also so tough...and there are definitely those days and hours when i think, "is it worth it? what is this all for?" you see, i got to see that this week...i got to see first hand the reality that almost three year olds turn into almost 10 and 11 year olds. and i have such a vision for the future for my dear girls...for who God can help them to be....for the pay-off and reaping of what i am sowing now in the way of training and discipline. how incredible to see girls and boys whose hearts were filled up with the love of Christ, who listened and obeyed, who laughed and lived and loved one another...and to also see the flipside of that. plain and simple, it gave me the strength to face another day or week or month of those not so fun moments of mothering...and to remember that these "little" times aren't forever...my girls are going to grow (and every too quickly!)...so i better enjoy cheerios, diapers, and alphabet songs while they last!

...and that my friends is what i learned from vbs! i do promise to blog a bit more regularly next week...for now, though, i'm off....to tackle a wee bit of the house before my sister arrives. yep, michelle and the dogs are coming to visit today...a nice little stop on their way to the lake. and let me tell you, we are SO excited to see her!