Am I Living Out My Purpose?

This morning a friend of mine wrote on her blog (http://allthingshenderson.blogspot.com/) a bit about Senator Kennedy's memorial service. She included a portion of President Obama's speech:

"We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know what God's plan is for us. What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and with love, and with joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of others."

"Live out our lives . . . with purpose . . ." " . . . we can know that we spent it well . . ." What does that mean? For so many it means being a good person, treating other like you'd like to be treated, maybe throwing in some volunteer work here and there. Yesterday, Pastor Steve Dangaran at our church here in Salem, gave an amazing message. I was in tears. I was convicted of how I am not living out my purpose as I should be. Yes, we should love. Yes, we should be generous to others. Yes, we should treat others as we would like them to treat us. But by far, the most important purpose in my life should be introducing others to the One who loves them more than anything they can imagine. The One who wants us to spend eternity with Him. The One who created the Universe; everything in it, the mountains, the sky, the trees, every hair on my head (even the ones going gray). While I'm loving, and giving, and spending time with people, I NEED to be showing them who Jesus is. I NEED to be telling them truth.

The truth is God loves us. He created us. The truth is we are ALL sinners. The truth is God is so Holy, so good, so unexplainable that we in no way deserve to be in His presence. The truth is God so desperately wants us to be in His presence. The truth is He is pursuing us. We mess up and mess up and mess up and God pursues us still. The truth is He provided a way to bring us from our lowly, sinful human existence in to his presence. The truth is He sent His Son, Jesus, to die a torturous death; to pay the penalty for us. Jesus, God in flesh, the One who was sinless, blameless, perfect . . . He suffered in your stead! There is a Heaven. There is a Hell. God wants us with Him. This is truth.

Oh God, please use my fleeting presence on this earth to have an everlasting impact in the life of someone.

Elise Loses Her First Tooth

Elise lost her first tooth this morning. She is out at Grama's for the day so I missed it, but they made sure to document it well. First, here is some sideways footage of her trying to pull it out this morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOBRWtEKI9I


Around 1:45pm I was driving down the road (on my way to get a pedicure! I have the whole day to myself. A great early birthday present!) and I got a phone call from Grama & Elise. She had lost her tooth while eating mandarin oranges. How funny! After all the apple and crunchy cracker eating in an attempt to get it out, she loses it while eating mandarin oranges. Pudding or Jello might have been funnier.

I just received a notice from the Tooth Fairy council. It says, "I hear your child has lost a tooth. Congratulations! I know this is an exciting time for your family. However, new requirements are now in place which state that the 'parent or guardian of said child must be witness to said tooth and verify its authenticity prior to a visit by the Honorable Tooth Fairy.'" Great!!! That works out perfectly for me since I won't see her before tomorrow. I would have been so bummed to not be around when the Honorable Tooth Fairy made her very first visit to Elise. Being Mom is so cool!!

Camping Adventure Part II - The Wind's A Changin'

Drinking cocoa at Camp Side-of-Road


We fell asleep, and awoke to, the beautiful sound of a rushing river. In the daylight was realized we had pulled off in a beautiful area. There was a path that took us down to the river and we all took a little walk. Elise thought it was fantastic. It was "Fairy Land." With a full night's sleep and renewed enthusiasm, we set off to find a place to camp. The real Frog Lake? Some place else? We weren't quite sure.

We stopped at Timothy Lake so the kids could see this really cool reservoir where the water was pumped under the road and out in to the canyon on the other side. The water shot out like 15 fire hoses and the sun was hitting the spray just so to make a perfect rainbow. Spirits were definitely high at this point. We stopped in at a campground on Timothy Lake just to check out the availability. Of course there was none, but the camp host told us that since we had our reservation for Frog Lake for two days, they HAVE to hold it for at least 24 hours before they can give it up to someone else! Wahoo!!! "Let's go to Frog Lake! We've got plenty of time!"


We find Frog Lake. The kids are ready to get out of the truck!!! BUT, guess what? The camp host gave our spot away already! She said the policy is 12 hours. Check in is 2pm. So that meant that sometime between 2 AM and 9:30 AM she gave our site away. The middle of the night???Hmmmm!!! Very odd. And we are very disappointed. We drove back down the road to Clear Lake. Oh Clear Lake!!! We love you! The camp host there was totally cool. He confirmed that it is 24 hrs. that they have to wait and asked if we wanted to file a complaint. This guy told us that he too had a family that hadn't shown up and if we just waited three hours, the site could be ours. In addition, there were two other family's taking off early who's sites we could take. Wahoo!! Our luck had finally turned. We parked the truck, got the boats out, and got to the business of having a fun time. All was well from then on. We got our campsite and finally could relax.

We had a fantastic time at Clear Lake. It was beautiful there! The kids had a blast. Elise caught her first fish!! (she also caught a salamander and a piece of wood with someone else's old line attached to it.) Shawn practiced casting and is really good at it. See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL2njN0dbhE
There were baby salamanders and newts all over the beach. We probably saw 100 of them! We had fire roasted brie with cherry tomatoes for dinner. (So gourmet!) We roasted marshmallows. The kids fell asleep that evening so quickly and slept well all night. I didn't hear a noise from any other campers in the whole place. Beautiful!!!!

Addition to Camping Adventure Part I

Granpa Jim reminded me of some other details that added to the excitement of the evening. Here is a written comment he sent to me, "not to mention the guy in the dark at the first Frog lake had had a few beers, had a pistol on his hip and warned us about cougars..." Seriously! The guy said, "Keep the little ones nearby. There are cougars in this area." Then he offered to show Jim what super, secret fishing lure he was tying on to catch fish there. That was funny. "I shouldn't be showing you this," he said as if Jim were going to head right down to the cougar-surrounded lake with his wife and grandchildren, in the dark, and catch every last fish in it.

Camping Adventure

*Some details may be a little exaggerated for added drama.



So Granpa Jim & Plain Grama asked if we could set aside a weekend to go camping with them before summer was over. We had already been out on two other camping trips this summer and with all the home remodeling projects to get to, we decided that Mark would stay at home and get lots of work done and I would take the kids. Because we were going with Granpa & Grama, I didn't have to do much planning at all. My responsibilities consisted of packing clothes, a tent and sleeping bags (and some chocolate chip cookies of course) and Granpa & Grama took care of the rest. I knew where we were going (at least I knew the name). I, however, didn't have to know how to get there. I didn't even have to drive. It was easy-peesy.





We got a late start on Friday because Granpa ended up having to work later than expected. But still, all was okay. We should have had time to make it there before it got too dark. So we set off toward a fun-filled happy weekend of camping. About two hours in to the trip it was starting to get dark and we were on a gravel road. "Are you sure there's a campground up here?" "Yes! We have reservations for Frog Lake. We followed the directions to Frog Lake." A couple of miles up this gravel road we stop to speak to the only human we've seen in about an hour. He's just setting up a pole to go fishing at dusk. Granpa pulls up and asks him, "Are we close to the campground?" His reply? "There's no campground on this lake. I've been coming up here for 20 years. There is no campground here." Fantastic!!! Where on Earth are we??



So with this man's help we learn that there are two Frog Lakes in the area . . . about an hour apart from each other if you know the back roads. Who's idea was it to name two different lakes the same thing within that close proximity?! Ridiculous! So off we drive to find another place in the vicinity to stay for the night. Yeah right! Like you could find a campsite without a reservation on a Friday night at 9pm. So we check a couple of places. No go. Keep in mind there is a 2 yr. old in the vehicle who has been sitting for nearly 3 hours!! At one point Granpa stops the truck in the middle of this nearly deserted road in the pitch dark so we can figure out whether or not to keep going or take a cut-off. We notice a car approaching from behind. So, Granpa starts to back up and pull of the road. Smash! Crunch! Bad noises! What was that noise?!? Fortunately, it was not us running in to the people behind us. The boat trailer had tipped over! The people behind us were totally lost too so we all sat in the middle of the road and commiserated for a few minutes. They easily got the boat trailer uprighted and we got going again. We drove about 500 feet and I said, "Stop! We're camping right here at this pull-out. I can drop a tent right there." And that's just what we did. We camped right there on the side of the road.



to be cont . . . .

Donuts & Purple Toenails

This morning on the way to church Elise asked, "When's it going to be Shawn's birthday?" "Well, honey, Shawn's birthday is a ways away, but my birthday is in just a couple of weeks. Whatcha gonna get me?!" was my reply. With hardly any hesitation she answers, "A doughnut!" A doughnut??? What a funny girl.

It's a beautiful day here today and the kids are playing out on the back porch. I just went out to check on them and see what they were up too. Here's the photo of what I found.

It's a lovely purple, shimmery shade Elise chose.