Birthdays, blessings, and pink hair

Hello, everyone. First of all, I've had to turn the CAPTCHA back on for the comments. Blogger's spam filter is great, so the spammy comments don't come through on here, but I get around 10 a day in my email, and it's driving me nuts.

So things have been going great around here. Nick had a wonderful time as a worker at church camp, and there was one saved. It's just made my heart full to see how much my wonderful husband has grown in the Lord over the past few months. He even led devotions for his cabin one night, something that was way out of his comfort zone, and I'm so proud of him!

Morgan didn't have as great of a time, but I think it was mostly because she went from Washington into camp without even a stop at home in between, and she was exhausted. I'm hoping she enjoys it more next year.

Okay, I know I'm always talking about how much God provides for us and blesses us. And this is true. But I want to talk for a minute about what happens when I stop trusting and get out of His will. A couple of pay periods ago, we were short. Really short. So I asked Nick if he thought we should pay our tithe (something we make a real effort at doing every pay period), and he told me no. Now to be perfectly honest, I felt like this was a mistake, but I knew all I needed to worry about was being obedient to my husband. So I prayed that God would honor my obedience and protect our bank account. And for a number of days that's just what He did. There were transactions that should have cleared days earlier, but they held out there for no natural reason, and our balance stayed in the positive.

Then one day I went out of my way to call one of my friends and gossip about a mutual acquaintance. It was unkind and uncalled for, and I knew as I was making the call that I was doing something I shouldn't. But I did it anyway. And just like that I stepped out of God's will and out from under His umbrella of protection. That night all those transactions that were hanging out there cleared the account and overdrew it. And even worse, it turned out that our account, which for 10 years has offered 5 waived overdraft fees per year, had been changed without our knowledge to only waive one overdraft fee. So not only did the account overdraft, but we got hit with some stiff fees as well.

Our bank agreed to waive a couple of them, but we still had to pay $70, and we had to go get a cash advance to cover the overdraft, something we've not had to do in a very long time.

Now you would think we would learn our lesson. Unfortunately, the next paycheck was just as short, and we made the same foolish decision to hold back our tithe. Once again, we went overdrawn, this time the very day before the next payday, which was this past Friday

Finally, we came to our senses, and when we went to church a couple of days ago we had our tithe check ready. And I'm not going to lie, it was still hard. Nick's check was better than usual, but we were still short on bills (in no small part because of the overdraft and check advance fees we'd had to pay). But I couldn't wait till that collection plate came around this time. I didn't know where the money for the rest of the bills was coming from, but I knew that we were doing what we were supposed to finally, and we could count on God's provision.

I told Nick that I was going to need more money no later than Tuesday (today) to pay the phone, internet, and electric, and asked him to pray about it. Last night a guy came by and bought Nick's Fairlane (he put it up for sale a while ago), cash in hand. I had to smile as I paid those bills today. God is always right on time!

Now, a couple of things I want to be clear on: God doesn't need my money. He wants my obedience and my trust. And I don't believe that God is punishing us when we don't pay our tithe, but I do believe that when we choose to disobey we remove ourselves from His hand of protection. I'm not telling anyone here what to believe on the matter of tithing - I'm only sharing my experiences. And these are experiences that we've had a number of times over the years.

On another subject, our Father's Day was wonderful! There are a number of June birthdays in my husband's family, including his dad's and his grandmother's, and for years we've had a June birthday party up at his grandparent's cabin on the lake, the one where we spent our honeymoon. It turned out that the only day most of the family was able to get together for it was on Sunday, so after church we all went up for a cookout/birthday/Father's Day celebration.

This was the first time Nick's grandmother has gotten to hold Jack as she's been sick every time we've seen her since he was born. She was in great grandmother heaven cuddling his sweet little body, and he rarely left her arms. For gifts Nick made cornhole board sets for his grandparents and his dad, and I made the corn bags to go along with them. Nick's dad had made sets for the church to take to camp, and Nick had done the artwork on them. They were a huge hit at camp (they even had a Final Four style tournament), and they were just as big a hit as birthday/Father's Day gifts.

I took Jack and Daisy to the doctor last week. Daisy just hadn't been feeling well for a couple of weeks, nothing we could pinpoint, but noticeable enough to set my mommy senses tingling. It turns out she has mono. This shocked me to say the least (she's not exactly running around kissing boys at two), but her doctor said that about half of all kids in the States catch it before they reach school age; it just goes undiagnosed a lot of the time. Fortunately she seems to be on the tail end of it and has already perked up a lot.

Jack was just due for a checkup and a couple of shots. He's a bouncing 11lb 12oz now, and he's 23 1/2 inches long. That's 8lb 1oz and 6 1/4 inches since birth! For the record, Daisy is now 3' 1" and weighs 32 lb. :-)

There's been a new girl move in next door, and she and Morgan are already fast friends. She even came to church with us Sunday. It made me happy that she moved in, because the family that just moved out had 3 kids, and Morgan and Daisy both played with them.

Morgan and I got pink streaks put in our hair, and I'm kind of in love with them.

Let's see, what else? In a little over a month we leave for the beach with Nick's family! It will be great to see his sister and her kids and husband. They are the ones who live in Texas. We usually go there for our vacation, but they sold their lake house right after our visit last year, so this year they booked everyone accommodations on Sea Island. We've never been, but it looks like it's going to be gorgeous, and Nick is dying to get out on the golf courses.

Just before we leave for the beach will be VBS at church. My friend Elizabeth and I are helping out a lot with the crafts, and I can't wait! A couple of weeks after we get back from the beach Kate and I are throwing a baby shower for Kelly.

Oh, and I'm supposed to be getting spanked, although there's not really been an opportunity to take care of it. I'm afraid I kind of let the house get to "red alert level", and although I've gotten it a bit back more under control, Nick says that there are still going to be consequences.

Anyway, I think that's all that's been happening around here. Hope you guys are well!