In Like a Lion

The last few weeks have been busy with everyday life. We've been talking at church a lot about the "upper story" and the "lower story" of our lives...how the upper story is the big picture, and is sometimes hard for us to see, and how the lower story is our everyday life, where we are simply living out the minutes, hours and days that make up a week, a month and a year. This last week was busy with a lot of lower story chores...boot camp, working, getting to sports practices, taking Duncan to be groomed, having my teeth cleaned, cooking dinner, scrapbooking, paying bills...it's hard to see if any part of my "upper" story took place, but who knows, because as I said, it's hard to see how God uses little moments of your everyday life until you can see it in hindsight.

We celebrated Mardi Gras with a dinner of red beans and rice and a king cake. Lawrence found the baby, so he has to bring home the king cake next year. 

King cake! I think it tastes like a giant cinnamon roll

Red beans and rice - we love this at our house

We don't really officially observe the Lenten season in our church, but I like the idea of giving up something during the weeks leading up to Easter to remind me of Christ's sacrifice for me.  I chose to give up Facebook during Lent, John has given up fast food and Lawrence has given up fried food.  Sarah chose to sit the whole "giving something up" thing out. We'll see how we all do.

On Thursday John forgot his Kindle at home, and he is way into the Hunger Games right now, so I hated for him to not have his book with him all day.  It's "I Love To Read" month at school, and they've had lots of free reading time this week so I knew he would be missing it.  Taking his Kindle to him gave me an excuse to go have lunch with him, something I don't usually do because it's not convenient with my work schedule.  We had a nice 30 minutes of catch up time, and he was so happy to have his book back for the afternoon.

My lunch date

Friday ended up being a terrible day in our area.  We had been on high alert for storms and tornadoes, and all the schools ended up letting out early so that everyone could get home before any bad weather hit.  Louisville was spared, but some of the areas around us were absolutely devastated.  Over thirty people died across Kentucky and Indiana, and the number is rising.  It has been heartbreaking to watch people's live just ripped out from under them.  One hard hit area is Henryville, Indiana, which is where our church's retreat center is.  This is where my kids have gone to camp, and where I've gone to my scrapbooking retreats for the last 12 years. The retreat center is okay, but other parts of the town are completely obliterated.  The retreat center is now housing many displaced residents, so I'm not sure if we'll be having our scheduled retreat there in two weeks, but what a blessing that the center is able to be a refuge for so many people.  

On Friday night John woke up with a bad stomach virus, and this kept him down throughout most of the weekend.  I'm praying the rest of us don't get it (wishful thinking?)...I was just telling someone the other day that after bronchitis, chicken pox and a head cold, the stomach virus was the only thing I hadn't gotten this year.  WHY did I say that???

This morning I made something I've been wanting to make for awhile..."cinnamon twists".  I think of this as my mom's recipe, because it was something my sister and I loved when we were growing up, by maybe it's a well known recipe that lots of people make.  It's basically biscuit dough, sprinkled with butter, cinnamon and sugar, and drizzled with icing.  Sarah loves cinnamon rolls, so I hope this recipe becomes a favorite of hers too.

Yum!

Sarah registers for her high school classes this next week, and I can't help but wonder if any of the choices she makes will effect her "upper" story...what type of degree she'll get, where she'll go to college one day, what friends she'll be in class with...looking back, I can see where being in class with my friend Susie my freshman year of high school led me to where I went to college (I went to visit her when she was at Western, and I loved it), which led me to where I got my first job (BellSouth), which led me to meeting Lawrence (I worked with his brother, Rich)....you just never know where your lower story intersects with your upper story.  I can't wait to see where her story leads...I myself have no idea, but I know she's in good hands, and I trust the One who does know. Here's to a new month, and the arrival of SPRING!