vacation 2008 – day 7

Another beautiful day to wake up to.

We all got up, dressed and ate. As we were about 15 minutes from heading off up the field to church, my Denver and Izaac and their recent simmering hostilities, boiled over. I sent the littles on ahead with big brother and the Hodders to the 10am Bible Study class, which would be followed by a 11am church service.

I tried to reason with the boys for a while, and then Izaac said something that just hurt me so – so I quietly got up, put on my shoes and headed out the door and up the dirt road (didn’t want to get my feet wet in the field) for a walk. After a few minutes Izaac followed me, and after some stubborn reluctance to let go of my anger and hurt, he and I stood on that dirt road, about a 1/2 a mile from the church and just had it out. I poured out my heart to him, about how I felt the Lord was trying to guide me to teach him and guide him, into his adult years. I talked to him about family, respect, focus, faith and his actions showing where his heart is, or isn’t in that faith walk, and a lot about forgiveness. How he was just this big prickly pear on the outside, with this delicious sweet compassionate fella inside, but his prickles just scare most folks away. The Lord brought to mind verses, ideas and scriptures from His word, to help me teach my man-child that morning. We talked on and on. We both cried.

Eventually, we headed back to the church. We had completely missed the 45 minute Bible Study, the 15 minute “free time” and were now 15minutes into the actual service. I had being late, but I know why the good Lord put me on that old dirt road, in Upper Stewiake on that particular Sunday morning, with my stubborn, unyielding, unforgiving, sweet prickly son! Much to his, and my complete amazement, Dave’s preaching was on …. forgiveness, respect, family, focus etc. The most amazing thing? Many of the verses, scriptures and stories (illustrations) I had used and been given to share with my son, were the crux of Dave’s teaching that day. Izaac was blown away. I was blown away.

At one point, after about the 6th or 7th duplication in scriptures (my talk and Dave’s sermon), Izaac turned to me and said, “I guess God felt I needed to hear all this twice, to make it sink into my thick head, right?” He was laughing. I laughed and said, “We all need to hear things more than once, as a rule. But, yes. God does know every millimeter of Izaac, and He will know you do need to be reminded again and again.”

We had a delightful sit down meal with all 12 of us at Dave and Eva’s beautiful dining room set. A down home cooked Turkey meal, with all the fixins! Delicious. After the late lunch, we had to pack up our cars and get moving. We were off to first Truro (gas and Frenchies!), then River Hebert, to visit my brother and his fiancee for the next 4 days and nights.

We arrived, after only two wrong turns, at Kevin and Sally’s place, at about 9pm. Kevin, Sally and I chatted for about 3 hours. Everyone settled in for the night, and we fell asleep content and happy with our day, and finally getting to hug Kevin again, and meet Sally for the very first time.

Lisa