A Quiet Friday Evening

Thank you all, so much, both here and on Stand Firm, for your prayers, well wishes, support, everything.

I've had a glass of wine and I'm all weepy, but its been an intense 24 hours. I've cleared out our offices at church of all our books, the picture of my grandfather a few months before he died, the big wall of pictures my kids have taped up over the last six years, and I have the promise of some SERIOUS boxes to be delivered tomorrow so that we can begin to pack up this house.

I indulged us in some comfort food-sausages, cauliflower with cheese sauce-and I've been thinking through, all evening, which rooms need to be packed first, and which last. I think the kitchen needs to packed last and unpacked first (wherever we end up, because that's still Totally up in the air), and the basement needs to be packed first and probably stay packed for a long while.

Elphine wanted to know two things.
1. Whether she and Gladys (what I'll be calling her baby sister from now on) will be able to have a pink and purple princess room wherever we go, and whether they
ll be able to live together FOREVER.
2. How will we get to heaven? Will God lift us up in his own hands?

Aloysius and Romulus dressed up as Good and Bad Spidermen and care not what happens in the future.

Gladys wants to be held all the time and talk, even though none of us know what she is saying, whatever it is, its VERY important.

Tomorrow I'm going to lead the Women's Bible Study, as usual, and then go buy more femo (easy bake clay stuff), because my Sunday School class are making their own nativity scenes. And then I'm going to start filling boxes with books, toys, summer clothes, and socks.

I only have one more thing I really have on my heart. And that is how in awe and in love with my husband I am, today, as always. He has so carefully and lovingly steered this congregation toward the Word of God, toward Jesus, so that 100 or so people, here in Binghamton New York are able to say unequivocally, and unwaveringly that they will go all the way to the cross for His sake. There is no hesitation, no blinking of the eye. These people love God first and they are willing to stake all that they own on it. And Matt has patiently and truly lead us, as a congregation, to this moment. He has walked, step by step, vestry meeting by vestry meeting, sermon by sermon, bible study by bible study, to this moment, and God, this very night, is glorified. I'm totally delighted. I feel a little like Bilbo, running out of my house without my shoes, on an amazing adventure.