Happy 40th, Karen!

Today is my sister Karen's 40th birthday! This now means that three of us siblings are in our 40's (how does that make you feel, Dad and Mom?) Karen will be celebrating in a warm way today, as she lives in Asuncion, Paraguay with her family.

Karen is just 16 months younger than I am. I celebrated my 40th birthday one month after Christopher was born and I wasn't really into celebrating in a big way at that time. So, I decided that I am going to celebrate with Karen today! If you've ever read Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages book, you would know that while I am a Words of Affirmation person, Karen is a Quality Time girl! Actually, I think in reality that Karen has a bit of all the five types of people: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts (it's more like she GIVES gifts!), Acts of Service and Physical Touch. I see her mostly as Quality Time, so that is my gift that I'm going to give her right now by spending some quality time giving her words of affirmation! That way we both get to celebrate!

It's hard to spend quality time with a sister who lives continents away from you, but Skype and Skype Chat do wonders for bridging that gap! It also helps to have had so many of my friends go to visit her in the past few years and they always come back telling me stories about Karen and the great times they spent together with her. Her Acts of Service traits are ALWAYS mentioned and it always makes me feel special to be on the receiving end of her Gift Giving as well (like the cheese, tapioca flour and guava jam that came back a few weeks ago!! LOVE IT! :)

Whenever someone comes back from visiting Karen, the phrase I hear most often is, "Karen is an amazing woman!" It is almost always followed by, "She's an amazing cook!" I hear that one mostly from the guys that come back, and that's understandable since she's usually cooking for her own family of guys! Karen IS amazing, though. She is one of those people that, after spending time with her, you walk away feeling encouraged and upbeat and determined to be a renewed child of God.

Karen is a mixture of Mary and Martha. While she is always busy doing things (housing guests, cooking for crowds of people, teaching at school, etc, etc, etc), she makes sure that being Mary is her priority by spending quality time with the Lord. She makes sure that THAT relationship is always in balance, and then the rest of her life falls into place as well.

Karen is fun! I remember when Brandon and Gaby were little, Karen would be dancing around the house making up songs to sing to them and just having FUN with her boys! I always wanted to be that type of mom, too, and thanks to her example, I do those same things with my boys. Every time that I am with her, I can count on having a blast. I love it.

Karen is an encourager. Whenever I'm struggling with something, or even when I'm not, Karen takes the positive side of things and helps me to course-correct. She does what Mom always drilled into us when we were young, to think Philippians 4:8. She thinks on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. She not only thinks on those things, she lives those things!

If you want to know a modern time Proverbs 31 woman, spend some time getting to know Karen. Karen knows how to keep her relationship with the Lord a priority. She knows how to care for her family. She extends her helping hand to her brothers and sisters in Christ as well as her neighbors and those who God puts in her path. She is frugal and resourceful. Her husband is known in the gates and he sits with the elders of the land. She doesn't eat the bread of idleness, but is always busy stretching out her hand to the poor. "She is not afraid of snow for her household" but not because they are clothed in scarlet. It's more because the chances of seeing snow in Paraguay are very slim, especially at this time of year! Her children will rise up and call her blessed some day, if they don't already do so by their actions, and her husband does praise her! She is not vain, but full of beauty! You can see that her own works in the Lord praise her.

Karen is a remarkable woman .... and today she turns 40!

Happy Birthday, Karen!

It's Me, It's Me Oh Lord!

Today was another rough day for me. I think I'm being attacked spiritually and I'm caving in to lies that I shouldn't be believing. This afternoon this song came on and it seemed as if I was the one who wrote it! Yes, my mother and my father and my sister(s) and my brother also stand in the need of prayer as we all do, but today it just seemed like I couldn't pray for anyone else, not even myself, and that's why I stand in the need of prayer.

Thank you for your prayers for us ... for me.

Not my mother, not my father, but it's me oh Lord

Standing in the need of prayer

Not my brother, not my sister, but it's me oh Lord

Standing in the need of prayer
It's me (it's me) it's me, oh Lord,

Standing in the need of prayer

It's me (it's me) it's me, oh Lord,

Standing in the need of prayer!

Quiet, Yet Eventful

I know I haven't been on here much this past week. I apologize to those of you who check often to see what's going on with us. Things have been fairly quiet, yet eventful around here (what an oxymoron), so there really hasn't been anything to share that would hold the interest of the readers. As a family, I feel lately as if we're all standing on a log in the middle of a big lake and all of us are trying our hardest to keep our balance so that we don't tumble in. We've got constant movement going on, but we're not really getting anywhere or doing anything productive except keeping ourselves afloat.

It's been an emotionally rough week for us as well. We've been very concerned about Werner the past two weeks and now that he's home and regaining his strength, that emotional stress is slowly being relieved. My husband is going through an extremely difficult time at work right now and that is taking it's toll on all of us. There is so much uncertainty and time pressures and workload issues that are just piling up. I am finding myself running back to the Lord on a constant basis asking for yet another reassurance that He is in control of all of this. We believe that the current course of events is His plan for us, but I do feel like Abraham sometimes when he was asked to go to the mountain with his only son to sacrifice him. Abraham had to keep reassuring his son that God would provide the sacrifice in time. God is asking us to take steps of faith that are terribly difficult to comprehend in our human minds and I need to believe that He will provide!

We've also had vehicle issues the last two weeks that culminated over the weekend with us realizing that our van has major transmission issues. It was towed out of our garage to Werner's Auto on Monday, the same day that Fred took his van in because it needed a new axle. As a result, except for Stephen going to school three days this week, the boys and I have not left this house! While I'm happy to stay at home in this cold and snowy weather, it sure would be nice to restock on some groceries, go pick up my mail, or go visit someone!

I could go on, but it does little good to complain! I have so many things to be thankful for! Grandma helped me realize early on that no matter how bad things are in life, there is always someone worse off so we have a lot to be thankful for! I would ask, though, that after you are finished reading this, you would pray for our family; for my husband and myself in particular. The load of this life seems overwhelming just now. Thank you!

Another Timothy Quote

Timothy and Stephen were playing kings, princes, knights, etc. It was decided that Timothy would be the King of the Castle. After lunch I reminded Timothy to take his plate to the sink and he responded with such shock:

"What?! Kings of the Castle don't take their plates to the sink!"

I threatened to remove his title from him, but didn't need to do that in the end. His plate is now in the sink and his title is restored.

Werner Is Home!

The Weinhardt family wants to thank all of you who have been praying for my brother-in-law, Werner, the past few weeks and while he was in the hospital. We give thanks to God today that he has returned home after a difficult week and a half after his surgery. There were some issues early on with his inability to keep food down, but after an urgent prayer request to have GOD heal his body and resolve all issues, Werner had several tests done that showed no problems and from that day on he has been able to eat with no issues! Thank the Lord for His touch on Werner's life! We love him and have been so burdened for him while he was in the hospital. Please continue to pray that he will regain his strength and that God will be glorified in this whole trial of his.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote is from Timothy:

"I have to go! I'll be back in a flash light!"

All It Takes Is 10 Seconds or Less

As a mother of three little boys, I should already know that all it takes is 10 seconds or less for a disaster to take place. But I guess I forgot. Or maybe I thought my boys were beyond that childishness (at 4, 3 and 1?!?!). Whatever happened during my brain lapse this morning doesn't matter. The point is that all it takes is 10 seconds or less for disaster to strike!

Today is garbage day and my dear husband took everything out to the curb, but missed one bag. Since I knew that was the bag that had the remains of the burned pan in it, I wanted it out for sure! I decided to quickly run out to the curb, drop off the bag, and I'd be back before the boys even realized I was gone. At the bottom of the driveway, I heard the boys screaming inside the house and made a mental note to myself that screaming CAN be heard from the street! Before I could get back into the house (remember, this is all in less than 10 seconds!), Stephen was outside on the porch screaming, "Moooommmmmyyyyy!!!! Come see what happened!"

I walked in the front door to see the entire NEW box of Corn Flakes SPRAYED across the entire entry way and kitchen floor. I stood there in disbelief, all kinds of thoughts racing in my brain:

• How did this happen?!
• Figures! Stephen has to be out the door in two minutes and he doesn't have any of his snow apparatus on yet.
• Great! Christopher has his little push toy going nuts over these crunchy flakes!
• And now he's doing a little dance over the piles because it must feel good or sound fun or whatever!
• How am I going to clean this all up AND get Stephen dressed and out the door before the bus comes?!

I finally got the truth out of Stephen as to what really happened. He wanted a bowl of Corn Flakes before he left for school so he grabbed the box and came looking for me to ask permission. The last person to use the box (Uh, no names here. The author needs to save a little face.) didn't close the top all the way and Stephen was swinging the box when it opened up and spewed it's contents everywhere.

I'm thankful that I remembered that these little hearts are very impressionable and it WAS an accident and I WAS the one that could have prevented it in the first place. Instead of blowing up at them, I just started laughing and asked, "Can you imagine if it would have been a huge bowl of Corn Flakes with milk already in it?!" Stephen stared at me in disbelief for a brief moment, not sure if he should laugh with me or not. Pretty soon we were all laughing and trying to sweep it up before Christopher could pulverize all the flakes on the floor.

Here's another lesson for me today, I see. Instead of sending my son off to school feeling guilt and anger and frustration for making a mess that got Mommy mad, I sent him off laughing and in a happy mood. Was I really happy about the mess? Absolutely not! But really, it was only dry Corn Flakes! Thanks for that gentle spirit I prayed for this morning, Lord! Did I handle it ok? Because I really don't want to have these teaching moments all day long just to make sure I keep that gentle spirit in check!