In mid-May I planted some Coreopsis to compliment the purple coneflower. They are supposed to bloom from early summer to fall, but since I was a little late in getting them in the ground, I wasn’t sure if or when I would see flowers this year. I was thrilled to see masses of pea-sized buds appearing a couple weeks ago. They have now opened to reveal delightful little 1 1/2 inch sunshine yellow blooms. The plants have grown nicely to about 16-18 inches in height, but they hug the ground and sprawl outward, so they seem shorter than that. After watching their growth habits, I’m anxious to plant more under and around all the coneflower and shrubs along the front walk.

The variety I planted is Creme Brulee, similar in form and habit to the classic Moonbeam. This native plant is ideal for growing in the south, it tolerates our hot, humid summers and clay soil with ease. This plant also seems to be holding up nicely to the drought. I only water them very occasionally and they have never shown a hint of water stress.

Anticipation is something typically pondered at the end of the year with Christmas and the New Year. But it seems that now, just as we are beginning the second half of 2008, everyone I know is looking to the future for something. So today’s question is:

 What are you looking forward to? What are you waiting for? This could be something long term or something right around the corner.

Remember, this is open for anyone who wants to answer it, and please visit the coffee house to post your response.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately written by women who excel in the art of being feminine and girly, with posts ranging from hair and feet to fingernail files and playing princess with little girls. I would not consider myself a girly girl. In fact, I’d say I am pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum. Growing up, my nearest sibling (chronologically speaking) was my big brother whom I idolized and followed and tried in every way to imitate - much like Scout and Jem Finch. Then add to that the fact that God has blessed me with three boys… Beauty and primping and shopping and shoes just don’t really fit into my life. My husband’s side of the closet has easily double the clothes and shoes as mine. He has a job that requires an expansive wardrobe, while my job calls for jeans and a t-shirt.

That’s not to say I’ve never wanted to be girly. My best friend throughout my childhood was a girly girl. She played the flute and took ballet and her room was painted peach and filled with porcelain dolls. I was envious. (Pause to let out a sigh of nostalgia). And my sister and her two beautiful daughters make me feel like I just crawled out from under a rock every time I am near them (not deliberately, just a natural consequence of their limitless knowledge of beauty and style).

One of those neices is getting married the first of August, so yesterday we took the whole family shopping for wedding clothes. We spent the entire day going from store to store. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Everyone was actually very well behaved, even the little one who went without a nap until 5 PM! I only had to chase him out from behind a check out counter once. :) 

Anyway, getting back to the point - I had the hardest time finding anything to wear. I found a perfect dress at Dillard’s, but it was $70, and I just couldn’t justify that. So after scouring clearance racks at several different stores I came up with two complete skirt and top outfits for less than half the price of that one dress at Dillard’s. I really think I might have the shopping gene in there somewhere.

Just as I was beginning to feel confident in my shopping abilities, it occurred to me that I had no shoes to wear with either outfit. So off we went to the shoe store. I walked in armed with the skirt I plan to wear to the wedding (and pretending I knew what I was talking about) and told the lady that I needed a pair of shoes to go with the skirt. She immediately directed me to this lovely pair of sparkly bronze heels, that would incidentally, go with BOTH outfits. It was love at first sight.

But when I took one look at my feet in those shoes, I wanted to cry. I have inherited horrifically wide feet from both sides of my family. Wide feet with short stubby toes. And even worse, I have never had a pedicure in my entire life. They were definitely showing signs of neglect! So before the sales lady came back and saw my hobbit feet in those lovely shoes, I tucked them into the box and said “I’ll take them!” I then inquired about their return policy, knowing that if I couldn’t perform a miracle with my feet in the next 4 weeks I would have to return the shoes.

So this morning I spent an hour in the shower scrubbing and filing with this handy four-stage pedicure thingy. My husband joked that I was trying to file a quarter inch off each side of my foot. I laughed, but I was secretly wondering if I could actually accomplish that! Well, so far my feet don’t seem to be any smaller, but they certainly are smoother and prettier. Who knows, maybe I can turn myself into a girl by the end of the month after all.

For the fourth part in this series on Biblical families, I want to look at what God’s Word has to say to children. The first scripture I want to touch on is the 5th commandment:

Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 5:16

I always chuckle at that commandment. Is God suggesting that if children are unruly and disrespectful, the parents will simply put an end to it all? I don’t know. Perhaps. I’ve been tempted to use that as a scare tactic on my kids, but somehow it just doesn’t seem right. All joking aside, does it seem that modern day families have thrown this commandment out with last century’s bathwater? Do we really honor our parents? Do we teach our children to honor us? I don’t think we do.

From before a child is even born we fill his little life with gifts and praise and adoration. The child quickly becomes the center of attention. The parents’ lives stop for 20 or more years while they put most of their energy and income toward providing for their children’s every whim. And what is the result? After a few years of rebelling and making bad choices, the children then point a finger at Mom and Dad: “THEY are to blame for my mistakes and my rotten life.”

I think we have become a generation of parents who honor our children. That isn’t the way God designed it, and it will never work. When we fill our children’s heads with the lie that they are the center of the universe, it does them no good whatsoever. They expect the same from the world they are thrown into, and then are shocked when things are much different on the outside.

One after another, verse after verse in the Bible relates back to the same issue. It is clearly a big deal to God. Here are a few:

Each of you must respect his mother and father… Leviticus 19:3

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Colossians 3:20

Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. Exodus 21:17

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Romans 1:29-30

Let me just say that I am not advocating killing children here, okay. I have only quoted Exodus 21:17 to show how serious it was in that day to disrespect your parents. I also found the last one very interesting. When you read through that list of awful stuff, doesn’t it strike you as odd that something as minor as disobeying your parents would appear there? That is because it isn’t a minor issue. At least it shouldn’t be.

Many of you may be thinking that I am contradicting my previous post about mothers, where I suggested that ours was a role of self-sacrifice for the benefit of raising children. I am not now saying that parents should not sacrifice for their children. But the focus of our sacrifice should not be to provide the child with his heart’s limitless desire. The sacrifice is for the sake of raising an adult who can function in our world with character and a servant’s heart, and who will honor and respect our Father.

I love having a toddler in the house. His vocabulary is exploding with dozens of new words every day. But I don’t really understand why words like ‘duck’, ‘truck’, ’stuck’, and ‘cluck’ all come out of his mouth with an “f” at the beginning.

I’m sorry if that just caused you to think a foul word. I hate that.

And when he says “what is it?”, it sounds like “oh sit”. I think you can gather what that sounds like to someone who doesn’t already know what he is saying. I just cringe at the thought of what the ladies in the church nursery must think of my family. 

I really think this is one of those things that God is using to teach me a lesson. Before I had kids, I had a nephew that regularly replaced the ‘tr’ at the beginning of “truck” with an ‘f”. He was probably about three and I remember having one of those judgmental thoughts like “when I have kids, I will make sure they speak properly.”  Right. Just like I said that if I ever had a boy, I would make sure he kept a clean toilet. Now I have three. Thanks God, for the friendly reminder that I don’t know it all.