Our neighbor, Ms. Murray

Had kind of a "down" day today. Not sure why. Really tired and a little overwhelmed with all the little things that need to be happening for school to start smoothly. And one of those days (and there are many) when I just didn't feel like I was walking all that much by the Spirit and that I could have done a MUCH better job at this thing called mothering. So I set out a few pounds of ground beef to thaw (not even really sure what I was going to do with it), and a few minutes later my 85-year-old neighbor, Ms.Murray showed up at my door with her famous beans, cornbread, salad, and homemade pound cake! Just because. I could have just cried and jumped up and down and kissed her! :) It was a sweet moment for my heart because I felt like God had showed up at my door (truth is, He had), letting me know that He is near and He cares and I'm still His beloved daughter. I aspire to be like Ms. Murray - now AND when I'm 85!

What's funny is that last p.m., I found McKenna sitting at her desk at midnight writing a poem. It was about Ms. Murray and I've copied it here because it's just wonderful, of course! :)

The Gift

I once had a person
Who came into my life.
And from what I can see
She would never cause strife.

She lives beside me
In a big yellow mansion.
And while she is at it
She takes care of her great-great grandson.

She smiles all day long.
I’ve never seen her frown.
She even gives a content look
When her limousine breaks down.

She loves to collect turtles;
She’s got nearly a hundred!
But losing her most special one
Is one thing she does dread.

On some days she takes food
To those who are in need.
She even, on my birthday,
Gives a special gift to me.

This neighbor is Miss Murry
And she really isn’t poor
Even though it may look like it
When you walk up to her door.

But really, my Miss Murry,
Is the richest person I know.
Once you walk through that front door,
Her entire house will glow.

I love, love, love Miss Murry
And there’s nothing else to say.
But I know God’s love and happiness
Are in Miss Murry to stay.

She truly is a gift from God
I’ll even say it again-
She’ll truly be a gift from God
Until her last breath ends.

-McKenna Brown

Family pics from the Cotton Family Reunion

My mom's side of the family (her three brothers and their kids) are getting together every year now at the lake house for a reunion. Had a lot of fun hanging out again last weekend!

I'm not sure there's a big brother on the planet who adores his baby brother as much as Luke does!

Is he cute or what?

This sweet boy is HUGE! Yesterday he weighed in at 21 lbs, 11 oz! (just to give you an idea, that's the average weight of an 18 month old and he's not quite 7 months yet! :))

a little clarification

My aunt asked me for a little more info about the pics I published last p.m. and after looking at them I realized that they did seem sort of "random". The one of Malachi was from a few weeks ago (we think he's recovered now). The others were all from the lake trip we took with the Mighty Men at the beginning of last week. Jeff and Charlotte Connally and their kids (our DEAR friends who are moving to Como next summer), Ben and Trisha Wall and kids (Randy's sister), Terrence and Julie Butler, and M.L. and Candice Gladney and their kids all went to help out - so some of these people are in the pics as well. I love the one of Samadge - he is a very high-energy Mighty Man and I thought the pic of him fishing was beautiful...reminded me to have big vision for the FUTURE of this guy!

Today we went to "open house/meet the teacher" for the kids. They don't start school until the day after Labor Day. I almost started crying right there in front of everyone as I watched my sweet daughter try to be positive as she talked to people at school this afternoon. Her BEST friend, Eden, is not returning to Covenant because the Guilds are going to homeschool this year. This is SO what the Lord wants for their family and it is so right for them. Their kids are thrilled and Tiff will do a fantastic job. But the night McKenna found out, she and I had to go spend a late night hour at Sonic crying and drowning our sorrows in a milkshake. She and Eden have been in school together since the first grade and they've been inseparable. McKenna is fun and well-liked by all her classmates, but she doesn't feel like she has a real FRIEND without Eden. We know that God is sovereign and has something special planned for her this year, but she's having a really hard time being excited because she already feels lonely. Please pray for her if you think about it. I've loved my time with her this summer and I'm sad about THAT ending! She's starting SIXTH GRADE!! I'm sort of weepy tonight. sorry. :( This relatively small trial was custom made (as Elizabeth Elliott would say) for her and I believe that she will know Jesus more intimately at the end of this year because of it. God is so merciful and there is grace for this season in her life.

A severe case of parental neglect...?

Okay, this is just WRONG! McKenna and Moriah sweetly offer to help me out by watching Malachi while I'm making dinner one night. They disappear for a while and when they return with my son he looks like THIS (if you can't tell, they've got him laying in a laundry basket)! They claim they were trying to make him look like Papa (sorry, Dad, I think they saw that baby picture of you in a dress!) :) :)

Daddy and Josiah making waves

beautiful Amel Gladney!

Luke and cousin, Alex, had a blast on the Lake Brownwood "beach"

Samadge, Mighty Man of God

Byron, Deontay, Alphonzo, and Lily & Elliott Connally ready to ride!

grace

God has been teaching me a lot about grace and my own prejudices lately. Like this one: The guy who built our bookcases happens to be homeless at the moment because he recently got out of prison (not sure yet why he was there). I realized that I kept referring to him as our "homeless" friend and I began to realize that this had sort of, in a way, become a source of pride for me (you know, "look how good I am letting a homeless man build my bookcases" Yuck - I make myself sick to even read that!!). I also realized that in referring to him in this way, I was sort of "dehumanizing" him. I don't refer to my close friends according to their neighborhood or past sins and if I did, it would be horribly disrespectful and not so gracious. But because he is poor, I in my arrogance, had been distancing myself from the reality of his LIFE. Repented. And from now on, you'll have to ask my friends about their backgrounds yourself unless it would give God a lot of glory for me to share it with you! :)

I'm almost finished reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution. Here's one of my favorite quotes from today: "That stuff Jesus warned us to beware of, the yeast of the Pharisees, is so infectious today in the camps of both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives stand up and thank God that they are not like the homosexuals, the Muslims, the liberals. Liberals stand up and thank God that they are not like the war makers, the yuppies, the conservatives. It is a similar self-righteousness, just with different definitions of evildoing. It can paralyze us in judgment and guilt and rob us of life. Rather than separating ourselves from everyone we consider impure, maybe we are better off just beating our chests and praying that God would be merciful enough to save us from this present ugliness and to make our lives so beautiful that people cannot resist that mercy."

God have mercy on ME, a big fat sinner!! I'll tell you, I think parenting, more than anything else, has humbled the pants off of me. I have repented of every judgment I can ever remember making against anyone or their children! But those are thoughts for another night!

Blessings of Jesus,
anda

tired

This may sound a little discouraging and even as I write I'm thinking that the solution to this tired thing is to go to bed instead of sitting here blogging! I'm exhausted from a full days' activities of running a couple of simple errands, feeding my children, doing laundry, fixing a very simple dinner that took me around 3-4 hours to make, and unpacking from our two trips last week. I've been listening to sermons and reading books lately about large families and in one sense they have been very encouraging. For those of you who don't know, Randy and I received a pretty confident conviction from the Lord back in May about children. The bottom line is that we now believe that we're supposed to have as many kids as God choses to give us. I'll write more about that and how we came to that conclusion on another late night :), but I just keep thinking about how much work this is and how I just don't see the end of the work! Ha! Yeah...I should write more later and sleep now. That would definitely help the perspective here!
Just one more comment about our week last week. We took seven of the Mighty Men to the lake house to just "hang out" for a couple of days as a reward for their hard work this summer. As I sat there the first night in the living room with Uncle Ben playing his guitar and singing the "watermelon song" with Byron, Alphonzo, and Corey doing their crazy dances, D'Leeland playing the drums and the rest of us sitting around laughing, I was utterly amazed at what God has done. I was sitting with my family. Not just my own children, but my Mighty Men who are becoming like sons. And there is NO WAY we could've just "hung out" a couple of years ago at a Mighty Men retreat. In fact, that first year back in January 2006, we were stopping a fight that had broken out and had everyone up in arms. God has done a lot in two years and we are so thankful. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow and maybe let some people know that this blog exists! :)

our house turned upside down

I'm so excited to be writing on our own blog!! I've been thinking about it for months and 12:30 a.m. seems like the ideal time to begin this little project! Ha! Just had to write about today before I forget. I've been wanting built-in bookcases for quite some time in our piano room and we had gotten a couple of estimates that were a bit out of our range from some builders. So our friend, Richard, who had done some other odd jobs around our house is now building our bookcases and he is doing a phenomenal job. Today we had Richard building and Byron and Royce (ages 13 and 15) painting our living room a new color. The boys had never painted before, but aside from a couple of major spills on the carpet they got an A+ for their painting debut. None of this work will be "perfect" but it couldn't seem more perfect in my spirit. Our prayer room is almost finished and we hope to have all these little projects done by the time school starts. I'll write more about what the Lord has been showing me about sanctuary and beauty later, but for now I MUST go try to grab a few hours of sleep. Malachi has NOT been sleeping well lately! Yea for the Como Brown Blog!! (forgive my "cheesiness" - I'm feeling a bit delirious).

Anda