What a wonderful summer!

Woah. This summer was great. I know I haven't blogged in a while but that's because we have been traveling a lot! July 9-20 we were in California and then July 29-August 13 we were in Virginia. So....there hasn't been a lot of time to upload and edit photos, and create a blog post. But there are a few posts composing themselves in my head:

*Dedicated to grandparents
*Wonderful family
*Traveling with children

Hopefully they'll appear soon. In the meantime...Nathan starts school tomorrow (5 half-days a week!) and we'll celebrate by starting Isaac on the potty training adventure :)

An Ode to the Iowans

These are our
Iowans.

We love them a whole bunch.

And I'm pretty sure the feelings are mutual.

Between the Brocks and the Iowans there are no shared
hometowns,
colleges,
churches,
workplaces,
or homes.

We met in.....an interesting housing circumstance. And the friendship stuck. Praise the Lord! He knew we needed each other.

They have
loved us,
fed us,
laughed with us,
prayed with us,
been sad with us,
blessed our children with presents,
even taken off work to keep Nathan
when Isaac arrived.

Their love for my children is inspiring and contagious. With no children of their own, they still understand how children can be limiting. But they never see ours as a
burden,
only as more people for them to shower
with their selfless love.

Andrea, Katie, and Kelly, we love you.
We love that our friendship with you has stood the tests of
miles
and
time.
We look forward to every moment spent with you.

What a cutie

My favorite place

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

--Jacques Cousteau

Follow-up thoughts on the Sabbath (thanks to Isaiah)

Isaiah 58:13-14:

If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Nathan's 4th Birthday--A Dinosaur Party!

We had a great time celebrating Nathan's 4th birthday yesterday. I can't believe that my first baby is already four years old! Here he is opening his first gift of the day: Mini and Maxi books! These are great books that tell a Bible story and then there's a story about the Muffin family that reflects the Bible story. Nathan loves them! Papa and Grandma Brock have quite a few and though they're out of print, Grandma was able to procure five for Nathan for his birthday. Needless to say, Nathan wanted to read them all morning, and every free moment since then!

After opening his first-thing-in-the-morning gifts, we thought we'd better get the party underway! Nathan is currently obsessed with dinosaurs, T-Rex in particular, so we threw him a dinosaur-themed birthday party. I'm sorry to say that there are no pictures of the decorations :( When the guests arrived we split into two groups. (Did I mention that there were FOURTEEN children, plus their parents and in some cases younger--baby--siblings at the party???) One group painted t-shirts with dinosaur stampers and the other group went on a dinosaur hunt (thing Easter egg hunt). Then we switched groups. Between the swap most of the kiddos played Carnivores and Herbivores, a game we made up based on the game Sharks and Minnows. It went well...until Nathan collided with a friend. Thankfully they quickly recovered :)

After a hydration break (because it was HOT and HUMID), Nathan opened his gifts while Daddy fetched the pizza. We then ate lunch and had cake, said good-bye, and came into the air conditioning for the rest of the afternoon! It was a wonderful time and Nathan thoroughly enjoyed himself. Grandpa (Bryan) was visiting and treated Mommy and Daddy to the Olive Garden for dinner! A great day was had by all :)

Here are some more pictures from the big day!

legalism and suffering

Yesterday's sermon at our church was about the Sabbath. Our pastor was encouraging us to not only take a Sabbath (a day of rest), but showing how God commands the Sabbath. We are to Sabbath one day a week, and the Israelites were to have their fields rest one year out of every seven, and then after seven rotations of this (49 years) they were basically to rest for three years. (Year 49: rest. Year 50: Year of Jubliee--rest. Year 51: plant. Year 52: harvest.) Anyway, he pointed out several interesting things. Some of these I've thought of before, some I haven't. I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

First of all, the Sabbath is commanded by God. It seems to be the only one of the Ten Commandments that we currently find "optional." No one would ever suggest that lying, coveting, adultery, etc. are optional, but most Christians aren't willing to call out a brother or sister on not observing the Sabbath. Why?

The other thing that got me really thinking was how this falls into the category of "I don't want to be legalistic about it." We tend to be so afraid of becoming legalistic about things, we often don't draw hard lines for ourselves. An example: Our pastor suggested observing the Sabbath means not only resting for ourselves, but also helping others rest. He phrased it by saying that not only should we abstain from work, but we shouldn't create work for others. When we go out to eat on Sunday, that's creating work for others. When we go shopping on Sunday, that's creating work for others. So how are we really observing the Sabbath if we're creating work for others? In the laws about the Sabbath in the Old Testament, God was very clear to say to the Israelites that not only were they to rest, but everyone in their households, including slaves, were to rest.

Anyway, here's how that leads to my thoughts about legalism, and really the point of this post. I feel like we're so obsessed with not becoming legalistic that we're not really willing to ever do without or inconvenience ourselves. In fact, I think that most of our "I don't want to become legalistic about that!" is really just a nice, Christian way to say "I'd rather not inconvenience myself in that way." A (hypothetical, in this case) example: We run out of milk on Saturday night, too late to go out and get more. Our children like milk in the morning. We are committed to observing the Sabbath, both for ourselves and for others. We can make it through Sunday with no milk and then get it on Monday morning. It's very easy to say "I don't want to be legalistic about the Sabbath, so I'll just go get milk on Sunday morning." In fact, what I'm thinking is "I don't want my children to complain about not having milk so I'll just run out Sunday morning and get it. I don't want to hear their whining and God won't care if I break the Sabbath." Well, really? He won't care? He doesn't care about the fourth commandment?

In American Christianity, I think we get a lot of things right. This (the Sabbath), however, is one thing I think we get really wrong. Not only the concept of resting from work and helping others rest from work, but also never being willing to deprive ourselves of anything. We have forgotten the value of patience (in this case not only waiting until Monday, but also planning ahead so things don't have to happen on Sunday). We have forgotten the value of suffering (a little or a lot). We have forgotten the value of discipline, and we need to reclaim it for ourselves and for our own dignity as Christians.

P.S. Two points of clarification: The sermon was not about deprivation/suffering/doing without. It was only about the Sabbath but this is where my thoughts went. Also, I have no desire to make this about pointing fingers at other people. All of the "we"s and "our"s in there refer directly to Jimmy and me (well, except maybe the last paragraph, but still mostly to us). You can decide for yourself if they apply to you, but I'm not trying to decide for you! :) (I have not forgotten about pulling the log out of my eye before pointing out the speck in yours!)