Tough choices...

Seems I'm always growing and learning... I hope I never stop! (Honestly, I've met some people who are a good bit older than me who seem to have never grown up. You just gotta wonder, "How did they get to be so old with so little sense?" And I'm not talking senility either! But I digress...)

Anyway, circumstances in my life recently have caused me to ponder... well, a lot of things, actually... but in particular the concepts of submission, obedience, and taking a stand for what you believe to be right. I have never been able to tolerate being told what to do. Ask me nicely and I'll bend over backwards to help... but don't try to force me. Is that a good character quality to have? I'm not sure. I've been examining my heart about it...

My conclusion is that God calls us to obedience, but he doesn't force us to obey. It is our choice. I joyfully choose to submit. God has proven Himself. He can be trusted. Always. That makes it easy for me to submit to His will.

The Bible says that wives should submit to their husbands, but my husband doesn't force me to submit. I joyfully choose to, because my husband has also proven himself trustworthy. That makes all the difference.

We are choosing to walk away from a church we love because important decisions regarding the future of the local church have been made without the consent or input of the local people.
No relationship has been established with the ones making the decisions. Something about that just seems very wrong. So we have to take a stand for what we believe to be right... but it's so hard. Just heart-breaking. I'm not sure where we go from here. We'll be up in the air about this for some time to come, I'm sure.

One lesson I am taking away from this experience, though, is the importance of building relationships with and proving myself trustworthy to my children. I am reminded that this is critical if I hope to have their hearts and have them "joyfully" submit to what I believe to be best for them from day to day.

Home Again!

We enjoyed our family reunion in Missouri over the weekend, and then traveled home on Monday and Tuesday, at a not-so-leisurely pace. Still playing catch-up, as is typical after getting home from vacation. We're in the middle of a heat spell... which will probably last 2 or 3 weeks and then be done for the summer. But... to use a cliche... it's a "dry" heat... so even with temps over 100 it's not nearly as bad as it would be in the mid-west... and it still gets down in the 60s at night!

Iowa and Missouri

Another easy day. Hot and muggy in the mid-west! Probably not as hot as it could be, the humidity about knocks us over, coming from the drier northwest.

We stayed at a state park near Columbia, Missouri. Arrived in the middle of the day, so had time to relax a bit in the air-conditioned trailer before my husband and the kids went into town to see the fireworks display. My husband and I played Scrabble. It was a pretty close game until he played the word "educator" over two triple word squares for a total of 140 points for that one word!! He just thought he was pretty smart! ;-)

Minnesota

Any easy day on the road. And state #37 for me (not on this trip... in my lifetime!). We deliberately chose this route to add a couple of new states to the map on the side of our trailer.

Walnut Grove did offer a more reasonably priced tour of their Laura Ingalls Wilder museum than did De Smet. Of course, none of the buildings were the actual ones that Laura lived in, but still... There was a replica of the dugout the Ingalls family in which the Ingalls family lived in On the Banks of Plum Creek. It's hard to imagine a family of five living in such cramped dark quarters for a year, or however long it was they lived there!

South Dakota

From Jamestown, North Dakota we headed south to South Dakota on a two-lane highway. This is the first time we've traveled off the interstate since we left home. We like getting off the beaten path, so that was an enjoyable drive. As we came in Aberdeen, South Dakota I noticed a billboard advertising Storybook Land. The billboard said it was free, so we decided to stop and see what it was. I didn't expect much but thought it might be a fun place to stretch our legs. Much to our delight, it turned out to be very cute and very well done... especially to not charge an admission fee. Our kids are little old for story book characters, but they had a blast posing with the various scenes and climbing around on the slides and other playground equipment built into the scenes. One feature of the park was a "Land of Oz" section. Just a lot of fun for an unplanned stop!

We were interested to visit De Smet, Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" but were disappointed how overpriced the tour was. We decided on the self-guided (free) tour. I know we didn't see as much as we would have if we had paid $30 for our family to be taken through the buildings, but I don't appreciate being taken advantage of! We did visit the Ingalls homestead and took pictures of the cottonwood trees that "Pa" planted (which is all that remains in witness of the Ingalls ever living there). We also visited the cemetery and took pictures of the Ingalls family graves.

Tomorrow we plan to visit another Little House site in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Wonder if it will be a dud, too? Oh, well... roadtrips are an adventure, and there's always something interesting to see along the way!

Today's weirdest sight: A stray bull casually strolling through a small cemetery in a small town we drove through!