Rain! A Two-fold Blessing; God is Good to Us.

While I was at work yesterday, Abigail, my 8 year old daughter called me and asked if we could go on our date Saturday afternoon. Let me explain, every year at Christmas we give each of our kids a coupon book. The coupons include things like a get out of jail free card (this will cancel out punishments, although some restrictions apply), a stay up as late as you want, a day off of school(Tracy home schools the kids), and a date out with Mom or Dad. Abigail chose Saturday to use her date coupon. She wanted to go out for lunch at a French restaurant, and then go roller skating. I did not hesitate, and said yes right away, and that we could go. I really was planning on completing several tasks during the day. The yard is in need of a good mowing, as we have finally had some rain and it has started to look green again. I also had plans to look into a problem that Trace has been experiencing with her van. The garden needs some work, and the flowers need to be weeded. I also had planned on finishing up an outside project at our church. All in all I had a very busy day planned. I really did not have time to do the date thing, but I figured we could go, and I could do the work before and after our date.

As I awoke and headed out for my morning run I could see that it had rained quite a bit over night. The ground was completely saturated. While running I often pray. I find it a great time to spend with the Lord. It began to rain shortly after I started my run. I was thanking the Lord for the much needed rain as it has been very dry in our area,and we are many inches below the normal rainfall level. Then it dawned on me that this rain was a double blessing. You may have noticed that all of the projects were outside (we have no garage, so the van will be done in the driveway). So, with the rain from last night, mowing was out, as was the gardening. I couldn't weed the flowers as it was much to wet to do them. The rain seemed to be here to stay a while, and I immediately thanked the Lord for the rain. Not only for the ground, which we did really need it, but also for the projects that I would not be able to do even with no date scheduled. I would have enjoyed my date with Abigail even if I worked before and after, but I would have been rushing and thinking about the work I would not get done, and had to decide which projects would get bumped to a later time. God is so good to us. When we can be so focused on things to do, and a simple day of rain makes us realize that there are things far more important, it is a blessing. I was so happy to spend the date with Abigail, and I never thought about a single thing that needed to be done at home. If it were a sunny day I would have had those things on my mind.

Tracy even said the same thing to me as she was glad of the rain so I would not be thinking of what would not get done during the date.

As for the date, we had a blast. We had our French restaurant lunch at noon. After lunch, we headed down the street to an old fashioned ice cream shop and sat on a nearby park bench swing and enjoyed our dessert together. Then, we headed to the roller rink. I was never a good skater as a kid and that has not changed since I've become an adult. As we headed out on the floor, I began to lose my balance and Abigail grabbed my hand and said, "I will keep you from falling Daddy." Truth is, she did help me keep my balance and it very much touched me. We skated for over 2 hours. I did fall twice, times both of which she did not have hold of my hand. We had a good time. After we left we headed to a local park and spent a few minutes swinging. Then we headed home. As we pulled up the driveway with the wipers on, Abigail said, " I sure am glad we did our date today." With a tear in my eye I said, "Me too, Honey."

God is so good to us.

Tagged Answers

Here are the long awaited results of my tagged post.

1) I have a piece of turf and concrete from Three Rivers Stadium.

True, a salesman that called on my store gave it to me.

2) I am an ordained deacon within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

True, I was ordained in Dayton, Ohio

3) I have worked for NBC during the NFL playoffs.

True, I had a friend that worked for NBC and he arranged for me to work several Steeler games. It was great. I got paid to watch the game from the NBC press box.

4) I have been a member at 6 different churches all of which were Presbyterian.

True they were not all the same but they were all Presbyterian.

5) I had a part in a local production of The Sound of Music and served as the stage manager.

True my children were in the show and they were desperate for adult male roles.

6) I led a semi-pro football team in interceptions one season.

True, I played for 3 seasons after highschool

7) I have run a triathlon

False, I have always wanted to but never have.

8) I curently run 6 days a week, and at one time I ran over 250 days consecutively without skipping a day.

True, I have actually done the 250+ thing a couple of times. Each time I did I got injured. I gave up running on Sundays about 6 years ago and have not been injured due to running since.

9) I drove over 80,000 miles per year over the last 4 years.

True, I am in sales and cover several states.

The winner is Tina. I guess I should have said competed in a trialathon instead of ran one. Truth be told the swimming would be my downfall. Thanks to all who played along.

Boy Scout Camp

I will be at scout camp with the boys for a few days. I will return to blog activity sometime on Wednesday. Where the camp is located has no service of any kind.

Weekly Debate 2

Well my first debate went well. Thanks to all who participated. I do not have a lot of readers at this time. I hope to gain more as I go along. I plan to post the topic/question on Sunday afternoon or evening. I can not always promise that I will be able to chime in consistently during the day as my work keeps on the go and I do not always have access to the net. The topic of this week's debate is music. As a Christian, what type of music should we listen to and what should we not listen to? Let the debating begin!

Reaping what we have sown

I am excited to share with you that we have eaten from our garden several times this week. We have had plenty of zucchini meals (the variety of meals can be found on my wife's blog). The girls froze 4 quarts of beans yesterday. We will be having cucumbers soon (they are sitting on the counter), and I sliced up a banana pepper and ate it on my pizza after church on Sunday. I expect we will be having spaghetti squash soon, as well as peppers and if they ever ripen, tomatoes.

As we continue to have a drought, the garden seems to be holding up quite well. I have been watering it regularly. We did get a little rain this past week. The yard on the other hand is not fairing so well as it is quite brown. I spent some time weeding the flower garden yesterday. My son Mac had a friend over last night and his mom instructed him to tell us the flowers looked pretty. I was pleased to hear the compliment.

It really is nice to benefit from hard work. I liken it to our work for the Lord, as it is not always easy to live a Christian life, but the rewards of serving our Father are so worth the labor. How often do we really think about the benefits we receive from our Lord? While visiting another blog a few days ago, I was reminded of how we must be thankful of our daily bread that our heavenly Father gives us. All too often we take for granted what we have. We complain about things we don't have. Fact is, we have what we need, our God gives us just what we need to survive. The final reward is the everlasting life we will receive in our Father's heaven. Now that is a reaping that is worth the sowing.