Friendships

So it is my third day in Seattle and I am heading back to Pikes Place Market and the original Starbucks. Yesterday at the City Center and Space Needle there was a Folk Life Festival...great surprise. It was sort of like a mini-State Fair with food and demonstrations and booths of hemp clothes (yeah Seattle). I also took the underground tour of Pioneer Square and learned about the beginning of Seattle (almost was named Duwumps).

So I was a typical tourist...but what is great is that I am spending this time with a good friend from Washington, D.C. Amelia and I met at my first call church and have been friends ever since. It was she who came over in the middle of the night to stay with Seth while Sean was born. It was she who actually went on vacation with my family and we had a crazy awful time. How wonderful it is to have friends that, even when we have not seen each other for a long time, we reconnect as if we had lunch yesterday.

How good is our God that we were not created to be alone, but in community, in relationship with others.

It has begun

So what does it mean be on sabbatical...I am finally discovering it! But I spent my first day traveling and worrying...worrying that Seth needs to return a library book, that I need to send a list of things to remember to my husband, and that my house will be a disaster when my mom comes to help with the boys. Worry...as if there are not more important things to worry about! And yet we are reminded by Jesus not to worry....hmmm....how do I stop it?

At lest I am no longer "in routnine." Today is a day of exploration, of new experiences, of time reconnection with a good friend. So I will hand my worries over to God and begin to trust in the unfolding of what sabbatical means.

Counting Down

As the countdown continues, I am still relatively calm about all that I have to do to finish getting ready to be on sabbatical. Other people have been asking me if I am crazy with all the preparations, but really, I'm not. I know that what needs to get done will, and that whatever doesn't...oh well. Plus, I have never been one to get too caught up in details when it doesn't really matter. Okay, maybe sometimes I like to discuss those minor details, but in the grand scheme of things, I know that God has my back.

I am getting excited, though, to experience what God has in store. Just as I am ready to spend some quality time with good friends, my sons, and my family. I pray that God bless this sacred time.