2 Samuel 12:24-25

2 Samuel 12:24-25 records the birth of Solomon, "Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah*, because of the Lord."

As I was reflecting on this verse it was striking to me again how the Lord displays his amazing grace. David (and Bathsheba) have just committed horrible sins against the Lord and he not only blesses them with another child but tells them that he loves their son. What an extreme act of showing forgiveness. We truly have an amazing God.

This one of the reason we plan on naming our next child, who we just found out is a son, Jedidiah. A reminder of God's grace extended to us again and again in the face our sin against him.

*Jedidiah means Beloved of the Lord

Quote

The last few days Erik and I have been a personal retreat. It has been such a refreshing and productive time. I've been able to plan for the fall and read lots of books to challenge and encourage me. I read this quote and wanted to share it:

"Busyness is not godliness. God is not impressed with your production capacity as much as He is concerned that the product of your home-your own children-be chiseled and molded and perfected to the best of your ability. You may tire of this mundane task, but the Lord admonishes you not to grow weary and promises to supply the energy and strength as needed in this all-important task (Isa. 40:28-31). God's strength is for what He plans for you to do-not stamina for everything you might want to do!"

The quote is by Dorothy Patterson and it is quoted by Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock in Practicing Hospitality, p. 75.

What a Mother Must Sacrafice

There is a great post on Holy Experience this morning.

Favorite Photos from Vacation

In my parent's dining room at the beach is a bench that we use for "overflow" seating. When the Dabbs were there we would line up all the kids on the bench to eat. As we were sitting down to eat dinner one night, I said to Jenn, we should take that bench to the beach and take pictures of the kids. Our loving and supportive husbands went along and carried it up the beach for us. Jenn has some great photos of all our kids together. Here a few that I took and edited of my bunch.

And a favorite of Karis:

August Vacation

Every year around my birthday (August 5th) we go back to the beach, Belmar. This year it worked out for us to stay for 9 days! It couldn't have been better. The time started out with just our little family, then after a few days our dear friends the Dabbs came to visit and then my Mom & Dad were there for our final few days.

When we are at the beach, Erik always digs a huge hole- I mean really HUGE, at least 6 feet wide and you can't even see the kids in the bottom of it (we have a really nice shovel). We then wait for the tide to come in and fill it up. The kids love jumping in and out (without or without water). We had plenty of these over vacation but the kids also enjoyed the low tide pools that Erik dug. In fact, most of the people on the beach enjoyed these. At one point I think we had 10 plus kids (not including our own) playing in the pools as they got bigger and bigger.

We typically arrive around 8:30 am stay through lunch and go home for baths and naps then return for the afternoon. My birthday was one of the last days we had there. We arrived early and after about an hour of listening to the kids complain (it was really hot and I think they were just tired of the beach) Erik said, "Do you want to take a bike ride to Ocean Grove?" This is how much my hubby loves to bless me! I love to ride my bike at the beach and I had been mentioning Ocean Grove to him. When I was growing up I spend many summer days there with my grandparents.

**Pause for commercial break by Jerusha.** Ocean Grove is a small town near Belmar. It is a very unique town, it is 1 square mile and all the land is owned by the church. If you buy a house there you only own the house and you have a 100 year lease on the property. The houses are mostly Victorian and very old. The is a building called the Great Auditorium, which was built in the 1800 and they have Christian meetings and concerts there as well as church services every Sunday. My favorite part of Ocean Grove is Tent City, these are basically shanties that have tents on the front of them, families have owned these for generations and live in them during the summer. I LOVE them, always have. As a child I remember being taken with the idea of them.

So we packed up all our stuff, headed home, asked my Mom to watch Cia and took Jotham and Karis to Ocean Grove on our bikes, walked around, had lunch, and just enjoyed some nice family time. My only major disappointment was that I forgot my camera! I was so bummed out I wasn't able to take pictures of the tent houses.

Later that night we had a family dinner with my parents, ate yummy strawberry shortcake and then Erik took me to my other favorite beach town, Lavalette, so we could walk on the boardwalk. My family also used to spend a good deal of time in Lavalette when I was growing up. I haven't been there in years and love it there as well. I'm not really into celebrating my birthday so taking these two trips to some of my favorite place was a real treat for me. Here is a picture of Erik at Lavalette.

On our way home we stopped at Sesame Place in PA. It is basically an amusement park designed for young kids. It has a huge water park element which Karis loved. There are characters from the show walking around and there is a parade in the evening. Jotham loved the characters. He went up to Bert and Ernie and had a whole conversation with them about granola bars (which he was eating at the time) and his new shoes. Cia hung out with my Mom (who is her best friend) and played in the various pools loving every minute.

This picture of Erik & Jotham watching the parade cracked me up, can you tell they are related:

I'm not sure what Cia was thinking about the parade but I think she liked it.

So that must have been my longest post EVER! Anyway, a few more photos to come in another post.

The Mill

Every Friday this summer our church is hosting an early morning men's meeting called The Mill. Erik had the joy of being able to preach at it a week or so ago. I'm so proud of his faithfulness to bring God's word and all the hard work he did is preparing for it.

If you are interested in hearing his message (it is short- only 8 minutes) listen here.