Hand-Me-Downs, Comparisons, & Halloween

What do they have in common?

2 commonalities.  Andrew and John.  Cousins.

2010 - Andrew

2011 John

Funny how little boys don't get a choice regarding their clothing prior to, ummmm, about the age of 2.

This year Andrew will be Superman for Halloween.

I wonder if John will be Superman next year.

Here is John, the Lion, smiling.

OMG!

I just did the math!
Tomorrow, or today, October 27,  Charlie and I will have been married 32 years.
That's not the math thing I did.

I wanted to know when Mother and Daddy had been married 32 years.  What year was it?  I did the math.  It was 1979!  The year Charlie and I married.   Mother was 60 (my age now)  Daddy was 66 ( Charlie is 58 right now) 
Again, OMG.  Oh, my gosh!  I didn't know.  I thought they were settled. I thought they'd been married forever.  I didn't know that....
they still remembered their single life
they wanted to stay connected
they wanted time alone
they still needed to know they were loved by the other
they still wanted to be parented by their parents
they didn't see themselves as old 
they still asked God for answers to the really big questions
So many "they didn't's", and I thought "they did".  I assumed.

Differences .....
We have 6 grandchildren.  They had none.  
I want to go back to Evergreen.  Mother had always lived in Evergreen.  Daddy was a man.  He loved Evergreen.  But if he wanted to go anywhere else, it would have been Troy.  Again, differences - Daddy was a man.  

It would be 2 years before they became grandparents.  Wow.  I have 6 grandchildren.  Big difference.

Mother was  61 when she had a masectomy.  Breast cancer!  I was still very very very attached to her.  It felt as if I couldn't live in the world and her be gone.  I didn't want to do it - not at all.  They didn't know all that I thought they knew.    I don't know anything.  I don't feel as if I know anything.  Well, I know some things, but not enough things.  They were ( I know this now)  tired of..... so many things - yet just wanting to enjoy their daily life.  I want that now, which is how I know they felt that.  They never told me any of that.
I know this.  Mother and Daddy were connected - Charlie and I are....connected.  Whatever love is, they loved each other.  Charlie and I love each other - but the word has become a cliche in the secular world and an impossibility in the spiritual world - so we are joined at the hip - hearts in the equation - in covenant and glad to be so - we are Charlie and Elizabeth, married and glad to be so.  His feet and mine touch at night under the covers - while we sleep our independent ways and styles and manners.  He usually makes the bed in the mornings and I usually make the coffee.  We love the "whodunnitshows". Criminal Minds, Bluebloods, The Perfect Wife, Castle, The Closer, CSI - Those are our shows.  We like yardwork together - if we can get on the same page, doing it together.  He makes great salads - I make whatever whenever I make it.  I never doubt him, nor he, I.  Either of us can walk in a room and we can see one another's countenance and know something's off.   Is everything okay?  we ask each other.  We each persist until the truth is told - the thing that is bothering either of us.
It's a relief when it's just him and I.  That is definitely love.
I did more math.  Grandmother and Granddaddy in 1934 had been married 32 years.  They lived to celebrate their 50th.  
Ella and Elbert, well, I don't have their dates -but I think they might have celebrated their 50th.  Ella and Elbert were my Mother's parents.  
Happy Anniversary to Charlie and Me!  October 27, 1979.  October 27, 2011.

I've Been Rescued

I want the following quote/truth to be embedded in my thought process, or my memory bank, or my instinct, so as to respond to every experience, person, situation, story in light of this reality.

“If you read the Scriptures carefully, you will never get the idea that the work of Christ is for well adjusted people who just need a little redemptive boost. It never presents any human condition or dilemma as outside the scope of the gospel. Redemption is nothing less than the rescue of helpless people facing an eternity of torment apart from God’s love.”— Paul David Tripp
Instruments in The Redeemer's Hands(Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002), 195
I got this from OF FIRST IMPORTANCE, and you can click this sentence to go to their site for other gems.

14 Images of Fun and Energy

October 21 on my back porch.

Ellie, Luke, Ada, and Andrew.

Eating seasonal cupcakes made by Ann.

(We encourage them to stay outside and play.  :-)

Just inside were Laura Beth, Kate, Mary Ann (my sister), Abigail (4 months), John ( 20 months), and I, sitting around the kitchen table.  

(There was a photo, but I deleted it.  It was too bad of me for anyone to see.  Vanity.)

Ann also was inside with us but she was outside at that time taking the pictures.

What I Don't Want to Take for Granted

1. That my children are alive and well (I have friends & family whose adult children are not still with them - what we call tragic)
2. That my eyes work on this day (I have a friend who is having double vision and doctors are merely guessing why)
3. That my grandchildren are healthy and breathing and are exhausting me at times. ( I know of those whose babies didn't live nearly long enough)
4. That my brain is only suffering memory loss at what seems to be an expected rate. ( I have loved those whose brains atrophied much too soon with that awful Alzheimer's Disease)
5. That Charlie and I can pay our bills (I know there are those who can't and who are scared that they can't)
6. That Charlie has a job (Some don't have a job)
7. That my arms and my legs work - that I breathe - that I feel safe and comfortable - that I swallow correctly - that the car which swerved during our trip on Friday didn't cause us to have a head on collision - that my mom and dad lived a long, good life - that I've only ever known safe love - it's endless what I don't want to take for granted - in other words - be thankful - thankful - thankful - grateful - enjoy - breathe it in.
8. That at night I lie down in safety and comfort - (I see the homeless in cities and only know of them in the small areas where I live)
9. That noone hurts me or arrests me when I worship God. (so many are in prison on this day for their faith in Christ - and so many are being tortured and hurt for their faith in Him)

and if all of that is taken from me tomorrow?  Still be thankful, though crushed with grief - crushed and bleeding - because He intends only good for me.  I want to breathe those words, "Thank You." if I only mouth them because the pain is too hard to say - but if I am His, He blesses.  Isn't that right?  Right?  I beg for grace in those God given trials.  He promises grace.

1. That Jesus pursued me and called me out and caused my heart to live and I was rebirthed (There are those who are blind and deaf and imprisoned, without spiritual life)
2. That Jesus continues to shape me and mold me and make me. (He does that with all who are His)
3. That Ann, Laura Beth, Sarah and Kate love Him passionately and desire to be shaped into His likeness.  That Steve and Scott love Him passionately and desire to be shaped into His likeness.

He won't take those away, because it all depends on Him and not us.  Actually, everything depends on Him - but those last 3 things are eternal and are part of His eternal kingdom - the other - mortal and temporary and material for trials and sanctification.

Clinging to the everlasting arms.

Auburn

I was in Auburn today...


to get Ada....


who was with her mom.....


who was attending a baby shower for a friend....


on the day Auburn was scheduled to play Florida.


So Ann, Ellie, Abigail and I drove from Scottsboro to "make a day of it".


We picked up Ada and had our own Auburn experience, minus the game.

Ada and Ellie at Toomer's Coffee Shop

Ann, Abigail, with Kelly on the bench.

Ann and Kelly met at the beginning of their freshman year.

Kelly is pregnant with her 3rd.  Ann is holding her 4th.

Then we drove home.

A trip that normally takes 3 1/2 hours 

between Auburn and Scottsboro

takes almost 5 hours with a baby

and two little girls in the car.

It was worth it.

We have Ada with us,

and it was fun to see all the hoopla in Auburn.

WAR EAGLE!

Read This and Massage It into Your Insecurities

Here's a quote I got off of Noel Piper's facebook page.  Also, if you go there, read her blog post.

"Our desires to be accepted by some group are a shadow of what will satisfy our longings - acceptance by God. " 

We've Been at Orange Beach

• Mike and Mary Bratton were with us the first night and first day.
• Sarah joined us on Monday night and returned to NOLA on Wednesday (with car malfunctioning as she arrived in Gulf Shores, but we had that repaired and now the car functions :-)
• Yesterday, traveling home, we visited in Evergreen with Mary Ann, and my aunt, uncle, and cousin...around their table, with coffee.  Sharing birth stories of the new additions to our Northcutt family.  (while Charlie and John Law discussed politics and Auburn football)
• Traveling still further north toward Scottsboro, we met Kate in downtown Birmingham for dinner, at 5:30.  She's in Alabama for a friend's wedding, this weekend.
• Now here we are, at home on, not Monday morning, but Friday morning.  That's good.  It feels like Monday to me.

I didn't get enough of South Alabama and Orange Beach.

But I really like home, too.  Always my dilema.