A Lesson From the Ants???

As I arrived home from work yesterday, I was on my cell phone, so instead of going immediately into the house, I stood out in my driveway in order to finish my phone conversation in peace, avoiding the excited barking dog inside my home.

It wasn't long before my eight year old was running up to me freaking out because there were ants in our dining room. A lot of ants in the dining room.

I walked in the house to find an almost perfect line of ants scurrying back and forth from our front door through our dining room and into our kitchen. Yuk. We had bad storms here yesterday, so my guess is that they were taking cover in our home. As gross as it was, it was truly a site to see, so I called each child into look at them!

I looked for some bug spray to get rid of them, but I couldn't find any. Thankfully, not long after, Denny came home and finished up ridding our house of ants.

Leave it to our God to make a "lesson" out of this.

I woke up this morning, opened up my Bible and chuckled as I read this passage of scripture:

"Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and be wise! Even though they have no prince, governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up? I want you to learn this lesson: A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest...and poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber." Proverbs 6:6-11 NLT

This doesn't mean that we can't take time for rest. Rest is GOOD. But it is a reminder that hard work is also GOOD. And we shouldn't have to have someone standing over our shoulder telling us to work hard. Take a lesson from the ants. They know that there is work to be done in order to live well.

I enjoyed sharing this passage with each family member as they woke up this morning. And simply because of the timing of it, they all took it well too. :)

This Boy...

This boy wants to write songs with his Mama.

He has been BEGGING me.

We wrote a song together this past summer when Josh was just seven. He had been asking me to write with him, so one evening we finally did it. He was so cute. He wanted to write about God. So I said, "okay, write down what you want to say about God, or to God."

After thinking for a minute, he looked up at me with a somewhat defeated look and said, "I don't know what to say."

I said, "Well, how 'bout that be your first line...'Lord I don't know what to say.'"

He got a big grin on his face and said, "okay!"

And we were off to writing our first song. I was totally AMAZED at how into it he was. He wasn't just concerned about the lyrics, but also about the structure of the song. He would say things like, "I think we need to sing the chorus twice here." I didn't even know he knew what a "verse" or a "chorus" was...but he did.

First we wrote the words, and then we put it to music. Even musically he had an idea of where he wanted the song to go, and I tried my best to honor where he was taking it.

We ended up recording the song, and I was really pleased with how it turned out. The style, to me, sounded very high school musical-ish. Which is quite fitting for his age. If you'd like to hear it I'd be happy to e-mail it to you. Just drop me a line at melissa.milbourn@gmail.com

I tried getting him to sing the whole thing, but he was too shy. So I sang the verses by myself and he joins me on the chorus. I pray that he overcomes his fear because he is an awesome singer. Would you join me in that prayer?

My spring has been really busy, but life should be settling down a little bit over the summer. And I'm really looking forward to writing with Josh and further discovering just how God has gifted him. The only thing I dread is he is very bossy. Ha.

Matters of the Heart

I've been out of the office and on the road the past two days, which has given me much time to "think". That can be a dangerous thing. :-)

I have had something on my heart for a little while now, and I can't shake it. That's how the Lord seems to work with me. It's not a new thing for Him to do. In fact, yesterday, as I was driving, I was recalling that He has dealt with me this way since I was in high school. He has called me to intercessory prayer, and He will call some "thing" or some "one" to my mind, and I pray for them until He says we're done.

You would think I'd be use to it by now, but every time He does it I tend to go into a mode of trying to understand what He's doing. Trying to reason it out. And when I can't reason it out, I either have to process it or I can repress it. So today as I was driving I was thinking, "I'm just going to repress this." Ha. "I'm going to make it go away." But, as soon as I thought that I knew it wasn't the right choice.

When I got home tonight I read my friend Mollie's status on Facebook, and I understood it completely because it was exactly where my brain had parked itself today as I pondered my current matter of the heart. Mollie's status said this,

"Matters of the heart cannot be reasoned away. They can only be repressed or processed."

Thanks for the confirmation Jesus.

We can choose to repress it. Would that ever be the best choice?

I'm sure every situation is different, but I know for me, God doesn't lay something on my heart for me to say, "uh, I'd rather not take the time and deal with that."

And typically, to be honest, I'm never able to "reason" it away.

My only healthy choice is to go before the Lord and ask Him to help me "process" it. One step at a time. Not trying to get ahead of Him, not falling behind, but attempting to stay stride for stride with Him.

"don't be afraid, and don't worry: Haven't I always kept you informed, told you what was going on?" Isaiah 44:8 The Message