Birthday Reflections and More About the Cat

Today is Jarod's 11th Birthday!  I find that hard to believe.  When your children are born - you cannot imagine the next 5 or even 10 years.  You cannot picture them bigger.  And yet, they grow.  They walk, they talk, they start school and before you know it you are asking, "Where has the time gone?" 

 I have what is, in the 21st Century, called, "A Tween" - no longer a little boy, but not quite a teenager.  Right in the middle - with hormones beginning to flair up - along with that grasp for independence.  HELP!  It's only going to get more challenging from here.  The challenge, I think, is for me to spend even more time on my knees in prayer as he begins to break away and slowly become the young man that God wants him to be.  Yes - he will have our fingerprints on his life - but even more so, we want God's fingerprints on him.  It's such a challenge to let go.

I go back quite often to the night before Jarod's first day of Pre-K.  I couldn't sleep.  One, because I was pregnant.  Two, because I was about to put my son in a Christian Pre-School 3 days a week.  I got up and began journaling and praying asking the Lord to protect him and to give me a peace.  The Lord spoke so specifically to my heart that night - with such clarity.  He said, "Cami, trust ME with him.  The things that he will experience in life, good or bad, are things I need him to experience in order to make him the man I need him to be later."   I had such an overwhelming peace come over me and even today, whenever I question things that Jarod is going through, I can go back to that night and have a peace that God loves my son even more than I do and that he has a very specific plan for him.  It's so comforting to be able to rest in that.

Every single thing that happens to us - happens for a reason.  To grow us, to make us into the people - the witness - that God wants us to be.  Ultimately to enhance His reputation - to bring glory to Him.   Why do we think it is any less like that for our own children?  After all, aren't our own testimonies based on what happened to us as we grew up - where we came from - what God created in us?

As I look at my son today - I am so proud of the person he is becoming.  Yes - we have a LONG way to go, but hey, he's only 11 right?  :-)

On a lighter note - a cat update.  Meggie has officially become part of the Franklin family.  Although I can hardly believe I am typing this!  Ha!  The children, of course, are thrilled and Jarod has taken the job of feeding her on himself - without prodding!  (Wonder how long that will last...)  Anyway - she goes to the vet tomorrow to get checked out and to be, ahem, fixed.  As much as she is growing on us - we do not want kittens to worry about.

She is a sweet little thing and I do believe that God is using her in my life to soften me up a little.  Time will tell.

This is the cute little face we see each morning at our sliding door.  Waiting for breakfast.

Russ is hooked.  He came home from work yesterday and asked for string.  I told him where to find some and then found him and Meggie on the back porch!!!

She's a playful thing.....

For the first time in forever - we are NOT headed to Disney for Jarod's Birthday.  I know, I know - you're shocked!  I sort of am too.  We've just had some other financial priorities this year and have put the Disney tickets on hold for a while.  But not forever.  Until next time......