A Summer Summary

Well, y'all. It's been a minute, huh?

I had no intention of going dark here on the blog for over a month. While I did do some writing this summer for other websites, I never seemed to be able to get myself back to this space. My computer was broken for awhile and then summer jumped in on me and life, as it tends to do, just got stupid-busy.

There was that surreal, utterly ridiculous moment when I suddenly became the mother of a high school graduate.

Commencing

And then a few weeks later, there were the couple of days that I attended a college orientation as a parent instead of a student, even though I was way younger than those other parents there.

Obviously.

There was the time during the orientation when we got this view from the top of a parking garage of the Penn State football stadium. After Joe had googled and found that it was ranked 2nd largest in the country to Texas's Darryl K. Royal Stadium's 8th largest he said, "Hey, Mom. You must feel really cramped at DKR." He thinks he's hilarious, so then there was the time when I told him he might want to think about getting a ride home.

Whatever

There was the week when I drove a gaggle of basketball players to Richmond, Virginia for a camp and back, and then a 16 year old to Bethany Beach, Delaware for a beach trip with his buddies and back and then to State College, Pennsylvania for the aforementioned orientation and back all in a seven day period.

I'm considering becoming an Uber driver.

Beach Boys

There was the 4th of July that fell on a Tuesday which meant that 'Mericans felt the need to celebrate for five nights in a row therefore transforming me into the owner of a dog who COULD NOT EVEN with the fireworks.  Also, I apparently felt like the best way for me to honor my beloved country was to eat all the things at all the parties and gain approximately 37 pounds. I only regret that I have but one more blown diet to give for my country.

He's totally fine.

There was the "trial week" when we prepped ourselves for Joe going to college as he went on a week long mission trip with our church working on hot tin roofs and hammering and sawing and such. Here's the verdict: We don't like it. Three days in we felt like he'd been gone FOREVER. I noticed that one of my boys will have deep conversations with our dog, telling him that he misses his brother. This makes his mom cry buckets, so I guess it's good he's talking to Mack and not me. But as you can tell by the photo above that dog might not be the most mentally sound member of the family, so I'm not sure how much psychological help he can give.

Joe on a mission in Sneedville, TN

And what else?

Oh, yea, well, there was a bit of baseball.

We topped off the last 6 weeks with - after twelve years - the final Little League Baseball Season for our family.

I'm not sure if you've read here for long, but let's suffice it to say that baseball, especially Little League baseball, tends to bring about SOME FEELINGS in the heart and mind of yours truly.

JUST A FEW FEELINGS.

SO MANY FEELINGS.

OK. ALL THE FEELINGS.

It will take me a little while longer to process said feelings. It's possible I could write an entire book on what the Lord taught me in the mere week and a half duration of a 2017 District 16 AllStar tournament. You can insert your eye-roll here, because PUH-LEASE, but all I can say at this point is that God finds me in the most ridiculously ordinary, seemingly insignificant details of my life.

He uses those instances to teach me that there is no such thing as small sin and big sin . . . that there is just sin and I was carrying a big ol' bowl of it that He never asked me to carry. He taught me that there is no such thing as the "good" Christian I was trying to be. There's just a Christian - sinful, broken and needy. He taught me of forgiveness, of redemption, and of the absolute fact that His will, and only His, will be done.

Mostly, he reminded me of His gracious, unwavering love that is present even when I do not deserve one lick of it. He answered a small, whispered plea in a way that was immeasurably more than I could have asked or imagined and just as assuredly answered another with a firm, "No, ma'am, not this time." He loves me in spite of myself and He adores the people I love, reminding me when things come to an abrupt end, that He can use anything - anything - to teach me the truth of the Gospel and to help me to fully understand what Jesus did for me on the cross.

Y'all. I admit it. It's baseball. It's just a game. It's so weird to talk about how God works on my heart through a dumb game. But our God? Well, the pleasant way to say it is that He's a mystery. In other words, a big weirdo. It is truly stunning to me. More on that later, I think. Or maybe not.

Either way, Little League has given us so much more than hundreds of 6 inning games. Immeasurably more. I will never get over it.

That's a wrap.