TRUST in the LORD and do GOOD

Each child deals with daddy's absence in a different way. Annalina gets highly emotional and Gabriel loses focus. Gabriel has had a real rough time focusing and working at school the last few days. He is "zoned out" {Mrs. Jung's words} which is NOT characteristic Gabriel. Mrs. Jung even said she does not have problems with him and this is so uncharacteristic. When she heard about Brian being gone she said "and Gabriel wouldn't complain about it" and she said she was going to watch him with his work when usually in this schoolis big on responsibility (which is great!) but I appreciated her kindness and concern for him. I also appreciate that she has taken the time to really get to know Gabriel. I told her how the other day Gabriel said to me he was glad he wasn't a baby and I asked him why and he said because it would be hard and I again said why? He said because then I couldn't help and obey you. Brian had a talk with him before he left about basically stepping up when he is gone and helping out and HE DOES!! He is a blessing.

Mrs. Jung said Gabriel did really well at the speech meet. She said he probably had the longest speech and it was just Gabriel. It was The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson. He did an excellent job when I was practicing with him. She thought he did GREAT and said she "doesn't think the judges even got it." And she mentioned they of course didn't understand how "Gabriel" the poem really was! She is an amazing teacher she makes a study of her students.

I had a meeting with Mr. Tucker today going over Annalina's Kindergarten test. He was VERY impressed with the level of knowledge she had and then he found some things just plain humorous and started laughing! That was an encouragement to me!

Tonight in devotions we read the first part of Psalm 37:3 "Trust in the Lord, and do good". We need to trust God to take care of daddy and we need to carry on with what is right and good. We talked about how for Annalina that is obedience, kindness, and emotional control (not crying so much) and for Gabriel it is doing his school work. It is o.k. to miss daddy but we must carry on with what we are to do. I repeated the verse and made them keep filling in the word GOOD.

Last night in my devotions I read Psalm 25:5 "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day. Basically, I don't know exactly how to handle the emotions the kids are going through. I need God to teach me and wait on Him to show himself and his guidance to me instead of just jumping in with my own words. I believe God led me today in progress with the kids. Of course, now prayer.

I am so thankful for my family that prays for me and talks with me on the phone. Mom and Ben listened to me vent today about an old lady with a dog at Fallon Auto Mall! My spirit wasn't exactly in the right place! Things got more stressful with the bottom falling out of one of the kids' milk shake cups from Sonic!! {Weird, huh?} Praise the Lord the janitor had such a warmness and kindness about her. She was so, so kind. She told Gabriel to guard the door not knowing how literally he'd take that and got a kick out of the staunch boy in front of the door when she returned! Sometimes you just have to wonder when you run into angels unawares! Dad if your reading this don't roll your eyes! :)

Trust in the Lord and do good! Good night!