It's Mud Pie Season

Seasons.  Springtime is here -wait, I meant winter is here...but that was yesterday, oh my gosh now I think it's summer! Let's drag out all our shorts and box up our winter clothes! What?!?! It's only 30 degrees today? Let me unpack my box of winter clothes.  Arkansas!!! What is up with your schizophrenic weather lately?!?!

Technically it is spring.  I personally love spring - it probably is my favorite season only because it follows my least favorite season which would be winter.  I wish winter was a two day season - lasting Christmas eve and Christmas day. The only positive thing about winter is living in sweatpants and hoodies and hiding all that extra "warmth" (technically called "blubber" if you live in the Arctic and you are a polar bear).  It's been such a rainy season this time around.  It's funny, we pray it won't rain so our ball games won't get postponed, and our field trips won't be cancelled.  In the summer, we hold revival type prayer meetings FOR it to rain so we can get a break from the heat, our crops won't ruin, our grass to come back to life. 

Well, all I'm gonna say is I got a 20 month old that is probably stormin' the gates of heaven with "Jesus! Bring on the rain!!!"  Nothing makes my daughter happier than a good mud puddle.  Or a lake about 4 inches deep that she can splash around in - preferably in our back yard. And lucky for her I am that kind of laid back (tired) mom that says "Go for it! Play in that mud! Drag your brother out there!" And I love the 20 minutes of peace and quiet I get while she happily splashes around and ruins three sets of clothes.
And she and I both are pretty darn lucky she has two brothers that pretty much give her what she wants.  And if they don't- well, she literally bites them on the head.

"Oh Jacob, why don't you come play in the back yard with your sister.  She really, really wants to play." (And I am seriously not wanting to get mud all over my clothes)  I think Jacob figured me out.

"Bubba is teaching me how to make mud-pie's! And yes, they taste yummy.  Because I like to eat dirt."

I can't raise a "girly girl" to say my life. She doesn't mind one bit that mud is covering half her face.

 "Don't even think about praying for this rain to stop.  It makes my back yard better than Disney World."

I have actually started a picture album on my computer and I just labeled it "mud 2013."  I have about 100 pics of her in the mud with whoever  I  she can con into playing with.  But I love it.  After a good solid night of rain we once again have a fishing lake in the back yard (it would be funny to put some gold fish in it and advertise our house with a "stocked pond").  I'll kinda be sad when spring is over and the yard is back to normal. And that will mean she will resort to finding a new way to make a huge mess - probably IN the house.

Life is centered around seasons.  The literal seasons and then the chunks of time we find ourselves in.  Some seasons are messy and hard or cold and dark and we can't wait for them to get over.  Some seasons in our life are beautiful and fresh - we have hit a good stride with our family or marriage or ministry.  Everyone is getting along, we have extra money, our ministry is showing results. One thing that is sure, good or bad, seasons change. Summer turns to fall, fall turns to winter....The bad doesn't last forever.  And unless you are the one person out of a million, the good doesn't last forever either. It's an ebb and flow. It keeps us dependent on the Lord.  Life changes. We just gotta roll with it.

Ecclesiastes  3:1-8

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven.

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep, and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

But oh my goodness.  As I am typing these verses out it hits me that good always follows bad.  Hang tough if you are in that dark time.  Seasons DO change.  It WILL get better. 

"Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning." -Psalm 30:5

And life according to Elisabeth is that  "messy, dirty mud makes the tastiest mud-pies."  The bad is what makes the good - oh so good!