A LampPost Flickering

I wanted to update those of you who were thinking of me and praying for me during my impromptu job supervising a non-custodial parental visit. The visit went really well. The dad was extremely emotional, and I struggled holding back tears of my own. It was upbeat and positive. And I'm actually going to be supervising a visit with the same family again this weekend. Also, there is a possibility of more work like this for me in the future. It's rough, emotionally, but I think it will be good. I'm in contact with someone... I prayed for him, the kids, and the mom throughout the whole visit. I can't imagine that being a bad thing for a broken family... Thanks for your prayers!!!

I'm thinking of you today, Jeny! I know that ground cover in December absolutely delights your heart. I'm putting on some Christmas music, heating up the tea kettle and thinking of you today! Oh, and bundling up four little people for some outdoor play.

It's Wednesday. The Candlelight Christmas parade is Friday. In two days. Did I tell you that Pathway enters a float into the parade every year? This will be our 4th parade since we moved here. The first year, Seth was only two months old. So natually, we thought, Live Nativity. (Okay, so maybe that's not the "natural" first thought the average mother of a newborn has. I think that natural first thought is, "I'll stay home with the baby." Maybe I'm not so average.) Anyway, our generator stopped working, so none of the strings of lights we painstakingly hung were lit. (Lights are kind of important in a nighttime Christmas parade.) But we did have paperbag luminaries, each filled with sand that anchored a small candle. The kids were dressed as shepherds, a couple of grownups were wisemen, a Joseph was thrown in there, and I was Mary holding a very red-headed baby Jesus, who thankfully slept through the whole parade. I was so thankful, because I didn...

As I type this I'm listening to ice from the heavens angrily pelting my window. It's as if the snow was in too big of a hurry to drift softly, silently to the earth, but impatiently scrunched itself up into little balls of icy mischief and threw temper tantrums from the clouds, who are floating by, shrugging their shoulders at the path of winter they've left behind. I think winter is here. I'm praying we won't be iced out of church tomorrow. And I have this feeling that Michigan is going to be one snowy tundra this season. We're due for a hard winter. Lily and I did a little bit of Christmas shopping today and found the big boys' presents. I won't spoil the surprise, but snow will sure come in handy! I have a very interesting job ahead of me tomorrow. A lawyer friend contacted me, and he is working on an ugly, brutal divorce case. The dad has been issued a restraining order from his soon-to-be ex-wife and his two young sons. However, he has been granted...