Saturday, DC freedoms!

You can go anywhere! It kind of reminds me of that part of Charlotte's Web, where Wilbur pushes through the gate of the pig pen. He gets out and all of the animals hollar at him, what to do first. Dance and run, dig and scratch, twirl and romp, they hollar! I always laugh, when I get to that part of the book. For the first time, there is freedom and facility for Wilbur. All of us, who grow up confined to a car and a family dynamic, can relate to the confusion that it is to get outside into the world and see something other than cotton!

What shall I do? Where shall I go? Who do I ask about these things? The geese will tell you one thing and the gander another. The horses will say to run and leap, but Wilbur was a pig and the things that are fun for a horse are not fun for a pig. The things that are fun for a pig are sometimes just a warm and delicious bath in the mud. Getting free is a bother for him. I am your mother and we little pigs are happy house people. The banter and bother of the city are like the oinking on our plates sometimes, offensive. Don't judge the pigeaters. Don't sit in the house lamenting the food and the fitness of the fares. Get out there and do whatever your little piggy heart lets you! I love you!

I am imagining if I were living at Emmanuel House.

..I am imagining a wonderful early morning prayer time with the Lord at the beautiful ironing area. I would organize my clothes for a meeting with the Lord, each day. I would pray that God would put my heart in place for the day, as I am putting my clothes into the order for wear. Make me an ornament of your mercy and grace to the patients and to the staff that I have to interact with. The ones that I like and the ones that I don't like, help me to be patient with. I would pray for each person that I meet, in service and in need. We all need your mercy and grace, Lord and don't let us be deceived that we are doing your work when we are only doing what we want to do. This is my prayer where I am and in what I do, as well.

I imagine that my ironing prayers would give me help to meet my day with a right heart attitude. I would imagine that God is ironing my heart to look right also and I would probably iron things that I don't even need to iron. Try not to burn your stuff with an ironing room like you have there.

I have other prayer thoughts for the laundry room and don't forget to watch your step going down there!:)

This was my challenge, looking at the Christ House Ministry...

I was wondering and calculating the amount of money it takes to feed my baby girl for a week, much less a month; all the way there. I was calculating transportation costs and the money that it costs for soap and all those hair products she uses! I decided that she should go into hair care products business and scrap this whole endeavor. The neighborhood was impressive to me. It was clearly historic and I knew that Benjamin Banneker had planned and probably walked this very ground. I could feel the sense of God's comfort no matter how I wriggled in His Hands about this. Ev and I have the hand on head symbol that means "this is above me"! I didn't say that, but I had let my mouth utter all my unbelief to my dear Niece in law and she was gracious to hear and place value on my complaints.

As soon as I saw the building, my heart felt a sense of relief that it was a real establishment {if it wasn't Baptist}. My dear husband was concerned about the faith aspect of the endeavor. That wasn't my concern. My concern was the money aspect. When the young lady made it clear that there was a separate food stipen for the whole house, that dealt with my biggest concern. Now about the "men":"where are they and how much access will they have to my sweetpea?" That was dealt with also. There they were. They were homeless. They were in a hospital-like setting and there was a clear spiritual emphasis, {albeit it wasn't Baptist} which was clear and unchallenged. I was comforted by the similarity of the room to Jo March's room in Little Women. My little birdie was clearly in flight and her wings were taking her to realms, where I couldn't follow. My greatest accomplishment feeling is when they do things that I could never do. This was one of those moments. I didn't cry. Dad was getting misty and he had to try to call Aunt Lee or Eli or somebody to distract himself from the reality that babygirl is a grown woman. She is married to God, at the moment and He's got this!