The Mom Walk by Sally Clarkson

My time in Austin included some reading. The following excerpt from Sally Clarkson's book entitled The Mom Walk really blessed and encouraged me:

She concludes the prologue by stating:
"...the success of a mom's walk through her years of motherhood is largely dependent on her walk with God. If she learns to love Him and listen to His voice through prayer and scripture, then she will walk on a road that leads to success in God's eyes. It is not about how much we can control our lives and the lives of our children or how well we can live up to standards our culture has imposed on us. It is not a matter of doing the all the right things.

"It is all about how well we learn to walk this journey with God, how well we provide a godly pattern for our children to follow and teach them how to walk their own paths with God. It is by living in the presence of God and resting in His will and walking in His power and being a part of what He is doing in and through our lives. In other words, the Mom Walk consists of commiting to walk with Him as our guide, with His wisdom and perspective, and with Him to protect us and strengthen us. It is God's will for us to get to the finish line of our mothering journey without being used up, dried out, spent, or depressed. By following His design, we can finish our walks well. He designed us to walk this road with Him."

I remember a few years ago being blessed when reading the account of Noah. I had never before seen that the reason Noah was able to hear and obey the Lord was because he had a relationship with Him. He walked with God. The following is Genesis 6:8-9

"But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

So, what does all of this say to me? Well, it encourages me to walk with God. A relationship with God is one worth having.

We Had No Idea

The entry is related to yesterdays entry entitled "your prayers".

As I sit here in a hotel room in Austin, Texas watching the early morning sunlight awaken the sleeping city I cannot help but reflect on the tragic news that I received last night. As you can imagine I have thought about it a lot, and my sleep was definitely impacted. I'm hoping my mom and aunt made it safely to Phoenix. It's too early out west for me to call anyone and find out. So, I will trust and wait.

It was not this last Saturday, but the Saturday before (July 25th), that my family including my mom, dad, and nephew Marc drove from Gold Beach, Oregon to Sacramento via Grants Pass, Oregon and interstate 5. I will have to tell you that i haven't personally seen my cousin Bryan in over 10 years. I knew he was working construction in Oregon somewhere, but that was it. So, the fact that he was battling the wildfires in California was a surprise. In fact, it's quite eery to me that we had lunch in Mt. Shasta, California so close to where he was. The smoke and the haze. The sight of it and the smell of it is fresh in my mind. I took some pictures as we were driving down the road. One is a hazy picture of Mt. Shasta (or what we could see of it...i'm sure it's bigger than that). Another is of the road ahead where on either side you can see red fire retardant....at first i thought it was red dirt then I realized that it wasn't. I also took some pictures of fire trucks headed back to Southern California with tired and weary firefighters on them. I thought it was all "interesting" and part of the story of our vacation. I had no idea that it was real. I mean, I took the pictures because I knew it was real. Real to someone. But not "real" to me. It was relevant as a news story. But, not as one that would bring tears to my eyes and pain to my heart. My Aunt Donna is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. While I wasn't close to Bryan, I mourn for him. And the pain, the tears, the sorrow reaches deep within me at the fact that my aunt has lost her oldest son. The phone call my mom received years ago when Bryan was brought home as their son was one of excitement and joy. The phone call she received last night that Bryan was killed was filled with anguish and pain.

So, I had no idea that Bryan was fighting fires. I had no idea that these pictures would become real to me. I had no idea.....

This picture was taken at the Black Bear Diner in Mount Shasta City where we had lunch. Again, we had no idea that Bryan was nearby fighting fires. (We knew he was doing construction in Oregon. Apparently there wasn't much work for him there. So, someone told him about this opportunity to fight fires in California with this company which I am assuming was Grayback)


Of course please pray for my Aunt and Uncle, Jim and Donna Rich. They are supposed to be flown from Phoenix to Oregon at some point for the funeral. I understand that the bodies haven't been recovered yet. So, I'm not sure when that will be. They have another son named Lee. I'm sure that this is hard on him too.

Here is a link to this mornings San Francisco Chronicle story.