Scary turned Sweet.

When we moved in here, I was watching our neighbors (as I am sure they were watching us). What I saw made me nervous and a little afraid. I saw lots of children who were mostly older than my children, and they looked like.....well, how should I put it? They didn't look like they came from nice "christian" homes...if you catch my drift. And the fear crept into heart. How was I going to keep my children away from them? How was I going to protect them or even prepare them for worldly influences? We have a nice big back yard. But, you know, my kids didn't want to play back there when there were kids in the front yard. They didn't want to stay inside when there were children in the streets. It became very obvious very quickly that permanetly avoiding our neighbors was impossible. So, I started praying (huh, what a thought!) and you know what came to me? "You have not been given a spirit of fear that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship." So start acting like it, Sarah!! Then I started looking around here, and God has really provided for the ministry of outreach. For example, this house has tons of gardening that needs to be done, but guess what...none of it is in the back yard!! It is all in the front!!! God has provided a way for me to be out there with my children interacting with all of the neighbor children!! I went out and bought myself a new pair of gardening gloves and pruning sheers!! I have given roses away to little people so they can take them home and give them to their mommies. We have had a blast.
Last night Cheyne and I went out and ate our dinner on the front porch while our kids rode their trikes around. Before I knew it I was surrounded by 1 frog, 3 golfish, 1 bunny, 1 cat, my kids, 1 four year old girl, and 2 twelve year olds. I decided we needed to eat icecream, so there we were all sprawled out on our front lawn laughing and loving our new friends. Yes, the same kids I was afraid of.

Note to self: Let God work....and buy more icecream.