Some recipes from our family vacation at Red River Gorge in Frenchburg, KY....
Monday supper - Chili cheese dogs, BBQ chips, and hot cocoa
Tuesday breakfast - Breakfast bagels with ham and cheese
Tuesday lunch - Chicken satay skewers and southwest salad
Tuesday supper - Hamburgers, sweet potato fries, and double chocolate s’mores
Wednesday breakfast - Breakfast burritos with ham, cheese, tomatoes, and red & green bell peppers
Wednesday lunch - Baked potatoes, southwest salad, and sweet potato fries
Wednesday supper - Campfire pizza log, southwest salad, sweet potato fries, and cinnamon-rolls-in-oranges
Thursday breakfast - Breakfast burrito leftovers and cinnamon roll leftovers (recipes to follow in future post, along with more pictures)
Followed by coffee at Sherri’s Cafe in Winchester, KY....
We needed a vacation to get a break from life’s stresses. I realize now that before vacation my primary stressors were 1) watching my husband struggle under his heavy load of responsibilities and being mostly unable to really help with anything, and 2) staying discouraged from the many battles & conflicts that are regularly being thrust upon us.
Day 1: Getting ready -
This day was marked by stress over not being able to do for my family what I want, or to do it as well/successfully as I’d like. I was thankful to be able to breathe some when I stopped to nurse Levi, and while we were traveling on the road. Then we arrived at the cabin, and problems that had begun on the road continued, I was discouraged that our needed vacation was (and would continue to be) marked by the above stressors also - helplessly watching my husband struggle with stuff, and relentlessly striving for a peaceful existence amid the frequent/daily/inescapable battles.
Day 2: Hiking, campfire, s’mores 🥾 🔥 🍫 🍪
Realized that maybe God’s calling for me had always been to live a chaotic, stress-filled helping life - since, after all, He’d laid helping on my heart from my earliest days. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been that kind of person, but ... perhaps if I’d stayed able-bodied throughout my entire adulthood, maybe I could’ve struggled with pride - so maybe that’s why He gave me the disabilities that make this helping lifestyle soooo much more difficult? Perhaps my disabilities are my necessary humility factor, similar to Paul’s thorn in the flesh and Jacob’s wrestling-prayer limp?
Or perhaps I’m partly paying the consequences for my own poor choices leading up to my accident ... staying up late the night before to do homework, sleeping late that morning, struggling to try to make it to school on time, and turning left before there was quite enough space to do so.
Whatever the reason, I know that I’m not perfect, I’ve never been perfect, God is perfectly good, He has always been both perfect and good, and there IS some reason greater than me as to why I have to endure the extra hardship of all these stresses and disabilities at the same time. Not that knowing this makes it any easier to helplessly watch my husband struggle, or to helplessly struggle for peace with people who don’t want peace.... Maybe someday I’ll learn the secret to enjoying these struggles.
Anyway, yay for the struggle at least being a lot less for a little bit! It was really, really nice to have a brief reprieve from most of our normal world with all of its busy, hectic, drama-filled craziness.
Day 3: We have a 7-month-old!!!
And he started pulling up tonight, motivated by his close proximity to the dinner table while sitting in the pack-and-play.
Day 4: Going home with recharged batteries -
Back into the craziness. Back into the drama with my attention-challenged, extra-easily-overwhelmed TBI brain. I’m ready though. Ready to be overwhelmed, ready to lean into Jesus Who has promised to be there with His everlasting arms whenever I falter, ready to lean into my husband, ready to hold my children close, ready to cry more than other people think I should, ready to have no defense. Ready to keep struggling for more faith & hope while living, loving, serving. Ready to keep journeying with the best of Guides Who suffered Himself before dying for me. Ready to keep learning from the best and most patient of Teachers. Ready, not prepared, but here I am....
