A Sweet and Sour Day

It was a good day for visiting. Everything is closed on Sundays and it rained, snowed and/or hailed the whole day. They say in Norway it was a “sur vær” day (sour weather). But sitting inside the comforts of our cozy little house, it was just fine for me. Kory and I had a quiet morning home alone, getting things ready for his cousin Linda and her family, who all came over after church to have an early dinner with us.

We went to pick Kaleb up at Andreas’ house before church. Andreas’ mom said Kaleb is the most polite boy she has ever met. What’s up with that? All the mothers are just falling for my little bundle of joy, who is not so sweet at our house. He’s been wanting to be the star of a play for a long time, and now I see why – he’s very good at putting on a show. He even told me himself that he knows when to pull out all the stops and go for the gold. As much as I want to see that side of him, I’m very thankful he at least knows how to behave around people when we aren’t there. We brought Andreas back to our house for the day as the boys weren’t ready for the sleepover to end (see photo).

We attended Agape Church today and heard a speaker from Hillsong in Australia. He gave a talk on the Good Samaritan and said that maybe we have misunderstood the story in the past. It’s the parable that Jesus gave on loving God, first and foremost, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. And when asked “who is our neighbor,” Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan that helped the poor man on the side of the road. The speaker said it was a common misunderstanding that everyone thinks the injured man on the side of the road is the “neighbor,” but, he said, we need to read the story again to realize the “neighbor” is actually the Samaritan that stopped to help the man. What a surprise. He gave some very good illustrations about the Samaritan that I hadn’t thought of before so it’s been on my mind all day.

After church we stayed a little while for coffee and cake and several people told us they heard us on the radio yesterday and they thought the stories I told were just incredible. I shared about my friend Julie and her struggle to have a baby. I asked her one day if she had told God it was OK with her to NOT have a baby, and she said she could never do that, because she wanted one so much. I suggested God might have other plans for her that didn’t include a baby, but she didn’t see it that way. After I left she said she realized she was trying to control her life, rather than letting God decide what was best for her so she asked for forgiveness and told God it was OK if she never had a baby. Within a month, she adopted a little girl (total miracle on how that came to be), and a few years later she gave birth to a little boy, and now she’s pregnant again. God is good! But the lesson there was how we get so focused on what WE want, which leaves no room for what God’s will is. But the Bible says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I looked up that word “delight” in the Greek and the definition of it is “to be pliable, flexible,” so really the verse in English should read, “Be flexible with God and he will give you the desires of your heart.” It wasn’t until Julie let go of wanting a baby, and trusted God with her future – however that might look – did she really get the desires of her heart – three fold. So everyone liked that story, and others I told with the same theme on trusting God. One woman asked why I don’t write the stories down in a book because she really wants to buy it. Now there’s an idea.

So we rushed home from church to get dinner in the oven because Kory’s cousins were coming at 2:30. I had things timed impeccably to have food on the table at 2:30, but no one showed up. It turns out Kory told Linda dinner was at 3:00 or 3:30, but he told me he told her it was at 2:30, so this is why I usually do all of our social planning. The food wasn’t too hot by the time they arrived, but I sure was. They didn’t seem to care and they liked everything, so that was good. I felt bad though because we had plans this evening, which left very little time for visiting with them. We went to the Aalesund Symphony’s Spring concert. Normally we wouldn’t spend money on such a thing, but we found out the son of one of our friends composed the music to the first song they played, so we had to go listen as it was its debut tonight. It was incredible. We also ran into several other people we knew there so we invited one couple back to our house for coffee afterwards. The day was definitely of the sweet and sour variety.