just like chocolate...

Perhaps you're wondering, so... how's it going with these guests in your home this summer?

By the grace of God, it has gone very well.  Sad to say, I prepared myself in the week before they came, that it might be really hard....  prepared myself that their could be stealing, that their could be fortune telling games they'd play (like I've seen before from her) and I'd have to tell her straight up that that won't fly in our home, that I'd have to speak up on too many issues about how we do things for our kids....But it has really gone so super smoothly.

She has helped me quite a bit with cleaning up after meals and with cooking, usually once a week, and with watching the kids for me to get groceries or even- imagine this: some time to sit and think quietly outside by myself!  But recently, I've been describing our housing situation as being just like chocolate.... in that it's sweet and delicious but too much of it gets, well...

Would you pray for me, the Mrs. here, for this?  These two guests have almost nothing else in their lives right now....  school is out and they're not working and all their friends are gone.... they are just with us, at our table most meals and with me and the kids all day long, every day.  My husband is at work all day long and the seven of us hang out at our place.... or sometimes I take our crew out for my sanity's sake.   I've been telling myself that this isn't the time for private family time, this is the time to be poured out and that is what's going on....  I feel pretty empty of  people-talking-energy and jealous of time alone with my kids, but she's still with us for 2+ weeks more.

Would you pray that this dear friend would not be hurt by my increased quietness... and perhaps more so, pray that I would have energy to be social still while August is blazing down on us still and a whole new chapter of homeschool is beginning?  I hate that our friend has sensed me backing up a bit and I hope so much that she won't feel hurt by this.  Lord have mercy!  Show them, and us, your great grace!