Birthdays, Missionaries and the Hard Life

Happy 12th Birthday to Tyler!

His special breakfast in bed!

It is hard to believe that my baby boy turned 12 on the 14th of this month. He is growing into such a young man. I can't wait to see what God does in and through his life.

Yes, his birthday was Monday and it is now Friday and I am just now getting to posting about it (after a gentle reminder from one of my bestest friends from high school, Beky) Beky is one of those friends that you can not see or talk to for months and when you finally do land on the same continent you pick up right where you left off.  Beky is a missionary in Togo, West Africa. 

She is my hero.  She is a role model for my children.  You see, Beky is living a sacrificial life of serving God in Africa.  She has opened her home to children who needed a safe place to live, she shares the good news of salvation to villages all over Togo, she assists teachers improve their teaching, she ministers in the hospital and the thing that always gets me - is that she uses what she has named- "God's car"- to drive everyone around, even dead bodies to funerals!  To read her emails asking for prayer and sharing praises, puts me to shame.  You see, Beky, is living the hard life and yet she doesn't complain. 

This week was a hard week. Too many appointments. Too much to do. Leo having some serious medical issues to deal with. It was just a hard week. At one point, I looked at Jeremy as we were discussing how hard of week it was turning into and I said we can do hard. Yes, we can do hard. The question is can we do hard without complaining and whining about how hard it is? I want to. I want to do hard with a God honoring attitude. We all have hard things in our lives, the question is how will you handle your hard?