Rainy Days AND Mondays

On this rainy Monday I thought you'd enjoy a picture my 13-year old Caroline took. This girl loves photography and has so much iniative and motivation and just plain moxie that when she wants to learn something, she does it. She even created her own photography website, where you can see more of her work. Check it out here!

Caroline has willing models in her 18-year old sister Emily and Emily's boyfriend, who love to pose for pictures as much as Caroline loves to take them. In fact, next week is prom and already the girls are pre-planning the poses they want to capture, so many poses that their photography session may last as long as the prom itself!

So at least this rainy Monday gives me an excuse to stay inside and get a little cleaning done. Because, you know, the kitchen has stayed pretty nice but the rest of the house...oh my. Suffice it to say that if someone walked into my mudroom right now they might just think our house had been ransacked. Well, actually it has -- by one 16-year old Elly looking for her volleyball shoes and kneepads 2 minutes before we had to leave for open gym!

Actually Mondays aren't so bad. I get a chance to have a fresh start from an action-packed weekend. I love fresh starts! You get to do things over the way you would have done them the first time. My neighbor Beth and I always laugh and say "I'll take a do-over on that one" when we react in a way differently than we wish we would have. She always says that each of us should have been born with 3 do-overs that we could use when we really screwed something up. Like waving a magic wand to erase what just happened and get our "do over." Of course we agree we would have used up all three of our do-overs before we were 18 years old!

Speaking of "do overs," when my kids were young, there were too many times I'd react in a way differently than I wish I would have. Sometimes the busyness and stress of life would cause me to yell at them for things that didn't deserve yelling. And then I would feel so sorry and ache at the hurt in their precious eyes. And so I coined this phrase called "Mommy Bommy." Which I explained to them meant, ''You sweet kids did nothing wrong and it's my own sinful nature that caused me to react differently than I would have liked to. I love you all as much as a mommy can love and am so sorry." And of course I would ask their forgiveness. Because I thought it was important for them to know that parents are sinners and it is only Jesus Christ who can claim perfection.

It was in those "Mommy Bommy" moments that I most desired a do-over! But here's the awesome thing about God...while we can't truly have a "do-over," there is complete forgiveness in His amazing grace and He will give us a fresh start whenever we ask.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God;

and renew a right spirit within me."

Psalm 51:10

So excuse me while I go spend some time with God, asking Him to cleanse my heart and give me a fresh start this very rainy Monday morning!