End of Summer

Moonlight on Buzzards Bay
in back of the beach house

So the "end of summer" is here around our house.......although by the calendar the end of summer isn't really until Sept 21 when Autumn officially begins.

For me, the "new year" is beginning on Wed. Sept 9th which is the first day back to school. My children actually go back on the 10th but I need to be in the classroom on the 9th. For most teachers, the "new year" is the school year! :)

And....what a summer I have had! God is good, is He not?
He has taught me soooo very much this summer......some good things about my self...some not so good things....all still pointing me to the Cross....I hope to share some of this stuff with you in the coming months.....

This weekend we are heading back to "the beach house" near Cape Cod Proper for one last long weekend fling.
I am doing something I don't normally do: we are bringing friends with us whom we really just became friends with at the beginning of the summer although we have been members of the same church for the last 3-4 years.

This is stretching me a bit.....we have only ever brought extended family members with us on vacation or my oldest daughter's good friends. One time we did bring a family from our former church whose oldest daughter used to babysit for us years ago.......but....we had known them for several years and were in ministry with them.
This is different. This is stretching me because I really just became friends with them and it is so unlike me to extend this type of invitation to people I hardly know.

And yet, I know in my heart it is something God wants us to do. We are being knit together, through friendship, to draw closer to the Lord. She "gets" me, I "get" her.......we are even doing a Bible study together come autumn...this again is so unlike me!

And yet...it is all God-ordained and all good. We are learning from each other, I think. I have shared with her some things that I have never shared with anyone.....you know how you just need those woman friends with whom you can "go deep" with and yet you don't want to be analyzed or fixed or judged? She is that kind of friend........

and the cool thing is: she has 2 daughters who are near my own daughters' ages and I know they will all get along having fun kayaking or swimming or just hanging out. Her husband has a Masters degree from the same university where my husband received his.....they are both "intellectual" types....so they should get along great. They also have a son which will thrill my husband as now he'll have someone who likes to go fishing and maybe play ball with.

And there is NOTHING like the bond that the unity of Christ brings to relationships. They are mature Christians and boy do I need those kinds of friends!

So.....whatever your plans are for this upcoming holiday weekend, enjoy every minute.
Thank God for the friendships He has placed, or will place, in your path.

We need our friends....to help us grow, to help us learn, to help us think, to stretch us, to walk alongside of us through good and bad times.....and to serve.........to pray with, to just have fun with.

And I believe that close friendships teach us alot about our "friendship" with God/Jesus/the Lover of our soul/our Friend!


HAPPY END OF SUMMER EVERYONE!

I'll be back blogging on a more regular basis once school has begun and I am settled into the new year routine.

GOD BLESS YOU!