I believe in blessings in disguise. I believe that God does things for a reason, but sometimes those reasons aren't clear right away. The revelations of those blessings take time to see (days, weeks, years, decades even). Why am I telling you that? Because, I believe that I just figured out 3 of them that have converged to work together.
Blessing #1: As many of you know, in 2006 Jason was diagnosed with cancer. After a failed transplant he received another gift of life from a complete stranger and has been cancer free for a year and a half. This event has had several "blessing branches" for our family. Too many branches to go into, but stay with me. Due to the fact that he received a non-related donor match, Jason has had his immune system suppressed to help keep his body from rejecting the donor marrow. As a result, this spring he developed a severe case of pneumonia and has been recovering nicely, I must say. However, he's been docked 13 days because he has missed work.
Blessing #2: The bad economy. Now, I'm not saying this is a blessing for everybody. But it has been for us. We are very lucky to have jobs, and we thank God every day for that. However, we have cut back on the things we do and the coupon clipping and saving searches are constantly with us. We have re-examined our spending habits and are teaching our kids the benefits of saving your money. We have looked for ways to entertain the kids but not spending a ton of money. In the end, the kids are learning the joys of "family game night" and some of the childhood games we enjoyed.
Blessing #3: The Boy Scouts. Jack has really enjoyed being a Wolf Scout. He's in the cub scouts at his school and will continue to be even when he moves to Yale. Jason and I have worked with him on his different projects mainly because I think that's what we're supposed to do. Jason did most of the work with Jack until he got sick, then I took over.
How have all of these worked together? This past weekend Jack and his cub scouts went on a camping trip (see entry below). Jason couldn't go because he wasn't cleared to go, so the job fell to me. We borrowed a tent from some friends of ours and after a quick lesson on putting it up I went on my way. I was very apprehensive about going, but ended up having a good time. I also discovered several things about camping in the 21st century: 1)It is relatively inexpensive, 2) family oriented, 3) surprisingly modern with showers available, bathrooms available, water/electricity hookups available, 4) a great way to see places. I learned that many states have websites for their state parks and day trips you can take if you stay at the park. Jason and I have decided that this is a great way to spend time with the kids and show them this wonderful country of ours. So now, at least for awhile, we will be asking our family to give us gift cards/camping equipment for birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions. I think Jason is thinking of taking the family up to Arkansas this summer for a camping trip (it's cooler supposedly).
So, God used 3 different blessings to show us the joys/benefits to our family of camping.
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