Had me a blast

Summer loving happen so fast

I met a girl crazy for me

Met a boy cute as can be

Summer days drifting away to oh oh the summer nights!

And we’ll leave the song at that for now. Oh how the summer tends to fly by. Seems like every moment is full of energy and life and constant motion. We have covered some summer fun in just a few short weeks! And it’s not even over.

I feel like each week needs a post all its own but would that even be worth it?!?

Vacation Bible Extreme was wild and crazy. This year our theme was “When life is wild. . . God is good”. It was a ROARING good time!

After a week of VBX, Team Rush headed out on a 10 days adventure called VACATION! Oh my what a joy it was to go and unplug from reality. Now don’t hear me wrong reality is good, but life at the beach with the ones you love is awesome! It is my happy place!

As time has it vacation must end and reality begins… we came back to the excitement of our beds, our dog and our neighborhood friends.

Since being home, we have picked blueberries at a blueberry farm, baked tons of blueberry lemon bread and came up with our version blueberry pies for dad!

We learned how to play a new board game, went to a science discovery center, the national video game museum and spent the day with Craig at our local Hawaiian Falls! It has been an amazingly fun week back at home.

As we were picking berries I couldn’t help but think about the growing process of the life of a blueberry. We could only pick the blue ones and some of the pink. The green and white ones we couldn’t pick because they weren’t ready and wouldn’t ripen. Pretty interesting. How long does it take to get to the ripening stage (maturation)? How long does it take us to get to the ripening stage? What’s considered mature? Metaphorically speaking, what if I, me, you were picked too soon? Yes these are the things that roll through the inner space between my right ear and left ear!

As we were picking it was hot and for the most part my 3 E’s were great. Sweet Everett just wasn’t having it. “Mom, are we almost done?” “Mom, it’s hot!” “Mom, is your bucket full YET!” “Mom, can you “help” me fill my bucket!” Sweet boy. He’s your 4 year old (almost 5) energetic, life loving kid with with the attention span of… little to none!

Along with the thoughts mentioned above, the verse in Galatians talking about the fruit of the Spirit also started rolling around. As I was picking I couldn’t help but repeating this verse over and over in my mind. I think I May have even broke out in song singing “the fruit of the spirit, is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness. The fruit of the spirit is faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” Poor family across the bush attempting to enjoy a morning adventure! But, as I did my vision shifted as did my demeanor.

I went from being a hot, on the verge of cranky momma with three kids, one of which was NOT happy, to being a child of the King who was experiencing something new (to me) and getting to see the final part of the maturation process of a blueberry bush! It was so pretty. The branches full of juicy little round blueberries! It gave me a whole new perspective.

Full disclosure: I am a human. Like completely 100% human! So if you are reading this and think I’m trying to be some super spiritual rockstar, you are wrong. I am just a sinner saved by grace like the next person. What I have learned over the course of my 38 years is this, we are all on a journey. This journey of life and hopefully by the grace of God your journey includes just that, God! Faith in Christ is realizing God’s love for you and then accepting that there is absolutely nothing that you can do to earn that love. Simple as that. He loves you!!! We are human and screw things up ALL. THE. TIME. and He still loves us and wants a relationship with us. That’s patience. That’s love. And that’s the perspective that my mind was being drawn to while I was picking those sweet little juicy balls of joy.

Yep my kid was going crazy. Yep I stepped in an ant bed. True story. Yep I didn’t have much love to give to the said kid who just couldn’t understand patience. But in that moment, as I was looking at that branch and plucking off the blue ones, I understood what the Fruit of the Spirit is and why scripture talks about them being the visible aspects of Christ in us.

Just like Everett, practicing patience and the Fruit of the Spirit is hard! Letting the blueberries mature on the bush and resisting the urge to pluck the white and green ones is hard. But just like being able to experience the sweet taste of a juicy blueberry once it has fully matured, there is something sweet that comes from allowing the Lord to walk us through the maturation process of our Christian walk!

This is just one way that I am choosing to experience the Fruit of the Spirit. What’s a way you are choosing to experience it? Can you see tangible signs of it?