Small Town Life

There are days that I just love living in a small town! Those of you that know me well and my love of shopping might be laughing right now. (And I don't love it that much in the spring when the dairy farmers are spreading liquid manure in their fields.) But Friday, Annie, Maren and I were walking to the little restaurant in our town ("The Brickyard") to have coffee with some friends. There were hay wagons full of big bright orange pumpkins around town. There was one in front of the restaurant with an ice cream bucket to leave money if you wanted to buy one. We had different people joining us off and on at our table because, of course, everyone knows everyone! And much to Annie's delight coffee turned into lunch!

It was a beautiful crisp fall day. The whole town was a buzz with Football fever and as the sign on the door of The Brickyard read "It's Football Season!" Everyone in our town goes out to watch the games. At Mike's last Junior High game of the season, he was hoping they would score - not win - just SCORE! They have a really young team this year, I think it is what they call a "building" season. So they had a few beautiful passes and finally someone caught one in the end zone. 6 points was never sweeter.

The father of the player that caught the passes was excited, and that's an understatement. At first I thought it was really obnoxious! He was running up and down the sideline yelling "That was Bobby!". But as I watched him congratulate his kid and how obviously proud he was I couldn't help but think it was really cute how much he was relishing his sons accomplishments. I am guessing it meant a lot to the kid too. I hope he would have been that encouraging had Bobby fallen and dropped the pass.

I am always that excited about my kids accomplishments, but I feel awkward showing too big of an outward expression of it. I don't want them to get big heads or be "braggy" but sometimes when I worry about that I tend to downplay it too much. I want the kids to know I'm rooting for them win or lose! Maybe the celebration will come with a congratulatory cake at home, but I just want to make sure they know I'm proud of their efforts.


Romans 8:31-32
"What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"