Dear God,

I told you that I would thank you.

That I would thank you here, on the most public platform I have available.

For you, oh Lord, have blessed us, this small family of ours, beyond measure.

You have heard our petitions and our cries, all on more than one occasion…
You have heard our groanings and our anguish…our pleas and our laments…
and You have always been faithful, even while we were undeserving.

You know my heart oh God.

You know exactly for what it is that I am offering you my thanks…

And yet…for today…I will simply let these two small little people represent
the outward symbol of our family’s gratitude…the deep offerings from my heart to Yours.

I thank you for their presence in our lives.
I thank you for their wellbeing.
I thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to be a part of their lives.
I thank you for the joy they bring…to all of us…

Be that when they are awake and happy…

(the Mayor and her new Sheriff / Julie Cook / 2019)

(the new Sheriff enjoying a bath / Julie Cook / 2019)

Or when they are blessedly asleep, both at the same time when I’m babysitting!

(a moment of blessed peace when “Biya” aka Mopie comes to babysit/ Julie Cook / 2019)

Thanking you even for this…reasons some of us get hand, foot and mouth disease while thinking
we’re just being silly and playing a game of “don’t do that”
and then wonder why later we don’t feel so good.

(the Mayor thinking she’s being funny rather than gross / Julie Cook / 2019)

But most importantly God, I thank You for hearing our small family’s prayers and for
answering those prayers…

Sometimes You answer in ways we see and understand and sometimes You answer in ways that we
do not nor cannot see let alone comprehend…

And yet, no matter what, You hear us nonetheless.

Please continue in Your guidance as I continue to learn gratitude…

Love, Julie

update on sweet baby James

Years ago during the angst-ridden days of adolescence, 
little did I know that when I would lay back on
my bed with arms folded under my head, staring up
at the ceiling, all the while listening to
my vinyl album of James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James playing over and over,
an album full of both melodic and even haunting songs and lyrics…
the memory of one song in particular, would come racing back to the forefront of
my thoughts all these many years later…the song being the same name as the 1970 album,
Sweet Baby James…

And speaking of sweet baby James…
Our sweet baby James got a clear report last night from the ER at
Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital.

With his UTI issues, we’ve been told that should his fever
spike to 100.4 or higher, he needs to be taken to an ER pronto.
Last night, after the Father’s Day festivities, it hit 100.5.

James remains on a maintenance regime of antibiotics until
his surgery come December.
However, we will meet with the Pediatric Urology Surgical doctors
next week for a thorough exam and a projected course of action until he
has grown enough for the surgery.

I greatly appreciate your prayers last evening and those lifted up today…
just as I appreciate those continued prayers!
Please add in his mom and dad to those prayers as they are about to worry
themselves to death as they keep up with a thermometer vigil.

There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and sleeps in the canyons
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change
And as the moon rises he sits by his fire
Thinking about women and glasses of beer
And closing his eyes as the doggies retire
He sings out a song which is soft but it’s clear
As if maybe someone could hear

Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won’t you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James

Now the first of December was covered with snow
So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
The Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

So goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won’t you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James
Song and Lyrics by James Taylor

Spent the day with the Mayor

“The family is the first essential cell of human society.”
Pope John XXIII

You don’t choose your family.
They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
Desmond Tutu

The Mayor and Chief Aide / Julie Cook / 2019)

Small hiatus today from the heavy important posts…opting to share a
few happy moments with the Mayor.
I do fret just a tad when, in two months time, her new sheriff in town arrives…
and her little world will be rocked beyond her understanding…
but as the consummate leader that she is, I trust she will rise to the occasion
of big sister with impeccable grace…

But for now, she remains the queen bee—
as we see how she takes to a new birthday chair given to her by her great aunt…

(I think she’d like it to recline)

Mugging for the camera with Moppie…

Back to the serious stuff tomorrow…
Yet oddly… this seems to be the most important “stuff” for now…

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness
into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9