Wellspring Women’s Ministry Blog and Online Community

Whatever happened to the “hazy, lazy days of summer?  I think they ended for me the day I became a grandmother!  I remember when my four children were growing up and school was out during the summer and most days were spent sleeping late, just being a around home and staying up later than usual.  Now, with no children at home and 11 living grandchildren and 1 great grandson, I must go to bed early so I can get up early and be ready for the parade of grandchildren that will bless my home all summer long!

The privilege of living close enough to all of our grandchildren so that we can be a fairly regular part of their lives is awesome!  Three of them live an hour and 45 minutes away, three of them live 30 minutes away and the rest have always lived just a few miles from us.  The Lord has blessed Wayne and I in such a way that we have been able to have close relationships with most of them and many opportunities for Godly input. 

Our grandchildren range in age from 23 down to 4 and our great grandson is 1 with a little brother on the way!  Here are just a few of our summer activities.  Our oldest granddaughter, Cathy, is home with her little one while her husband is deployed.  What an absolutely wonderful opportunity to be with them at least 4 months out of each year.  We take an exercise ballet class together with her mother every Monday.

Her brother, Michael, 18, has been away at Nation Guard boot camp all summer.  We have missed him and we are looking forward to his graduation, August 21st, in Ft. Jackson, SC.  He will leave immediately for Arizona for 6 more months of training.  Our family is ever changing.

Our next in age is Ashleigh, 17.  She has been on a missions trip to Scotland with TeenMania for the past month.  It, too, is her first time far away from home.  We are missing her like crazy!  She returns on August 6th.

Her sister Melinda, 15, has been away at War Cry and a Christian music camp near Ashville with Marion Jones and her family.  She has returned and is continuing to finish up her home school Algebra class with Granddaddy’s tutelage.

One of my favorite events of summer is VBS.  I always attended as a child, my children always went and now the grandchildren.  It feels like I went from learning as a child in VBS to teaching VBS as an adult.  We had our son’s 3 children with us all week for that, Lucas, 8, Strider, 7, and Emma, 4.  That week also included a trip to the Museum of Life and Science, working at our church food pantry, treasure hunts and getting sprayed with the hose.  Our blessing cup was overflowing at the close of that week!

Our 12 year old, Rachael, came next and we did her favorite thing, “shopping for her birthday present.”  It was also a week spent with cousins and sewing 2 new skirts.

Strider, 6, was next.  He had a good time playing with Gracie,5, his cousin that comes to my house almost every day.  He also was a hard worker at our food pantry.  The Lord gave us some precious one-on-one time while he was here, which is what I really look forward to.

Next to arrive will be Michael D.,10, and Lucas, 8.  They are best buds and really enjoy playing together and having a nice break from their siblings.  Treasure hunts, playing in their fort and sword fighting (all with Grandmother included) will be a few of their activities.

We will still have 2 more to work in for their one-on-one time with us, Hannah, 6, and Emma, 4.  Playing with American Girl dolls, tea parties and dress-up (all with Grandmother included) will keep them very busy.

I am reminded of 2 scriptures as I contemplate the wonderful privilege we have of spending time with our grandchildren even though, sometimes it is exhausting and I have put on a few pounds from the PB&J sandwiches and cookies that I seem unable to resist, our prayers for more grace are always answered.

Psalm 22:30-31 – “Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord.  They will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn – for He as done it.”

Psalm 102:12 – “But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.”

The opportunity to pass on the Lord’s renown to the next generation is a gift I am very grateful for.

Please look up and read these passages too:

Deut. 6:4-9; Deut. 11:19-21; Prov. 17:6.

I hope that each of you has as much fun and as many blessings as I have had this summer!    Love, Saundra

It isn’t often that Catholics and Protestants talk to one another much less enjoy it! But while we lived at the coast we met a lovely couple who were Catholics. . . AND they were genuine, born-again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, believing and evangelizing Christians just like us. Charlie was our real estate agent. He prayed with us to find the right house and later prayed with us to sell it. Now, I had met Catholic Christians before, but these friends were my first experience with Christian Catholics who were as RADICAL in tgheir commitment to Christ as I was! I also found that they often experienced the same kind of bewilderment and misunderstanding from other, less radical Catholics that we experienced from other Protestants. We became close friends with Charlie and Lydia during the three years we lived in Carteret County and have continued the friendship ever since. That’s one more dividing wall broken down and shattered in my life!

Through Charlie and Lydia we met a friend of theirs, Father Ed Wade, a Catholic priest who is also a radical Christian. Ed’s heart really burns for unity in the Body of Christ as does ours. So while we were at the beach we formed an unofficial “coalition” for the purpose of fellowship, mutual support, and prayer for unity among believers. WE sponsored a few public meetings, but mostly we fellowshiped together. Our little group came from the most disparate of backgrounds. In fact, the one common denominator among us was radical commitment to Jesus Christ. There was Charlie and Lydia and Ed and us, plus a black Pentecostal apostle and his wife who is a pastor, and an Episcopal priest who had had to leave his denomination because of disagreement over the ordination of homosexuals (now THAT’s RADICAL Christianity!) and his wife. When we got together we rarely talked about the things that separate us, but majored on the things we have in common. Nothing was off-limits for conversation, but our hearts really reached out to one another in a genuine desire to know, love and support one another. I think we all grew as we fellowshiped together.

We still see all these old friends regularly — not as often as we would like because we are all busy, but enough to keep the relationships healthy and alive. In recent months, Father Ed has been able to host a weekly radio program on International Catholic Radio (Radio Maria) called “Thy Kingdom Come”. On it, Ed and a lovely Scottish woman named Elizabeth Pringle interview some of the most interesting people, including my hubby twice now. They had Michael to talk about Prophecy and it was fantastic! On the second program people called in from all over the place to ask questions about the gifts of the Spirit. There are Catholics out there who are hungry for the things of God! How awesome that He would allow us to be in one spreading the word among them!

This Thursday at 3PM Eastern Time I will be on the “Thy Kingdom Come” program on Radio Maria. I would encourage you to listen and to pray for us. And please give me your feed-back here or on Facebook. We will be discussing things from my book, In the Beginning on the topic of women and God’s vision for women. I had a marvelous time discussing this today with Elizabeth over Skype video. She is thoroughly delightful and I expect you will love her almost as much as I do already! You can find the program online by going to the Radio Maria website. When you get to the Homepage, click on the button for “Listen Live” and it will take you directly to the broadcast which will begin at 3 PM.

I may have written about this before, I’m not sure…but we are in a season where our prayers will really make the difference between life and death. Where we will see great things in answer to our prayers. If you don’t have regular time away with the Lord, now is the time. Don’t wait. You just don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I love to pray. I love to pray because of what I hear, not necessarily what I have to say…although I usually have a lot to say and have grown confident over the years that the Lord really does want to hear my thoughts and really does respond to them so I usually can’t wait to give my concerns to him each day and ask him what he is going to do about them! Many times I have no idea what to pray before I begin. Many times I begin with the Lord, hopelessly carnal or selfish in my thoughts and then as I yield to the Holy Spirit, I become aware of what he is saying and moved and changed by his perspective and begin to see things differently.
I became a Christian in the 80’s, but didn’t discover how personal the Lord is until 1994 when I was in my third pregnancy and decided I needed daily exercise. For a year I incorporated walking the Fort Knox housing area at night with my quiet time with the Lord. My husband would use this time to love on our kids…putting them to bed and I would spend 45-60 minutes alone with the Lord praying, walking, and before too long…listening, praising, and just enjoying his presence.
As I look back, this was the time when my life changed. This is when I began to hear from the Lord and see things that I never saw before. I would experience burdens for people I would read or hear about in the news. Sometimes these burdens would come with groanings and tears that I had no words for. Then as quickly as they would come, they would leave and I would know it was God.
It was during this time when I miscarried our third child. As tragic as loss of this kind is, it was cushioned with special comfort the Lord gave to me as I was able to receive his thoughts and see things through his eyes and feel his presence. What a comfort he was. It was during this time that the Lord began to speak to my heart about giving my family to him. He made me aware that I couldn’t grow in faith or in my relationship with him until I gave my family to him in my heart. I was holding on to some fears of losing them that was keeping me from a deeper relationship with him because I wasn’t trusting him. After battling with this concept of letting go for a few days, I did and gave them and their futures to him.
Four years later, my husband died in a helicopter crash. Abruptly removed from our lives. My children were very small. My fourth and youngest was born that year, three months before he died.
I know the Lord called to me in 1994 for a deeper walk with him because of the circumstances that lied ahead. He was preparing me for something that wouldn’t make sense to the natural mind. Humanly speaking, it doesn’t make sense for a woman to raise kids by herself. But we all face situations that don’t make sense and we have to walk forward anyway either with him or without him. I wouldn’t have made it these years without that personal relationship with God born from prayer. The knowledge that he is there and cares has caused me to stop and listen for his voice, and has sustained me through many trials. Even so, I feel like I’ve made it through the past 12 years with fire singed hair and clothes….I haven’t always availed myself of the privileges of my inheritance…haven’t always trusted him perfectly, and have learned the hard way that self sufficiency really sucks in light of the wealth of wisdom and strength that is available to those that are his. But I have made it…and with each day I grow stronger in faith having learned and learning still that there is no place like home….home being where he is every moment of the night and day. I desire nothing more.

We had such a good family vacation this year! As you have probably read from Jessica’s post last week, our entire family (all 14 of us!) spent a week at Holden Beach under one roof together — and we all still love one another!! Incredibly, we all want to do it again next summer. Some even want to extend the time to 2 weeks! Amazing, but true!! We had 8 adults and 6 children under 10 in one big house with 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and multiple porches including a lovely sunporch. The weather was beautiful — not a drop of rain all week! — and the kids were great — we do have delightful grandchildren! — and don’t we all desire a sense of closeness in our family?

As the grandma of the group, I had the ultimate pleasure of spending lots of time with my grandchildren. I had individual time with each one and also time playing together with them in small groups. We put together puzzles (really an excuse for cuddle-on-the-lap time), read books out loud (more cuddling), and drew and colored pictures together. We also sat in the front porch swing and talked (while cuddling, of course), played on the beach and went out for ice cream. Have you ever cuddled a chocolate-covered 3 year old? It was wonderful!

I also got to watch my children parent their own children. What an intense pleasure that is! Both couples who have children are such diligent, loving parents! They work beautifully together as a couple to discipline and shape the characters of their children. I was impressed again and again with the patience and faithfulness and love it takes to be a good parent. The children, of course, tend to misbehave or have a crisis when the parents are involved with something else. Mom starts playing a game with the other women and dad picks up his Louis Lamour novel and almost immediately at least one child has a melt-down. It’s as though the parents’ restfulness signals the children’s misbehavior! One of the parents has to put down his (or her) own pleasurable pursuit in order to deal with the child. The truth of Proverbs 3:12 is demonstrated vividly: “For whom the Lord loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” Only a great and unselfish love in the heart of a parent for his child can sustain the demand of faithfulness required by parenting!

This scenario recurred so frequently last week that another truth began to hit me: Father God was using parenting to shape the character of the parents as much as He was using it to shape the character of the children! The parents, because they love their children, are faithfully disciplining them. But, at the same time, because God loves them all so much, the hearts of the parents are also being stretched and expanded in the process. The capacity to love must constantly grow and be replenished in the parents or they will never be able to sustain the kind of faithfulness and consistency that is required to shape the character of a child.

The image of God being like the dairyman who squeezes and tugs and squeezes and tugs until He gets the last drop of milk from the cow comes to mind, doesn’t it! God’s dealings with us are not wasted on anyone who is involved in the process! Parent and child are equally impacted by the process. (Even an observant Nana gets taught and blessed as well!)

Many years ago, my husband as a young pastor had to go to a father in the church whose children needed discipline. His little sons were terrorizing the other children in Sunday School and we needed for the father to correct the situation. The father confessed that he could not bring himself to discipline his children. “I’m afraid they won’t love me if I correct them,” he said. “I never knew my own father and I want my children to know that I love them.” Michael showed him the scripture I just quoted but he was unable to see it and his children grew up having to “learn things the hard way” because they had not had a father who was willing to instruct them.

Years later, when one of the sons was grown, he came to see us for some counsel. “My father loves God,” he said, “but I know he has never loved me. Is there something wrong with me that my father can’t love me?”

“What makes you think your father doesn’t love you?” we asked.

“I know he didn’t care about me growing up because he never took time to correct me or discipline me,” the young man answered. “He let us children run wild and misbehave and even talk back to our mother without ever saying a word to us. Yet he was in church every Sunday and served the Church and the Lord in any way he could. I know he doesn’t love me because he never spanked me or corrected me in any way.”

This young man was suffering as an adult because his father had refused to discipline him as a child. He felt rejected by his father, the very thing that his father had feared and the very fear that had caused the father to neglect disciplining his son. How ironic! God’s ways are not our ways, are they?

I rejoice that my grandchildren are being consistently and lovingly disciplined by their parents. That correction is already bearing good fruit in the young lives of their children. If you are raising young children, I hope you are pressing into God for that heart expansion that makes the parenting kind of love possible!

And if you are a grandma like me, I hope God is blessing you with lots of cuddle time with your grandchildren! As for me, I can hardly wait for next summer!

Hi everyone!  The entire Cotten clan has been at the beach this week and it has been great.  I don’t think we have ever done this before, where we’ve gotten ALL of us together at once in the same place for an entire week!  We’ve all needed this rest and relaxation so much, and I for one would like to propose that we do this next year too, except for TWO weeks!!!!  We’ll see.  For now I just wanted to give you a quick update with a few pictures.  Not the best quality pictures because they were taken with my computer, but it is a little glimpse into our world this week.

Here is the view from the front of our house…

One of the views from our house

A picture Ben took on his iPhone of the beach at dusk…

Walking on the beach at dusk

Some of what the kids have been doing (a rare chill moment!)

Afternoon Chillaxation

Gloria with Eliana

Hope everyone has a great Independence Day!!!

Jessica