so grown up... {largo florida children's photography}

so this is alesha.  when she was in middle school i was just a young mama and practically a newlywed.  i felt Papa prompting me to get more involved in living out Titus 2 - the call for the "older women to teach the younger women."  so nervously i approached alesha and her friend, andrea, and asked if they'd like to meet weekly.  sometimes we did Bible study, sometimes we just talked on my couch while i nursed a baby or juggled a toddler's busy-ness.  sometimes the girls just helped with dishes and we prayed about life.  today alesha is a beautiful woman of God and a mama in her own right - quite ready to pop with baby number three. 

she's married to an awesome guy who loves Jesus (and with whom she shared their first kiss on their wedding day!) and she teaches fitness classes, coaches little kids' soccer, and disciples a group of young girls.  there have been plenty of occasions when i've called alesha only to have her pour out wisdom and encouragement from Papa's heart.

even now she comes to visit, from some two hours away, and brings her own little ones.  now mine help with hers, giggling and "touching the bottom of the pool," wrestling with them in the living room, and bouncing on the mattress in the makeshift guest room.  even now she stands with me at the sink ever-full of dishes, only now as we chat about life we look out over our combined 7-1/2 children, and i am in awe of how time marches on.  in this cool way our God has, he's turned around my humble efforts to teach my little sister, and now she gives me all sorts of advice.  (we're using stickers instead of candy corn to reward littlest for going in the potty - ha!)  now my oldest ones are the "big kids" to hers, and yet we have babies the same age.

 i love how in the Kingdom things are topsy-turvy.  just when we think we'll teach, we're taught.  when we think we'll serve, we find we're being served.  i love that in the Kingdom, we are given the gift of extended family and through each other, we experience the love of our Papa in real-life ways... sometimes while standing at the kitchen sink.