McDonald's for lunch on New Year's Day!

Today, while Andy watched the Hawkeyes in their bowl game, I took the girls/Colin to a McDonald's playland. We had a very interesting experience!

Upon entering, we stood behind an elderly lady who turned and saw the 4 children and exclaimed "WHAT a beautiful New Year's blessing!" I smiled, said thank you and proceeded to order the food. I could hear the girls telling her everyone's name, including Colin's!

We proceeded to sit down and begin our meal as we always do: clean the table of any milk residue for Ellie, situate all of the girls' food and get A TON of ketchup. Finally, we prayed and started our meal.

A few minutes later, the nice elderly woman came back to talk to Colin--to his smiling, she said "I bet you know I'm a Great Grandma!" I then asked her how many great grandchildren she has--and she told me 7. I then asked her how many grandchildren she has--only 2, she said! I started talking to her about the # of children her grandchildren have, assuming that 1 of them had at least 4. We chit-chatted about children and then she told me that she has 6 degrees! I was shocked, thinking she meant educational degrees. When I asked her what her degrees were, she said some interesting letters and then leaned in toward me and decoded the letters--they were ALL acronyms of loving the Lord. After she translated her "degrees", she leaned in even closer and said "And I can tell you and your family love the Lord and speak the truth."

WOW. Just what were we doing that showed her that? I can tell you that we had a wonderful lunch, everyone was kind to each other, the girls used manners and talked to anyone who talked to them....just the ordinary expectations right?! It is true, that sometimes you JUST KNOW a stranger's way of life by their actions!

But it made me stop and think...of how important it is to LIVE OUT our beliefs as you never know who is watching! This elderly lady, a stranger to us, really blessed my day today. As she turned to leave, she took my hand and said "You are so blessed...your family is beautiful." She is right, they ARE beautiful and we ARE blessed.

We've always gotten a lot of stares and stranger encounters--I always assumed it was "3 girls in hair bows"...and then as of late, it has been "*4* children....." or "3 girls and then a BOY? That poor boy!". But after today's experience, I'm thinking that it is the love of the Lord that often shines brightly in our family...and what an encouragement to us to continue being who we are!