Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was yesterday, and I still couldn't think of a blog topic to write about other than what I'm thankful for. Had no mojo, nothing to go off of, and just felt stuck.

I had been in limbo for a few days after finishing a devotional series, delaying the start of a new one, and not yet continuing on my readings in Matthew, so that's where I picked back up at this afternoon. Surely if I feel like I'm doing this for God then it probably doesn't help to skip out on my time with Him for a few days, huh? I always get frustrated at how easy it is to postpone my time spent in a devotional, in the bible, with God and how easy it is to see that it truly does affect my day to day life.

So, as God would coincidently have it my study today was over the verse Philippians 4:6-7.

'Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.'

The teacher for this devo, a man named John Piper, broke it down as such: anxious, thanksgiving, peace/piece.

First anxious. When we worry all the time we are basically making God look like a fool. We might as well be choosing to say God can't help us, He isn't in control, wise or kind when we choose to consume ourselves in anxiety or worry.

Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God with thanksgiving. Be thankful for He meets all our needs, whether they are met how you think they should be or not. Reflect on what God has done in thanksgiving--not only to include what he has done in your daily life but for your life in general through Jesus.

Peace/Piece of God; 'peace of God' being the spiritual peace that He gives and 'piece of God' being Jesus.

The teacher thus concluded that through Jesus, connecting us with God, we can gain a peace that no other human understanding can produce.

And that, that is something I can be thankful for. That is something that outlasts the bad days, that stands against my doubts and that rises above my fears. God's peace has placed in me more humility and hope than I could have ever found elsewhere.

I am thankful that His peace and reassurance directs me to enjoy and cherish the little things in life that He has allowed us to have and has blessed us with. The good that we don't deserve and the hard that has drawn us closer to Him.

Our children, our home, family and friends, His grace-the little things that He has blessed us with and sent as reminders of His love, it is that which helps me not focus on the big things that this world temps us to chase after. To be thankful in Him and in all that He provides.

In the long run, I guess a thanksgiving week post couldn't escape the inevitable...

Our Modern Day Jesus and Judas

Last night I couldn't fall asleep, so I continued to read into Matthew, as I'm working my way through the gospels. Up next was Matthew 24. A nice, sweet bed time story...but, not quite. It was good and it was real.

Chapter 24: 9-13 'Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.'

Jesus doesn't promise an easy path. He doesn't say the situations we will face in this world will make for easy decisions. Things aren't always clear and simple.

This leads me to the ever so popular debate of housing refugees.

I'm not strong on politics. I don't know the in's and out's of the financial statistics towards the situation. I don't know all the governmental details to how refugees are handled. And I know these are all important factors.

It wasn't until I saw a suggestion towards a Wichita chapter of the International Rescue Committee that I even realized how help towards refugees currently works.

But I have seen the statements surrounding the argument saying how can we afford to help refugees if we can't help our own homeless? Or another that said as long as there are homeless children here, we won't welcome refugees.

And I have seen the argument about it only leading to our own destruction. As in literally, they will infiltrate our country using a refugee cover and attack here. Or that helping will just draw a large arrow on our own backs.

The thought of opening my doors and helping, just to be betrayed made me stop and think twice about the idea of going forth with the motto driven from 'the least of these'. (matthew 25:40)

Isn't that just what Satan wants? To fill us with as much doubt, excuses, and fears to lead us to the decision of doing what's best for us, our family, our country instead of what Jesus has asked of us? To choose our lives and our best interest over him just to err on the side of caution? Just to stay neutral on such a hot subject? Just to play it safe?

Satan is good and stealthy, because even typing out 'us, our family, our country' leads me to get defensive that we should fight for ourselves. Do what's in our best interest. That you can't be naïve to the real world, and I don't want to be--but I do believe that despite all the world does, or goes through, it is our job as followers of Christ to make the decision to stand strong in Him, in God's word, even in the most difficult of situations. We don't know when the final day, hour, minutes, breath will be. So LIVE AS SUCH.

Live as if each action and choice you make could be your last and make it count for God, not for yourself or your own agenda.

Quit living to fight for a world that we are not meant to stay with forever. Quit living to make everyone happy, not upsetting anyone with God's truth. In Luke 6:26-36 it first reminds us to be cautious when everyone speaks well of you. Everyone spoke well of the false prophets, and they were just that--false. You can't live the truth of God's word and have everyone like you. The scripture then continues to teach on loving your enemies.

'love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you...if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? even sinners loves those who love them. and if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? even sinners do that.' Luke 6: 27-28, 32-33

If you were born into the situation that these people have been born into; if you had a child amongst such a hostile environment, would you not fight like hell for a better future for yourself, for your family, for your children?

When I stopped and thought-yes, Jesus wants us to help others and it's not for us to pick and choose who gets our love, grace, kindness but what would he say or do with this situation. Where there is a threat of letting some bad in amongst the good, just to later cause harm here-how would he handle that? He never had to deal with that...just to realize that he did.

Jesus took in Judas knowing the outcome of their friendship. Jesus showed him love, grace, kindness all while knowing the betrayal that was to come that would only cause a magnitude of pain upon himself.

It is not for us to fear. It is not for us to judge. It is not for us to let the lies, persuasions, arguments, normality's of this world stop us from doing what God has asked us to do and what Jesus clearly showed us to do.

I'm not suggesting to be unwise in your choices, opening your door when Freddy Krueger is standing there-but I am suggesting we quit living in such fear and caution that in the long run fogs up our minds with self interest, blinding our views and missing opportunities God has called us to.

For us, personally, we are going to start with learning how to help those in need. Despite it maybe making us uncomfortable. Despite it upsetting those who disagree with us. Despite the risks.

Lord forbid we take risks to live for Him. But for real, He doesn't forbid that nonsense. If anything He reminds us the rewards we will have in heaven if we quit playing it safe and start taking our decision to follow Him in ALL situations, despite ANY persecutions, seriously and quit all this backpedaling and excuses that we can muster up to make ourselves feel better about our lack of commitment to Him.

So, as for us, I am looking further into the Wichita International Rescue Committee that we have here to see if that is an organization that we could support, or even to start with something as simple as participating in their Christmas wish list tree. And-because this debate brought up the argument with homeless situations we will look into that as well. I don't want to ignore the needs of people local or afar.

We will work to be a part of a solution and help those in need. I'm tired of being just another voice with an opinion, yet providing no action and no resolution. We will shine God's love, grace and kindness wherever and whenever He calls us to, within our comfort zone or not.

Dang Mac Donalds.

We are reading Dr. Emerson Eggerichs book, Love and Respect, in our church small group. Some parts are focused towards men, some women, and some both. It can be a little over repetitive, and we may or may not joke and add 'because I love you' or 'because I respect you' at odd times because, well, it makes us laugh.

But, for real now, it has good points that seem obvious but can be pretty dang hard to remember when you're in the thick of things, when life is busy, when the kids suck all the energy out of you and the last thing you want to do is show someone love or respect after a long day.

As women, we need the reminder of how our men think, what speaks volumes to them, and how different their thought process can be.

And men, such is the same. The book uses the example of pink and blue glasses for men and women. That we see things in our specific colored glasses because we are different, as God made us, but we have to remember to take off our glasses and see situations and things from the others perspective.

McDonalds, right? That was the title anyways...

This may come as a shock to those that know me, but I can be stubborn. Please, take time to gasp now.

Call it the 'baby of the family' personality, or just call it stupidity, but I'm still working on improving in this category. I literally sometimes have to work myself through fits. And I'm 28 here. I have no good excuses like my toddler does--that only being that he's a toddler, because there's no good excuse for throwing fits when asked to go to the bathroom instead of pee your pants. None.

So, It had been a long weekend, a long Sunday, and we still had to go out to Wally World to get a few things before heading home to make dinner. (This all could have been avoided if we hadn't tried to cut corners earlier in the week. So, second lessoned learned there.) We made it a family affair and all went together. Shopping alone is lonesome, and I love being chauffeured.

During our quick trip I was like ummm, this would be easier if that McDonalds wasn't right out side with yummy fries. Just sayin'.

Nothing came of it. I'm pretty sure I dropped a later hint in the store, too, but nothing. Then, as we're leaving in the car I'm all-so what kind of breakfast for dinner do you want? And he's all-what are the options? And I say, well, there's Mcdonalds, French toast, I don't know....then, Caden's all-I have to pee!

What ends up happening is we're on the fence, probably because he can sense my baby fit brewing, and we decide to run him into McyD's to pee, and I say okay Caden we'll get you fries after you pee. What also ends up happening is my fries get shot down, but we get him some anyways because you can't tell him he gets fries, take him inside fry heaven to pee, then say jay kay and leave. Unless you want the hulk to come out, which we didn't.

So, he pee'd, he got fries, and we left. Son of a biscuit. Here's where I tell you my foolishness.

I then played the silence game. Maybe for a good thirty minutes to an hour, I'm sure. Did what I had to when we got home, and started making dumb breakfast food.

We try to have breakfast food on the 'menu' once a week because we find it's affordable for the budget if you keep it simple. It's also one of the most annoying meals to make because it gets lots of cookware dirty and you have to cook everything. No crockpot action, no one pan for all. It just annoys me sometimes. And you have to time it right so it's somewhat all hot when you're ready to eat it--which, is pointless with kids anyways, but whatever.

Ya'll. Gary apologized first. For what?! I think he noticed something he did made me mad, but come on--I'm the one acting like a fool just because I didn't like his answer! So I was a little more irritated that he took my apology and was thinking gah-dang it! I'm no ready to reply...I'm just not ready!

Eventually, I did. Multiple times. Because it felt so ridiculous of a matter it needed a few real apologies. And then, yesterday while reading my chapters in Love and Respect it touched base on how 'a marriage needs her intuition and his insight'. How it's so easy for us as women to disregard his insight. To not count it as important, because it may differ from ours. BAM. Right in the face.

Something as simple as a dinner choice. I didn't want to cook, I wanted something quick and easy that I didn't have to think twice about. I can't lay out his reasoning-but it saved us from feeling crappy from eating fast food, saved us the money that we could later elsewhere in the week, and well-even if it did nothing it was his decision and just because I had other opinions doesn't mean that's the way we have to go.

Five years and I'm just now being able to really focus and work on this. This is when you can add Gary to your prayer list.

Either way-I at least knew I had to work through my stubbornness, and I did. Quietly, unfortunately with an attitude, but because I knew that I needed to respect his decision even if it wasn't one I would have made.

And that is hard to do sometimes. Marriage is hard to do a lot of the time. But, it is worth it. Seeing and acknowledging area to grow in your marriage is important and worth the uphill battle.

I know we're guaranteed to have different opinions on things far more important than fries, so here is where I need to start to prepare my heart for those situations. Remember to try on his blue glasses and learn to work together. Luckily, God showed us grace, so we show each other grace and continue on.

And, luckily, I stole one of Caden's fries before handing them back to him. Hashtag hangry mom problems.

Eleven Months

Oh, my sweet boy. How can you be one month away from turning one?! The months have flown by, and here we are, you're eleven months and growing fast!

 

You are a handsome little fella. You do this adorable eyebrow raise sometimes and it always cracks me up. Sometimes it's almost in a sarcastic way, other times it's almost as if you're motioning 'hey, what's up!' when you are doing something you know you shouldn't be...hitting the tv, getting into the dog bowls...

You are a fast crawler still, and will walk with our hands but not much before you go back to what you know best in crawling.

You babble and babble and I love it. It's the cutest sound to me when you're 'talking'.

You barely sat still, and when you did you just gave me that ornery smile!

 

You get completely over zealous towards light fixtures, but especially fans. Or almost anything that spins. You'll stick your arms and legs out straight and start to kick/shake them in excitement. It is the funniest thing ever and everyone gets a good laugh out of your silly reaction.

You are a little lover. You'll get excited to see people, and it's adorable, but you also get overly excited and kind of hit in the moment of it all. Like multiple times-tap, tap, tap on the persons head or body as you start to shrill or smile real big.

You kind of bite, but luckily not really biting down-just another thing you do in excitement. Always puts a good amount of fear in a person though when you go in for a hug with those two sharp teeth involved!

You absolutely love your brother. He adores you, but also thinks you're bigger than you are so usually the two of you playing alone doesn't last too long before we here you fuss. But, not always, and he is the best at getting you to give out good laughs.

Cuteness, and a funny showing big bro's enthusiasm and you're hesitation towards it:)

 

You have a routine of waking up between four and five in the morning for a bottle, then returning to sleep for a short while. Not sure how ending bottles soon will go with that, and what will happen in that whole new transition.

You love to mooch, or at least try to, but don't take as well to solid food. When we had a pre-thanksgiving when Jacob and his family was in town you loved the mashed potatoes, gravy and tiny bits of turkey together, but other than that-you only sometimes do well with baby food. You like the snack baby food, but it just depends. I'm assuming once you get more teeth that may change.

You are recently getting over a cold, which turned up to be a crappy hand/foot/mouth virus. Didn't take you in for it, because it wasn't until day six or seven of the runny nose crud that blisters showed up on your hands and some breakout around the mouth. There's nothing they can do for it, and you were still acting like a good trooper, so just praying that time brings you healing and you feel better soon.

You are the best. You love to laugh, you never want to miss a moment, you are very curious and always on the go. We love you to pieces little man. You are the best little brother and son we could have and we're so excited to see you continue to grow!

Praying God protects and guides you, buddy. We love you so much! xoxo

'If I should speak then let it be of the grace that is greater than all my sin'

I want to attempt a late year resolution. A blog a week. And not that of a photo dump for mainly my own benefit of one day sending these off to a blog to print and wam.bam. scrapbook via 21st century done. Those need to still happen, but I want this to be mostly words, ideas, experiences, thoughts of my own, of my story and current life. I am not a perfectionist when it comes to writing, but the idea has been playing back and forth in my mind for a while and as the house is quiet with sleeping minions I finally sit here and being my virtual journey.

So. Let's start from the beginning. Big Daddy Weave puts it perfectly in his song 'My Story'.

'If I told you my story

you would hear hope that wouldn't let go

...to tell you my story is to tell of Him'

Moved to tears. Every time I hear this song. I have been foolish and broken. I have been in the wrong and blind to see it, too selfish to acknowledge it. I have been lost and depressed. I have tried to grip at the things of this world and make them my hope and joy. I have tried to live for the party and the lust that our world sells as fun and fulfilling.

But ya'll. I have also said no more. I have also seen the beauty that God can bring through redemption. I have experienced His grace and forgiveness.

I have felt His tug at my heart to share. I have felt my own resistance battling if this worlds media outlet is too much. Am I to put my personal self and family out there for anyone to see and pry at? I want to say no and stay in my shell and know my story for myself, or for personal friends and family. But, tug after tug here I am.

I believe that God doesn't ask us to sit in a corner with our story but to stand tall and strong in the journey and path that we have taken and share the hope that He has given throughout all the good and bad.

As I was a child I clashed into a situation that led to confusion towards sexual impurities. As if being a child in this world wouldn't lead to it's own handful of confusions for this, my story had a helping push. Luckily it was a simple and physically unharming push. But unluckily any push is a push and in our lovely world the last thing any child needs is a push into that mess.

Anger then ensued in my childhood. I've blocked so much younger times out, but I also feel like I remember being able to light up a room, yet the same evening cry myself to sleep feeling helpless, confused and alone.

We were raised in the church. That was something that I fell into and stayed involved with up to high school. Yet what I failed to do was find my own personal relationship with God. I did, and still do, find so much connection through worship, but outside of the power I find in worship the mind games start. It's so easy to find myself fumbling on questions or doubts. So, that is what I did.

My first fumble was with vodka and code red mountain dew. It was gross. I was caught immediately as it was obvious once I returned home and hard to miss as I bonded with the toilet that night making it pretty indisputable. I should have taken note of my weak stomach after my first rendezvous but no...not me. I insisted on replaying that scene over and over for about six years.

There is laughter and fun memories built amongst that time, but do you think that's what I replay the most in my mind? Not one bit. I replay the feeling of chasing after the drinks in search of fun, acceptance, fulfillment. I replay the tears after foolishly giving a piece of me away, robbing myself and my marriage of that priceless gift. I replay feeling unloved after a breakup and searching so long and hard to fill that gap in all the wrong places.

Now here I am.

Typing this here with my sweet boys sleeping as my patient, loving husband is at school teaching. In our humble home that fits us perfectly. With the opportunity to work part time from home and be here raising our boys-for the good days and the bad days. Not looking to false love for happiness, because finally I caved to see the bigger picture and allowed God in to show me His true love, peace, and grace.

I am here. I am fighting to draw closer to God and to know Him in ways I never took the time to before. In ways that I should have, to save myself from all that destruction. Yet, grateful that I am here to have my story and show first hand the power of God's grace and how it has in turn placed in me the strength I need to fight off the things of this world that lead to false hope, false joy, false happiness.

I am tired of living in a way just to disappoint myself time and time again.

My boys deserve more than that. My husband deserves more than that. I deserve more than that.

God did not allow me to walk off and turn my back for no reason. Here I am now, at a place I have never truly been before. Taking the time to see God. To know God. To keep connected and grow close to God.

I struggle with discontentment, I struggle with selfishness, cursing, jealousy, unnamed sadness, lack of confidence, self doubt. So many things that are personal to me-my personality, my story-and some that I think are across the board struggles that women and humans alike have because, well, we are human. And sometimes we just suck. Sometimes we just struggle. And most of the time we just can't seem to get it right.

At least we're not alone. Not on our own. That is what I have come to realize and that is what I am fighting for.

So. In this new chapter I aim to draw hope, strength, and joy from God and not from myself or the things of this world. Not from my family, friends, or possessions. It's a daily check and balance for me.

But I am not here by mistake. I have not taken the path I did to get here by mistake. Because, as Big Daddy Weave so greatly put it...

'If I told you my story you would hear victory over the enemy. If I told you my story you would hear freedom that was won for me. If I told you my story you would hear life overcome the grave.'

And I believe God can use me, my story, my stupidity for his good. I pray that He does. That He gives me the courage and humility to do so.

A blog a week. My story to be out there. My imperfections. My fails. My steps to draw closer to God. My fight to better myself personally, in marriage, as a mother. MY LIFE.

If it can make one person smile or not feel alone then I will file this as a success and thank God for the tug. If not, we'll chop this up to a big misunderstanding and pretend it never happened.

Out with the old. In with the new. Cheers to new beginnings.