As Unflattering as it Gets. . .but the Struggle is Real

The Sun will come out tomorrow. . .you're always a day away!!

My Love Bugs,

To begin with, I don't tend to have a ton of days that just catch me off guard and bring me to my knees. Today, unfortunately,  was one of those days.  It came with little or no warning, made me cry my eyes out, talk it out, then sit on the kitchen floor and cry some more, calling out to God to heal old wounds and bring someone I love back to him.

I'm tired of being too religious, or too much of a prude, or too whatever it is for some people in my circle. There was a verse at bible study that really stood out to me this week:

When the last days come, people will appear who make fun of you, who follow their own godless desire. . ."  Jude 1:18

Of course God already knew today was coming and it was going to hit me hard, so maybe that verse was to prepare me to pull out my bible during the tear fest and lean into him and find that soft place to land. That right there is a comforting thought.  The verse doesn't make it any easier to swallow when we are set apart, looked at differently because we want to walk with the Lord and honor our bodies and minds with how we choose to live.  But it's what we are called to do as Christians so I say do so boldly!

It won't always be easy.  Today was a hard one, kids.  But it will always be worth it as we seek his kingdom as our final destination.  Sigh. . .I have been praying relentlessly for someone and it is hard when it feels like  my prayers are unanswered, like I'm being put off, pushed further and further away, but there is always hope, loves.  Keep believing and keep the faith.

All my my love always,

Mom

"Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary."

Galatians 6:9

And then I find this gem in my inbox.  God is so good to know just what I need in the form of encouragement from a mentor. . .http://www.thebettermom.com/

For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. Hebrews 6:10

"And so, somehow, many failures forgotten and discouraging moments lived through, the Life of God and the strength He gave in the face of strong winds of temptation and fear with faith lived out, became in my child, a strong work of heart that gave foundations of faith.

For it was the storms of life that prepared my children to be strong for their lives and gave them a pattern of learning how to ford the rough waters that their own lives would hold.""--Sally Clarkson

P.S. We might be in the middle of a storm, but together, with God in the lead, we will come out better for it on the other side.  Everything I do, I do for you. . .xoxoxox

The Struggle is Real. . .Part Two

It's the strangest thing the way the Lord keeps giving me these little bites of "real" work in the "real" world.
Conversations across desks with inquisitive principals take place.
Email from a cousin about counseling jobs in a district that hasn't hired counselors in as long as I've had my credential, it seems.
Text messages from an acquaintance asking if I'm interested in a forty percent assignment.
A former teacher of the kids saying they may have to add a class, would I be interested?

And my answer has been the same to all these people that really don't know my life right now:  I can't.  Not this year.  It's not the right time. . .but then I wonder.  I mean really wonder: are these signs?  Is God speaking to me and I'm just not getting the message?  Are these opportunities I potentially might be missing out on? Or is this some kind of test to see if my faith will waver.  If I will take my eyes off the Lord and sink in the ocean water?  I have no idea.

I'm telling myself that God is speaking to me through these bits and pieces and showing me that there will be work for me in the outside world when the time is right.  Now is truly not that time.  I need to embrace the year with Nessa and quiet the outside world's expectations of what constitutes a valuable life's calling.  The one I'm choosing has no pay check but it is worthy nonetheless.  It's a gift.

  

The Struggle is Real

Summer is winding down.
It has been so, so good to us.
New beginnings are right around the corner.
And it seems everyone is ready in their own ways.
However, I seem to be struggling a bit.
I'm thankful not to have a teaching job to go back to, but I'm feeling as if my writing class is direction-less at the present moment.  I have big plans for life with my T-k'er but nothing put on paper. . .yet.

Summer afforded blips in the schedule.  Lazy days meant late pick ups and drop offs weren't a big deal, only a bit inconvenient.  But now? I try to stay in the present. But it's hard. Really hard  when it feels your own kids might be getting the short end of the stick.  Those conversations are hard to hold when we try so hard to do everything so equally but they see it differently.  It's even harder when what they see and say is absolutely correct and we have no control over other people. Being obedient is hard.  The easier thing to do would be to go back to the way our life was on May 4th.

That would be easier, but it wouldn't necessarily be right.
Holding on to the hope that we are exactly where we are supposed to be.
If He takes us to it, He will get us through it.

November 17, 2012

Yesterday is not the kind of day I want to remember; however it is a day I need to.  I got the call no wife wants to receive, there had been an accident my husband was involved in at work. He was being transported by ambulance to the hospital.

As I rushed from my imoms meeting to pick up Janessa, hands shaking, moving swiftly, all I could do was pray.  As we ran to the car together, we prayed aloud that daddy would be okay.  Thankfully, the hospital was only minutes away and I just murmured, "yes" as Nessa kept repeating, "My daddy hurt?"  All the while praying.

Seeing him in that hospital bed ALIVE and hearing him speak was a rush of relief and I let tears fill my eyes with pure joy.  He told me what had happened and to be honest, it's a bunch of mumbo jumbo technical talk that I really didn't get, but the words I absolutely understood: 7200 volts.  7200 volts is the current that somehow he made contact with.  7200 volts.  He could have been dead.  By all accounts, he should have been dead. . .but he wasn't.  Here he was with me, and even though I couldn't see his hands yet to see the extent of the damage--I cared about nothing else and I started praising God. 

Just the day before I had posted this picture on instagram.

And the next day, I got the dreaded call.  Just like that, our lives could have changed in an instant.  I know my conscious brain knows this, but the reality of following the ambulance as he was transported to a burn center over fifty miles away. . .took my breath away. My stomach ached, my mouth was dry, my muscles ached from the strain of such constant concentration, yet praise filled words swam around my mind.

As I waited for them to call me back at the burn center, I replayed the morning.  I could hear the sound of rain against the rooftop.  "Is that rain," he had asked?  "Yes, " I replied snuggling deeper into the blankets. Of all days, I chose the warmth of the covers to going downstairs with him and making his coffee then riding my bike.  I didn't bless his forehead.  I didn't. . .I didn't. . .

But He did.  God was with Ernie.  God protected him and spared his life.  His injuries are relatively minor for the voltage he was working with.  I am so grateful. . .gulping breaths of gratitude.  Today there is only room for gratitude and love.  That is how filled up I am. It doesn't matter that Thanksgiving is a couple days away.  The day to give thanks is today--or any day that you're alive.

My view last night in the comfort of our own home.  Another gift of the day?  He was discharged.  After talk of keeping him to monitor his heart and such. . .they let him come home to this.  To us.  To a friend/brother/fellow lineman who brought us pizza for a late dinner.  I had no idea how much this profession truly is a brotherhood--word traveled fast and the calls and texts were rolling in.  As I drove home through hours of Friday night traffic, I listened to him speak to the people who understand his words, what happened, way more than I did.  I gave thanks for them too.  These men who do a dangerous job so I can have electricity flowing through this home of mine.

I haven't quite wrapped my head around what comes next.  There will be a burn center appointment on Monday.  I will dress and wrap his wounds later today and again Sunday. I haven't even had a good chance to cry and let the tears spill for what God saved for me and my family to love on for longer.

All I know at this time, this particular moment, is that God is so good!  This accident will forever shape how Ernie conducts business. I have often said God speaks to us in whispers and when we don't get it, we get a thump.  I'm thankful this thump wasn't worse. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change--James 1:17

Thankful to God for my husband's safety, but also for filling me up with such gratitude that there is no room for worry.  Ernie will go back to work again and the possibility will exist for accidents to happen.  But there is no room for me to worry.  God's got this--case in point: yesterday.
⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 6:34  “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

November 8, 2012

This week included the election, which was spent in front of the television at our house.  The kids stayed up until nine o'clock tracking the number of electoral votes each man received.  The next morning they were surprised and excited to hear the winner.  Explaining the election process to them, meant a little research and reviewing for me.  Government class seems a lifetime ago.
In other news. . .
This week also marked a new beginning for the baby.  I'm thinking it may not be a good idea to call her that any more since she started her first day of preschool today.

Yesterday I went to put her on the waiting list since she will be three this month, and there was no line so she could start immediately...like today.  I may have shed a tear or two or twenty yesterday as the realization hit me that she is NOT a baby any more.  As sure as I am that this is the best place to tame her little wild spirit and help her learn and grow with other kids her age, it didn't make the letting go any easier.

It is not about the academics for me.  It is about the structure she needs and it is the answer to her daily plea, "Mama, I have Miss Donna's today?"  Ever since we began the Mommy and Me one day a week program in September she has asked for more.  As difficult as the first month in that class was for me due to her lack of wanting to transition from play time to rug time, I have seen such tremendous growth.  She loves learning.  She loves being with other kids her age; She loves having something to call her own.  So, we decided to take the plunge. 

Today she went in eager to discover.  She left me with a kiss and never looked back. . .

When I returned she was happy to see me, told me she missed me and then I asked her teachers how her day went.  They didn't tell me anything I wasn't expecting.  She knows how to turn it on and off--not with tears, but with arms crossed, shaking her head, and saying no.  She wants to do what she wants to do--and she is fiercely independent. FIERCEly.  The thing this young thing will soon realize, is that her teacher Ms. J is no pushover.  She taught  our other two.  Her consistency, nurturing, and firm but gentle discipline is what brought us back here yet again.  So, we shall see.  After class we drove thru to pickup a cheeseburger, small fry, and milk.  She talked non stop.  I asked her if she wants to go back, "Yes!"

I think the hardest part about letting her go is admitting to myself that I don't have everything she needs--I can't be what she needs by myself at home.  I can teach her, no doubt but she is a social beauty of a beast who desires company and activity and likes to be on the go.  It shouldn't surprise me since she is the only one of my kids that has only had grandma as a babysitter.  Those two were always busy!!  She likes to be on the move, she is interested in what's going on around her. Her eyes light up when then are more than two kids gathered similar in age to her.  She's ready. 

Maybe the reality of the situation is: it's still hard for me to accept my children's flaws, attitudes, or bad character trait moments and not somehow view them as a reflection of me. That age old caring what someone else thinks--how I am perceived as a parent, as an educator, or whatever the title may be. . .still cripples me.  As hard as I strive not to care, the reality is I struggle.  It is there. I don't want to work full time so I can be with my kids, but how does that fit into this equation?

I don't know.  But I do know, He knows.  I've been seeking Him and He is revealing himself to me, showing me the way, guiding me down this path.  It might change.  It might not.  For now we are all right where we need to be: Jeremiah 6:16 
 This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.

September 27, 2012

Once upon a time, before I knew better, I informed my parents that we were a totally dysfunctional family.  I think I had written a paper on the topic and every single quality I wrote about resonated within me:  this is so us, we are so dysfunctional. . . And of course, because I knew better than them in my late teens--I was totally right.  We were dysfunctional to some extent.  What I know now?  Who isn't.

My dad teases me about those days lovingly.  I thought I knew so much, I thought I had it so together, and I thought I was going to do things so differently from my parents.  You know, because they did such a horrible job.  I laugh now because as a closer to forty-year-old woman trying to raise my own children in a world that moves so rapidly--I struggle.  I struggle daily in my role as wife and mom.  I struggle daily with my own attitude when I selfishly don't want to meet a child's need because I am busy meeting another need:
um. . .laundry.  I struggle to muster up grace and forgiveness when one of them shows attitude or disobedience.  I struggle not to yell as I am asking that the room gets picked up for the fourth time in that hour.  Every. Single. Day. I. Struggle.  "Lord, help me" seems to be my cry out loud prayer these days.

I had an interesting talk with my parents last night.  As we talked about life --we wandered down memory lane.  We relived memories about this situation or event and I found my dad apologizing for doing this or that wrong--and it was so unnecessary! Nine years into this parenting journey has shown me we all do the best we can depending on where we are.  His different may be different than my different, but it was his best self at that particular time.  How can I fault someone for that?  My parents, while not always the poster people for marriage or parenting, have grown and raised three great kids!  Despite this trial or trouble, or that one--they have grown in the process and we have watched that growth take place.  Isn't that what life is all about?

Here I am, giving it the best I've got and I am still struggling.  Still failing. Every. Single. Day. I lean heavily on the Lord these days as I am home with my kids. I lean heavily on the Lord to keep blessing my marriage.  I lean heavily on Him period.  For me, that is the only way.  I am not saying it's the only way, but it is my way for the journey I am on today. 

I  find it amusing that I thought I knew so much.  I guess we all go through that stage; at least I hope we do.  I don't want to be alone in my thoughts of perfection or being the only Miss Know it All!  That was a long time ago in the scheme of life.  I find I know nothing now.  I find that even in my own home there are probably some characteristics of dysfunction that seep in.  It's what I know--it's the sinner, I was born to be. Thank God for forgiveness and grace because somewhere down the road, I imagine I will be apologizing to my kids for this or that--because this is the journey I am on and I am doing the best I can.  My hope and prayer is that they see it and that one day they too will find it unnecessary.  

"Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing". (Psalm 34:10b)