Mish-Mosh of Mundane

Last Friday I left bright and early with some of my favorite women and headed to Central Oregon for the weekend. The leadership conference we actually attended was a little anti-climatic, but the weekend itself was very valuable. We learned a lot about each other, and while not every moment was easy, in the end I think we're a better team for it. Our Women's Ministry at church (now renamed Vibrant FAITH, which stands for Females Active in the Harvest) has been going through a real time of change for the better lately. The Lord has blessed me to be a part of it, and I've documented some of that on this blog.

I got back Sunday afternoon and before I knew it, it was Monday. Mark has not gotten home from work before 10 any night so far this week and tonight promises to be the same. Elijah has a cold, so we have missed AWANA and Tuesday preschool so far this week and he may even miss his Harvest Party at preschool tomorrow if the lingering cough doesn't disappear today. The last two days I actually showered and got dressed, but today I have given up and am staying in my PJ's. I feel like between my weekend away and Mark's long hours, I haven't seen him in nearly a week, save for the brief recaps of our days we give each other before bed.

Since I only grocery shop every two weeks (paydays), and this last weekend would have been my weekend to shop, we are running out of lots of food items and my kids are stuck with canned fruit and veggies at this point. If Elijah's cold doesn't clear up by tomorrow, I may have to drag him out into the elements anyway just so I can get milk and bread.

The good news is that my Bible study homework this week has been awesome (we're on Jacob and Leah/Rachel this week and it's been fantastic). Since Mark's been gone in the evenings, I've had plenty of time to really soak it in and take my time with it.

So that's my week so far. I hope you all are healthy and enjoying the end of October.

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A little Hellfire and Brimstone. Sorry....I'm feeling some righteous anger today.

I have tears brimming my eyes and my stomach is a little sick. I just read the news that Jennifer Hudson's nephew was found, and he was not found alive. I can't imagine losing that many close family members at one time, in such a horrible way. I can't imagine the kind of monster that could take the life of a 7-year-old. I can't imagine being the mother of that 7-year-old today. My heart is breaking for her.

There are so many stories like this one that fill our newspapers and newscasts. The names, faces and circumstances change, but the horror remains the same. This world is broken. People are broken.

Please don't ever think that because God allows these kinds of things that He isn't as angry about them as we are. On the contrary. Jesus said that it was better for a man to tie a large millstone around his neck and throw himself into the sea than to hurt a child. Oh, how He loves them.

The day will come when the Ancient of Days will sit on His throne and open the books. The Lamb's book of Life and the book of Judgement. Make no mistake. He will not forget what has happened to His children. Just because He allows it for now does not mean He is tolerating it. Vengeance is His. He is just biding His time.

Daniel 7 is one of my favorite chapters of scripture because it reminds me who is ultimately on The Throne. He may be tolerating things for now, but Our God WILL take back control from the kingdom of darkness and Our Savior WILL reign for eternity. Woe to him whose name is NOT written in the Lamb's book. Daniel's dream gives us a glimpse of what we will someday see with our very own eyes:

"Thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took His seat. His clothing was as white as snow and the hair of His head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and it's wheels were all ablaze.

A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before Him. Thousands upon thousands attended Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened." (Daniel 7:9-10)

"Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn [the horn, in this case, represents Satan] was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire." (Daniel 7:11)

"There before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." (Daniel 7:13-14)

I am so thankful for God's grace and mercy. I am so thankful that He is kind, compassionate and loves me personally.

There are times, though, when I am so glad He is as big, powerful and righteous as He is. He will right all wrongs. There are two choices: fall to our knees and recognize His righteousness, covering our wrongs in the blood of His Son, or face the Ancient of Days.

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Ministry

I love it when the Lord allows me to see, with great clarity, where He's used me recently. Obviously I know He uses me in Women's ministry (sorry, Katie...FAITH), and I knew when He was using me with Jr. High girls. There are obvious, "church sanctioned activities" that make it easy to see where He's called me to use my gifts. While I find great satisfaction and blessings in these things, being used in my day-to-day, just running my errands, participating in my hobbies and raising my kids life, that is when I get goosebumps. When I can see that the Lord specifically took a situation that seemed like nothing special to me, yet through the power of His Holy Spirit and His grace used it in any small way, that is when I become humbled and overwhelmed.

My last blog post was clearly that. When I sat down to type my last post, I had something entirely different in mind. As I started to type, it turned into something I hadn't planned. I continued along, a little nervous about what I had written, but figured I could always delete it if I needed to. I wrapped up my post, hit "publish", and was instantly hit with a wave of (ironically) insecurity. I decided to fight my urge to remove the post and just trust that someone needed to hear it.

Praise the Lord, someone did! I have had some very touching responses to the last post (via email....I guess people felt a little uncomfortable sharing some of their tender thoughts in blog comments), and apparently you all can relate to some degree. Some of you have commented that you felt I had written the post just for you, and while I may not have, the Lord did. I can look back with absolute certainty and see that the Holy Spirit wrote that post, not me. I never would have had the courage.

Thank you for sharing with me. It means to world to me to know that the Lord used my little blog to touch you that way. It was the goal for my blog in the first place.

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Finally Secure

I wasted a lot of years of my life living with crippling insecurity. It would be a lie for me to say that I have been cured of it, but I can honestly say that God is good and I overcome it more than I succumb to it now. Looking back, I can see so many times that I crumbled emotionally over something so silly, so harmless that someone may have said. Because I was so sure that I was unworthy of any love or affection, I assumed that no one would give me any. I would always jump to the conclusion that people's intentions were negative. Not necessarily because they had treated me that way. It was my own, inner dialogue (capitalized on by our Enemy), convincing me that there was no way someone actually felt positively about me.

Of course I had friends, and yes, my family loved me, but I never felt secure. I had spent so many years disliking myself that I was utterly convinced that no one else could really like me, either. Even if they acted like they did, I was certain that one day they would they would realize how unworthy I was of their time and attention and they would find someone better to befriend. This, of course, became a self-fulfilling prophecy because at times I could be clingy, desperate for the security I needed. Other times I could be mean, wanting to push them away before they could hurt me. I have no doubt that there are people reading this blog who have known me for years that are surprised by what they are reading. I'm sure some people saw through my facade, but for a lot of people, they probably saw the tough wall I had built around myself for protection and mistook it for self-confidence. Or conceit. Or arrogance. It was never any of those things.

There is a point to this post beyond my overwhelming you with my deepest, darkest feelings. I know what I just wrote was a little bit deep maybe a little bit TMI. I felt it was important to share, though, because I think a lot of us have felt or do still feel that way, to some degree. Insecurity is one of Satan's most effective tools. He can absolutely destroy us and our relationships by reminding us of how unworthy of love we feel. He will remind us over and over again of our least positive qualities, until they become distorted and gigantic in our minds. We can no longer see any of the positives because they are drowned out by our negatives.

He is a liar.

Jesus loves me. He is captivated by my beauty. He finds me breath-taking. He has pursued me and would rather die (and He did) than live without me. For me to believe a single word out of Satan's mouth over the actions of my Savior is blasphemy. I am loved so much that the God of the Universe became a man, lived a blameless life, endured the cross and defeated death so that I could be reunited with Him. For me to live in self-loathing is insulting to Him. He feels the same way about you.

Do you realize that every time you think negatively about yourself or tell yourself how stupid, lame, ugly, useless, etc you are, Jesus is saying "Hey...that's my Bride you're talking about!"

I was mostly inspired to write this post for someone who I love very much that struggles with feeling unworthy all of the time. She can put up a tough exterior, but one unkind word from her mother, her brother or her husband can knock her off her feet and bring her to tears. She never really feels worthy of love, so she assumes they don't really love her. But they do. And so do I. More than that, Jesus loves her. So very, very much.

There is no one on this earth who is capable of loving you the way your Savior does. Stop looking for it anywhere else. Let Him satisfy you with His love. That way the love of others is just the icing on the cake.

Psalm 90:14

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,

that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

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So Mighty

I'm sure that most of you (if not all) are familiar with Discovery Channel's Planet Earth. It's not a new series, and the buzz about it has been everywhere. I haven't seen all of them, and in fact have only caught a few (despite the fact that we bought the DVD's for my Dad last year for his birthday....Dad, I need to borrow those). Just by coincidence I was scrolling through my on-screen TV guide and saw that the 'Ocean Deep' was going to be on, which is one I'd always wanted to see. I set my DVR to record, but didn't know if I'd ever have time to watch it. As it turns out, I was able to watch it yesterday while the kids napped. I turned it on, expecting to catch a few minutes here and there. I don't know why I ever thought that. Each and every one of these episodes is mesmerizing. I was so fascinated by what I was seeing that the only moves I made through the entire episode were my fingers on my remote control, fast forwarding the commercials.

I was overwhelmed by God's creativity, enormity and provision as I learned about the creatures populating our oceans. As I heard Sigourney Weaver describe to me whales that weigh hundreds of tons, I realized that my God could keep one in a fish bowl on His dresser if He chose. As I was taught about the deepest reaches of the oceans, where man has never been and can never go, I was reminded that my God carved those depths with His very own hands. And as I saw the marine snow floating to the ocean floor, feeding millions of creatures on it's way down, I realized that not a single flake falls without His allowing it. And allow it He does, because He provides for even the smallest and most "insignificant" of His creations.

Psalm 104:25-27 There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time.

Yet I worry that He won't provide for me. How foolish I am.

My kids and I sing a song from my childhood that I'm sure you all know. There are motions that go along, and I often sing it without really thinking about what I'm saying:

My God is so great, so strong and so mighty

There's nothing my God can not do (clap, clap)

My God is so great, so strong and so mighty

There's nothing my God can not do (clap, clap)

The mountains are His,

The valleys are His,

The stars are His handiwork, too

My God is so great, so strong and so mighty

There's nothing my God can not do.

He is bigger, stronger, wiser and kinder than anything or anyone on this earth. He spoke it all into being. It was His idea and is His to control.

Just see for yourself.

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I think there may need to be some sort of list intervention

Much like Picasso had his "blue period", I seem to be going through my "list period". Lately it appears that all I can do on this blog is put together a list of what I've been up to and little else. I don't want to jinx anything, but there is a very good chance that will change this week. My calendar is much less full than it has been in weeks months. Before continuing on with posts of any importance, I have one more list in me:

1. I paid $2.99/a gallon for gas yesterday!!!! I only fill up our gas tank once every two weeks, so sorry if this is old news. I did a little dance in my seat when I saw how "cheap" it was to fill up my tank. (Yes, yes....I understand that this is in great part because the cost of crude oil has dropped so much and that this is a symptom of our current economic crisis, but I'm going to take my silver linings where I can get them.) I haven't paid less than $3 a gallon in well over a year (maybe longer?).

2. Y'all may know that I'm a Bebo Norman fan. His new album is sublime. Buy it.

3. My Women's event on Friday was spectacular! God was so good to us and blessed our endeavors. Our "dream" number was 50 women. That was the number we were working with as our expected attenders. We had 70!! It was adorable and fun and such a blessing. We did a 50's theme night and turned our church's coffee bar ("The Perk") into a soda fountain, where we served cherry and vanilla cokes (the real kind...with syrup!). We then turned our Multi-Purpose room into a diner, complete with giant records on the wall, great music from the "jukebox" (or an iPod hooked up to a sound system, but that's not very 50's) and roller skating servers (the "Holy Rollers"). Katie, Katrina, Kari-Ann and Esther....you are my heroes! I can't believe the way you guys buzzed around that room with trays of food. I had the joy of being the "MC" for the evening and, I won't lie to you....I may or may not have gotten a little drunk on power with the wireless mic. I loved it.

4. We don't have another Women's event until our Christmas brunch in December, which will be a nice little break, but we do have a super-fun leadership conference in two weeks. Can't wait!

5. I think we are finally all healthy in our house for the moment.

6. This is the end of my list, I think. Have a great Monday, everyone and I'll be back tomorrow (or maybe even later today....you never know!) with some quality content, hopefully not in list form.

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So it turns out I'm even sicker than I thought. The kind of sick that requires a trip to the doctor and antibiotics. Possibly. Several years of working for the spouse of a naturopath always has me looking for holistic methods before turning to the drugs. But make no mistake....if I need the drugs, I will take the drugs. Especially when we're talking about the "nightime sniffly, sneezy, coughy, achy, stuffy head so you can rest medicine". But that's not what I need right now. The list of ailments I have right now are way into the TMI category. So I will spare you.

While I am getting well, enjoy the new look of my blog. I love Fall. I just had to celebrate it.

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Sick

The one part of preschool that I do not love is the amount of germs my kids (and therefore Mark and I) are now exposed to. Yes, they tell us to keep our kids home if they are "green" (use your imaginations) and/or have a cough. Let's be honest, though....by the time those symptoms are in full swing, it's too late. The damage has been done and the cold has been passed around like it was brought for "Show and Tell".

I'm not someone who lives in fear of germs. I know that my kids are just as likely to get sick by riding in a cart at Target as they are from preschool. Elijah just goes to preschool a lot more often than we go to Target.

So we are currently fighting something in our house at the moment. What I thought was a cold last week just ended up being a particularly bad allergy day (I take three different allergy meds everyday to fight my battle against mold spores. Living in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the rain drenched Willamette Valley reeks havoc on me during spring and fall. It's totally worth it, though. It's beautiful here.). Now I'm pretty sure it's a cold. My kids have been "green" since Friday, which kept them home from church yesterday, and now AWANA tonight. I'm praying that Elijah's nose dries up by morning so he doesn't miss his first ever school pictures. I woke up this morning feeling like I had been hit by some kind of bus or train. But I was resolved to blog something. I've been so distant lately, I wanted to stay on track. So you lucky readers are getting my "Haggard-mom-who-spent-the-whole-day-chasing-a-two-year-old-with-a-Kleenex-before-he-made-a-mess-on-the-couch-cushions-when-all-she-really-wanted-to-do-today-was-sleep" blog post about....well....germs and snot. Sorry to do that to all of you, but that's all that's on my mind today.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with something less gross.

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My list of Excuses....

Two weeks before the wedding, I was getting my haircut. Jackie, the gal who cuts my hair, and I were chatting away about all of the things that had been going on in preparation for the wedding. She jokingly asked "What are you going to do when the wedding is over? You're going to be so bored!" I laughed and agreed with her that life was going to come to a screeching halt once Kevin and Kayla were married. I was very much looking forward to it.

I was dead wrong.

What I forgot to factor in is that things are just busier now as my kids get older. Until very recently, my kids were not involved in anything specific. Yes, we had playdates, and yes, they went to Sunday School, but there was no real obligation for them to be anywhere at any time. Their schedule was my schedule and I could determine when or even if there was anything on the calendar. That has all changed.

Monday nights Elijah has AWANA. It's been such a joy to help him memorize God's word and learn about what it means. This means he has homework every week. Not only memorization, but there are stories for me to read him and projects that help him to understand what he's learning about. This has been a very sweet time for us as we do this every week, but it's added an obligation we didn't have before. Just the fact that we have to get him to club every week on time has been a challenge. And speaking of Monday nights.....

Mark and I have a small group with two other couples during AWANA every Monday. This is not new, but we just restarted after taking the Summer off, and I'm surprised at how much more challenging it is to get there and get Elijah to club with his book, bag, dues, homework and dinner in his tummy first.

Tuesday and Thursdays Elijah has preschool and he truly has blossomed so much in the last few weeks. He has always had quite a bit of social interaction for his age since we are so involved in church, but there is something quite remarkable about his development since starting school. He has friends he looks forward to seeing and asks every morning if it's "school day". He's so proud of the projects he gets to make and bring home, and we've gotten a special box for him to put them in so that Micah doesn't destroy them. While he's at school on Tuesdays, Micah and I have met girlfriends at the park (although the rain is finally here, so that is probably done) and ran errands that would ordinarily be outside of my comfort zone with two kids. Micah has really enjoyed having Mommy to himself and Mommy feels the same way about him.

Thursdays during preschool is my Women's Fall Bible study and already it's off to a great start! We are having a great time studying The Patriarchs. I have, in the last couple of years, become slightly obsessed with being the spiritual seed of Abraham:

Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Galatians 3:6-9

The fact that Christ was (and is) a Jew and that the Jews are God's chosen people has become a fascinating topic for me. I love the richness of tradition of the Jewish culture and faith. I am so thankful that God adopted us Gentiles into his family, but studying the life of a true Jew is a fascination of mine at the moment. Being able to now do an in-depth study of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob totally "floats my boat".

I am also in the throws of putting together (along with my girls Katie, Katrina, Kari-Ann, Julie and Glynna) the biggest Women's' Event we've had at church in a long time. It is happening this Friday and I promise to tell you all about it.

So, consequently, my life has not slowed down at all since the wedding. All that time I was blaming it on my brother's nuptials, but the truth was, life has just gotten busier. But I am blessed with it. It keeps me busy and it keeps my life abundant. As a stay-at-home mom, there are days when it's easy to just "exist" and not really live. I am getting to teach my children about Jesus in a much more tangible way than ever and see them talk about Him in casual conversation (which makes my heart sing....you have no idea). I am getting to spend sweet, special time with both of my boys individually, which hasn't really happened since Micah was born. They've always been together. And I'm getting to participate in, facilitate and watch women come together and study, grow and fellowship.

God is good. He's keeping me busy. But I miss my blog, so I'm going to try and make it back more frequently. Sorry I've been MIA for so long. Time flew by while I was too busy to notice.

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