The children wake up before her, before the tiredness hits her that although she rested, her body still needs rest. And yet she cannot stop to rest just now.
Goals.
A mother's life is a neverending cycle of redoing things undone. How then does she ever achieve something new?
Her arms are tired and bulky from carrying it all.
Dreams.
She wonders if that's all they can be, dreams that flit away and never come to pass.
She needs a superhero power to see them become.
If she stops to think of it all, the tears flow like raindrops on a stormy day, so she does not.
Instead, she "sings a new song to Him who sits on Heaven's mercy seat."
She feels Him strengthen her arms for carrying the loads, yet her load looks smaller, more achievable.
She's feels the fullness of her heart, and thanks Him for His peace that surpasses understanding.
I've been reading "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. You can visit the Cloud-Townsend website here. I highly recommend this book, and I think everyone should read it. You are either going to identify with me or you are going to think "duh," but this book has really helped me to understand how emotions were given to us by God to help us identify what boundaries we need to set for our self and the people in our life. As Christians we are taught to deny our self, so sometimes we inadvertently think that boundaries are selfish. However, God always designed us to know when we are hungry or need to go to the bathroom. If we stop to eat or to use the bathroom, no one thinks of us as selfish, but we are taking care of our own physical needs. Emotions are designed by God to do the same. I'll be honest and say that I did not know that emotions had this purpose: to take care of needs in an emotional sense.
God has given us clear boundaries that we all are to abide by in His Word. But He has crafted each one of us uniquely with different emotional responses to different situations. I cannot explain it as adequately as you can read in the book, but I think boundaries set us free to be who God created us to be and also free us from placing judgment on others when they choose to do something differently than we think is best or even right.
So much of what I have said on this blog probably has made no sense in light of this basic information, but I feel it is an ah-ha moment for me.
What they say about having more children is true, each one gets less and less photos taken and I've noticed Ms. DoodleBug has gotten less coverage on this blog. Today she is 9 months old, and I have no idea where the time has gone. She is super sweet and unbelievably happy all the time. She is definitely a mommy's girl at this point, but is still sweet and easy going. She's sliding, not crawling, on her belly around the house. She is trying to pull up, and she's tried almost every kind of baby food made (minus some meats). Although she was slow to like fruits, currently, she will try and eat almost anything. Her favorite is corn, and she loves to feed herself. We've given her small pieces of table food, but she loves puffs the best for self feeding. Love you, DoodleBug - you've made our family a whole lot happier. We LOVE you!
Last month we had our pictures taken by Sarah. Most of the photos on the sidebar of my blog were taken by her during this session. You can check out her post and see some of our other pictures here. She is fabulous. Call her today if you need some fabulous photos for any occasion.
Okay, so I know I went out on a limb in some ways with my last post. So I need to write some qualifiers. Writing is risky. Anytime you are honest, you are risking a whole lot - that you won't be accepted or understood, that no one will identify. Truly sharing your real self is HARD and RISKY. So you only get snippets of me on this blog. I try to give you a very good glimpse of myself on here, but you cannot make assumptions about anything on here about what I mean. I mean what I say, and if it is not clear, then take my words into the context of all you know about me from my writing, and you should be able to ascertain pretty close what I mean. If you just don't know, you can ask me. Don't ask my momma; don't ask my sister; don't ask my husband or my kids. If you want to know, ask me. Do I make mistakes on this blog? Yes, I am human. Do I spend time thinking about what to write and if I should share it? Yes, I do. I have mentioned before that I am very slow. Slow to speak, slow to write, and slow at times to share. So I do it with purpose.
I write to:
1. Glorify God.
2. Process my thoughts and feelings. Writing helps me to refine the good and the bad emotions going on inside me and helps me understand why I feel the way I do about certain things. If I feel a negative emotion, writing often helps me to move past my negative emotion - to release it and move onto the good emotion.
3. Journal events and remember - to see how God is working in my life through differing circumstances
4. Aid discussions.
My writing is not intended to:
1. bring harm or unnecessary pain to any friend or family member.
2. be taken out of context.
3. manipulate others for my own gain.
Commandment 5 is Honor your Father and your Mother and You will live long on the earth. (my paraphrase) In my last post, I in no way intended to bring dishonor to my mother. I wrote about my mom potentially moving away. I did not write that for you to profit on that and use it for your benefit and to call her and ask if you could buy her house or to make inquiries into her personal business. If you haven't talked to her in a few months, then my posts should not cause you to decide to call her and inquire into her business. If you genuinely care about her and it caused you to think of her, well okay, go ahead and call her, but, and this is a big BUT, our actions convey our love for one another. What we've already done and have been doing show our care.
Math and its constants and variables are what drove me to the idea that I could be an engineer. Engineering involves math, albeit most of the time it is done by a computer these days. I am no longer an engineer, but I still love equations. I like when everything works out and there is a clear answer to the problem, such as x=2. Rarely, life works out so clearly.
Lost is my all time favorite TV show, and two of the best episodes are titled, "The Constant" and "The Variable." If you followed the show, you should know that the characters did some time travel, and if they cycled through time enough, there could be fatal consequences. However each one could choose a constant (a particular person) between time frames that would save them from death when they thought of them or talked to them. In the episode entitled "The Variable," we learned that the people and their choices are the variables. If you didn't watch Lost, all this probably makes no difference to you, so here's the important thing:
God is
my constant.
Everything else changes all the time.
My granny used to say that no matter what you could always count on your family. Sometimes that's simply not true. It is said that a friend is someone who knows everything about you and still loves you. If so, a friend is rare indeed. Sometimes, friendships change.
When my dad died, it was a change in events. Though I no longer grieve him, I am still coming to terms with the way things are versus the way things might have been. In reality, had my dad lived there would have been no certainty either. I don't really own much that was my dad's - a few shirts, a tie, a engineering book or two that I cannot use. He didn't have a will and so I inherited nothing. All that he had became my mother's. After 6 years, my mom has decided to move away from the home I grew up in. I have no place to go back to for the memories. No place to rest if I choose to visit his grave. One day my grandparents who live there will die, and other than my cousin who chooses to raise her family there, I will have no one to visit there. I cannot change any of these things.
Behind the scenes of this blog, sometimes there are real life events going on that I feel like I cannot talk about. I am not supposed to be sad. As a child I was not supposed to feel. This came more from my dad's family than my mom's but I often put on the tough girl persona in front of my mom because I am supposed to feel happy and glad that she is moving on. I am hard and stone faced, and the the sadness that I feel, I cannot show. I am tired of carrying the anger and resentment that I feel when I think about the lies. I cannot change the variables. I cannot make the choices.
but, God...
He has never left me nor forsaken me.
He is always good.
He always works in my favor.
despite my sin, despite my shame, despite my pain.
His Son covers me. The despicable me is covered in the blood shed by my sweet Jesus. It has made me white. Father God sees Jesus instead of me now.
He is
My Constant
never changing. He is God!
"When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them so that if there is any question that they'll make good on the promise, the authority will back them up. When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee—God can't break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable." Hebrews 6:16-18 (The Message).
I am so glad that when everything seems to be changing all the time, HE is NOT!
I am not making resolutions. I am setting goals for the year, which is something I don't normally do.
I am deciding to keep trying even when I fail because I know I will (I guess that's what a resolution is supposed to be).
I have been pondering this upcoming year and my blog quite a bit. I do not have a Type A personality and don't normally set goals. The first time I set a goal intentionally was when I went to Youngstown, NY, for summer missions, and that was only because it was required. I have spent most of my life floundering around without purpose, like a butterfly flitting around from flower to flower. So I am declaring 2011 to be a year of purpose.
Recently, I have seen a lot of people take my God given ideas and use them as their own instead of joining me in the endeavor. Sometimes, they failed; sometimes, they profited. In the order of things, God is the giver, I was the one He used to speak or write the idea, and anyone could follow through with it. But when someone else used my idea, they stole my sense of purpose, especially when I was not allowed to join in.
First and foremost, this year I will go to Him for Purpose, and unless directed to share it and give it away, I will act on it immediately. One idea I am acting on is the quietness project, which you can read more about in the goals below. Another idea I am working on and hope to achieve is the Incredible Women Project. I am looking for women who are interested in sharing their faith stories - stories of brokenness, healing, pains, struggles of all kinds: infertility, eating disorders, singleness, marriage, divorce, cancer, anything really. God uses all these things and more to bring us closer to Him, and I'm looking to tell your stories, to bring us into community by sharing our stories about the One. My blog is intended for community. I long for you to interact with me. Please post comments and let me know if you are encouraged by what you are reading.
Memorize 2 verses a month through the Living Proof site. My first verse I am learning is: "You crown the year with your good blessings, and You leave abundance in Your wake. Psalm 65:11 (NET)
Finishing losing weight (10 or 15 pounds). Mainly I just hope to eat healthy and aim to exercise regularly.
The quietness project. - Recently a friend said that I was loud on my blog, which did not bother me. I was being loud on my blog at the time. However, she commented that my blog personality does not reflect the person I am when I am in your presence. I want this blog to reflect me, quiet, loud, funny, or whatever I may be. When I had my first child, I thought it odd to just talk to a newborn baby. I had to learn how to just talk about anything and nothing at all. Before, I didn't just talk randomly about anything to anyone. But most people do. My thoughts got so stuffed inside that they had to come out and that's how this blog was born - out of need to free the thoughts and to speak. Most people go to other people with their frustrations. The quietness project is an attempt to go to God when I want to talk, not to facebook or this blog, but to Him. It is an attempt to give Him the rightful place in our friendship. The result of that for you is that I will post our conversation when He leads me to do so.
This was a nice peaceful year - a year in which I learned that I need to ask more to receive more. I'm just a person - not too wise, maybe interesting, maybe not, that is very SLOW in all my thoughts, and I need time to think before I speak or write or blog. I like being a mom of 3. I'm still learning so many things, one of which is accepting the things I cannot change. I'm not nearly as serious or as stuffy as I appear to be - just living and hoping to glorify Him in all that I do. I hope 2011 can be as peaceful and even more fun than 2010.
Marriage: better than ever before
Princess: becoming confident and funny
Speed Racer: whiny, but adorable and always loving
DoodleBug: sweet as a peach, pulling up and beginning to crawl at the end of 2010
I recently read a great post that helps describe my thoughts on followers. I want to be read, but the more I live, the more I breath, the more I experience, the more I realize how little I know and how much I have to learn. I want to be one who grows in wisdom, but I am slow to think, slow to speak, and sometimes, slow to write and blog. It is thrilling to see someone decide to be a "reader" of mine though. I do want to see your little face show up on my "follower" bar so that I know you are a "reader." As I learn, sometimes I think every thing on this blog is just goobledy-gook and that most of it is probably useless nonsense. Regardless, I'll keep on blogging. If only for me and my family, it is a great way to journal the path life takes us. I'd love for you to read my nonsense anyhow. Like Melanie said, please join me in following Him together. I plan to post my Stones of Remembrance and my New Year's Goals soon.
