Diary of a Mad White Momma

And by mad - I mean absolutely crazy.  I thought I would give you the day in the life gone wrong but trying to do right.  There is a reason why the following paragraph runs together.  I started leading Esther and wanted to have a mini Purim celebration for the kickoff.  So here goes....  This is yesterday, March 23. 

Wake up.  Get out of bed ~6:55ish.  Did not do my daily bible reading right away.  My son is up and I hear my baby girl making noise.  I turn on the TV for my son.  I get in the shower.  I get dressed.  Get the baby, change her, nurse her.  Make lunch for my oldest two.  Wake up my oldest daughter.  Feed them breakfast.  Dress them.  Decide to attempt my daily bible reading.  Turn off the TV.  Get shoes on the kids.  Get back packs on the kids.  Take everyone to the car.  Buckle the baby in.  Wait for my son to buckle himself in.  Running behind on schedule.  Drive to the preschool and drop the kids off.  Realize I haven't eaten breakfast and drive to a drive through.  Eat and drive home.  Put the baby in the crib for a nap.  Finish my bible reading.  Look at the computer - facebook, bloggy stuff.  Back and forth emails about a meeting.  Text a friend about a meeting and remeeting.  Write an email about the bible study I started leading last night.  Make a worksheet for it.  Wake the baby.  Nurse her.  Go back to church.  Once again I am late.  Meet with a friend for a talk and reconciliation.  Feed baby cheerios and chase her around while we talk.  Talk on the cell phone and counsel as I drive to Homewood to pick up baklava, pita bread, and spanakopita for bible study.  Get something to drink.  Drive back to the church to pick up the kids.  At the end of the carpool line to pickup the kids.  Go home.  Feed baby.  Put baby down for another nap.  Kids play on the back porch.  See that the cookies I was going to make require overnight dough refrigeration.  Decide not to make them.  Decide to make them anyway.  Make the dough.  Refrigerate it.  Work on prayer sheet for Kurdish women.  Find maps of Persian empire, modern day Kurdish area, and modern day Iraq, Iran, etc.  Print worksheets.  Get dough out of refrigerator.  Roll it out.  Cut cookie circles out.  Place jelly in the circles.  Shape into triangle.  Repeat several times.  Cook cookies.  See that they totally fell flat instead of doing what they were supposed to since I did not follow the directions.  Let them cool.  Put the spanakopita in the oven.  Put my bible study materials into a bag.  Cut pita bread into triangles.  Get baby up.  Say hello to my husband.  Nurse baby.  Wrap up spanakopita.  Wrap pita bread.  Put baklava into bag.  Box up cookies.  Put into bag, along with hummus, pita bread, and spanakopita.  Drive to church for a meeting.  Once again - late.  Put stuff in bible study room.  Put stuff in conference room.  Get a cup of water and gather plates, napkins, and forks for food for bible study.  Take them to study room.  Go back to conference room for meeting.  Meet.  Leave early for bible study.  Go to the bathroom.  Hang out waiting for people to arrive.  Get video ready.  Have bible study where hardly anyone eats anything.  Watch Esther video.  Pray.  Depart.  Get video out.  Clean and pack up food.  Drink water.  Go home.  Eat a spanakopita.  Nurse baby.  Put her and oldest daughter into bed.  Come back downstairs.  Look at bloggy things, and write a guest blog on adoption you'll soon see.  Email it to appropriate folks.  Do more bloggy stuff.  My husband says he's going to bed, so I close the computer, and follow suit.

I was going the entire day - I didn't even eat lunch or dinner all because I was preparing for a bible study celebration in which no one celebrated.  And I spent no time at all with my kids or hubby.  Me thinks I will not do that again.

Last day of Esther

Today was the last day of my Esther bible study. I loved every bit of my Esther study. I would like to share more, but I don't want to give away everything, because then you might not need to buy a book, and I am sure Beth Moore and Living Proof Ministries might not like that, but I hope to make all of the index cards to have handy when I am struggling with any one of the seven "it's tough to be a woman" scenarios that we talked about in bible study. I have to say that for me personally it is one of the best, perhaps even most life changing, studies I've ever done. I had no idea that I could and would be able to relate to Beth Moore so much, and I've done several of her studies, but this one was "for such a time as this" for me. I highly recommend it. You will not regret it!

I'm a Princess!

And if you are a woman and you know the King of Kings apparently you are too! (I suppose the guys are princes.) Wow, that really should stop my insecurities dead in their tracks. Yes, even though I missed bible study last week, I have been keeping up with my lessons. I love learning about Esther and Beth Moore's insights into the book. She says that, "You have royal blood in a way that even Esther did not. The crimson bloodline of Christ flows in your veins....Right now you are representing the King on official business in another land, but you are no less royal than the Queen of England would be if she visited the White House.....These realizations should be stunning and marvelous to us, exploding our lives with significance."

Caffeine for the Soul

Well, since we were all under the weather on Tuesday, I did not go to bible study. Instead, I went tonight. Getting together with women or going to bible study in the evening is like caffeine for the soul, so now my husband is in bed, and I am still awake wishing he was too.

So, I have a couple of postscripts to add to Esther:
1. Just because I was advocating being yourself does not mean I advocate being yourself. I advocate being yourself within the context of God and His expectations for you.
2. Even though I said I would like to be the "it" girl, I would never actually want to be part of a harem. I can't imagine I would handle the pressure of a year's worth of beautification procedures and being around all those women for so long. I'm sure I would make some friends, but then again, how many hateful words would I have to hear? Not to mention that none of these girls were asked if they wanted to be queen. They were virgins who upon chosen had to one by one spend a night with the king. What do you suppose went on in there? You know! If one was not chosen to be queen, they were left with none of their virtuosity and might have been disposable, so to say that I would like to be "it" was not saying that I wanted to undergo any of this. I am glad that I got to choose my husband and that he chose me.

If you are up past bedtime, you can ramble, right?
I do not like to wait, but I know God has called me to wait. I don't think one ever truly stops waiting for something. So, as I wait, I place my trust in Him. Lord, help me to pray more and expect to see You more in the areas that I wait! The word of the Lord is my strength...

Since ancient times

no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Isaiah 64:4

but those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31

For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come and will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;

my hope comes from him.

Psalm 62:5

Identity Crisis! (with Lost John Locke) part 1

I have been having an identity crisis, and this blog post is going to take a while to write due to all of the details I want to share, so bear with me. Hopefully you will enjoy the read and be able to ask yourself the questions I am asking myself. This is part 1 of two parts.

First I want to tell you about the character John Locke from Lost. If you've never seen this show, you can skip the details about him, and you should really look into watching it - it's the best written show on television.

John Locke is my least favorite character on Lost. I will spare you all the details from the show just to give a few highlights. When the plane crashed on the island, he was in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down and upon crashing, he was miraculously healed and was able to walk again. He is classified as "the man of faith" and fought for leadership over the crashees. Lost tells stories about each character out of sequence, but here are some things I have gathered about John Locke over the course of his life for the rest of you Losties who read my blog too.

• he was born out of wedlock to a young teenager who wanted him but abandoned him.
• he was born premature and had to struggle to survive.
• he lived in and out of foster care all of his life.
• when he was a young boy, he was visited by Richard Alpert and chose the knife but thought about choosing the compass (I think)
• when he was a teenager he was chosen to go to a special school that I think may have been run by the Others (Richard Alpert), a science camp, but he denied going because he wanted to be popular, an athlete like the other kids.
• he gave his kidney to his con-man father and continued to chase his father even after he found out that his dad conned him to get his kidney.
• he was part of a combine, religous cult type group.
• his father actually pushed him out of the window and caused his paralysis.
• he wanted his con-man father's love over his girlfriend's.

This is who he was before coming to the island. If you don't know how John Locke relates to me, then I am very glad!!! But's here's my very short character analysis - he wants to be loved, accepted, and he pretends to be somebody he is not. He is not comfortable in his own skin and wants to be somebody other than who he is created to be. Aside from accepting God's love, perhaps if he had accepted the way he was designed instead of trying to be something he was not designed to be, he might have had a few more friendships.

Come back to tomorrow to hear about Esther and the rest of the identity crisis....

To pass the time, be thinking about how you too try to be something you are not. Do you help or hinder others in being who they are created?