Neglect

My blog is much neglected of late.  So is my house and my hair is long overdue for a trim.  There are mini gardens in my backyard that remain in need of attention.  This is my life right now.  I have to prioritize and that means some stuff gets left out.  My children are center stage right now and my job as chaffeur is much in demand.  I also lend my chaffeur skills to my mom about once a week.  Add to that the many projects I am a part of at church plus the online history class I am taking and there just isn't alot of extra space left.  Oh and that pesky little part time job.

So, all of that to say, I am in the 'busy' season of life.  And, for the most part, I am content there.  I've never really been one who likes inactivity.  Most of the things I enjoy are things that require motion-even if only the wheels in my brain at times.  I try to remember that these are the last years of my children being in my nest.  In the next 8 years, my nest will become something I will have very limited control over.  Something that will not even resemble what it is now, not that I am kidding myself thinking I have anything resembling control now, lol.  I just know the winds of change are only a breeze right now but will become a hurricane soon enough.

Yesterday, my house was full of the small children in my growth group from church.  I get misty-eyed watching toddlers.  I have mixed emotions-I was 'there' for all of my kiddos growing up years.  I didn't 'miss' it but I am not sure I savored it enough.  I looked forward to the next thing too much and did not enjoy the right now.  Of course, this is one of those 'with age, comes wisdom' kind of things.  I could not change a thing...even if I went back in time, the events would just repeat. 

I remind myself to savor the years I have left.  I love my children with the enlarged heart that all mothers possess.  Even with the mouthiness that accompanies puberty.  The self-centeredness that causes the independence that causes kids to grow up.  The 'world revolves around me' mentality that exists even in the most good-natured teen.  Does it shrink my heart?  Not at all.  It does make it ache a little.  I so vividly remember from my own life the tough lessons that are ahead for my children.  I long to insulate them from the day they learn the world does, most assuredly, NOT revolve around them.  I wish I could save them from one-tenth of the heart ache that lies ahead.  But I cannot.  This heartache will continue their whole lives and it is where their character will emerge.  It is how God will make them into the women He needs them to be.

So, forgive me for too much nostalgia this morning.  My babies are growing up and I have a love/hate relationship with it.  However, I am well rested and my kids help me with cleaning and housework.  They do not rely on me for everything.  Soon I will even have a young driver to run some of my errands.  Life is good and every age brings with it new challenges, but also new blessings.  I am thankful God made my life into something glorious.  My blessings are heaped up and spill over.

I Am Gabriel: A Review

This movie is a family and faith movie.  It is designed to be a movie you can watch with friends and family without worrying that the content will be offensive.  The problem is that this movie is kind of hard to believe.  The basic idea is that an angel comes to town to save it.  Couple this concept with a low budget and some really bad acting and you have a movie even Bo Duke can't save.  Did I mention it stars John Schneider?  It also stars Dean Cain. 

I do feel compelled to mention that my 11 year old daughter loved this movie.

I should also mention that I cannot give favorable reviews to most of the Christian movies I have seen.  I want to.  I have even made sure to go to the movies to watch some of them because I WANT this genre to be successful.  I want movies that are not offensive.  I hate sex scenes and profanity and I would love to see a movie without them.  However, faith seems to always come across kind of hokey in these movies.  Loves Comes Softly (and MOST of its sequels) is a wonderful exception. 

So, I would not highly recommend this movie, but I can't say it is a total waste of time either.

Would you like to decide for yourself?  I would be glad to share this movie with the first person to comment and say they would like to watch it.

Grounded

One of my children is grounded from a particular social networking site.  She was so sick and upset about it that she went to bed early.  I am so saddened by all these virtual connections we have now.  It is such an illusion.  I had a long talk with my children about not having Facebook friends that are not real friends because then it serves no purpose.  Facebook friendships are best when they are a supplement to a real life friendship...a quick way to keep contact and set up coffee dates and play dates.  Offer up some encouragement or perhaps even share some bad news.

Instead, I fear the generation of my children uses it for a replacement.  Friendship without all the effort.  No-frills, if you will.  Someone pisses me off?  Unfriend and problem solved.  Since there wasn't much to begin with, there isn't much lost. Click through some one's statuses and make a snap judgement:like or unlike?   Look through my photo album...I am so happy, the pictures prove it.  Look at all my wonderful friends,  oops, are my boobs showing? I totally did not mean to do that, but I am gonna leave that shot because look how good my hair looks. "LIKE" if you think I'm pretty. No one did, all is lost, I have no friends...oh wait, 2 likes-RAWK ON.

 I feel a little sickened by this fake world we are living in. 

We are meant to live and grow in community.  Our maturity relies on working through conflict.  Immaturity does not need to work through conflict.  Immaturity can hold a grudge and choose not to speak to you again.  So, no one ever has to build a bridge and get over it.  No one has to do the hard work of sucking it up and saying 'sorry' even though the other person is the wrong one and you are the injured one...you just want to work it out and move past the problem.  No one ever has to confront someone over something they did that was wrong or hurtful.  No one ever has to just accept and love someone despite a flaw.  There is no spiritual or moral 'high road'.  We all just take the easy road and  serve our narcissistic selves.

I wish we all could get a bit more grounded

Lies

As I listen to politicians deliver their expertly written speeches, I cringe a little.  I know that they have been slaved over, improved by a team of marketing geniuses and fine tuned to really carry the right message.  Then I think, really?  It has come to this?  We are all just a market?  Seems America is left with a bad taste in her mouth, for the most part.  She has actually all but given up on politics (poly=many tics=bloodsucking parasites) and who can blame her.

I believe in this country and the documents that founded her, however, we have become something else.  The tea party movement is so misunderstood-again with the marketing.  It is pitched by its enemies as a far right leaning group of racists and homophobes.  It is really a very large group of people that want to break away from the nonsense of politics as badly as early American transplants wanted to get away from the Brits.  Our government was never meant to be a bunch of career politicians interested in big bucks, lifelong benefits and marketing specialists to help with each year's re-election. 

I, like so many others, am sickened by the whole process.  In fact, if they were not controlling the future of my country, I would join the MASSIVE amount of people who no longer vote.

This election, in particular, chills me to the bone.  I have no love for either candidate.  They both are in a different rich organization's pocket.  So, I am gonna literally vote for the lesser of two evils.  I will vote for the one who, at least, still seems to like our country and not just for her check writing privileges.  The one who seems to still be willing to accept God in some form.  The one that does not believe everything should be given over to the government(from each according to his ability) and then handed out to the more deserving (to each according to his need).  I wish every one in favor of that would just go live in a communist country instead of trying to make us one. 

But mostly, I am ready for a real change in our government.  It is time for the common man to stand up against the political machine and insist we follow The Constitution and stop this insanity.  I'm going to find Susan Powter and beg her to run with 'Stop the Insanity' as her campaign slogan.  I probably don't agree with anything she believes...but that won't be any different that the crap I'm already being served up.

Powter in 2016!!

The Blessing: A Review

This book is very challenging for me.  It is funny, not haha-but interesting, that I see the truth in unconditional love and yet I find it hard to believe.  I crave it and yet have a hard time giving it away.  Unconditional love is just such a foreign concept in this day and age.  You would think it should be common with the advent of permissive parenting.  It seems as though ANYTHING GOES! parenting would definitely be a by-product of permissiveness, but instead it creates children that it is hard for anyone to love in any way, much less unconditionally.

Our children need us to read this book, believe it, write the truths on our hearts and incorporate it into our day to day lives.  Blessing our children with the gift of unconditional love is the key to children with strong hearts and minds.  What this country needs in this day and age is fewer children loved with 'stuff' and more loved with the act of blessing. 

I desperately need to keep re-reading this book until it begins to sink in and become a habit.  I hope every other parent out there will do the same.

Reflections

Even though you can't tell it from the horrible neglect, I love my blog.  I love the history of my family that it represents.  I love the personal growth it has caused me.  I love the connections I have made with both of my readers, lol.

The words I have written here are glimpses into my soul.  Some of them still hold true, others allowed me to express some pain and through that expression, the pain was eliminated.  Once upon a time, I didn't care a bit if I hurt people with my words.  In fact, honestly, sometimes it was a cowardly attempt to do just that.  I am content to know that I am not that person any longer.  Although my words probably still injure people, it is not my intention to do so anymore.  I've made some enemies here and there because of my blog and other communications, but all I can do is apologize and then do better. However, some of those damaged relationships remain.  Some people choose not to forgive and choose to still dislike me.  I hate that fact, but it doesn't change it.

I've heard the phrase, time and words can never be recalled.  True words for sure, but I have to remember, it is a choice to be offended.  I choose whether to let the words someone speaks to me injure me.  Even if they mean it for ill, I can choose to HONESTLY and COMPLETELY not be offended.  It takes alot of maturity to do so.  Some days I have it and others I don't.  Of the people I know, some of them are EAGER to be offended.  They look for ways to misconstrue the things people say.  God love them, what a miserable way to live.  I've been there.  I hope I never return to it.  I hope I can always give people the benefit of a doubt...even if they don't really deserve it.

The people I live in community with love me, faults and all.  Sometimes I speak before I think and they trust my heart more than my words.  Now those are relationships that will help a girl grow into maturity.

Last night, my daughter, Kayla,  made a remark about how bleaching your hair blonde is so un-natural...to four people who dye their hair blonde that she dearly loves.  We all just laughed and laughed as she pantomined putting her foot in her mouth.  What a wonderfully safe and loving place to mis-speak.  We should all be so lucky when we speak before thinking.

I am so thankful for the blessing of true friendships...the ones that love and remember the good I say and do, but selectively, INTENTIONALLY overlook the stupid or mean things that may pop out of my mouth along the way.  And CERTAINLY laugh at all of my jokes, appropriate or not.

At this stage in my life, I truly long for being at peace with everyone.  Perhaps I am finally getting some wisdom. 

James 3:17-18  ¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. ¹⁸ Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

Grateful for Lefovers!

This is story about a church friend of mine who had a baby.  This was a very short time after I had a baby.  AND, I was pregnant with my second baby.  I was probably due in a matter of 3 or 4 months.  I was new to getting back into the swing of church and I was all over taking food to new mothers...probably because no one from our church had brought me food with my still relatively new baby.  Not that it mattered, we were very blessed with my mom-in-law, mom and sisters coming over and helping us with food and chores and settling in.  Plus, we were not very plugged in at church and did not even know people brought food to new mothers.  But, now we were in a life group called a CARE group and we were learning all the ins and outs of how our church operated.

So back to this friend.  I worked all day on making food for her and her new little family and I was so very excited to deliver it.  Erik stayed in the car with baby Erika and I brought the box of food in.  I was greeted with thank yous and sharing all the baby talk and fussing over the nursery.  Then she asked what we brought and I answered her questions.  And then it started.  She spent the next 10 minutes complaining about the food brought to her.  They had chicken 3 nights in a row and so and so brought too much and the leftovers were taking over and she just wondered if the food would ever end.  And I faked a smile on my face and made small talk back to my car.  I got in and waved as we pulled out and sobbed all the way home. 

True, I was definitely hormonal.  True, too much food was a problem I had not had.  True, I was playing a comparison game where I was the loser.  But mostly true, it broke my heart how some people just get so much loved poured over and heaped on them and they are not even blessed by it.  It broke places in my heart because all the love I put into her meal was not received or enjoyed.  It just hurt my feelings...and my pride...and my self esteem...and it began a series of hurts received by me by the group that was my peers at my church.  BUT, more importantly, it broke places in me that needed to be broken for God to begin the miracle of making me DIFFERENT.  Different from the people we attended church with.  Different from the people I grew up with and DIFFERENT from any 'religious' person I had ever known.

I fast forward to a surgery I had last week.   AND, we have been blessed by our family, friends, and church family in amazing ways.  Food, visits, cards, offers to run errands, encouragement on facebook, through texts, phone calls and so on.  I cannot imagine not loving the hearts behind every SINGLE gesture of good will directed my way.  I see God in every single episode.  God caring and nurturing me along with beautiful relationships with people who truly LOVE me.  AND if no one had done anything at all, then I would have counted the blessings of having a family with children old enough and capable enough to step up and help dad take care of me.  I would have found God's providence in that as well.

I love that I am different than that soon-to-be brand new mom of two.  I'm glad I quit comparing how many casseroles I get versus how many someone else gets.  I'm glad I don't measure my worth by the people I'm surrounded by.  I'm glad I don't measure THEIR worth by whether or not they cook well or cook at all. I'm glad I GREW UP and now take an act of kindness as just that...an opportunity to be blessed by my heavenly father through community.  I am glad to be on the giving end of that sometimes too.  It is truly a gift- TO GIVE AND TO RECEIVE. I am glad to say we enjoy leftovers almost as much as the meal...and we don't ever like wasting food-especially the food someone loved us enough to bring.   BUT, above all, living in community with a church that is different in many of the same ways I am DIFFERENT is the best gift of all. We aren't just going through the motions of church casserole etiquette...we really mean it when we pay a kindness.  It isn't just for show, it is for all of us to be blessed through Christ and to pass it on to someone else every chance we get.

Oh how I pray that the friend I once had has learned that lesson too. She doesn't go to our church anymore, but I still hope God has done the same work in her, that she has been broken enough to let God in.  It was never really about the food, it was about being blessed.  And we all are so very blessed...sometimes we can't even see it because we are too busy looking in the fridge and just seeing a bunch of leftovers.

Post Op

So now I am two days post-op.  I feel much better but I know that I am not better.  There is still much healing to take place.  My plan is to take it easy and let everyone else take care of the cooking, housework, etc.  I don't mind and it will be just fine.  It will just be hard to feel like I can do those things and not do them.  Nothing makes you want to do something more than not being allowed to.

Back to restville, my new home for a few more weeks.