Just A Spoonful of Worry

     It really does seem like each new phase of Motherhood gets harder than the last.  Is this just
because it is something I have never done before?  For instance, I have a son who will be entering middle school next year.  We have a slew of things beginning and ahead of us like girlfriends, facebook, twitter, and YouTube.  A world where children own iPhones and have full access to the Internet.  Am I the only one freaking out about this?!?  In what world do we think it's ok for our children to have access to every pornographic site and every other reckless thing you can find on the Internet these days?  Not to mention cyberbullying.  Kids seem to feel like they can say anything they want to others on the web with no remorse or repercussions.  If you don't believe me, just go look at a few videos on YouTube made by "kids" and then read the comments.  Surely I'm not the only one disturbed by this?

     This brings me to my thoughts tonight.  My husband and I try really hard to be level-headed in our decisions as parents.  I have always tried not to be panicky or too over-protective.  I do, however, know in my heart that it is my job to protect my children from certain things.  There's a reason why they put age levels on movies and games.  Some of them are "not appropriate for children"even by Hollywood's standards.  It's just really hard to find the balance sometimes.  You know what I mean?  I want my son to feel like he can move forward into adolescence and then manhood without his Mommy holding him back in any way.  And yet... tonight I felt this piercing fear about letting go.

     This got me thinking about Mama birds.  They are sitting there in their nests with their fledglings preparing to send them off into the world....off into flight.  Do you think they ever worry about whether one of their babies won't be ready or won't be able to fly?  Do you think they ever try to hold them back?  I just read an article about birds learning to fly that said, "When young birds are out, but cannot yet fly very well, there is much anxiety about them.  Then, if any one comes around to disturb them, what can the poor little mother do?  Sometimes she makes her young ones hide."Another article online said, "Baby birds are not usually kicked out of the nest.  They are carefully monitored byt their parent(s) until they are fledged and ready to fly.  Even after they begin flying, most remain with an adult or adults for a period of time while they are gaining their strength, during which time the adults may continue to feed them."  Whew.  At least I know it is not just me.  Even Mama birds can have "anxiety" about their babies growing up and the dangers that exist for them in this world.
I have always loved the song, His Eye Is on the Sparrow.  I especially love this version by Lauren Hill and Tanya Blount.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?  And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows"  (Matthew 10:29-31)
This scripture gives me peace because I know that no matter waht happens when I am away from my kids, God knows, and He is protecting them.  I should know this, He protected me throughout my middle school and high school years.  Even in times that I never thought I would recover from, I look back and see God's protection in my life.  I take great solace in knowing this exists for my children.

What are you worried about?  Your kids, your future?  Where do you find strength?

A New...Old Idea

I ran into an old friend tonight. We started having a conversation that fondly reminded me of days gone by. Days sitting around in Denny's in the middle of the night with my brother and friends, having grandiose conversations about life and dreams. My conversation tonight begged the question, where have those dreams gone? Not necessarily the grandiose dreams, just the dreams of coming into my own...of living. Really living. Am I doing that now? It seems so remarkably easy to go through life day after day barely even thinking about my next move. It's as if I really am a pawn in someone else's game.

Funny how a conversation with an old friend, an old cd playing in my car stereo, a moment to myself, can all equate a new take on life. I'm grateful for the interruption. God forbid I keep going blindly in this life. Tired of being the pawn. I'm ready to be the Queen again. I'm making my way across the board to be crowned Queen again. Just not blindly this time.

It's really true you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all the time. So why are any of us still trying? No matter what we do, one person may like it but another one hate it. It's time to stop living for everyone else and start becoming the person we are proud to be. Get back to your roots, so to speak. It's so invigorating to start from scratch. And the best part is, it's never too late.

Come Follow Me

I drove home tonight with music playing on my radio, my sunroof open, and 3 sleeping children in the back. I pulled up in the drive and looked up to catch a glimpse of the deep, dark, sky with stars shining ever so softly all above me. It took me back to the times I would drive home with music playing on my radio, my convertible top down, and no one in the backseat. :) I have always felt like I can talk to God easier when I look up at a starry sky at night. It's like I feel a little closer to heaven in those moments like I can feel Him looking down on me...

So I felt like I heard His voice in that moment; (it's one of the first moments I have actually stopped to listen to Him in awhile). I think He was asking me what kinds of things I would give up for Him. Now you may laugh at this, but the first thing that popped into my head was my iPhone. Ha! Would I give up my iPhone? You have no idea how many times a week my husband or I ask the question, "what did we do before we had an iPhone??" The next thing I thought of was my house. Would I give up my house? Then I looked over at my sleeping son. He was so beautiful and innocent looking. Would I give up my son? I immediately thought of Abraham and Isaac and how God asked him to sacrifice his only son. Abraham was going to do as God asked of him even though he knew that God had promised He would give him nations from his son Isaac. "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son." Hebrews 11:17

Man! I never understood this passage as a kid. How could God ask that of him? To kill his one and only son?!? He needed to see that Abraham was willing to put Him before anything. That he would risk it all to come follow Him. Just like Jesus and the rich young man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to basically, make it into heaven. Jesus told him to sell everything he had and give all the money to the poor, and "come follow me". (Mark 10:17-31) He couldn't do it.

So as God is asking me these things in this moment in time, I am asking myself, would I do it? Am I willing to 'sacrifice' everything I have to "come follow Him"? It is a really hard question to ask oneself. Especially when you go down the list of all the things that are really important to you. Would I give up my husband for Him? This life is truly just a fleeting moment in the big picture of eternity. I really do want to stop and listen more often. And I want to be like Abraham, not the rich young man who couldn't give up his things for Jesus. Remember, because of Abraham's obedience, God spared Isaac and kept His promise to make nations out of his offspring.

What have you given up to follow Jesus? Do you feel you like you need to/want to give anything up to follow Him?

Out With The Old & In With The New?

I opened the door to my garage the other day to find a mess that sort of shocked me. It was full of packed up boxes from us moving into our house months before, kids toys, lawn equipment, pool supplies, the list goes on... It wasn't like I didn't know that it had been growing. I guess I had just chosen to ignore it. The same kind of mess was happening on my desk with all kinds of papers and bills that needed to be gone through. I spent hours the other day just cleaning out my inbox on my email.

At what point in life do you say "out with the old and in with the new"? And how often should you do this? What should you do it with? Obviously, accumulated trash and junk mail are important things to sort through, but what about friends? What decides if a friend is worthy of staying in your life, or making their way to the get rid of pile? And what about the recycle pile? Do you ever find a friend there? Maybe they left your life at one point for whatever reason, and now you are thinking of recycling them back into your life. All things considered, what is the final determining factor of someone being dependable vs. diabolical?

I guess the older I get, the more I realize how important the whole quality vs. quantity idea is. When I was younger, it didn't really matter who was there, as long as there were enough people to fill up the house and have a party. The problem there is, when the party is over, you are left with an empty house and a mess to cleanup. When you sit down with a few good friends, you should be left feeling enriched and enlivened. I want to be alive. I want to live this life so full that nobody can touch my happiness.

Which people are most important in your life? And what lengths would you go to keep those relationships in your life? What types of relationships have you sent to the trash bin, and why?

This Is A New Year

     It's hard to believe 2010 is here.  It's hard to believe it has been 1 year since the day I re-committed my life to my God.  1 year since I made my first ever resolution.  One that involved changing just about everything that I knew in my life at that point.  Long term friends, job, my relationship with my husband.  But most importantly, my relationship with the Lord.  You see, I was in a deep, dark, pit that I had fallen into and didn't know how to even begin to crawl out of.  I had a dark cloud that had been hovering over me for months.  The sad thing is, I have known God pretty much my whole life.  I asked him to be my Saviour when I was 3 years old and I have known Him ever since.  Why then, would someone who had such a history of their Lord and Saviour literally saving them time and time again, find themselves lost in a deep, dark, pit?  Like any sin, addiction, shortcoming, it starts small.  One drink, one cigarette, one thought...  The next thing you know, it has been months and your "one" thing has turned into a series of things and you don't know how to stop.


     Maybe that's why so many people look at Christianity from the outside and think it looks too hard to try.  Some people tend to give off a holier-than-thou attitude while all the while drowning in their own sin.  My thing my whole life was I didn't want to be a hypocrite or a Pharisee.  So I would try and try to do it on my own, and then I would just give up completely for awhile.  Then God would pick me back up and dust me off and love me in that unconditional way that only a Daddy can do.  And He keeps loving me today.  Even with all the baggage that I bring with me.  I'm so thankful that the God I serve is not impressed when I sing good at church on Sunday or if I read my Bible on Monday.  The God I serve loves me no matter what.  As a matter of fact there is absolutely nothing I can do to make Him stop loving me.  Even if I tried.


 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:35, 38-39

     My resolution this year? To continue on the path to a better me.  One that allows for mess-ups along the way.  And one that allows for forgiveness.  Forgiveness for myself and for others.  Starting with the ones right here in my home.

     What has been your experience with God?  Have you seen Him as a loving Daddy?  An unloving judge in the sky?  Did you make any resolutions this year?

  

The Leading Lady

     Each of us at some point or another has to have thought about what their life story would be like if it was put into a book, play, or movie.  What would your life story look like?  Would it end up as a Lifetime special?  I kind of hope it wouldn't, actually.  I think the few that I saw had some deranged woman trying to run over her husband with the car or something like that.  The question is, however, do you behave as the leading role of your story, or do you behave like the supporting role?

     I think at one point in my life, I behaved as the supporting actress of my own story instead of the leading lady.  I let other people dictate what I wore, how I behaved, the friends I held, and I how I felt about myself.  My friends were not really friends at all, rather they were just characters that made my story interesting.  So I found myself doing what I could to keep those characters in my story.  Even if it meant sacrificing the very thing that was most important.  The fact that originally, I was cast as the leading lady of my story.  At some point in my story, I had forgotten that.  Or maybe I never even knew it to begin with.  I never really was sure that I had secured the lead role.  Regardless, sometimes it takes a series of events, (sometimes tragic), for us to realize our real place in our story and to start acting like it.  It takes actions, changes, (sometimes very dramatic), for us to secure our place as the lead role and to start acting our way to an Academy Award.

     Now that I know that I am the Leading Lady of my story, I intend to try to improve upon my act, all the way to the end.  My only hope is that when my story is done and edited and all the scraps of unused film lay out on the editing floor...I hope that what's left is good and decent.  That someone's life is touched by it.  I hope that the people watching my story know that I loved Jesus and my family.  That I wanted to be a giver of myself and I hope that I accomplished it enough for it to make the final cut.  I hope that after seeing my story, a life is touched or someone is inspired.

Giving

My 30th birthday has come and gone and with it, some of my unfinished aspirations. So I created a list of 30 Things I Still Want to Do, and this is my attempt to check #22 off my list.
So here I am. This is the real me. The unplugged version.

I am a mother of 3. I have two amazing boys, Ashton, and Preston, and one beautiful little girl. My daughter, Brooklyn Grace, is one of God's recent blessings to my husband and I. She is a symbol of His grace to us. I'll share more on that another time. There are many things I love to do, but one of them is going to the movies. My husband and I share a love for movies and have very similar taste when it comes to picking one out. So it is no surprise that our favorite thing to do on date night is dinner and a movie, (particularly if dinner is Mexican food). It's not very often, however, that we pick a movie as inspiring as the one we went to see tonight, "The Blind Side". Here we are right in the middle of this hectic holiday season and I find myself wondering what we could possibly do to teach our two boys what it means to give. To really give. I happen to know that my oldest son Ashton's love language is giving so he does it quite frequently.  But does he really understand the complete joy of giving to someone in need? Someone who has maybe never had anyone take the time of day to give something to them?

The movie we watched tonight really encompassed this idea for me. Without spoiling it, (for those of you who haven't seen it), I feel that this family really understood what it meant to give. To give so selflessly, asking for nothing in return is becoming something of anomaly in our current society. It is really refreshing to see how one family put the needs of someone else in front of their own.  I hope that we will find a way (or several ways) this Holiday Season to put the real meaning of Christmas into action.  Christ was the Ultimate Gift to us.  The Gift of salvation is one that no Christmas gift under the tree could ever supercede.  We could, however, reach out to those around us in need by giving something of ourselves as an example of the Ultimate Gift.  I really look forward to sharing in the experience of giving as a family and for exploring new ways to give of our time and money.  I hope you and your family are able to experience the joy of giving in a new way this Christmas as well.