Just Give it Time

Jon McLaughlin has a great song entitled "Just Give It Time". I have listened to this song over and over. Every time I hear it makes my soul settle down a little and just take my life in a stride. I tend to want to be overly controlling about my life. I used to have the next 5 years planned out and if it didn't go that way then I freaked. I know I can't live that way any more. After having so many ups and downs with miscarriages, marriage, kids, in laws, and family, I know that I have to just go with whatever the moment brings me. 

I listened to Erwin McManus yesterday on the Mosaic podcast. The first week of his new series "Fall Forward" was entitled False Starts. I sat for almost 40 minutes and cried while listening to him talk about false starts and what exactly that means. That part that hit me the most is when he compared our lives to an Etch-a-Sketch and how sometimes we now we need a fresh start but we are almost stuck. We know that we need to start over but we aren't sure how. That is when we have to ask God to literally just shake us like an Etch-a-Sketch and rewrite on our hearts. I sat in awe at the mental picture of an Etch-a-Sketch and how all the lines and disfigured objects on the screen are wiped away clean after shaking it. It is as if I have committed some drastic sin or anything like that. It is just simply starting the race wrong. Somewhere along the way I have lost my way. Lost my focus. I am truly a worn out woman.  I don't know how to start over or to make my current circumstances change. I do know that I serve a God that is the King of all Kings. I serve a God that is my comforter, my redeemer, my strength and my refuge. I know that he says to simply Be still and know that I am God. Ps. 46:10  So, being still is something I can do.  

Just like Jon McLaughlin's  song, "Just give it time, its gonna get better. Now is not forever at all." 

To tired to think of a title

I am trying to think of something clever to write today but nothing much is coming to my mind. I just wish life were different right now. I wish Bryan had a job that he loves. I wish I had a house. I wish I could get Hope's naps organized to a halfway decent schedule. I wish I knew exactly the right way to teach Grace to be respectful and kind. Most of all, I just wish I was so stuck. 

I will go read my Bible and hope that something jumps out at me on the pages. I pray and just feel so empty. Not sure where to go from here. Forward, I know. 

I didn't sleep with the milkman!

This is my husband, Bryan, when he was a baby.

This is Hope. My youngest daughter. This is what Bryan would have looked like if he had been born a girl. 

me, happy

I like the new Best Buy slogan, "You, Happy." The thought that anything from Best Buy could make me happy is really kinda far fetched. Unless, of course, it were a Dyson or some high powered camera lens. I am sure both of which would give me a great big smile. (hint, hint to my husband for a Christmas idea)

"Happy" is one of those adjectives that we are all familiar with but few really know the true definition of the world. When I looked it up on my dictionary widget I found this explanation, "Hap-py 1. feeling or showing pleasure or contentment." It was the word contentment that surprised me. Being content is also a means of being happy? After thinking about that for a few minutes I realized that that is probably true. So, maybe I should strive to be more content so that I can also be more happy? Who knows.

Here are a few things that make me happy/content today:

1) Hope crawling all over the place.

2) Hearing Grace's dvd, "BOZ" singing songs about imagination.

3) My body wash that smells like freshly peeled oranges.

4) Seeing my husbands face on my iphone when he is calling me.

5) Knowing that cooler weather is on its way and that means so are the holidays.

6) Reading my devotion for the day and knowing that God is stronger than all my "stuff"

7) Looking out my patio door and seeing the leaves changing colors.

8) Thinking that Bryan and I getting away, just the two of us, at the end of October.

9) My pretty table cloth I put on my table today.

10)Sitting in silence while the girls take their nap and enjoying some hot tea out of my china tea cup and saucer that I bought in Ireland years ago. 

Caffeinated Mommy

There are times when I have the best days being a stay at home mom. Then there are those "other" days. I don't like to talk about those "other" days too much for fear that some may think of me as either a whimp of a mother or one of those moms that just complains all the time. Neither of which describes me. 

If you would have asked me about 5 years ago to describe myself I am sure I would have had all kinds of adjectives to use to explain who I felt I was.  Very few I would use now. Who am I? I have no idea most days. Mostly I describe myself with all the things that I do, "House cleaner, poop extractor, boo-boo kisser, story teller, officer of peace, laundry slave, dog pooper scooper, tv monitor, chief of toddler and baby foods, husband supporter, worn out pastor's wife and woman. Does that say enough about me? 

I think it says that I have the absolute hardest and best job on the planet. Being mommy to Grace, age 3, and to Hope, age 8 months.