Swagger Wagon

This video has provided so much fun and amusement for us the last couple of weeks. It is so funny because it is so true on lots of different levels. I love the fact that I have a mini van filled with littles and their stuff. I love that hubby and I have progressed in life to raising littles. It is a ton of tiring work but wouldn't trade it in for anything. Now I can't sing or rap like these parents do but my kids do put up with my singing and think I am pretty neat most days.(They are little still). Now to get the dangling pacifier for my rearview mirror.

Good Intentions Leading to a New Season

It seems that yet again I start something and can't quite follow thru the way I should. Other things like family activities, other responsiblilities and just sheer laziness or need for sleep steal away my good intentions. It isn't that I don't always finish somethings, but rather that I don't get to do them the way I envisioned. For example, my study and thoughts of Lysa's book, Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl. I have read it several times and spent time thinking and praying about the chapters I read. I just haven't had the chance to come to the blog and journal those thoughts or share them with anyone who might be passing by. (But I shall return to those entries when the time comes again.)
Plans are often made and then readjusted to accommodate the time and other contraints of my life. It is frustrating to no end, but I do give thanks that I have family and other opportunities that interefere with my own desires. I just sometimes wish, not so often though. That is where Simplicity comes in.

I have read Keri Wyatt Kents books about Sabbath keeping. It is so much more than just taking a day off from household chores, and other activities. It is more about making a set time to focus on God and His character. It may be done while watching kids play or while folding laundry with soft music as your company. However, it is done, it is done intentionally and with purpose. Everyone's Sabbath may look a bit different depending on the season of life they are in. A mom with babies and toddlers will have a different kind of Sabbath than a mom with older kids or an empty nester. My attempts at Sabbath Keeping have changed in the last few years as my kids have gotten older and more independent than babies and toddlers. However, I do need encouragement, more intentionality (is that a word?) in making my time with God, my spiritual disciplines more than something a Good Bible Study Girl settle for.

Now I do need to continue cutting back on some of the things I am responsible for and get involved in. My kids are getting older and will be adding to the schedule. They need to also learn that taking time to be with God is a good thing. Becoming more simplified in my spiritual disciplines is critical. So More than a Good Bible Study Girl meet Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster. I am going to lead this book discussion after the first of the year. I hope that by doing so I will gain a better understanding of how my Sabbath needs to look and to actually implement it on a more consistent basis.

And yes, I am giving up something. I am giving up a good deal of the MOPS operations to some other ladies. I have already laid the ground work for the meetings that remain this year. The ladies should be able to continue on with me serving as more of an advisor or mentor role. This will be my last year in MOPS. I pray leaders will emerge and be able to carry on for the remainder of the year and future years.

So my season of life is continuing to change. It is a bit sad to see those years with my babies go away. To know that my years staying home to raise them are coming to an end is hard. Despite how hard it has all been it has been glorious and a privilege to raise my little ones to this next stage- elementary school. Oh, this new season will be fun and glorious and challenging as well. So now with Good Intentions I am taking time to focus on preparing myself and my family for a more simplistic lifestyle with a intentional Sabbath time and more purposeful and real spiritual disciplines.I will follow thru with the help of God. I must for my own sake and that of my family's.

Joy Challenge

The joy for today is being home with my two sweet little ones and enjoying their companionship and love. Snuggles and the cutest and sweetest love notes with pictures from my babies is so precious. I take it all for granted and don't enjoy the moment enough. Thank you, God, for their love and this time in life. May I always store these days in my heart to ponder when I grow old and they grow up and move on to their own independent lives and families. What a priceless gift I have in my babies. May I be the mommy they deserve and You designed me to be. With your help and guidance, may they come to know. love and seek You hard each day.

Joy Challenge

Joy today is being able to stay home and to have a poop breakthrough with my little man. For almost a month, we have been struggling with some potty issues. Several weekend and late night calls to the on call nurses, several trips to the doctor, pharmacy and a natural foods and herbalist, calling on a friend from church to help administer an enema (she has lots of experience) and finally, today maybe, just maybe, we may have moved a step closer to some regularity and getting rid of his pain. Yes, it did cost me the area rug in my living room, but if that is what it takes to get things moving good, that is fine. So today in my joy challenge, I find joy in being home and cleaning poop off my floors and celebrating the fact there is poop!

Chill Out, Chick!

This chick can be pretty intense. I am task oriented and very intense when when working on something. I always thought that the passion, dedication, hard work and pursuit of excellence was a strength. But now I am thinking that it might just be a weakness. For me, accomplishing tasks, seeing the product of my time and efforts, feeling like my work makes a difference to someone- I am contributing to the bigger picture is my identity- my self-worth.
I also just don't go half-way- Oh, no, I have to go all out! Then it has to be done just so, almost to perfection. I will spend hours preparing a flyer or writing a letter to someone- just fretting and fussing over the smallest of details. The end result after an extended amount of time in the activity usually leads to burnout.
Yes, the activities I get so wrapped up in are good, worthy activities- Ministries, even. Now how good of a thing can that be?! But ministries are way too often laden with people problems,too. Getting people to work, see things in the same way, work with the same intensity, be dependable, etc. is really hard and very, very draining. But hey, it is ministry, all for the Kingdom, right? It has to be worth it all.
But that leads me to the question I am struggling with now and have been for some time: At what cost am I doing ministry?
The cost is immeasurable for it involves the most important ministry I have been given, my family. God has blessed me with an amazing husband and two wonderful blessings that call me Mommy. I have been given these children to raise and nurture. For whatever reason,God has deemed me worthy to be their mommy. They need me to be intentional, attentive, enthusiastic, patient, loving, joyful, healthy (spiritually and physically) while parenting them. Instead they get distracted, frustrated, grumpy, grumpy, grumpy, impatient, absent physically and emotionally, tense and intense. They have paid a great price for my good deeds.
Hubby is patient most of the time and supportive most of the time. He, too, has paid for my intensity in ministry affairs. My home has paid a price as has my health and my spiritual well-being.
All of this affects the effectiveness of my ministries. So, what is a chick to do? I am not in a postion to just walk away - I do have some God-given talents and desires to work in these ministries. He has provided me with these opportunities and has blessed them. But it is my choice in how I will spend my time and how I will use my leadership to accomplish ministry. My choices in the past have been selfish and intense. Now my choices are to let go, delegate, and narrow the focus-simply to Chill Out!
By limiting the ministry part of my life, I pray that I can be the kind of mom, wife and Christian I need to be. It is too great of a cost, not to really be intense about my family and my spiritual well-being.
So this chick is thankful for the chance to just chill out with the kiddos!

Going Alone

This week has been a little hard for me. One I sent my oldest to big school as a kindergartener. Now this child was born for school and is so smart (not that I am bias or anything). I know she is ready and needs to go but still seeing her little girl self walk into that big ole building with the other BIG kids was a little scary for me. (We won't even think about when she goes to college- sobs!) Despite how frustrating her endless questions, torments of little brother and general little girl silliness are, I miss my baby girl! There I have said it- so with tears in my eyes, I will so admit I am sad about sending her to kindergarten.
The other thing that has been hard is realizing that this week 14 years ago on August 4 was the day my Daddy died unexpectedly in Canada of a heart attack. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago! I am a Daddy's Girl and I adore my Daddy. It is very difficult and painful not to have him here with us now. I just miss him so much!
Despite all the changes life gives me and I know more are to come, I am confident that God wil give me the strength to get through it and settle into it all. But here is the problem, I am notorious for going it alone. Knowing that God is there and will see me through it but then actually relying entirely on Him and not solelyon myself are two separate things. I think of my sweet little girl this week when she insisted on walking into school alone for the first time. "No, Mommy, I want to walk in like a big kid." She was full of confidence that she could do it, but as the Mommy, I wasn't ready to let go of her hand. God is always there ready to grip my hand or even pick me up and carry me, but I am the little girl always saying, "No, I have to figure this out myself and get myself through this." Do I always have to be the big girl? Why do I let go of God's hand and go off on my own? Unlike my kindergartener, I don't often get to the destination safely. Lots of frustrations, failures, or more problems are a result of my going it alone. Simply, I get myself into more trouble.
So with this week and all of the reminders that life is moving on with new beginnings and bittersweet reminders that life changes in ways we don't always like or want, I know that God will hold my hand all the way through this life. It is also very comforting to know that He has my baby in His hands as well. So as a mommy I need to let go and let Him be her Daddy, too.

Mommy Moment Musings

We have traveled safely to and from Tennessee and VBS is finally done and cleaned up, one week of swim classes behind us and one to go and now in full swing to get ready for changes in worship services and in Kidsville....SIGH!!!!.... I long for a few months where I can just be quiet at home being mommy and homemaker, wife and scrapbooker. So many recipes, so many photos, so many things to play and teach yet so little left of me to give to the most important part of my life and the most important ministry I am called to do.
I have realized that although I love children's ministry, I don't love the fact that I spend a significant part of my week, dealing with finding more people to minister to the kids. I don't have time or energy left to shepherd kids or volunteers. I am now a mere sheep herder. Rounding up volunteers to take care of the little lambs for a given hour. Sheep herding takes away my time to shepherd and enjoy my kids- leaving me grumpy, hurried, scattered-brained (don't ask about the ice cream supper invite- case in point.) As my sweet sister says, I "drop my basket" a lot. No one, especially my sweet babies, should witness mommy dropping her basket. Now I am realizing the truth that I am overcommitted to and now have to devise a way to not only survive but also thrive with my responsibiblities in ALL of my ministries.
I thought I had sought God's Will for what I should be doing this year with my time, but I don't believe I did in earnest- I just gave it lip service, not any heart service. Because of my stubborn and prideful self, I am going to continue by stretched very thin unless I can delegate and empower others to step up. I need to continue praying about all of these things. I do take comfort in knowing that God's grace is enough for me, that He has the power to fill in the gaps of my weaknesses.
(1 Corinthians 12:9)