Bless His Heart

Jacob yesterday….

Jacob today…

We took a little trip to the doctor’s office today just in case that other eye decided to totally swell shut, too… hasn’t slowed him down a bit though!

Best Laid Plans…

 

How’s that saying go??

We had a great start to the morning.  Woke up at a decent hour, everyone in a good mood, wonderful attitudes for school…. then I had a great idea. 

So I spread shaving cream on the table for Jake to practice writing his letters… only problem was I forgot what that would do to the other two!  They couldn’t stand it.  Ok, I can handle that, I tell them they can play too but they have to finish what they’re doing first.  They do, and I take advantage of the break to read some in Proverbs…. and God takes advantage of my reading to convict my heart. Ok God, I hear you!

The boys finish playing in the shaving cream when it’s all off the table and on them.  We clean up and head back to do more school.  Jake decides he’d rather read library books, so I send him to the other room while I focus on the big boys.  They start math and mysteriously every thing they’ve ever learned about math flies right out the window!  You’d have thought they’d never looked at a math problem.  Oh well, being clueless is no excuse in this house!!  Once they make peace with the fact that ‘no, mama will not cross off all the problems on the page’, they are eventually able to finish. 

Then the phone rings… someone needing one of those favors that sounds like a snap until you get started and then suddenly it’s not so simple.  Ok, no problem, the boys eat lunch while I start on that project.  Then they decide they want to play outside which sounds great to me.  One thing I’ve learned about myself is I really need quiet time to decompress during the day.

Just as I’m about to call them back in Cade comes running to say that Jacob’s been stung by a bee.  Sure enough, poor little guy got it right on his eyelid.  Ok, no problem, we pray, I doctor him up and we head for the rocking chair for some cuddle time.  Cuddle time also turns into teach-while-rocking-time which really worked better than expected.

So the point of this whole post was to say how thankful I am for the peace God’s been speaking to my heart.  Life is going to happen… we can throw a fit or roll with it, but it’s going to happen.  More days than I would like it’s just one thing after the other… that’s life, but it’s much better for my children’s spirit (and my blood pressure) when I trust God to work it out and just roll with it.

Oh, and to top it all off, the dog just brought in a mole, or gopher, or mouse, or something, and dropped it on  my rug!!  There are not enough paper towels in the world to make that not icky to pick up…

Giving from the Heart

 

The boys got a birthday party invite in the mail yesterday, they love getting mail so there was lots of jumping around and yelling involved. 

Once they realized what it was they all had only one thought… not, what kind of party?… not, will there be party favors?… not even, will there be food?

Their first though was ‘What gift will we bring?’! And if you know my boys it’s not what will we buy, it’s what can we make or which of our toys can we give!  I love their generous spirit!

It’s hard for me to bite my tongue when they want to give a friend one of their beat up toy cars. I look at it and think what will people think if we bring something so obviously used, we can’t give that as a gift, how embarrassing. 

But in my children’s hearts it’s a totally different story… they’re giving something that is special to them. That used, beat up toy got that way because they love it and love to play with it, and now they want to share that joy with their friend!

What selfless giving!  I’ll admit I’m not much of a gift giver, but to take a favorite possession and give it to a friend so they can take the joy in it that I take would never cross my mind.  I might buy them one like it, but to give mine? Me do without to make them happy???  No way… it’s MINE!

But then I remember “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”, and I pray that I will be more like my children and give just for the joy of giving with no thought to the cost.

So FYI, if you ever invite us to a party and my boys bring hand-me-down gifts wrapped in construction paper… know that much more love and thought went into that gift than the prettily wrapped one from the store that I’m carrying.  And please be patient with my embarrassed, stammering explanation of their gifts… I’m still a work in progress!

Examine Yourself

 

2Co 13:5  Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.

Gal 6:3-4  For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.  But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.

John 15:8  Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

2Pe 3:18  But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

James 1:22-24  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.  For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

Deu 28:9  The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.

Col 1:10  so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

 

Examine yourself…

Are you growing? Are you walking daily with God or standing still? Are you applying God’s Word to your life or is it in one ear and out the other? Are you closer to God today than you were yesterday?

In looking up those verses, I found this one…  2Ch 12:14  And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD.

King Rehoboam did not prepare his heart to seek God… and he did evil. We don’t grow in truth by accident, purposely seek God and you will find Him… or don’t and do evil in the sight of God.

My Purpose

 

Children do not accidentally become righteous leaders or emotionally healthy and productive adults – any more than seeds thrown randomly to the wind grow to be part of a thriving garden. Simply throwing children into a cultural tornado and hoping for the best  gives them little chance of living up to their potential or coming out unharmed.  Someone needs to take responsibility for their nurture, protection, nourishment, intellectual development, manners, recreation, personal needs, and spiritual development.  Someone needs to commit time and energy into staying close to them as they grow, encouraging and correcting and teaching.

                        - Sally Clarkson

               The Mission of Motherhood

Hi There…

Wow… life keeps getting in the way of my blogging! I tell myself I’m going to update more often, but it’s just not happening!

Somehow we’ve made it through our first 6 weeks of school, time sure flies!! After a bit of a rocky start the boys are doing great… not counting today, but daddy’s on vacation this week so all bets are off. ;) They’ve all settled in and are really working hard, thank goodness because with the way we’ve been sleeping in around here we’d never finish if they were lollygagging!!

We finally cleaned up the yard and moved all the farm implements back to the pasture, yea! There’s still a logging camp out by the road, but since that provides part of our income I guess it can stay.

Tomorrow Brian and I go to Tyler to have his head examined… praying there’s a simple answer to what’s causing his headaches. After putting up with them for years I am thankful he’s finally agreed to see a doctor.

Seems like there’s been more going on around here, but short of telling the horrible story about the cow getting it’s head stuck in the squeeze chute today, I can’t think of anything. And don’t ask… you truly don’t want to hear the cow story, it was pitiful.

Testimony

I’ve debated on giving this testimony for several months.  God keeps putting it back on my heart so I think now is the time to give it.

A couple of years ago I went through a trial that I honestly never thought I’d have to face.  Call me naive or whatever, but this was the first time I’d prayed for something so important and not gotten the answer I expected.

I read something a while back that talked about the difference between faith and trust.  I’ll paraphrase but it gave the illustration of a man pushing a wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.  Suppose you’ve read about him doing this before, maybe seen him do it on TV, so when he asks if you believe he can do it you say sure, you believe he can… that’s faith.  Now suppose he asks you to ride in the wheelbarrow while he’s pushing it across the falls on a tightrope… that’s trust!

As a consequence of what I went through my trust in God was shaken.  I still believed He could provide, but my trust that He would answer my prayers was weak… and I didn’t like that feeling one bit.

I’ve always relied on God to see me through storms and to protect me and my family, and the feeling of being alone was horrible.  I take comfort in knowing that someone bigger than me is watching over my kids and has them right in the palm of His hand, feeling that He might not was scary.

Even in the darkest days I still knew deep down inside that even if I didn’t feel like He was listening, those feeling could lie.  So I cried out to God and laid it all on the line to Him.  I told Him my trust was shaken, told Him that I still had three more children that I needed to feel I could entrust to His care, told Him how disappointed I was, told Him how alone I felt.  I even told Him that if I thought there was anywhere else I could go to meet those needs I would, but that I knew He was the only way.  As the apostle Peter said when Jesus asked if the disciples would leave Him too, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”

As I was pouring all this out to God the Holy Ghost spoke to my heart the words to a song we sing sometimes.

“Though God slay me, yet I’ll trust Him.  I will then come forth as gold.”

Those words touched me. They showed me that even though I didn’t feel God’s presence He was still with me.

Not long after that I was talking with Travis.  He was mad at me about a decision I’d made to not let him do something and wanted me to explain myself to him.  We were standing in the kitchen and I’ll never forget the words I said him…

You may not always understand the decisions I make and I may not always explain myself to you.  There are some things that you are not yet mature enough to understand and there are some things I know and see that you don’t yet.  But always know that everything I do, I do because I love you and every decision I make, I make because I want what’s best for you.

As soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew they were for me.  The Holy Ghost was speaking those words through me just for me. And I stopped right there and cried and thanked Him.

I wish I could say the road back was easy, but we’re never promised an easy road.  We are promised that we won’t be alone on that road.  I can be thankful for one thing though, in the end my faith and trust in God is stronger than it ever was.  Before, my faith came from seeing the miracles and feeling Him with me… and that’s good and I thank God for those miracles and feeling His presence… but now I come to God trusting Him just because HE IS.  I don’t know if that makes much sense, but He told Moses “I am that I am”.  Hebrews 11:16 says “…he that cometh to God must believe that he is…”.  It’s just that simple, just believing that He is who He says He is and will do the things He says… no matter what the circumstances may say.

When I first thought about writing this out I went looking for a video of this song.  I couldn’t believe it when I found this one, I’ve know Bro. Jason for years.  Back in their younger days he and Brian could pass for twins!  If you have time to listen to some of his preaching clips you won’t be disappointed.