JOY COMES IN THE MORNING!

There is the so much in our lives that we have little to no control over.  Oh, we can claim to have control.  We can regulate certain ideas and aspects of our lives and state that we are in control of things, but the truth is we are not.  At all times and in all circumstances, God is the only one with total control.   There are some that say that God is my copilot or my right hand man, but that is so disrespectful to me.  God is none of those things, He is in total control of our lives even within the confines of our free wills, and His plans and purposes will always be shown in world affairs.  He does offer us the ability to walk with Him and offers us the ability to work with Him in all areas of our lives, but ultimately control is totally His.

We have walked down many paths in the past six months.  We have gone from a family of six to a family of seven.  We have had the privilege (and yes, I mean privilege) of having our son born straight into Heaven and into the arms of Christ.  We have cried, laughed, and grown more in the past six months than we have in our 19 years of togetherness (including 15 ½ years of marriage) and through life in general. 

Changes come and go from our lives and throughout it all we can happily quote the Psalmist: “For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5 HSCB)  There are changes coming to our family.  With Christ’s control of our lives and the joy that He has brought to us, there is also joy for us in the morning!  I for one can’t wait!

DREAMS

 We all have hopes and dreams.  We all have ideas on how we want our lives to look on a daily basis.  When I was a little girl I was going to go to Harvard and become the first woman president.  Then I was going to be a famous ballerina.  I wanted adventure, excitement, and to “be” someone important!  As I have gotten older, my dreams have changed.

There are times when I look at my life and question the path that I am walking down.  Truthfully, I think that we all do.  There are times when I question my sanity.  Do I really want to trust God to give me the amount of children that He thinks we should have?  What if we do end up with eight or even ten kids?  What about “me” time, will I ever have “me” time again if all I am doing is being a Mama and meeting everyone else’s needs on a constant daily basis?  How will I achieve the American Dream if my life is running opposite of it?  Yep, there are times that questions are prevalent and pretty much all I can ponder at any given moment. 

Yet, God has dreams for me.  He wants me to live my life in the NOW.  I am not to worry about tomorrow, I am not even to really worry about today, I am just to experience this moment.  IF I really trusted God with my life, than this moment, this adventure would be enough.  So it all goes back to what I believe to be true. 

I believe that God has dreams for me that are far better than anything I could ever hope for or imagine.  I believe that He knows my heart and my life’s purpose better than I do since He is the one that created me.  I believe that I need to learn how to embrace today, not just trudge through the day as if it is an endless chore or problem; but truly embrace today.  One more dirty diaper?  GOOD!  I can showcase the loving hands of God to my children while meeting their need.  One more dirty dish or another load of clothes?  GOOD!  I can show my children that serving others, even within my family is one of the greatest blessings and callings that we can be given within our lives!  One more, one more, one more…….whatever.  Today I am doing just what I need to be doing.  I am fulfilling God’s dream for me.

My dreams are so small compared to God’s dream for me!  It’s time that we as Christ Followers learn to embrace HIS dreams as our own and a life that we could never imagine, even if it involves dishes, laundry, and dirty diapers!  For it is in walking the path of God’s dreams that we truly change the world!

THANKFULNESS

Every Thursday an awesome woman and fellow Sonlight Homeschooling Mama creates a blog post and a Facebook post called Thankful Thursday!  I adore this idea, there is so much that we have to be thankful for and just remembering your blessing at one time of year is November is, in my opinion, not enough!  So I am taking this beautiful and wise woman’s idea and making it my own.  On a weekly, if not daily basis I am going to find something to be thankful for! 

Today, I am thankful for the gift of encouraging words from the “older” generation.  Today I ran into Aunt Helen at the store.  I have not seen her since I was expecting Cole.  She oohed and awed over each one of my children, told me that she was so very sorry to hear of the loss of Samuel.  She loved it that we had chosen to name him Samuel Buford (Buford being an old family name).  BUT, more than that, she blessed me with her words:

“Your family is beautiful!  You have an amazing heritage here in these children.”

This made my heart smile.  Our children are our heritage.  They are a gift from a perfect and loving God.  Every one of them, the ones that we get to raise or the ones that are waiting for us in Heaven are a heritage.  We are told that our offspring is a reward from God.  Indeed it states in Psalm 127:3 (and I love how the International Version phrases this), “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.”  Yes, God gives riches, lands, homes, and money; but our heritage, our rewards are found in our children!

Today I am thankful for being blessed with a heritage that will impact generations.  Today I am thankful for the calling of being a mother that has the ability to impact the world for many generations to come with the heritage of my rewards, my children. 

So, now I must ask you.  What’s something that your thankful for?

OUR CHOICE……WHY ARE WE CRAZY?

Before I begin please let me preface this by saying that I do not believe that we belong to the Quiver Full Movement or that we believe that our sized family is right for everyone.  We do, however, believe that we should leave our family size to God’s hands.  To that effect we have been blessed with five children.  Four children that we are being privileged to raise and one that we get the privilege of waiting to see in Heaven.  Five children, by our standards not enough, but to the world that we now live in, it’s a ridiculous HUGE amount of children!

The reactions that we get from people always makes me chuckle.  For example, yesterday Robert ran into an old family friend, a person that almost became a member of our family.  He asked how many kiddos we had and Robert told him.  His eyes bulged slightly and he asked if we were done.  Robert told him that we were leaving the amount of little ones that will run through our lives in God’s hands.  This friend nodded but still looked incredulous.  Of course as Robert was recanting this, I had to chuckle (and roll my eyes a little).

Why do people act so crazy when WE decide to have kiddos?  I mean it’s not like I’m asking them to come nurse the baby at 2:30 in the morning or change 3-50 dirty diapers a day.  It’s not like we are asking anyone else to come sit up with them when they are sick or wake up at 3:00 AM after having another bad dream.  Why do people think that what we choose is so insane?

Recently in the news (which we should all be ashamed at the real lack of news coverage the media has offered), has been the story of abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell.  Let me say that I firmly believe that abortion is wrong in any instance; the baby is not at fault for their conception and does not deserve death because they are alive. Yet in this case, the man has been found guilty of murder.  He is being given life in prison because he killed babies that were “aborted” living.  These children were not wanted by their parents or their mother to say the least, and our society deems that acceptable; a woman’s right.  BUT, if I WANT to be a mother, if I WANT to have at least six children (which is what I have always wanted), then I am deemed as crazy as a loon.  I don’t understand that.

I KNOW that our choice is not for everyone.  I KNOW that some people can’t have children and long for them.  I KNOW that people do think we are crazy for having “tons of kids”.  I DO KNOW that I desire to be a Mama and desire to have as many children as God desires for me to have.  I DO KNOW that I love being a wife and mother more than anything in this world.  AND, I can’t wait to see what God has in store for my future.  We do think that life is precious and that children are of infinite worth and value.  So why does this make us crazy? 

ANGER

All this month in Sunday School we have been discussing anger.  What does anger look like in the life of a Christian?  How should we as Christ Followers respond to our anger?  How can we use God’s grace to showcase to us to show the RIGHT way to deal with anger and show that to a lost world? 

I have greatly enjoyed these lessons on anger.  Our study was written by Dr. Charles Stanley and has been taught by an awesome teacher (who just so happens to be married to me), and has been enlightening and encouraging to say the least.  The timing of the lesson is superb since we are learning and dealing with some anger issues not only with ourselves but also within the confines of our immediate and extended families.  Isn’t that the way that God always works?

There are several key points that Dr. Stanley has made.  For example, he notes that there are several causes or roots that create our anger.  These include:

v  Blame and Shame.  I think that we all do this.  You know, if they hadn’t done XYZ than I would not have needed to get so angry!

v  Pride.  Oooh, what an “ugly” word.  So many of us are so full of pride that we won’t even acknowledge Christ in the right way.  We do things that benefit us and get angry when people don’t do things for us the way we think we should.  Perhaps there is a reason why the Proverbs tell us that pride comes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18).

v  Addiction.  We can become addicted to so many things, anything can become our idols.  Drugs, alcohol, sex, lust, technology and when someone disturbs us or our addictions we get boiling mad!

The one main thing that Dr. Stanley has noted is that God is not only full of mercy but He is also full of grace.  The Bible tells us that God is slow to anger (Psalm 103:8).  That we should be slow to anger and guard our tongues (James 1:19) and in doing this we will be more like Christ.  Anger is not a bad emotion; after all it was created by a perfect God for our benefit.  Like Robert pointed out in class yesterday morning:

“If God is slow to anger then He knows and understands how to deal with anger the correct way.  We need to take our cues from Him!”

Until we had done this study I had never thought of myself as an angry person.  Now, I can see how anger has driven my life in many ways!  Thank God that He uses lessons, family, children, and my friends to aid me in this life growing process.

So I must ask, does anger affect you and if so, what are you going to do about it?

MOTHER’S DAY 2013

Today was Mother’s Day, a day to celebrate the calling of being a mother; in my humble opinion, the ultimate calling of my life, the gift of my children and being their mother.  I adore my children and I love being their Mama.  I love that there is a day set aside to celebrate Mother’s and women in general that love children but can’t have any or have endured the heartache of the loss of children.  I love that today is a day that we can celebrate the Mother’s Heart, a true reflection of Christ.

I will admit that today was not what I expected.  I didn’t think that I was going to get any gifts, I was surprised.  Not only did I get a fun card but I got a late lunch/early supper at my favorite restaurant, Carrabba’s.  I also got some gifts that my children had made for me and a flower from the church service. 

Mama's new goodies!

More than the gifts, I got the joy of conversing with my children at different times throughout the day.  For example in church this morning Ethan snuggled under my arm the entire service, ran to the front to get my flower, and whispered that he loved me. 

John Robert on the other hand showcased his humor in his usual fun loving snarky manner!  When we got home and I was washing dishes, changing a dirty diaper, making a half of a ham and cheese sandwich so the boys wouldn’t starve before we got to our late lunch, pouring their drinks, and getting them situated in general; my wonderful witty son said: “Gee I wish I had a day to do nothing!  I have to take care of those chickens everyday they need food and water all the time.”  Then he grinned when I said “WWHHAAATTTT?” and sheepishly slipped some strawberry Twizzlers into my hand!  (Next to Reeses Peanut Butter Cups those silly licorice sticks are some of my favorite candy…BUT they HAVE to be strawberry flavored!)

Add to that Maggie and I discussing life in general, Cole snuggling some after his nap, and I do believe that it was almost a perfect day!

 

There was a drawback to it though, and I really don’t want to complain, but……

ALL I WANTED WAS A NAP! 

 

Lucky for me, Robert was gracious enough to take one for me!

 

ETHAN IS 6!

Oh my how time has flown!  It seems like only yesterday I was anxiously laboring (for eight long hours) for my second son to arrive!  Yet here we are, six short years later and we get to celebrate his life!  There are no words that can describe the sheer joy that Ethan has brought to our lives!  He is sweet, precocious, full of activity, laughing, mischievous, active, and 100% ALL AMERICAN BOY!

For his 6^th birthday, requested an Angry Bird pool party!  About two weeks before the party we noticed a leak in the pool!  The warranty (which we learned later won’t cover the repairs), was called into play but still we questioned, what can we do for the pool party?  We had already sent the invitations out!  Ethan and Daddy voted on a water slide so that’s what we did!  The water slide was a worthwhile investment and made the day party perfect!

Setting up the slide!  What FUN!

The party décor was all made by me, thanks to some printables from Etsy and a little hard work! We had the usual Candy / Sweets Buffet along with yummy Angry Bird food, like Angry Eggs, Bird Nest Treats, and Pigs in a Blanket.  The cake and cupcakes were great hits, but the MAIN event was opening the presents!  When I asked Ethan what his all time favorite gift was, he smiled his precious smile and said: “The money Mama………all $51.00 worth!” 

The front door!

Working on decorating tablescapes......

Making the marshmallow pops!

The sweets table is done and ready to be enjoyed by all!

I LOVED all the fun printables we had!

The main table with the yummy snacks and cake!

Yes, it was a Publix chocolate cake!

All the guests playing and having fun!

 

Ethan didn't like us singing Happy Birthday!

 

PRESENTS!

 

 

What a smile!

 

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!!!!!

 

More fun presents.......

 

AND more MONEY!

 

The aftermath......it was a great party!

Today was a great day!  A day to celebrate life and celebrate the gift of our children!  I am so thankful that I can do these things for my children!  I hope that they will look back on their lives and smiling knowing that we thought they were worth the moon!  I hope that they will see these pictures and smile and know that we are so happy God gave them to us!  More than anything I hope that they always remember that they are precious and worth celebrating; on their birthday and everyday!!

 

HAPPY 6^TH BIRTHDAY ETHAN!  MAMA & DADDY LOVE YOU!!!!!

 

 

MY TURN!

This past week it has been my turn to take care of my Mom.  It has not been convenient all the time: let’s be honest, wrangling four children, driving about 45 minutes one way, dealing with no naps, rushed grocery trips, trying to plan meals, clean someone else’s house “their” way IS NOT always the easiest and convenient thing to do!  BUT, I know that it is totally worth it!

I KNOW that if my siblings could be here they would be here to help me, but they are not, so it falls to me.  Please do not misconstrue me, I am not complaining that they are not here, BUT I know that they probably wish that they were here to help do more!  I’m okay with it falling to me for a number of reasons.

Yes Mom, I remember……..

1.    Endless sessions sitting at a dance studio while I was dancing away!

2.   PTA meetings with you acting as the President.

3.   Sleepless nights planning birthday parties and even making the cakes.

4.   Dealing with crazy phone calls, including wondering why a 50 year old man was calling your 16 year old daughter!

5.   Sickness, childhood complaints, endless sacrifice, costumes, life changes…….

Truthfully my list goes on and on!  I am so grateful that I am a full time mother and that I have the opportunity to help you in your healing.  I am so thankful to “Nana-sit” at least three times a week!  I am thankful to take my turn and care for you!  More than that I'm glad that Dad has turned out to be such a GREAT housekeeper!!!!  Wonder if he will hire out!?