I'm Thinking

Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

While listening to a program today about being intentional about living well through chronic pain the radio talent quoted this verse. Honestly, I am finding it VERY hard to follow this verse lately. After having a rotten and painful week a few weeks ago where all I was able to do was sit in bed and try not to think about how much pain I was in, I find myself thinking about when the next bout of pain is coming more than I should. We are back to same place that I was 3 1/2 years ago. Although, thankfully, it's not to the point where I'm on strong medicine everyday, it is at the point where I am in some amount of pain every, single day. I am trying to be thankful that God has put me in a place where I have access to good medicine, but, like I said, it's hard. Besides stomach and back pain, one of my prominent symptoms is fatigue, sometimes extreme, and it takes a toll on this earthly body. But even today, when all I want to do is lay in my bed, take some medicine, put on my heating pad and sleep, I am going to choose to not focus on this trial that I am going through right now (it could be worse) but instead try to do what this verse says... think on these things.

Blessed Be Your Name (from April 13th, 2011 on Facebook)

Yesterday the boys and I were driving to MSU to pick up Christopher from work (yes, we only have one car now) when this song came on the radio. I have always liked this song, and appreciated what the words have to say, but it never has affected me like it did yesterday.

Blessed be Your name, in the land that is plentiful. Where Your streams of abundance flow, blessed be Your name.
Blessed be Your name, when I'm found in the desert place. Though I walk through the wilderness,  blessed be Your name.
Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name.
Blessed be Your name when the sun's shining down on me. When the world's all as it should be, blessed be Your name.
Blessed be Your name, on the road marked with suffering. Though there's pain in the offering, blessed b Your name.
Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closed in, Lord, still I will say.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name.
You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.

Normally, it is very easy for me to give thanks to God when He is blessing me, as I'm sure it is for every person, not just Christians. These 5 weeks have been particularly challenging for me to find things to give thanks to God for. I have been at my emotional end many times. I have been STRIVING to give God thanks first thing whenever I would lift up my heart to Him. I wanted to be reminded that even when you're dying to see your kids and you're stuck in Atlanta, or you've lost a loved one, or your husband had surgery and your ten month old is teething, crawling and not sleeping a whole lot all within a couple weeks span, that there is still things to be thankful to God for. You just may have to look a little harder, but they're ALWAYS there. I definitely felt like I have been in the valley for a while, but now I am STANDING ON THE MOUNTAINTOP.......................REJOICING!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday, when I was driving to pick up Christopher from work (Yes, God has chosen to bless us with more time together as a family by only giving us one car.) this song came on the radio. I found myself engrossed in the words of the song. Suddenly all of the emotions that I have felt these last five weeks came like a huge tidal wave upon me. There I was driving down Trowbridge Ave. bawling like a baby. So, thankful that I have once again come out of the valley with God's tremendous hand guiding me up the steep terrain.

Oh to stay on this mountaintop, singing praises to my Lord and Savior. Alas, I know that is not meant to be yet. That is not how I am meant to spend my life. For with every valley and tribulation comes more opportunities for me to rest on God's shoulders and to trust Him. More opportunities for me to shout the blessings that God has given me. More opportunities for God to draw people to Him, so that more people can shout blessings to Him. So, for right now, I will enjoy this mountaintop, knowing that it is what God has for me right now. So I will give thanks to Him for all my blessings, and pray that they next valley He chooses to put me in, I will trust in His guidance and feel His hand guiding me all the way.

Again

Again I don't feel like doing anything. The whole day today I've been trying to motivate myself to do something, anything. I have cleaning I can do in the house, laundry that needs to be folded and put away. Heck, I'm not even dressed yet! I have an hour and a half before I need to leave to go get Joe from school. I need to accomplish something, and yet I have no desire to. I'm just not motivated in the least. I feel like taking a nap! I've got to do something, but if that past is any indicator I'll probably wait until like ten minutes before I have to leave, then I'll rush to become presentable to go out in public, but still not feel like doing anything.

Ranting and Raving

Lots of different emotions are going on inside of me today. Had a little bit of a rough start to the day trying to get Joe off to school on time. Then came home and found out one of my friends from Bible school lost her father, and another friend was having a bad day. I have a tendency to take on everybody else's emotions and sometimes it gets to me. This has been happening the last few months so I'm sure that it has something to do with my hormones. It doesn't help that my stomach is bothering my today which makes me just want to lay on the bed and not do anything all day. But, alas, I have too much to do today. Going to finish doing what I need to do on the computer, have some lunch with Christopher and Nathan, then get to folding the 1000 loads (ok, I'm exaggerating a little bit) of laundry so my family can actually have clothes to wear in public and not go naked every where. Although I'm sure Nathan would be very happy doing that. :)

And that's my rant for today. :) :) :) :)

What to Do?

One of my secret joys in life is writing. I have written literally since I was little. Mainly poems, but when I was twelve I was inspired by Nancy Drew to write a mystery novel. I got two chapters in before it somehow got erased on my parents’ ancient computer. I wouldn’t say that I am a true writer though, because I’ve never had any formal classes on the subject, and, unlike a true author, I must be inspired to write. When inspiration hits me I stop whatever I’m doing and write down my thoughts. If I’m not around paper I keep repeating my thoughts in my head until I can get somewhere that I can write it down. Then I go through and scratch out and move stuff around until I’m satisfied with how it reads. So, for every poem I’ve written there is a scrap piece of paper that has tons of markings on it, and, believe it or not, I keep those. I don’t know why, it’s not like anybody ever sees them, I guess I just like to refer back to them from time to time.

I’ve been mulling over the idea of starting a blog for over a year. I have asked several people and they say that I would be good at writing a blog. But then the thought of writing a book pops into my head and I can’t decide. Blog or book? Book or blog? But the question for both is “What will I write about?” I could write about my kids. They’re always good for lots of stories. I could write about my husband. Although he would probably prefer I don’t. I could write about my struggles from day to day life. Well, let’s face it though, that would be more of a novel. I could write about my struggles as a Christian. Although that is very personal.

So, I’m still at square one. Not exactly sure where to begin. What do I write about? Guess, I’ll have to mull this over for a little bit more before I go public with a new blog.

An Awesome Woman!

No, I'm not talking about myself with this title. I am, however, talking about someone that is very dear to me.

This week I have been really missing my family. I don't know if it's hormones, or that since I've had this cold for almost two weeks my emotions are heightened, or that Nathan is waking up earlier so I'm getting less sleep. Either way, every time I think of my siblings, parents, nieces and nephew I feel like crying because I want to give them a big hug. I've gotten to see my parents once and Vicki once since Christmas but that was over two months ago now.

I was going to try to go down to Sarah's house last week when Joe had a couple of days off of school, but my cold and the weather were bad that day, so I didn't. Joe has a day off from school on the 16th, so we're going to go down that day and hang out with Sarah and the kids and go out to The Root Beer stand for lunch.

However, today I got an e-mail from someone saying how homesick she was. Now, this wasn't a kid that had gone off to college and was missing their mommy and daddy. Or a person that had moved to a different state. This was someone who had moved LITERALLY across the world! And she was feeling guilty for not wanting to be their anymore. She was sick of the different (and loud) music, of the language classes and not being home. So here I am, and hour and a half away from my family and I'm crying because I haven't seen them in two months. She, on the other hand, is thousands of miles away from her family and is feeling guilty about it?

Today, instead of crying about how much I'm missing my family I'm going to thank God for them and pray for my friend that is not wanting to be amongst a culture she isn't familiar with. And thank God that she is willing to make herself uncomfortable for a moment her on earth to make sure that someone whom she's never met will be able to spend an eternity in heaven. What an awesome woman I am privileged to know! :)

Feeling Good

Since Sunday I have been dealing with a cold. Really it's not that much to deal with, but when you add on a couple of kids on top of it, suddenly house chores don't really seem that important. Yesterday, Joe was having a friend over to play after school. Suddenly I saw my house as this huge hoarded mess. (It probably didn't help that I had watched Hoarders.) I pictured the kid coming over and going home and telling his mom how thankful he was that he lived in a clean house after being here. When in reality, he's five years old. I don't think he even noticed that I had cleaned Joe's room or swept my bedroom. Why do I put so much pressure on myself?

Ironically though, after I got started, I wanted to keep going. The truth is I like a clean house. I like to not have to worry if somebody is going to just "pop in" because I have stuff everywhere. Last night I felt good about what I had accomplished. I wasn't overly tired, I just felt good. Unfortunately, I am a COMPULSIVE procrastinator. So, slowly, I am getting in my groove of cleaning the house. Even got some stuff mopped. :) Maybe in a few years my house will be clean all of the time! Ha Ha :) :) :)