As promised… the pics

Here’s baby. (and do please note our immaculate green lawn in the background that he works very hard for!)

and Jen… see that little cover right behind his bum… that’s where I sit, there’s a seat under that cover!

He’s HAWT!

and just to make you smile… here’s a pic of our bear who just lost his two front teeth yesterday… they were both very loose and we knew they were comin any day now…he lost one eatin wings but was scared to pull the other for fear that he’d “look stupid”… so if you see the bear with no teeth… tell him how AWESOME he looks!

Jesus in my blood…

I tell everyone all the time how different I feel… since I became a believer.  I feel like the person I was before, died.  In fact, it’s strange to think that I used to be THAT person…to be the way I was and do the things I did.  In my memory, it feels like that was someone else.  And in a way, it was.  God’s grace IS amazing and until you’ve experienced it, you can never understand what I’m saying or when anyone else tries to explain it.  ’I don’t have time to maintain these regrets… when I think about… the way… He loves me’ – Jesus Culture.

So I was on my hands and knees cleaning my kitchen floor and my Addi says ‘oooh what happened to your arm?’  I had given blood a week prior at work and they blew up my vein.   It was a nasty bruise and for the most part I ignored it, but when I was explaining to Addi the whole story, she pointed out something that made me smile ear to ear…. take a look…

 

there is no editing in these photo’s folks.  The first is without flash the second with flash.  Again, this was a week after the needle lost it’s way in my arm… and I looked at that bruise on a daily basis to monitor it.  It didn’t look like that even that morning.  Talk about showing our children Jesus through us!  I always knew I had Jesus in my blood, now I have proof!  

Maybe I should list the photo on ebay and see how much it goes for!!!!  :)

I’m proud

This is my side of the family.

This is my older brother Matt and his wife Jen

These are Matty and Jen’s kids… Jackson Eli and Megan Elizabeth

This is my younger brother Ben and his wife Teresa

this is Benny and Teresa’s son… Zachary (he wanted his picture taken on this big rock… it’s a boy thing)

and this is my daddy…

and finally here’s the handsome heart throbs….

like I said.  I’m proud. 

that’s it.

 

Let him lead

Ok… so this picture is posted for two reasons… 1. because it is my all time favorite movie and should be yours too and 2. because he portrayed an amazing leader…

William Wallace, Maximus… there’s a reason why your men love these movies ladies… ponder on that a bit.

Becoming less independent was somewhat of a struggle for me… at first. 

Growing up my mother was very strong and independent, but I still knew my father had the last say so.  In other words, I knew my father was the leader of our home.  So letting the husband lead, by nature, is instinctive for me.  However, I was not fortunate enough to have married well the first time, so I was left to raise a 1-year-old boy on my own for seven years making me the mother and father of the home.  Seven years.  That’s a long time.  A long time for me to make the final decisions… me to call the shots… me to rule our home.  So when I married Trent, my instincts battled my habitual behavior.  I was always quick to answer to make a decision and had to condition myself to defer to my husband.  It was a awkward at first, almost feeling as though I was being stripped of something, but it wasn’t that I was being stripped of anything at all… it was that I was being relieved of something that was never meant to be my role in the first place.  It is my first reaction when being asked if we can have dinner, or make plans, to say, that sounds great, let me see what Trent has planned.  Even with Noah, my response is always, ‘I think that’s ok, let’s ask your dad, or I don’t care, go ask your dad.’  It lets him know that we do EVERYTHING together.  We are truly one, in every sense of the word.

Debi Pearl writes…

God created Adam and commissioned him to take the position of leadership.  Since then, every son of Adam has received the same mandate. Man was created to rule.  It is his nature.  But the only place most men will ever rule is their own little kingdom called home.  At least, every man’s destiny is to be the leader of his household.  To deny him this birthright is contrary to his nature and God’s will.  

 

She goes on to say…

It is NOT God’s will for your husband to reverence you.  It is not God’s plan for you to remain seated at the dinner table or in your lounge chair and expect him to serve himself.  Our modern society has conditioned us to expect him to serve us.  It hurts our feelings if he doesn’t do things that we feel he owes us, but that is not the plan God set into place.  Our failure to know and believe the written words of God has caused us to accept a cultural lie.

This one’s powerful…

Reverence is not just how you act; it is how you feel and how you respond with words and with your body language.  It’s like I said before, you have to believe it before he’ll believe you.  If that’s a struggle for you, just ask God to help you… ask him remind you of the good, of why you married him, and to allow you to focus on those attributes.

To lead his home was a bit of an adjustment for Trent as well… although it was natural for him to want to… for 19 years he wasn’t allowed to.  So having a wife that defers to him and reverences him has made him a whole new person.  He’s more confident, he stands taller, and he’s an amazing leader.  Leading our home doesn’t mean he just goes out and makes decisions without my input.. it does mean that what he decides is the way it’s going to be and I’m ok with that.  I love it… I love it when he takes charge.  I’m telling you, get off your self-righteous, feministic, high horse just for short time and serve and lift up your husband and allow him to lead and you will see a man who stands with his chest out.  You’re whole house will realign the way it should be. God’s design.   

transparent

Let me be real transparent here on why I haven’t been blogging.  Besides the fact that I’ve been crazy busy with kids on Spring Break and creating worship videos…My blog started out sharing biblical truths and turned into a journal of sorts.  I love sharing my life and days but I want it to have some meaning as well.  In the move, I misplaced my Created to be His Help Meet book.  Welp… I’ve found it.  I’ll be blogging on that soon.

A good friend of mine emailed me today, crying out for help.  Talk about transparency.  She spent the morning reading Cindy Beall, Mandy, Natalie, Shanna Crawford and my blogs and wants what we all have, JESUS!  This is a quote directly from her.  It was after I read her email, that I thought to myself… it’s so funny how God uses people to reach other people… people they don’t even know they are reaching… and he uses people no matter where they are, in their walk with Him.  I wanted to tell her I haven’t cracked open my bible for a month now.  I still have regular talks with Him but how can I truly get to know Him better and witness if I don’t read and study the Truth.  I worship with him every weekend, but I haven’ t sought Him out in over a month.  I thank him every morning on the way to work for the beautiful things he creates in my every day and ask of his protection over my family yet I won’t take 10 minutes of my beautifully created day to seek Him out.  I want to know Him better.  I want to know His stories.  It was my happiest times… and I’m ready to make the time again.  I miss it.  But all that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.  

I’m spiraling down hill fast into the depths beyond my own knowledge.  Am I scared?  Yes.  Am I scared?  No.  My eyes are open.  I’m watching my life pass me by.  My conscious is vigilant, but it’s as though I’m lost in a comatose state and lack the ability to counter.  That’s the scary part, when will I wake up?  When will I take charge of my own forthcomings?  When is it my time?  When do I say enough?  That’s the part I’m ready for.  The change.  The time where I can sit back in my life and say, this is where I want to be.  I’m not an ignorant person.  Is love that strong that it can influence every aspect of my life?  It manipulates my manner in which I relate to my only son.  It rules my checkbook.  It wakes me up in the morning and tells me everyday, this is going to be a good day, or sorry, not today.  It holds a day long to the very last minute to arrange time for those that have requested time with great notice.  It never lets go until you feel like there is nothing left of you.

My friend didn’t write this.  I did.  I wrote the above passage in my journal about 3 years ago.  I was in the lowest state of my life.  I knew I was there, and I knew something had to change.  It wasn’t long after that, I gave my life to Christ and let me tell you… I’m sitting back in my life right now looking around, saying ‘this is where I want to be.’  It took my writing it out and seeing that the only one who was going to change the direction my life was heading, was me.  It sounds simple… but it took me quite some time to get there.  When I made the decision, I MADE the decision.  All in.  I’m talking erasing phone numbers from my phone and if the phone rang and a name didn’t pop up, I didn’t answer it.  I would have disconnected the number had I not had a terminally ill mother who had that number on every emergency contact list.  I burned old photo’s of a girl I didn’t want to be anymore.  I turned off the TV.  I started filling up that time with Truth.  I got rid of everything I felt like was eroding my life right in front of my eyes, and that included people who didn’t understand.  I was ok with them not understanding…because…. I did.  I decided, I was going to live for me.  It was the best decision of my life.   

I say all this because I really feel like my friend is where I was…. or in the vicinity.  See, where I had never experienced His forgiveness and His grace, she already knows Christ.  She knows the freedom.  She’s just lost her way.  She’s angry.  Really angry, and hasn’t let go of that anger.  She lost the father of her children in an accident a couple of years ago and I’m not sure she’s ever really worked through it.  She lost it.  She turned to drugs… men… and anything that would take away the pain.  She rebeled against all she had known…all of this while trying to be a mother to two young children.  I believe she wants to change, she just doesn’t know how to get there… and I don’t know if I’m the person to get her there.  I know God brought me into her life, and for that I’ll be forever thankful… I wonder… did he bring me into her life to walk beside her and be her friend along her journey… or to take her by the hand and lead her there.  I guess time will only tell.  Pray for my friend.  Only God can fulfill her and make her love herself as much as He does and He can only do that if she allows Him.  Irony… at it’s finest.  Love is a choice.  Right now, she’s choosing not to love herself.  When she see’s the way Christ loves her, and accepts His love again, it will seep from her own pores.  A glowing countenance.  If you’re reading this.  I love you.  I’m here for you.  Always.        

Here I Am To Worship…

 

Got off the Treadmill tonight and walked into bears room to check on him… he was in bed, with the lights off, his clothes set out, I thought he was asleep.  As I got closer to give him a kiss, I noticed his earphones… he was listening to his MP3 player.  He handed me one and we sang Here I Am To Worship and Grace Like Rain together.  It’s a great feeling to know he’s going to bed listening to Here I am To Worship rather than something like Bringin Sexy Back by Timberlake.  I know that seems funny to most of you, but I was not afforded that type of childhood.  Although an amazing childhood with AMAZING parents… my childhood definetely lacked a relationship with my creator.  Noah has a foundation at age 8 that I didn’t have until 30.  I’ll rest well tonight knowing the last thing our son heard before drifting off was music created for his savior. 

Mom, what is a new-que-ler bomb?

Yep, these are the tough ones.  Driving home this evening our 8-yr-old asks, ‘mom, what is a new-que-ler bomb?… my friend at school says it a lot and what is it?’  Enter mom who lives in her own little bubble answer here.  I sucked.  I blew this one.  There was prolly some pristine opportunity here to have an in-depth discussion about the frailty of life and why we should cherish every day because we’re just never guarenteed tomorrow… and what did I say… I shant hold you in suspense one more second… I answered… ‘it’s a bomb that if it goes off, a lot of people will die.’  What?  What kind of amazing intellectual answer is that?  Does it end there, you’re wondering?  Oh no.  He proceeds to ask, because his little ever hungry for knowledge mind wants to know more… ‘how big is it?’  Oh yeah, I blew this one too.  ‘well, it can be the size of a missle or it could be the size of a refrigerator?’  who am I… I have no idea… I didn’t major in nuclear warfare.  I can actually here him thinking at this point… he continues… ‘has anybody ever set one off?’  I answer with such confidence, ‘I don’t think so… well… I don’t know… maybe in Hiroshima, I think… no wait… maybe that was a hydrogen bomb.’  You guess what the next question was… go ahead…’what’s a hydrogen bomb?’ I start to fill a bit ignorant at this point, and I know what you’re thinking… that should have happened a long time ago in this conversation… so I say ‘let’s just put it like this, if someone ever set one off in the United States, it would probably kill everyone in the United States’  Nothin like puttin some realistic fear in your 8-year-old boy with an already over active imaination.  He sums it up with ‘yeah, if someone set one off in the United States they’d have to drive really far to get away… like Michigan or something.’ 

The purpose of this story – because I know it’s very unclear at this point – is I now fully understand the purpose of those history classes… not so much that I could ever remember the wars, the people, the dates, or significance… but so when I reproduce and raise children I don’t sound like the most ignorant idiot mankind has ever witnessed.

——————————————————————————————

The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests — 217 in the atmosphere.

The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests — 219 in the atmosphere.

France, 210 tests, 50 in the atmosphere.

The United Kingdom, 45 tests — 21 in the atmosphere.

China, 45 tests — 23 in the atmosphere.

India and Pakistan — 13 tests underground.

Israel — possible 1 test atmosphere South Africa 1979.

North Korea — 1 test underground, October 2006.