Pray for what?

So I continued my last post because I wanted to talk more about praying about certain things.

I'd love to get opinions and feedback on what others think about this.

When it comes to something like health or safety of others of course we all pray for the best, right? My son was leaving for a trip, and in fact my husband will be here very soon as well. First reaction is to begin praying that all should make it there and back safely and in one piece. But is that really how we should be praying?

Lately I have been in various bible studies and read several articles that teach that we shouldn't always be praying for "good stuff" but that we should be praying for strength, wisdom and guidance through the "bad stuff" Notice I didn't say "out of the bad stuff"

In James there is a verse that says "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds." James 1:2 How do you understand this? I understand it to mean that if you are in the midst of trouble, then congratulations because your life is about to be changed by God! Now of course we aren't going to be smiling our way through the whole thing. Most times there will be stress, crying, fear etc. But we should never lose our joy. Remember joy doesn't equal happiness. They are very different. We can lose our happiness on a daily basis, but if we are a child of God we should never lose our JOY.

Instead of praying for a way out we should be praying for a way through our situation.

So again, how do we pray for loved ones about to leave home on a trip? How do we pray for loved ones who aren't feeling well? Do we only pray for healing all the time? Do we only pray for safety all the time? If that's not how we should pray then how should we?

This was my battle before Levi left for his trip to CA. I of course began praying for safety, but then after conviction I thought maybe my prayer was selfish. It was all about me. I wanted him to be safe for me! But what about God's will? We're supposed to be praying for God's will to be done. What if this time God's will was something other than mine?

So my prayers changed for a few days, suddenly I began praying "Lord, your will be done, I pray your will is to bring Levi home safely but if it isn't, Lord, please give me strength and peace to be able to handle the situation you are about to put on our family."

It finally came to a point where I couldn't pray any more. I honestly didn't know how to pray. I couldn't pray for safety, I couldn't pray for God's will to be done because I had no idea what His will was! It was that very same day I lost the words to pray that my cousin whom I love dearly posted this verse on Facebook... Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.” Romans 8:2

That same day and for the rest of time until my little boy was back in my arms my only prayer was "Jesus, you're going to have to read my heart and pray for me because I am just not able to do it right now!"

Here is the rest of James 1:2-4:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

So my faith was tested. I'm hoping that the fact that I stopped praying for MY will to be done and started praying the Lord's will be done is at least a passing grade on my prayer report card.

Another Milestone!

It seems this blogging thing isn't easy for me. For the life of me I can't figure out why. I am on the computer at least once a day but I forget about this all the time.

We reached a major milestone in my family this past weekend. My little boy went out on a 3 day adventure all by himself for the first time. And we all survived! Levi is in GATE and he had the opportunity to go on a 3 day field trip to Astrocamp in CA. At first I thought NO WAY! but then thought, what an opportunity for him. I wouldn't want him to miss out. So I asked TONS of questions and found out one of the chaperones was the father of some awesome kids and he also happens to be a police officer. So my mind was more at ease knowing that if anything should happen this guy has got to have a good head on his shoulders and know what to do in an emergency situation, ya know. SO if it weren't for him going my son might not have gone, LOL!

So Friday morning came and I was able to talk my husband into taking him to the school to see him off cause I knew I couldn't handle it. I stayed home with Jess. My poor husband came home sobbing. I didn't know it would be this hard on him, but I was proud of him at the same time.

Once he came home it was time for the countdown to receive the call that they had made it there safely. My Fridays are spent out with my mom, we go shopping, or walking and then out to lunch together. So I was in my normal "no worries" mode as usually on Fridays and completely forgot I was waiting for the phone call! So when it came I was actually shocked at how fast they got there!

Saturday we spent the day at my mom's having a yard sale, and then Sunday we had our monthly Family Day at the park, playing and fishing and having fun. We left the park at 5 to go play ball at the school to wait for Levi to come home.

I never once cried or worried about him the whole time he was gone. I prayed a few times for him for safety and then I also had to step back and ask Jesus to pray for me cause I didn't know what to pray.

Suddenly we looked over and the  buses were pulling in! We ran across the parking lot and as I looked in the window of the buss I saw my little boys silhouette and this HUGE lump rose up in my throat! The second I saw his eyes I started bawling like a baby! It was the most awesome feeling in the world to have my son back home again. I hugged him tight and cried huge gobbing tears all over his head! Now of course he was crying too but he was laughing through his tears and suddenly we are all laughing and crying at the same time!

It sure is amazing being a mom!

Everyone said he did really well they had an absolute blast. Levi doesn't speak much about it like everyone said they would but I know he had a good time. He is very reserved when it comes to showing excitement. Takes after his mommy.

to be continued...

Another battle?

I have to apologize for not being very cheerful and jolly these past few posts.

Seems the enemy is shooting flaming arrows at me in all directions lately! First with the loss (break-up) of a friend, then I've had a few episodes of not very much marital bliss, top that off with a little financial upset. But now it gets to my heart more than ever. My children. My son hasn't been feeling well the past 2 days and it has got my brain going into overdrive.

Tummy trouble. I seriously dislike tummy trouble. My son complained of a stomach ache on Tuesday morning and then came home crying cause it had been hurting all day. I could only think to give him some milk and later some Pepto Bismol. Of course asking many questions along the way, where does it hurt?, how much have you eaten, been drinking water? bathroom conversations, and so on. We had chalked it up to just gas, but last night his temperature went up to over 102. No other symptom except a stomach ache and now a fever. THIS IS SCARY.

Now a fever doesn't scare me too badly. Tell me someone has a fever of 103-4 and I can go into nursing mode to bring it down, Tylenol, cold compresses, ice cubes, cold bath, alcohol wrist pads, etc. Fevers fear me!

But a fever while my kid is sleeping scares me to the point of sleeplessness. I don't want to leave my child's side at this point. But I don't want to panic either. SO I pray and pray and try to act normal, I'm no actress for a reason.

But this time it's the fact that I can't say "You have a fever because..." If there were symptoms I could relax, but because it has to do with the tummy area and my son isn't very good at describing things in detail, my mind runs to the many organs in the body that can "go wrong"

I am constantly asking him questions. What do you feel now? My back hurts. Could this be his kidneys??

Now what do you feel? My neck hurts a little. Meningitis?

Other questions running through my mind are, should he be home or in school today? tomorrow? At what point does a doctor visit come into play? How high is too high for a fever? Should I give medication before bed if there is a temp of 99.8? Aye-yi-yi!

LOL! It's rough living with a mommy brain isn't it?!

Now I have re-read my post and I am wondering why on earth I am even writing about all this! Sheesh! I've gone and lost my mind. I apologize, But I'm still gong to publish this post so you can get to know more about who I am and the things that make me who I am. Talk to you soon. God Bless

Just Keep swimming, Just keep swimming

My very most favorite Disney quote ever! I can picture little, teeny tiny Dory in that HUGE ocean, trying to do the impossible and never losing faith. "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!"

The impossible was done, due to her faith and perseverance.

Lately I have been faced with several emotional battles. I have been working on my relationship with the Lord, trying to make it stronger and it seems that my other relationships are going sour. Constant irritants are arising, arguments are more often and closer together, communication has been lost.

I know that the enemy is angry because I have been leaning on the Lord more and more, I noticed recently that the few days this past week that I payed less attention to my spiritual health, that my friends and family seemed to "work better" around me. sigh.

I really detest the fact that when I try to do what God wants me to do that the enemy is there tearing my life apart every where that hits me hardest. He knows what hurts me most.

So I am trying so very hard now to remember to "Just keep swimming" , praying and reading God's word as much as possible, until I have proven to the enemy that he WILL NOT win.

If it takes every breath in me to stay devoted to my God I will prove that myGod reigns and my family and my relationships will pull through.

I also need to remember that my Jesus, my Lord and my Savor is WAY - WAY - WAY bigger and more powerful than that little tiny blue fish.

Here I am/ Ending a relationship

So over a month ago I had written a blog post I wasn't sure I wanted to post. I guess you can tell I decided not to post it. I really wasn't sure if it was something I should put out there the way I wrote it so I decided better safe than sorry. Anytime I write anything that will be posted forever into the internet I try very, very hard to make sure that what I am typing is exactly what I am trying to SAY. The written word is sometimes very hard to interpret correctly. So if I'm not confident that it cannot be misread I will usually decide not to post it. I'm recommending this practice to all users of the internet especially.

So recently I have had to experience something I have never had to do before. And it was not very pleasant. So I'm kind of hoping if any of you have some stories to share or words of wisdom that you might post a comment today because I need a little support.

I had to break up with someone. Yes this was my first time. I've never even broken up with a boyfriend before! So this was extremely difficult.

I was friends with someone for several years but in the recent past I learned that I had never let myself be the true me when I was with her. For what reason I still have no clue but I am glad I realized it. Once I realized this I began to lose interest in the friendship and then little things started to bug me here and there. But I had no idea how to break up with a friend, so I went on as usual. I remember actually making a comment to someone else that I probably should distance myself from this person somehow. I prayed asking God for help and guidance with this whole ordeal. Well a few months later her children and my children had some sort of altercation and it was never resolved. Things went downhill from there. Neither of us spoke to each other for a while and suddenly she was sort of retaliating with bitter comments and then several emails towards me this past week.

I saw a side of her I never knew existed and frankly it never bothered me that we weren't talking much anymore anyway. So I had to tell her that I honestly didn't think our friendship was meant to go on any longer. I explained to her that I felt like people come and go from our lives with a purpose. I told her that I believe God brought us both together to support each other while our kids were in elementary school and now that they were on their way into Jr. high that we had gotten everything out of our friendship that we were meant to. I explained that I was hurt by her bitterness towards me and that quite simply because of that damage our friendship would never be the same anyway so I thought it best for us to move on.

Of course there was another email filled with more bitterness. It's the bitterness she displayed towards me that I am having a difficult time dealing with. I have never been in a bad relationship before, I have a family that never speaks negatively to each other, EVER. So I guess one could say I have led an emotionally sheltered life up to now. To have someone say the things she said to me and treat me how she did so hastily and out of spite is very scary and very painful. I guess you could say I am still in shock.

I have been in sort of a silent funk since then and haven't spoken about much of this to anyone except my cousin. I have only even told my husband about little pieces of it because he knows her and I wouldn't want him to think badly about her more than I have already led him to.

So tell me what is the proper way to deal with something like this?

Trying to be the best Christian witness I can possibly be, my understanding is that I should lean on God completely with the whole thing. So, I have been doing that. Praying praying praying. Asking God to hold me. To comfort me. Asking Him to make me strong because I don't have the strength to do this myself.

But the fleshly (is that the right word) part of me wants to tell someone what I'm going through. I am not one who likes to complain but I feel like I need to tell someone every single detail just to get it out and let it go. Would it be wrong of me to do that?

Can any of you relate? Share with me how you pulled through a similar situation? Share any favorite scriptures that relate to this subject?

Thanks for reading. TTYL

Changes

The other day we turned down our street and my husband and I literally said "WOW!" at the same time. The sunset was BEAUTIFUL! The clouds were what I creatively call "sand clouds", they look like someone drove through a sandy beach leaving tire marks in a perfect pattern across the sky. They were all sorts of colors from yellow to orange to pink. It filled not just the usual sunset part of the sky but it covered us as well, making everything in our neighborhood glow with an orange tint to it.

As we drove toward the sunset down our street the sky was so bright and beautiful we could barely take our eyes off of the sky. As we approached our community to turn into it my husband said "I was watching the sky and while it seemed to stay still everything else passed by and I hardly noticed that we were home already."

This made me think about our GOD. That if we drive our spiritual car towards HIM and never take our eyes off of HIM the world will go through many changes along the way but GOD promises never to change. HE is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Hebrews 13:8

I have recently had a few changes in my life. Some confusing, some saddening, some exciting and rewarding and some just plain fun. Through these last few months I have been working hard to focus more on my LORD than I ever have. And though the worst change was saddening in my life, I was able to pull through it without much resentment or frustration because I kept my eyes on my LORD through it all.

I pray that if you read this and you are going through any changes at all, especially the harder ones, that you might turn to GOD. He wants to help you through it more than anything. He is eagerly rubbing HIS hands together waiting with anticipation for you to say "Help me Father".

FYI

I am not gone. I'm still here.

I have been preoccupied for a while and haven't had much to say.

I just finished a blog post but decided to give it some prayer before posting it as it could be considered debatable. I'm not sure I am ready to start debates as of yet so I need to give it some thought.

Should I decide to post it I will let you know.

I believe that when using immediate media such as the internet, or texting that one should always think once, twice, three times about what is written before hitting the submit/publish/post button. So this is me practicing what I preach.

Have a good night!

Positivity

In response to my last post...

I have been thinking about it a lot. In fact, I have come to a shocking realization! I myself seem to be complaining more than I ever thought I was. Not so much complaining, but I seem to have started pointing out the wrongs I see more often. (is that complaining?)

Just this past week I have heard myself mention how frustrating it is to drive here, how messy the house is, how fast the dishes pile up, how hot or cold I am, how much I have to do.

So I have come up with a plan. My hopes are to try to catch myself and my other family members in a negative thought and ask myself or them to immediately come up with a "but". Such as, "I can't believe I have so many dishes to wash... but... I am glad we have food to eat on them every day."

or "Boy do I have a lot to do today, (but) so glad the weather is nice and I will enjoy running around out there."

This may sound corny, but I am hoping that it will turn our way of thinking around and maybe instead of starting negative, we'll just start saying good things.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Ephesians 4:29

My challenge is for others to join me in this quest for positivity. Let me know your experiences! I'll keep you posted on mine!

Negativity

So my daughter has become Miss Negativity lately. I have no idea what to do about it but its driving me crazy. I have always been the "look on the bright side" kind of person. I can always find SOMETHING to think positive about in a not so positive situation. I try very hard not to complain much so when I do complain it is usually something I have kept quiet long enough about that I think its about time someone heard me roar for a second. Very rarely does this happen.

But lately my daughter grunts and growls about EVERYTHING. She complains about everything. She is constantly "uncomfortable" Her hand hurts when she writes. Levi is talking too loud, or too much. She complains that she doesn't like her room because its always a mess but she complains when I tell her to clean it, or even go in there to help her clean it. She complains when her homework is too hard. She complains when her homework is too EASY for Pete's sake! Her water is too cold, or not cold enough! SHEESH! I can't stand it anymore.

My fear is that it isn't a phase. unfortunately someone else very close to her, who shall remain nameless can also be very negative, always has something to complain or grumble about, or is just plain blah alot of the time. It's quite a downer for me.

I try and try to stay up and positive and try to make these two laugh and see things differently but these two are so dang comfortable in their own skin they refuse to try to "Come on get happy!"(Insert Partridge Family tune here) They just keep bringing me down man!

So if you are reading this and you have any tips or words of wisdom to get me through what I HOPE is a phase, please please please do share!

My brain took a vacation

On Sunday, (yes I am just now getting around to telling this story) my alarm clock goes off, very loudly I might add. We have not been able to figure out how to get the volume down on the alarm. We have it set to play the radio when it comes on so its not too bad, but when its right above your head it is BLARING!

SO the alarm goes off, I always hit the snooze button to get just 10 more minutes of peace and quiet before I roll out of bed and I notice the numbers 905.

"UGH!" I grumble. John asks me what's wrong. I tell him, somehow the alarm got messed up and it's 9 o'clock. "There is no way in the world we'll be able to get up and be ready for church in 10 minutes. Guess were not going today." So I lay there racking my brain trying to figure out how it could have possibly been changed by accident??????

I decide to text my mom to let her know we won't be there but we're all okay. "NOT GONNA MAKE IT. SOMEHOW THE ALARM GOT CHANGED TO 9. WE'LL NEVER GET READY IN TIME."

She texts me back about 10 minutes later. "IT'S NOT 9 IT'S 7"

WHAT?!?!

I roll over again and look at the clock. 7:12.

Here is my advise to you. Usually when you think there is no possible way something could happen, chances are you are usually right. What my brain failed to realize was that when the radio goes off EVERY morning, I guess it always has shown the numbers of the RADIO STATION (90.5) on the pretty blue screen!

Talk about embarrassing! So we all rolled out of bed and headed off to church 2 hours later, haha!

However for some reason my brain must have stayed in bed that day because ALL day I made silly mistake after silly mistake and words wouldn't come to mind when I needed them, I had my family rolling on the floor most of the day.

Have no fear, I am fine now. Since meeting with my brain on the pillow Sunday night I have been back to normal once again. In fact today I scored a perfect "Brain Age Score" which I have been working on since Christmas! LOL

Good Morning!

So today I am taking care of business! (Are you singing the song in your head? Cause I am!)

I am feeling AWESOME and it's only noon!

Here is what my morning looked like:

I woke up with a smile. Said "Good morning" to my Lord. Iisn't it awesome that the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE is anxiously awaiting to greet US every morning of every day and I bet when we greet him back right away he gets a smile on his face!

I woke my daughter, something I have to do 95% of the time. Not my favorite thing to do because she milks every second she can get before getting out of bed, but I have to remind myself as much as I can that someday I will miss these mornings with her in her room.

While my kids got ready for school I cleaned out a huge mess of a game closet. Now it's all purty-ful and organized!

I have done 3 loads of laundry and will soon be starting the 4th.

I have read my bible for a few minutes and I will be returning to that in a bit as well.

I ate a small but healthy breakfast, something I NEVER do! I mean NEVER! My breakfast usually consists of either chocolate fudge poptarts with a tall glass of milk, last nights leftovers or a bowl of cereal. Well I guess maybe sometimes my cereal can be healthy.

Then I worked out this morning with my husband. I am feeling sooo good!

We have started doing the Power 90 workout. A lot of people we know are all doing it and so we thought we would do it too so we feel like we're not alone and we have people to spur us on and keep us rockin! I can't wait to feel the changes! I am already on a high from taking care of myself in every aspect i can possible thik of this morning. I can't wait to do it again tomorrow, Ha Ha!

Organizing Chaos

I have a tendency to be afraid of throwing away paper. I keep my kids school papers way too long. I hold on to all bills way too long. I keep receipts way to long. And I keep scraps of everything else in between way too long. When I accumulate a pile of paper on a counter that I need moved and I don't want to deal with I have a set of plastic drawers that I usually stuff them all into so I can "deal with them later".

Later usually never comes until I need that one teeny tiny bit of info and then I have to sort through all of them in one day just to find it, of course throwing at least 75% of them in the trash.

I blame all of this on my easy going lifestyle. I choose to play now and work later. Everything goes on the back burner until I need that back burner for something important, LOL.

My goal is to be better at this in the near future. But if you read my after Christmas post, you can already guess that this will most likely never happen. :}

So anyway for some reason I had to prove to our insurance company that my children do indeed belong to John and I and should be covered under his insurance. So I had to look for all documentation that proved this and then fax it to them. Of course not all of this was in one place. Too easy! I spent most of the morning going through that plastic drawer of paper and I now have 20 piles of paper on my kitchen table waiting for me to get back to.

But of course I am incapable of doing only one job at a time. Once I had those drawers emptied I came up with a brilliantly stupid idea of using these drawers for my 1000 craft supplies I have been storing in a huge ugly cabinet in my dining room! Now I needed to run out and buy more plastic drawers to match the first set to complete project number 2! Now mind you, number 1 is not done yet. So... by dinner time I had paper pile project sprawled all over my kitchen table, and now ON TOP OF THAT art supply chaos project again ALL OVER THE KITCHEN TABLE!

Somebody shoot me!

Yep, you guessed it, my kids come home and have no place to sit for dinner. So "YAY!" They got to sit in the living room at the coffee table eating their spaghetti tonight.

And why am I telling you all of this? Well I have no idea now, I was kind of hoping I could turn this into some wonderfully uplifting message somehow but now I only see it as an opened door into my life that maybe I should have thought twice about sharing.

Now to get back to project #2 so I can find project #1 again before midnight.

Part 2...

Just another tid bit of info..

Here is what I taught my daughter to do when it rains...

Snow Day in Las Vegas

My number one goal in life is to teach my kids who God is, how much He loves them and I pray that they grow up to have a healthy relationship with God that they will take with them wherever they go and through every moment of their life.

My second goal is to make sure they know how to have fun, live the best life they can without being stupid about it and to take time to enjoy the littlest of things.

We live in a desert. We see snow every year, on a mountain where I have always considered it to be at the back of our city. If you want to see snow you look at the mountain, you drive to the mountain, or you can pray every year that we will get a storm at Christmastime that will bring the White Christmas down to the valley. I have lived in Vegas for over almost 30 years now and we have never had a White Christmas. But this year we got pretty close. The week before it rained and the week after it rained with a few snow flurries here and there.

Well this morning we got a good strong amount of snow that fell starting about 7:00 in the morning as far as I could tell. About 8:00 is started sticking to the ground.

So in my attempt to teach my kids goal number 2, we declared today a snow day even though Clark County didn't. Which in my opinion when you live in a desert and we actually get RAIN we should get the day off of school. If that doesn't make sense, okay I'll let that go, but when we get snow that STICKS to the ground long enough to make one snowball to throw at the neighbor kid across the street we definitely should have a snow day! It's a rare treat that should not be ignored!

On the other hand, because everyone must go about their normal routines on these very, very special days, and my family knows what's really important in life, we were the ONLY people in an entire park playing in every spec of snow we could touch! When we got to the park there was not one single footprint in the snow! When we left there was barely enough snow in any one spot to make a snowball! AWESOMENESS!

This is the second opportunity we have had to do this. It is the best feeling ever! We did the same thing 2 years ago when it started to snow I took my kids out of school to not waste the day! Had the whole park to ourselves the whole time!

In the future I hope that you take the time to enjoy the little things in life. Don't let life get in the way of your LIFE!