The Exodus, God's Providence

 This is almost overwhelming when you think about it. You must read to the end!

Moses and the people were in the desert, but what was he going to do with them?

They had to be fed, and reefing 2-3 million people requires a lot of food!

According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1500 TONS of food each day!

Do you know that to bring that much food each DAY 2 freight trains at least a mile long would be required!

Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, so they would have had to have firewood to use to cook the food. This would tae 4000 TONS of wood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for ONE DAY. And they were 40 YEARS in transit! 

And water? If they only had enough to drink and maybe wish a few dishes they would need 11,000,000 gallons EACH DAY and a freight train with tank cars 1800 MILES long just for one day, just for the water. 

Also, something to think about... They had to cross the Red Sea at night. If they went on a narrow path, double file the line would have been 800 miles long and would have required 35 days and nights to get to the other side. So they had to have a space in the Red Sea 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5000 abreast to get over in one night!

But then there is another problem... Each time they camped at the end of the day a campground 2/3 the size of Rhode Island was required. Or a total of 790 square miles long. 

Do you think Moses figured all of this out before he left Egypt?

Nope, Moses believed and trusted God. God took care of all of these things. 

Now...do you think God has any trouble taking care of all of our needs? 

Sick

For the past 2 weeks my family has been dealing with sickness.
No fun.
Two Fridays ago my son woke with a sore throat an sinus congestion.
Later that day my daughter complained of sinus pain and chills.
Here we go...
So Saturday morning both kiddos were down for the count. Each having different symptoms.
All plans for beautifying our yard were put on the back burner. Time to go into mommy overdrive. Where is my nurse's cap?

About 1:00 I felt extremely tired and decided to put a movie on, lay on the floor and take a movie nap. Suddenly I felt a chill. Then another. Then I was freezing cold and shaking uncontrollably. My stomach felt queasy and up came my brunch!  Ugh. Here I go right along with them. Where's my hospital gown?

My first thought was food poisoning, but then 3 days of a fever later I realize a stomach bug had finally taken me down. This has never happened to me before. One tough little bug I guess. Where's my mom?

After each of us mastered how to solve a Rubik's Cube we were all finally able to get out of the house again. We went shopping, kids went roller skating, and we even scrubbed the kitchen floor together even though we were all still pretty weak and feeling every effort we made in our still tired muscles.

Saturday comes along, time to tackle that backyard!  John and I head outside. Jessi eats breakfast and then later complains her stomach feels "eh".  Just not right.

Around noon she loses her lunch. My poor baby girl caught the same tummy bug I had last week.
Only hers affected her much harder in that she had to run to the bathroom every half hour. After about 5 times she was afraid to leave the bathroom.

So, Saturday night after finishing our yard work me and my baby-girl pulled 2 large neon green bean bag chairs into the bathroom and camped out in there for 3 hours. Memories were made I tell ya. :)

Finally around 10pm, she was able to leave and try to get some sleep. Yesterday her fever seemed to fizzle out but today she's been running a low fever once again.
I feel so bad that this got her after already being sick last week. She hates sitting around doing nothing. And to have to do it twice, for several days, in the same month is so hard on her.

Why am I sharing all of these details?

Well for the "diary" part of the blogging experience. And to share that although being sick is no fun at all, it always makes me think about how healthy we truly are in this family. We all know that eventually, in less than a week most of the time, we will feel normal again. We might share the bug from person to person, but eventually everyone is going to be back at normal health again.

I am so thankful we don't have any crippling or debilitating diseases to deal with in our every day lives. I hold those that do in a high regard. They really do have to be strong to be able to go through some of the things they have to go through day in and day out and still keep a smile on their faces.

The Lord knows I am not strong enough to do that. Not yet anyway. I am so thankful he hasn't tested me on that yet.

Thank you, Lord. I love you. Always have, always will, come what may.

Did you know God could do this?

(Edited and revised)

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to Murrieta Hot Springs to spend a beautiful weekend there on a Ladies retreat with my church.
It was amazing! Such a beautiful place.

I had gone on a retreat almost a year ago with my church and God spoke loud and clear to me while I was there, I came back a changed person!

That first year things were not going so well in my marriage. My husband and I weren't really even talking to each other. I almost didn't even go to that retreat. I didn't feel right leaving my kids in an unhappy environment. Mommy guilt was running in overdrive.

But I knew that it would probably be best if there was some space between me and him for a weekend and I wasn't going to let the enemy keep me from spending this long awaited time focusing completely on God.

The retreat was amazing. And while I was there praying for my marriage God spoke to me loud and clear. "You need to go to bed with your husband."

Now, this girl hates going to bed early. My husband gets up for work at 4am so he goes to bed at 9PM. Having to go to bed early feels like I am being punished and sent to my room. I feel like a little kid.

But I didn't argue with God's command. I knew it must have been long overdue. I started my first night back home. At first it was awkward. My entire family all went to bed at the same time. (My kids, older teenagers, don't like being up without mom and dad) No one even asked me why I was doing it, LOL. That's the weird part.

Going to bed early means one thing. Waking up early.   
What is there to do early when you get up at 4-5am? Not really a whole lot, so I decided to make that my Bible study time. I spent 2-3 hours studying the Bible from that point on every weekday morning, and then I began craving more so I started doing a weekend day here and there as well.

I had never had a consistent time in the Word before. I never really took the time to make it a habit. But now I was so enthralled with the Word of God, it was new and exciting and I was learning things I never knew were in there! I began to learn more about who God really is!

(It's been almost a year now, I still don't like going to bed so early but I do love my quiet mornings. And I do need to go to bed early now. I am tired enough to sleep by 8:00!)

SO....

When this year's retreat came up I honestly didn't expect to get much out of it.

I was/am still kind of feeling that mountaintop experience I got last year because I am still loving God's word and how God is changing me through it!

So I went for the fun of it. For the fellowship, with hopes of growing new friendships. But never really expected to hear from God again so clearly.

I figured I got my amazing moment last year. This year there were so many new ladies coming with us, it was their turn, right?

Oh, you just wait...
With our retreats how they are usually done is, you go into a room and you decide which bed you want. In it, there will be a tiny envelope with a special Scripture  card just for you. Everyone has a different verse. Then on Saturday morning you also get a "Letter from God" that is just for you. These cards were prayerfully placed upon each bed before anyone arrived. And we were instructed to pray before choosing our letter from the box. 

So I read my verse on Friday afternoon. "Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God."  

I honestly had no idea why this was my verse. It didn't "speak" to me or bring anything to mind. But I decided I would dwell on it later.

So Saturday came along and we got our letters. I tucked mine into my bag to read later. After getting our letters we are encouraged to find a place to be alone when we read them and spend some good quality time with the Lord. After all, that is why we were there!

So I found my nice cozy spot  in front of a peaceful waterfall. I opened my Scripture verse and decided to dwell on it a bit. I wrote it out. I looked up the definitions of many of the words. I decided that God must be telling me that I need to pray more about the things in my life rather than sit back and wait for things to happen in my life.

"Okay, Lord, I got it. Pray more. I will. Thank you."

Can you tell I wasn't really taking this seriously at this point? Remember I wasn't expecting God to do much with me this year. 

Now on to my "Letter from God"

I open up my letter and before I even finish reading it my eyes are tearing up! seven times in a fairly short letter I see the word, "PRAY" and in the middle of all of it "Prayer is your most powerful resource."    WHOA!

I could not believe it. Here I was thinking I would not get a blessing this time because God would be busy working on others this time. I was putting God in a teeny tiny box. Did you know God is capable of reaching EVERYONE at the same time?  Well, I thought I knew that. I doubted it tremendously without even realizing I was doing it. And he just knocked me upside the head saying "Don't you know how far my arms can reach?"

WOW-WOW-WOW! God, you are so amazing! Perfect and mighty above all things!

Did you catch the number of times I said I saw the word "pray"?

SEVEN.

The number of perfection/completion.

a year ago I had heard God's voice speak to me loud and clear.
The rest of the year I was hearing him talk to me through his Word.
But for the most part I wasn't devoting much time at all to talking to him. He was doing all the talking. What kind of relationship would it be if only one person did ALL of the talking? Not a very PERFECT or COMPLETE one, would it?

Seven times. Pray. My relationship cannot be complete if I don't start talking.

So I encourage you to do the same. You don't need a special scripture card or a "love letter" from a special box to get you started. You don't need to go on a retreat either.


Retreat to your own private place. A park, a tucked away place off of a walking or hiking path. A corner of a library or even your own bedroom or prayer closet will work too. God can reach us anywhere! 

Your love letter is your Bible. God spoke every single living Word into that precious treasure of books all combined into one book. It is His love letter to us. And when you get into it you can hear God speaking directly to your heart. 

But before opening that book, pray. Seek God's direction. Ask Him to highlight the verses specifically meant for you at this very moment in your life. 

He may show you answers. He may show you direction. He may reveal a sin in your life that you never knew was there! And with each word you will grow to know more of who He is, and more of who YOU are. What a beautiful relationship that will be. 

Confession time

Confession Time:

I have been a Christian my entire life.

Nope. I only thought I was. I was a "good person" my whole life. But I learned many, many years ago that this is not possible. I was a fairly well behaved person, followed most of the rules, tried not to cause any problems for anyone, tried to be polite and responsible, tried not to tell lies, tried to always be kind to others, kept my language fairly clean, never smoked anything, never touched drugs or alcohol except for the one teeny, tiny sip of champagne on my wedding night.

I was good, right?  In my own eyes, and maybe others saw me as good too. But my own eyes lied to me. Other people's eyes didn't matter then either. The only eyes that matter are GOD's eyes.

I was comparing myself to others. What I should have been comparing myself to was Jesus and God's rules for living in His will.

When I finally realized that, I became His child. I accepted the amazing gift He gave me and decided to let Him come into my heart, to be my Lord and Savior.

But I did it wrong.

I lied to myself again. I believed that as long as I stayed "good" and said those "magic words" at the foot of the altar one Wednesday evening in a youth group that I was good to go.

Wrong again.

I was going to church every Sunday, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night. I went to every possible church event and fellowship gathering, Bible studies, Christian concerts, I did it all.

But when I got home I lived MY LIFE. I did what I wanted to do. Nothing "bad" just not necessarily God's will. I wasn't seeking Him on the plain old ordinary day during the week when there wasn't a church activity planned. Honestly, I wasn't seeking Him on Sunday after 1:00pm!

I have heard those words over and over...and over again. "You need to be in the WORD OF GOD"
And I would sit there and nod my head I agreement and say to myself, "Yep, you all should listen."

I was in the Word, a lot...or so I thought. I went to all of these functions, I heard God's word here and there repeatedly. I took extensive notes during 95% of the sermons I heard, I followed along in my Bible, I only listened to Christian radio stations, A LOT, they not only sing but they read God's word all day long, I even have pictures, signs plaques, pens, folders, books, everything I could find with scripture verses printed on them. I was surrounded by God's Word! Oh I was IN God's word alright!

Wrong again.

I realize now that throughout all of these years I wasn't really growing or changing. I was alive, very much alive but barely but if I were a plant I probably had yellowing leaves! I wasn't growing. Just getting enough of the living water to keep me from dying but not allowing me to grow into the beautiful plant I was meant to be, with fruit!

It was only just a few months ago that I realized what it really meant to be IN God's Word.
It meant to devote myself to reading from the Bible. Studying it. Soaking it all up.
I began in October and since then I have spent 1  to 3 hours almost every day (still working on consistency) reading his Word. 

I have never felt so filled before. In my reading and studying, I have finally learned what it truly means to fear the Lord. I have learned lessons on OBEDIENCE, being patient, on trusting God, on faithfulness. I have read about God's providence and His protection. 

I have gotten to know God on a deeper level. I feel like I finally invited Him into my home rather than keeping him as close as the neighbor next door.

So, I encourage you, if you aren't opening your Bible on a consistent basis and really reading it, trust me, you are missing out on one of the greatest blessings there are! I promise you it will change your life!

And if by chance this post is helpful in encouraging you to start a new devoted time with the Lord in His beautiful Word, please let me know so I can pray for you and encourage you.

God Bless.

 

Confession time

Confession Time:

I have been a Christian my entire life.

Nope. I only thought I was. I was a "good person" my whole life. But I learned many many years ago that this is not possible. I was a fairly well behaved person, followed most of the rules, tried not to cause any problems for anyone, tried to be polite and responsible, tried not to tell lies, tried to always be kind to others, kept my language fairly clean, never smoked anything, never touched drugs or alcohol except for the one teeny tiny sip of champagne on my wedding day.

I was good, right?  In my own eyes, and maybe others saw me as good too. But my own eyes lied to me. Other people's eyes didn't matter then either. The only eyes that matter are GOD's eyes.

I was comparing myself to others. What I should have been comparing myself to was Jesus and God's rules for living on this planet.

When I finally realized that, I became His child. I accepted the amazing gift He gave me and decided to let Him come into my heart, to be my Lord and Savior.

But I did it wrong.

I lied to myself again. I believed that as long as I stayed "good" and said those "magic words" at the foot of the altar one Wednesday evening in a youth group that I was good to go.

Wrong again.

I was going to church every Sunday, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night. I went to every possible church event and fellowship gathering, Bible studies, Christian concerts, I did it all.

But when I got home I lived MY LIFE. I did what I wanted to do. Nothing "bad" just not necessarily God's will. I wasn't seeking Him on the plain old ordinary day during the week when there wasn't a church activity planned. Honestly, I wasn't seeking Him on Sunday after 1:00pm!

I have heard those words over and over...and over again. "You need to be in the WORD OF GOD"
And I would sit there and nod my head I agreement and say to myself, "Yep, you all should listen."

I was in the Word, a lot...or so I thought. I went to all of these functions, I heard God's word here and there repeatedly. I took extensive notes during 95% of the sermons I heard, I followed along in my Bible, I only listened to Christian radio stations, A LOT, they not only sing but they read God's word all day long, I even have pictures, signs plaques, pens, folders, books, everything I could find with scripture verses printed on them. I was surrounded by God's Word! Oh I was IN God's word alright!

Confession: wrong again.

I realize now that throughout all of these years I wasn't really growing or changing. I was alive, very much alive but barely but if I were a plant I probably had yellowing leaves! I wasn't growing. Just getting enough of the living water to keep me from dying but not allowing me to grow into the beautiful plant I was meant to be, with fruit!

It was only just a few months ago that I realized what it really meant to be IN God's Word.
It meant to devote myself to reading from the Bible. Studying it. Soaking it all up.
I began in October and since then I have spent up to 2 and a half hours every morning minus a weekend morning here and there (still working on consistency) reading his Word.

I have never felt so filled before. This past few weeks I have finally learned what it truly means to fear the Lord. I have learned lessons on being patient, on trusting God, on faithfulness. I have read about God's providence and His protection.
I have gotten to know God on a deeper level. I feel like I finally invited Him into my home rather than keeping him as close as the neighbor next door.

So, I encourage you, if you aren't opening your Bible on a consistent basis and really reading it, trust me, you are missing out on one of the greatest blessings there are! I promise you it will change your life!

And if by chance this post is helpful in encouraging you to start a new devoted time with the Lord in His beautiful Word, please let me know so I can pray for you and encourage you.

God Bless.

 

How did THAT happen?

My daughter read something interesting to me the other day and it literally dumbfounded me.
 "Years ago everyone had horses and only the rich owned cars. Today everyone has a car and only the rich have horses."

JAW-HITS-THE-FLOOR (I literally sat there staring at here with my mouth wide open for like 30 seconds!)

Seriously?

First of all, why did that affect me so strongly hearing that said out loud?

But second, really? How did that even happen?

Here I am wishing I was "rich enough" to own a horse of my own, something I have wanted since I was in 6th grade, I hear that simple sentence and I am floored.

Do you think maybe, just maybe, it will reverse itself again someday and I may be able to own a horse when I am 90?

One can only hope.

Onions, Onions, aah aah aah!

Could someone please tell me WHY, just WHY,

 would the first person to ever cut an onion, 

eyes burning, 

tears streaming down the face-- 

WHY would they proceed to TASTE IT?
And then when it stung the tongue, 

why would they not then RUN FROM IT?!

Why did that insane person have to go and add it to food 

and discover that it helps food taste better? 

Frankly, I could do without

 but knowing what I am missing now

 makes it that much harder to say no to onions.

I really wish we could eat them without all the pain.

But on a serious note, for the past few months every time I cook with onions it makes everyone's eyes in the house burn painful for the rest of the night, Anyone got any ideas why this may be all of a sudden? It is actually getting to the point where we decided to not cook with onions the other day because none of us wanted our eyes burning all night . :( 

Camping Trip

So we just got back from an almost week long camping trip with friends from church. We had an amazing time. I was extremely impressed with the fact that everyone that we knew from only seeing them through church activities was true to character the entire time we were camping with them. I fully expected to see a side of some that I didn't want to know existed. New friendships were made that I am pretty excited about as well. God truly blessed us all on this trip.

Just a few short memories from each day so I don't forget.

Wednesday: Road trip was comfortable and relaxing.
Bruce passed us up, we ran into them at a convenience store.
Got to camp, used detective work to figure out it was our group because no one was there. Jeff's flip flops, Mike's Trader Joe stuff, Nancy's Bible.
Soon as we put the tent up the wind started picking up and the storm rolled in. Rain started falling pretty hard just as dinner was about to be made. It POURED for the longest 45 minutes in history (wink wink)
Mike grilled hamburgers under an umbrella with a metal spatula under a thundering storm!
Kids took shelter in the shower because "It's warm and there are seats. Ready? Go!" (says Nate to Carissa who stood motionless and watched him run away. LOL
Our tent and the Ivey tent had a late night laugh fest. Asked to quiet down by the Breed tent. LOL.

Thursday: Crawfishing, "Levi was a trooper" Caught approximately 300 crawfish that night.
Ivey's made Indian tacos, yummm
Most went to Leman caves. Andrea and I went to the town to do laundry. Enjoyed wonderful conversation. Jeff took the girls to the lake. (Jessi, Trinity, Carissa)


Friday: Fishing/swimming/Levi in raft. Went back to camp to make dinner. Chili and 4 hour baked potatoes. Jeff, "Where's my dinner?"
Mike cut finger, "all the time" but rarely ever cut's himself. Broke his toe later that night. John and Levi went crawfishing alone at night.

Saturday: "Fishing date" with Karl. John caught "brown trout" I caught 4 rainbows. Kids went with rest to 4th of July parade. Leftover night, bacon wrapped hot dogs, fajitas, chili dogs, fried potatoes. Giovanni scares all the kids. Pinterest rockets were a dud. :(


Sunday: First cold morning. No more firewood. clear blue skies for the first time since we got there. Got to see a deer as I was praying by myself in the early morning.
Jeff, Andrea and Giovanni offered to pay for us to go to brunch with everyone else at Hotel Nevada. Jeff at time to pay, "I told them first."   Linus in a purse under the table. Such a good boy!

My Bible Study Today: James Chapter 1

Funny I have "had to," through different bible studies going on with different people, read and or study James chapter 1 and 2 3-4 times in the past 4 weeks. Think God is trying to tell me something?

So skipping over meditation on my favorite verses this time I decided to focus on the other verses to see what I have been missing.

I have a question about verse 10. "But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position..." This verse always makes me go "huh?" I honestly don't get it. Any opinions on what this might mean? I would love a discussion in the comments. :)

vs 20 spoke to me loud and clear! I am now holding a holy ice pack on my head from getting hit with this one. I am USUALLY ALWAYS (lol) very calm and collected and shake my head at people who outburst and don't take the time to understand others before jumping to conclusions. But last week when a lady backed into my car and ripped of the bumper on my brand new (to me) car I panicked and yelled "This is a brand new car, don't you look where you are going when you back up!?!?" I didn't even think to ask her if she was okay.

Afterward I had to tell my husband to handle things for me and I sat in my car and hid.
I have felt so much guilt over this since then.

This is totally out of my character and I honestly have no idea where this came from. An old friend and pastor of mine said to us once "When you are squeezed what comes out? This is what your heart is made of."   In this very situation I have to say I don't believe that to be true because that was definitely not me that came out. I am embarrassed and guilt-ridden because of it.

But that's just me being stubborn.
So today I am healing and learning from all of that and diving into God's word a little more purposeful than ever before. Seeking to find Scripture that I can memorize for those times when I may be squeezed in the future.

Verses 22-25, are more favorites. When I read these I want to glue a mirror to the front of my Bible. LOL. I feel it is SO SO SO important to read God's word. I happen to know a few Christians who only pick up their Bible's on Sunday on the way out the door to church. I used to be one of them. I wonder what your opinion is of these kinds of Christians? Can a person saved truly be a Christian if they never read God's word on their own?

This led me to a study on verse 22 "...humbly accept the word planted in you."

This is where I will spend the rest of my study time today.

December 2014

Here's a little story I've got to tell about how amazing God is and how HE provided for my family this month! My heart is so full!

The end of the year has been a doozie!

Going all the way back to August: Finally found a doctor who gave me the option of a hysterectomy to finally be rid of my health issue I had been dealing with for almost 4 years. I can live a normal life again! Thank you Lord for allowing me to finally get in to see Dr S!

August was financially tough because we had to work hard to save up the money for my surgery, fast!

September I didn't get much done as I was healing and unable to really go anywhere for a few weeks.

October, almost done healing but only able to go out for very short shopping trips to the grocery store.

November: Here is where the fun begins!

At the end of October (I think) Jessi had a sleep over at a friends house. Well that night Levi was watching a movie in her room and discovered that water was leaking from the ceiling. And it wasn't raining. uh-oh.  
We learned it was a condenser or something that has to do with the A/C in the crawl space above her room. We were able to stop the leak but there was still water in the ceiling, this is not good.
So we notify the landlord. No reply.
A couple of days later the spring breaks on the garage door.  Notify landlord, no reply.
So a couple of days later he writes a long email basically saying repairs like this have always been our responsibility and if we didn't want to be responsible for taking care of the property then he would let us out of the lease because he doesn't even want the house anymore.

A couple of days later John sees a man in the driveway of the vacant house 3 doors down and he goes to introduce himself to see if he can get some side work for extra Christmas money.  The guy turns out to be the homeowner. After talking to him for about 10 minutes John is handed the keys and has a job fixing up the place and also an offer to rent his house for the exact same rent we were paying with his work as a deposit instead of money!  Who does this? GOD DOES, that's who!

So November began the moving process: No school this month because we have two houses to prepare for moving out of/into.

Halfway into November while sitting in church both John and I were convicted about the fact that we have never been faithful in tithing. We would tithe probably once or twice a year for one or two weeks and then "oh not this week because we need every dollar from this check" And of course next week we did too...

But this time we vowed to begin tithing and not stop for ANY reason.

During this time Johns work started forcing overtime and 5 ten hour days a week, plus a Saturday here and there.  Well with all the work needing to be done at home John ended up calling off of work every Friday in November.

DECEMBER:

The first Tuesday in December John was in a very minor, no injury, no damage accident at work and was suspended pending investigation.

The next Monday he was notified that he was fired because it seemed as if he was no longer taking his job seriously. After 10 years of being the safety conscious guy at work he gets tossed aside like trash when he needs this job the most. But oh well... this story isn't over!

So I immediately jump on Facebook pleading for work of any kind to help get us some money coming back in asap. Within a couple of hours John had several jobs lined up. Hanging Christmas lights, fixing things, moving rooms, and helping with a house remodel.
We had money coming in at exactly the pace we needed it!

Not only that but, we received a couple of cash gifts to help us out that were more than we "needed" from both our church family and our neighbors!
We also had a couple of surprise meals that came upon us from neighbors and our church family! They always came at the PERFECT time!

A side note, when John lost his job we had to explain to our kids that due to the surgery/healing/moving and now the job loss there would literally only be 1-2 gifts under the Christmas tree for each of them this year. Their reply,  with all their confidence and not the slightest hint of disappointment or wavering in the least... "That's okay"   I LOVE these kids!

What's funny is God's amazing timing. The day we sat down to work out our money and bills and said we have enough to get through this month one of the biggest cash gifts appeared in our hands!  It was so much that we were able to give some of it to someone else in need at this time. We got to work with her for a half a day cleaning a house together. :)

And then God's timing was amazing when we sat down one evening and I asked John what the plan was as far as looking for work.

He was going back and forth between looking for a job or trying to see if he could make this side job/handyman thing a full time business. And he was so busy with all the little jobs that he didn't have time to look for a job. 

This is where the union became our friend.  His name had been passed on to another company and they wanted to hire him but we had to wait to hear from them.

So this evening while we were talking John said something to me and my reply was "But what if that is not what God has planned?"  And less than a minute later the phone rings, at 5:30 in the evening, asking John to come in for an interview in 2 days!  

So as it stands today, with all of God's providence and love and support from family, friends and church family we had an amazing Christmas! I have never felt so loved in all my life! We truly are grateful for all God has done and the relationships he has built for us through this month.

Today John is working with Mike on finishing up that remodeling job, they are putting in flooring together. That job single handedly paid our rent this month. Although it was a tough job working for some difficult personalities the job was such a blessing! We are so thankful.

As of now all of our bills are paid as needed. And John starts his new job in 2 days.

We have food in our house to get us through a few more days and then a surprise check awaiting us at Republic will no doubt be enough for a few more groceries. We also have another grocery gift card waiting to be delivered to us probably on Tuesday from a dear friend.

During this entire time we have not stopped tithing, we have been faithful to God and trusted in Him to take care of our every need and He did!  Just like he promised because of our faithfulness.
We were prepared to trust Him no matter what happened. We prepared for the worst but God gave us the best! There are so many things my heart is feeling after all of this and none of it can I seem to express with words.

I have cried more this month than I have in years due to the overwhelming sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, LOVE, JOY, PEACE, and other feelings that I don't even know what to call them!

GOD is GOOD! Seek him and you will find him. And once you find him hold on with every ounce of your being to Him. He won't let you go, for any reason.

Thought for the day

Here is one of my entertaining thoughts of the day....

I would like to know who in the world decided that a girl should take a sharp razor blade and scrape it across her legs and under her arms on a regular basis to remove hair that God intended to be there. And then who in the world decided it would be a major faux pas if a girl chooses NOT to do this???

Meet Michaela

 Meet Michaela.

She is a young (27 years old) mom of 4 beautiful children. Matthew, 8
Faith, 7, Emily, 6 and Elijah, 2

I never got to REALLY get to know her.
I liked her, quite a bit. But circumstances got in the way of me getting able to form a real loving relationship with her.

2 years ago Michaela was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma. It started as a dark strange growth on the back of her calf.
When she had it checked out we were all stunned to hear the results.
She fought hard. HARD! She had thee best attitude about "kicking cancer's butt!"  
She received a test result after fighting for over a year and a half. "They found NED. (No Evidence of Disease"
It was over!
Then 2 months later she became extremely sick.
a month later after visiting doctors repeatedly with no answers, an MRI was finally done.
The result: a cluster of cancerous tumors behind her eyes.
2 weeks later she had become even more sick, she became incoherent. She was placed on in home hospice care.
2 weeks later Michaela lost her fight to cancer.
I hate cancer.
As I write this I remember a "nana" to my children who lost her battle to cancer after just a few short months.
And even more saddening is as I write this our church family is praying for another young mom of 4 who has been told nothing can be done about her cancer that has reached her brain. My heart aches.

I hate cancer.

The above picture is of one of the last times I saw her. I gave her those Monkey gifts for Christmas. For the past week I have replayed that moment in my mind about a thousand times. Her smile was contagious. Her laugh was too. She had an awesome sense of humor. She made fun of herself. She loved her babies. She was a good mom to her kids. She loved people.

Now her kids are separated and living in separate homes. Situations are not ideal. My heart is broken for all of them.

I do not know if she made the decision to follow Jesus or not. So I don't know where she is today. But I hope that when I get to Heaven I hope to see her there! I hope to find her drinking from a monkey cup and seeing her smile.

Anyhow, I just wanted to write this as a way of remembering her. So I can look back at her pictures often and be reminded of how fragile life really is. How every second counts.

This world seems to be falling apart. It seems at times there are no more seams holding it all together. Soon it will be a pile of string on the floor.

I am so thankful I have my Savior, Jesus Christ, to catch me before I hit the floor.

 

Good bye, Michaela :)

"Lucky Bread"

Bought this bread this afternoon. If you look closely you'll see that the bread is laying on its side in the bag. These are the kids of things that give me a little chuckle in a normal day. I get so excited to see something a little out of the ordinary that I literally took this bag to each member of my family to show them and laugh about it again and again! Just thought I would share it with you too. :)

My friend Ted said it is a "Lucky Loaf"

Home School: Love it or Leave it?

First and foremost, we will not be leaving it. :)  I have seen so many positive changes in both of my kids already so that tells me the was one of the best decisions we have ever made for our kids.

When we first decided to take on home schooling I was scared. I wasn't sure I would have the discipline to do it every day as much as needed to be done. So we decided to use an online public school program, the fact that it was a free program made it even ore possible to start sooner. So we thought it was going to be perfect.

The first day was scary, up until the morning before we logged in we had no idea what to expect. Partly because the school did a poor job of explaining to us how things were going to work.
We spent most of the day listening to teacher after teacher telling us the same things over ad over. And I learned that listening to a faceless person talk all day long was completely boring.

But once things started rolling school work wise we all started feeling overwhelmed very quickly. The kids were working their very best, as far as I could tell, but they were not able to finish everything in a day. We were working from morning until far after dinner and still not getting everything done that was on their agenda for the day. We were all feeling very defeated. There were many times I had to walk outside to hide my frustration and to keep from crying.

I started researching online and talking to people in our home school group about other options.

Finally after just 3 weeks of this I talked to my husband about it and we decided to quit, cold turkey. We gave notice and began winging it.  Last week was our first week and it was amazing. We had fun, we learned more about each other already, we got so much done!

Here is how we are doing things for now.

 We started out with the basics.
Math, Science and Reading/Language Arts are most important so I knew we should start there.

Week One Independent:
Started off the day with a writing prompt that I found on various internet sites. I just let the kids free write which is one of their favorite things to do. This gave me time to settle into my day and I knew my kids would love this because it is one of heir favorite things to do.

We also read from our favorite books just for fun, with no agenda.

For math we found a free program on KhanAcademy.org  It started out with a pretest and takes the info from that test to cater a program just for that individual and begins teaching one lesson at a time. You have to get 5 problems right in a row in order to move on to the next lesson. I actually have an account  as well and whenever they do their lessons I do mine to brush up on my own skills. ;)

For English/Language Arts we are using a website with another free program called FreeWorldU.org  It's a flashcard system that teaches almost everything in every grade level, they also have math and science and even lessons on manners and internet etiquette! As well as training for medical school! LOL  With this program is where we have the most fun learning, so far. We have learned a lot about what each of us knows by trying to guess the answers before looking at the "other side of the cards"

For science we have been doing science experiments from various sites and kits I have been collecting. And on other days I watch a TV show from the science channel the night before and write questions and quiz them on what they learned after watching it the next day. Then we look up more information on each topic afterward if we have any questions.

For their "electives" we are planning to create some sort of art program to follow for my daughter and Levi is continuing to attend his previous Jr High school for his guitar education.

Oh and we have a World history curriculum that was shared with us with is a Christian Curriculum that focuses on God throughout the lesson.

I Took the Plunge

It's official.

I am a home school mom. Whew!

I actually finally did it.

Ever since my kids were tiny I secretly wished I could keep my kids home and teach them myself.

I honestly didn't know how legal home schooling was. I kind of thought that people were kind of cheating the system when they said they were doing it.

But every couple of years my husband and I would visit a new church and each time there were more home schooling moms than the last church we belonged too.  About 5 years ago we started going to our current church where I would venture to guess at least 80% of the kids are home schooled!  And not only that but they all belong to the same home schooler's group. Olive Tree.

My son started junior high 2 years ago and things got a little scary for me. I saw how horrible the kids were these days, my kid had a small bout with harassment from another kid. Mine was blamed for doing something that I fully believe he didn't do and so did the dean of students at the time, she backed my kid up! Which I was sincerely grateful for. And my poor kid fell "in love" with a girl and got into a pickle in that situation as well. Noting major, but nothing I was prepared to deal with already. :/

Not only that but he was getting into trouble at home for not getting good grades, he was failing classes, not turning in assignments, just doing enough to pass his tests so he didn't fail the classes. This did not sit well with me. Not to mention he would come home telling me stories he had learned in his science class that I definitely didn't think were right. (We won't go there.)

Then there was just my side of the story. I missed my kids! On any given school day this is what would happen.  We all get up, kids would get ready for school but every time one of them would hold still for more than 30 seconds either myself or my husband would start running of a checklist, "Did you do this? did you do that?"  No quality conversations were had all morning. no time for that.
Off to school they went. 7 hours later we returned home to have the same conversation every single day. How was your day? What did you learn today? (reply was almost always 'I don't know") What do you have for homework?

The rest of the evening was homework, homework, dinner, one tiny little chore because we still have homework to do, homework, shower, bed. No time for fun, smiles, laughter, conversation, LIFE.

Did you notice something missing? God. yea, Him.  I found out that I was saying to my kids, "We need to do our Bible study" every day but it kept getting put off until tomorrow because we didn't have the time.

So I finally sat my husband down and asked him what he thought. My husband, the love of my life, I sincerely love this man... He loved the idea and in fact had kind of wanted me to do it all along but never thought I wanted to or I would have already been doing it. Can you tell we both think we know each others thoughts more than we actually talk about them to each other??? :sigh:

So the ball got rolling...We signed up for an online school and started home schooling the last week of August. Woo-hoo!

We have had tremendous support from everyone in the Olive Tree/church group we belong to and we are all so excited to see how the school year will play through this year.

tomorrow...Homeschool, love it or leave it?

Changes

1There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 

This year has been a doozy!

Actually, I should say this past summer was a doozy!

 

I called it our season of change because for a few weeks it seems as if "My life got flipped, turned upside down. And I had to take a minute, just sit right there and tell you how I..."  made it through it all.

 

PRAYER

 

I am so thankful I have a God who stands by me no matter what, who I can turn to at any time of the day and say, "Um, Lord, YOU do this, because I can't."

 

In a nutshell this is what this summer brought us..

~A decision to homeschool

~A decision for my husband to accept a new job, in the middle of nowhere.

~A decision for our family to move closer to where he'd be working.

~A Diagnosis of high blood pressure (diet changes)

~A Diagnosis of Diabetes (more diet changes)

~A minor surgery (first surgery ever)

 

All of this happened in about a month!  Every one of these situations is a MAJOR event and every of them cause a tremendous amount of stress and a couple of those that were listed were increased by stress which caused more stress about stressing to much about the stress... "Um, Lord? No more. Please?"

 

But in time everything worked itself out.

 

We did decide to homeschool our kids this year, which I will go into more detail about in a future blog.

 

My husband decided a couple of days before turning in his 2 weeks notice at work that this just wasn't what he thought God wanted us to do.

 

That took care of the moving- Woo-hoo!

 

Blood pressure has been staying under control with medications so far, to be tested later to see how diet changes are taking effect.

 

Diabetes diagnosis was later determined to be only PRE-Diabetes, however I have changed my diet tremendously and I am feeling much better. I lost 10 pounds in 4 weeks. This is the first time I have ever LOST weight on purpose. However I did slip back into bad habits about 2 weeks later and those dreadful pounds found their way back to my scale somehow. But as of Monday I have been back on my lifestyle change and I hope I don't fall back again so soon.

 

And the surgery went well. It was just a small removal of a lump on my head that was about the size of a pencil eraser. I wasn't worried about the actual surgery. What made me slightly uneasy was it was my first time going under anesthesia. Didn't know what to expect. It was a very weird experience but I am good now. Part of my head is numb still, and a small piece of the incision is still very tender but it seems to be healing well.

 

Thank you, Lord.

 

 

 

 

 

2013 Already?

Back in elementary school weren't we writing about what life would be like by the time this year came along? Is it anything like what you imagined? I'm still looking for the flying cars? Anyone know if they're coming any time soon? I know they are driving by themselves or at least close to it anyway. WOW.

So it is once again January in a brand new year. Do you make New Year's resolutions? I don't like to say that I do, but I think I do. I never say it out loud though. Every year I say I'm gonna do better, gonna make changes, gonna get organized, healthy, smarter, closer to God and  skinnier. But by the end of January I have forgotten all about that. Then I slowly throughout the year make a monthly resolution, or a summer resolution, or even weekly resolutions. I'm a wannabe resolution keeper, I guess.

Only one resolution that I have made can I remember ever actually being successful with. That is keeping the stairs free of stuff! Not sure how long ago I decided it but I had the same talk I have had with my family over and over again but this time it clicked with all of us and we have had clear and free stairs in our house for over 9 months! Even through the SUMMER! Quite impressive- to me anyway.

But once again I have made those "arrangements" with myself to do all those things and so far I am pretty proud of my efforts.(I don't call them promises because if they were promises I would have kept them in the past years.) I haven't ever done this well before. This time my main focus was on simplifying our life a little. We have a tendency to collect cluttering stuff all over our house. Just too much stuff laying around waiting for that "what if.." day to come.
Time to pack it up and ship it out.

 So far we have thrown out at least 2 huge trash bags full of junk. Loaded up several boxes of donatables, and even passed a few things off to neighbors. And we have only scratched the surfaces! There is still a lot of detailing to do and more digging to see what else we can find.

So lets see how well I'm doing by this time next week. :)
How are your resolutions going so far?

A year?

Really? A whole year, minus 6 days, since I have been here. What is wrong with me? Haha. I am so not good at this blogging stuff.

Well here I am with my 3rd attempt. Or 4th. Or have I reached 5 or 6 tries now? Oh well.

Today I am officially an AUNT! Well sort of. I have nieces by marriage. My husband had a brother and a sister. Together they have 5 girls. Beautiful girls! But my brother, full blooded brother has finally had his first child, a little boy named Elijah James. I have yet to see the little guy's face though and it is driving me crazy!

You see, up there at the top of my post is the one and only picture I have seen so far. No face! Grr. I am trying so hard to be patient but I don't know how much more I have in me. LOL.

Honestly I have so much to do today and I can't concentrate. so I better get off of this here computer thingy and get back to work. Maybe even skip the work and go to the hospital to see the baby face for myself. That is if they'll let me take my kids in there too. :)

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...