Looking At Gain as GOD and Not Stuff.

by admin on March 12, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Mama Heart Mushings, My Year of Right Sacrifice-TIME with 1 Comment

I ask my child to come spend time with me… perhaps I am running some errands and want their company and want to include my child. My child looks up at me and says ‘Will it be fun? Will I get a treat?’, basically saying ‘What’s in it for me?’. I reply ‘No treats, it will be fun if you decide it will be fun… it is about being with me.’ My child looks disappointed and says ‘No thanks.’ and my heart breaks in great disappointment. Later I take my child out for a special afternoon dedicated to my child alone and this child expects even more to the point of declaring the day ‘not very fun at all’ Again my heart breaks.

Would I, could I, be as patient with this child as my heavenly Father has been with me? Would I look at my child and understand he or she is just a short sighted child or would I become angry and give up on trying to spend time bonding with my child…

Has God felt that same sorrow, caused by my selfishness and treat seeking view of our relationship? Do I act like that, seeking what I want from Jesus, treats, rewards; instead of seeking MY FATHER?

A conversation I heard between my husband and my boy just the other day reminded me of times I have faced this type of exchange with my eldest daughter. When my man ended the conversation with a statement similar to the one below I was blessed with understanding about my Jesus and me.

‘If you come with me, while I do my work, we will find fun together and in one another. Our relationship will grow buddy! And I will have time to love you directly and you me. If you don’t come because you see no self serving benefit YOU are the one who will loose out.’

Can I sacrifice my ‘me me list’, my desire for treats in my walk with Christ, my desire to be rewarded for every bit of good I managed to do (which by the way is only possible through Christ and not me alone). Can I give this all up and just LOVE MY GOD?

TTFN

Sad

by admin on March 9, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, People In My Heart with 3 Comments
(Look at that sunbeam! Wishing for such a glow on my rocker today…)

As soon as I got home from the mom’s group I go to I took off my nice outfit and put on the comfies… which apparently isn’t a word so how about frumpies…, reached for the ‘I’m sad’ comforting grey sweater because being sad always leaves me chilled. I wanted to make my favorite curry egg salad sandwich and have it with pickles but I was already too tired to make it and the chocolate bar was just sitting there in my fridge…where did you come from? Oh well, I know where you are going! A cup of tea and a bowl of cinnamon smothered granola is all I can handle preparing right now and then I have to hit the rocking chair… a nap is on the horizon… I am going to curl up in the fetal position and wish there was a sunbeam to warm me up instead of a cloudy damp day that encourages my mood.

It all comes from crying all morning…

Which resulted from another fight with my eldest…

Which makes my Mama heart want to break…

So emotional I kept tearing up at mom’s group over the littlest things… I cried on the way home because there was an emotional song on the radio (had nothing to do with my circumstances but he sure sounded passionate and sad).

It isn’t a crushed kinda sad, in fact I feel very far removed from depression… I just get tired when I cry hard and then the tears keep sneaking out the rest of the day sometimes. I saw the victory and the hope… before she left today we where able to hug and share kisses… The patch up job came from a strength beyond me, it came from Jesus and I am so grateful today for his direct interest in my family dynamics and relationships!

Well my tea is ready and the granola is calling my name…

TTFN

Victoria Awake (the album)

by admin on March 8, 2010 in Better Check Out Links, Music Flavor, People In My Heart with No comments

How can I not announce this for my big brother and gush a bit! I am so proud of Aaron (my brother) and Mike, a long time family friend, they are just so creative and passionate about their music!

Check out the above link and then feel free to support my older brother and his pal Mike by purchasing the new Victoria Awake album “High Hopes & Half Smiles”. The album is a minimum $6 purchase, but this site allows you to name your price and tip if you’re feeling generous. You also get to chose from several high quality audio formats. Don’t feel like buying …right now, you can stream the entire album from beginning to end online for free! Avoiding iTunes for the time being in order to avoid excessive admin costs.

TTFN

Career Woman, No, Involved Mom, YOU BET:)

by admin on March 7, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Life Keeps Changing, Mama Heart Mushings with 1 Comment

It’s been about 8 years since I last worked at a library… This was my field of work but when my first of four babies arrived I gladly put it aside to be at home. Now in a place where family is available and willing to help out and the older two are in a school near by I decided to start volunteering at their school library… one, to be involved in their school world and get a feel for the atmosphere they live out so much of their day in and two, to test the waters and see what it might feel like to work again.

I loved volunteering, it felt right and very familiar and the children where adorable BUT I knew almost immediately that I am no career woman. There was so much rush and restriction threw at me and my babies right away that I felt unhappy at the thought of doing this as a job. Volunteering I can still do it when it is right for me and my babies and so that is how it, ‘my career’, will remain for a long time.

If it wasn’t part of my kids world I wouldn’t pursue this, as much as the break from the home was nice I can think of better things to do FOR ME, if you will, then to return to ‘my career’. Waters tested and this Mama was assured that her heart is still very much at home with the four little eggs in my nest!

TTFN

Father and ALL POWERFUL Combined

by admin on March 7, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, My Year of Right Sacrifice-TIME with No comments
Lately I find myself learning about God in two different ways.In one breath, over and over, I am reminded to see my God through the eyes of a child, to see him as my father…
In the other breath I am finding a need to really appreciate how ALL POWERFUL he is and how FULL OF AWE he should make me…

The first lesson comes out in a new found trust in my Lord, a faith that continues growing as I learn how beautiful and unlimited his love it… it is setting me free in a new way and I embrace with desperate hands the things in this world, even my very place in this world, less and less…

The second lesson leaves me speechless. I want to proclaim, but I lack understanding, and in the end even speaking the name of Jesus seems so big, so powerful that I find his name will stick in my throat and I will get choked up. Music has returned to my life and what a wonder music is at such a time. How can I so easily and purely sing his name in song and yet specking it lately seems so BIG? More and more I am singing again in joyful anticipation of letting the name of JESUS gush from my heart to fall on my lips.

TTFN

MARCH’S HYMN!

by admin on March 5, 2010 in The Hymn Project with 2 Comments

Phew!

I am finding it a bit tricky to pick something out already! I discover as I look up the music for different hymns, I thought I didn’t know, childhood memories flood back. Memories of the small Mennonite chapel I attended and all the hymns I DID learn! I can look at the titles and read the lyrics and not have a clue till I hear the music. If I am not finding an old forgotten hymn I already knew I am finding very very difficult pieces that are probably not sang often for good reason, THEY ARE DIFFICULT! It took me a long time to find a pretty hymn that I could figure out and didn’t know already for this month and so with pleasure I present this months hymn!

‘Jesus Is All The World To Me’. I found the music soothing and dainty, warm and inviting Though it sounds a little daunting, I am learning that I seem to catch on pretty quick. Have a listen, by clicking on the title above, and tell me what you think!

Written by Will Lamartine Thompson, click on his name for a tiny bio that I found (couldn’t find much more). He also wrote ‘Softly and Tenderly’, which is a favorite of mine and also a very sweet song to sing. There seems to be a gentleness about his writings and I am drawn to that.

Well I am very excited to learn this pretty tune! I am having way to much fun doing this project!

TTFN

My Favorite Verse From February’s Hymn

by admin on March 2, 2010 in The Hymn Project with 1 Comment


Joys are flowing like a river, Since the Comforter has come;
He abides with us forever, Makes the trusting heart His home.

Blessed quietness, holy quietness— What assurance in my soul!
On the stormy sea He speaks peace to me.
How the billows cease to roll!

So happy to sing a song about peace and quietness of spirit all month long…
and with that…
March’s hymn will be chosen and a post should show up in the next day or so.
TTFN

PRAYER IN MARRIAGE (It Connects Us)

by admin on March 2, 2010 in Marriage Monday, My Romance, My Year of Right Sacrifice-TIME with 10 Comments
I wasn’t going to post for this months topic… I knew it would be more of a time of self examination and confession in this area.

I decided to go on with it and here is what came…

Prayer in our marriage has had its up and downs.

We started out, as young newly weds, with a plan to pray together every night but often as we went through problems that pulled us apart the praying together suffered too…

We have both changed so much that our prayer together has changes as well. When we first prayed together I was the charismatic Christian who prayed the loudest and in different forms and my humble husband prayed with a raw heart… now I am quiet when we pray together… I struggle to pray aloud with him and I don’t know why. He is so bold now, so strong and so wonderful to listen to.

I know we both pray for one another regularly and wrap our hard times in prayer for protection over our marriage but it is no longer a regular together thing for us.

HOWEVER, prayer is powerful in our lives and our life together (God uses it to connect us).

I will share this story to show hope is not dead and we will figure it out and I trust I will find my prayer voice in front of my husband once again.

(Story taken from a previous post on my old blog http://beckysmeanderingriver.blogspot.com/)

I struggled to hold on to my third pregnancy… I became too weak to pray, a scary and low position to be in.

I caught two stomach flu’s in a row and had a sever sinus infection on top of that, which left me unable to keep food down. I lost ten pounds a month in my first few months of pregnancy.
In my lowest point I was unable to get off the couch. My mother had to come stay with us so the kids would be taken care of when my husband was at work. All I could do was sleep. I was too sick to even talk much.
One night I lay alone on the couch after my family had gone to bed. I felt awful and totally alone and helpless… In my heart I desired to pray but was so tired. All I could do was cry and whisper, “Help me Jesus… please…”
All of a sudden my husband came bounding up the stairs. I love him dearly but I know he hadn’t realised how sick I was until this moment. He said he was trying to sleep but every time he closed his eyes he saw me crying out to Christ for help and he knew the Lord wanted him to understand how I was feeling because I was to ill to communicate it myself. We sat there and he held me and I wept…
WOW, whenever I recall this night I remember how loved I felt at that moment. It was such a real and personal way the Lord showed his love to me. He knew Garnet and I where limited by our male and femaleness and didn’t always communicate effectively so he stepped in to communicate to my man in a way that he would understand… I felt totally surrounded by love… the love of my husband and the LOVE OF MY GOD.

I am laughing about that situation in one regard now; it seems funny that we needed divine intervention in our marital communication skills:)

1st Monday Every Month at Chrysalis
Want this button?

TTFN

Cooking Shows and Baby Boy

by admin on February 27, 2010 in Four Little Eggs In My Nest, Mama Heart Mushings with 2 Comments
Each child is so unique you connect with them in such different ways. It is a wonderful surprise when you seek and find one of these connections.
My one year old surprised me when he climbed up on my lap as I watched a cooking show. He happily watched two cooking programs with me.
Siting perfectly still I almost didn’t notice my little lap warmer until he would point at the screen and go ‘Mmmmm!’ or ‘Ohhh wazzat?’
All the other kids could really care less about my cooking fetish but I might have a kindred spirit in this area in my Baby Boy.

TTFN

Tapestry

by admin on February 23, 2010 in Bits Of My Personality, Life Keeps Changing, My Romance with 4 Comments
MARK 4:32
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

And so often a mommy has a day where she doesn’t feel up to the task… she is so tired… so warn down… she just wants to go to bed… she wants the impossible… the impossible is being able to put her mommy job on pause.

It takes faith to hold it together.
It takes faith to be a mommy, faith that I am up to the task.
It takes faith to be a wife, faith that our marriage will go the distance.

Thankfully faith doesn’t intimidate me as it once did, it isn’t completely mystifying…

I know it is Gods will that I hold it together.
It is Gods will for me to be a good mommy to these four babes.
It is Gods will for me to be a wife and for our marriage to go the distance.
And in knowing his will in these areas, my faith is in him and from him.

Garnet came home with the above tapestry for me. He found it at a favorite store of mine and knew I would like it in our bedroom. Why did he do this? He felt lead to do it for me yesterday. This is his style… no reason other then he wanted to love me in this way, at this time. He didn’t know I was having one of those day… but he couldn’t have had better timing. He spoke the above verse to me as he gave me the gift. He felt it would be great to hang with the verse above it in the future.

Mommy’s don’t always get spoiled in such obvious ways when they are having one of THOSE DAYS or weeks, been there when it all seems to loom over your head for much longer then a mear day… but if we put our trust in Christ more about the mommy and wife stuff Christ will spoil us with the faith to make it through.

p.s. Right now my faith is pretty practical in one regard…I am having faith that naps will become more common in my house again:)

TTFN

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