Feeling Encouraged

Last night I was reading a blog of a friend i had not seen for about 15 years. I felt a prompting in my spirit to meet with her.  I facebooked her, naturally, and asked if she could possibly meet up today. I only had a small window of time that it would work but i felt that it was the Lord, so He would work it out if it was Him. Today when i turned on my iPad there were no notifications of new messages. I guessed she must not have received it yet. RIght before i was to travel the 1/2 hour jaunt to town, i thought i’d better check again. This time i logged into FB, and noticed a message that hadn’t showed up. It was my friend. She didn’t have to work today and was free to meet me this afternoon. My heart was glad. God must have a plan for this meeting. You know our father doesn’t do things by accident and He loves to surprise us. 

We met at a most undesirable spot but it worked. It was the only place that came to my mind. We caught up and shared our hearts with one another. She is a special woman. I am so proud of her. I know our Father is so pleased with her, i can feel His pleasure towards her. She, as well, is on her own faith journey. I could say it is much more difficult that mine. I think i would say that, but who am I to judge. I feel very encouraged by our visit and by her faith. I know this was the Lords doing by bringing us together. I am sad now that I wont be able to spend more time her, as we are moving on from here in a few days. Thank you friend for sharing with me today! And thank you Father for surprising me!

I was wondering if it is better to blog when you feel relatively normal or relatively abnormal. The latter has been me lately but in this moment i feel pretty ‘normal’. Sometime though i feel so overwelmed with life. God is faithful to redirect me to his word and I am very grateful for my husband and friends who offer encouragment. I can’t imagine having to go this life alone ~ I am very blessed.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds……  This is very hard. Or at least i am finding it very hard. Especially when your 8 yr old is in a whining fit and you just want to pull your own hair (current situation). I need to spend more time with my Father, His love is a warm blanket and i need His warmth. And in the larger picture beyond my own selfish needs, many others are desperate for his love and warmth. When was the last time you (and me) shared the love of God with someone?

Surprise!

Wow did i ever wake up to a surprise Saturday morning! My littlest on the kitchen counter surrounded by candy, spilt cinnamon, sugar and numerous other baking supplies. It was even scattered about half the kitchen floor! It was a disaster and i was mad. This wasn’t the first time she has gotten into stuff  but this was by far the worst. She had even dumped out every single one of my extracts, and i had about 5 (they are not cheap). As i examined and began to clean this mess i noticed a concoction that was made on the counter. It smelt of cinnamon and peppermint and i thought, humph, this is a bit to sophisticated for just my 2 yr old. And sure enough the 5 yr old had helped, but really didnt want to, she just couldn’t resist. I should have took a picture. I did think of it in the moment but the thought faded when i began to think of cleaning the mess. And to add all this happened at 6am, when i had no intentions of being awake. I really do laugh when i look back on it and wished i had taken the picture. And they were somewhat creative….. Thank you Jesus for my children and that they keep my life interesting.

New day

Thank you Lord for this new day. I had a good day today, I am so thankful. I have been feeling sadness lately so this day has been refreshing. I really didn’t accomplish all that much, but i did enjoy fellowship with some lovely ladies and spend some quality time with my little one. And i feel blessed. To top it off my 5 yr old tells me that she is telling kids and her teacher at school about God. She said she told them that God is bigger than the mountains and that he loves them so much and that they should love him with all their heart. Wow, what a way to warm my mother heart. I’m so thankful for this child, she is so bright! On a funny note, before this she told me that there is this funny boy in her class. He had told here that he had a dream about her. In the dream they were looking at each other face to face and they had hearts in their eyes. Hmmm I gotta wonder about that one : )

I’m back…….for now : )

Wow, I have been gone so long that wordpress looks quite different!

This what a typical day at my house is looks like:

I am awoken by my 3 beauties at a much too early hour, with stomping, screaming, and all things of the sort, oh and i forgot to mention jellybean stealing! I roll myself out of bed, some days its easy to roll, other days its like I’m cemented to the bed. Upstairs i go to sweet voices welcoming me. They really are so sweet despite all their faults. There is nothing like hearing your 2 yr old say, “Mooommmy!” with such excitement and bright eyes. Breakfast is usually a quick bowl of cereal while i make lunch for Geneva because she needs to be out the door in 20 minutes. Kindergarten has been a little rough for her but i think she is slowly adjusting. Half of the time she asks to stay home so i am pleased when i hear her talk about her friends and all the fun things she did at school that day. We pray together and i send her on her short walk to school, hoping she looks back to catch my kisses. I miss her when she is gone, she is so special.

Edana is staying home this year, I am homeschooling her. I felt the Lord telling me to homeschool her, that she needed some more one on one with me, so i took that step of faith. And it has had its difficult moments and days. I must admit that it would be much easier for me to put her in school. She is doing well though, her reading has improved so much, I’m proud of her. She does miss her friends so we try to keep connected.

My morning continues on with me telling Edana to practice her violin, usually me calling out, “make sure you have the right bow hold” , “do your scale first”, “watch the low notes”, “you need to practice that one again!”. She is getting much better. In the mix of all this Vienna is usually asking if she can watch Dora because she is hooked right now. And wow that girl is persistent! She has turned into quite the talker, she will talk your ear off. Her morning usually consists of some Dora watching, playing, and hopefully i can squeeze some book reading in there. After violin Edana will be at the table working on her school. She likes it when i am right there but that can prove a little irritating to me so I am trying to get her more independent. She is doing better. Science is her favourite. It is strictly experiments. For bible right now we are making a timeline of Jesus life. We are in Matthew 6 right now so its slow going but we read a little most days and talk about it and record it on our timeline. I am seeing the growth in her and i am so thankful. Our Father is faithful, and He is good.

I will end with a funny note. Just yesterday Edana was sent to her room because she wasn’t dong what she was told. IN her frustration she twirled a comb in her hair right at the top of her head. It was so stuck! I was a little panicked that i was going to have to cut her hair, and she really doesn’t have great hair to begin with, poor girl. But i thought i should google it first cause thats what we do these days. Sure enough someone had posted a youtube video on how to remove a comb stuck in your hair ~ wire cutters! Yep it worked, Allan slowly cut away the comb and untangled her hair, good as new. Whew! Was i relieved. I really was upset at her in the moment but its quite humorous when i look back on it.

 

Colds are not fun

Wow, it has been quite some time since my last blog post. I must say that i am not a ‘true’ blogger, but sometimes you just need to give things a try or you may never know. It’s been a rough last 6 weeks, but i am seeing some light break through now! We had a really great trip to Disneyland in Feb. We were there for 5 days, so much excitement and walking! We were pretty pooped after it all but it was a fun trip. Geneva caught a cold the last half of our trip as did i. I recovered about a week after but Geneva did not recover. She kept coughing and coughing, finally i took to her to the Dr after about 3 weeks, he said she was fine and it may go on for  couple more weeks, which it did. It took about 5 weeks for her cough to be gone and still has a runny nose. Edana seems to escape this cold for quite a while then spring break came and she began to cough, not so bad but still coughing and a bit runny nosed. She does seem to be able to fight sickness off better though, so i don’t expect it to last as long. My little squirt has a gruff odd cough now and was quite cranky today. In the meantime i had a cough for 2 weeks which turned to bronchitis, which turned into pleurisy and that is quite painful. I am still on the mend, i feel bruised on the one side but i do feel a lot better, thank you Lord. Allan seems to escape the bunt of this cold thing but in the mix of it all he had great pain in his tooth. When he finally got an appointment with the dentist, it was abscessed and he had it extracted. He was just glad that the pain was gone! As was I! Through all this I am so glad that I can call upon Jesus who is my rock. I cannot imagine life without Him! His Holy Spirit has shown Himself as comforter and I am so grateful for that. Thank you to all who have been praying for us, it is greatly appreciated.

Newness

Happy New Year! I am actually not all that big on “celebrating” New Years. I never really have. The thought of staying up till midnight for no great thill isn’t very appealing. And you know this years holiday, meaning Christmas and New years, was somewhat trying for me. I felt a pushing on me inside, I guess you would call it stress or anxiety. Not at every point of our Christmas break but enough so that it comes to my mind. There were some wonderful relaxing times in there as well so i am thankful. I guess it seems to be the pushing and squishing and squeezing that makes me think. Lord what are you saying to me?! What I am feeling in the realm of the Spirit?! I have not felt much and have been greatly disappointed by that. Although I did feel, recently, that the Lord was saying to quiet my self, deeply on the inside, so that i would hear Him and receive His direction. Sometimes we can be so noisy on the inside and we miss what He is whispering. I hep this may be an encouragement to some. Please share your encouragement’s with me as well. We need each other in the Body of Christ. Blessings and Peace for this New Year!

Cleaning

Wow! Today is definitely a day where I am well aware of my need for Jesus! I am so exhausted, but i think i bring it upon my self for internalizing my stress. Have you ever looked in a mirror (hypothetically) and not liked what you see? This is me now, I do not like what i see. I do have hope though, thank you Jesus! I know that the Lord brings us to these places in our lives to do some cleaning up of our hearts. I am getting cleaned and i really want to let Him clean me.  Jesus shine you light to every corner of my heart that I may be a clean vessel for you to use and so that i may receive your love in fullness. And i just want to say that Jesus is the Light of the world! (That has been on my heart)

My Descriptive Child

I love my descriptive 4 year old. The other day she tells me that she has a headache. I asked her what it felt like, just to see if she would use her usual explanation, which is that “bad guys are crushing her bones”. This time she said it felt like a back scale (she has been in gymnastics the past few months), then she preceded to say and show me at the same time that it felt like a back scale then a front scale, then a back scale and a front scale really fast. I just love her little mind, although i do feel sad when she has a headache, seems so wrong for a4 yr old!

Mission accomplished!

Today was the wonderful day the Lord had made for me to share His story with a group of 4 year olds and a few adults. I was really excited for this day to come! I felt so blessed to have this opportunity and even more after Edana’s teacher had told me I wasn’t allowed to share anything “religious” in the school, that included the nativity story. Although she did say that it was sad because that is what Christmas is about. That did bring me some comfort…..but who makes these rules anyway? I am rejoicing the fact that God did bring victory, there was victory!  I’m trusting that Holy Spirit was and is still working on the hearts that were there today. Praise God for this and i pray that there are more to come! I believe He will be giving us more strategies in the days to come to reach the lost. I want my ears to be open and my heart to be pure and willing! Thank you for praying!