Control Relinquished

This Christmas season our church is doing a sermon series that has challenged me deeply. Last Sunday, the morning was based on Zachariah, who faced real doubt in the midst of the angel's message announcing that Elizabeth was going to have a baby in her old age. Zachariah's doubt in God's plan led him to become mute, and likely deaf, until his son John was born and circumcised. Even with this sermon fresh on my mind, my week, unfortunately, was filled with much doubt, fear, and questioning God's plan. First, my youngest son was scheduled to leave for a week-long trip to visit family on Wednesday. On Monday he started running a fever and Tuesday he woke up looking like this: Second, I was scheduled to lead a snow globe craft at Wednesday's Kindle meeting. By Tuesday, my snow globes had not yet arrived and I was sent scrambling to buy mason jars and desperately roping in my husband to rig a contraption that would work! On Friday, my son and I came d

There has been a phenomenon going on in our household recently! This superhero costume has magically turned my son into a willing and happy volunteer! He's been asking for chores to do and excitedly "rescuing" his clean wash and taking it to their homely drawers! This mama is wondering why I didn't have this idea sooner! Sometimes as a parent you can wonder if you're doing anything right and then, suddenly, God can give you glimpses of hope that affirm that your children will someday, somehow be wonderful, Godly adults that contribute greatly to society! The past few weeks, my mind has felt deep in processing mode. I've been learning a lot from a Leadership course my husband and I are taking at church. We have had an amazing Renewal Meeting speaker. Our church is on a  40 Day Prayer Challenge . And I've been reading this old and life-changing book: I was trying to journal and turn my brain mush into tangible points that I've learne

I have been thinking a lot about friendship lately. The beautiness of it and the ugliness of it. Friendships take effort, they can be raw, and they can be a huge blessing. I have been studying the book of Job, using Proverbs 31 Ministries' First 5 app and I have been challenged anew. After Job goes from having everything to having nothing, the following chapters are filled with his deep anguish and laments. But then I never realized how many chapters are then filled with speeches from Job's friends. They each take turns reprimanding him and accusing him of committing sin. Job's situation is desperate and, yet, his friends don't offer him much comfort. I'm not sure what their intentions were or what motivated them to make claims against him. But, as their speeches progress, they become less sympathetic and more self-righteous. Instead of praying with Job, they argued. Instead of offering him compassion, they judged. Instead of grieving with him, they attacke

*Re-sharing this post I wrote 3 years ago... This exact picture hung in the hallway of my parents' home when I was a child. I often found myself staring at it, thinking. One time, I remember my mom asking which of the sheep we see ourselves as. One of my sisters quickly responded that she was the lamb being held by Jesus.That was okay. I already knew which one I wanted to be. The black one. The different one. The one  following  Him. Yeah, profound thoughts for a young elementary student. But I was already realizing the cost of following the path less traveled. I already felt the call to  be  different.  Monday begins a new era in my role of motherhood. It is the first time my daughter will spend more of her waking hours with someone else, somewhere else. Hello, 1st grade. It has been a reflective week for me, wondering if I have done and taught her enough to be prepared for life in a public school. Do I have enough faith to obey what God has asked of our fa

It was any mother's worst lunchtime nightmare: 2 pieces of leftover pizza and 3 children! Each child stated multiple reasons why they were entitled to one of the pieces. So, I did what any fair and weary mother would do: "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 15...." This time it was my youngest to lose and we heard all about how unfair it all was between the tears of disappointment! After our lunch was peacefully eaten, I was de-boning a rotisserie chicken. Knowing how much they like the salty, crispy skin, I offered them some pieces. You would have thought I was a mother bird bringing a worm into a nest of babies! Their beak-like fingers were all vying for the best, juiciest, and biggest pieces. Before long, it was the same greediness leaking out their mouths as earlier, insisting they get the next piece! I gently reminded them that life cannot be about pleasing themselves. Selfishness and greediness is wrong and we have to learn to surrender our

This is a current situation lining our driveway right now; it looks as if one tree has decided it's already fall! A few months ago, we realized our middle tree was suffering and slowly dying. At first, we thought it was some type of bug or disease, but the fact that the other two surrounding trees were unaffected, puzzled us. Finally, as the situation worsened we called out a tree expert and our tree was officially diagnosed with a "girdling root". Basically, it is a root that grows around the trunk instead of out into the surrounding soil. As the root and tree trunk both grow in diameter, the root slowly chokes off the flow of water and nutrients to the tree. Girdling roots often happen underground and are such a gradual problem, that it is often too late to save the tree once it is detected. The sly, subtle death that the girdling root is responsible for reminds me of someone else that prowls around like a lion, looking for someone to d

Let me introduce you to this kitten, who has quite the miracle story! Approximately 2 weeks ago, someone accidentally hit her with their vehicle. Unbeknownst to the driver, the kitten has lived in the wheel well of her van all this time! Some friends of ours heard meowing coming from the vehicle as they left from VBS this week and their son was able to coax the kitten out. The trauma she faced in the last 2 weeks has cost her an eye and the tendency to go to vehicles, since she called one home for so long.  Our friends left for vacation this week and asked if our kids would have interest in caring for their newly rescued pet. My little Jude has been loving on and caring for this kitten in every spare moment of his days.  We weren't sure if the true owner named her, but Jude decided he wants to call her "Sarah" for the week. I was curious the meaning of the name he chose and was shocked to realize Sarah means "Princess". At first glance, an injured,

One area I have been challenged and growing in my spiritual life is becoming better at being in constant communication with God throughout my day. I'm learning that God loves when we learn to be so in tune with Him, that speaking to Him becomes a natural and everyday part of our lives. When my day is focused completely around Him, my eyes are opened to how He is moving and doing miracles all around me! I am also more in tune to the Holy Spirit's prompting to encourage and impact individuals I come in contact with. I know how my spirit is often encouraged when I hear others' testimonies of how God moves in their daily experiences, so I thought I would share three instances where God showed me He cares about the small details in my life recently. I remember being challenged by a speaker to involve God, even in our shopping. Last week, I had a few kid-less hours before a meeting and decided to take a trip to the mall for some swimsuit shopping. I decided to go with lo

In this technological day in age, sadly, it's not uncommon to deal with jeopardized credit cards, hacked accounts, and a fear of stolen identities. I, personally, have dealt with this annoying reality and fallen victim to these predators more than once. My husband and I decided to protect ourselves with a subscription called LifeLock. Basically, it monitors both of our identities and notifies us of any breach or suspicious activity with our personal information. You can imagine our concern when we were informed yesterday with this statement:  "We detected your identity on the dark web, deep web, or a peer-to-peer file sharing network. When we detect identity information on the dark web, deep web, or peer-to-peer file sharing networks, we notify you. The information found is usually from a list that's being given away, traded, or sold." Just the thought of my identity on the "dark web" being given away, traded, or sold makes m

pres·sure ˈpreSHər/ noun 1 . the continuous physical force exerted on or against an object by something in contact with it. "the slight extra pressure he applied to her hand" 2 . the use of persuasion, influence, or intimidation to make someone do something. "the proposals put pressure on Britain to drop its demand" synonyms: coercion ,  force ,  compulsion ,  constraint ,  duress ;  More verb 1 . attempt to persuade or coerce (someone) into doing something. Can you identify with any of the definitions of pressure?! To be honest with you I have felt my life has been full of pressure recently! For several weeks, I have been dealing with inner ear issues. I had some very scary bouts of dizziness and, while those symptoms have thankfully subsided, I have been still been battling ear and sinus