Lately I have been having this niggling feeling that there is something missing from my every day routine. It's been there ever since I went camping with the youth group. For a while afterwards I made an effort to complete a devotion or read something related to bible teaching when I woke up. But, like all good intentions, it dwindled down and sputtered out. You know how sometimes you want to do something, you just don't know where to start? That's where I was. I knew deep down that if I wanted to be serious about reading my bible I had to make some changes - like getting up before my kids so I could spend time with my bible. This may not seem like much to parents of teenagers, but my kids wake up early. Granted, I believe that any time before 10 am is early. Clearly I have not grown out of my teenaged sleeping habits, and I had no desire to. Until now... To recap - I have a desire deep within me to spend more time with God. I know that the morning is the best time. Thus --> I need to become a morning person. I just want to take the time to point this out. Apparently it takes 21 days to make something a habit. There are 21 chapters in John. Coincidence? I think not! I accepted the challenge from Back to the Bible. Lord, help me complete it. Help me get up early every morning to spend time with you. Amen. SO! I tried to go to bed early last night, but ended up finally getting there at 11pm. Ugh! First step and I'm already behind the eight ball. Second, I set my alarm for 7am. For those of you still with me, that's 3 hours BEFORE my definition of "early". When my alarm went off this morning I hit snooze, twice. Finally I hauled my arse out of bed at 7:18. My daughter greeted me with a sleepy "good morning mommy". Double ugh! But, this one has a silver lining. My daughter is seeing me make an effort to get into God's word. She is witnessing me reading my bible. Not such a bad "ugh" in the end. I started reading John 1. Instantly I notice the reference to the light and mark down in my bible *Jesus*. I'm a bible markin', highlightin', underlinin' momma. I want my bible to look like I used it. In my first bible I have passages written on the first 2 blank cover pages that made an impact on me during that time of my life. I have now graduated to the Beautiful Word Journaling bible. It's pictures bring the bible to life and I love that I can write along as I read. Coincidently, I went back to the actual challenge during the evening and noticed how it focused on the names that Jesus was called and challenged me to make a list of the descriptive names of Jesus. So here goes:
Tomorrow I may add some nice soft worship music. I think that may add to the mood. Or, I could even wake up to worship music. I don't have an alarm clock, I have an iPhone, so I can pretty much make my alarm anything I want. On this first day did I notice any huge changes? Not overly. Does anyone ever? I'm glad I started. I hope I can finish and keep going. I can truthfully say that when I felt a little down today, my thoughts did go to Jesus and I didn't feel so alone in the moment. Maybe you can start noticing changes on the first day. Why not join me on this journey and share your experience? I'd love to hear from you!
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Ok, so I did something really stupid today. I cut someone off in traffic. Yeesh. Did I mean to do it? Of course not. Did I want to do it? No! It's not like I was driving my car waiting for the next car to come near me with the malicious intent to jerk my car right in front of theirs. I wasn't like 'ooooo there's an orange Chevy! I wonder how they'll react if I just zip right in front of them?' It was an accident. Plain and simple.
Should I have been paying better attention? Absolutely! But the fact of the matter is, I had just left an appointment and my mind was somewhere else. Actually I was thinking of how nice it might be to be able to give our kids things with a little more financial freedom. You want to play hockey B-Man? Sure, we can afford that! Honey, you want to learn how to ride a horse? Well guess what, now you can! After I did this and heard the tell-tale honk of a car horn I looked back and I saw a little white dog frantically running around the car. Oi, now I felt even worse. The driver didn't disappoint though. Arms flailing, big ugly angry face on, obviously yelling obscenities at me about how stupid I was. Hey lady, all I wanted was for you to see my 'Emmanuel.... Try church again for the first time' bumper sticker. It was a friendly invitation to come out to church! No? The worst part is when you then have to sit in front of the person waiting at a red light. Which I'm sure I was now being blamed for. I could tell when it went from green to red and another onslaught of angry arm waving at my car ensued. Twice. Nope my intention was to ruin your day and our vehicles. I'm an evil person. Actually, I made a mistake and I'm truly sorry for it. I'd like to say it won't happen again, but it might. Who knows? I guess I'm an evil driver out to get your car... And your little dog too. My hope is that when this lady accidentally pulls in front of someone herself, you know since no ones perfect, the person in the car behind her is a little more forgiving. Because life happens, and we're all just trying to get by. I was born to be a rock star. Secretly. In my car. Where no one can see me. Okay, so maybe I wasn't born to be a total rock star, but it's one of those things that people love to practice whether they can keep a beat or not. It is extremely hard to be a secret car rock star when you have an audience in the back seat though. Especially one that loves to talk loudly to each other during your epic drum solo of Meatloaf's famous "I Would Do Anything for Love". I mean come on, that song screams secret car rock star. Here's an actual conversation that happened in my "stage" this evening.
As a footnote here, we each get to pick a song we like that hasn't already been played so that everyone gets to listen to what they like and this (hopefully) avoids conflict. You can take part or not, tonight Aaron decided not to. He had more important things to do. Picture this:
I finally get frustrated and yell into the back of the car BE QUIET YOU TWO!!! Okay, so maybe I wasn't that polite. Give me a break, I was jamming to Meatloaf! Husband laughs and says "Yeah! You're interrupting Mommy's drum solo!!" To coin an iconic late 80's early 90's TV Show, How Rude! He was supposed to be reading his comic book not watching my secret car rock star. Ah well, what's a mom to do? This evening I had the pleasure of going to the Ladies Fellowship at my church. I honestly hadn't expected to be able to go because my work schedule is so all over the place so it was nice to have this evening. This is a chance for me to get out and connect with women and just be myself and truthful with a group of people who are there for each other and love to lift each other up. It's an amazing experience to hear only women talk together, laugh together and worship together. Now here is some truth for you - I had "girl" friends in public school. I was a bit of a Tom Boy, but I had girly girl in me too. I loved to paint my nails and get my hair done, but I was happier in jeans and a t-shirt climbing trees. Then in high school I got so tired of the cattiness that I gave up on having female friends (I had maybe 2). My best friend was always a guy and even when I had boyfriends, I got along better with the guys. This continued through university right up until, basically, I got married. All of a sudden going out with a guy friend was suspicious. So there I was, pretty lonely with by best girl friend... 3 provinces away. Humph! Tonight was a reminder of how women can be such a inspiration to each other. Instead of judging it was an atmosphere of "Oh, I've been there!" or "I know what you mean, here's my story". It was a chance to talk and be honest about where we are in our lives. So many times we ask people "How are you?" and we respond with "fine". But really we're not, we have a lot going on. Do we say "fine" because we don't want to bore them or because we know they don't really care? I love nights like tonight because when someone asked me how I've been, I responded honestly - I told them about my day yesterday and the uncertainty that I feel right now regarding our house. As we worshipped and sang the song Cornerstone (My Hope is Built on Nothing Less) a verse jumped out at me - Right now, it's dark. This year has definitely been overcast for us. In January we had planned to go on a vacation to Cuba only to have the brakes go on the van and then the furnace cut out on the coldest day in winter. There was darkness. It sucked. I constantly kept saying: I know this is hard, but God is with me, He is seeing me through this. I rested in His grace and we pulled through. Granted we're still paying off the furnace and that sucks, but we're getting there. Now, with everything that has happened I find myself resting in His grace again. I know that He is here seeing me through this storm and that it will pass and brighter days will come again. It's just that in the storm you get wet, and knocked around and even beat up a bit. But at the end of the day, the bruises will heal and the sun will refresh. I look forward to the sunshine while I rest in the grace of God during this storm. What have you done through the storms in your life? How has judgement and cattiness effected your relationships? Has that changed? Sarcasm alert! When I say goodness, I don't mean it. What an incredibly trying day. Aaron went downstairs to our bedroom to empty the dehumidifier. See my previous post as to why we even have a dehumidifier in our room. The next thing I know he comes running up the stairs with a panicked look asking me for help. Our room had flooded, again. We grabbed some towels, got the floor cleaned up and he pried the cover off the drain pipe in our closet that leads to the septic bed. We noticed that a small hole where the water was coming out of. It looked like sealant was covering it (we later discovered it was likely a wad of toilet paper *barf*). Aaron gets some paper towel and barely touches this "stuff". Now folks, I was a good three feet away from said pipe. When he touched that gunk, it came off and water shot out of that hole. It cleared my husband and went all down my jeans. EEWWW! IIICCCKKK!! SHUDDER! It was warm and soapy - dishes and laundry wash water. *Brilliant Idea* While Aaron plugs the hole I run upstairs for a bucket. *Not so brilliant idea* It had water in it so I dumped it out down the sink. Don't laugh!! You don't know what was going through my mind. Come to think of it, neither do I. By the time I get back, Aaron's plug is soaked and he has water running down his arm and across his back. Anyway, we have 2 buckets, while one fills I run upstairs and throw the other outside. I made four trips up and down those stairs. I'm not a huge girl, but I'm superbly out of shape. It was not a pretty sight. Thankfully there was a very helpful plumber from our church who came out to our rescue. Well, as much of a rescue as you can in these situations. While the guys were talking about things the floor was crumbling beneath them. Aaron has cut away some of the laminate but the subfloor underneath was saturated.
Basically we learned that there is a blockage going out to our septic bed and that's why water is coming into our room. We need to dig it up and replace or flush out the pipes, put down some new gravel and hope that that fixes the problem. The problem is... what will we find when we dig it up? Hopefully not another headache. |
AndreaYou know the saying, the grass is always greener on the other side? This is my attempt to find greener grass right where I am in my life.
BTW - I'm the one on the right, just in case you didn't already know that. Categories
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