It’s been a week now and it’s not getting any better. I sick of being sick. We went to the zoo yesterday. I’ve discovered the crazy thing about Florida is at the beginning of the week it was 21 at night and today it’s 72.
And I thought SC weather was crazy.
I’ve been playing with some of MCP Actions today. I love them and wish I could afford more but for now I’m stuck with the freebies. Thanks Jodi!! You rock.
Go check out her website here and see what amazing things you can do with your photos.
My birth father emailed me this today. If you haven’t seen it please watch it.
The link is Where Is The Line to See Jesus?
And the story is beautiful.
Every once in a while as a homeschool mom and teacher you realize that you have just lost your audience…..completely and utterly lost them. I think this must have been the times when ‘in the days of old’ school teachers took the kids out for recess.
Yesterday when the UPS man showed up was one of those times. My husband (still known as Rocketman although working for a different company now) had the nicest gift delivered to our house. His new boss sent a yummy box of steaks and cheese cakes (which we promptly fought over since there were four cheese cakes) for Christmas. It arrived in a big red box with…..drum roll……dry ice.
Do you know what dry ice does to my kids? They lose their minds. It goes in the pool. The silverware comes out to make it squeal. It gets placed in the sink and the kitchen turns into an eerie magic show stage.
See for yourself….
Let’s just call all this SCIENCE, shall we?
The Scooper is writing about Faith today and since I, like her, watched Lee Kinard, the Channel 2 weatherman, track Santa across the world I thought I’d join her.
But first, a photo…
Unlike Scooper I can not remember how old I was when I stopped believing in Santa. What I do remember is being sneaky and looking for gifts one year and then being so disappointed when those gifts showed up on Christmas morning from Santa.
When I think about the faith God has today graced me with I have to look backwards. As a child I grew up in church, sang in the choir, went through confirmation (should I capitalize that?) but never learned that my relationship with Jesus was supposed to be a personal everyday type of relationship. I believed in God but He seemed far away. When the Bible was read it was done so in such a manner that it often seemed too holy for a commoner like me. I remember a Book of Common Prayer. I remember the Doxology. Today it will bring me to my knees in the blink of an eye and means more to this commoner’s soul than my words can explain.
I visited a Baptist church while in the twelfth grade and felt God pull at my heart, drawing me into an intimate relationship with Him like I had never known before. Two years passed and I tried my best to walk out what was in my heart. But there was college and boys and parties and things I’d never experienced before. Distractions – as they are now called. I strayed. And boy, did I stray.
Fast forward 10 years and I was a pretty miserable cat. I had all the world told me I needed to be happy but I was miserable. I had an excellent job in which I excelled. I earned more money than I thought I would ever earn. I had a boyfriend, a car, a cat. What else was there to have? I lived with the head knowledge and the heart knowledge that I would go to heaven if I died. But something was missing.
I walked through the valley of the shadow death but I feared no evil. Not for the right reasons but because I was walking with evil. Hand in hand with it. Never knowing -deceived.
Many scars later, loads of counseling and I began to realize the one thing I was missing was the thing I had found ten years ago as a senior in high school. I was missing HIM. Abba. Father. Lover of my soul.
Fast forward another fifteen years and I sit here typing to an unknown audience knowing that the One I trust trusts me. I sit on that thought and am blown away that He knows He can accomplish all He wants to accomplish through me. No, it won’t be perfect but it will be perfectly performed by the Master Creator. It will work for His glory. It has been, will be and forever shall be His design through me.
My story isn’t star-studded either. As The Scooper says…..“My own story would probably be a more powerful one if I could tell you that Belief showed up in some magical, supernatural way with glitter and snow-dust and angels or in the midst of drugs and jail-time and a biker gang.” There was no glitter, no snow-dust, no jail time but there was an awakening. A slow and sure awareness that I am to trust Him more and more with each passing day. He is my all and all. And when He isn’t ….. well, that sweet, wonderful, glittery, snow-dust, find-you-in-a-jail-cell Savior of mine gently reminds me. “Come my child. Come. Break bread with me. Sit with me. Be still and know. Let me fight. I need you only to watch. Believe.”
So with Scooper I wish you faith this Christmas season….
Childlike, sweet, peaceful, dancing in your pretty dress faith.
There are times I wrestle with who I am. Who doesn’t? Well, if we take even half a second to contemplate it we’d admit it.
There are days I want to live in blog land and be popular like The Pioneer Woman (you rock Ree!) and there are other days I’m quite content with my quiet little blog that only friends and family read.
I realize my kids are more important right now. It’s quite funny they put their heads together the other day and made a pact (excuse me while I wipe the spit off the monitor because I just laughed so hard) when I had to drag all four of them to the Mayo Clinic with me for a dermatology appointment. I had told them that if God allowed us to find a home in Florida where the schools were good then all four of them would promptly be put in public school next year. I was tired of homeschooling.
The silent lack of gasping from the back seat told me they knew I was serious. No, “really Mom?’s”. No, “yea right.” Just silence.
So the hot plan was formed…..their “not so secret anymore pact is to be good for the rest of their sweet little lives. Baby girl is certainly putting her walking where her talking was because she tied up the trash twice today when she noticed it was full AND put a new bag in the trash can. Can you say, “Pick me up off the floor?” She also washed all the dishes in the sink by hand today without being asked. She’s blowing the boys away!!! You go girl!! Mama’s got places we can shop! Just keep up that sweet help you are giving me!!!
I’ll keep you posted on how the rest of their life goes and also what public school is like in, say, perhaps 6-8 months from now for some of them.
It shall be interesting…………
Here’s what my oldest is attempting by football season again this year. You know where his priorities are…
He’s still sporting about a 4 blade from his last mama haircut!!
And I found this one of my second born….man he’s pretty!
What kooks….I’m blessed to even be a part of their lives.
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