The Wonderful Cross

This is one of my absolute favorite songs and how perfect for Good Friday.


The other day I went for a walk while it was getting dark. Emma was ahead on her bike so I took the opportunity to pray (complain to God). Here's how it went...

There's so many unknowns and I'm tired of it. I want my life to be mapped out in front of me. I want to see what's coming and have some warning. If we make the wrong decision, then what? How do we know what the right decision is? Even if we make the decision You want us to make, who's to say we can't lose everything and end up back where we started? (This actually went on for about 10 minutes with the same theme).

Okay, you've said what you have to say, now are you ready for what I have to say?

(a little shaken at the sound of my "prayers" being interrupted by God himself) Um, sure! I mean, yes, I'll listen...

Remember the Lilies of the fields and how I clothe them. How much more do I care about you?!

Yeah, but those are flowers. They don't really have anything. That doesn't tell me anything. We have a mortgage to pay, utilities, we have to depend on other people for things, and we need clothes and food and all the necessities.

Seek first My kingdom...

Right after he said that I got lost again in my own thoughts, except they were taking a different direction. It was like He poured a little faith into me, His faith.

Suddenly I looked up and there was this girl sitting in front of me. She was sitting on a bench and she looked at me with intense eyes and unlike people I usually see sitting around town, she looked full of peace. Almost like she didn't belong there. I said hello and she nodded instead of saying anything and kept on looking at me with these eyes that now I can't forget.

I don't know what that meant and I honestly don't know what's ahead for us, but it being Good Friday, I'm taking the time to fast, pray and contemplate the Wondrous Cross.

Being like the lilies of the field, living a life of carefree worship.

Thanks and Cute Kids (Mine)

Someone must have been praying for me yesterday because it went good with my little bro. Better than good! God totally helped me be bold, honest and loving.

I ended up sitting my brother down and, instead of coming down on him for making some bad decisions, I told him about his potential and how he needs to realize who he is in God's eyes, not who people expect him to be. We talked about a bunch of other stuff too and Bill was right there with me letting him know that we both support him making good choices for his life and his future. And yes, I cried!

After that Bill and I went for a drive and we had a really good talk. We have known that helping people with their stuff is right at the heart of what we're called to do, but honestly we've been forgetting that lately. We decided to go somewhere and really get on our knees and come together to ask God for "something big". And by something big I mean, we're ready to jump in together and cross this threshold of what God has lined up for us.

With no fear!

God has answered my prayers. The spoken and unspoken ones.

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Also, I realized that I haven't shared any recent updates or sayings from my kids. Here you go...

Me: "Azzie, your pants are falling down..."
Azzie: "No, I like them like this...everyone wears boxers underneath and sweats halfway off like this" (By halfway off, I mean halfway off her bottom...yep, we're so there! And isn't it funny how in middle school, things are always done by "everyone" or "no one"??)

Shariah got a job! She's going to be taking care of the neighbor's two little dogs after school every day. This is great because it's gonna be a lo-o-ong time before I'll be ready for another dog, so my puppy-lovin' girl can get her daily fix while the neighbors can buy the food and worry about letting them out at night for potty breaks.

Emma had to go to the dentist and get a little cavity filled this morning, plus sealants on her baby teeth. When the nurse called her back, I got up too. She turned and said "Mo-om, you don't need to come with! I'll be alright." Oh, my baby girl is so grown up all of a sudden:*)

Ruby got up this morning, cleaned her room and came down completely dressed. She was wearing black leggings with ruffles at the bottom, a purple flowery layered skirt, a bright colored shirt (not matching the skirt) with butterflies and a sequined black sweater that I'm pretty sure has Hannah Montana on the label. She looked AWESOME! I looked closer to see she was wearing lip gloss and she'd brushed her hair. She's only four people!

Brayden is going through a jealous phase where he doesn't like me to hold anyone else, especially Emma for some reason. He screams "My mama, my mama, my mama" until she gets off my lap. Emma thinks this is funny and yesterday came and jumped on my lap, looked over at Brayden and said "My mama" in a perfectly snotty little voice. He ran over with his fist preceding him Pop-Eye style and punched her in the behind, with rage in his eyes and through gritted teeth threatened "MY MAMA!" Is it wrong that I think this is adorable???

Love and Laughter:)

Check This Out

I still haven't completely figured out Youtube.

But I like finding music and other performance art to watch and found this guy, John Mark McMillan. I like his Folksy, bluezy sound and the lyrics are pretty good too:)

The video for this song was driving me crazy because it wasn't buffering good (is that how I say that??) so after starting it, press pause for about 5 minutes and go get a cup of coffee/tea before playing. I think it's worth it:)

She's Done It Again

My friend Francine that is. She's gone and written another book that I've had so much trouble putting down to to do anything else including cleaning, taking care of my kids, sleeping, even eating. Yep, I'm still talking about "Her Mother's Hope".

This is the first day of Spring Break. Well, not the first day, but you know what I mean, right? I guess Saturday with the fundraiser and Sunday with church and another fundraiser didn't feel like the start of a break. Now I can breathe...and read:)

This morning I woke to the sounds of my children rising, the turning on of cartoons and the pouring of cereal and milk. It sounded like the bigger ones were taking care of the little ones so I decided to wait on my coffee and quickly read the end of the chapter that I hadn't finished last night because I had fallen asleep.

"Her Mother's Hope" is about mother-daughter relationships. Great, just what I needed. Well, seriously, couldn't all women use some healing when it comes to this area of our earthly lives???

The other thing that I love about all of her books are that they seem to come to me at the right time. The second part of the story (don't worry, no spoilers here) is about Hildemara who grows up to be a nurse around the time of the start of World War II. Her character is a compassionate person who empathizes with everyone. When she starts nursing she learns, at the advice of an older wiser nurse, to give her patients to Jesus in prayer as soon as she leaves their hospital room.

What a message for me! I find myself so easily burdened by other people's stuff, sometimes to the point of being kept up at night, losing my appetite and falling into depression.

Today I have had a few different urgent issues come to my attention and honestly they've already threatened to consume me with worry, fear and all sorts of internal dialog while I rehearse how I can "fix things".

So, today I'm asking for prayer. For me because in a little while I do have something to do. I've invited my younger brother over for a "chat" (confrontation). After feeling helpless this morning about a family situation that's growing in urgency (the details of that will have to wait) I prayed and without wording it asked God to show me what I could do. Right after I looked at my phone and realized my brother had texted me asking to come over. I replied that he could but he'd be having a talk with me, not coming over to play with his nieces and nephew. He agreed to come anyway.

Also pray for all these other prayer needs I've seen and heard. I don't want to give too many details to protect the privacy of family and friends, but if you could pray anyway I'd really appreciate it. These are people I love and lives that are desperately in need of God's loving grace.

So here I am, waiting for him. I know that I need to lay my own feelings aside, as well as my expectations of how this is going to go. I need to just let God show up here and do His thing. I know he's faithful and wants to rush in healing like a hurricane.

Lord help me.

I Shouldn't Be Taking the Time to Post This...

But procrastination is one of my skillz!

I'm still needing to put the finishing touches on the raffle baskets and painting for our fundraiser tonight.

I have been feeling stressed about it all week but I realized that the things that I was feeling stressed about were completely out of my hands. My pastor's lovely wife sent me an email yesterday about how people were inviting quite a few non-Christians to this event. People who wouldn't otherwise step foot into a church. What a much needed reminder that this isn't about us. This isn't even about raising money. This is about women's lives. And God's in it. I'm just his servant.

Here's the flyer for our Honky Tonkin' BBQ.. (you gotta read it with a Southern accent y'all;)



Yesterday after realizing all of what I just said above I was going for a drive and letting that realization sink in. If you read this regularly you might know that car drives (especially long ones through the country) make me cry. So I'm driving along, spending some time with God and listening for awhile and this song comes on the radio. I love this song and love Addison Road, but hadn't really listened to the lyrics. So enjoy watching the video (isn't she gorgeous??) and really listen to these lyrics.



Much love today:)

I Caught the Mail Man

I lost my set of keys which have the key to the mailbox, so I told my kids we had to wait outside so I could run and catch the mail man. Emma and Ruby immediately started giggling at the thought of me chasing the mail man and tackling him to the ground or something along those lines.

As soon as I saw him I made a run for it, with the still giggling girls following behind me ready to help. I got to him, a little short of breath, and explained that I lost my key (again) and asked for my mail. I grew anxious as he packaged what looked like bills into what looked like advertisements and it looked like that's all there was until....he reached back into the box for one more thing. A beautiful brown box from amazon.com!

I was so extemely excited to receive Francine Rivers newest book "Her Mother's Hope". I have literally been waiting for this book for years!

Let me tell you first of all one of the things that I'm pretty sure qualifies me as a nerd...if I like someone, an author, musician, speaker, ahemm...tv show (Lost) I stalk them! And by stalking them I mean more than becoming a fan on Facebook. I bookmark their website, read their fan mail, sometimes talk to other fans on their guestbook message board, read everything I can find about them and basically come to the point where I feel like they are really my friend.

So Francine Rivers is a friend of mine and she's been talking about her book for quite awhile now. The original release date was Fall of 2009 and I'm forgiving her for being a little behind because the first few chapters have been so good! Plus the reason the release date was pushed back was because her story, or saga, was too long so now I get to look forward to another book coming out soon that continues the legacy of young Marta from Switzerland.

I'm only a few chapters in so I'll have to give you more details later, but let me take this opportunity to tell you (probably again) about my Favorite. Book. Ever.

"Redeeming Love" also by Francine Rivers.

I was telling my neighbor about it recently and admitted that I allowed Redeeming Love to sit on my book shelf for quite awhile before someone encouraged me to read it. It looked like a Harloquen Romance novel (the only time I was into those was when I was probably 10 and my friend and I would sit in the back of the library skipping to the "good stuff"), and it was given to me by my mother in law, who read only what I thought were cheesy christian novels.

Redeeming Love is NOT a cheesy Christian novel! And it is NOT a explicit fluffy romance either, although Francine did write secular romance novels before she became a Christian. Redeeming Love, she has discribed as her statement of faith.

It's a story, similar to the book of Hosea in the bible, about a man who feels like God is calling him to marry a prostitute. He unconditionally loves her dispite the pain and rejection he faces because of her past.

I was in tears throughout the book, at first believing I wouldn't identify with Angel, the main female charactor, but in the end exclaiming that in so many ways I've been exactly the same as her.

Personally, the story brought healing that I was needing because of my past and I'm still thankful for how God used that book to bring positive changes in my mind and in my heart. The little book that looked like a romance novel and that was from my mother in law!

Have a lovely weekend:)

On the Coupon Bus and Other Stuff

Last night I went to a workshop put on by Amber at CouponConnectionsNW.com called "Couponing 101".



I've heard of people saving hundreds on their grocery bills. I've read a couple of books and gotten that the idea was to match coupons with store sales, but I couldn't see how it was that people were getting stuff for free or were actually ending up with a negative amount owing at the grocery store checkout.

Amber was talking about how much she loved Albertsons. She said during the workshop "They don't pay me to say this, they just pay me to take their groceries!"

The class was very helpful. I'm still processing a lot of the information and will be giving it a try, but starting slow (as she recommended). I like the idea of doing it as a game, but I don't know how I'll feel about going through the store line multiple times or to multiple stores in my gas guzzling vehicle.

We need to do something. Our budget has gone down repeatedly and honestly every month I usually exceed what we have set aside for groceries. The idea of actually being able to save for something is something I haven't even thought about for awhile and there are things I would like to save for. A trip to India for one! I'd also love to be able to give to the ministry that is helping my sister right now.

So, I'm going to try this out. If I post about it, you may not be too excited to read it because I doubt I'll be one of those people who walks out after the grocery clerk pays ME, but hopefully it will be somewhat encouraging nonetheless.

If you're interested in checking out a workshop click on the Coupon Connections NW link and subscribe. Or you can email me because I talked to Amber about possibly doing a class at my church as well.

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On another note, I have so much on my to-do list today! I'm putting together some raffle prizes for a fundraiser we're doing for Women's Retreat scholarships. Today I'm basically running around picking stuff up.

I'm also needing to drop stuff off at the accountant, our attorney's office and my house is m-e-s-s-y!

This may sound strange but when I have so much to do I have to remind myself every hour that "first things first" so that I don't go up and crawl into bed or sit blankly in front of hulu shows...haha. I'm serious!

On top of that the kids have half days for the rest of the week. That could be good because I am also working on a painting as one of the raffle prizes. And did I mention the fundraiser is Saturday? Theoretically I can get this all done. I can't promise I won't go a little crazy in the process

And I have even more on my mind, which is my second reason for this post (and my excuse to be blogging when things need to be done). I was thinking maybe if I dump some of the stuff on my mind I might have an easier time with what I need to do.

I'm sorry, this post is getting really boring, huh?

Okay, quickly here we go in one big mind dumping paragraph - I'm planning on signing up for school. I keep seeing things about some bill of Obama's (when did our president's name become synonymous with giving away free money??? Just sayin' - and yes I'm looking for some of that free money) and how it supposedly expires in April. I'm guessing financial aid doesn't expire and it's just some advertisement for someone who wants business and internet clicks, but I don't have time to research it. Anyone reading know about this? I'm planning on applying for financial aid anyway but should I be doing something beyond that??? I heard this message at bible study yesterday and it kind of got me thinking about us renting out our house and going away for awhile. The speaker was talking about following where the Lord wants you and being in transition. But I feel like we are in transition even though we're staying in the same place. And if we left (my husband and I have talked about this) what about our kids and school and activities and everything. I'd love for us to be able to spend some real time together as a family, without the distractions of life, but in my mind that's impossible. I don't even think our two oldest girls would want to go with us. I don't know. Also I heard a good show on Focus on the Family about children and discipline. I'd love to be able to listen to it with Bill because being on the same page is something we've always struggled with and I'd love to be able to listen/watch/read something together because I think it would be really great for us. I know I should be praying about all of this and more. Some neighbors are losing their home and moving soon. I just met this neighbor after they'd lived here for a year and I'm sad that they're leaving now.


Well, I think that's all for now. If you've gotten this far thanks for listening:)