Thankful for the little things...

My husband and I have eight children, and taking family pictures every year has been one of my favorite events of the year.  From the time our children were little and we had only two or three or four kids, I absolutely looked forward to the day we set aside to capture our family at that moment!
As the years have passed, our oldest son joined the Navy and was stationed in Naval Station Mayport in Mayport, Florida near Jacksonville.  He was there over the Christmas holiday, and I remember sobbing because he wouldn't be in our family picture.  The next year, he came home on leave in October before he was deployed to Iraq.  The highlight of him being there was an opportunity for us to take family pictures.  It was a precious time for each of us to have that constant reminder that we were all together.

Just last year, my husband and I and our five children under 18 years old were living in north Florida (our son was, and is now, stationed in Cuba, and our 20 year-old son and 18 year-old daughter stayed in Colorado!), but we still took family pictures.  I'll admit it helped being at Disney World, but my heart still ached for the family pictures with ALL our children!

This year, our son came home after being deployed to Honduras for over a year, and just guess what was on my list of things to do while he was here!  YES!!  That family picture!!  And I got it!  This year was even more precious because it included our daughter-in-law!!!  Next year, our family picture will include our first GRANDBABY!!!!

I am so thankful that the Lord is mindful of us and that even the little things we desire are on His mind!

Have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving!!!

Balancing act

Ever since I can remember, I've enjoyed balancing.  I was a gymnast in my younger days and the beam was my favorite apparatus!  Then came the time following my parents' divorce when I felt, at 14 years old, that I needed to balance my display of affection equally for my mom and dad.  As the years passed, I became a victim of rape and balanced being a socially functioning high school student with the very real feeling of wanting to hide away from everything and everyone in the world.  (See my earlier post Revealing the Illusion).
After I graduated high school, and accepted the fact that I was pregnant (NOT a result of the rape, fyi!), I also accepted that God had a plan for my life.  I began dating my now-husband when my son was just five months old.  Within three months, we were engaged, and I began a new balancing act:  mother and soon-to-be wife.  Eventually, I felt as though I was doing pretty well with the whole balancing thing, especially as our family grew from just one child to eight children in just over 12 years!  I balanced homeschooling, breastfeeding, sickness (the kids and me at different times), homemaking, meal planning, taxi driver for the activities our children participated in, Sunday School teacher, singer on the praise and worship team at church, even going back to college at age 34!

But I felt a gentle prompting of the Lord telling me there was something I wasn't balancing quite the way He had planned.  I had neglected the gift of writing He had given me!  I would write news reports, write research papers just because I enjoyed doing that, and spent a lot of time writing essays, poems, and non-fiction pieces for college, but had still not done what HE had called me to do.

Well, I am thrilled to say that when our church decided at the beginning of 2012 to challenge everyone to a 90-day challenge that could include anything from reading the Word more, spending time in intercession, or even writing a book, I accepted that challenge!  I didn't complete my book in the 90 days, but accepting that challenge gave me the opportunity to say, "Yes, Lord!  I'll do what you called me to do!"  I continued to write that story, but then felt the Father telling me it was time to put my schooling on hold.  It was a distraction and something I wanted to do; it wasn't something God had planned out for me. 
It was kind of scary letting go of what I wanted to do and relying fully on the thing He wants me to do.  But I have never written so much in my whole life!  I can see this book, the characters, the little fictional town I created, and it's all through the goodness and grace of God that I am able to do that!
I also positioned myself with an amazing group of fellow author/writer moms and people who will build me up in my walk with the Lord, my journey as a rookie writer, and as a wife and mother.
Regardless of what you may be balancing today, make a point of positioning yourself with people who will come along side of you to steady your walk, help keep the plates spinning, or keep your from falling off the tightrope!  And of course, lean on the Father when you feel as though you are starting to fall...HE will catch you! 

"When I am weak, that's when you are strong.
When I let go, I fall into Your arms..."-- Jon Thurlow, "Divine Love"

When days just don't go quite right...

As a mom of eight children, there were days we would get up on time, be dressed and ready to start school at the scheduled time, complete work ahead of the planned time, and have only wonderful positive teaching times of solid, strong learning.  But those days are also marred by days when I woke late, the kids were tired and still hadn't eaten breakfast by 10 a.m., schooling was a struggle, and I just got irritated more and more with the lack of understanding of certain concepts and skills we had already learned! 

I know now that I wasn't alone.  I felt like a homeschooling failure some days, barely able to complete one lesson for each child!  But our God is a gracious and merciful loving Father, and He positioned me to receive guidance and knowledge from other moms who said they had experienced similar things during their homeschooling journeys.  So how do you combat those days when nothing goes quite right?


Well, I have a few suggestions:

Take time to do one thing, no matter how small it may seem, just for you!  The Lord wants us to be wholly prepared each day and if we need to take a step back and get ourselves "unfrazzled" that's okay!  If we're frazzled, our souls aren't prospering, so we need to refresh that by doing that thing that will restore our souls.  Maybe play music, dance for joy, pray, take a bath (if you don't have little ones and can!), read, make a cup of your fav coffee/beverage, do something that makes you feel better (for me, it's cleaning!), or just take a walk and have some alone time.  Realize that there is only so much you can do in a day; stop trying to be the perfect Proverbs 31 woman!  Ask the Lord to strengthen you and praise Him for days that you accomplish much, and days you accomplish little!!


Remember, tomorrow is a new day!  God's mercies are new every day!!  And you are NOT alone in these days, so don't allow the enemy to sell you that lie!  Just as no one has perfect, harmonious work days, we as homeschooling parents struggle with that, too...and it's okay!

Week 4--Entertain!!

As promised, this final week of my theme blogs will end with the final post--Entertain!  I thought I would share with you one of my first stories I wrote back in 2007 six weeks after my oldest son left for Navy Boot Camp.  My writing muse has changed since this writing, but the overall message comes across loud and clear...I hope you enjoy the piece of the originally titled piece "Camp Wannabe" later titled "A Light in the Darkness"!!

“Tom, hurry up!  The kids will be here soon!”  Beth yelled to her husband who was busy preparing for the new campers in the barn.  Their secluded mountain home was a retreat and refuge for many, but for the next two weeks it would be a school for a group of teenagers.  They would learn how to rock climb, become disciplined, and most importantly, the youth would learn to work as a team and be confident in their own skills.

“I’m coming!  I wanted to make sure the climbing wall was ready for our guests!” Tom hollered back.  He was in the barn readying the ropes, carabiners, and harnesses for the day’s events.  Beth was walking towards him looking as beautiful as the day he had met her.  Her long blond hair was tied back with a baby blue ribbon that waved across her face as the wind blew gently. 

Tom and Beth had operated Camp Wannabe as a self-confidence camp for youth who had troubled pasts, whose parents needed some place to send them for the summer, or for those kids who truly needed to belong.  Tom had grown up in an orphanage after his parents were killed in a car accident and his elderly grandparents were not able to care for him.  They felt it was the only option for the boy at the time and later would apologize for the pain it caused him.  Tom’s grandparents lived to see their grandson join the Navy and then his grandmother passed away within two years of her husband’s passing.  It was as though they needed to see him come out of that orphanage and be alright.  He forgave them and understood, but the emotional scars he carried from being bullied and teased would linger for years.  The confidence he received from being in the military was the reason he wanted to create a place where kids like him would be able to gain the inner strength they lacked.  It was then that they decided to open Camp Wannabe.

Week 3--Empower!!

I looked up the definitions for empower and was surprised, especially from a Christian perspective. 

 

1. To invest with power, especially legal power or official authority.

2. To equip or supply with an ability; enable.

 

The Lord has invested power and official authority in you when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior!  That means that if you put your faith with Jesus’ Name, you can move mountains, overcome situations, and live a victorious and prosperous life.  The situation you may be facing today may seem bigger, deeper, and worse than anything you’ve faced until now.  But the good news is that God sees you where you’re at.  He sees the pain, the hurt, the frustration, and the crying out of your heart.  He has empowered you with official authority to use His son’s name as a weapon to defeat the one who has tormented you, stolen from you, killed relationships, finances, health and other things, and destroyed your life.  You have been equipped to overcome the situation by the power of Jesus’ Name and your faith in God!  Say today, “Cease your activity, Satan!  You must stop your efforts in (whatever area of your life—finances, health, relationships, addiction, etc.) in the Name of Jesus!”   

When your breakthrough comes, give God the glory and share it with someone. 

Matthew 5:16 (The Message) says:

I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

Birthdays With Empty Arms--Shared from "One September Day" blog

September's story will bring you to tears, but it is the true seeing of God's much bigger picture that will also allow you to see the grace and love of our Father in Heaven!!

Birthdays With Empty Arms

Week 2--Engage!!

The words and actions of others do indeed tend to shape us, good or bad.  I remember growing up, my grandmother would say things to my mother like, “I don’t know why those girls are wasting their time and yours going to Fort Lauderdale to a performing arts high school.  No one in this family ever amounted to a hill of beans, and they won’t either!”  Well, my twin sister and I aren’t performing on Broadway, but I am involved in community theatre and my sister…is a teacher!  She’s got performances Mondays through Fridays with a captive audience from about 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.  And I may not be the actor I had once aspired to be, but I am a writer; that is the thing God called me to be so many years ago as a child. 

When my sister and I were little, we played two things: newsroom and school.  I was always the big TV news anchor and she was the weather girl, then we would switch; she was the teacher and I was the student!  I’m not writing or reporting news for a big network either, but that’s not what God has called me to do.  I am a writer.  I AM a writer.  I did major in journalism in college, and took classes that interested me very much!  One class I had was called “Voice and Presentation,” and my professor very kindly attempted to point out that since I was an older, non-traditional student...I had a beautiful face for radio.  Wait a minute!  Did he just say I wasn’t pretty enough to be a television news anchor?!  In a manner of speaking, he did.  But that’s not what God called me to be either!

I was created to write!  Ever since I was a child, I remember writing just for the fun of it.  As I grew older, I investigated things that piqued my curiosity and wrote about such things as multiple sclerosis, foreign and domestic adoption, space, and James Michener—just because I wanted to write about what I had discovered!  I was also a script-writing maniac!  I wrote several plays throughout high school, but sadly, those have been lost.  Casualties of my parents’ divorce and then at some point mine and my husband’s moves across the country.  It was in 2005 that I felt the Lord prompting me to begin writing a book.  After three years, that original piece was published in my college literary magazine, and it felt amazing to have my work in print, not just printed from my computer!  Today, I am working on completing one book while in the process of writing another.  I know the Lord has plans for these books, and I put them in His loving and merciful hands. 

I ask you to consider these questions:

·         What were you playing as a child? 

·         Is that something that has followed you throughout your life? 

·         Have you asked the Lord how that “thing” might be preparing you for your calling at an appointed time and place?

       How can others pray for you in the realization of your calling?

      If you feel comfortable to do so, I would love for you to share your thoughts, questions, or experiences on the Super Mom the Illusion Facebook page!