Would you just shut your mouth....

You are probably wondering whats up with my title to this post. To be honest I am struggling right now with something I said. Sometimes I just wished I really took the time to think about the consequences about what I am going to say before I blurt it out and end up ruining someones day. I did it yesterday. I did a horrible job of it and totally ruined their day. I feel so often I lack self-control in this area of my life. I am thinking about how much something is affecting me that hasn't happened or that has happened and then I happen. I blurt out what my thoughts are without really even thinking about the consequences of them. And then after I blurt them out I feel like I crawl into my shell and don't know how to talk about what I just said or why I said it the way the I did. So not only have I blurted out something hurtful but I have now no words to say about why I said what I said. Wow. Am I making any sense. I sure hope so.
In years past I have really tried to dig into the Word and what it says about the tongue. And I was just again looking at some verses this morning. I would like to share a few of those here with you.
Psalm 39:1-5 NLT
1 I said to myself, “I will watch what I do
and not sin in what I say.
I will hold my tongue
when the ungodly are around me.”
2 But as I stood there in silence—
not even speaking of good things—
the turmoil within me grew worse.
3 The more I thought about it,
the hotter I got,
igniting a fire of words:
4 “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—
how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”

Proverbs 10:31-32 in the Message.
31 A good person's mouth is a clear fountain of wisdom;
a foul mouth is a stagnant swamp.

32 The speech of a good person clears the air;
the words of the wicked pollute it.


Proverbs 18:20-21 in the Message
20 Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach;
good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.

21 Words kill, words give life;
they're either poison or fruit—you choose.

Proverbs 21:23 in the Message
23 Watch your words and hold your tongue;
you'll save yourself a lot of grief.

As I meditate on these verses this morning I want to become a wise person in the way I use my words. I don't want to hurt people anymore with things that I say without thinking. I want to come to a place where I only say things that are uplifting and not degrading. I pray this morning that you bring me to a place Lord where I can learn this wisdom from you.

Last Week in Review..

Last week was certainly a busy week for us around here. We did lots of different things. I almost don't remember all that we did at this point.
On Monday, a friend of mine came over in the morning to do our Bible study we are doing on Spiritual gifts by Eddie Rasnake. It has been a good thing to be involved in a daily time with God. It helps to get me into the Word on a daily basis, without it I wouldn't do it because I chose not to do it sadly enough. I just don't have the discipline to do it on my own without a guidance. Is it wrong of me to not dig into the Word on my own without something pushing me towards it? I don't know, probably in some respect it is.
Monday evening my home was filled with a bunch of testosterone cause my husband had a worship discipleship night. He leads our worship ministry at the church we attend. He holds a once-a-month discussion time for anyone interested in worship. They talk about a topic or scripture and then take time to pray for the worship ministry as a whole.
On Tuesday, I went to spend the day with my sister-in-law who is here from out of town for the day. It was a good relaxing day.
On Wednesday the kids and I ran errands in the morning and went to the doctor for my 6 month old's well baby check. While there I mentioned something to my doctor that has been weighing on my heart and mind for awhile. I mentioned to them about the opening at the back of his throat. We were told that he has a partial cleft palette that needs to be seen by a specialist and then repaired at some point and time in the near future. Hearing this news really kind of freaked me out a bit. I didn't want to believe it, but somehow I just knew that is what it was after doing the research I had done. So now we are facing getting our finances in order to help take care of this need. At this point we have no insurance so tomorrow afternoon I will be filling out a bunch of paperwork to try and get my baby covered under some government assistance. So prayers in this area of life would be greatly appreciated.
The rest of the week held little things here and there like Women's prayer group, family night, date night, panic attack, stress, small group.
So today I am left searching my heart about several things about my recent stress and how it is affecting me and why I am letting it affect me so. Is most of my stress having to do with the situation with my baby and the financial things involved with that or is there something else. As I continue on this journey of figuring things out with God I know that all things are possible and that he will take care of us. I am His child. He loves me. I am going to try to rest in that.

Life update.

So you might be wondering what is going on in our household this month being as my last 2 entries were things that occurred last month. Well the first thing we really had going on was sick. I was sick with strep and then the boys came down with a nasty, nasty cough so that lead to little sleep and very long days and of course a doctor's visit. Jabez just really had a bad cold and cough while Dakota had a double ear infection, his second in like 2 weeks time, and also a junky chest. But this week it seems we have finally been healthy and for that I praise God. I am hoping to keep them healthy and myself also healthy.
Something else I have been doing is working out to Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred. I started before Christmas and then got really sick and took a little over a week off. Picked it back up and now I am taking today and the next two days trying to get my ankle back to normal. One of the days I was doing it a few weeks ago I side stepped and have been having issues since then. So I was told its time to take a bit of a break to give it some time to heal. My thoughts on this are that I hate it. I really want to work out now but I am choosing to be wise because I don't want to do permanent damage to it.
I have been working really hard since about September to get some of this weight off that I have gained over the years having kids. My recent baby was pretty easy to lose. I have lost all the weight I gained with him plus some more then that. Now I am working on getting rid of the rest from my first son.
My goal is to be back where I want to be by my birthday and for that to happen I am starting to realize I need to make some huge eating habit changes in the next couple of months to get me there. So that is what I am going to do. Not exactly sure what all that will be yet. I need to kind of take some actual time to decide what I need to cut out and what I need to add to make me healthier and be able to lose this weight by my goal date.
Another thing that I have been working on this month so far is spending time with God. I have really been horrible at that in the last year. A friend of mine and I are doing a Bible study together and it takes me to the Word everyday. I am also reading through the Bible in a year. So those are things that I am trying to do to better my relationship with Christ. I want to become more and more like him and the only way I can do that is through daily devotion to him.
Another big thing for our little family.....I proclaim that Jabez is potty trained!!

So this is a brief update on what is going on in this household.
By the way my beautiful baby boy will be turning 6 months on Tuesday. I can't believe he will be that old already. Man how time flies....

The rest of the Story........

Now we continue with the rest of the story.......

Here is the momma and her little girl who missed out on our first day because of illness. They came and joined us for fun, food, and fellowship.



.




This momma and her baby girl joined us again for the which started out with painting.....






Here is "bug" or so we call her, working on painting some paper after she had already finished her ornament.








Well we finished or ornaments and then moved on to cookies.






There are no pictures of us cutting out cookies because well I wanted to enjoy cutting out cookies too....Here is what we had to work with after we cut and baked them all.



Well see I also wanted to enjoy decorating the cookies with my son looking in the background. Yes, I know it, don't you see the tongue.....it is my form of concentration.





Here is mama and her "bug" working on decorating cookies. So are they deeply concentrating or deeply talking....not sure but whatever is going on, it sure does look serious!





So here is another picture of a momma and her baby decorating cookies. I love the look of intent upon their faces.





Well we eventually did finish decorating our cookies and these were some of our favorites that were decorated.







So here we are finally at the end of the day after we cleaned up. Look at all that frosting, sugar, .....whatever there may be.


Yes, you can call us crazy; we did paint ornaments and bake and decorate cookies all in one day. It might have been a crazy day that we even finished off with dinner together along with our husbands, but it was a great day!

I know its a bit late but here is a bit of fun that we had before Christmas.....

Well several of my friends and I and there kiddos decided this year was time to decorate cookies with the kiddos. We did so on two separate occasions cause on the first occasion one kiddo ended up being sick.
There once was a momma and her two little boys that came to my house to see decorate some cookies.








And another momma and her baby girl who also decided it would be fun to come and decorate cookies also. Baby girl thought it would be fun to "ham it up" for the camera.



And then there was my little boy, the only one of which can decorate cookies doing it all on his own cause his mama was busy with taking pictures for her blog.






And then we had a tray full of cookies we decorated. Well what had to come next....Can anybody guess?






Well of course we would need little munchkins to eat them for us. Yummy, Yummy!







Did I mention that the cookies were oh so yummy!




And then we had to take it a step further with getting all the sugar possible in for the day. Thoughts of toddler "I must lick this board so that I can eat all the sugar to drive my mommy crazy later."




Well you see we were missing a mommy and her little one that day so we thought we had to continue the story with yet another day of cookie baking, except we also decide to paint some decorations. So that is where this story continues.........in yet another post........

Today

I have really struggled today to be a good mom. I have lost it with my children by raising my voice at them on several occasions. I feel like I just want to go to bed and forget that this day happened and wake up to a brand new day tomorrow where there would be a clean slate. But I know that isn't what God wants me to do. He wants me to see where I have made mistakes and to ask forgiveness and to move on from there. I am asking God to be my portion today because I know that I cannot do it on my own. I am asking God to be my forgiver today, for without him I can do nothing. I need his extra strength to make it through this day.
Thank you Lord for loving me even when I mess up. Thank you for being my Portion, my Rock, my Forgiveness, my All in All.

My Thoughts....

I guess it has been a little over 2 weeks now that my youngest brother lost his best friend/mentor/boss due to illness. Before my brother met this man he had walked away from a life with Christ. He was experiencing many things of the world I never wanted to see him experience. He met this man at a local restaurant they both frequented. From watching my brother over a few months this man asked him to come work for him. This man mentored my brother back into a relationship with Christ in the last three and a half years. Not only has he done that but he has taught him how to run a business on his own. He has really stepped up and become a quite the young man.
I had the opportunity to go to his funeral. My brother wasn't the only person this man has impacted. While at the funeral another man shared about the impact this man had on his life. From stories I read from his children he almost died 20 years ago due to the same illness. I thank God that he allowed this man to continue to live to impact my brother's life and the lives of others around him.
You know seeing my brother go through this was quite difficult. He has never lost a best friend before. He has never been so quiet. It was really weird. The weekend before his friend died he got engaged to an absolutely wonderful sweet girl. I love her to pieces. This man's wife told her husband that my brother had finally gotten engaged. He was so happy for them. He was doing better, she thought she was gonna bring him home not take him to the grave instead. This is just to say how crazy fast your life can be done and over with.
One of the biggest things this situation made me think about was how would I be if I lost my husband. I mean I know we have only been married for close to 5 1/2 years but man I can't imagine how I would continue life without him. This man and woman had been married for close to 50 years. I can't imagine losing someone I have built my life around for 50 years. It blows my mind. I can't quite fathom it. Marriage is a very precious gift given from God and I never want to take my spouse for granted I love him with my whole heart. He absolutely means the world to me. We need to really love each other every single day at our best because we never know it could be our last.

Crazy Love Book

We finished Crazy Love a few weeks back. I was just really bad at keeping you posted on my thoughts about the last couple of chapters that we went through. I am actually gonna go back to Chapter 8 of the book. When I first read this chapter or should I say glanced at it, I really didn't get anything out of it. But when I went back and actually read this chapter it was loaded. It was talking about when people are really focused on God and heaven. I think what I am going to do is quote from the book the different obsessions that he talked about that spoke to me.....

"Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don't always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth( Crazy Love, pg 136). " When I look at this one I think of how much time in my life I waste. Waste away at stupid games on the computer or just plainly sitting around doing nothing. I wish I would take more of an opportunity to see what God has to say to me than what I want to do for myself.

Another obsession was "People who are obsessed with Jesus do not consider service a burden. Obsessed people take joy in loving God by loving his people (Crazy Love, pg 139). " I think I have more of a servents heart, so this one doesn't seem quite so out there like some of the others. I do find great joy in helping others in times of need.

A third obession was that of " A person who is obsessed is characterized by committed, settled, passionate love for God above and before every other thing and ever other being (Crazy Love, pg 143)." Why do I struggle so greatly with this one. I love God but I don't see myself by far as obsessed with him and that is sad and scary. He is suppose to be the most important part of my life and I just place him on the back burner. I only chose to spend time with him when I feel I have the time. Ouch.

When I take these 3 of the obsessions that Francis Chan talks about and really think about them and what they would mean in my relationship with Christ it makes it feel almost unatainable. One of the biggest things I struggle with is learning how to balance all my time. Yes I did admit to spending time playing computer games but that is something I can change. Then there are the other "things" that seem to take precedence; cleaning, cooking, laundry, spending time with my husband, spending time with my boys, spending time with friends........dadadadada.......the list goes on. How do I come to a place of making him my priority? How do I change all the old habits I am in to? How do I strive to become more like Christ? I think these are questions that will only help foster my relationship with Christ if I just put it into action. Now I just need to follow through with action.

In the final chapter of the book are some pretty provoking challenges that brings some questions to my mind.....Am I living my life in a way that is most loving? Do I live like today could be my last? Am I contagious in a postitive way? What will people say about me and the way I lived when I am gone? Will I hear " well done" when I get to heaven? I think that question in and of itself sums up how we should strive to live our daily lives.

It has once again been a long time....

Well first of all I didn't realize that this had posted. Thanks to some great friends for giving me some wonderful comments. I don't know why I can't seem to get anything up here but I really do want to soon.......

Crazy Love Book......

I have been wanting to write this since I had my study with the women's group on Wednesday evening, over a week ago, but I have had very busy times and not any great amount of time to just stop and write something that is on my heart. Its just kind of been hard with the baby, canning, and juggling all things in life. So being so busy just allowed me barely enough time to get my second chapter finished. To be honest I mostly just skimmed it. I know that I should have allowed myself more time but I was procrastinating and it got me into trouble. So when we were talking about the second chapter everybody was saying how convicting it was to them. But I didn't really even catch what it was saying because I was so busy and had so little time to read it. In our time of talking people started to share little things about the chapter. As I was sitting there listening to others talk about things I was thinking about my day and remembered how Jabez came up to me and asked for water. He was so insistent that he needed water right then and there. I found it really annoying at the time but the more I thought about it the more it really hit me that just as Jabez was longing for water for his physical needs we need to be pressing into God and wanting to know him more. As we were sitting there at the end of our time and getting ready to pray I was just hit overwhelmingly by the presence of God. As I prayed I just had tears come to my eyes because of the awesomeness that God had revealed to me.
The sad thing is that over a week has gone by and I haven't really spent anymore time with God then I did previous to this revelation. I get so caught up in the day to day things of life that I just don't spend that time with him. It is so frustrating. I don't know where to turn and figure out how to do everything. If anyone has any advice for me that would be wonderful.
As I continue on this journey through this book I pray that some life changes come.

Thoughts

When I was sitting here on the couch last night feeding my baby I got to thinking about these last couple weeks of life. I started looking at all the ways my baby has changed. At his 2 week appointment he hadn't gained any weight except his birth weight back. Well in the month since then he has been eating nonstop. That would explain how he has gained 2 lbs 3 onces. In my opinion that is crazy! He has also started smiling a lot. Last night we had an almost giggle.
Time is flying by so quickly, he is growing so fast. I am truly trying to enjoy all these stages cause its going to be over so soon. One of the areas that I struggle are with being up a lot some nights. I enjoy my sleep too much and when I don't get it I am a mess the next day. I am not fun to be around and I pity my poor kids. I am trying to make sure that I am proactive this time in the decisions that I make and not push myself too much. Last time I tried to do everything myself and ended up sick and really depressed. I have made some decisions that some people I am sure think is crazy. But you know what I am enjoying my baby this time. I am happy this time. I have only had a few number of days where I have felt really weepy. I have taken charge of my body and my schedule and that feels awesome! I have allowed friends to come and help me out, although it was a very humbling thing to do in the beginning.
I am thoroughly enjoying being a mom of two. I look forward to the coming months and watching them to continue to interact more and more. I truly feel very blessed.

How Life is going 6 weeks after

Well I feel like life has definitely started to have a normalcy. It has been really neat and amazing to see how God has changed Jabez's heart for his little brother. He is learning to love on his brother and help me with many little tasks around the house. It is kind of hard yet to get my days going sometimes. I feel like I get nothing done but change diapers and feed kids, but that really isn't all true. In the six weeks since having my second born i have canned applesauce, peaches, and salsa, with the help of friends of course (I have no idea how I would do something of this extent on my own with 2 babies!!!!!). It has been a blessing having friends being willing to help me even though it was very humbling to have to ask for help with things.

It was fun to watch Jabez this weekend with his cousin who just turned 1 at the end of last month. It took them a little to warm up to each other but Jabez soon become loving and helpful with him. He was even pretty willing to play with him. I am looking forward to how the boys learn to interact with each other the older Dakota becomes.
Dakota has started smiling already and he is getting so big. We have moved him up to 3-6 month clothing already. We have our 6 week check up on Tuesday of this week. I am interested to see how much my baby has gained already. As time passes all to quickly, my baby is growing so fast. Oh how I love to see the little changes he continues to make.

"Crazy Love" book thoughts

Well we had our first meeting for the "Crazy Love" book a few weeks ago, almost 2 weeks ago in fact. I will have to say meeting with a group of women as I have said before is good. It took us a little bit to begin opening up with the questions that were asked but it did end up becoming a good deep conversation. One of the things that really stuck out to me was talking about how hard it is to live each day serving God with everything we have. How do we balance a life of family, friends, house, and just life in general but still live to serve God? It is a question we couldn't really completely answer. I find it really sad that I struggle so much with this but I think it is something that most of us deal with in our lifetimes. Until we come to grasp exactly how much God really loves us, we won't see much change. In our humanness I don't think it is possible to completely come to an understanding of God's amazing and infinite love. Our message at church this morning was actually on the verses in the Bible where it talks about "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself." I think if we learn to love people more we can learn to love God more. If we chose not to avoid certain people who bug us but actually take the time to talk to them, isn't that a bit of loving our neighbor. How many of us purposely avoid a certain type or even a certain person cause they bug us? I know that I do. Anyway I have kind of gotten off topic. So I want to try to live life in a that is of loving people.
So onto to the second chapter that I just actually watched the online video for for the first time asked a question about "Am I really living my life in such a way that it shows that my life here on earth is just a vapor," as it talks about in the book of James. My question out of this again is, "How do we live our lives as if we could die at any moment?" I feel this kind of life would be like walking around on pointy stones all day long. How do you live this kind of life without living on your tiptoes constantly? Can anyone help me answer this question?
So now as this week approaches we continue you with Chapters 3 and 4 of this book. I have only briefly started reading it, but I will try to share my thoughts on this also.

One Year Anniversary

Today is the one year anniversary of the loss of our baby. It is hard to believe that it has been a year already. I don't feel real emotional about today, in fact I have been given just a wonderfully joyful day today. I woke up and look outside and saw the sunshine and my heart just started singing "Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day. I have a wonderful feeling that God is gonna bless this day. " I just can't get God off my mind today. I have seen him in every step that I have taken today. I had a really great morning with the boys and my heart just continued to sing praises to our risen Lord and King.
This afternoon while the boys have been asleep I have finished reading my first two chapters of this book called "Crazy Love." The second chapter is really calling us to not forget who God is and what He has done for us. It is calling us to make him the most important thing in our lives. It is calling us to not forget how intricately he has made our bodies and how everything works together to give us another day. I am just kind of stuck on this right now. I can't get out of my mind how much I forget God in my daily life. I chose to push him in the back corner and not worship him. I wish everyday were like today where I would wake with a heart praising God and for it to continue throughout the day. It doesn't just need to be a wish, it needs to become a part of my everyday being. I need to chose to let God be in control of my day and for him to work through me in the way that he wants. I need to not worry about the next day cause it hasn't happened yet. I just need to trust God for the here and now. Wow! If I were to live everyday worshiping Him, I wouldn't need to be worried about the time when Christ comes back for me, I would just be ready. No matter what , where, or when.
This is starting to recharge my soul to be more focused on God and all that he has done for me. I so often feel, like right now this is just going through my mind for today, by tomorrow I will forget what God did for me today. I pray that that changes.
As I close there is a song going through my mind and I would like to share that with you....

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvelous for words
Too wonderful for comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom
Who can fathom the depths of Your love
You are beautiful beyond description
Majesty, enthroned above

And I stand, I stand in awe of You
I stand, I stand in awe of You
Holy God to whom all praise is due
I stand in awe of You

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvelous for words
Too wonderful for comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom
Who can fathom the depths of Your love
You are beautiful beyond description
Majesty, enthroned above

And I stand, I stand in awe of You
I stand, I stand in awe of You
Holy God to whom all praise is due
I stand in awe of You
Yes, I stand in awe of You
I stand in awe of You