But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  These words have taken me out of the dark and have brought out the light.  These words have been running through my head like a mantra since I heard them in church yesterday.  These words have been a salve to my heart that has been hurting so badly.  Lately things have been so hard.  I have felt life my life was drowning me.  Between work and home and my girls things have just been so hard.  Honestly I have felt broken and I have not know what to do about it.  I mean what do you do when you feel like your life is sucking everything out of you and there is nothing left for yourself?  I honestly don't know what happened.  I do know that since yesterday I have been thinking of the end of Joshua 24;15 almost constantly in my head.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  This section of Joshua talks about serving God sincerely and turning away from idols to serve God fully.  Joshua 24:23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”  What I realized in that moment is that I may not worship the "gods" that this chapter is referring to, but I am putting other things in my life before God and that might as well be the same thing.  My life has not changed drastically since yesterday, but its all about perspective.  All of the same things are still going on in my life, but when I think but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  The one and only thing that I should be worried about is serving the Lord and the rest of it will fall into place. I heard a song on the way home from school today that talked about how God sees all the suffering that you go through and sometimes He puts you through that to come out stronger on the other side.  When you are in the middle of these tough times it is hard to see the purpose and honestly it is hard to feel like God is with you.  Its hard to even feel like He cares about you sometimes.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  Who knows what the days to come will bring and how I will respond to those things that are coming my way?  All I know is that right now I don't feel like I am drowning today and this mantra is still running through my head.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Steal My Joy

Do you know the song Old Church Choir by Zach Williams?  I hear this song all the time and I love it.  For about two days now there is one line from that song that has been stuck in my head: There ain't nothing gonna steal my joy.  No there ain't nothing gonna steal my joy.  I have realized that God is trying to tell me something.  God is trying to show me how often and how many different people I let steal my joy all the time.  The wonderful joy that I feel when singing about Him alone in my car.  The joy that I feel because of the wonderful children He blessed me with.  So many times a day I let people steal my joy.  Between some of life circumstances that come up and some of the students that I teach I let them steal the joy from my heart.  I let this profession, where I go in all day just trying to do what I can to put a band aid on a system that is broken, beat me down.  I let these students taking out their other issues on me take away pieces of me.  Sometimes I let all the burdens that come with having two little ones, working full time, and being married to a football coach steal away little pieces of my joy.  Sometimes my heart feels so heavy because I have given up so many pieces that I don't have any left.  I know that the big answer to this is that I just have to rely on God and He will project the joy in my life and exude it out of my heart.  I know that I need to trust and rely.  That always seems to be the big answer.  The problem with that is that I don't know that next right step to take.  I don't know what it is that I need to be doing in order to be able to truly trust and let go. 
I have gone my whole life thinking that I needed to be self sufficient and that they only person I could truly rely on was myself.  Now I am slowly learning that I cannot rely on me.  That I can't do it.  God always wanted me to know that I can't do it.  How do I overcome years of conditioning telling me that I'm the only one?  What is the one next step?  I know what the problem is, but where do I go from here and how do I start to fix it?  Maybe one day I will figure it out.

This Chapter

Today is my husbands last JV game in his first year as the head coach and I don't know that he has any idea how proud I am of him.  At 15 I didn't really have any idea about what kind of man he would become.  I never would have imagined that 15 years later we would still be us and have these wonderful lives together.  I also had no idea about the many ways that he would touch people's lives and the influence he would have.  I am so thankful that he is here to give our girls the same love and guidance, maybe a little more delicately that he gives his boys and his students.  He is such a caring and dedicated man.  I know that this has been a challenging experience for him.  I know there have been some long nights spent wondering what more he could do and what else he could try to make them better.  The way that he is concerned not only with the game but the character of the young men in his care.  The tenderness he shows as he draws the hard line and as he cares for these boys on and off the field is astounding.  I don't care about the record they come away from this season with.  What I do care about is, that even though the long hours drive me nuts, he is becoming a better man.  These boys make him better.  Our girls make him better.  When we were kids and first started dating I knew he was a good guy, but I didn't the man he would become now and I wouldn't change a minute of it.  He balances me out and partners with me in the trenches of the preschool and toddler years.  This man makes my life bearable.  He will touch lives and I'm just waiting to see it.

I don't know how to feel

Today has been a hard day to top off a difficult week.  This difficult week has involved some parent conferences, the craziness of the end of the quarter, some "spring fever" for my students, and the culmination of frustrations that comes with being in the third month of football season.  In teaching the mood ebbs and flows quite frequently.  Frustration can be quite common, with the kids, with myself, and with anyone and everyone else.  This week has culminated in today.  Today started out hard.  I got frustrated with my husband when through no fault of his own he was not as helpful to me while we got ready for school as I would like.  Then my students were hard to handle and I received a couple of sets of upsetting news today.
Today I feel like my heart has been taken out of my chest and broken.  The news that we have lost a former student of mine was shocking and tragic.  I hadn't thought of that young man in years and when I heard the news images came flooding back to me.  When I think of him all I see is that big grin on his face.  I remember him being a handful, but really what stands out to me is that big smile that I used to see on her face.  Hearing the news shook me.  He's not the first former student of mine to be lost and like I said I hadn't thought of him in years, but it still stung.  In shock "That sucks" was all I could think to text back to my husband.  I still don't know what else to say or how to feel.  Much later in the day I got some other news.  News that made me concerned for someone close to me.  The feelings of anger and unfairness that it brought up almost had me in tears.  I know that life is not supposed to be fair and God never said we wouldn't suffer in fact He said the opposite that we need to be prepared to suffer for Him.  That is all well and good, but when you have to watch so much pain and heartache come to someone that you hold so dear it is hard to understand and to wrap your mind around it.  Before I left work today I bowed my head and prayed my head in my hands at my desk and just began to pray.  To pray that God would help me and those in these terrible situations.  My heart cried out to say that I was pretty sure I just couldn't handle any more.
I don't know whats going to happen tomorrow, next week, or even five minutes for now.  What I do know is that my heart hurts, not for myself, but for those near to me.  I know that when I can't handle it that I am going to pray.  So far prayer has at least gotten me through the next moment and then the next, and then some more of those moments. I don't know where it will take me next, but prayer is the only thing that has gotten me this for so continue to pray I shall.

His story not mine

I have had this nagging feeling that I had something to say, but I haven't exactly been able to put it into words.  Ever since reading about it in a book I haven't been able to get this out of my head.  It talks about not letting satan steal your story.  I had never thought before about how our whole life, our whole story is not really ours.  It's Gods story and it has the power to tell people so much about God.  Our whole life story is our testimony to how great God is.  I have never thought of myself as having a particularly powerful testimony story.  I have never seen myself as having anything to say that would help anyone else. It got me to thinking when it said that our hard times can be what leads someone else to God.  When someone sees how we rely on God when things are tough and how He takes care of us when we think we cant handle any more it can point others straight to God.  I don't have the most radical testimony it wasn't one of those stories that you read about and to me that made it feel less special in some ways.  I have come to realize that sometimes the biggest can come from just the small moments.  Reading about another woman's ability to rely on God in the hard moments of parenting speaks to my heart in a soft and special way.  In the past I have felt so self conscious about sharing my testimony because I didn't feel like it was special enough.  I didn't feel like it was enough of a story to matter.  And shame on me for that.  To not think that the story that God gave me was special enough to need to tell, thats on me.  This is the story that God gave me and its not about me.  It's all about God and how He is working in my life to further His glory, not mine.    God has given me this story and it is my job to tell it.  Now lets see if I can learn to live up to that.

Forgiveness before too late

This is not the first time the message of forgiveness has been laid on my heart.  And I'm starting to think that it's like in school, if I repeat something it's probably important.  So I feel like this message must be important and I must have missed something the last time.
The hardest ones to forgive are the closest ones to you.  The ones who's hurts have cut the deepest and the most often.  For most of my life my dad was not an easy man to love or to get along with.  And I do have to say that most of the rough edges of my personality come straight from him.  For so much of my life I remember being so angry and so hurt by him.  I felt abandoned, unloved, and unworthy.  Even many years later when I started to understand my dad much better, from the stories he told and from the fact that my personality seems more likely like his all the time, I still harbored those feelings.  That deeper understanding was able to strip away the raw edges of that hurt, but true forgiveness wasn't there.  That's why even to the day he die, even with as much closer as we got, I still tended to avoid my dad.  Deep down I wasn't able to forgive him and let go of those hurts.  I think even more than my hurts was watching the way those same hurts had affect my sister three years my junior.  Watching the struggles that she has gone through, so many of which I feel like stem from his rejection, kept that last layer of bitterness in my heart even after my daddy was gone.  My father became a much better man before he died and I loved him dearly, but I wasn't able to forgive him for the hurts of my childhood.  I have realized that slowly after losing him those feelings have ebbed away.  My heart focuses on the good times and slowly I have forgiven those deepest of hurts.  It saddens me to know that I couldn't do this while he was still with me and it makes me wonder what I missed because of it.  What moments that I could have had with him did I miss out on because I clung to my hurts? This has made me contemplate the other hurts I've been holding on to and the ones that I have slowly been able to let go of. All I can do is pray that God will take hold of my heart and remove the bitterness that remains.  Forgiveness is hard work, but thinking of what could have been can be quite the motivation.

Dear Daddy,

Daddy,
Today is a hard day.  Sometimes you think that the pain of loss will lessen over time, but Im not so sure.  I'm not sure that celebrating your birthday without you will ever get easier.  I don't think that answering my four year olds questions about "Why did my grandpa have to die"  will ever be any less painful.  Sometimes I can get through days where you are not on the forethought of my mind.  Then there are days when I open my mouth and you come out.  There are so many ways that I am just like you and now I can see those same traits, for good or bad, in my children every day.  Whether it is Quinn's assertiveness.  Rorey's no no nonsense when standing up to her sister.  When I look at my face in the mirror I cant help but see you staring back at me.  This face that you gave me will always remind me of what was.  I don't forget about the times that were hard, where we hardly even spoke to each other.  I choose to dwell on the love that I always know was there even when things weren't easy.  I think about your face when you got to meet my baby girl.  How proud you said you were of me when I went to college and pursued my dreams.  How you danced with me on my wedding day.  I choose to think about the long talks we had when I cared for you during your hospital stay, I don't think I ever knew you better than that time.  My days are also filled with frivolous wishes.  I wish you could have met my other baby and seen her face.  I wish you were there when they were baptized.  I wish I had asked you how you felt about God.  I wish that I had know where your soul resides.  I wish that I had loved you more freely in the time I had.  I wish my girls would know you more than just from my memories.  I wish you knew how much you meant to me though I never got around to saying it.  Sometimes my heart breaks thinking about the wishes that I have.  I try to focus on your voice in my head where I can hear you calling my name (when you called me the right one).  Today on your birthday almost three days after the day when I never got to say goodbye, my heart hurts.  It hurts from the love I feel, the sadness I can't escape, the moments that never were, and all the feelings I can't even put words to.
                               Love you,

Parenting is Hard.

Anyone who has ever been a parent or even ever watched someone parent knows that's true.  Parenting is HARD.  It is no secret that I have been having a hard time lately with my role in motherhood.  This has been a very hard time for me the past couple of weeks or so and I know it is probably not going to ease up for a couple more weeks until we establish our new normal.  This season of motherhood has been such a challenge for me.  My oldest is four and it seems like everything that is four has hit our house full force as of late.  It is coming on the tail end of her not so stellar recovery from her tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy.  I feel like I didn't even get to catch my breath in between and now football season is in full swing.
I've decided that something's got to give and I think it's got to start with me.  I have started reading two different books this week that were recommended to me by different sources and they make me hopeful.  They are Gospel-Centered Mom: The Freeing Truth About What Your Kids Really Need by Brooke McGlothlin and Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp.  I have only read the first two chapters in both, but they have made me hopeful.  They both talk in different ways about how today's society gives you such a bleak outlook on parenthood.  Not the everyday moments, but the in generals.  Every time I talk to a parent with children older than mine about the challenges I am facing they tell you to just wait, things get worse.  How disheartening it is to think about parenting always getting worse.  In the first couple of chapters they address very differently what I can do about it, but it all kind of boils down the same.
One of the best things from Gospel-Centered Mom is about how I am not enough, I will never be enough, and that's ok because I was never supposed to be.  God is enough.  I don't have to be enough with Him working through me.  All I have to do is to trust and rely.  The other book talks about focusing on the heart issues because behaviors stem from the heart.  And how hard it is to look at your child's heart and to model the right heart if your heart is not right.  I think that I agree with Brooke.  My life hasn't been the easiest, but I have been able to overcome everything and that has made me feel like I can do it all by myself and that's not what God wants.  God wants me to need Him ALL the time.  He wants me to come to Him with every need.  Trust and rely.
While I have to trust and rely to set the example I need also work on intentionality for me and my girls.  I need to intentionally spend more time alone with God.  And I need to intentionally spend time with my girls and God.  I know that this is only a start, but we have to get our foundation right in order to build on that.  It's all about baby steps.  We will see what the other chapters hold for me, but one of them left me with Psalm 145 for hope.

I will exalt you, my God the King;
    I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you
    and extol your name for ever and ever.

3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation commends your works to another;
    they tell of your mighty acts.
5 They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
    and I will meditate on your wonderful works.[b]
6 They tell of the power of your awesome works—
    and I will proclaim your great deeds.
7 They celebrate your abundant goodness
    and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
    slow to anger and rich in love.

9 The Lord is good to all;
    he has compassion on all he has made.
10 All your works praise you, Lord;
    your faithful people extol you.
11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom
    and speak of your might,
12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts
    and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
    and your dominion endures through all generations.

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
    and faithful in all he does.[c]
14 The Lord upholds all who fall
    and lifts up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look to you,
    and you give them their food at the proper time.
16 You open your hand
    and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and faithful in all he does.
18 The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
    he hears their cry and saves them.
20 The Lord watches over all who love him,
    but all the wicked he will destroy.

21 My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
    Let every creature praise his holy name
    for ever and ever.

Life is a Mixed Bag

I think I may have always known this.  Life has way of teaching it to you way too early when your life should still be full of nothing but magic and wonder.  Yesterday was one of my lowest points in a long time and for a minute it broke me and that was God's intent.  Some people think that God isn't that cruel and if thats how you feel then you don't understand the point or the so many points.  God doesn't break me down to be cruel God breaks me down to teach me and build me back up. I think that there are so many things that He is trying to teach me sometimes.  So many things that it is so easy to forget.  I feel like everything is easy to forget when you are chasing after a toddler and a preschooler.  Sometimes I forget to savor the moment.
The beautiful moments: There are so many beautiful moments that I will never get back.  The way my girls need me can be so suffocating at times but it can also be so beautiful.  One day my babies wont cling to my lap when their world is wrong, and one day when their world is wrong their problems will be so much bigger, but something that won't change is me not knowing what to do about it.  Watching my girls learn new things and discover the world is also so beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.  I love watching their smiles, and their eyes light up, and their true excitement.  Sometimes the learn and grow so fast that it is easy for me to forget they are just babies, it is easy to expect too much from them.  They are smart and beautiful girls, but they are still learning and growing and I am here to teach them.  If they knew everything already why would I be here to teach them.  Motherhood is the best part of my life and by far the most traumatic.  Even knowing my whole life that I wanted to be a mother you get thrown into it so suddenly.  Those nine months do very little to prepare you for it.  There is no instruction manual, no matter how much you read about parenting.  You will never be prepared for the awe and the wonder of staring into your daughters' eyes, or watching them as they sleep.  You will never be prepared for the way that your heart can melt just by seeing them play together, or when you two year old starts telling you that she loves you regularly.  The way that your four year old will look at you for your approval after everything that she does.  There is also nothing that will prepare you for the first time your child says your mean or Rorey's favorite right now "I not love you right now mommy".  The first time that your child yells at you to leave them alone or slams the door in your face.  And it is my job to teach them that these are not acceptable behaviors and there are better ways to to express the way that you are feeling, but I have to remind myself that sometimes little girls have big girl emotions and they have to learn how to deal with those.  It will be a process.  I know that even at 30 I don't always know how to deal with my big girl emotions.
Being a mother is so hard sometimes.  The burden is so heavy when you get caught up in what you feel like are your duties.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed by expectations.  My high expectations of myself as a mother.  All the things I want to emulate, all the things that I want to try to do better than what Ive seen.  Sometimes I get caught up in what I feel like others expect of me.  Even without anyone saying anything to you in this culture as a mom there is such a weight of what we feel like other people expect us to do and even how we think others expect us to do it.  Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in the hard especially this time of the year that I forget to just breath.  To give myself a break.  To cut myself a break.  To lower my expectations.  Sometimes I just need to stop and play with my girls.  Sometimes I need to lay in the floor and cry about not knowing what to do.  Sometimes breaking down is the best way to realize how beautiful your life is, the wonder in this small part of the world around you.  When things are going wrong and your whole life is turned upside down its hard to see the beauty, but maybe thats why it happens sometimes.

A Week Full of THOSE Days

I thought hard about how transparent I wanted to be with this and decided to go for it.  I started this to share the good, the bad, and the ugly.  So it's no secret this has probably been the hardest week of my life, at the very least top five, and because it is the freshest it seems the worst.  Today started on a great note.  My little one finally got the good test results that we have been hoping for since Sunday.   She has not handled her surgery well and her not wanting to eat or drink left her dehydrated and on the brink of being admitted to the hospital.  So these results this morning and the progress of her healing were wonderful news.  I was so hopeful that meant that things were going to start looking up. I even told myself not to get too hopeful things will not magically be better because her test results came back good.
I was home with both girls by myself all day today.  My husband moved into football camp Sunday not to move back home until Friday, and there was no point in sending my youngest to half day daycare when we had to go take our family football pictures around 11 this morning.  And boy was that fun.  Both of my girls were ill as snakes, and I wasn't in the best mood either.  Sometimes I think seeing their daddy just for a minute when they know he's not coming home makes the, more ill.  And Quinn though she is feeling so much better is still having a time getting her sensitive tummy straightened back out after her surgery and the string pain meds.  We did manage to look like a happy presentable family at least for a minute, despite all that and the poor amount of sleep Quinn and I have both been getting.  We were then able to go get the pizza that is the on,y thing my post-op child wants to eat and come home, with only a few tantrums from my youngest.  I got them to eat and lay down for a nap with no major event, I should have known then.  I even managed to get a minute for myself to do some things I needed to get done while they were both napping.
Then they were done napping and it's like my world fell apart.  Quinn has woken up from her naps screaming for several days now, but refuses to talk to me about it.  She woke up in a terror.  My child is no angel, but for the most part she's pretty well behaved.  I mean she's four and sometimes she has to be told to turn down the attitude, but she's pretty good.  Today she yelled and screamed in my face, made demands, tried to bust down her door, and screamed and hollered so hard I thought she was going to bust a stitch.  I know some of it is my fault.  I know that my patience is not at its best right now, I'm not being as rational with her as I usually am.  I'm sure I could have diffused the situation in my normal capacity, but I guess we will never know.  But I tried everything that normally works with Quinn.  But what it ended up with was yelling, tantrums, and tears from both of us.  It all culminated with me breaking and I just lay in my daughters doorway and cried.  Like full on ugly cry, I couldn't even talk.  My youngest was so confused and upset.  Eventually that sent both of us to our own corners where I could shove huge amounts of carbs in my face, because it's the on,y way I knew how to cope with what just happened.  After some time all was resolved.  I don't know how she and I got to the point we got to.  I do know for certain it won't be the last time.  I also am not quite certain what  I am supposed to learn about what happened.
What I do know is that God only breaks you down to build you up more like Him.  So that's what I have to hope is happening because there has been a lot of breaking down this week.  I know that Gid will bring me out of this more the person He desires me to be.  I just don't know why it has to be so hard or why it has to hurt so much.
Quinn is currently sleeping in her own bed for the first time in a week.  It may not last all night, but hopefully if she and I can get more sleep we can make it at least until Saturday when my husband can be there to mediate.

In the Hard Times

My four year-old daughter got her tonsils out on Thursday, so we are on day three of the recovery.  This has been one of the hardest experiences of my life.  I don't for a minute question the decision that we made to get them taken out.  Even with her not being sick at the time her tonsils were infected at the time of removal.  According to the dr. her surgery went great.  Her recovery has been so hard.  First of all you know how hard it is to see someone you love hurting especially when you know there's not really anything that you can do about it.  It is so much worse when it's your child.  That sweet innocent face in so much pain, and so upset.  There have been quite a few tears shed in these three days and not all of them were hers.  She has also been so angry, and I know that mostly from the pain and her not understanding what's going on, but that doesn't help me.  Yesterday she had a good day and now I feel like it has just given me some false hope and made today harder to deal with.  Yesterday she played some and ate by choice, she remained hydrated.  Today I had to threaten not to be with her just to get her to eat anything all day and I had to explain that she would have to go back and stay at the hospital if she wouldn't drink more for me while I stood over her to make it happen.  All she has done today is sleep and be ugly.  Which is not bringing out the best side of me.  I had done ok until this evening and then I feel like I broke.  After her asking me to go get her something to eat then her refusing to eat it again after stopping to get medicine to make her tummy ache feel better and her refusing to take it, but her following me around grabbing on to my legs, I had to close myself in the bathroom and cry.  Just like that first day I started to pray.  I just don't know what to do.  I don't know how to do it.  I don't know how to make it better.  God give me strength to be her strength.  Give me peace in the situations I cannot change.  Please God help to lighten my load, I need you to carry it because I can't.  In my head I know that all this is probably normal.  In recovery you have better days and worse days, but knowing and feeling aren't always the same.  I know that God will give me the strength and the direction I need.

Tonight I was reading in Amos for a Sunday School class I probably won't attend tomorrow and I feel like some of that reading is applicable here.  In Amos it talks about how no disaster will fall on a city without God knowing.  God knows everything that happens and it is all a part of His divine plan, even this.  I know that God has a purpose for all the things that we go through.  That knowledge may not always make it easier to walk through these times.  It may not keep me from hiding in the bathroom to cry because I'm at my wits end.  But what it does is that it keeps me praying.  While I'm crying in the bathroom I prayed.  While I lay awake during the night because neither of us can sleep, I prayed.  And tonight before I go to sleep I will pray.  I will try to be grateful, but above all I will be honest and humble.  The hard times happen for a reason and God is with me.

The Why's

Sometimes in life it's just one thing after another and another and another.  I don't even know if anyone can stop themselves from the why's.  God why me?  God why is this happening?  God why do I deserve this?  Why?  Why?  Why?  I can just imagine God up there shaking his head at me right now thinking that I'm not getting the point.  God never forgets about me now matter what I may think in the moment.  And my God is such an awesome God that he doesn't mind being like hey I know this sucks, but I'm still right here.  I don't hear Him speak to me in those words, but when a particularly powerful song comes on the radio or after things when your child lays their head on you and says I love you momma.  That's when my heart feels His presence.  This when I start to get the point and I imagine Him smiling down on me like I smile sat my girls.  It's not about me.  I think I need to tell myself that again.  ITS NOT ABOUT ME.  I don't know if my hard headed self well ever truly get it.  But it's not about me it's about Him.  I may not understand the why's, but I'm not supposed to.  It's not about me.  Today might still suck, but I guarantee it will be better if I can quit thinking about me.
       "Eye Of The Storm"
(feat. GabeReal) Ryan Stevenson 

In the eye of the storm, You remain in control
And in the middle of the war, You guard my soul
You alone are the anchor, when my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me in the eye of the storm
When the solid ground is falling out from underneath my feet
Between the black skies, and my red eyes, I can barely see
When I realize I've been sold out by my friends and my family
I can feel the rain reminding me

In the eye of the storm, You remain in control
In the middle of the war, You guard my soul
You alone are the anchor, when my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me in the eye of the storm
Mmm, when my hopes and dreams are far from me, and I'm runnin' out of faith
I see the future I picture slowly fade away
And when the tears of pain and heartache are pouring down my face
I find my peace in Jesus' name

In the eye of the storm (yeah, yeah)
You remain in control (yes you do, Lord)
In the middle of the war, You guard my soul
You alone are the anchor, when my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me (Your love surrounds me)
In the eye of the storm (in the eye of the storm)

When the test comes in and the doctor says I've only got a few months left
It's like a bitter pill I'm swallowing; I can barely take a breath
And when addiction steals my baby girl, and there's nothing I can do
My only hope is to trust You
I trust You, Lord

In the eye of the storm (yeah, yeah) You remain in control
In the middle of the war (middle of the war), You guard my soul (yeah!)
You alone are the anchor (ooh), when my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me (yeah!)

In the eye of the storm, You remain in control (yes you do, Lord)
In the middle of the war (in the middle of the war), You guard my soul
You alone are the anchor (ooh), when my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me in the eye of the storm, oooh
Oh, in the eye of, oh, in the eye of the storm

I know You're watching me, yea, ay
When the storm is raging (when the storm is raging)
And my hope is gone (and my hope is gone, Lord)
When my flesh is failing, You're still holding on, oh whoa
When the storm is raging (the storm is raging)
And my hope is gone (and all my hope is gone)
When my flesh is failing (my flesh is failing)
You're still holding on, oooh
When the storm is raging (when the storm is raging)
And my hope is gone (and my hope is gone)
Even when my flesh is failing (flesh is failing)
You're still holding on, holding on
The Lord is my Shepherd
I have all that I need
He lets me rest in green meadows
He leads me beside peaceful streams
He renews my strength
He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to His Name
Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid
For You are close beside me

Sharing the Burden

Sometimes in the middle of a sermon it is like the preacher is speaking straight to your heart.   When the preacher starts talking about those who have the disease where you have to do everything yourself I knew that message was for me.  Straight from God's lips.  This is always something that I have struggled.  For too long in my life if I didn't do it then it didn't get done.  And right now I am starting to think that maybe thats ok.  Maybe its okay when things don't always get done, or maybe not to my liking.  Life can be such a burden when you feel like you have to do it all yourself, but this morning at church has been an exhibit for sharing the burden.
It started off with a wonderful Sunday school class where the four of us got to share our opinions and for none of us to be burdened by carrying the load, we all got to share.  Then in the service I got to witness our congregation ban together as the family I think of us as to pray for one of our members who is having a tough time right now.  As we all laid ours hands on each other we were praying together and offering to try to share the burden that she and her family are facing the best that we can.  In the sermon today the preacher said something that I had never thought about when talking about Matthew 11:28-30 (“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”)  He told us to think about a yoke.  A yoke connects two animals together so that they can share the burden of the work.  These to animals work together to help each other get the task done.  In this verse Jesus is offering to be tied to the yoke with us and to carry that burden.  Just like in Sunday school we talked about how Ruth was eventually able to pull Naomi out of her bitterness.  Christians are supposed to live their lives in fellowship with each other and to help carry the burdens of our brethren.  Just like what happened in my church this morning we are willing to take up the other side of the yoke when we can to lighten the load.  Of course Jesus is much better at lightening the load than we are, but I don't know about you, I could certainly use any burden lightening that I can get.  
That visual image of Jesus carrying the yoke with me and taking the burden off my shoulders was so powerful for me.  Its like I could actually feel it lifting that burden off of me.  The other part of that was so touching to me was just to hear him talk about some of the way that we can lighten the burden and sometimes that can be as simple as with kindness.  This is something that I really struggle with.  On the inside I am a caring person, but outward kind words and other displays of kindness are not my strong suit, but this is what God is calling me to work on.  If I can be kind to help lighten the load then that is what I need to do and sometimes it doesn't matter, it can be left undone.  
All through the sermon this Crowder song played in my head:

Crowder – Come As You Are Lyrics

Come out of sadness from wherever you've been
Come broken-hearted, let rescue begin
Come find your mercy, oh sinner come Kneelkneal
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal

So Lay down your burdens, lay down your shame
All who are broken, lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home, you're not too far
So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart
Come as you are

There's hope for the hopeless and all those who've strayed
Come sit at the table, come taste the grace
There's rest for the weary, rest that endures
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't cure.

So lay down your burdens, lay down your shame
All who are broken, lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home, you're not too far
So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart
Come as you are...
Come as you are...
Fall in His arms...
Come as you are...

There's joy for the morning, oh sinner be still
Earth has no sorrow, that heaven can't heal
Earth has no sorrow, that heaven can't heal

So lay down your burdens, lay down your shame
All who are broken, lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home, you're not too far
So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart
Come as you are, Oh Ooh Oh Ooh Ooh

Come as you are, Oh Ooh Oh Ooh Ooh
Come as you are
Come as you are

An Unconventional Love Story

In about a week and a half my husband and I will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary, and it's got me thinking.   Ours is an unconventional love story that started long before we said I DO 7 years ago.

It all started when I was 15.  I had a friend come up to me and pull me aside to tell me that this guy who hung around with her boyfriend liked me, and I should go out with him.  My response was something to the effect of: that guy, he never talks.  I don't think that we had ever had a full conversation before that.  She did some convincing and I figured, why not, he was cute and no guy had ever wanted to go out with me before.  Oh how awkward that beginning was.  Of course aren't they all in high school?  We started "going out" the day before Christmas break and I pretty sure I didn't talk to him until we came back to school two weeks later.  I started to wonder if I had made it up, so I didn't tell anyone.  I was 16 and it was five or six months later before we went out on our first date.  We went and walked around the mall talking for hours it seems.  He was all of my firsts. My first date.  The first guy I held hands with.  My first kiss and it only took us about a year of dating before I let him kiss me.  There were plenty of other awkward moments along the way.  Like when I ignored him the first time that he told me that he loved me because it terrified me.  I think I was sixteen, and I know that I was jaded after seeing some of the relationships that I had seen.  On top of that even then I knew this was special at least as much as you can at that age.  We dated through the rest of high school, through the good times and the bad.  Through my husbands tough times at school.  Through my first year in college where I was miserable being 3+ hours away from him.  I remember the promise ring that he gave me when I went away to school.  I remember the two proms that we went to together and the way my mother looked at me when I came home with blue hair to go to his senior prom.
When I came home from college that summer I lived in his moms house, because they had a spare bedroom for me.  Everything got so much easier when he moved to Clemson that fall.  In my junior year at Clemson we went to a concert and toward the end he told me that he had planned to propose to me, without a ring, if they played my favorite song.  The encore that they played right after that included my favorite song of course.  Then I had to explain to him that he needed a ring no matter how cheap and I wanted him to ask my mom first.  I remember the day that he called my mom, and then he told me he talked to her.  My response of course was to ask him if he was going to propose to me now or what.  And he did right there in his room in his apartment because we do everything super romantic.  Then we spent about another 2.5 years engaged before we got married.
Before our wedding I cried because nothing turned out the way that I wanted it.  Once I began the walk down the aisle toward him none of that mattered.  None of the craziness of that day mattered because at the end we were married.  We were in our awkward love story.
This love story that eventually got to include my two girls.  The first of which I had to tell him it was time for whether he was ready or not.  Thankfully before I got pregnant with her he got the job that made him feel like maybe we could do it.  And we have.  Our love story may not be what some people think or expect, but it has kept us happily together fro going on 15 years, which is half my life.  I couldn't imagine what it would be like not to do everyday with him and the beautiful children he helped me to create.  This is our not so perfect unconventional love story, and I wouldnt have it any other way.

My heart

I haven't known what to say lately.  I feel like I've been in a weird place.  I feel isolated, disconnected.    I feel disconnected from myself, those around me, even God within me.  It is hard feeling to deal with especially when you don't know where to start.
In the past week or so I've gotten to hear a lot about the heart nod it has gotten me thinking.  I have gotten to hear about how a sinful heart is what separates you from God, about how your heart is the true master of your tongue (so if you ant to know the true state of your heart all you have to do is listen to hat comes out of your mouth), and then today about what kind of soil is there in your heart for God to plant his message in.
Well I can tell you one thing for certain based on what comes out of my mouth there are some very unkind and hard feelings in my heart.  I know that there is not nearly enough kindness coming from my heart out of my mouth.  In truth there is an awful lot of ugly coming out of there sometimes and what does that say about my heart?  And is this ugliness what is making me feel so separated.
Today the preacher talked about the parable where the seeds are sown in different soils, and he asked us what kind of soil we had in our heart?  With all the contemplation I have been doing about the state of my heart lately that was a particularly poignant question.  Is my heart th path where the birds are eating up the seeds as soon as they are thrown?  Is it the rocky soil where the seed takes hod for a minute then the sun burns it up because it has no roots?  Is it the soil where anything that starts to grow there gets choked out by the thorns of life?  I know that right now it is not the good soil where the seeds take hold an flourish.  The more I think about it the more convinced I am that every time something beautiful starts growing in there all the thorns of life just choke any life out of those poor seeds.  I feel like in my life right now I am so burdened by the suffering of others.  So many in my life right now are hurting and I can't fix it.  (I am a fixer). Not being able to make things better for them, and yet feeling like I should be able to adds a torn to my heart for each one of them.  What feels like serious lack of progress in my spiritual life adds thorns to my heart.  Every time I think about one of the ways in which I am not a good enough person it's like it adds another thorn.  Another source of these thorns in my life are all of the comparisons that I keep telling myself I'm going to stop making.  And lastly is my lack of trust.  When I cannot simply trust God, that doubt chokes out another seed that has been planted.
Honestly I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm supposed to do about these things that I have realized, but asking God to weed the garden of my heart cannot be a bad place to start.