Reflections on the Year at PC

I finally feel like I am getting my feet back under me after making the move back to Minnesota.  I wanted to put some thoughts down about the past 11 months because I am so quick to forget.  When I am quick to forget, it makes me quick to complain.  So much happened in our lives and hearts and it is hard to condense it into a few short points, but here are a few ways God was sanctifying me and shaping me...

1.       The biggest overall theme of this year was God is faithful.  It is still mind boggling to me that a church of our size was able to support us for the whole year.  In March of 2011, there was $1200 in the mission account and in our finite minds, raising $60000 looked impossible.  But by June, we had pledges from people in our church, family and friends to fully fund the year!  He continued to be faithful at every turn.

2.       He was kind in His specific care for us.  I think everyone in the PC had examples of specific care for them.  He is a big God, but He is also very personal and knows how to care specifically for all of us.  A couple examples in our life was how He provided piano and violin teachers at affordable costs and put us in a neighborhood that had another homeschooling family with girls the same age as ours.

3.       This was a time for me in growing in thankfulness and being content in where God has me in this moment.  This of course is a work in progress, but I am quicker to start thanking God when my heart begins to grumble.

4.       I got caught in the snare to compare.  Every one of the wives are godly women and it was easy to see how so many of them would make great pastor's wives.  I found myself getting jealous and angry.  Then it dawned on me to start thanking God for the unique gifts He gave these women and wow, when I went from grumbling to thanking, it totally changed my view and attitude.

5.       This year was very difficult in regard to the hives I have been suffering from for the past 2 and half years.  For some reason, they became worse out east and it was difficult to get them under control.  I was on steroids for relief over 40 times and this was only when they were on my face or were so bad I couldn't take it anymore.  I have grumbled a lot and pleaded for them to be healed.  I am still asking for healing, but I am also, through the help of the Holy Spirit, trying to trust the Lord that there is some purpose in this suffering.  I have no idea what it is yet, but I do know that God uses all things for our good and His glory.  And I hope I am quicker to return to that truth than I was a year ago.

6.       I need to adopt more of an upward and outward focus.  It is so easy to fall into a pity party for myself...there is never enough time, I have too much to do, Ken gets to do all the "fun stuff" (as if work is all fun for him) while all I do is take care of kids and home, I just need some time to myself, and on and on it goes.  When I reorient my heart towards the One who ordains my steps and look at serving others as my offering to the Lord, again, it changes everything.  I hope I am growing in this too.

7.       Finally, during this year, God has been gently showing me that I need to take more initiative in pursuing relationships instead of just waiting for things to happen or for people to come to me.  This is a challenge as my tendency is to retreat into myself, but by God's grace, He is giving me the ability to take steps in this.

What a gift this past year has been!

Happy Birthday to Me

I turned 40 last week.  There.  I said it. Actually, I had no trouble with turning 40, although just saying that number makes me sound older.  

I had a GREAT birthday.  My family flew in and surprised me. I couldn't believe it.  Part actually got spilled on FB when someone mentioned that my sister was coming out here. She is a bit spontaneous and free spirited, so it didn't completely surprise me that she would come.  So when she showed up on my doorstep, I was't exactly surprised, but I was so happy to have her here with me.  She came in and we sat in the living room to chat.  15 minutes or so rolled around and I heard footsteps outside.  I look out there and the rest of my family was out there with birthday signs.  I think I said this already, but I couldn't believe it.  I felt so humbled and loved that they would spend that much money to come spend a couple days with us.  And I count it as God's kindness.  If there was one thing I could have picked for my birthday, it would have been to celebrate it with my family.  It will definitely be a birthday I will remember and treasure.

I love them.  :-)

Too Cute Not to Post...

Tonight during tuck in time, Zoe laid in bed with the "big girls."  Normally, I will put her down and then tuck them in.  By the expression on her face, you could tell she was enjoying every single second of laying in the big girl bed with them.  Then, while we were praying, I had to go grab my camera.  I was so excited to capture the moment!

Isn't that adorable?!  I love that she is learning to love the Lord early.

31 Ways to Pray for Your Children

I thought this was excellent and I hope to start using this to help me as I pray for my children:

http://www.d6curriculum.com/teacher/previous-quarter/fusion-31-ways-to-pray

To God be all glory...

Zoe Update

Since this was originally a blog about our journey with bringing Zoe into our family, I think it is time to give an update on Zoe. Zoe means life and she fits her name well. She is full of life. She definitely colors our life way more than it would be without her. Her favorite things are eating, playing with her sisters, reading books and laying on our dog Piper. Thankfully, Piper is a very patient dog. She seems advanced for where I think she should be, but maybe I am biased. She seems to understand a lot, she "talks" a lot, and every once in a while a sentence will come out of her mouth. When she was 12 months old, she was standing by the step down into our living room. She held out her hand to me and said, "I need help." I really couldn't believe my ears. That seemed so young. But then later that day I was holding her and I had on a necklace that has a picture of Hope and Gracie on it. Zoe was looking at the necklace and said "I see Gracie." Again I couldn't believe it. I didn't think a 12 months old baby could say anything more than maybe one or two words like mama or dada. I have come to the conclusion that she is really saying stuff with her babbling and we just can't understand it. But once in a while it comes out clearly. Today she said (she is almost 16 mo. old now) "I need to get that" about something she was pointing to on the floor.

She continues to be a big girl and weighs 27 pounds, but the chunkiness fits her personality. Below are some recent pictures of Zoe who brings so much joy to our lives...

Falling asleep at lunch as she transitions from 2 naps to 1

Zoe wanting to try on her sister's glasses

Zoe at the Smithsonian National Art Gallery

This is such a Zoe look

Zoe with her two sister and wanting to be part of the action

Fun School Day with the Girls

I usually hit the wall with homeschooling around February. At least that has happened every year for the past 4 years. I haven't quite hit that point yet, but I am heading that direction. And as the leader goes, so goes the students. So we switched it up yesterday and threw out all the traditional school and did some fun stuff. We have been studying the digestive and renal systems in anatomy, so we decided to make a digestive system amusement park. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the year and also turned out way cooler than I thought it would. We started with listing some parts of the digestion system and some rides we wanted in our park. Then we brainstormed to come up with names and a map of our park. Then we started creating. The girls had a ball and so did I. Here are some pics of our results...









My personal favorites were the kidney flowers and the saliva pool. At lunch time, we mixed it up again as I said, "Let's go to Pizza Hut!" At that point the girls wanted to know where their mother went and if I was their real mother. Ha ha. When we finished, they gave daddy a grand tour of the park and were able to tell him what each part of the digestive system did. They said we didn't have school today, but I was thinking "oh yes you did and you probably learned way more than if we had done what we normally do." I am glad I was that "other mom" today and hopefully it won't be too long before she throws another day out the window.

My New Journal!

I am really excited about this new journal I have. Thank you Julie Pursewell for the inspiration. I am the first to admit that I am not creative, but I will steal someone’s great idea when I see one (with due credit, of course). I had been struggling with a way to keep track of the different types of notes I like to keep: verses that speak to me, prayer requests, praises, sermon notes, notes from books I have been reading, etc. I have tried various things and what I ended up with were notes scattered all over the place. When I wanted to find something, I often could find lots of other notes, just not the ones I needed! Not any more though. I laugh at myself that I couldn’t come up with this because now it seems so simple. I could create one. So off to Office Depot I went after our PC wives meeting with Betsy and Julie. I purchased a small binder, some loose paper, small pocket folders to act as dividers and in a very short time, I had my new all-in-one journal. I am so excited. So here is the result:

The Word of God is Active...

We are getting to the point with our older girls of transitioning more to discipling them more than disciplining them. This has been difficult to navigate through because we are still learning what this will look like. But this week I felt in a very tangible way the truth of Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit,...”

Hope has always been a very strong–willed child and when disciplining her, and it often takes a lot for her will to submit to our authority. This can often be a drawn out process. This past week, I was faced with another challenge in her disobedience and attitude. She was sent to her room until I was able to talk to her. This was mostly so she could think about things and also for me to pray and think through how I was going to approach her. After a while, I went up to her room and started with why I sent her to her room. Her response was she didn’t mind being in her room. So I told her that if that if being in her room didn’t help her think, she would need to be made a little more uncomfortable.

So I sent her to stand in the corner so she could think about things. Again, I needed to think and pray how to approach her (and work through my anger at this point too.) I then sent her back to her room so we could talk. She was still pretty cavalier and her attitude was not sweet. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say, but I did grab my Bible and brought it in with me.

When I opened my Bible, I saw this:

The Three Trees-It has been a great tool used by our church and many SG churches to make gospel connections with our behaviors and the roots of those behaviors in our hearts. But it doesn’t leave it at that. It takes us to the cross and what Christ did for our sins on that tree. I thought that would be a good thing to help me talk through things with Hope. And as I did, something amazing happened. She started sobbing as we talked through the three trees and what Christ did for us. Her will was submitting to the Lord and her attitude was changed.This had a profound impact on me. Spending 5 minutes helping Hope apply the gospel to her life did more to change her behavior than the half hour she spent having consequences for her actions. I saw the word of God cutting her to her heart and that verse in Hebrews came alive in that instant. The word of God is powerful to change our lives, but also powerful to change the lives of our children. We labor in sewing into their lives at these young ages often without seeing much reaping. But when we do catch a glimpse of the reaping, it is sweetness to the soul.

P.S. Excuse the crazy font stuff going on. Not sure why it was doing this.

Gratefulness

The key to being grateful is often just a shift in our perspective. Oh how I need to remember this.