Something on my heart

Something has been on my heart today.  Something that most moms battle with.  Something that is ugly.  Something that is normal but a scheme of the enemy.

Moms comparing themselves to other moms.  It's not like we are brawling out in the streets for the best mommy of the year award.  We are silently dying inside with the feeling of failure and defeat.

There is an expectation that if we are a stay-at-home mom then we must be happy, cheerful, cooking, cleaning, singing around the house like Mary Poppins all day.  It must be from the Patty Duke days that everything was expected to be clean, everyone was supposed to be dressed well and happy.

I am here to set the record straight that we are not perfect.  There is not one perfect except Jesus Christ, not even a mom.  At any given time in my home you can come in and find either a child crying, a child in trouble, a frustrated mom or piles of laundry around amongst many other mishaps.

Thankfully my Savior shows me grace.  Being a mom is hard.  Being a mom is not perfect.  Being a mom there are struggles EVERYDAY!!!!  There are times where I am dying inside with guilt, defeat and torment.  Guess what ladies, that's our great adversary.  He wants to bring us down, rip us apart and make us feel like we can't compare to the June Cleaver mom down the street, at church or at Susie's playgroup.  It has been my experience, in conversations with The June Cleaver mom down the street (which I don't really have ;) ) she is struggling with the same thing.

I guess what has been on my heart is the sadness in alot of women who feel like they don't compare or don't have it all together.  We all have our shortcomings, we all have fallen short of the glory of God.  He is the one that I need to please and HIM alone.  I am a daughter of the King.  As long as I am not eating the bread of idleness and striving to do my job as unto the Lord then I know I have done well no matter how much of a mess my home may be in.

Thankfully we have a Savior that can set us free from it.

For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. 2 Corinthians 10:4-6

Whenever the ugly monster comes to speak words of defeat into my head, this is the scripture I bring up as my weapon, specifically "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ"

Here is a picture from my kitchen today, yep, keeping it real sistas

There is Riah doing her schoolwork at 2pm still in her PJs.  Notice the spilled yogurt cups and the game that was played 3 hours earlier that no one put away.  If you could only see under the table, gross!!!  Yep, keepin it real!

Living Room doesn't look too bad, I was in the process of cleaning the floors when I got distracted for the umpteenth time today and decided to go blog instead.  Yep, just keepin it real my friends!!

Two weeks ago we did a pig roast at our church.  It was such a blast and I couldn't recreated it like Shawnna did here so here's the link, go check it out.

Final BBQ of the season

My First Love

I came here to just take a peek at my blog that I haven't looked at or even thought about in months and what did I see, my last post.  Wow, that hit home again.  I have wondered back into the impatience, the selfishness, the complacency.  I realized this week that I have focused so much of my heart to "honoring the Lord" and in the meantime forgotten my first love, Jesus.  I can honor Him with what I do but if He does not have my heart than all has been lost.  

But we are all like an unclean [thing], And all our righteousnesses [are] like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.  Isaiah 64:6

This sums up in one verse my heart lately.  I have been so busy with the doing that my heart has been lost.  My life has become doing good things, ministry, training, discipleship, and even reading my Bible and praying but it all has been done in vain.  I want Jesus to be my first love again.  How does that happen?  

"But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses

the servant of the LORD commanded you, to lovethe LORD your God,

to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, TO HOLD FAST TO HIM,

and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Joshua 22:5

I can not just serve the Lord, I must LOVE the Lord.  My whole heart must love Jesus.  My whole heart must love the cross and what Jesus did for me. Where did the love go?  Since when did love become the equal of serving?  Yes I must serve but I must love first.  Lord help me to have a heart that loves You and then serves You out of the abundance of that love.  If you think about it, please pray for my walk with Him.  Thank you!!

Lead Me To The Cross

Life as a mom.....

So I guess it's been awhile since I posted. Why does this keep happening? Because of life. I really want to try and post what God is showing me through my life as being a mom and wife. AGAIN, I will try.

Yesterday I was humbled. This is what I received from Riah (I'm sad, I can't find it, I was going to take a picture of it to share). I received a bookmark that she made. This is what she wrote "God loves you every step of the way, calm down all the time". Inside I weeped. I knew that if she wrote that, she had to have seen it, the ugliness, the impatience, the selfishness, the temper. Being a mother is hard and tiring but yet rewarding and a chance for major growth. Obviously this is something I need to work on, my patience. So yesterday morning, instead of nagging the kids with the hustle and bustle of the day (and really stuff that doesn't matter eternally) we slowed down in the morning. I sat with them on the couch, drank my coffee, talked with them, played with them, read my Bible with them and then we started the day with school and chores. Emma and I even ended up having a great conversation about making rules vs. the intentions of our hearts.

I need to remember to slow down with my kids. Enjoy them, remember them as gifts, and walk in His grace.

She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her. Proverbs 31:26-28

What I'm Studying

Here I am AGAIN!!! I have neglected this blog for way too long and I have gone back and forth of whether or not to blog again. Mostly I love to blog to keep a remembrance of our family. Thankfully my DH has done a wonderful job of that over at his blog. Now I must return though. I will attempt at blogging a few times a week to stay up to date but we'll see what reality brings. I've always blogged first thing in the morning (after devotions of course) before my kids wake up but Sarah, in her 3 year old little brain, seems to think that everything should revolve around her at 7:15 in the morning (just as she does all day long) so I'll see if that time will work or not or if I'll end up foregoing blogging again. Stay tuned to see what happens here.

Currently I am studying through a book by Cheryl Broderson, Against All Odds. This is the book we are studying through our Ladies Bible Study. I love studying Old Testament books because it brings so much history to life and paints a very clear picture of our need for a Savior which is fulfilled in the New Testament through Jesus. Ezra is believed to have written Ezra and Nehemiah which at one point used to be all one book. Jeremiah 29 starts out with a letter to the Jews as they are headed into captivity and states that he will not forget them but to live amongst the babylonians, and he will return them back to Jerusalem after 70 years. Ezra starts out by saying:

Ezra 1:1-3

NOW in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem.

God has fulfilled His promise to rescue them out of captivity!!! God WILL do what He says He will do. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He has not forgotten. No matter what my circumstances, He will always be there rescuing me when I fail, when I stumble, when I am weak. There may be times that I have to go through hardship, heartache or loneliness but He always has a plan for my life.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

He is listening and He has a plan! Later I will write about what we are studying on Sunday morning and Home Group, 1 Kings.

Safeway Savings!!!!

Woohoo, gotta love a great deal. I have been couponing a lot lately and it really has turned into my new hobbie, just to see how much I can really save and how much stuff I can get for free or close to it. Today I scored a pretty good deal and thought I would finally post one of my deals. I have made some pretty sweet deals, mostly at Safeway, and not posted them but today I finally thought I would take the time to do it. I had to break this up into two transactions to get the most out of the doublers that Safeway has and here is how my deal panned out.


1st Transaction
5 boxes cereal
6 yogurts
1 sour cream
Total = $7.13


2nd Transaction
1 bag chips
2 salad dressings
2 jars alfredo sauce
4 diced tomatoes
1 bag salad
1 bag broccoli
1 bag broccoli stir fry
1 box cream cheese
1 red bell pepper
1 bunch of radishes
2 fruit roll ups (snack for my big helpers for when we were done)
Total=$13.07

Total between both transactions = $20.20

By the way, I am not a huge cereal fan because of all the sugar involved and even in the lower sugar varieties but I figure sometimes it's easier the a hot meal. In a cereal with 6 grams of sugar/serving there is over 6 teaspoons of sugar in an average bowl of cereal (including milk) which in my home spells disaster for our day, usually in lack of focus. I do however make it a rule that when they have cereal they have to use plain cheerios for 1/2 of their cereal consumption so really they are getting a little less sugar then they would otherwise with a full bowl of sugary cereal.

Happy couponing!!!

Tumble Bumble Photography

One of my old high school classmates has become a professional photographer. She is so fun and makes every session a piece of cake (well at least that's what I've been told). She is here locally and she is running a contest right now. If you comment on her blog she will enter your name for a free session and 20-30 edited pictures on a CD which all in total is a $750 value (yes, she really is that good).

Head on over to Tumble Bumble Photography to enter. Oh and do you know anyone getting married? Last I heard she still has openings left this summer.