Control

Titus understands that when you point a black something at the tv it does something. He knows what the something is, but he doesn't know what it's called. Occasionally he will get a hold of the tv remote and push buttons. However, when he pushes the right buttons he turns on the tv and gets a static station. I don't know why, maybe white noise freaks him out, maybe he knows he did something he should not do. Whatever the reason when Titus changes the channel he runs to me like the house is on fire. He knows that whatever he just did wasn't suppose to happen.

Titus could handle these things in different ways. He could choose to keep changing channels, he could choose to try and hide the fact he turned the channel, or he could choose to come to me and say mommy I made a mistake can you help me fix it.

Which got me thinking. When I have made a mistake, when I have sinned what do I do? Do I keeping sinning? Do I try and hide my sin or do I run the remote back to God and confess my sin? Scripture says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Which leads me to more thinking. If I confess my sins and I know he's faithful and just, why do I take so long to confess my sins? Honestly, sometimes I like my pet sins and I'm not ready to give them up. Which is silly because I know that giving up my pet sins brings me to a much richer, more full filling place, yet by keeping my pet sin I deny this very thing I want. I heard a quote once that sums up my next reason and biggest reason I hesitate to confess my sin. I once heard someone on tv say, Jesus Christ will forgive my sins, but my mom isn't going to understand. The second biggest reason I'm hesitant to confess my sin is because I am more likely to get understanding from a non-believer than I am a christian. I am more likely to have a unbeliever come along side me and love me where I am, than a believer. A believer is more likely to judge me, condemn me, not walk beside me encouraging me towards freedom in Christ. I have a deep desire to share my sin, my struggles but I also want to be loved through the struggle while being encouraged to obey and submit to God.

Yet to find freedom, to confess my sins before God I need to risk not being understood in my sin. Yet I also need to ground myself in the truths scripture gives me that "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come"! I need to cling to the heart knowledge that when I confess my sin, God has purified me from all unrighteousness through Jesus Christ.

Father God, Thank you for forgiving me when I come to you. I thank you that you see me as a new creation and the old is gone. Thank you that when I run to you, your arms are always open. Help me to walk in the truth of forgiveness that you promise. In Jesus name, Amen.

Marvelous Maddie

Last year marked Maddie and I's first year homeschooling. This year is our second year and at four years old she is technically read for kindergarten. While we could jump in with both feet with kindergarten we, Mark and I, are going to do what she is ready for. One of these moments came in the bathtub while she was playing with her bathtub crayons. While Mark was getting the twins ready for bed after their bath, I went in to wash Maddie's hair. She had written a M and A on the bathtub wall, but beside it she had written cat. She said; "look mommy I can read". What she didn't realize is not only could she read, she was beginning to know how to write on her own!  After her bath she got ready for bed and while she was doing that I got out to Bob books, which is a series of beginner reading books. She read two of them on her own with only a little help from me on a word we have not gone over yet.

Maddie is so excited to be one step closer to reading on her own.

There was a lesson learned in this for me. To watch and to beaware of what Maddie is ready to learn and to move on it.  I can attempt to force her to learn but unless she is emotionally and mentally ready, there's not anything I can do to push her to be ready. All I will end up doing is scarring her and defeating her potential to love learning. After all it is much more pleasant for us to accomplish something or strive for something if we love doing it. I want Maddie and the twins to have a love for learning but shoving something they are struggling to grasp in their face doesn't help. So with the help of the Holy Spirit I am going to wait, watch, introduce concepts, then wait for the light bulbs to go on and then build upon the light bulb moments.

I am so thankful that I have a source higher than myself or anyone else to go to when my kids are struggling with anything weather it be math, science, emotions, friends, or just life. Praise the Lord there is one higher than ourselves!

Implementing Creative Correction #1 involves chocolate

Maddie struggles with whining excessively, has selective hearing, likes to do what she wants to do when she wants to do it,will often loose it with others while playing when a toy is taken or a offense has been done to her. We have gone over verses which remind her and I (I need the reminders just as much as Maddie). Such verses as, Do everything without grumbling and complaining  so that you will prove yourselves children of God approve reproach in the midst of croaked and perverse generation. I don't know about you but that sounds like serious business, croaked and perverse generation. Through Maddie's promptness to obey Mark and I, without grumbling and complaining, with a joyful attitude is a ministry and light to a perverse and croaked generation. Yet, having a joyful attitude and resisting grumbling and complaning is something the flesh can be trained to overcome.

What does all this have to do with a Hershey kiss? I am calling this the secret sweetness. Secret because the sweetness is not going to come out all the time, neither from the Hershey kiss, nor from Maddie. I will be watching her and observing her as she goes about the day. If she is listening and obeying quickly and promptly, when she has cleaned her room without being asked, if she obeys without whining, if I see her showing love and kindness to a sibling, cousin, or friend. Anything directed towards the little person God wants her to be may be rewarded with a secret sweetness, one Hershey kiss. The kisses will not come out all the time because I want Maddie to learn that sweetness needs to come out weather we are rewarded or not. Thinking of others, obeying Mommy and daddy needs to be done because she chooses to do it, not because she is getting something for doing it. However, if Hersey kisses begin her journey to consciously making Godly choices than sign me up, I'm all for it.

Implementing Creative Correction #1 Underway! I will share more implementations as the Lord brings them to mind! I will also report back in how the implementing worked or what we had to switch or why they didn't work! The journey of training the spirit and disciplining the flesh has begun!

Creative Correction

I am not even half way through this book and I LOVE it! The author Lisa Whelchel, http://www.lisawhelchel.com/ccreatbk.htm is an actress from "The facts of Life", a sitcom that ran between 1979-sometime in the 80's. She has an amazing sense of humar that has kept me laughing and reading. She doesn't make me feel guilty or that I am the worest mom in the whole world. But she doesn't make excuses for things I may have let slip with my kids. She encourages parents to tackle issues of the heart and to train the flesh. She gives first hand experiances and at the end of every chapter she gives tools to add to the parental tool belt. I have not even gotten halfway through the book and I have been convicted in some areas of my parenting and it has allowed me to strap my mommy boots a little tighter and to pray that God would open my eyes to be able to actively train my kids hearts. It has encouraged me to use stories, parables, hands on examples for explaining to Maddie why her behavior needs to be different. I pray that this book will change me, to not get in the daily rut of parenting, to not get bored with parenting and discipling but seeing each opprunity as a chance to draw my kids closer to heart of Jesus, closer to the God and Father in Heaven who loves my kids so much! After all isn't it in our very being to seek and find Jesus! May I be one of the brightest lights in my kids lives. Acting as a night light in my kids lives directing them to the path of Jesus. Just as a nightlight directs my kids to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I pray I will be the night light in my kids lives that directs them in this dark world towards Jesus, the light of the world.

So far one of my favorite chapters has been on training the flesh. When I am discplining Maddie, weather with a spanking, time out, an extra chore, whatever fits the crime at the moment, I am training Maddie's flesh. I am training her flesh that she cannot have everything she wants, when she wants it. We are training her flesh to be respectful to the people God has put as authority over her. We are training her flesh to seek out the good of others.

I am so thankful that I have the word of God to coach me through parenting. I'm so thankful for the Holy Spirit who comes and gives me divine stories at the right time, who brings to mind stories to share with Maddie that she will understand. The holy spirit who prompts and coaches me in each minute by minute, situation by situation that comes up.

As I remind Maddie during the day I too am reminded that I can do all things through Christ who stregthens me, and that includes parenting. :) I'm sure I will have more to say on this book as I continue through it and I look forward to sharing more with you soon!

Nutrimill Giveaway from Paula’s Bread!!!!

Nutrimill Giveaway from Paula’s Bread!!!!

Humbled by my kids...again

Once again I have been humbled by my kids. This weekend we moved the majority of our things over to our new house. It didn't work out to move it the weekend we actually move because we didn't have help to do it. My cousin Angie and her family kept all three kids over the weekend so we could move as much as possible without having to feed and put kids to bed and out of trouble. I picked them up Monday morning and I warned Maddie that the apartment would be different. I warned her that our things are at the new house but that there were still a few toys to play with and we have beds to sleep on.

Maddie walked into the living room and exclaimed, "What!" She then went into all the other rooms and in each room exclaimed, "what!" When she got to her room she said the same What!, but then she saw her bed and said, "oh, my bed!" She then went about playing with Naomi and Titus with the few toys we do have here.

It hasn't fazed Titus and Naomi that our sofa and recliner are not in the living, they haven't noticed that our dinning room table isn't were it should be. What they have noticed is that they have a few toys, each other to play with, and Mommy and daddy are here.

Lesson learned, life isn't what you have, life is who you have! This is actually a biblical truth. Everything including my life could be taken from me and life still boils down to who I know, not what I have! Life is about knowing Jesus Christ, who saves us from our sins, who has covered me with His blood!

Life isn't about what you have, but who you have!

Corrie Ten Boom and Harriet Tubman

Corrie Ten Boom and Harriet Tubman are two women whom most after reading their stories would say, "Wow, these women are amazing." I am among such people who says this. But after reading about the lives of these women I think they would both would say with confidence, they were only the servants of the Lord doing his work during a horiffic and tragic time. Both women experianced a type of imprisionment, both experianed cruelty at the hands of those they would see as lost, hurting souls in need of Jesus. Both women felt the call from God to rescue people out of the hands of slave masters and nazi soliders. If caught both of these women could have faced punishment that could have certainly brought about their death. Yet, leaning on the Lord, they both Trusted the Lord with all their hearts and leaned NOT on their own understanding, in all their ways God directed their path. They trusted that whatever happened, God was still good and still loving.

 These women trusted God with their griefs, sorrows, and the injustices of this world. Harriet trusted God so throughly that when He told her to get off of a road she got off. When the Lord told her to hide, she hid. She knew the voice of God without a shadow of a doubt. Corrie trusted God so throughly that she did not fear death and was able to bring those around her in the concentration camps to the eternal life in Jesus.

After reading so many of Corrie Ten Boom's books and after reading about Harriet Tubman, I want what they have with God! An ability to trust God no matter what they may come up against. To trust God with my emotions, my money, my relationships, and everything that passes by me in this life. The thing these ladies had was relationship! They dwelt at Jesus feet, they needed to be near Jesus, they needed to cling to him like my kids do when there are strangers around they don't know. These ladies were able to look beyond circumstance, because they had a relationship with Jesus that was greater than their circumstance. Life is NOT about circumstance, it is about relationship! It is about trusting God with all my heart and leaning not on my understanding, and in all my way acknowledging the ONE TRUE GOD, and He WILL (not maybe or he'll think about it, not just a minute) direct MY path.

My question to myself is this, "What does my relationship with Jesus look like and what areas are there that I need Jesus to search and see if there is any wicked way in me. To see if there is anything that under fire would take my eyes off of Him." I am comforted by the words of Corrie Ten Boom's father. When Corrie was young she went on an outting with her father, Corrie told her father she was afraid to die. Corrie's father told her that death is like a ticket that you pick up once you are at the train station. Once you get the ticket God will give you the courage you need.

I acknowledge that God does indeed bring what I need when I need it. When Mark was in school and we didn't have much money for groceries or we didn't know how a bill would get paid, we would find food in our cupboards and bills paid in full. We even had someone give us a vehicale! With this knowledge that God is taking care of me even now, he will of course take care of me in the gravest and darkest of times.

Relationship, it all starts and end with relationship! Father God make me hungry for time with you. May I never be fullfilled until I have sat at your feet. Let me, like Harriet and Corrie be used for your kingdom and your glory. Harriet and Corrie's lives were not about being brave or hero's, it was about bringing people to the saving power of Jesus, it was about doing what they did because Jesus asked them to.

What is Jesus asking you to do? If he has asked you, then he will supply all the means you need to fullfill the task!