My middle daughter is a beautiful red head with a very fun personality. She lights up our world with funny impressions, quick witted dramatic sayings and a contagious laugh. In addition to all her hilarious fun qualities, she is also a loving and tender hearted little girl.
Walking to school one morning she was talking her usual mile a minute about everything that has been racing through her sweet little head that morning. Her conversation began with a dream she had about dolphins, then moves to what her friend Tia did at school the day before, (a story so funny she can hardly keep herself composed to explain the story in its entirety) and without even taking a breathe ends with "and mom I wish I would have worn pants, because if we go to computer lab today I am going to have 199 goose bumps!" Oh the drama, the cuteness, the descriptive sense of a child.
Tucking in my little princess the next night, she looks up at me with a contemplative face, dimples still making an appearance and asks, "mom I know you love me, but what does love mean?" In my exhausted state with a fussy baby trying to get my attention in the background, and an eight year old trying to talk over her sister about what she should wear tomorrow, I found myself staring deep into my girls blue eyes. I could see her sincerity in the question. I could sense her heart longing to grasp how deep and how wide the meaning of love really was. Moments a mother knows she is in over her head and has to think quick.
"Love is hard to explain or truly understand at times even for a mommy and a daddy, I begin..... But I do know that to feel grateful for all that we have is to feel loved. To feel happy about people who show us love with hugs, gifts, words and nice things is to experience love. And to know with certainty that God is with us ALL the time loving us no matter what we do or how we act brings the comfort of love to my heart." I can tell my long winded explanation is losing its luster, she is beginning to take her eyes off mine and look elsewhere.
"Emma when I held you for the first time I knew how love made my heart
feel. I knew you were my beautiful precious gift that made me feel warm and fuzzy
on the inside. Love feels like having a 199 goose bumps" Her smile, now so big, her cheeks are burying her dimples, tells me she understands. She knows what that means, she knows how that feels. For a brief moment my baby knows what it means to "feel" love.
Please God may our love to our children translate to a feeling they can understand, words that they cherish for their lifetime. Experiences that reflect you. You are love.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Insanity
After weeks of watching my husband sweat thru his "insanity" work out, I decided to give it a try this morning. 40 minutes of pushing my body past limits and sweating more than I can remember. Insanity is a work out program designed to push people to their maximum potential. Shawn T, and they are not kidding around. The results, as they appear by looking at the testimonials on his video along with those working out with him, are quite impressive and certainly desirable from this end.
I jumped in, started up the video at 5:30 this morning, sluggish and a little scared, but jumped, lunged, stretched and sprinted when Shawn T told me to, and by the end I was spent!
Fast forward a few hours, two phone calls later, I am driving back from dropping both girls off at school, yawning from either my work out or the fact that my son woke me up at 4:45 and I never went back to sleep. My mind was tired, but also weary of the morning routine of getting the kids ready, planning out my day and meeting the needs of my chubby and oh so cute little 9mo old. My mind was also weighted, by the house we are trying to sell in MT. Its been a long process, and feels like a bleak process at times. We are desperate for it to sell, depending on family to fix it up and get it ready, as we are 1500 miles away! Days go by and I wait for that phone call of the family who wants to buy it! I hold out hope for this last tie to our past to be cut. Stomach starts to tighten, anxiety slowly creeping in.
Standing in my bathroom thinking thru the list of to do's for the day; emails to write, groceries to buy, shopping to be done ( that one is my own scheduled pleasure time:) Then the air slowly starts to deflate from my inflated thought/idea balloon. I'm too tired.
Laying on the couch now, anxiety has taken over more of my stomach. My thoughts are spending time creating the needed excuses to convince myself that today is better spent just being down, feeling a little sad and telling myself that it is okay to postpone my to do list until tomorrow. As I cross my legs, a small sore muscle pain shoots up my leg. Oh yes the rembering pain of insanity.
No coincidences here, God takes me back from that soreness in my leg to remembering Shawn T pushing me thru with his words and demanding instruction. I am reminded that I didn't quite........I wanted to and it was seriously SO hard, but I pushed and I kept going and now I am sore:) (For those of you who work out you know the joy the comes from feeling sore later in the day, it means you legitimately worked out! and it feels great!)
Then he whispers "with perseverence we must finish this race I have marked out for you." Today is a day planned for me, and not one to waste, regardless of the circumstances. I have responsiblities and following thru on those is a step and act of faith. Pushing thru the doubt and discouragment to remember what God has laid on my heart, I know things He has instructed me to do and cannot be okay with sitting by and allowing the lies of our enemy to steal the hope and trust I have in God.
Our house may not sell today, and I might have to handle a few more calls about the house, but I am a mom and a wife TODAY and must remember what matters her and now. Circumstances around me will constantly change but I must keep going and not be defeated by those circumstances I cannot control. I must push myself thru to not just my own limits, but to the limitless power that comes from God's strength inside me. So I will blog now:) and then get up, clean, do dishes, run errands, play with my son, pick up my girls, make dinner, go to soccer practice and go forth in this day with hope, confidence and gratitude for This is the Day the Lord has made.
I jumped in, started up the video at 5:30 this morning, sluggish and a little scared, but jumped, lunged, stretched and sprinted when Shawn T told me to, and by the end I was spent!
Fast forward a few hours, two phone calls later, I am driving back from dropping both girls off at school, yawning from either my work out or the fact that my son woke me up at 4:45 and I never went back to sleep. My mind was tired, but also weary of the morning routine of getting the kids ready, planning out my day and meeting the needs of my chubby and oh so cute little 9mo old. My mind was also weighted, by the house we are trying to sell in MT. Its been a long process, and feels like a bleak process at times. We are desperate for it to sell, depending on family to fix it up and get it ready, as we are 1500 miles away! Days go by and I wait for that phone call of the family who wants to buy it! I hold out hope for this last tie to our past to be cut. Stomach starts to tighten, anxiety slowly creeping in.
Standing in my bathroom thinking thru the list of to do's for the day; emails to write, groceries to buy, shopping to be done ( that one is my own scheduled pleasure time:) Then the air slowly starts to deflate from my inflated thought/idea balloon. I'm too tired.
Laying on the couch now, anxiety has taken over more of my stomach. My thoughts are spending time creating the needed excuses to convince myself that today is better spent just being down, feeling a little sad and telling myself that it is okay to postpone my to do list until tomorrow. As I cross my legs, a small sore muscle pain shoots up my leg. Oh yes the rembering pain of insanity.
No coincidences here, God takes me back from that soreness in my leg to remembering Shawn T pushing me thru with his words and demanding instruction. I am reminded that I didn't quite........I wanted to and it was seriously SO hard, but I pushed and I kept going and now I am sore:) (For those of you who work out you know the joy the comes from feeling sore later in the day, it means you legitimately worked out! and it feels great!)
Then he whispers "with perseverence we must finish this race I have marked out for you." Today is a day planned for me, and not one to waste, regardless of the circumstances. I have responsiblities and following thru on those is a step and act of faith. Pushing thru the doubt and discouragment to remember what God has laid on my heart, I know things He has instructed me to do and cannot be okay with sitting by and allowing the lies of our enemy to steal the hope and trust I have in God.
Our house may not sell today, and I might have to handle a few more calls about the house, but I am a mom and a wife TODAY and must remember what matters her and now. Circumstances around me will constantly change but I must keep going and not be defeated by those circumstances I cannot control. I must push myself thru to not just my own limits, but to the limitless power that comes from God's strength inside me. So I will blog now:) and then get up, clean, do dishes, run errands, play with my son, pick up my girls, make dinner, go to soccer practice and go forth in this day with hope, confidence and gratitude for This is the Day the Lord has made.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
"It takes 20 minutes after we eat for our bodies to feel satieated. I wonder how long it takes our souls to realize our life is full?" Ann Voskamp
How true, how moving, a powerful quote and conviction of my thoughts, wants and desires. I am reading this book, One Thousand Gifts. It really poses some wonderful thoughts and drives my curiosity about the abundant life even deeper.
What a full life most of us have and take for granted if we are not careful, watchful, intent on actually living and not allowing life to pass us by. The morning alarm, the walk to school, the morning rush. Chaos can be a theme for our home getting two girls ready for school, while tending to an aggressive crawling 9mo. old. The afternoon revisits the chaos theme again with school pick up, soccer practice, hip hop dance class and hopefully a meal that I don't feel guilty about, in between. The agenda, the commitments, the list of to do's makes life a temptation to get lost and not take moments of still to sit, be grateful, hold a little one's hand to remember a purpose beyond car pooling.
I am challenged and encouraged that there is more to life than just the agenda and I desire the "more" for myself and for my kids. I want to choose adventure, I want to look back, reflect and believe in the story that has been written just for me. A gripping story with climactic points, lessons learned, dramatic beginnings and sad endings......A story, as I am learning, that is still very much in the midst of being written. Only one knows how the story ends, and He is a God of adventure who LOVES it when we surrender to the adventure, when we take a moment to sit still, breathe and and realize how full our lives truly are.........
..........my story, God's story, our adventure with Him
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