My Life is Sure Not Boring!

Oh my goodness, it has been such a crazy last week. I made it through the last week of having to help out with a co-worker's job (she had been out on maternity leave...woohoo, she's back!). I made it through another week of TAKS prep (getting ready for state testing) with the kids at school...that makes it so stressful at work. My mom called and we talked for the first time in 4 months (of course we never talked about the fact that I felt like she had basically disowned me till now...can you say denial?!?). Plus my 16 yr. old's birthday went well enough that she was pleased with it, and I wasn't sure that was possible...lol

Other than all that, there are just too many things to even mention. I will mention however, that a neighbor of mine, an18 yr. old girl with her 2 yr. old child on her hip, showed up bleeding Sunday morning after her husband pushed her through their bedroom window. She came over to use the phone and as we were standing around talking about it in the driveway and I was dialing 911, her drunk husband came running out the front door, got in his car and sped away. Thank God he wasn't coming after her, the 2 yr. old wasn't injured, as far as I know he didn't kill anyone driving drunk, and the 18 yr. old wasn't seriously injured. Whew! Please pray for them.

What a week!

But Today I Am Thankful For...

Not in any particular order...

1. A job I love
2. That when I fell down in front of the school, none of the kids saw me fall.
3. Good friends to talk to
4. Healthy children
5. A good husband
6. A wonderful church
7. My dogs
8. My home
9. The best co-worker (FRIEND) anyone could have
10. The relationship I have with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Psalm 42:11
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Anger

Sometimes I just get angry about the things that have happened in my life and that is so hard for me to deal with. My mother taught me that anger was a sin. I know now that that is simply not true. Jesus got angry and he NEVER sinned, so anger can't be a sin. The bible says:

Ephesians 4:26-27 (New International Version)
26"In your anger do not sin" Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27and do not give the devil a foothold.

Or

Ephesians 4:26-27 (King James Version)
26Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27Neither give place to the devil.

So it's not a sin to just be angry, as long as you don't let your anger cause you to sin, giving the devil a foothold in your life. Still I struggle in myself when I am angry. It's like I can't get rid of that part of me that believed it was wrong to even be angry at all.

Right now I'm angry that my friend and counselor is getting sicker. I'm angry that I can't get my mother out of my head. I'm angry that I've had to deal with all the things that other people chose to do to me. I'm angry that I'm terribly overweight and can't seem to fix that. I'm angry that I feel guilty for feeling angry.

So hopefully this feeling will pass soon and I'll be my super cheerful self once again...

Teenagers...

Oh my goodness, I guess the Lord makes them so very adorable when they are babies that you never forget how much you love them, because once they become teenagers you have to remind yourself of that pretty often...lol. I would've preferred to have my 3 kids closer together (they are almost 24 and doing well as a new 6th grade teacher; almost 16 and learning to drive...ahhhh!; and 14 and loving to harass anyone within his general proximity), but I doubt I would've had the patience to deal with the younger two at the same time as raising the older one.

God knew what he was doing when he gave me the compliant one first. These other two like to test me on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, they're great kids in general. They both get good to decent grades and they don't get into trouble at school. So that's a definite blessing. On the other hand, they sure know how to press my buttons!

Somehow I managed to get them both to church this morning, even though their dad was out of town and I was being the "single parent" again. I love my kids, but Calgon, take me away!!! :)

Psalm 139 Reflections

Thought I would post about my prayer and reflection time at women's bible study last Monday night, been meaning to do this all week and reading someone else's blog just inspired me for some reason.

Once a month at bible study, we have a short devotional and then take 30 minutes to just read our bibles and reflect on what the Lord wants to teach us. These are the notes I took this week.

Psalm 139 (My favorite psalm! And the first psalm I opened to that night...possibly because I open to that one so often...lol)

Psalm 139:4 makes me smile today. "Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD." I began to pray the other day that the Lord wouuld show me that day a way that I am making a difference with the kids I work with at school. Before I could even finish the prayer in my head, the Lord showed me one little girl's smiling face and I felt the Lord say, that little girl knows you love her. How blessed am I to be the one who makes her smile! Mind you, this is a 12 year old who is in foster care and could sure use all the love she can get.

Psalm 139:13-16 reminds me to stop telling myself I'm stupid. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. I have a very bad habit of talking myself down. I feel that God is telling me to remember that I am a beautiful, intelligent, unique creation of His! That makes me feel so loved.

Forgive me Lord for being prideful in thinking that I am different than what you tell me that I am. You say that I am your child, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Who am I to question you, to argue with you.

Psalm 139:23-24 ....23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

I praise you Father! May your praise be ever on my lips!!

Ok, I feel better now. :)

Blah!

So I'm wanting to do a great, long, inspiring post here, but I am just in such a blah mood. I feel like I'm coming down with something, didn't get myself out the door to church this morning, etc. All in all, I have felt really good this week all things considered. I have felt closer to the Lord than I have in a long time and life is really good. So I hate when I'm just plain in a blah mood for no reason at all.

Maybe going out with my husband to shop for his new clothes for his new job (new job in and of itself should have me jumping with joy!) will get me into a better mood. Oh well, I guess I can't expect to feel elated 100% of the time, huh?

Jeanette, my friend and counselor...

Jeanette could tell you a lot about me. She's heard just about all of the tough stuff. She was my friend first and later she was my counselor, mainly because she knew my story and how much I'd already been hurt. She cared enough that she didn't trust another counselor to help me. With God as her guide, she helped me to push through the toughest parts of my life and to get to the other side. I am so very thankful that God led me to her.

Jeanette helped me through the pain of incest, rape, and feelings of abandonment...to name a few of my issues. And she helped me through trust issues that made it difficult to trust my Heavenly Father. That's the way it is for most people when you haven't been able to trust your earthly father. I had been to other counselors, but there was something about the way that she seemed to call on the Lord for every word that came from her mouth in our counseling sessions.

The main thing I think Jeanette helped me to understand is that the only Counselor I truly need is Jesus. While we definitely still need earthly Christian counselors sometimes, Jesus is the only one who has been there and done that when it comes to any pain you might be experiencing. He took on all the sins of the world, so there's not a single one that is causing any of us any pain that he hasn't already felt.

And now it's possible that I may soon have to say goodbye to my friend Jeanette until we meet in heaven. You see, after only knowing her for only a short time really, Jeanette was diagnosed with stage four cancer. She has been fighting an incredibly difficult battle with it for over a year and I've only talked to her a few times since. Part of that has been because she's been very busy trying to keep living her life and part of that is purely my fault.

And again she's being told that things still aren't looking great for her recovery. I wish so very much that I had met her when we were younger, but I have been truly blessed to know her either way. I still pray that God will decide to heal her of this horrible thing, and I know that he can. If so, I look forward to more years as her friend. If not, I will have no doubt where she is and that I will see her again.

God speaks to me most in songs and so I am reminded of the Ray Boltz song "Thank You For Giving To The Lord" because I am a life that was changed. I am so thankful to those who have, like Jeanette, given to the Lord in helping others.