If you are looking for week one post look down a couple for it -- I started it on Wednesday and when I went to publish toady it showed up on Wednesday. I am new to blogger and don't know how or even if I can update the date stamp to the current date. If you can help I'd love it.
Warning this is long and more personal the study related though there is a definite tie in!
This study is so timely for me and it struck me when Beth made the comment that God had timed it so that this is the right time you need it to be. How true those words are!
Let me give a little, okat probably a lot of background, but I feel it is necessary. I come from a Christian home, the reality of salvation has always just been for me. I can't point to an exact moment of salvation. I have always known the sacrifice of Christ and accepted it for myself. I don't have a dramatic conversion story. I have never really rebeled against the church, my faith, my family or anything. So I don't have a "come back home" story either. I have always been the 'good church kid'.
That same family, while believers, are not vocal about their faith. And I have never been encouraged to be either. They live and work in certian middle class circles and while not shunning the upper or lower classes, just didn't venture out of their "comfort zone" much.
When I was in college I went through a Religious Education Program from my denomination to get a certificate. It didn't really mean much but would look good on my resume as I started to work with children and or youth. That calling had always kind of been in the back of my mind since I was a kid. So getting the certificate seemed like a logical step. In the program I needed and internship and was having a hard time locating one. The director of the program had contacts and placed me with a newly formed corps (church) with The Salvation Army in town. I was working with the girls character building classes. It was great fun and I learned alot about the Army through the officers (ministers) that were there at the time. One thing led to another and my invlovement grew from leading the girls program, to joining the ladies ministry, to Sunday School and finally to Soldiership (church membership) with my new husband the day after our wedding. My life has been intertwined with The Salvation Army since then. It is my church home and I love it. That in itself has been somewhat of a sticking point with my family. They are just unsure about it, I believe. The Army works with people that aren't like those that my family were used to. I don't think that they believed that I could do anything there. I wasn't sure I could either.
After college my life hasn't exactly followed the path that they expected it should. You know marry, have a husband that works full time in the day at something in an office, teach, have 2 children, go to church on Sundays. My husband hasn't finished college, worked different jobs, none of which have been daytime office jobs. I have 3 children. I quit teaching to stay home. I go to church more often than just Sundays . . . . . .
But back to me, a couple of years after college I was sitting in a youth workers seminar, lamenting the fact that I didn't feel I had an opening to work with the youth that were frequenting our youth groups. I had no common ground, nothing that I could reach out with. I loved these kids, but I just didn't feel I was reaching them. I was like "God why do you have this 'good church kid' here in this place? How can I do ANYTHING here?" Through several instances that day God spoke to my heart and said "but that is YOUR ministry - there will be those that you CAN and WILL reach. There are many out there that have the same questions as you do that you WILL be there for" The few people I talked to about this weren't really sure about it but I KNEW and that was enough for me.
It was also during that time period that I acknowledged another call on my life. That of Salvation Army Officership. I have waited on this or that since then. First for my husband to acknowledge the call - for couples to enter the ministry the both have to acknowlege the call independently. Then one thing or another has held us back. We have started testing for training school on two different occasions but nothing has ever worked out. At those times I have felt the strong hand of God saying "it is not time". Other times I have resisted the call and wavered in my desire, at times even here recently, not wanting to continue. Part of that has been due to the fact that my family isn't again quite sure, not out right resisting, but still unsure. Remember that doesn't fit their plan.
All of this brings me to now. We have been living on faith and prayers pretty much since I came home in the fall, and really literally since my husband lost his job in December. I have let depression set in and not been much good around the house and not a great parent at times either. I haven't been very open about it until just recently when I started realizing exactly what was happening. I have been tring to live up to an image I created that I thought I should be to hold some of the positions I held. A couple of other bloggers I read and friends of mine online have also been opening up with some issues they are working through and that has helped me to see how some issues are working through my life. I have become humbled by their openess and have vowed to be just as open in my life.
Then comes the opportunity to do this study, with you. First of all I am WAY OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE here because I don't 'know' you guys at all, I have only been reading Blair's blog for a short time (that is how I got here) but God said 'this is for you'. So on a bold step of faith I am here. And Beth's comment about it being the right time for you hit me square in the face. I say 'why?" But as I do the homework I am finding out why. From my notes on the "How does Goewant youtoe respond to what he showed you today?" section
Day 1 - It isn't going to be easy. Going to Training. Those who should understnad the most may understand the least and feel threatened, but I must keep going forward.
Day 2 - Seek His will first and follow it for God's glory and not my own pride
Day 3 - Going to Training will be out of my comfort zone and won't be comfortable for my family but it is His will.
Below is list of those participating click on thier name to find their post for this week.
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| Addie | Heather* | Carol | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| M | Rach | Jeana | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jenn | Amanda | MamaB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GiBee | Boomama | Maria | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Blair | Heather | Nancy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Janna | Flipflop | Robin | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sherry | Patricia | Tara | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lauren | HolyMama! | Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Christy | Eph2810 | Karin | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leann | Rachel | Janice | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
study and the links to their blogs. New postings on the study will be published for the next ten weeks, between Friday 8pm - Saturday 8am. Please feel free to visit each of us and comment. Everyone is welcome to participate in this discussion as we seek to live beyond ourselves. May God bless you richly from the hearing of His word. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Your Quirk Factor: 50% |
 You're a pretty quirky person, but you're just normal enough to hide it. Congratulations - you've fooled other people into thinking you're just like them! |
I need to go to bed. But my children won't let me. I am raising night owls, yes ALL THREE OF THEM are still awake. They were all up by 7 this morning, the boys both slept this afternoon but only about an hour. The youngest keeps peeking around the corner with his winner smile saying "I'm still up". Every time I walk him back to bed his older brother peeks over the railing just to see if it is me. The oldest's light is still on too, however, I just checked on her and she is almost out. The good news is I don't have to get up early to take hubby to work so they can sleep as long as they want in the morning. I will get up early, basically b/c hubby goes to work EARLY and I won't be able to sleep well after he leaves. So I will be up and get my study and morning work done in the quiet.
The last two days have been very productive around this household. I am getting back to the old me. Well actually, getting to a new me. You see I have been a wife for 9+ years and a mom for 7+ years, but I have never consistantly been good at the homemaker thing. And I am not really talking about being the picture perfect, June Cleaver, housewife. I still have a LONG way to go to get that far. . . . . if I really want to get there. I have been consistantly been putting out fires and getting stressed over it, and not being a good example to my family, espeically my older two children. I just want to get into a good routine and keep a steady hum going at home.
But now it has been really, really good. Yesterday, I did four loads of laundry - they still have to be folded but they're done. I cooked and cleaned up after 3 meals - yes I cooked breakfast, the kids had eggs. I needed to use some up. I baked 2 loaves of bread. I also started my Beth Moore, Living Beyond Yourself study.
This morning I took the kids with me to drop Steve off for training, we came home and the kids have helped me clean up the living room and hall way. I have another load of laundry started. It bright and warmer today so the kids are now outside with some of the neighborhood kids that are off on spring break. I will use the time to get another day of homework done on LBY, as soon as I am off here.
One more note. I am doing a study on pride, an off shoot of last night's incident. There will probably be some postings on it in the future. Be looking for them.
It is Saturday. I got up early this morning to go to work, well early for me 7:15. After work I came home to lunch, already almost ready by hubby and kids, leftovers, but hey I didn't have to do it and it cleaned the leftovers out of the fridge. Speaking of my fridge, I discovered that the temp dial was truned almost off. Thankfully I caught it before anything spoiled.
After lunch was a nap time for everybody, well everybody except daddy, who didn't want to sleep so that he could sleep tonight. I overslept by an hour, so much for baking the promised bread for Alli. But I did take the oldest two to the store for a quick run. Got the fixings for apple pie. They forgave me for no fresh baked bread.
Talked to my grandfather, found out a friend of his had passed away. I must get a sympathy card off to his widow this week. While I was growing up there were 6 or so couples that we called "the supper club" that my grandparents were a part of. About 10 years or so ago the first one of those dear people passed away. Slowly, each pair has lost a spouse over the years. My grandmother's passing 2 years ago, left this couple as the last with both spouses living. Now Mr. Herbert is gone. Out the seven couples that I can recall now there are now 2 widowers and 5 widows. However, out the survivors, I don't think that I can think of a single one that is not active, and still capable of living alone. That is truly amazing considering there isn't one of them that is not over 80. Granddaddy will be 89 in August and he still drives, gardens, cans, and does carpentry. He is planning a trip to my parents house in the next month or so to help daddy put up some shelving in the garage.
After talking to my mom and sister and made sure that they kenw about the Mr. Herbert's passing, I started supper, pork Chops, scallopped potatoes, green beans, and apple pie for desert!!
Now I am sitting down doing sudukos and some jorunaling, some scheduling and then baths and bed for the kids.
Talk to you later.
Blame Angie. I have been thinking and contimplating summer school and school next year, actually I have done that quite alot in the last few weeks. Long conversations with Leann resulted in curriculum choices for next year. So I have made decisions for both summer and next year.
We are going to school through the summer. Actually what I mean by that is to slow down some but continue to school through June and then take it REALLY EASY through July and start up full swing in August.
As for curriculum choices:
Stolen from Sara
I’m just curious, could you answer these questions for me please?
Which is season is your favorite?
And if you feel like telling, why?
You are most like: | ||
|---|---|---|
 You are bold with a dark side. You make clear lines wherever you go, though you color outside of the lines. Many people may just see the surface of you and think you are merely plain, but you have a lot of depth to you as well.
| ||
| Take this quiz: Which Crayola Box of 8 Color Are You? | ||
You are most like: | ||
|---|---|---|
 You are an apple! You have a smooth outter appearance and your friends are never suprised when you walk in circles. It doesn't matter if your green or red ... your still sweet!
| ||
| Take this quiz: The worlds simplest fruit quiz | ||
If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000.
The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000.
That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in
the nation, than you are in Iraq.........................Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington.
Keep supporting our troops!
is what you get when you add 33 years of marriage, 2 children, and 12 moves. Add to that a 95 pound yellow lab and add 2 sons-in-law and 4 grandchildren and you get a lot of help, sometimes weather you want it or not.
That, folks is what I have been doing the last few days, helping my parents move, for what they hope is the final time. Their things have been in storage for 6 months while awaiting their home to be finished and now, finally, they have been moved in. We helped to set up the bedrooms, changing them from mine and my sister's rooms to the girls' and boys' rooms. Decorated respectively with pink ballerinas and trucks, the extra bedrooms will now be home to the grandchildren.
Hubby spent two days hanging hardware in the bathrooms, putting up doorstops, hooking up washer and dryer and hanging blinds. My sister and I spent days unpacking kitchen and dining room boxes. We then sorted, with mom's help, things for storage, yardsale, and use and putting away things. My father, does not get rid of ANYTHING. We sorted through mugs and isulated cups hoping to pursuade him to part with some of the ones he hasn't seen or used since he last lived in Arkansas (11 years ago).
There are still MANY boxes in the garage. Many of which must go to the storage building out back. Others still that have my name on them. Those I must go through and take what I want and get rid of what I don't.
We are having a large joint yard/garge sale sometime this spring. I have a lot of things here at the house I am taking with me for that sale.
Anyway it is back to the weekly routine next week.
I just found out that you should really do this at least once a week.
More often if you spend a lot of time on computer! (Like me)
I was shocked to see how off mine was.
First you must test your scrolling ability.
Good.
Now to recalibrate your mouse or touchpad:
First, click and hold on the S.
Then drag the S toward the e.
If it doesn’t work, you might want to clean your mouse or touchpad.
Stop wasting time on the computer and
go do something constructive
Hey, and let me know how your results come out.
That is the general question right now. I have been on this quest for many months. Not consistently, not in depth, but very much there. Life has a way of getting in the way of me finding the answers that I seek, however, in the last few weeks I have discovered several things.
One, I am a perfectionist. That surprised the heck out of me. I mean I am the one to jump gung ho into things and then realize that the project is too big and sluff off towards the end and the finished result is less than the brilliance I envisioned upon starting the project. For example, my second prayer shawl is still on my crochet hook with only a few rows completed. But yes perfectionist I am. And and working to overcome. And what's more I live with one as well. No wonder nothing gets done around here . . . . .
Secondly I suffer from bouts of depression. Nothing major or life shattering, as far as my amateur mind can diagnose. But they are there. Another surprise to me. I mean I thought depression is something only sick or mentally ill people suffer from. At least that is what I thought. Happy, well adjusted, busy moms aren't depressed are they?
Third I am very different from my parents. Again another surprise. I mean, I was always happy to do just as expected and follow their lead. Never one to break out and be different. But I am finding my voice and it is different than the one I expeceted to hear.
I bring out these three points because they are the ones closest to my heart. They are the ones that God is speaking to me most about right now. As I read, study, meditate and learn more I will probably bring it here as I think out loud and on paper better than in my head anyway.
Today is my youngest son's 2nd Birthday!
A while back with me and his older brother. He is my only blond
We are under our fourth Tornado Watch in five days. Such as the weather in Arkansas in Spring. I am used to it but NOT ready to go through it again.
My 4 year old son is sitting here 'reading' our Veggie Tales opposites book out loud. Of course he has heard many, many, MANY times in the last few days, his two year brother has been obessed with Veggie Tales here lately. Daddy, Mommy, and big sister have all read that book and God Made You Special (another Veggie Tales book) repeatedly in the last few days.
But the point is that the four year old is sitting down, looking at the pictures and telling the story almost verbatium and it really thrills my heart!
You Are Grass Green |
 Down to earth and a bit of a hippie, you are very into nature and the outdoors. You accept the world and people as they are. You don't try to change things. You are also very comfortable with yourself, flaws and all. Optimistic about the future, you feel like life is always getting better. |
I may or may not use this blog. I am still trying to decide. I know there are several people that read me that will use this one to comment more so we will just see.
Hubby was up and out of the house EARLY this morning. I had forgotten what those days are like. I woke up about every half hour after that promising I would be out of bed by 7 am. When I woke up shortly after 7, I started out by rolling over, snuggling under the covers some more, and justifying myself by saying "I'll use this as prayer time". I even started out my prayer with "I know this isn't really a prayer posture, but . . . . . . . " I started thinking of prayer postures and the symbolic humbling of oneself and in just a few minutes I was singing to myself "I'll be a living sacrifice to You" Well with those words on my lips, I was out of bed and into the shower. It was my sacrifice to get out of bed and spend some quiet time for ME and with the Lord. So I did. I was up ate breakfast and did my LBY homework as well as checked the MB, email, and bloglines before the kids were up.
Btw - What is the NAME of that song I was singing???
EDIT -- not sacrifice but sanctuary. Okay maybe I am a bit quirky . . . . . .
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