A husbands advice...

 I started a commitment to blog more and then like usual I became busier than ever.  That's my life though....
Our women's bible study came to an end in November and I began preparing for our Annual Women's Christmas Celebration.  This year we were having a "Tacky Tea".  Mismatched tables, crazy tacky Christmas sweaters.  Games, door prizes, testimony, worship and teaching.  We started off with 150 tickets for sale and as we kept selling out in just a few days we began adding tables until I was sure we would be putting a few tables on the stage just to fit everyone.
My church is a smaller sized church.  It seats about 260.  We have an overflow room that seats 50-60 more, but once you add tables, it really limits how many you can have.  We ended up with 192 ladies coming.  I was so excited and so worn out.  I really want every detail to be important and matter and so I put a lot of time and effort into it.

At one point during the prep for this, I cried to my husband... He is my best friend and he gets to hear my breakdowns the most.  Well I cried to him about how overwhelmed I was, how much I had to do and then being attacked in the midst of it just felt like added impossibilities... How could anyone stand up in this... He always has amazing advice... He reminded me of Nehemiah and how they had to both build the wall, and carry a sword in case of attack.  He reminded me it isn't always going to be like that and to just keep working and holding up my sword.  God's strength would get me through.

Well as if personal attack, heartaches, planning and preparing an event for 192 ladies wasn't enough to add to my homeschool mom and pastors wife life... My oldest son came down with chicken pox.  From where, we have no idea.  I almost laughed at just how ridiculous my life was at that moment....
Well the tea is over, I made it through the attack, my heartaches.... well they are in God's hands.  My other kids all have chicken pox now, to which I quickly decided.... WINTER BREAK!!!  I mean really 4 kids with chicken pox and still doing school.. NO WAY!  I declare a mental Holiday just for their teachers sake. ;-)  And yet my husband was so right... I sat back, let God be in control, started everyday rising early before my family, sitting with my bible and praying while reading... and yeah, God's strength sustained me through it all.  And now... now what am I doing?  Absolutely nothing.  The nice thing about chicken pox, is we can't go anywhere and we can't have anyone over... So I have had 2 days of lounging with my kids in our jammies, watching movies, and I even have gotten to read a book.  I am so thankful for my husband and his wise advice.... Want a quick marriage tip?  The reason my husband gives such great advice is that he reads his bible almost every day.  I pray for my husband and I have for 17 years now that he would be so in love with Jesus and in love with reading the bible... Well he is, he does... and it means he is one amazing father and one amazing husband.   Don't focus on if they are romantic, or what they are or aren't doing for you... Pray they fall in love with God, and it will change them more than your whining, complaining or anything else ever will.

The pics are me in my tacky tea outfit... that lights up.  And the room packed with ladies.  Such a sweet day!

Therapeutic prayer journals...

You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3 NKJV
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4:8 KJV

I want that.  I want perfect peace.  I want to think about things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, things of virtue, praiseworthy things.  I want that to be my daily thoughts.  In all honesty, I try.  I memorize scripture.  I read my bible daily.  I listen to bible studies. I listen to and sing along with praise music.  I try... I really do.  Yet there are just some days where those negative thoughts fly in like a bird and make a nest in my head.  I can't stop thinking about problems, things I need to do, bills that aren't getting paid.  I worry about my children, I mull over choices and decisions I have made and regret.  I let everything come into my mind and I just think on it, I dwell on it, I wish I could change it, I am afraid of the outcome, I regret decisions and mistakes.... I just spiral down all too quickly.  My remedy....  Prayer.  It's always prayer.  I sit down with my journal.  (I have many) and I write all my negatives and then I just start praying and giving it all over to God.  I start thanking Him for what I do have, for how He has helped me, delivered me from other impossible situations.  I remember how He has comforted my heart from some of the most heartbreaking moments in my life.  I sometimes even cry some more over those moments and let Him comfort me some more.  It's really like the best therapy I could buy.  I wish I had saved my journals from the past... but usually I end up burning them... because well somethings are just left between me and God.  I think today is going to be one of those I fill a thousand pages days... (Not literally... but sometimes it feels close to it.)

The life of the overwhelmed...

Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy.  I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.  

Psalm 61:1-4

These are just some of my all time favorite verses that God sweetly brings to mind when I am feeling overwhelmed.  It happens a lot you know.  I get distracted by the messy garage, the over flowing laundry hampers, the sink full of dishes, the schoolwork that still needs to be graded, the artwork that needs to be created for women's ministry, the name tags I was to make 2 months ago, and how many emails do I have to answer today?  Oh wait we have park day, and errands to run, dogs that once again need to be bathed... speaking of bathing... did I wash Olivia or David's hair this week?  I hope we have more detangling spray to brush out those tangles.  I just remembered something spilled in the fridge and I said I would get to it later.  Thanksgiving is at my house this year, and I am planning and prepping for a ladies tea for 184 ladies.... Payday is this week, so I will once again get to look at bills that there isn't enough money to cover, praying for miracles to buy my kids something nice for christmas.  Oh yeah Christmas... We won't have family with us this Christmas that were with us last.  Yeah... My heart begins to ache.  My aching heart reminds me of my aching body and all the ways it seems to be failing lately and should I try one more new Dr.? Or just stick with what I know. I get by feeling crummy, maybe I just deal with that.  

See how easily I can become overwhelmed... My lists of things to do never ends.  My lists of hurting ladies and friends I want to reach out to never goes away. My bills may get paid, but new ones always come.  So I cry.  I do cry out, just like this verse says.  It feels like it's the end of my earth.  The end of my rope that I am crying to Him from...  I ask Him, lead me to the rock.  The rock of my life Jesus.  The one who brings everything back into perspecitve.  The one that causes me to see I was a sinner doomed to hell, and He died for me.  Now I am saved by grace through faith.  I have the hope that this life isn't all there is and I will get to go to heaven and rule and reign with him throughout eternity.  Wow my day just got a whole lot brighter.  He then reminds me that He has been a shelter for me.  He has been a strong tower when I faced enemies.  I now declare that I will abide in His tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of His wings.  

Thank you God, for all you do in my life, how You speak to me through Your Word and give me hope to hang onto.  I do have a life of being overwhelmed... but I don't have to stay in that mindset.  I can cry out and be placed back into the precious covering of His wings!

One of our past women's retreats... almost 10 years ago.  Yet the visual and picture has always stuck in my mind.  :-)

Retreat

I know how much work goes into putting on a retreat.  I have been a part of my church's women's ministry since it started over 18 years ago.  I know all the planning, work, prayer, sweat, tears, etc. that goes into it.  So for me to get to go to a retreat and have nothing to do but just sit there is a nice treat.
Last year I attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa's women's retreat and it was such a blessing, I had to go again.
This year it was just my mom and I and it was really nice.  The campus in Murrieta is gorgeous.  So peaceful.  Scripture up everywhere and you just know the entire staff and students are praying for everyone who comes on their campus.
We had a nice private 2 person room, which is a commodity there.  The food was good, and the peace and quiet was so nice.
Scott Cunningham's 2 daughters 13 and 16 years old led worship all weekend, and wow is all I have to say to that.  I am so impressed.  They sang mostly old hymns and that was a special treat too.  I love our worship at church, but sometimes to just hear the sweet old hymns is well....  They  just have such depth to their lyrics.  Not to say our more modern ones don't... Oh I don't know how to applaud one without insulting the other... Let's just say it was sweet!
The speaker was a lady named Pam Markey.  She is a missionary who teaches at a bible college in Hungary and has an amazing testimony.  She has 8 children and lost her husband 5 years ago unexpectedly.  She is a great bible teacher.  The theme was Jesus never fails, and it was a great reminder of all he has done in my life.  He truly never fails.

Being that it's not my church's retreat I hesitate to ask for prayer, or take up time with the Pastors wives as I don't want to keep them from ministering to their ladies.  And yet as the retreat was ending it was such a burden on my heart to be prayed over and encouraged as I am in a newer stage of ministry for me.  I had a few moments with Cheryl Broderson and she was so sweet, super encouraging and prayed over me. It was icing on my already yummy cake.

And now I have a new stack of books, to add to my already overflowing bookshelves....

Date nights!

I have been married 17 years and I think one of the best pieces of advice I have received was this... Even in the busyness of kids, always keep working on your friendship with your husband. The kids will grow and move out and have their own lives one day and you will be left with a husband who was once your best friend. You can discover some 20 years down the road that you no longer know each other or you can have grown closer and be the best of friends and more in love than ever. My parents are a perfect example of this. I watched them as I was growing up that they kept God as the center, then each other and then us kids. They would laugh together, go for drives to the beach, simple things to keep their friendship alive.
So I say all this to say that Rob and I had date night this week. We try to at least once a month or every 6 weeks. We were blessed with some charger tickets. Now sports isn't really my thing, but having my hand held, being kissed, eating a dinner without a 3 year old in my lap is. So we combined his things (sports) with mine and we had a wonderful date night. And icing on the cake... The chargers won!

New month, new beginnings...

I love a fresh start. You would think that with being a PK (pastors kid) for 30 years and a PW (pastors wife) for 15 I would have this daily prayer and bible time thing down. Yet I get busy and I get lazy and I start to miss days, shorten my prayer time and just generally start to slack on to me what are the most important things in my life.
So the start of a new week, a new month a new day or even if be a new hour is always precious to me. I love to make lists and everything I do, I dedicate it to God. So this isn't fresh start today! My new challenge to myself is to not miss a day for 40 days. Not so I can say oh wow look what I did, but because I really believe there is power in prayer, it's important to memorize God's word, it's important to read it every day and the rest of the stuff on my list... Well it's just good for me.
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22, 23 NKJV)

It's not always where I want to be...

Sunday night's is when my husband teaches at our church and my older kids help to lead worship.  I love being there, I sit in the front row, I pay attention, I pray for him and I take lots of notes, I always want to be there... Or at least I thought I did.

I had friends over this last Sunday after our church's morning services and right as we were leaving for Sunday evening service I noticed my cat wasn't doing well.  I have 2 cats they are a brother and sister that we adopted from the humaine society 7 years ago.  They are super sweet and friendly and the girl cat, "Freckles", is my favorite.  I got her a blanket and made her comfortable.  I was convinced by the way she was breathing that she was about to die.  I prayed for her that it would be easy and painless and then with tears in my eyes I had to leave.  Now I don't believe cats have souls and yet, I still love her and I don't want her to be in pain, suffer or die alone.  I had no money to take her to the vet, so even if I didn't have to be at church to sell tickets for our ladies tea and sit up front and support my husband, all I would have been able to do was just sit there with her.  Yet it was so hard to drive away.  The few moments that I was able to sit with her it just brought back all the sorrow and tears of watching both my husbands grandfather pass away this last April and being with my grandfather in hospice just before he passed in July.
I started thinking about all the times I went to church when I didn't want to, but because I love God's people and knew my needs and desires could wait, I would go.  I did get to sell tickets to our outreach, I was able to support and encourage my husband who was having a rough evening and came down defeated after teaching, I was able to share and visit with ladies and encourage them to keep walking with Jesus.... And when I got home my precious cat was still alive.  I layed down on the cold porch holding her head and cried.  Then my family needed me and even though I wanted to be selfish and sit and cry some more and mourn my grandfather, my grandma, all my other losses that losing this cat was bringing to mind... I didn't.  I got up and I went and helped put my kids to bed and get things ready for the start of another busy week.  It's not always where I want to be that as a pastors kid, pastors wife, mom to five that I am... but I am learning to always be where I am supposed to be and have contentment and peace in that.

My kitty died today... and it's sad. But that's ok.

A new direction for my writing...

Most of my blogs in the past have been about my family, organizing, homeschool and such.  I will probably occasionally still make posts like that, but I feel like I need to take my blogging in a new direction.  I want to write more about being a pastor's wife and serving in ministry.  Describe what that life is like and just share more of a journal style of writing...  So here we go.

1 Samuel 26:8 "God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!" Abishai whispered to David. "Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won't need to strike twice!"

Being in leadership there have been times that people have come to myself or my husband and said "Oh you should be doing youth ministry" "You should be in the mission field" "You should move and serve over in this city."  "You could be leading your own church instead of just being an assistant."  They mean well, just like Abishai meant well for David.  However David used real wisdom when he said, in his response... "No!" David said. "Dont kill him. For who can remain innocent after attacking the LORD's anointed one?"
Sometimes I hear these opinions and I wonder, am I in the wrong place, should I be doing something else...
It's not that we wouldn't want to lead our own church, or go and be a missionary in a foreign country, or work in youth, family or any other area of ministry than where we are serving.  It's that we are being obedient to what God has told us, not a friend or family member.  Be careful who you listen to.  Always take everything back to God.  I journal my questions to him so I can keep track.  Then when I sit in our church services, read devotionals, read my bible, listen to bible studies, pray, I wait.  I wait for him to answer my questions.  He always does... In His perfect timing He gives me the answers I am seeking.
"The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives." Psalm 37:23

It's not a feeling, it's an action.

Love is a choice.... In 10 minutes I will have been married for 17 years.  We haven't faced every imaginable storm of life together, but we have faced a lot of them, and worked through them all.  

I do still feel in love... I still feel butterflies and all those wonderful things you feel when you are in love.  I don't always feel them.  I don't feel them every day, and I certainly have had times where I thought I would never feel them again.... but despite my feelings, I still chose to love Rob every single day of our marriage, and I choose to love him every single day of my life.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. ♥


Not just any kind of love, but with God's love.  A love that He gives me, because I first spend time with God and keep that relationship right, and He helps me keep all the rest of my relationships in my life right.
God first, husband second, children third, and all the rest just sort of balances in there... If I get it out of order... it is like that unbalanced washing machine that thumps, stops working and leaves me with a bunch of soggy towels.  The only way to fix it when I get out of whack is stop thinking its my husband, or my children or anything else and realize it's me.  Get on my knees, get things right with God and I, by re-submitting my life and my will to Him, and He brings everything else back in order.
Simple recipe, hard to do, so worth it.

Just a quick thought on a scripture I read....

2 Samuel 14:14

All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.

I have been in church ministry since I was 3.  I have been married 17 years (well in 4 days it will be). I have heard lots of people say they have fallen out of love, they just can't love that person anymore, maybe they never did....  All kinds of marital problems can occur.  Yet... when I was reading in my bible this verse jumped out at me.  God doesn't just sweep life away.... He devises ways to bring us back.  I started to think of how my life is to emulate God, to be Christ-like.  I thought of hurting people in my life that maybe I might have just swept away, I started to think of my marriage and some of the different seasons we have gone through....  

When we were first dating and I was falling in love with Rob, I wanted to not only just love him, I wanted to be his best friend and to me that meant knowing him, knowing things he is interested in.  He loves sports, but even more than sports he loves all the stats about sports.... So without him knowing I went and bought a book on that years current baseball statistics....  The first time I threw out a stat in order to engage him in conversation... I botched it.  Totally said it wrong... but it made him laugh and he knew I cared about him and cared what he cared about... even baseball stats.  

When I went through a phase where I felt like HE wasn't the person I thought I married and I deserved better, I was really hurt by HIM.... I pouted, I cried, and I turned to God.  I learned a good lesson that it wasn't about him, it was about me.... I learned how to be a better wife, to love him more in ways that meant love to him, to remember and focus on the good points about him, to pray for him in ways I never had.  To focus all my changing power on me.... and let him be dealt with by God.  

I was thinking about that verse... and how in my life, God has shown me ways to bring love back into our marriage, to bring life back into our friendship, to bring laughter and joy back into our home when only stress and anger and frustration is there... God devises ways to bring us back.  He gives us as women that same wisdom to devise ways to bring back life....  

A wise woman builds her home, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands. - Proverbs 

The Big Giant Summer To Do List

Well the first day of summer vacation was yesterday.  We celebrated by sending Dad off for a 16 day trip in Israel.  Then we watched netflix, swam in the pool and mom BBQ'd since Dad was missing.  It was a simple chill day.

With the start of summer comes my Giant To Do List.... I make one every year.  I am so busy as a homeschool mom, full time women's ministry, pastor's wife, and all the other roles I take on that all my big projects, spring cleaning and such have to wait for summer.  This years list has a whopping 90 things on it, with a few spaces open to add other things.  Often as I am working on stuff I find other jobs I missed on my list and I do them, but I like to add them to my list so I can see all my accomplishments. There is everything on it.....  ranging from cleaning out closets to pulling weeds and making the backyard summer ready.  I am sure to put on a few things that I can't do, so that Rob will have to come to my rescue and do some of them.

On my list was to start blogging again... so I figured with the start of the list... I might as well blog about it.

I am trying to add a picture of it.... we will see how it works......