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......