After

 

I am quickly approaching an after moment.  A defining moment.
In 7 weeks, I will no longer be a resident of the state where I was born and raised.  I will no longer be a resident of the town where I have spent my whole life.
In 7 weeks, my boys and I will be joining my husband on an adventure.
My husband accepted a job a few weeks ago in Missouri.  He starts in 10 days.
The boys and I have things to finish up.  The Cub Scout year, complete with final awards.  AWANA and BSF.  The child birth class I am teaching.  They all wrap up between now and Memorial Day weekend.  Then, we are off.
I haven't thought much about after.  After we move.  After we find a new home.  After we find a new church family.  After I learn how to go about registering to home school, vote, and get a new driver's license.  Those things will come.
Today, I am looking at the, after we list our house.  It goes on the market Monday.
And, I'm living in the today.  Enjoying the boys who will not be 7, 6, and 4 forever.  My husband who willing be missing from our daily lives for a few weeks starting in 9, to short, days.
So, I'm off to live in the now...

 

Broken

 

So, I debated to do or not to do this 5 minutes.  I am late.  It is Saturday night.  Then, I read the word.  Oh, I should answer that prompt.  So, here I sit...
I attend BSF, Bible Study Fellowship.  We are studying Genesis this year.  I have had many struggles this year in my lesson.
The first big struggle, there was the struggle over fertility issues.  Is using a fertility specialist a sin?  Is my oldest son not valued?  Abraham's first son was sent away.
The newest struggle, I realized this last week that God wants all of me.  Okay, I knew this and was living under the impression that I had given Him all of me.  Then, we studied Jacob and his struggle with God.  God wanted all of Jacob and even though Jacob struggled with God and was blessed by God in having his named changed, he still continued to sin in that he did not proceed to the Promised Land immediately but took at 10 year pause.
So, my not all of me is my emotions.  I was raised with a grandma around who didn't cry.  I had a priest tell me, after my great-grandma died, that it was wrong for me to cry.  After all, Jesus had much bigger problems and didn't cry much.
I need to turn my emotions over to God.  I have in prayer given them to Him.  But, I'm finding each day that I find some more to give Him.  I want to give it all to Him now and not realize 10 years from now that I stopped part way.

 

Remember

Twelve years and five days ago it wasn't snowing.  It was gorgeous out.
We had family that didn't make the trip for fear of getting snowed in in Nebraska in March.
I got up early after sleeping on my parents' couch.  My mom and I were to meet my Maid-of-Honor and her daughter at my hair dressers.  Her salon was across the street from the bridal shop where my dress waited, in need of being picked up and delivered to Trinity Baptist Church.
After getting my hair done, Kelly helped me get my dress and we draped it across the backseat of her car.
We made it to the church and then I went to my Maid-of-Honor's hotel room to hangout with my cousins as we all continued getting ready.
Our flower girl got constipated in the excitement and nerves.
We got to the church and finished getting ready.
We had pictures of you and your family and me and my family before the wedding and pictures of us together after the ceremony.
My dad and your Best-man both asked if I was sure I wanted to go through with the wedding.  I told them both yes I was ready.
My dad prepared to walk me down the isle as Mary fixed my skirt.
Our flower girl refused to go down the isle but I told her she needed to go throw all those rose petals on the ground.  She headed down the isle with your nephew.
During the ceremony when we went to light the unity candle, we accidentally blew it out.  You are always so resourceful.  You pulled a lighter out of your pocket to relight the candle.
After the ceremony we had pictures and then went to celebrate with our family.
After eating, dancing, chatting, cutting cake, we escaped.  Just the two of us to a beautiful B&B where our high school best friends had gone to decorate the room with rose petals, candles, and a tub full of balloons.
Love you bunches.  Even more than twelve years and five days ago.

 

Rest

 

Start

I almost laughed out loud when I read the prompt.  We are not early risers here.  My husband works odd hours so we sleep in in the a.m.  But, I'm up, for the second morning in a row.  Earlier than the sun.  :-(
I'm here because we are on day two of a garage sale. 
Yesterday, I woke with the thought, "Lord, please let us survive today."
Yesterday was not restful.  I judged a homeschooling debate tournament (one round anyway) in the a.m.  We had the garage sale.  And, I started a new child birth series.  :-)  Nuts, right?
Well, no.  When God is in the middle of it, it all works together for His glory.
So, our neighbor came over to help Rick set up while I ran to the tournament.
I had lunch going in the crockpot, so, it was ready when people got hungry.
Then, the lady who was suppose to be stopping by sometime after 3 didn't make it, but that worked out to.  She came around 9 p.m. and it to worked out.
I had class.  Which is the best part of yesterday, well, it is up there anyway.  (I, also, got to see two of my doula babies.)  Even with my husband busy wrapping up the garage sale and the boys and dog running through the house.  Taking time to do what I am passionate about and tell soon-to-be mommies and daddies how to give birth without drugs helps me to focus...to unwind...to relax...

Stop

Home

START

Home has always been this town or is it a city?
I was born within walking distance of my parents' home that they had purchased just two weeks before I was born.  I lived in that two story home for 18 years.
Then, I lived in apartments and with my Grandma for three ish years.  But, I don't know that those were really "home."
When my husband and I met, the week after our wedding, we bought our first home.  It was within walking distance of my childhood home.
Then, we had three Little Men join us and we realized two bedrooms, one bathroom, and one closet weren't really fitting us.  So, we moved.
We moved to a neighborhood in my home town.  But, across town from my parents.
Then, yesterday, my husband took a job out of state.  We will be moving again.  Not within the same town.
It is my first time living outside everything familiar.  Where I can usually visualize where someone lives with very little difficulty.
Now, I am looking at houses with Mapquest open up on a screen right next to the Realtor page trying to figure out if we are within a 40 minute drive my husbands work.

STOP

Ordinary

Ordinary...
REALLY?
I often think I am ordinary.  I don't do anything special.
But, I do.
I am a home schooling mama of three boys.  My oldest is in first grade.  So, I have a large learning curve ahead of me.
I am a child birth educator and subsequently, a doula.  I love being around expecting couples and sharing with them our joys and struggles in the hope of educating them on what to expect with their little one.
I am a wife.  My husband can fix anything and reads engineering books for fun. So, our basement is full of computer pieces, electronic gizmos, model airplanes and trains that are rigged, whether they were meant to be or not, with lights, cameras, and sounds.
I am a cook.  I enjoy playing in the kitchen.  Then, we found out my youngest is allergic to pasteurized dairy.  Also, corn, pork, and sugar don't really agree with his 4-year-old belly.  So, I now figure out how to adapt our favorite recipes to meet his dietary needs.
I am a child of God.  I go to church multiple times a week, spend time in my Bible often, and especially with the deaths and cancer issues of several people I know, I find myself in prayer continually.

Tell me all about what your mama did that made her yours….

I struggled with school.  It wasn't fun and it wasn't easy.  Part of it was due to social stuff which I am, also, not good at.  Part of it was, I always choose the most difficult books to read.  I always choose the harder route. 
I would haul my backpack, packed with every book in my desk, back and forth every day.  I would study from the minute I got home until my mom declared it bedtime. 
I would end up in tears over not having it as easy as my brothers made it look.
My mom always encouraged.  And, was always happiest for me when the weekend came, or summer, or some other break from the struggles of studying.
She loved summer vacation!  She was not the mama who counted down the days till she could send her kids back to school.  She was not the mama who moaned and complained as we made messes, destroyed things, and created chaos.  She loved spending time with us.  She loved taking us to our grandparents' acreage on Friday nights for dinner of fish squares and mac and cheese.
She took us candy selling.  First, for me for Camp Fire.  Later, for all three of us as we earned our way to Camp Kitaki.  She encouraged, charted, and bribed (but in a good way, with the promise of hot chocolate) us to earn our way to camp and earn back the $50 deposit she had put down on each of our behalves.  Our money to spend as we wanted IF we earned it back.


Come join the writing flash mob...

Beloved

 

"I am my beloveds and my beloveds is mine."  It is from the Song of Solomon.
Yesterday, I valenteered for Love On The Run.  A local shop puts on this fun activity every Valentine's Day for the last 6 or 7 years.
It all begins, well as far as us meager participants are concerned, this last weekend.  We showed up at the shop and ate goodies, sipped wine or punch, and typed notes on old fashion type writers to our someone special.  We had our pictures taken.  Rolled our love notes and put them in little glass bottles.  The bottles and pictures were put in little gift bags with information on delivery printed on the back.
THEN, yesterday, us valenteers invaded the store.  We picked up boxes of little gifts bags and began driving all over this town on 200,000+ people delivering little gift bags with notes typed on old fashion type writers.
One of those notes headed out to the airport.  When my husband got to work last night his boss sent him to the front desk where he was surprised by a little gift bag.
Another little gift bag headed to a small town where a friend surprised her husband.
And, MANY others, over 300 in all were delivered to doors to await returning lovers, to hands attached to shocked, surprised, excited faces.  I wish I could have seen more of those faces.  :-)  The few I was privileged to see were wonderful.  I look forward to Love On The Run next year.

Bare

I tried Mary Kay foundation recently.  My skin did not like it.
I'm a no make-up kind of gal.  I like to play with it on occasion, but I am not a regular purchaser or wearer.
But, I thought it would be fun and I had someone, not a good influence in my life, telling me I needed plastic surgery under my eyes.  So, I thought, I would give foundation a try.  After all, it is mineral based.
But, no, my face did not like it.  Just like it did not like Avon when I was in high school and my face broke out in, first period, history class and I got sent to the nurse's office.
So, I wear no make-up.  I am, thank God, blessed with good skin.  I have my Grandma Troutt's naturally rosy cheeks.  I have my Great-Grandma Kubes face.  (It is odd to me to go to Aksmit family reunions and have strangers come up to me and ask how I am related to her.)  I have dark circles, some days more obvious than other days, from being up to late or to early, as the case may be.  I occasionally get a blemish, but they are not, thankfully, regular occurrences.
I wish other women felt it okay to show their bare faces.  I think there are a lot of pretty faces out there under the eye liner, blush, foundation, blemish corrector, etc.  After all, God doesn't make junk.  So, there is no need to, "put my face on."  Be yourself the wonderful creation God made.  You are blessed and wonderful just the way you are.  I am blessed and wonderful, in-spite of the bad influence in my life that tells me I need plastic surgery to deal with the circles under my eyes.

Afraid

"If you let them sit in it, you have to let them fly it."
Words of wisdom from a pilots wife to a younger pilots wife with three little boys.  Sigh!
Although, this does not make me as afraid as yesterday.
Yesterday, I got a phone call from a friend saying her and her kids were in a car accident.  Not a huge surprise in the snow covered city.  However, the surprise was that the other driver was under the influence.  That makes me afraid.  Her and her kids are okay.  But, her youngest, who is 2, shook her head yes as I held her and asked if it was scary.
It would be so easy to become a recluse.  To say the world outside is to scary.  That I am afraid of drivers under the influence, of slick streets, of my boys growing up and flying military equipment into unsafe parts of the world, of my husband flying to another part of the U.S. and his wings icing up and not being able to safely land.
BUT, I don't.  Because, "When I am afraid I will trust in YOU!" (Psalm 56:3)  "You are my fortress, my shield, my banner in whom I trust." (roughly Psalm 18:2)  Because of these words and many others, I keep going.  I keep trusting that God will grab me and hold on tight if the things I fear happen.  I trust that He knows the best for those who love Him.

Again

April 2006, I had a nine-month-old.  I sat on mine and my husband's bed in tears.  I wanted another baby, but with all the injections, pills, and surgery it took to get this sweet nine-month-old, would we be able to give him a sibling?  I cried to my husband and to God that I couldn't go through it all again.  I wasn't strong enough.
God stepped in. 
The next month.  Labor Day weekend.  I took a pregnancy test early in the morning and it was positive!  I went in and told my still sleeping hubby.  He told me to take another one.  I did.  It, too, was positive.
Fast forward twenty-ish weeks.  We are in for our first ultra-sound.  Our only one planned for this not, "high risk," pregnancy.  The tech is pretty quiet.  Then, our midwife comes in.  Our newest, littlest might have Down Syndrome.  She refers us to a specialist.  The specialist can't say for sure, but doesn't see anything wrong and says we will have to wait for the birth to be sure.
Fast forward another twenty-ish weeks.  I am home with our almost eigteen-month-old.  He is napping.  I am not.  I am wrestless.  I call a friend to see if she can come over and go for a walk in the snow packed outdoors.
We head out.  I have contractions off and on for six blocks.
Back home, my oldest and I head to my mom and dad's for dinner.  My dad catches on quick.  My mom sends to me run errands.  At dinner, she, too, catches on.  We call my cousin to come get my oldest.  We hang-out.
About one a.m. we decide to head to the hospital and my mom calls my husband to say meet us at the hospital.  He is just getting off work.
He arrives in L&D as I scream.  He panics because I didn't sound like that the first time.  He comes in and rushes to my side as my midwife catches an 8 lb. 3 oz., PERFECT, baby boy.
Thank you, God!  For my six-year-old that you blessed us with one year ago this week.

Cherished

Today is the day, 13 years ago, that I asked Jesus into my heart as Lord and Savior.  I am His cherished possession.
I spent a good portion of the last 24 hours thinking about my testimony.  I love that I can go to the moment of my salvation and look backward and see faces of people who helped me come to that moment.  Faces of girls in high school that had something different about them.  I have since ran into some of those girls and asked them if they were Christians in high school and been told, "Yes, I was.  But, I didn't know how to share my faith."
I can, also, look forward from that moment and see how much I have grown and changed.  I have become a wife, a mother, a homeschooling parent, a friend and confidant to many women, a child birth educator, and doula.  I do not believe any of these roles would be possible without God.
When people are asked to share about their moment of salvation, I really want to hear them talk about how their walk has progressed from that moment.
In thinking about my salvation, I think, maybe, I should write it all down.  In a notebook?  On the computer?  Who is going to want to read it?  Hopefully, my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.  I hope they read it and have that moment of surrender, of knowing that you are a cherished possession just the way you are.  And, be able to look back and see the faith instruments who have allowed their lives to be a testimony to a struggling soul.  And, look forward to see God their even when I stumble, misstep, sidetrack.  He is never far away.

Dive

A new year and new challenges...
Our Pastor told us at church that he was going to challenge us to read through the Bible in a year and have accountability as part of our church family.
I thought, "I would like to finally make it through the whole thing."  Then, I left for Christmas in Kansas.
We didn't get back till after the new year.  So, I purchased a Woman's Guide to reading the Bible in a Year in a little bookstore in Lawrence.
THEN I returned home to discover in my stack of mail the reading schedule for church...  The church schedule is not the same as the book, but I already committed to the book with my BF.  SO, I'm doing the book and my church family is doing something different.
As I read, I am in chapter 30 of Genesis, I find myself reflecting on the "downward spiral of our culture."  And, thinking, "REALLY!  Did you see the mess Abraham and Jacob had going?"
I was, right before I realized I could be participating in 5 minute Fridays, reading where Leah says, "God has rewarded me for letting my husband sleep with my maid."  Which, just blows my mind.  Poor lady.
I do wonder if we will get God's commentary on our stupidity when we get to heaven.  And if Leah, Rachael, and others will be there.  Their husband is one of the fathers of our faith and in the hall of fame in Hebrews.  But, what about the wives?

Opportunity

Opportunity...
I'm thankful for my delayed opportunity to be here in this new year.  I had been disappointed when 5 Minute Fridays wrapped up for the year.  Then, in the hub-bub of the new year and with all the activities that usually occur in my week not starting back up yet, I TOTALLY spaced 5 Minute Fridays!  So, here I am, better late then never, joining in on the fun.
I had the opportunity as I was wrapping up 2012 to go to counseling with my mother-in-law.  Our last session was two Fridays before Christmas.  Although, I was, and so was my Pastor, under the impression that progress had been made, my mother-in-law apparently is/was not.  She got really upset at the end of the last session.  <sigh>
I don't know if it is because she is not a believer.  Or, she really thought is hadn't helped.  Or, it was just her mental illness having a mental illness moment.
The commercials that use to run about mental illness and how people start out with friends and loose all or most of them throughout the mental illness, I never really completely understood those commercials.  I am getting a better grip on them now.
And, it is sad.  It is sad to think that my mother-in-law, a woman pushing 70, is going to pass away some day and no one is going to miss her.  There isn't really going to be anyone to contact or a memorial service in need of being held...