A beautiful day to play outside!
Our FIRST haircuts! :D
We LOVE bananas! Mommy thinks we are cute lil' monkeys!
It has been so beautiful outside this last week here that we have been "muchly" enjoying the nearly daily outings to the park or outside at home to play and the boys L-O-V-E it! :D It sure beats cabin fever. One thing that is bad about winter time I have to big time admit that!
There has been a lot going on this last week or so! I should say a lot "starting" into our weekly schedule! We are going twice a week to the gym now which I am very dedicated too since I am taking zumba and kickboxing classes those two nights and I LOVE it and wouldn't miss them for lame excuses like I have often been coming up with when I didn't feel like going just to run on the treadmill or lift weights! :D It is SO much stinkin' fun and golly when that hour is up you are complete jello and I have been WAY beyond sore all week but it still somehow feels so good at the same time! Not to mention I am learning some groovy choreography in zumba and in kickboxing well...I am getting that power jab down so you watch out! :P Some gals in our Sunday school class got together today for a "playdate" for all the kids at the church nursery and it was a good lil' get-a-way for not just the kids but as girls too! It was quite fun actually! This Monday we are starting a "stay-at-home mom club" where we are going to try to get together with our kids once a week and do something fun like go to the zoo, or park, etc. I am SO looking forward to that. CERTAINLY need a break up from the grind of the house 24-7! Then of course we have our trip to Florida coming up this next week and the week after! :D MUCHLY excited, pumped, ecstatic about the vacation/photography trip! :D A week of complete fun in Florida just me and my man...can't get much better than that!
"What is it Lord? What is it really and truly that you want me to do it life. As a mom...as a wife...day to day life...what is next. I am on this giant never ending emotional, physical and spiritual roller coaster right now and I know that there is a reason for every thought, every emotion, every feeling... I know there is something You want to teach me...show me...lead me to, I just can't quite figure out what that is and where in the world you are going and I am so very ready for You to just show me!"
It seems like I have been having this gut feeling for as long as I can remember and trying to fight it off. Just because that is what everyone tells me to do and it is wrong to feel what I am feeling! But I can't. I know there has to be something else. There has to be more! I have an entire life time in front of me! I am only 20 years old and yet God has already done so extremely much in my life! True I could die when I am 30...or tomorrow...but what if I don't. What if I live until I am 85 years old. What am I truly going to be doing with my life until then besides the obvious of loving and raising my family to follow after God. Other than keeping my house and staring at the clock. There HAS GOT to be more! I feel like I have been given to much to only be doing that even if it is the most important job in life.
I never knew that being a mom could actually be boring! :D Yes, I said that and yes go ahead and judge, gasp, shake your head, say "No it ain't!" all ya want. I know you will. It is okay with me. :) Maybe I am THE weirdest woman around and trust me when I say I don't understand it myself but that is how I feel right now and how I have felt. There has GOT to be more to life than sitting for hours pushing cars back and forth, pointing to dogs and saying "ruff ruff" and sitting on my butt doing nothing, watching the boys play together. (I know that is a good thing by the way you just can't do it all day.) More than normal housework that finishes quickly for me and leaves me looking for something to do. I know that I am going to so offend some woman for saying this. They will shake their finger at me saying that these things are what God has put us women here for and that we have the biggest and most blessed job there is to have. The most rewarding and the most responsible job ever. Yada, yada, yada... I know. I was raised in the ATI program after all! :) Please don't preach at me! :D lol
I know there is meant to be more for me here on earth before I die. I do! That there has to be something else God wants of me. I have been restless and have bawled for hours more days than I can even count and for what. There is nothing in my day to make me crabby, restless, discontent with my "witness" or my outreach of God's love, yet I am. At the end of the day I look back and feel like I wasted a lot of time doing nothingness. Purposeless and bored. I'm not talking about the time I spend with my boys or my husband. I'm not talking about the time I spend making our home a beautiful and relaxing and fun place. I'm talking about all the down time I somehow seem to have tons of. Like right now with the boys still asleep from their afternoon nap and I am twiddling my thumbs. About the time when they are awake and playing contentedly and I am starring outside at the patchy, still slowly melting, snow and willing it to warm up now.
I feel all this energetic spirit God has always given me my entire life bubbling up inside ready to explode with nowhere to go leaving me dripping in tears and thoughts of uselessness even though I know that is SO not true. I use enough every day to keep me from entirely blowing to bits and give room for more to bubble up. Sometimes I wish I WAS this ragged, worn out mom that can't get everything done just so I have somewhere to spend it all up on. *crazy*
I am just a tad confused. I am doing my best to understand and sort out what God is telling me lately. What he has been doing these past 8-9 months. I am mixed up inside and out really. I swear every week from Monday-Friday gets longer and longer and longer each one that passes by! Every day when Sam goes to work my heart sinks deep as I look at the clock. Lunch rolls round, he comes home then goes back to work, my heart sinks even deeper and I glare at the clock. Supper time gets here and he comes home for but what seems like a couple hours before it starts over again and I kinda depressingly growl at the clock for all the sudden picking up major speed!
Life as a Mommy. Ah, 'tis not what I expected despite the fact that I did not even have any expectations of how being a mom would be. I wasn't thinking about being a mom really when I became one after all! :D It wasn't at all what most moms I grew up around (NOT at all my mom by the way. She is plum out AMAZING!) portrayed it as. Most moms I know never have a moment to themselves. Always running, always tired, never "caught up". Exhausted to tears. Not able to take on anything. Living a life boxed in at home. Not in the slightest me and I have yet to figure that one out. People make a HUGE deal out of the fact I "lug" my twin boys around with me everywhere. "Oh girl, how DO you DO it!" "Oh, I bet you are tired!" "Now you have got your hands full!". While I just smile and "fake laugh" scratch my head. I guess obviously I was meant to have twins, eh! AND don't get me wrong I do LOVE being a mom! I am looking forward to our next little one that comes along! (NO I AM NOT PREGNANT!!! Of course I HAD to spell that out cause I know people have tended to completely jump on and make a big deal out of things like that that I say.) It IS the best thing there is to do! I LOVE LOVE LOVE My boys to death and have a blast with them. It is just that I know that I have more I can give and that I can be a super mommy AND do something else in life without neglecting my biggest responsibility I have as a woman. I just have yet for God to show me what that is. Oh I can have all kinds of ideas and "light bulb moments" when I think of something I could do but are they from God. Is it something to just DO that will eventually exhaust me, like I was talking about in my previous posts, or is is something that will make me and my family thrive all the more. Something that God is going to use.
So, the boys 1st birthday is already come and gone. :( As you have seen. I still have yet to take their 1 year old pictures since it has been too cold out. I am praying I can do it tomorrow since it is supposed to be nearly 60 but we will see what happens. *sigh*
Our Florida trip is coming up closer and closer! Two weeks from right now we will be in the air, on our way, actually! :) We just got our Disney World tickets in the mail, we have our rental car booked, hotel...which makes things feel more real! :)
I am close to being caught up on creative memories again so I can start the boy's albums that I got for Christmas! I need to get on that soon so I don't get behind! I have so many pictures just from this last year! Whew.
I have laundry done and the whole house looking clean and tidy. A chore; especially after the party! All the balloons popped and streamer torn down. (Trust me when I say I had that stuff EVERYWHERE!) :D Ready to start supper and eat now! I haven't had anything to eat today. LOL So, I am looking forward to the bacon/chicken sandwiches and the baked fries! YUMMY!
I have a new magazine I got in the mail today to look through which is always a fun treat!
We have a new episode of Castle to watch tonight just Sam and I. Good times that make me smile. Darn it aren't those times over so fast though.
Tonight is the boys bath night so that will take up a good hour. They would play in their forever, I think, if we would let them! :)
AND...I hear one of the boys starting to fuss so they must be awake now. Gotta go get them their snack and have some more playtime I guess.
Until another time...I do hope you have a wonderful rest of the day!! :)
Oh...and pray for me if ya think about it! That God will have His will in my life. That I will be open to whatever that is and not get myself stuck in a box so I am blocked from seeing whatever that may be!
Saturday we had a family party for the boys. My family all came down and Sam's Mom and brother Jon.
Aunt Lindsey, Aunt Katie, Caiden, Uncle Jon, Conner, Aunt Natalie, Cousin Ethan, Uncle Nick, Aunt Kim, and Uncle Jared
Drama Queen Sisters :P
1 year ago I had a 5.14 lb and a 7.3 lb baby boy in each arm...now they are already 1! A whole year has completely flown by and it amazes me completely! I can't even remember what it was like when they were born anymore. lol I don't remember them being that small and not getting into things and crawling around laughing and being completely ornery! :) Sam and I are so blessed to have Caiden and Conner in our lives! I can't understand sometimes why God gave me such good and special twin boys to love and to raise!
On their birthday, Friday, we went to McDonald's and then to an indoor playground by our house with some friends from church to celebrate and play...oh and I forgot about the cupcakes! :)
Birthday Supper shaped in a 'C'!
~Walking With God, by John Eldridge~
"I'm sitting on the porch of our cabin listening to the rain on the tin roof and watching it fall on all my plans for the day. I cannot hike. I cannot do chores, I cannot fish. The mud is so deep, I cannot drive anywhere. I'm trapped. Pinned down. With myself and God. There is nothing I can do but pay attention to what surfaces inside of me when I cannot charge into the day. I am paying attention, my journal on my lap, and this is what I begin to write: I am tweaked again.
Royally friggin' tweaked.
I'm so tired and wrung my body hurts from being tired.
Or hurts and the first chance to let down and be tired.
Granted it has been a hard year. So much going on, so much required. But God is after something. As I Journal, I feel like a prisoner writing his confession.
And I know why I am tweaked.
I'm tweaked from pushing.
Pushing, pushing, always pushing.
This pushing is such way of life for me, I barely know how to live otherwise. I'm always working on something. Trying to make life better for me or for someone else. It feels like I heave myself at life, always looking for some way to improve things. I come up here to the ranch to rest, and in the first ten minutes of quiet, here is where my mind goes: I ought to teach my son how to cast a fly rod. We ought to finish that back fence. I ought to work with the horses every day we are here, I could paint the door now. Better look at the topo map for my trip with Luke in August. Make a plan.
Jesus have mercy.
This rain is mercy. I am forced to stop. With a bit of pouting, I begin to accept that this deluge is from God. I cannot live my life like this - always working on something. Trying to make life better. Pushing. It's the first day of my vacation, but I can't enjoy it because of the condition I'm in. And I did this to myself. I'm frayed like an old rope because of the way I live my life. And I've got a pretty good sense this isn't the life God would have my life at all. I'm pretty sure there isn't a verse that goes, "He leadeth me to utter exhaustion; He runneth me ragged. In fact, doesn't Jesus say something about his yoke is easy and his burden light? Maybe I have some yoke on me that the yoke of Christ.
Did I really need to take all those trips this year? Really? Did I really have to come through for everyone I felt compelled to come through for? Really? Here is the embarrassing question; did even ask God about those things? Now, I know, I know - our lives seem so inevitable. There's always a reason. There's always a defense. "But I have to live like this! If I didn't carry the world on my shoulders - who would?"
Drip. Drip. Drip. This downpour shows no sigh of letting up. It is as persistent as the Spirit behind it.
Trapped on the porch, I know the issue is far bigger than this vacation. I know that full well. The issue is the way I live my life. And forced for a few moments to stop, I also know that I don't want to live like this. The very things I'm doing to try to make life happen - all those things that feel so inevitable and unavoidable - are draining me and preventing me from finding the life God offers. If you're about to run out of gas, the best thing to do is slow way down to conserve fuel so that you can make it to the next station. What I do is gun it. Put the pedal to the metal. No wonder God had to command us to rest. We wouldn't do it otherwise. Even with the command, we don't really do it.
Sitting here on the porch with God, I return to what I have forgotten - that there is a life out of which everything else flows. A life that comes to us from God. Jesus gave us the example of the vine and the branches. He is the vine, we are the branches (John 15:5). The essential point of the imagery is that life flows from the vine through the branches, and only then do we get fruit. The branches need life to bring forth all the joy those grapes offer - the feasting, the wine, the merrymaking after the harvest. That life does not exist in the branches themselves. They - we - have to get it from another source. From God.
Now, rest is just one of the ways we receive life of God. We stop, set all of our busyness down, and allow ourselves to be replenished. This is supposed to happen regularly. The prescription was weekly. So why does rest feel like a luxury? Seriously, it feels irresponsible. We think we can drive ourselves like oxen fifty weeks a year, resurrect in a two week vacation, then go back and do it all again. This is madness. My pushing and striving cut me off from life I so desperately need. I don't even think to stop and ask, Is this what you'd have me do, Lord? Do you want me to paint the bathroom? Volunteer at church? Stay late at work?
So God sends this downpour to keep me from squandering my vacation by running like a greyhound. He loves me too much to leave me to my own devices.
I'm back to the shepherd and the sheep. When the sheep follow the shepherd, they find pleasure. They find life. Life doesn't just magically come to us. We have to make ourselves available to it. There is a lifestyle that allows us to receive the life of God. I know that if I will live more intimately with Jesus and follow his voice, I will have a much better chance of finding life I long for. I know it. If I will listen to his voice and let him set the pace, if I will cooperate in my transformation, I will be a much happier person. And so a new prayer has begun to rise within me. I am asking God, What is the life you want me to live?
If we can get an answer to that question, it will change everything. "
This sounds so much like me it is terrible! I am a go-go girl. I have always been. I am an organizer and I like to see things completed and accomplished all the time. I don't like sitting 'round on my butt doing nothing. I simply can't. I do and I feel exactly like he was taking about, irresponsible and lazy. I don't seem to ever be able to rest. When I don't have something to do, I am looking for something to do. Be it day or be it night. I walk around the house searching, planning, thinking, dreaming...planning some more.
I can remember when Sam and I got married how I felt like I was being big time rescued from an exhausting and somewhat miserable life yet when I did move to Texas it was so completely NOT close to the way I had been living I think I went into a shock. Physically and emotionally. I went from constantly serving at church, doing this doing that, working full time at church, teaching here, teaching there; coming home and being expected to help with this and teach this...to two months at first of staying at home nearly 24-7. A much needed break. An eyeopening time for me I see now as gift from God. Like the rain above...it was my "rain". I was dead and I had no idea. I thought I was supposed to do all those things. After all that is what we Christians are "supposed" to do right. Non-stop. That is our purpose in life. Keep things going. Do good for others. Make others happy. It was: Perform. Performance. Perform More!
Vacation. Kinda a huge joke for me. I do exactly this is. lol I am running then I am supposed to relax, enjoy and breath but I "think" the whole time I am gone. About when we get back, what I have to do, what is next to plan for that is on my calender, about the future, about our finances, about our kids, about this about that......on and on and on! I come home and hit the ground running again and when I am not running I am bored with being bored and sulky I have "nothing to do". :D
Rest sometimes does feel like a luxury to me. Sam and I were talking this last weekend about it. About how it feels like I do do everything around here plus some. I leave nothing for Sam to help with most of the time because I get everything done so fast and then look for more. Yet if I don't do that it feels like I am being a bad wife and mother who can't keep her house in order. I was thinking today how nice it might be for my house to actually look like a complete tragedy just for maybe a day. *laugh* I just can't seem to live like that. Or if only the boys, for maybe a day, would actually be crazy kids I had to constantly stay on top of! LOL (They did NOT get their good behave from me.) :P I'm not at all a perfectionist it is just that I always keep myself busy so thus of course I never have anything to keep up kept. Down time is SO boring for me! :D
YET...I am starting to see how, like I said above, that is my "rain" from God. Him telling me, instead of feeling un-useful while the boys are napping and looking to work my backside off to have something else to do, to just slunk on the couch and breath. Close my eyes, take a breath, do something for myself to relax. Rejuvenate so I can have some new joy arise in my day!
So my darlin' Sam has been forcing me to not to everything and is being an absolute amazing guy after he helped point out and make me start to really realize some of this was going on lately in my life! :) Now that he is FINALLY done with his side job web project he has been working on in the evenings he has the whole evening/night to us again and the boys and I are loving it! :D No more all night working! LOL
Tonight we got to start back to working out again together too, after two months of missing that. Amazing how you take time with each other for granted sometimes! I have really missed doing that! WE came back and fixed supper together while the boys played, something else we haven't done in a long time.
Now that the boys are in bed we have been working on our Florida vacation/business trip coming up the end of this month! SO excited! The more we plan the more excited I get! We are going to be there over my birthday which is a special add-on. Going to Disney, maybe see some family on the Shepherd side that live there, a wedding to photograph, three nights ON the beach...simply paradise on the near horizon for us! The Lord has provided AMAZINGLY for us to be able to go on this trip and we have made cutbacks and are going to be making huge cutbacks over the next couple months for it...BUT...IT IS SO worth it in every way! A much needed get-away and a whole week in paradise with my darn smokin' hot hubby! Can't get much better than that! :D
God has something in mind.
He is deeply and personally committed to restoring humanity. Restoring you. Had had a specific man or woman in mind when he made you. By bringing you back to himself through the work of Jesus Christ, He has established a relationship with you. And now, what he is up to is restoring you. He does that by shaping your life "along the same lines as the life of his Son". (Romans 8:29-30) By shaping you into the image of Jesus. You can be confident of this. It's a given. Whatever else might be going on in your life, God always has his eye on your transformation.
This is a good news, by the way. All of the other things we long for - love and friendship, freedom and wholeness, clarity and purpose, all the joy we long for - it all depends on our restoration. You can't find or keep good friends while you are still an irritating person to be around. And there is no way love can flourish while you are still controlling. You can't find your real purpose in life while you're still slavishly serving other people
s expectations of you. You can't find peace while you're ruled by fear You can't enjoy what you have while you're envying what the other person has. On and on It goes! ...
God wants us to be happy Really!
"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10
But he knows that in order for us to be truly happy we have to be whole. Another word for that is holy. We have to be restored.
Think of it this way - think how you feel when you really screw things up. The look on your son's face as you yell at him. The distance that has grown between you even though you apologized. For the hundredth time. How it tears you up inside when you indulge in what you know you shouldn't. You want that, but you don't want that, but you wish you could, but you really don't and why is this going on inside? The guilt you feel when you life straight-faced to someone and they find out. The house you waisted harboring resentment and bitterness. embarrassment of things you have done in in life. YOU know what plagues you.
Now, what would it be life to never ever do it again. Not even to struggle in life. What would you life be like if you were free of all that haunts and hurts you!? ...
Oh, the joy, the utter relief it would be to be transformed. That in itself would be more happiness than most of us ever experience. And - as if that were not enough - it would free us to live the life God has for us to live!!!
My friends, this is what God's up to. This is where our Shepherd is headed. Whatever else is going on in our lives, this is going on. He is committed to our transformation. So, if this is what God is up to, wouldn't it make sense that we be more intentional in partnering with him in our transformation?
~Walking With God,
by John Eldredge~
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