Exodus 16:8-16
All the emotions that the Israelites were having, and all on such a short timeline it nearly seemed like they were having them all at once, are so familiar to me. From needy complaining and worrisome stress and tears to then the excitement of seeing God's glory visible to them and trusting...knowing...He was going to do something. Then on to perplexity {confusion} at what he did do for them with providing for them to the satisfaction of then having enough.
I feel like I can't even begin to count, to list, all the times over and over again where I have gone through these emotions, valleys to peeks then back down into a valley again.
Just since getting married finances have been incredibly tight and tough at times (especially after we moved jobs and our paycheck took a good cut) and right now it feels like we hit a valley again. It is so hard to see...to remember... how God HAS provided for us...provided us with enough. Even though it may still seem to US like we still lack so much.
In Sunday school class last Sunday we were talking about contentment vs. coveting and what causes us as individuals to covet. To want more. To think we haven't enough. For me...it is the fear of man. Fear of man, like crazy! Even down to what some might thing as stupid stuff like, we had a party and the guys REALLY wanted to watch a game that was going on. One of the wives asked if we could turn it on for them and I had to explain we didn't have TV as much as we would love too. When they asked why, I embarrassingly admitted we didn't have room in the budget to pay for it. {The party got cut short since they all left not long afterwards to go elsewhere to watch the game! lol} Things like we only have one vehicle right now because we can't afford insurance on the other one. People wanna know why the boys and I are limited to going to hang during the day with them. Stupid embarrassing things like my two front car windows have been taped up shut for about 4 months now because we can't afford the parts to fix them so they won't roll up or down or even stay up to begin with. Hill-billy small town red-neck is what it reminds me of! lol Worry about the fact we haven't been able to save a penny since we moved here because we are just making it every month with what Sam's company pays him. Having to cut back on trips to hang with our friends in OKC or family or to go meet cousins half-way so they can come visit for a week.
It's embarrassing to have to say we can't afford that right now. I fear people will look down on us or raise their eyebrows in surprise about things like the above! Sad thing is they actually do and that only makes things worse for me. :) It is so easy to get caught up in the fact that so and so just got a brand new car or they can afford to get pregnant and have another baby. That they make twice as much as we do without having two kids. That they can do this or that, or get this or that...etc.
We get all caught up in crap like that and forget all God HAS done for us! From our honeymoon, to an amazing good $$$ rent house, to us fitting into the Medicaid bracket so we didn't have to worry about the $15,000. from the twins birth hanging over our head for many, many, many, many years! To being able to provide a bigger car, that at least runs great, for nearly the same price as we were able to sell my old car for! Providing all the cost for our move! We have good food on the table, a healthy family, a comfortable homey house, a bed at night... {That we get to snuggle in a lot 'cause our house is usually always cold since it costs so darn much to actually keep it really warm! lol} How we have more than our needs covered with things proved to us like our gym membership being paid for or Sam and I getting to go out on a nice lil' date every so often and things like when I get a magazine I enjoy reading! :) {The next date coming up we are excited about is our 2nd wedding anniversary in March!!!!} Besides all these "little things" the amazing fact that we are completely debt free right now should be blessing enough for us! OH and the BIGGEST thing here recently is the wedding I just got to photograph in Florida! My photography $$$ made from photographing the wedding was able to pay for that trip otherwise we wouldn't have gotten to do that! God provided more than our needs with a vacation like that!
God always comes through for us when we need it! When we even don't deserve it! He hasn't failed us yet...I know He isn't going to!
Sometimes when we look at things through our "human eyes" it looks like we are hanging and it is so easy to miss when God does provide even for the little things!
I am so grateful for the secure job Sam does have! Whew, YES am I ever! I know there are so many without work, period! I am very grateful I can be a stay-at-home mom and for the photography sessions he provides me with too! It always seems like they are in perfect timing to something!
It is a wonderful thing for me to ask God daily to show me how he has provided us with enough, even though I still may wonder! Even to show me how he provided for me THAT day. Whether it be physically, emotionally or Spiritually!
My day begins every day, Monday through Friday with a lil' love note note stuck above my pillow! :)
A simple love note that sometimes gets me through the day. Sam has done this for me since we were married and he started back to work and I don't know how he does it but everyday I swear that little heart sticky over my pillow says something new. Which only proves to me that it isn't a routine or just a habit for him but that it really comes from his heart with love! I have saved every one of those lil' notes. Glued them all in a journal I have had since we were courting! I have pages and pages of hundreds of them and today I got to looking through and reading some of them and my heart started melting right out of my body! :D Seems like it is the little things like this that help blue together stronger a marriage, a relationship, that we tend to forget about (so to speak) after a while and "take for granted" to some extent. 
We let it kinda fade, you know? Sam and I still get teased about being lovey dovey and it can, sadly, make you back off in mostly annoyance. When we started going to the church here in Duncan, some of our class members would give Sam a hard time about "making them look bad" cause he was loving on me all through class. LOL Of course it is just joking and joshing but fter a while it gets to you! People say stupid stuff like, "How long have you guys been married, again? It can't be too long?" *rolling eyes*
It is so easy to let it fade though. It is work to keep fire burning all the time sometimes! Of course! To get used to it and take it for granted. It takes work to make a marriage work. To weather the perfect storm, as some call it. Everything out there is attacking marriage. The whole fact we are male and female is a storm enough. God wants us to grow as a person in our marriage. How can we just get into a rut, a routine, and stroll on through life when things become tough or "lots of work". It take effort to keep the romance kindling stronger and sadly there aren't many that we can look up to and say that they have truly done just that. There aren't many out there that we feel like we can look to as a roll model. Why? Because it is probably one of THE hardest things in life to "do right". Everyone finds a groove and just lives. They never REALLY know what God intends for marriage to be! There never really find that burning love that grows everyday and still sparkles between two people when they have been married for 10, 20, 50 years and are 80 years old! :D
Sam has been really getting into the book John and Stasi Eldredge have just written called Love & War. He wanted to go to their seminar in Tulsa the first of this month but finances held us back from it. {I do happen to know one thing we are getting for our anniversary though! The book! lol He kinda gave that away! :D I'm pumped about it too!}
I can honestly say that Sam and I have been through some incredibly hard times already in our marriage and especially over the past 6 months it seems like. The past, our baggage, our breaking free and trying to work through conflicts with other people has been bringing out the worst and we have been fighting the devil way more than I want. We know what is like to wonder how in the world we ever got married and why God matched us up. How the heck I was ever supposed to fit into his family, and why we had such a conservative ATI courtship and engagement that left us hurt, scared and trying so hard to let God make beauty out of those marks.
But we love each other all the more when we struggle through together. We both have so much to work on, to grow through, to better ourselves as not just Christians but as a husband and wife. But as we do it together selfless, with an unconditional love, focused not on ourselves but on the other person, we fall more in love then we ever were and those giddy feelings of how crazy we are about each other keep on a growing!
So people will just have to get used to seeing us holding hands, scooted close with arms around each other, and those looks between us! :D Cause I don't expect it to stop EVEN when life gets tough or our marriage goes through a mucky spot, and it shouldn't, so THERE! :P Deal with it and maybe start doing it to your spouse instead of laughing at US! :P hee hee
Okay so boys so can play dress-up too! You know how girls always love to play dress-up with mommy's things? Well I know boys are more into dressing up like Indians and Superheros but I thought why wouldn't they want to dress-up in Daddy's stuff and act like Daddy! Caiden at first thought the boxers were hilarious and he kept pulling the elastic and popping it and laughing. Then he stood up and they fell off of course so I tucked them up into his diaper for him. :) Since they are ALWAYS getting into the bathroom cabinet and pulling out all Daddy's stuff I had to let them keep playing with it for once so I could get pictures! :D What gave me the idea in the first place was that they were getting into all the man stuff like they KNOW it should be their's too! *laughter*
Sam and I took our lil' pickles to the park weekend before last and here I am just remembering I gotta post about that! It was the Saturday of Valentine's weekend before we had our little "family party". :) The boys took us to Sonic for sweetheart shakes and fries and they even paid too! (Grammy sent a gift card in the mail that they were supposed to use. lol) They we went to the park for a good hour or two afterwards. They were asleep when we got there from their 5 min. nap from Sonic to the park so Sam and I got to sit and enjoy the sunshine with the windows down and talk. It was really nice! We got to talk about life, us, kids... (I'm on this baby fever kick that has us talking about the future even though I do NOT want to get pregnant for a good two years yet!) We were mostly talking about how someday it would be really wonderful to adopt a baby. A burn on my heart that I want to do so badly and can't wait until the day the Lord shows us what to do there and when! I pray within the next ten years we can get a baby girl from here in the states. It isn't only out the country where there are so much abandoned and beautiful life needing love, a home, a family to raise them to love the Lord and that they aren't a mistake! God allowed them to come into this world and they are loved so much by him no matter where they came from and we should love them the same way!
Okay that was a rabbit trail that led to a whole other subject I didn't realize I was going to go down!
...where was I...now I am all distracted and teary eyed thinking about a soft, sweet smelling, pink skinned darlin' to love! *chuckle*
Oh yeah! The park!
....so, after the boys did wake up we swang, went down slides....or it was more letting them do their best to crawl up them and then slide back down on their belly. They loved that for some reason, especially Conner. Caiden got distracted with the wood chips on the ground mostly when he was climbing on the tires. He ended up going through it and sitting on the ground trying to eat things he shouldn't have been eating! When they got home all I wanted to do was "skin-the-kitty" and in the tube they went! One thing boys need to get used to because they are boys....lots of bath time! Lucky for me they love bath time so as long as it stays that way we are good cause I love letting boys be...well boys! Romping through mud with their play guns dressed like Indians and living all their boyhood adventures out! Gotta let 'em be wild at heart the way God made 'em to be! I am NOT at all one of those moms who will bands guns, dirt bikes, motorcycles, and sky diving! :D Especially since I happen to have fun with all those things too! I grew up a huge tom-boy even if when I was a teen I wanted to be a dazzling beauty. lol I swear I wasn't out of my awkward looking stage of life until after my high school graduation even! Looking back a pictures...whew! Lordy have mercy! How in heck, did I even attract guys and how in heck did my husband ever see me as the most gorgeous girl ever? I will NEVER understand! lol I want to say it had nothing at all to do with my outward beauty in the least! Which I should be grateful for...I guess...but what woman doesn't want to be beautiful! God made her for that after all! :D
Oh MAN am I in the rabbit trails tonight! I DO NOT know what is wrong with me, I swear. :) I'm into pouring out my heart right now I guess! I am going to go now before this leads to something else spilling out! :D
I have pizza in the oven I need to go check on. I personally am starving, I don't care that Sam says he isn't :), and the smell of fresh, hot, mouth watering, homemade pizza is enough to about drive me insane! AH! So...as I dine on yumminess I hope you all are having as wonderful of an evening as I am! :P
So our Valentine's Day did kinda spread out for a week. We had our little party at home on actually Valentine's Day weekend but Sam and I didn't actually get to go do anything until this last weekend! :) At first it was a little perturbing since we had tried 4 times to set up with a babysitter throughout the week and every time failed. Our first attempt on Valentine's weekend was the sadest for us because out sitter had to cancel at the last minute when we were all set to go. Sinking hearts! :) But all turned out okay in the end. Valentine's Day I woke up sick and Sam ended up going to church without me BUT bringing me home roses with his love which helped a little. By evening I was starving (having emptied my stomach by noon and starting to feel better after that). So, we ended up having a "candlelight dinner" with Mazzio's pizza and a movie at home we dug up to watch since everyone had the idea we had of going to redbox so thus there was NOTHING available there to get that we wanted! LOL WHAT a weekend, huh! :D hee hee
Kissed for all my men! :D The boys are still working on that! They give you their forehead when you go to kiss them. lol They are into "head bumps" though! I guess you would call them that. You lean forward towards them with your head and they will bump their forehead on yours and smile or laugh. It is nutty....and hilarious! :D
Last weekend we put our trust in Sam's mom and she OF COURSE came through for us! It was so wonderful to have her down for a couple of days! :D She watched the boys for us on Friday night so we could go to dinner and catch a movie. Funny story there. The restaurant we went to turned out to kinda be crappy that night. The theater we had to sit in for the movie had no heat that night (it got pretty cold about halfway through the movie to the end) and the movie turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment (crappy previews didn't show the bad that would happen). So the devil tried to ruin it again but we did have, for the most part, a good time together at least. :D We ended up shopping at wal-mart to give us a "boost" ? of good or something! *laughter*
My roses from my honey! :D...and of course I made chocolate covered strawberries, YUM, but this time I sprinkled macadamia nuts on top too! It added a delicate twist and I loved it! Sam didn't get too many since I think I pretty much ate them all. :)
I made Sam's card and ended up kinda writing a book instead of a love note...like I ALWAYS tend to do on everything. :D I have to watch that. I am a writer and always get carried away.
For a complete viewing of all their wedding day shots go to client viewing on my website and enter the bride's maiden name as the passcode.
Congratulations to you both and many blessings as you begin your life together as a couple! You two are so perfect for each other! I can't wait to see what all God does through ya as husband an wife! :D
I had such a wonderful time getting to photograph this couple's wedding in Florida! A BLAST! :) I am SO ready to get on another wedding now that I have had the thrill of doing my first one completely on my own. Now that I have that under my belt I am hoping that the bridal clientele pace will slowly start picking up a bit faster for me! Reba was an amazing bride to please. She had a VERY short must take list which is perfect for your first wedding! It made me be able to not stress out as much and have more fun running around getting experience and "playing" with things without fear of "if it doesn't turn out..."!
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