Vacation.....

Tonight at the pool Jake said to me, "We forgot something!! We are missing God! He is supposed to be in my heart and He escaped!!" I laughed and said, "No Jake, He never leaves us!" 

If you follow my blog you know that we have been on vacation this week. It has been a much needed break for the norm, an oppurtunity for rest, relaxation, and a chance to leave all our worries behind.........although we haven't rested much.......we have been "rock climbing" at Devil's Lake, exploring at Tommy Bartlett's Exploratory (where Josh rode a bicycle 12 foot off the ground on a 1 inch cable). We waited out a Tornado warning in the lower level of the resort. We have had family movie nights and family dinners and picnics. We were entertained at the Circus World museum. We even saw some Circus wagons that were in the movie "Water For Elephants",  an AWESOME magic show, and the kids got to perform in the "Kid's World Circus"! Not to mention the water parks! We have been down more water slides than we can begin to count and fought some killer waves at the Wild Water Dome!......I am exhausted!!

As our vacation is drawing to a close rather quickly....I have been thinking all day about how even though we go on vacation, God never does. I know, it kinda sounds like a "Duh" moment. But really think about it for a minute. God NEVER tires, He never grows weary or needs to "just get away". He NEVER leaves us. I am so thankful for that!

 I think of all the quiet prayers I have lifted this week.....prayers for saftey on the road, prayers of protection as we climed to Balanced rock, prayers for those in Joplin, Mo. prayers for those back home I know need comfort, prayers of praise for His beautiful creation in nature, prayers for peace when the kids are bickering.......and the list goes on......and He is there to hear EVERY one!!

So, Jake was half right when he said "We forgot something.." Yes, sometimes we can and do forget God, but He never forgets or leaves us or "escapes our hearts."

Deuteronomy 31:8 "The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you  nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

Meaningless or Meaningfull.....

So, I used to think that I worked best under stress.....well these days I feel like I crumble under stress....and the last few months have been STRESSFUL!! And this week has been no exception. We have spent the past week preparing for a much needed vacation as well as try to maintain the rest of our life obligations i.e. work, school, ballgames/ practice etc........

I am a detail person, so as vacation approached I was focused on ALL the details. Thanks to my parents timeshare we have a full kitchen in our room so, we decided to eat most of our meals in the room. All week I have been focused on menu/ meal planning, grocery shopping, trying to keep up on the laundry, and the list goes on.

I woke up Friday morning ready to take on the day!! All the groceries had been purchased, laundry was pretty well under control. I thought I had it licked, it was smooth sailing from here right? WRONG!! I don't know about you, but I cannot leave for vacation with a dirty house, so before I could pack I had to clean my house. 

I felt like I was moving right along. Kitchen and bathroom had been scrubbed and mopped. Now I was moving on to the living room and dining room when Jake comes around the corner with his pants around his ankles and a huge, I mean HUGE!!  wad of toilet paper in his arms!! He had unrolled the ENTIRE roll of toilet paper (I had just put on the holder) and was carrying it into the kitchen. And I am not talking about a regular roll of toilet paper, it was a DOUBLE roll!!! I could not believe my eyes.....and still don't understand what he was thinking. I stood there and re rolled the entire roll. Then, I gave him a five min tutorial on the four square count. 

About 8 hours later I am still trying to finish last minute things in the house and pack for a family of 6 for a seven day trip. At this point I am in frantic mode!! I have asked about 50 times for the kids to find their Nintendo DS's, Leapsters, and sunglasses. No one seems to care as much as I do that they have these things! Their rooms still look like a tornado had went through it, and all I want to do is crawl in bed and wait for the "cleaning fairy" to show up over night! At this point everyone in the house knows mom has had it!!!

Josh says to me, "Mom, why do always get so grumpy when you are stressed out?" Ouch! I knew he was right. My focus had been totally in the wrong direction and I was drained of all energy and no good to anyone at that point. 

Ecclesiastes 1:2 says "Meaningless, Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless!"........my focus had been on the meaningless! Did it really matter that my house was not up to spec when we left? Did it really matter if the kids found their games?? What really mattered was that my family felt my love for them. A reflection of God's love! My focus was on the the meaningless yesterday.......I am working to keep my focus on the meaningful this week!

Confessions of my Heart.......

If my husband had to describe me I am sure one adjective he would use would be competitive......Not so sure that is a good thing, but true! When we were dating we had some pretty heated Rummy matches! Sometimes they would even end up in arguments.....after several years of marriage we now know to keep the peace it is best if we play on the same team! This competitive nature also carries over from time to time watching my son's little league games and in other areas of my life.......

I read a friends facebook post yesterday : Oswald Chambers wrote, “Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as He is with you.” To that I would add, “Be careful not to turn others’ lives into the model for your own.” Allow God to be as creative with you as He is with each of us, From Francis Chan Crazy Love........This post really made me examine my own life when it comes to competition in life.

 

 I compare a Spiritual life like pregnancy....your appetite totally changes! Before I was pregnant I could not stand yogurt! Now I love it!! Same thing with my life. In my post, "Confessions of a Pastor's wife I shared that at one point in my life I wanted nothing to do with church, now God and His work are central in my life. I also hated writing and English class when I was in school. Now I love to write!! 

About five years ago God began to really change my heart. I began to feel a call on my life to move more towards some kind of ministry.....I mean writing and/or speaking. I am not really sure how to move in that direction.....and there are days when I get frustrated and may feel a tinge of competition with someone else that is living out their calling to the fullest....whatever that calling may be. But, I look at their life and think they are having "success" or doing exactly what God called them to do.  Sometimes I look up at God and ask, "Lord, when is it my turn? I want to serve you more!" I imagine He sits on His throne and gives me the look I give my kids when they try to tell me how to drive or that I missed a parking spot, and He says to me, "Don't you Trust me? I know what I am doing! I have plans for you!"

 

In my devotional yesterday from "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young it said, "The most important thing to determine is what to do right now. Instead of scanning the horizon of your life, looking for things that need to be done, concentrated on the task before you and the One who never leaves your side.......Trust me to show you what to do when you have finished what you are doing now." How true is that! I have many ministry opportunities right in front of me! As long as I live each day to bring Him glory, that is "success".

 

I think all too often we all look at others' lives from the outside and compete to have the "success" that they have. Life is not a competition. God has a plan for each of us and He never rights the same story twice. Isaiah 55 tells us that His thoughts are Higher than our thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways! I heard Beth Moore say in a Bible study, "we are only responsible for the yes, He is responsible for the How" (how His plans are accomplished in our lives) 

 

One of the verses closest to my heart is Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Never A Dull Moment.......

Whew!! The weekend is only half over and I am WIPED OUT!! It has been a couple of super busy days. Although with four kids everyday is busy.......and full of "excitement"........NEVER a dull moment!!

Yesterday was Fun Day at the school. I had volunteered to take a shift of face painting, then planned to  spend the rest of the day enjoying Fun Day with my kids. So, it was a little bit of craziness trying to get all 6 of us out of the door before 8:15am, it was sort of a blur....As we were all getting out of the car to head into school, I turned around to see if we were all ready to cross the parking lot together. That's when I noticed that Hunter was still wearing the shirt he wore to bed last night! To top it off he had a big tooth paste spot right in the middle of it!! Really!! I was mortified.....how did I miss that!! He just giggled and said, "I forgot!"

Once I got over the shirt incident.....I had a blast at Fun Day! I watched the kids play kick ball, pushed them  on the swings, painted faces, played with sidewalk chalk and bubbles, watched them play in the bounce houses, hung out with them at lunch and had a pizza party with the kindergartens! I was worn out but had a great day! The only down side was trying to divide myself as evenly as possible between three classes. At one point Josh was in tears because he didn't want me to leave his class. (  and I worried he would be "too cool" to have me around) It broke my heart!

Today was another story! On the agenda was baking, cleaning, laundry, the boys' first T ball game and a birthday party. I was up with the oven on by 6:45 AM......by 12:45 most of the cleaning and laundry was done, birthday cake completed and a broken glass and window thrown in the mix!

But the "highlight" of my day........We arrived at McDonald's after the T ball game for the birthday party. As I am trying to hurry all four kids out of the car and inside out of the rain, I hear Emma say, "I have a dime stuck in my nose." WHAT!!?? Yes, I heard it right and you read it right....Emma had a dime stuck in her nose!! All I could think was, "Great! I don't have time to go to the ER today!" So, I ushered all four kids in out of the rain, we made our grand entrance to the party with much excitement!! After much blowing and praying....the dime came out!!

We followed the party with a trip to the grocery store, with all four kids! I know better than that but I was desperate! So after telling the kids a hundred times to keep their hands to themselves and to get out of the freezers, I walked out of the store frustrated and out of patience.

As I struggled the feelings of guilt yesterday for not being able to spend enough time with each of my kids, I thought of how God, our Heavenly Father, is all present. I thought of how He is more than enough for each of us who will allow Him to be. I was overwhelmed as I thought of the personal nature of God and how He can/ does meet ALL our needs! Then, today as I was drained and frustrated with my kids I thought about the perfect love of God. His patience with us. I praised Him for not getting so frustrated with me when He has to tell me something a million times, like I do with my kids!

"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." Exodus 34:6-7

Lesson Learned!!

If you have read my profile you know that I am a nurse. Not just a nurse, but a nurse in a Urology office. You can imagine what topics of conversations come up on a daily basis!! There are words I write in a chart I never imagined I would be writing, let alone SEVERAL times a day!! So, that being said, you may understand why my judgement on appropriateness may be off balance.

The other night while I was making and feeding the kids dinner, I had the TV on in the kitchen. I was watching "Untold Stories of the ER".  Being the nurse that I am, I found it very intriguing......the kids not so much. Emma and Josh were watching it with me. They seemed to get a little squeamish when the actor collapsed on the floor and had a seizure. I assured them that all the cases had a happy ending and they always found out what was wrong with the patient and helped them get better. I assure you there was no blood and gore....just real life "rare" cases......

One of the cases that was on that episode was a man that was lying on the gurney randomly screaming. His eyes were open, vitals stable, but not verbally responding. The ER staff was getting ready to call a Psych eval. When one of the nurses leaned in closer she noticed something in the man's ear. It was a large cockroach that was biting his eardrum. Once the bug was removed the man was completely back to normal. Hence the happy ending..... There was no blood and guts, no foul language no "mature content", so I didn't think it was a big deal.
 ..
Fast forward a few hour.....Jason and I are sitting in the living room watching TV; the kids had been in bed for a couple of hours. Emma comes down stairs crying, wild eyed, not really awake or answering questions, just scared and crying. I thought maybe she was sleep walking again because she had to go to the bathroom. I helped her back to bed and she woke up and asked me about the man with the bug in his ear. She asked if that could happen to her. I reassured her that we did not have roaches in our house and that God would protect her. I rubbed her back, prayed over her and sang a couple of praise songs. She quieted down and fell back to sleep. About 45 minutes later Emma got up again standing next to her bed, wildly swinging her blankey, hitting her bed "to get rid of the bugs!"

OOPS!! Guess my "appropriate gage" was off. I felt horrible. Maybe not such a good idea to watch "Untold Stories of the ER" with my kids.....Her poor little mind kept focusing on that bug!  I learned my lesson! I will not do that again!!!

The next day I could not help but think of how powerful our minds are. Everything we do each day originates in our minds. Sometimes all the things running through our minds keeps us up all night.  The Bible tells us "whatever is true, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- THINK about such things......And the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8, 9

To forgive or not to forgive.....

This morning I was able to sleep in til 8:30! I could not tell you the last time I slept that late!! However, I woke up to the sound of screaming, bickering children coming from the kitchen. So, I did what any mom would do. I went to investigate......

When I walked into the kitchen Emma was on the floor, Josh was on top of her trying to keep her quiet....there was a serving tray with a bowl of cereal with bananas cut up in it, some toast, and a couple of granola bars. As soon as the kids saw me they began to scream louder! They were upset that I was up and ruined their surprise!!

They were attempting to serve me breakfast in bed for Mother's day and were arguing about what to serve and how to serve it. Josh was trying to keep Emma quiet so they didn't wake us up! Then when they saw that I was up the argument exploded!! So, both kids were in on our bed and we were trying to sort out and diffuse the argument. Emma began to cry  and admit that it was Josh's idea. She was sobbing and asking her brother to forgive her for being so loud and ruining their surprise.........Josh responded with a "Humph!" With some prodding from Jason and I he said "It's OK" (said in an Eeyore voice). Josh was very reluctant to forgive his sister.

It struck me that he was so reluctant to forgive his sister. I said, "Josh how would you feel if God was so reluctant to forgive you?" Josh thought about it for a minute and then gave his sister a big hug and accepted her apology......

Later, this afternoon one of Josh's friend came over. They were out in the front yard playing football. I am not sure what happened, but his buddy got mad at him and didn't want to play anymore. I overheard Josh apologize several times. But, his friend never forgave him, instead he got on his bike and rode home......

I could not help but think about how just this morning he was the one who was so reluctant to forgive. Now he was the one seeking forgiveness. I too could relate. I myself have a history of carrying unforgiveness, and also have sought forgiveness that has never come..........Neither place is where I want to be!

The Bible tells us that God is faithful to forgive us our sin, that he removes them as far as the east is from the west. I am so thankful for his forgiveness!! But He also tells us that we must forgive others.

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But, if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6: 14-15

Overcoming "Mommy guilt".......

So, Monday after leaving Josh's IEP meeting I was feeling a little defeated and like a failure. Quite frankly throughout this whole process with both of the boys I have been fighting mountains of guilt. I could not tell you how many times the thoughts have run through my head, "If only I had read to them more.....If only I had done so many things differently." I even went as far as to say to my husband, "Maybe we should have another baby and start over! I mean do EVERYTHING right!!! Like read to them EVERY day from the day of conception!!" (On a side note....contrary to a recent rumor NO!!! I am not pregnant)

On Monday morning after Josh's meeting I was walking up the stairs to the church and I was thinking about the rest of the day ahead: the little boys had t-ball practice, Josh was supposed to have his first Little League game, they would need to get all homework and spelling practice done before ball. I needed to do my weekly grocery shopping which includes coupon clipping, and add matching so, I needed to find time to do that. I still had to run to the sporting good store to get Josh baseball pants and socks to match his uniform. Then my thoughts turned to dinner that evening. What was I gonna fix and have them fed before practice at 5p.....and oh yeah, it needs to be healthy and well balanced...anything quick and easy really didn't fit those criteria! 

Wow!! How overwhelmed I felt! How could I possibly do it all.....I mean all the things the "experts" say to do to raise happy, healthy, successful kids? Like, reading to them daily, spending time with each of them individually on the homework they are struggling with, make sure they have a well balanced healthy diet, make sure they are not watching too much TV, or playing too many video games....making sure they are getting plenty of exercise, encouraging and allowing them to be involved in extra curricular, and teaching them about God and raising them with morals and the list goes on and on.......then take it all times four!! ( for each of my four children) The feelings of failure again were almost overwhelming!!

Then a scripture came to mind from Luke 10 where Jesus is visiting Mary and Martha. Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus and Martha is frantically running around the house working all the preparations. Martha was frustrated and overwhelmed and Jesus said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus was saying to her....you are worrying yourself about so many things but only one thing truly matters....So, I asked myself what that one thing is....then I found Psalm 127..."Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain......Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him."

I can spend all the time in the world fretting and worrying about getting it all right and probably get little "right". Or I can rely on God,give it all over to Him. Accept His grace and love to cover all my shortcomings and focus on building our home on HIM!

Update on Joshua......

Today was the day we had our evaluation meeting for Joshua's case study.....this was the meeting in which we were to find out if he did in fact have a learning disability and if he qualified for special education services.

I must first admit that thanks to a friend's recommendation we actually met with the school psychologist on Friday to hear what the IQ testing revealed. I was so thankful the psychologist was willing to take extra time with us. It was much less intimidating to get that information in a more intimate setting and, have time to process the information prior to sitting in another conference room full of educational professionals.

In order to identify the problem they do multi level IQ testing. They test Verbal IQ, Nonverbal, Memory, Visual and so on.....then when they look at all the different scores hopefully they can identify the weakness.  So, Joshua scored very well in many of the categories with the exception of visual processing. Because he scored so much lower in that category they call it a "relative weakness". Relative, meaning relative to him and how he scored in all the other categories; it was easy to see his weakness. This means that he sees things the same way we do, it just takes his brain longer to decode it. Hence the slow reading and difficulty with fluency.  Josh did test really high in comprehension. So, even though it takes him longer to read it, he does understand it.

Today's meeting was to write his IEP, or Individual Education Plan. Based on the findings of the case study, now they were recommending that Josh is eligible for Special Education services. I must say I was really fighting some denial. I know much of what the testing revealed was not a surprise and made so much sense to me. However, to fully accept that my child has a "disability" is hard!! It is like I understood what they were saying but, still not fully accepting that there is a true defect in his brain. We talked about setting goals for him, one of which was to be reading  90 words per min by the end of first semester next year. That is second grade reading level. He will be in fourth grade. I shared concern with them and they said "we must be realistic in setting goals. If the kids were running a race and one had a broken leg we would make special accommodations for that child. That is what we are doing for Josh." whoa!! I am still struggling with completely accepting it.

One of my main concerns was Josh's reaction to this. What to tell him and how he would respond to the new plan. He will stay in his regular classroom for core instruction. He will go to the Resource room (Special Education services) for more intense reading instruction and will be able to get one on one help with reading assignments, be able to read them aloud to someone, and  will also be able to take his tests in there and have extended test time.  The main goal is to modify his workload, work through his strengths, focus on fluency, and work on helping him succeed overall and rebuild his confidence.

When I picked him up from school today he asked about the meeting this morning and what the teacher had to say about him. I told him about his strengths and how great he is with comprehension. I also told him we came up with a plan to help him get better grades and improve his reading. When I asked him is he had ever heard about the "Resource room" His eyes lit up and he got very excited. He said, "Yeah, they introduced me to it today. The teacher is really nice!" I told him a little more about it and how he could take test in there and they were gonna help him get his grades up. He says, "I think this is gonna be a good thing! I am Unique cause I have good comprehension, there are some kids who don't have that. I just need help with my fluency." 

I cannot express the joy in my heart to see his positive receptive attitude! I could not help but praise God for that and the grace He has given us through this.

Tonight as I reflect on the day I cannot help but think about the scripture God gave me at the beginning of all this, 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul is talking about his "thorn of the flesh". The verse that sticks out to me tonight is:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (even relative weakness) 2 Corinthians 12: 9