God is in my Cheering Section

Do you ever get tired of all the work you do going unnoticed? Of your behind-the-scenes efforts being outshined by those in the spotlight? Of working tirelessly without much hope of recognition?

I've been there. Scratch that. I AM there.

I work for my church two mornings a week. I don't get much recognition for the work I do, although I know what I do is appreciated greatly - especially by those with whom I work in direct contact on a regular basis. That's not what I'm talking about, though.

I'm talking about the day in - day out, all day and all night job of being a parent. Do your kids ever look you in the eyes and say, "Wow, Mom! Thanks for doing my laundry!" or "I really appreciate the effort you put into making nurtritious meals for us so we grow strong and healthy." or "I know you don't love cleaning the bathroom, but thank you for doing it anyway, so that we can learn about the importance of taking care of the things God has entrusted to us."

Most days, it doesn't bother me that my two-year-old (almost) doesn't show many signs of gratefulness. Other days it's all I can do to feel like what I'm doing makes any difference. But I know that what I do today won't necessarily show it's effects or get it's respects in the short term. I do know that the Wiggle will grow up knowing that I care about him, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally. It may be decades before he really realizes how much effort I put into making sure he has the best childhood I can give him, and even if he never does, God knows.

The Bible Study I attend recently talked about the Truth "God is Always Watching." He knows how hard I work. He knows how much I hate cooking, but put the effort in for my family. He knows how it breaks my heart when the Wiggle bites his tongue or stubs his little toes, and how frustrated I get when he throws his sixth fit in forty minutes.

God knows the good and the bad and he's in my cheering section. He wants me to succeed and rejoices with me when I do. He extends his grace when I mess everything up, allowing forgiveness, and usually another try with the exact.same.circumstance all over again. And with Him on my side, I have all the recognition I need. I mean, if the God of the Universe is watching me with delighted interest, why do I need a pat on the back from people around me?




Linking up with Company Girls Coffee

Monday's Motivational Moment

Monday's Motivational Moment

women

I started in a new Bible Study tonight. It's a Bible Study for women, held in a home, that had you asked me a year ago, I would have sworn I'd never enter again. I was harbouring hostility and bitterness and heart-muck. Praise God that's been put aside, and I have been given enough grace to cover the wounds and cross the threshold with a smile as a hot cup of tea is made in hospitality. But that's a story for another day.


We're studying Jennifer Rothschild's Walking by Faith.  It looks to be a good study, and judging by the ladies who showed up this evening, I think it'll be a good group of people, too.  I'm looking forward to spending time with these women - getting to know them beyond their positions in the church, or their roles as mothers. The group will be comprised of women past and present from the church I attend, women from the community, and women from other nearby churches. A beautiful mix of ideas, opinions, situations, passions, fears and triumphs. I am excited to see what the next seven weeks will bring.

Getting ready this evening, though, I found myself working through a deluge of self-doubt. I knew that there might be women present with whom wounds had not healed without scars, and was worried about what they would think of me. I took extra time to make sure that my clothes reflected what I wanted them to - comfortable, casual, but still pretty. I took time to reveal the legs beneath all that hair, for fear that one stray unsightly leg hair would proclaim its presence loudly to all who came near, revealing a particular laziness in my life. (I definately shave my legs for other women and what they might think.) I re-re-redid my hair. I chose not to wear makeup in an effort to look like I hadn't tried too hard.

And all the while I thought about why I was doing these things. Is it really so important what these women might think if they knew I don't regularly shave my legs or that I'm not really very good at putting together an outfit? Why do we care so much, we women?

I still have a lot of thinking to do on this one.

I've been in a bit of a funk all day long, and I'm deciding that rather than dwelling on the things I can't afford (clothes that fit), can't achieve, or can't escape (packing. ugh.), I'm going to think about the good things in my life. 

I remember as a teen, when my younger sister would get angry or sad or frustrated, the phrase you'd hear around our house was Choose Joy.  Our emotions are real, but they're not always right.  We can choose how we react to situations.  It is our decision to make - we can slouch and grouch and moan and complain, or we can Praise Him for the good things He's given us.

Here are some of the good things I've been given: 

These guys, who make every day a joy.  I love being a wife  to the greatest man on earth and Mommy to the cutest kid time has ever seen.

And cooler weather that makes coffee and apple crisp and soup even more enjoyable than before.

And a great job doing something I love for the church I'm called to.

And teaching AWANA with a fantastic group of leaders and kids, using the talents I've been given.

And finally connecting with some people I can call friends up here.

And windows flung wide without the house feeling like it's drowning in a swamp of humidity.

And the assurance that no matter what comes our way, He is on our side, and He will care for us.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

Matthew 6 :26-27

Monday's Motivational Moment

Monday's Motivational Moment

Monday's Motivational Moment

Monday's Motivational Moment

Monday's Motivational Moment

conundrum

photo credit

Why is it when you start to think about what you eat, all you ever think about is food!?!

Counterfeits

Can you tell a loonie from a chocolate coin?  Of course.  What about a "basement printed" fake from a legitimate Canada Mint twenty?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Andrew and I have been attending a parenting dvd series at church, and one of the analogies the speaker uses caught my attention.

She talks about how the FBI teaches its agents to recognize a counterfeit bill. An agent-in-training is not led into a room full of counterfeits and shown individual imperfections in thousands of faulty bills.  Instead, the agent is taught only to identify the one TRUE bill.  If he looks only at the flawed substitutes, he soon becomes confused about what the Real Thing looks like, and can no longer distinguish between the legal and illegal tender.
In the same way, we need to have such intimate knowledge of the Truth and the Life that we don't get confused by the "truths" the world is selling.  We need to immerse ourselves [and our children] in the Word of God so that when a counterfeit "truth" comes along we can quickly identify it and treat it as counterfeit - as worthless for our lives.  Our children must know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life.  There can be no substitute.






Linking up with Company Girls Coffee at Home Sanctuary.

Embracing the Grace and Letting Go

Life is a wild ride.  Ups and downs, hard work and coasting, sometimes.  You never can see what's coming around the next bend.

If you had asked me in December where I thought I'd be in six months,this is certainly not the situation I'd have described. 
Living in a friend's townhouse, waiting for it to be sold.  Jumping every time the phone rings, wondering if it will be the call to give us our 60-days notice to get out.  Cleaning out Mom and Dad Stewart's house, preparing for renovations and re-touches to make the upstairs a separate living space for Andrew, William, and I.  Actually getting excited about it. 
In December, I was sure we were going to continue to overspend our budget and end up in debt over our heads - even further than we already were.  Instead, we've been able to pay off more than $15,000 in debts in 2010 - and we're only 1/2 way through May!  Blessing after blessing - many completely unexpected - has arrived in our mailbox and our bank account and paid down credit card, car, and school debts - even with major car repairs and a significant payment of one type or another here and there. 
Things haven't always been easy.  We've had times when the food budget is empty and there are still ten days left in the month.  We've shouldered the disappointment at having to move. Again.  (My 8th move in 3 years!) But we've embraced the Grace after each failure and God is proving himself faithful over and over again as we remain faithful to him.  I've started looking forward to Sundays again.  My patience proves stronger than my anger - and it's all Him.

I think that a huge part of the change we've experienced comes from embracing the grace of God in our lives and letting it spill over into our relationships with people.  When we embrace the grace we're able to let go of hurts and fears, of anger, resentment, bitterness, and hard-heartedness.
When I decided not to be angry or bitter about all of the "shinannigans" at the school where I worked last year, things started falling into place.  I have been given the ability to forgive in what seems like an unforgivable situation.  Because of the Grace.  And in being faithful to that decision to forgive, He has been faithful in pouring out blessing after blessing.

I can only encourage you to Embrace the Grace and Let Go of the Garbage.  It'll work wonders in your life.  It certainly has in mine.

Scabs

I have always been one of those people who likes to pick at a scab, even though I KNOW that I'm doing more harm than good, and that if I just left the sore spot alone it would heal a lot better.

Yesterday I had a HUGE opportunity to pick at a big emotional scab.  I was invited by my neices to attend the school's Special Persons' Day - like grandparents' day, but with a wider audience.  With so many hurts emanating from some of the people within that school, I was nervous about the prospect of spending a day in their presence.  But God is Good.  Once we were inside, greeted by a few of my old students, and several of last year's co-workers, I felt that I had a right to be there.  That although the School Board did not approve of the events that have transpired in my life over the last year and a half, and although we have come to an agreement to terminate my employment there, my neices go to school there, and it was they who invited me.  I was not there on business, and so it felt ok.  (It certainly helped, knowing I had Andrew and my Mother-In-Law there to back me up should any problems have arisen.) 

It was fantastic to reunite with some of my old colleagues -- to sit and chat with them, without feeling a need to pretend to be ashamed of my son and the events surrounding his arrival.  It was good to see old students, growing and maturing; and a few of their parents, too.

Even though the date loomed on the calendar for several weeks in advance, and every step toward the entrance took determination, I am so glad I went.  Praise the Lord for small miracles.

Sunday Scripture - 3.7.10

Sundays are Hard

It's Sunday morning.  I've fed William, bathed and dressed him.  I've had my breakfast, and coffee is brewing, hot and fragrant in the kitchen.  I've showered and brushed my teeth.  My makeup bag lays open, contents sprawled across the bathroom counter.  My hair hangs in tangled rings past my shoulders, waiting for a comb and at least two hair elastics - I am not brave when it comes to my hair, and it is perpetually up in a messy bun.  I grumble, plucking a few greys from my freshly scrubbed scalp, I'm too young for grey hair.  This is ridiculous.  I groan when my hair, now combed, doesn't want to stay in the confines of the elastics, doesn't want to hang straight, doesn't want to cooperate with me in any way, and I start to wish I knew a good hairdresser.  I think about when my hair was less than 2 inches long, and how simple it was.  And how manly I looked. Ok, we won't go that far. I need to still be able to pull my hair out of my face.  I start comparing myself to the other moms at church - that one always arrives with perfectly coiffed hair.  That one is so thin, and yes, she does have a child.  Stop, I think, you are your own person.  It doesn't matter what they look like.  And I convince myself that a little foundation and some mascara will hide my insicurities. 

At least until it's time to get dressed.  I open my drawers, clothes folded neatly inside - my jeans that are too tight, and whose metal rivets bite into my hips leaving raw flesh beneath, and my black "going out" pants - an early maternity purchase, still "regular" pants, just a few sizes up from the old me.  I'll have to make due with the same black pants I've worn to church almost every week for the past four months.  Ok, I think to myself, I can handle that.  They're black, they're mostly comfortable, and they're basic. No one will notice that they're the same. Again.   Then I check my drawer of shirts, and decide to clean out the stash as I go - one, two, three, four maternity shirts that I should really pass on to my sister-in-law (who's expecting in September!) that leaves, one, two, three shirts that don't  actually fit this more-generously-proportioned post-pregnancy me.  Apparently there are a few shirts in the laundry hamper, and we're down to three shirts.  Two Value-Villiage finds that are beginning to fall apart, and should only be worn if there is 0% chance of visitors, and I need to scrub the bathroom floor.  And a tank top.  Perfect.  It's February.  I head across the bedroom to the closet - maybe my husband's shirts have had female children in just-my-size overnight.  Wishful Thinking.  So I head back to the dresser.  And then back to the closet.  And I try not to scream in frustration.  And then I remember the one well-fitting, nice-looking, maybe-it's-even-clean, wore-it-last-week-and-the-eight-weeks-prior shirt, and I run to the basement to check the dryer.  It's there.  Great.  I get to go to church looking exactly the same as last week. Again. 

Shoes? Yep, the only pair I have - two chunky grey mesh running shoes.  Perfect for church. :(

It's ok.  No one will notice.  I hope. And I think,  Who am I kidding?  

I'm so tired of feeling ugly.  Boring.  I just want a little life in the way I look.  


I enter the sanctuary where the worship team is doing a final run through of their morning lineup.  I pass off my son to his grandfather, and sit quietly in the back, sipping my coffee and trying desperately to fade into the pew, hoping no one notices how grumpy I am and stops to ask why.  I don't want to have to explain how fantastic a pity party I'm throwing for myself.  I don't want pat answers.  Can't bear the idea of someone breaking in on this shell I've put on and joining the pity party.

I settle in to listen to worship, unable to carry the tunes myself, thanks to these issues with my voice.  I wait for the sermon, try to pay attention, and drift off, back to my pity party part way through the Pastor's teaching.

Sundays are hard for me.  

Just throwing it out there.

Two Truths and a Lie

 

 If you're here from Home Sanctuary, Welcome! 

  ____________________________________________________

 

TRUTH:  *I MISS MY VOICE*

Back in June, while I was still great with child (did I ever tell you how huge I got when I was pregnant?), something wierd happened with my voice.  Over the course of a week or two, my naturally 'alto' voice got very gravelly, low, and it became painful to speak at length.  My singing voice, with which I could easily sing a 2-octave range was attacked so hard, I could no longer get through Happy Birthday or Jesus Loves Me without my voice cracking.  I figured it was a side effect of the pregnancy - maybe my neck had swollen up so much (like the rest of me), that it was putting pressure on my vocal chords, causing my voice to change.  Well, six months post-delivery, my voice is a little better than it was, but is still gravelly, low, and painful.  I can get through Jesus Loves Me now, but any song with a range requiring just a little vocal ability is like scratching my throat with heavy sandpaper.

The pain of speaking at length was a problem - as a Kindergarten teacher, I was always talking and singing.  It was my job, and let's face it, there was some yelling going on - not in anger, just in volume.  20 5-year-olds are noisy!

I could have learned to deal with the changes, if it weren't for the all-but-removal of my singing voice.  Singing is my worship outlet. It's my way of drawing near.  It allows me to praise and pray and adore and ask forgiveness.  Because of this voice change, I've had to find new ways to praise. New ways to worship.  And they are good, but I miss my voice.

TRUTH: *I HATE SEEING DOCTORS*

I feel like Papa Bear from the Berenstein Bears - afraid of the doctor and what he or she may tell me is wrong.  But I mustered up my courage in November and saw my family doctor back in Waterdown about the voice changes.  She set up an Ear, Nose, Throat specialist's appointment for me here in Alliston.  

After a few mix-ups about what specialists existed and/or were available (They tried to send me to a doctor they couldn't find.  Medical receptionists can be very helpful, but apparently they can be a little ditzy, too.), I have an appointment for a scope next Friday afternoon.  They are going to freeze my throat (I HOPE), and send a camera down to see if there are polyps on my vocal chords.  

My family doctor also mentioned that it could be that I "never learned to speak properly" - that I've never used my vocal chords correctly, and that intensive speech therapy might get things back to normal. 

I am very nervous about next week.  I don't like being poked and prodded.  I REALLY hope I don't have to don a hospital gown.  I am looking forward to a popsicle afterward, though. :)

LIE: *I HATE CHOCOLATE*

 

Yep, Still Alive

It's been a while, I know.  Things have been a little busy. 

For starters, we moved.  How on earth we managed to get as much stuff as we have into 430 square feet of apartment, I will never know.  After several loads, and even more coffees, and with the help of some very important people, we made it in alive.  We are now joyously experiencing 1700 square feet, plus a garage, a driveway, and front and back yards. [Praise the Lord]  What an immense blessing.

On top of moving, December has begun, and so there is complete freedom to decorate for Christmas.  We got our first Christmas tree and decorated it together.  I jazzed up the wreath for our front door and after 2 or 3 attempts got it to hang properly.  Now it only scares me to death once in a while when the wind knocks it against the glass.  Pointsettias and vases full of ball ornaments sit on corners of desks and shelves.  And our only nativity set rests proudly in the front hall.  (Why doesn't the fisher price nativity set have any shepherds? This confuses me.  There are sheep, but no one to tend them.)

Today and tomorrow are two of my sisters-in-law's birthdays, so Friday we had girls' movie night - Here.  Lots of cleaning and stashing boxes in closets in order to appear like I've got everything under control.  More on that later, I'm sure.

And now.  I'm back. Into a routine (Thank, you William, for sleeping through the night all week!!), and back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Sunday Scripture:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Back to Square One

Oh boy.  I suppose they call it a challenge for a reason.  It was challenging.  Many days I thought, "Well, I didn't stick to the challenge at all today.  Maybe tomorrow, but probably not - maybe I should just jump off the wagon altogether, and try to catch the next one that comes around."  Things just didn't go the way I had hoped.

As I finally begin to settle into this new "family life routine", it is getting easier to plan for time set aside, but easier is not easy.  So for November, I'm going to challenge myself again.  But I think I'll start with one thing at a time.

My goal for November is to spend each morning-nap time in Fellowship.  With Jesus and/or with His people.  That means I take at least 15 minutes each day to intentionally get near His heart.  Whether it's through worship and the Word, or praise and laundry, or prayer and conversation, I want to spend 15 solid minutes focussed on HIM.  My sense, then, is that from those 15 minutes, a Day with Jesus will naturally spill forth.  As I make this my habit, may He increase my desire and my committment to our time together.


We are working on getting a Wii.  And then we'll go out and get the Wii Fit.  I am looking forward to having this system to coach me through some exercise, and hopefully have it be a fun challenge.  Exercise will be "Square 2".



On the Menu: Meaty Lasagne  mmmmm.