Baby

She needs me to
hold her hand,
buckle her in her carseat,
get her milk,
brush her teeth,
wipe her hiney,
read her books,
kiss her boo boos,
get her out of the crib in the morning,
dress her,
teach her.
Someday those needs will change and be fewer.

I was reminded of this yesterday.  Vera and I were in the Kmart parking lot, about to go in and pick out big girl panties.  My sweet, like a sister friend sent me a frantic-freaking-out-help-me text.  I called her up and she was in tears.  It had been the last Mother's Day Tea she will ever experience as the mother of a kindergartner. She was struck in that moment by the fact that her babies were no longer babies.  She missed those baby days.

I tried to comfort her the best I could.  I haven't had that tender experience yet.  My baby is just getting her own big girl panties.  (Which is a huge milestone on it's own!  We will never buy diapers again!)  I don't know how I'll feel when she is in kindergarten.  I told my sister-friend that she might need to remind me, in four years, of the very things I was saying to her!

Babies grow.  There is nothing you can do to stop it from happening.  There are times we want them to grow up a little faster.  Potty training.  There are times we want them to slow down.  A son mentioning a girl's name.   It is bittersweet.  We will miss those years where Mommy was the hero.  We will hate the day that "Mommy" turns to just "Mom".  But we will love the changes that lay ahead.  There will be something to love in every stage, with every child.
Right????

Deceitful Heart

"The heart is deceitful" she told her.  They were in the car.  Sister in laws.  Sharing stories.  Sharing God's redemption.  Sharing things that they couldn't forgive themselves for.  

She had never thought about it before.  Could the heart be deceitful?  The heart?  The organ that keeps the blood moving through her body.  The beat and rhythm of her life.  The thing that people told her to follow. The piece of her that fills when she looks at her children, the Farm Boy she married, and when the Father hand picks a bit of scripture just for her in the morning.  

She decided that yes, the heart IS deceitful.  It is human, after all.  

It can want things that are not good for the person it is keeping alive.  It can soften to someone who is no good for it's carrier.  It can want.  It can desire.  It can be filled.  It can be emptied.  

Even if what it is filled with is the Holy Spirit, the human whose body it sustains, can want something that is wrong.  

Jeremiah 17:9.  That's right.  

"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?"

God can understand it.  He knows what is in it.  Really in it.  In the depths.  He knows that not everyone should "Follow their heart".   But, she wants to be one who should follow her heart.  She wants to have a clean heart.  She knows that He is the strength of her heart and portion forever.   That needs to be enough for her.  That needs to fill her whole heart up so that she has no room for lies to creep in and distract her.   No room for the Devil's foothold.  

It's a slow process.  One that she wishes was faster.  Little by little, she fills that heart every morning with the Word.  She prays that she would not be distracted.  She prays that He would keep her filled all day long.  She longs for Him.  And in longing for Him she is able to push past the longing that drove her deceitful heart away from Him.  

That ride in the car, sisters in love-not law, stayed with her.  She is thankful for much.  Seems like too much sometimes.  Too much for this deceitful heart to bear.

Sigh.

God is good.
Can I get an Amen??
Man, for a few weeks I was in a really dark, messed up place.  Really dark.  Really messed up.
I was living in a selfish, vain, deceitful, selfish place.  Did I mention how selfish I was being?  Oh.  Good.
God came along side me in a strange, unexpected way.  And knocked me flat on my butt.
Seriously.
Flat on my butt.

I cried for about 48 hours straight.
I prayed.
I repented.
I sought forgiveness.
I laid myself bare.

I wore myself out with regret.  I was torn.  God mended my heart.
Then exactly two weeks after my lowest point, my friend posted this video on Facebook.  It was my theme song.  It is my theme song.  How many times have I let the weight of this world wear me down?  When will I learn not to do that???
Read the lyrics as you listen.  I pray, that if you are worn right now, you will feel God's hand stitching that frayed hole right up.

Work it!

Day 3, pre-workout.  Not smiling after.

Okay yall.  It has been a while since I have blogged regularly.  I have been lacking inspiration.  Still am, really.  Thought I'd hop on and let you all know that Jeff and I have been doing Insanity.  It is freaking insane!  For real.  You know it's bad when you see the people in the workout video, on your tv screen, taking a break with a look of pain on their face.   These are not those cute, made up, perfect hair the whole workout kind of workouts.  These are real.deal.you're.gonna.sweat.maybe.even.vomit. kind of exercises. 

And the transformation is incredible.  I looked better after one week.  We are now 5 weeks in and I am below my goal weight (BELOW!), and feel better about my body than I have felt since I don't even know when.  I wish I had taken before pictures!  That way I could prove it to you!  I will say, I have to belt my skinny jeans and they are more baggy than skinny.  A lot of my pants are so loose that I can pull them right off without unbuttoning them.  This works!  It is bananas, Shaun T says so himself, but it works!
I dare you to try it!

Chicken talk

This is when they were younger.  You can see Junior in the middle.  He's no longer with us.

You all know I love having the chickens, right?  I call them "The Girls" and visit with them at least once a day.  I take them treats from the kitchen and they lay eggs for me in return.  We love each other.  Well, mostly.
We decided that we would get a few more this year.  Ones that lay dark chocolate colored eggs.  How cool is that???

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Welsummers.  And they are friendly, low maintenance birds.  I'm pretty excited about them.  Vera can't wait to get her hands on them since they will be chicks and I want them to be very used to being handled.
Jeff is in the process of building the coop for them because we are weird about mixing them with our older ladies.
There is so much to blog about today.  So many times recently where we have seen God's hand at work in our life.  I am still processing a lot of it and feel overwhelmed at the idea of blogging about it.  Maybe soon.  Until then I will keep thinking spring and hope you are doing the same!!!

Oh Man.

Please, I beg you, PLEASE go read this post by Ann Voskamp.  It is unbelievably gorgeous and hope-filled and encouraging.  It made me weep.  Which is not unusual when I read her words.  Is it the ambiance on her site?  The music?  The beautiful pictures?  Nah.  I think it's just her words.  Gets me every time.

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The past couple of Sundays we have been checking out new churches.  We have officially left ours and are searching for something more "us".  It is hard to explain.  Especially to children; who love a church for it's elevator, or it's snacks during Jr. church.  One of our children asked if we were leaving because of something someone said.  How do you tell your children it was in what they didn't say that sent us away?  It's okay that we feel the need to move on.  We've done so much growing since we started at that church.  Growing that had nothing to do with that church.  Growing that had to do with our own personal relationships with Christ and our own personal convictions.  One thing I know about convictions is that your's are not always the same as other's.  And that's okay.  But, when you are the only family with certain convictions in a church, it gets hard to raise your kids there.  You know, we tell them all the time that we are different than the families in school or the neighborhood or even in our own extended family.  We were even different than the families in our own church.  In our own community of believers.  That can get a little discouraging at times.  I think now we've grown to know what we want for our family.  We know, for sure what kind of upbringing we want for our children.  And to us, the church we go to as a family, the church we raise our children in, needs to fit into that.  We need other believers to hold us accountable to the values and priorities that we feel are necessary for properly raising our children.  And if you can't find that in your church, where can you find it?

WIWW

Aw man.  I was a total slacker this week.

Saturday.  Ran errands.  Charcoal skinny jeans - Kohls.  Gray tee shirt with flowers at neckline - LOFT.  Pea Soup Green cardigan - Old Navy.  Brown Boots - Macy's 2 years ago.
Like how the cardigan matches the wall color in my bathroom???  And I got my hair trimmed last week, so I could finally blow it out straight without looking like I had fuzzy ends!  Yay for sleek hair!

Me and my little brother.  Superbowl Sunday.  I wore a burgundy sweater dress - Macy's, brown belt, as usual.  What you can't see...  gray leggings - HUE, brown platform boots - Lauren Conrad for Kohls.
And I still don't even know who played in the Superbowl, who won the Superbowl or even if there were any good commercials.  I did see a tiny bit of Beyonce, but then decided that my boys should not be watching a scantily clad woman gyrating all over the stage, so we left.
And in other news...  Gina and I went thrifting on Monday.  Totally struck out in the clothing department.  Yuckville.  However, I did find a new friend.  I call her Rita.  You know how you can clean your house and then 5 minutes later the dog sheds, the kids drop crumbs and your hubby brings in chicken coop dirt (no???)?  She takes care of all that little stuff for me!

Grace saw her in action last night and said "Wow, Mom!  You won't have anything to do around here anymore!"  I laughed.  But, back to that Goodwill score...  She cost me $20.97 and was completely BRAND NEW!!!  I unsealed the packaging here at home.  True story.  Keep your eyes out for this kind of randomness in your Goodwill store.
Linking up with Lindsey again!