Fun fact: I nervous ate the few weeks leading up to our wedding. I am a procrastinator through and through, and when I get stressed or overwhelmed, I just shut down. My poor, sweet bridesmaids picked up a lot of my poor planning slack and spent the night before the wedding at my apartment buttoning up all the loose ends that I did not have the capacity to handle. They tied ribbons on tiny bubble containers, they sewed beads onto the ribbon for my bouquet, we separated flowers for what seemed like hours for the bouquets and left them in a stock pot on my stove… I mean, eleventh hour stuff. So, the day of the wedding, I put on my corset that I had bought for just this day and pulled up my beautiful dress, only to discover that the dress that had just a few weeks prior fit me like a glove would no longer zip up. Talk about a freak out. We figured out that if I didn’t wear any sort of bra, the dress would zip, so I went without any sort of support up top… and I was so self-conscious about it. When we got our wedding photos back, it seemed like a very obvious thing to me, and I had a hard time looking at the pictures. All I could see was those extra few pounds I had gained. My hair also did what it does every other day of my entire life and didn’t cooperate, and I sat and agonized over my hair in every photo. I loved that we had pictures of our special day, but they were a source of stress to me as well. It’s your wedding day, it’s supposed to be perfect, right?
Fourteen years into this thing and I’m glad that I’m not so hard on myself anymore. My weight has fluctuated so much over the years that I’m used to seeing my body in whatever shape it’s in. Now when I look at these photos, I can finally see what probably everyone else saw all along: two kids absolutely head over heels for each other who have the best friends, family, and support system. I think in this particular photo, our photographer instructed Travis to “pretend like you’re telling her a funny secret,” and told me to pretend that he had. Staged as it is, it really does reflect us. We’re best friends, we tell each other everything, and we make each other laugh constantly. The other day, we both had to be at a meeting at church and we sat together. That might not have been the best idea, because about halfway through the meeting I realized that we kept putting our heads together and whispering and laughing throughout the whole thing. We just constantly have something to tell the other. So this photo is special to me, because he does make me laugh like that every single day. And now, when I look at it, I can finally see that and not my own unhappiness with the way I looked.
I’ve been really bad about blogging lately. I only wrote this because, yet again, it started out as an Instagram post and I got too long winded for their caption word limit. Anyway, I wrote this almost two weeks ago and I’m just now getting around to finishing it…
The stomach bug got sweet girl at the beginning of this week. It’s been rough. She’s already tiny (not dangerously so, don’t worry) and had just started finally gaining weight after being sick for what felt like most of fall and winter. Since November, she’s had some sort of viral bug, multiple colds, covid, and an ear infection. Now this.
Her room is usually the cleanest, most organized room in the house. When I feel like we’re living in chaos, I can usually go in there and instantly feel better. Well, between having to wash and change her bedding and blankets constantly, keeping the trash can close, her having small spurts of energy and wanting to read only to have to take a nap on my chest in the chair again… it’s A MESS. I walked in there earlier to grab something and thought, “This is an accurate representation of my brain right now.” I feel so restless. I feel like change is coming. I feel like I’ve got a million different things going on. I feel like a mess. But just like the fact that her room won’t always look like this, I won’t always feel like this. I know change is coming. I know God has plans for me, for my family… exciting, scary, wonderful plans. I just have to keep going, and to keep leaning into Him in the waiting.
The other day, I wrote out in the note pages of my planner, a plan. If you know me, you know I’ve never been a super goal-oriented person. Growing up in school, I was that annoying kid that all the teachers loved. I got good grades, I was quiet, I loved to help, and I never got in trouble. I was also that annoying kid that didn’t have to work too hard to get good grades. Most subjects came easily to me. But I absolutely dreaded when we would have career day or writing prompts about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I would always end up saying something like ballerina (although I had less than zero athletic ability, that’s nice and girly, right?) or doctor (because even at a really young age, I knew the grownups thought that was a good job because you get paid a lot.) I always agonized over these things, making up absolutely untrue reasons for my “aspirations.” I learned really early on how to say exactly what was expected of me and how to “B.S.” my way through schoolwork. It served me very well, even through college, haha. The point is, I’ve never been a big dreamer. They would go through this whole list of careers that we could choose from, and none of them sounded like they were for me. It sounds a little shallow as I type this out, but I can remember spending hours and hours pouring over my mom’s Good Housekeeping and Family Circle magazines. I just thought that was how life was supposed to be. Pristine home, home cooked meals, fun activities planned for the kids, family vacations, the works. I loved my family, and from the looks of things in those magazines, that was how you showed people you loved them: by buying the trendiest plaid couch or refreshing the drapes. Y’all, I know how this sounds. I know every feminist everywhere is probably crying right now, but I don’t care. I grew up watching shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and so many more. The only thing that ever really appealed to me was being a wife and a mother. That’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. I know some people read that and immediately rolled their eyes. Some people have probably stopped reading by now, but hear me out. I’m not saying that any of those other professions are worse or better than what I wanted to do. I’m not saying that what I wanted was for everyone, because I’m not that naive, I know everyone is different. But for me, that was it. And growing up in the 90’s, I caught on pretty quickly that being a wife and a mother was not considered “a real job.” My mom has sold Avon for decades. When my sister and I were kids, she was a full time mom and an entrepreneur. But people still had the nerve to often dump responsibilities on her because “she has more time, she doesn’t work.” Um, excuse me? I take offense to this now as someone who stays home with a little and works from home. It’s HARD. It’s TIME CONSUMING. It’s absolutely EXHAUSTING. And just because my schedule may be a little more flexible than some does not mean I don’t have a job. I’m off topic here… anyway. It was obvious to me, even as a child, that I couldn’t express my dream of wanting to be a wife and mother without teachers trying to convince me that something else was better. So I just never voiced that dream. In middle school, we had job shadowing. We were supposed to go shadow someone who had the career we thought we wanted. This, of course, caused me anxiety, but I finally decided to shadow my aunt who was an office administrator at our local university. When I told my teacher who I was shadowing, she said (in the most condescending tone I might have ever heard), “You want to be a secretary?” 13 year old me felt anger for my aunt toward this teacher. I’m not sure I ever told my aunt about that interaction. But you know what? I did like working in her office. I liked organizing and straightening papers. The tiny teacher’s helper in me found it to be satisfying work. What in the world was so wrong with being a secretary?
Anyway, all this to say, the only dream I’ve ever had about my life so far was that I wanted to get married and I wanted to have kids. I remember planning it all out in a journal when I was like 10 or 11. I had each room in my future house designed and color schemes picked out (obviously my tastes have changed a bit and we didn’t in fact paint our bathroom lime green.) I had baby names picked out. I cared about this more than most anything, and I actually documented that dream. I planned for that dream. I hoped and prayed over that dream. And now, as cheesy and ridiculous as it may sound, I’m living my dream. I’m married to my absolute best friend and we have the sweetest daughter. And it may not look like a picture from a 90s magazine (or a current magazine or Pinterest or whatever for that matter), but it’s ours and it’s a dream come true. Never have I ever written out anything else in such hope. Never have I sat down and planned anything else so carefully. Until the other day.
A little (vague, because I’m not mentally prepared to be specific yet) backstory. There is something in my life that molded and shaped me more than I would have thought, especially in my teenage years. I’ve halfway joked for years about something related to that or thought that maybe in a different lifetime I would have done x, y, z. As the years have gone on, my circumstances have changed, I’ve grown and learned and lived, and that joke has become more of an aspiration that has seemed not very attainable at all. But quite recently, it keeps creeping into my mind. I’d love to do it, but I’d be scared, I don’t know where to start, I’d have to learn so many new things, it would be a huge commitment… The other day, I couldn’t concentrate on my work, so I sat down and just wrote the words at the top of the page. I looked at it for a moment, and then started writing furiously. I wrote down vague ideas and specific aesthetics. I wrote down goals. I just kept writing. When I finally stopped writing, I read over it and was more than a lot nervous about a) what I had actually written, and b) the manic state that I seemed to be in for a minute. I sat there and stared at the page, astounded that the words on that page had come out of my hand. Then I started to pray, confused about what had just happened. I literally said to God, “This scares the crap out of me. Is this actually something I can be praying over? Is this actually a thing?” And I immediately heard a “Yes!” What? I don’t know. This happened last week and I’m still processing it. But, you guys, it has to be important. I’m not a dreamer. I’m still that annoying, shy, quiet third grader who doesn’t rock the boat and has “simple” aspirations. I don’t do “big dreams,” so this is so out of character for me. It’s gotta be a God thing. And it’s going to be good. And terrifying.
As soon as the new year hit, I was BOMBARDED with ads on Facebook and Instagram for weight loss programs. When I watched TV, every other commercial was for a diet plan, gym membership, or piece of workout equipment. I get it, I’ve fallen into that “new year, new me” mentality before. I’ve fallen into thinking that the new year was somehow going to bring new focus, new drive, new motivation. And then I was sorely disappointed yet again to figure out that I was still me. A turn of the calendar page did not mean anything. This year was the first year I think I was actually aware of what is going on. I mean, yes, I’ve always known that the big weight loss push happens at the first of the year, but I hadn’t truly ever thought about what it meant. It means that the majority of us are unhappy with our bodies for some reason or another, and it means that we fall victim over and over again to big corporations trying to cash in on our unhealthy relationships with our bodies. I’m not saying that weight loss itself is a bad thing, but it really irks me that we “need” all this help. Why are we not taught practical ways to care for our bodies when we are kids? Why is junk food, fast food, and convenience food pushed on us? So that we will need to buy that diet plan later. And we have all these things that make our lives easier, but sometimes all it does is make us have to move less. We are so sedentary. And then we have to schedule out even more time to work out, we have to buy equipment for it, it’s a whole thing. And now I sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist, but it’s a gross cycle.
As I sat and watched TV the other day, I felt physically ill seeing all of these commercials. “Before” pictures showing unhappy, (sometimes) overweight individuals would fill the screen. One in particular I saw three times in one sitting and I couldn’t get over it. It showed this woman who was talking about how she didn’t like her body anymore and “didn’t recognize” herself, so she had to buy this program. I KID YOU NOT, I swear they bought her the same track suit from her before picture in a bigger size so it would look like she had lost weight. If you really focus on her, she doesn’t look any different. What in the world are we being fed?
I understand the need for our society as a whole to be healthier, I really do. But I absolutely know that these “miracle” programs are not the answer. And the fact that every other ad that is pushed into our faces tells us that our bodies need this or that before they are acceptable is bull. I am as heavy right now as I was when I was nine months pregnant with my daughter, and I’ll be honest, when I realized that, I was freaked out. I weigh so much that it is entirely possible for me to fit a whole [albeit small] other person inside me. I felt the initial shame, disgust, and general unhappiness with my body that the world tells me I should feel. But over the last several months, I’ve come to terms with my body. This body of mine has carried me through every single day. It has held me as I’ve had my weakest, most emotional moments over the last couple of years. It has hugged and hugged and hugged some more. It has laughed, it has cried, it has ached. It has stretched and it has held another human being. It has nourished our daughter and held her as she cried. It is the perfect body that God made for me, and I am done hating it. Now, I’m not saying this is where I need to live forever, that I couldn’t improve. I could definitely be a better steward of the blessing of my body that God has given me; I could do a better job of taking care of it. However, I will not be shamed into thinking that I have to be a certain size or eat a certain meal to be worthy of some arbitrary praise. My body is mine, and I won’t be shamed into hating it anymore.
One of my very favorite wedding photos, taken after the ceremony. I was so completely overwhelmed with emotion and my sweet husband was comforting me.
[My husband just asked me what I was “over there blogging about,” and I told him. He said, “Well, I love your body.” Ladies, find yourself a man who will not only appreciate your body no matter the size, but love it unconditionally. I am definitely not the same size (or shape for that matter) as when we first met, or even when we got married (although I stress ate for like a full month before our wedding and did gain a ton of weight 臘♀️) Anyway, all that to say, my husband is the sweetest.] We need to love our bodies, right here right now, no matter what they look like.
Um, hi. It’s been a really long time since I made a post. Like, almost three months. I’ve not really had anything to say. I’ve been claiming to be “busy,” but now that I think about it, that’s not really true. Work is pretty slow and I’m in “catch up on background work mode,” which most days actually looks like “it’s nothing too urgent so I’ll play with my daughter instead mode.” I’ve been trying to just be more present, to keep my priorities straight, to put people before stuff, to live in the moment. But I’ve also not been going to the Word every day and as much I try not to base the quality of my faith on quantity of time in the word, I can’t help feeling guilty. I feel like if I’m going to be speaking to you on matters of faith, mine should probably be pretty solid. But honestly, my faith is a little shaky right now and it is all my fault. And I know it. So, I’ve felt like I didn’t “deserve” to come to you all. I know that’s not good either. I know I should lean on my friends and family in Christ during times like these. We all struggle. I know. I’ve told other people the exact same spiel. Uuuggghh. Accountability is hard. And I literally said to my husband the other night that I feel like exactly zero people care about what I have to say. Why would they? I’m just me. But then the very next day, God gently reminded me through someone I don’t even know that no matter how many people He puts in front of me, whether it’s thousands or just a handful, they are my calling. And so I must be obedient.
Anyway, even though the last few months haven’t necessarily been that busy, they’ve been hard. My husband had an especially frustrating and mentally exhausting time at work for a few weeks in there. I’ve been trying to be there for him, to be supportive. Something has to change. You all, we both feel like we’re supposed to work together. I know I’ve talked about this before, but it feels like it’s right around the corner. We’re both dragging our feet about it because we’re both a little scared, and we haven’t really gone to God about it together like I feel like we should. Pray for us, y’all. Change, even change that I want, absolutely terrifies me. All I know is that we both want to put family first, and the way things are right now, that makes it so hard to do. I’m so exhausted from feeling guilty about who is going to get the best of me on any given day. I feel like someone, whether it’s my husband or my daughter or my mom or my bosses or my friends or other family, always gets “end-of-my-rope stretched-too-thin” me. And that’s not fair to anyone. I feel like I’m in survival mode.
My husband and I went to a concert to celebrate our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We drove to Florence, KY and stayed at the hotel where we stayed on our wedding night. (Neither of us really remembered the hotel very much even when we got there, haha. We were so tired on our wedding night and had to be at the airport the next day. It was all a blur.) We made a dinner reservation at The Melting Pot because we used to celebrate there all the time, but our local one closed. We had a wonderful fondue dinner and dessert, and I drank coffee after dinner because the opening act at the concert wasn’t going to start until 8 PM and mama had to stay awake. We drove to the venue and when we entered they were very strict about checking IDs and vaccination cards. That made me feel better. But, it wasn’t a socially distanced show, so the seats were full. I told my husband I was glad that we didn’t get lower arena seats, because they were all first come first serve and everyone was crowded around the stage. Luckily, two seats were empty in our row, so we got an empty seat on each side of us. But there were people directly behind and in front of us. I was a bit overwhelmed. I hadn’t been in a crowd like that for probably over two years. The only thing that made me feel better was that it was an amphitheater, so we had [a tiny bit of] fresh air blowing through the whole time. But it was such a good show. If you’ve never heard of Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, look them up. It’s such a unique, vintage sound. And they put on a great show that was only the slightest bit rowdy, haha. We were pooped when we made it back to the hotel. The next morning we ate breakfast, checked out, then spent the afternoon at IKEA. We bought way more than we went for, but oh well… I got to eat Swedish meatballs.
On the way home I was talking to my husband about how much I appreciate these trips. This is the third little getaway that we’ve been able to have over the last year with just the two of us and I’m so thankful that we are blessed to be able to do so. We were walking through IKEA and I kept saying how much I missed our daughter. The same kid who the day before had me smiling through gritted teeth so that I wouldn’t lose my cool, I was missing terribly after less than 24 hours. These resets are so good for my soul. The time (truly) alone with my husband is so good for our relationship, not only as husband and wife, but also as friends. The time away from my daughter gets me out of the everyday and gives me perspective. The break in the monotony (as much as I actually like monotony) nourishes my body more than you can imagine. Just being somewhere different, seeing different places, even just for a day, is so refreshing to me. I love exploring with my husband – it’s one of my absolute favorite things. By myself? Not so much. At some point, traffic was terrible (if you live in Cincinnati or have visited, like, ever, you know that they are always working on the road somewhere), he looked at me and asked, “You up for an adventure?” He likes to find back ways to get where we’re going and sometimes they work and sometimes we get lost for a while. I smiled at him and said, “Will you be there?” He said, “Well, of course,” and I said, “Always.” I will always be down for an adventure with that man. ❤
As much as I love these trips, and as good as they are for my soul, I had a thought today. Sure, road trips, time away, concerts, good food, they can make me feel better for a while. But where do I turn when I’m in the trenches of everyday life? How do I fill my cup when I’m tired, when I’ve fought with my toddler all day, when the laundry hasn’t been folded and put away for longer than I care to admit? How do I get refreshed when there’s no getaway or vacation? God is there. He’s there all the time. His promises to me are the same as they were that day while I was riding in the car with my husband, and the same as they will be tomorrow as I’m filling up the dishwasher. God’s love for me is there. God’s peace is given to me freely every single day. God’s refuge and renewal is available to me every single second of my life. You all, do we really grasp that? I don’t think we do, or we wouldn’t strive so hard for “the next thing.” Life is hard enough as it is. Why do we insist on making it harder by trying to do things on our own?
Y’all, let’s be so incredibly thankful for the small (and big things) in this life that give our bodies and minds a reset, but let’s be infinitely more grateful for the One who can give our souls a supernatural peace and rest. Without Him, we are absolutely nothing.
When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
I’ve been feeling the urge to try and do some creative, artsy things lately. Being inspired by others is definitely something I didn’t expect to happen [because I’m generally uninspired, not because there isn’t an abundance of super inspirational people out there], but it’s what’s been the driving force of my creativity these days. Granted, almost all of this creativity is alleged, because it’s still in my head at the moment. I need a kick in the rear to motivate me to do just about anything.
I love Instagram mostly for one reason: I can control what I see. I only follow accounts that are going to inspire and uplift me, and I pass on everything else. I follow a lot of food-related accounts: chefs, restaurants, home bakers, and people who, like me, just like to eat food. Is being a patron of the culinary arts a thing? If so, I totally am. I also follow a lot of people who love what they do, and I’m so inspired by that. I want to love what I do and use it for the glory of God. I want to use my gifts in new, scary ways. (By the way, this is right now, sudden burst of creativity me speaking. In probably exactly ten minutes I will be utterly terrified by what I just typed out.) I want to create beautiful things and inspire others to do the same.
When I became a mom almost three years ago (!) I struggled with identity. I was so engrossed in breastfeeding and changing diapers and listening to every sound and watching every breath, that I literally could not remember who I was or what I liked to do. I would lay on the couch at night after baby girl was in bed and just stare. I wanted to do something, but nothing sounded enjoyable. Looking back, I think I probably had a bit of PPD going on, but at the time it was just how it was. I remember having a breakthrough moment where it just clicked that I needed to seek out who I was in Christ first, and that the rest would come later. That helped so much. Putting my focus back on God was how I eventually felt like myself again. Well, sort of myself. Bits of my old self came back and mixed with my new motherhood and made me into who I am today. Life is so weird. And beautiful.
When I was in high school and college, I made a lot of collages and did a lot of scrapbooking. I loved it. I know those activities probably date me, but I truly did enjoy it. To this day, the [small] graphic design element of my job is my favorite part. I always say I just “know what looks good and what doesn’t” Never having gone to school for any of that (French major over here…🙋♀️), I couldn’t even begin to explain even the basics of design. I know the rule of thirds, but that’s about it. That’s a thing, right?
Anyway, the other night, I just had the strongest urge to draw. I haven’t drawn anything in like, two decades probably. I don’t have a sketch pad, and it was like 10:30 PM and I didn’t want to go digging around in my desk for some paper. So I grabbed my bible journal with the intention of doodling in there, but I just wasn’t feeling it. [Side note: is anyone else out there like ridiculously picky about their journals? I love the cover of the one I have right now, but it isn’t spiral bound and it just makes me unreasonably angry to try to use it sometimes. I hate having to fight with it to make it stay open while I’m writing. Plus, there’s like this whole inch column down every other page that I just can’t quite get my pen in there to write… ugh. It’s a first world problem, for sure.] I remembered that you could draw on the note app on my phone and decided to give it a whirl. These particular words came to mind as soon as I sat down to doodle. It took me forever to get a version I like enough, and it’s still not perfect at all. My phone needs a stylus – finger writing on a screen just isn’t the same.
My husband and I need so many prayers of encouragement at the moment. I feel like God is moving in our hearts and leading us to something big and scary. If you all don’t know my husband a) you should, because he is the sweetest human being on the planet, and b) he is good at pretty much everything. Okay, not everything, but A LOT of things. He taught himself the bass, guitar (he plays this crazy good), piano, and drums. I always tease him that he can listen to a song once and instantly know how to play it on guitar (and that’s only exaggerating a little.) He is excellent at woodworking, plus he LOVES it. He was going to school for drafting and loved that. I’m telling you, anything he tries to do, he learns it quickly and well. Our pastor’s wife is in on this joke and commented on the pumpkin he painted a few weeks ago with perfectly straight free-handed triangles. I mean, seriously, he even paints pumpkins well. Anyway, there are so many things he is good at that I just know he knows how to do for a reason. I’m not speaking any specific idea out loud yet, because I don’t want to limit what God has in store for us. But, I’m almost certain we were meant to work together somehow, owning our own business. Prayers for boldness and discernment for that would be greatly appreciated.
A guitar that hubby has made, the infamous perfect pumpkin, and a baby play gym that I mentioned liking and he whipped one up in a few evenings (he even made the wooden rings!) This guy is ridiculous.
Anyway, this whole tangent started because I said I was feeling creative. So, here’s me, putting that out into the world. I pray that I can continue to be inspired, and that it will lead to something amazing!
It’s 11:28 PM and I just clocked out and laid down in the bed with my rice sock, because man do I ache. Today has just been a day. It’s been Monday. I’m exhausted.
I got so much done today… and still feel so very behind. Why are there not enough hours in the day to do everything? I feel like if I excel in some aspects, others get neglected. In a typical day, these are the things that I try to make time for:
• Breakfast
• Exercise
• Laundry
• Work
• Play + read with baby girl
• Lunch
• Dishes
• Bible time
• Dinner prep
• Tidying up
• Dinner
• Put baby girl to bed
• Time with hubby
I put out Avon books (which entails driving like 20 minutes out of town and putting books in paper boxes in our old neighborhood), somehow worked SEVEN hours, and did a lot of other things mentioned above. But I didn’t get to the laundry, and I neglected my bible time. The laundry can wait, I know, but not making time to spend with God is not good at all.
My husband is the best. I know I brag on him a lot, but he deserves it. He saw that I was still trying to work when he got home, so he packed up baby girl and went to the store to grab a few things we needed so I could work in peace for a while. I had also jokingly said I was craving alfredo, so he bought the necessary ingredients to make it and cooked it for me after baby girl went to bed. I don’t know what I would do without him. He sees the dishes need doing and does them. He cooks dinner almost every night. He helps me in so many ways and is just the best partner to go through life with.
I wrote this Monday night, but life hasn’t slowed down since. Last night I clocked out at 10 PM, so that’s an improvement, right? Working from home is not as glamorous as everyone might think. For me, it’s a constant battle in my mind between feeling guilty about not spending enough time with my kid and not being the best employee I can be. Ugh.
Also, can we talk about my husband some more? That night, he made linguine alfredo, last night he made hand-breaded pan-fried cod with fresh fries and mushy peas, and tonight he’s making steak frites. What in the world did I do to deserve this man and his cooking? Yum.
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Matthew 6:25
Background courtesy of our sunflower field excursion the other night. I can’t get enough of these pictures!
I guess life is more than food, although I REALLY enjoy it. All kidding aside – when Jesus tells me not to be anxious, I sit up and listen, because I am so very often anxious. I know I’ve done this verse before, and I know I have probably already said what I’m going to say somewhere before, because this verse always reminds me of a specific time in my life. When the husband and I were first married, we didn’t have a lot of extra money. In fact, it was super tight. We lived in an apartment downtown with original hardwood floors that we loved, but it was really probably out of our budget. We miraculously always had enough money for our bills, but not much else. There were times when I honestly can’t tell you where we found the money to buy the things we needed. There were times when I would find a restaurant gift card that I would have sworn that we already used. There were SO MANY times when our families helped out above and beyond what any family should do. Not once did we ever doubt that we would be okay. We KNEW God was taking care of us. There was no other way we could have gotten through it.
In his devotion today, Jim talked about focusing more on the spiritual. He said, “What do we spend more time thinking about? Does it make sense for us to be concerned about the things that serve us or the things that serve God?” Are we seeking first the kingdom or seeking to satisfy our stomachs?
To me, it all goes back to distractions. Yes, God provides for us, and that should be enough. But instead of being content with our blessings from Him, we let the world, satan, tell us that we need more and that we can get it ourselves.
I felt slightly convicted as I read this. Ever since the weather [finally] got cooler, I’ve been justifying to myself (if you don’t know me, just ask my husband… I can rationalize just about anything to death to justify it if I want to. He recently likened it to a superpower that I usually use for evil, haha) why I need new fall clothes: “I’ve had these shoes since 2005, this sweater is baggy on me now, I wore the same shirt twice in one week,” …the excuses go on and on. I keep telling myself that if I’m happier with the way that I look, I won’t be so distracted, I’ll be happier in general, I’ll be more motivated… and all these things may be true. BUT, I don’t necessarily think that my clothes need to change. Maybe, my attitude needs to change. Maybe, I need a more grateful, contented attitude that sees that I’m already taken care of physically, but more importantly, spiritually. How’s that for a thought?
The background to this one I took several years ago on my husband’s family farm. Just like old barns, we can choose to see our weathering as a blessing of life, or as a distraction, something that needs to be fixed up and painted to be worth anything.
I was perusing my old Livejournal again and came across this gem. Naivety aside, it tells the story of the beginning of my husband and I, and I’m quite fond of it. Get ready for some wisdom from early twenties me:
“Um. Wow. Life is crazy. I have been married to my best friend for almost four months now.. It feels more like four years. I swear I don’t remember life before [hubby] <3. So the other night I randomly got on to Livejournal and started reading some old entries from when [hubby] and I were dating. I burst into tears and had a breakdown that lasted the whole night. Partly, I blame it on the PMS I was experiencing, but there was also some truth to why I was so upset. As I was reading, I realized that I had fallen into a spiritual and emotional rut. For a while, I was so hopeful, so optimistic, and so in tune with God. Lately, I feel like I am the opposite of all those things. I have decided to fix this, with God’s help of course. I have re-learned recently that when you try to do things without God’s help, and without the help of people around you, you can quickly slide backwards.I talked to [hubby] about this, and told him something about us that I guess he never knew: That I use how our relationship started as my personal testimony. Everything about how we started dating was God-breathed, and it was the most sure I had ever been about anything in my life. I use this when I am telling people about how I became closer to God. He led me to [my husband], he and I both had prayed for (unknowingly) each other, and God made me realize that things really do work out when you surrender all your thoughts and fears to Him. I was so angry and bitter at the ripe old age of 19, because everyone else had, what I thought was, everlasting love. I felt like an old maid, and I hated the world for it. People kept telling me, “give it to God, He knows what is best for you.” And all the while, I kept saying, “I know,” but I never really, truly gave it all to God. One night, in a moment of sheer clarity, I got on my knees, sobbing, and said, “Lord, I don’t want this anymore, take it! Do what You will with it, I am done!” I instantly felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I had no intention of thinking anymore about it. As it happens, however, it was like God said, “FINALLY!” The very next day, [hubby] and I struck up a conversation on the internet, after we had not talked in over a year. We became good friends, and well, you know the rest. How could that obvious display of God’s power not move me? Anyway, this entry is my attempt, once again, to try to focus my thoughts every now and again. I am not going to commit to writing every day, because I know from experience that just won’t happen. My more modest goal is to write as often as I feel like it, perhaps two or three times a week. I will make lists of what I am grateful for, and I will give any concerns straight to God, for he definitely knows best. So, here goes nothing, My umpteenth attempt at writing in my journal regularly.”
Taken right around when this journal entry was made. Fairfield Glade, TN
For any interested parties, I still didn’t write in my journal regularly after that… there’s a line to that effect in almost every entry on there. And, can you believe we had been married FOUR WHOLE MONTHS? Oh goodness, younger me, you’re cute. Dramatics aside, I am still constantly in awe of how obvious it is that hubby and I were made to be together. God has the best plans. Also, I realize how ridiculous I sound, you don’t have to tell me.
Husband bragging time again! This happened one Saturday in March, and it still makes me smile to think about.
Yesterday, I had a terrible allergy attack. I hadn’t had one like that in a long time. This morning, I woke up with a headache. The longer I was up, the worse I felt. I got baby girl some breakfast, put her in her high chair, and laid down on the couch. I felt so sick to my stomach. I felt bad, but I ended up going in to wake up Hubby to take care of baby girl. He is so sweet. He sat with her while she finished breakfast, then took her to her room to play and shut the door so that I could take a nap. He got her dressed, changed a poopy diaper, and played with her. She was almost out of diapers, so he packed her up, and they went to the store. While they were gone, I ended up getting sick, but after that I was able to lay down and take a good nap. Hubby said he and baby girl had a leisurely stroll around the grocery store, that he was trying to give me as much time as possible to nap. They also came back with cupcakes for me. I have the sweetest husband, and baby girl loved her daddy time. My heart is so full ❤
I get headaches a lot. I’ve never been formally diagnosed by a physician, but I know they are migraines. My mom gets them, and I know I do too. I have the symptoms – sensitivity to light and sound, I see flashes of light usually a few hours before one manifests, and the pain is just awful. The nausea and vomiting thing only started after I got pregnant with baby girl. I’ve never been tested, but after paying attention to when they start, I’ve identified a few predictable triggers: if I eat cured meat with nitrites or nitrates (like a lot of lunch meat, sausage, and hot dogs), what I’m assuming is a hormonal trigger – always around my period and sometimes others times my hormones are out of whack (like after I had baby girl and when I weaned her from breastfeeding), and allergies or sinuses. All of these things are potential triggers, and if left unchecked, can quickly spiral into a migraine for me.
It’s also funny how long I’ve actually dealt with it. As a kid, I thought everyone had headaches. As I said, my mom has them, I did, and I was just always around people who did. By the time I was in elementary school, I had already learned to just live with them. But, one time my friend got a headache while she was sleeping over at my house and I think she thought she was dying. She told me she had never had one before, and that just astounded me. A few years ago, I came across a little diary I had from when I was a preteen [told you I’ve been writing forever!] In it, I talked about one night where I couldn’t finish my dinner because my head was hurting so bad. I said that I went to my room, turned off all the lights, and went to sleep. In another entry, I talked about having a similar headache while on vacation. When I read that, I realized I have had migraines for way longer than I initially realized.
Even with all of my documenting and identifying, I still haven’t come up with any “miracle fix” for migraines. I usually take Excedrin and heat up a sock filled with rice to lay on my head. I still find that sleep is usually the best medicine, if I can get comfortable enough to fall asleep in the first place. But, with a toddler, that’s not always an option anymore. Any fellow migraine sufferers out there? How do you deal?
Thankfully, I’ve been in a pretty good emotional place as of late, but it comes and goes in waves, it seems. I’ve been trying so very hard to keep my focus on Jesus, the way He loves me, and showing that love to others. Yep, I screw it up every day, but I’m trying. I found this on my phone, however, and felt like it definitely needed to be shared. I go through times where I feel like this every now and then, and if even one person needs to see that they’re not alone in that, then I’m happy to share my bad times as well as my good. I wrote this at the end of March:
“I’m overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed with the things I think I have to do. I am overwhelmed by the pressure I feel as a mother to care for my child, make sure she eats (but not just anything, it HAS to be healthy -haha), keep our home clean and safe for her, and teach her what she needs to know, not just for development, but also laying a spiritual foundation and just teaching her to be a good human being. I’m overwhelmed with what I’m not doing to be a good wife. But then, as I sit here, I’m completely overwhelmed by the way God loves me. It’s not complicated. He doesn’t have a checklist of attributes He’s looking for in me or of things I absolutely must do before He will consider me loveable. In fact, I am very unlovable, but He still loves me anyway. And it’s not a worldly, shallow kind of love. It’s a supernatural kind of love that I can’t even begin to fathom. When I think about this, all the stuff just melts away.
Full disclosure – I started a new birth control the other day after being on the mini pill for like a year, so my hormones are all over the place. I’m happy one minute and crying the next. But, I’ve felt so attacked the last couple of days. I feel like people are judging me (more than usual), I feel like their words have hidden meaning (again, more than usual), and I’ve taken everything to mean the worst possible thing. Poor [hubby] can’t say anything to me without me twisting it to make him sound horrible and judgy. He’s just stopped saying anything, which also sets off my anxiety. I’ve felt worthless. I’ve felt inadequate. I’ve felt stupid. I’ve felt like my opinion didn’t matter.
Then I realized that I am being attacked, but not by the people around me. Satan is in full on attack mode right now, and I haven’t been handling it very well. I just wrote in my bible journal about this the other day. He always seems to use the people around me, and it stings worse than anything else. It’s so very personal. It gets to me, and he knows it. The thing is, it takes me longer than it should to realize what’s going on. I remember the spiritual battle going on around me only after being in the trenches of it for days. And even then, or now I should say, I still try to hold on to control. I still let satan tell me that it’s because there’s something wrong with me, because I’m not trying hard enough, I’m not strong enough. I see that I’m doing it, and I keep doing it. I keep letting him whisper those words to me, and I give them value.
My prayer is to be able to let go, completely. I want to be able to tell satan that I see what he’s doing, and it won’t work anymore. I want to feel victorious in Jesus, because he’s already won this war. I don’t have to fight this battle.”
coffeemamabogie 