Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Peace, Joy and Surrender!



I have been reading and thinking a lot lately about Surrender. My husband made the comment that I am like a totally different person and he wondered what happened. I thought about it for a long time and think that I have figured out what is different. You see I have mostly been a perfectionist; meaning that I expect things to be just so or maybe I was really just a control freak. Anyway, I learned some very important and fundamental lessons for surviving in peace and joy. The number one and most important one being Surrender. 


Now I think "Surrender" has a bad reputation for most people. I believe a lot of people think that surrender is a weak. Let me ask you or anyone who has had to surrender, "Do you think it is easy to do?" I believe it is one of the hardest, most difficult and complicating things I have ever done, especially if you are a control freak. If you are a proud person it would be the same. You know the things that get in the way of surrender are pride, fear and trust. 

I finally came to a point in my life when I realized that my own selfish pride, fear of failure or being hurt, and distrust of others to be able to handle the situations for the best got the better of me. When your own actions are about to cost you everything that you are fighting for don't you think it is time to surrender. My way isn't working, hasn't been working and is only making it worse. Now, what? I'll tell you what God, prayer and an open heart, mind and ears.

I went to God in prayer, laid everything, I do mean everything at the foot of the cross(his feet) and gave Him what He has asked and patiently waited for my entire life, Surrender and complete control of my life, every little detail. I must say although one of the hardest things I have ever done also one of the best. I have such a peace, knowing there is nothing I can do other than believe. I have no control over anything in my life and my constant desire to try was ruling my life and making me and all those around me miserable.

Now I just trust that God has my best interests at heart and though I may not understand what is going on or why at that exact moment I do know that I will become a better person if I just learn the lessons at hand and continue to trust God. He will supply everything I need, not necessarily everything I want though  a good part of the time that too. So just in time for the season I have received a great deal of peace and joy!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Turmoil Revisited

So much has happened since my last post. I am not sure it would be anything I should put up here just yet, at least not in detail.  It would seem that the last post caused some confusion and misunderstandings about what or how I was feeling about my marriage. Now don't get me wrong I was definitely discontent with my marriage but not in the way that would imply that I wanted to leave. I think I was trying to discover why I was discontent and if it was because of my way of thinking or because of the way I was being treated.  

I don't think God wants or intends for us to be discontent in our marriages or our lives for that matter. I think that we put ourselves in that situation much more often than necessary. I believe there is always going to be times in our lives when we are not happy with the way  things are but that just means it is time to focus on fixing it or looking at the way we think. I think sometimes in our relationships with others we become lazy for lack of a better word. We think we know what is going on and how the other person thinks but we really don't. Instead of asking we react in a way that we think is what they are looking for or we just become selfish and only think of ourself.

We come into our marriages with so many expectations and I believe many of them we never actually share with each other but we certainly react with sincere disappointment when they are not met. It is sometimes so hard not to lash out at our mate when we are hurt by those unmet expectations, or sometimes we totally withdraw and send a totally different message. In today's world it seems to be that people think the answer is to just totally walk away and start a new relationship with someone else. I am not sure that really fixes anything I think it just delays the realization that the problem is within ourselves. I mean newness shifts the focus onto discovery of the other person and not onto the discovery of ourselves and that really is the problem isn't it?

A week ago today was my 21st wedding Anniversary. I would love to say that is was a completely happy and exciting celebration but sadly I must say that it was not. I am extremely grateful to have been married this long and it is so much longer than I think I ever imagined I would be married, not because I didn't want to be. I think I have always been afraid I would be left. I think I have come to realize that people just leave me for some reason. I don't want to believe it is because there something wrong with me but when everyone you love and that you believe is suppose to love you leaves what does is a person to think? 

Over the last few weeks or months I have discovered a person inside of me that I have buried for a long time. I have always been a crier and maybe that was because it was the only way I would let any emotion out at all and I am not sure I let it out and it did just burst from under pressure. I have volumes of emotions that I don't even know how to express sometimes and I quite frankly think they scare me to death. I hate that sometimes my own mind and body betray me. I can't be the only person that goes through this. Something else I discovered is that I truly love my husband no matter what he believes or how I may act.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Reflections of Turmoil

As I review my last post, I am realizing that I am not content where I am and I am not sure if I should be or not. I can honestly say I don't want to be. This is not the life I wanted for myself or even dreamed I would have. Furthermore, I don't think it is what my Father would want for me either but I could be wrong and if I am I hope He shows me sooner rather than later. 


I think I always knew that fairy tales were not true life but sometimes I think you hope that at least part of them could be. I mean it would be nice if "my prince" could save me from peril and in some ways I think they can and do. I know it is rare for them to actually be princes with money and wealth so that is at least one area of life that is not a worry. So what part of fairy tales do we wish would really happen? I think it is the feelings and not being afraid to act on them. I want to be loved and cherished and for "my prince" to show me how much he loves me, for him to want to spend time with me more than anything, do I expect to be the only thing in his life? No but it would be nice to be more important than most other things. I want to be excited to see him and him to see me. I think the beginnings of relationships are usually the best it is the time when you look forward to seeing each other and you never get tired of talking to each other you spend hours talking about everything and trying to learn as much as you possibly can about each other.  I wish I knew when that all falls apart?

One day you wake up and ask yourself "Who is this person?" "What happened to me?"  I have tried really hard to not be a nagging wife, or to want everyone around me to change, while thinking I am perfect just the way I am. I know better than this, but what happens when you change yourself and try to improve and the people around you don't see a need to change and how long do you live like that before you are in a situation that is just not working anymore? How hard is it to feel like you live a single life in a marriage? I mean you almost feel like you have to make decisions by yourself but at the same time aren't you suppose to be making decisions together?


I think I have always been a little concerned that I don't really understand what I am suppose to feel about love. I am such a logical person that emotions really confuse me. I don't really know what to do with them or how to identify them and I have worked hard over the years to analyze what I am feeling and why. Let me tell you it is hard to do that when you have spent a lot of your life trying to deny emotions and why you feel them. 

All I know right now is that I am tired, tired of trying, tired of feeling, tired of trying to answer questions that have no answers at least from me. I don't know what is next and I am really not sure how I feel about it and I don't know if I really want to try to figure it out right now. 

Friday, July 2, 2010

I'll Never Be Happy Because...

The more I study about contentment the more I realize so many people are not content. I have viewed myself as a fairly content person, well at least in most parts of my life. I guess to understand whether you are content or not would be to really understand what it means or what it does not mean. I don't have a very big audience so I am not really sure how I can reach very many people but I have learned that I can sometimes reach many by only reaching the right one who can reach many. Okay, about Contentment:


Contentment does not mean:
                I have to give up my hopes, goals, or dreams.
                I cannot wish things were different.
                I should never be disappointed or angry.
                Having to always appear happy.


Most importantly Contentment does not get trapped in the Comparisons. Come on admit it that is the real trap isn't it the comparison game? 
These :
                What I have vs. what I should have.
                What I have now vs. what I once had.
                What I have vs. what others have.  


In Philippians 4:10-13 Paul shares what he has learned about contentment:


                  Most of all contentment is learned. What? We have to learn to be content? How do we do that? Well Paul learned to trust God's goodness. He learned to extract meaning in the middle of difficulty, and also he learned to find causes for celebration.


So what have we learned? Well contentment does not depend on circumstances. Contentment does depend on perspective. So to be content does not mean you have to be complacent or that you will never be disappointed just that you need to always look for the positive(which is not always easy or immediate)but focus on the fact that God is good and He always has our best interests in mind. Whenever I wonder what that means I think about being a parent, I mean I have the best interests of my children in mind but that doesn't mean they will always agree, or like their circumstances but that doesn't mean it isn't what is best for them.

Friday, June 18, 2010

What Now?

Well, I have already posted on two of my three blogs today so I figured I might as well make it all of them.  Let's see I have written on homeschooling and losing weight, now what? 

Of late, I have been bored out of my mind. I mean I can play games on the computer and Facebook or watch some show I have already seen or maybe even something I haven't but nothing sounds interesting to me. These games are starting to irritate me, I mean why do they have to make it where you can only do so much and then you have to wait for energy to build up or buy it or whatever. I am tired of everything having to resemble an addiction. I like games that make me think and develop strategy but I am tired of it becoming time based. I want to play when I have time and not be penalized if I can't come back to it everyday or at a certain time. Whatever, I am about to say to heck with them all. 

Maybe I should make a trip to the library and get some books to read and then just veg out all summer indoors reading. Naaa, that doesn't sound like a good idea either. I am tired of feeling like crap and needing to exercise but these heat advisories are not helping either. It would be nice to have a swimming pool then I could exercise, get relief from the heat and relax all at the same time. Hmmm, I will have to think on that one for awhile. Oh, yeah money is the reason we don't have a pool, duh!  Maybe we can just do some sports on the Wii, anyone have a balance board they want to sell pretty cheap?

Maybe I can find something creative to do here's to looking.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Please, Come and Get Your Children!

OK, so could someone tell me who left their kids, "I don't know", "Nobody", and "It wasn't me" at my house?
Normally I wouldn't complain too much but really they are starting to cause problems here. I am sure they aren't mine because I was very careful to make sure all of my children's names started with the same letter "A". I thought it would get easier since I just got one of them out of the house but "no" it is still a mystery who does all the questionable things at our house. I get consistent answers from my children when I ask questions so I feel that I must have some how managed to pick up additional children by the above mentioned names.

"Who got into the candy bars?" I ask.
"It wasn't me" Space Cadet answers.
"Well who was it then?" I counter.
"I don't know", she responds with attitude. So I then ask Tinkerbell, "Did you get into the candy bars?" to which she responds "NO, It wasn't me."
Well somebody got into them, they didn't eat themselves, So who ate them? "Nobody" they both respond adamantly.

I just don't understand who would abandon such dear children as these? I mean if I am to believe my own dearly beloved innocent children then "Nobody","I don't know", and "It wasn't me" are extremely busy albeit a bit destructive children. They are intelligent  because they have found some very good hiding places in an unfamiliar home to them.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Blahhhhh - G

It seems like I have a blog for everything. It would be nice if everyone would just work together, but of course, they do not. So I have a blog on the weight loss site I use, one for a homeschooling site that this one evolved from. I leave notes for our small group on Facebook, which seems like a blog. I don't know I like to blog but it seems like I have a hard time keeping up with everything. Maybe I am too ambitious I don't really have a following anyway, unless you count my family and why would they want to read what I write they get to hear me talk even if they would rather I didn't.

I guess it is set up for certain audiences but I don't know who mine is or should be. I mean I do do all those things that I mentioned above and I feel like I just get by. I don't really feel like I excel at any one thing just have a decent balance I guess. 

I love to cook so challenging myself to cook healthier has been a goal of late. Although the real challenge may be in actually finding healthy foods that I can disguise in a way that my household of picky eaters will try. I hold out hope that they will one day realize that food that is healthy is not always yucky and they can adapt their taste buds to enjoy it for the fuel it is. I mean we don't ask our cars if they like the fuel we put in, do we? The cars will let us know if the fuel we put in doesn't do the job it is supposed to do. Why don't we realize that the food we eat usually is not healthy for us and therefore is not supplying us with what we need either it actually is robbing us of that energy by creating unnecessary fat. 

So eating has had to become a necessary balance as well. I have to remind myself that just because it looks good, smells good and tastes good doesn't mean it is good for me. Maybe if we looked at all aspects of our life and weighed each thing as to need versus want and balanced things by taking care of needs first before wants it would be better, not only in the area of food, but also in finances and relationships as well.

I better quit now, I should probably balance out my day with something else maybe start working on supper or scope out a place for a garden I don't know something.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Is it that Time Again?

Well I guess it is time I write some more. Since I spend most of my time at home with my children I guess I should write about them. The only people who will really know who I am talking about is the ones who already know them. I don't want to be ugly but I want to come up with nicknames for them. One of them is really easy I think I will call her Tinker-bell, she is short, all over the place and a serious attitude when things don't go her way, (Sometimes a little vindictive).

Now the other one is harder, she is very smart but often a little, let me see how can I put it...well ditsy or maybe she is just slow to get things, after all she is blonde in every sense of the word sometimes. She doesn't like to be called blonde but if the shoe fits right? or hair color? She has agreed that I can call her Space Cadet.

So I guess in the future when I refer to them in those terms you can know that I am referring to my daughters. Tinker-bell is 6yo and Space Cadet is almost 12yo.  For some reason, even though I have brown hair and brown eyes all of my girls were born with blonde or light brown hair and blue eyes. If I hadn't been there and in possession of all my faculties when they were born I would swear they were switched at birth. I guess I can't say that though because if you knew my family you would definitely see how they are very much like different people in it. And though I see them all very differently other people say they all look alike and I do see their similarities as well.

I also have another daughter as mentioned in the previous post the recently married. She has her own blog and is known as Trials & Tribulations of a Spastic Sarcastic. The Space Cadet has one  The Babblings of a Blonde. Their father has one as well called Need for Speed. Now the very smart Tinker-bell would be in the mix as well if her mean old mother would let her but I am just not ready for what she would share nor is the world I am afraid.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Confessions (Beginning Again)

I think the worst part of a blog is getting started. I have never really looked at myself as much of a writer but sometimes you just want to get things out and there is not always someone around to share with so...here goes again.

Now, I say again because I have done this before but it was on homeschooling topics and though I am still homeschooling that is just not what I would spend most of my time talking about so I decided to move. In fact, I am not really sure what direction my life is taking right now. It is definitely a very confusing time. Maybe you can stick with me as I unravel what it is to become?

My oldest daughter just got married at the end of this past year and is now living 650+ miles away. For some this may be sad, and in part I guess there are times when it is but for the most part I am very happy for her. It was definitely time she left this cocoon and spread her wings. Lord knows it was too crowded here for two sets of wings. So I am one down with two more to go and many years to get there. I am sure the next twelve years will go by way too fast anyway.

I am hoping to learn some things about myself on this journey into the blog world as well as more about this whole endeavor. I have thought about writing a book though the topic eludes me at this point so maybe I can come up with something along the way as well.