Important Business

I'm reposting this from my Facebook, but I have a huge burden to get this word out right this minute.

I'll post something a little less deep tonight or tomorrow. :)

Ok... I've always stopped myself from posting this because I was afraid of offending someone... Which, if you actually know me very well, is a laughable thought. Anyway, I realized today that this is a lie that has worked very well. So, if I offend you, I'm sorry. Delete me or talk bad about me or whatever. I have to at least say this because I know once I do, potentially, 500 or so people will have "heard" what I have to say...

If you have been my facebook friend for more than 5 minutes, you can hopefully tell that I believe in God. What's more important than just "believing in God" is knowing that Jesus Christ is God's Son. He lived a perfect, sinless life on earth so that he could die in our place. See, the Bible tells us that we all sin. (Sin is not just "doing bad things", rather it's doing what we want instead of what God wants.) God is perfect and just. He requires payment for sins. That payment is death. Not just physical death, but eternal death. Meaning, when you die here, it is required that we spend eternity away from God because of our sin. But because God loves us and wanted to make a way for us to still be with him in Heaven despite our sin, he sent is perfect son Jesus. Jesus then died a physical death on the cross to take the punishment for the sins of the entire world. Now, the Bible tells us that if we will call to him and ask for this gift of forgiveness, he will freely give it to us. You don't have to "be good" before you can get it - we can never be good enough! All we have to do is pray and ask Jesus. When you ask, he will give it. Then from that point, we are called to follow Christ... We live for him, so that our lives honor God and show this very lost world the only solution to its problems - Jesus Christ.

I have prayed this morning for whoever reads this, that God would open their hearts to hear it. I will keep on praying, and I know that he has a plan. :) Please don't put this off. You never know when your life here on earth will end.

Please message me if you want to ask questions! I'm more than happy to answer what I can or help you find the answers if I don't know them...

A Day in the Life of a Circus Mother

Yesterday, I spent nearly and hour and a half trying to get my precious almost-3-year-old boy to take a nap. I tried everything I could think of, and none of it worked. After finally coming to grips with the fact that a nap was just not happening, I polled my Facebook friends to see if I could get some new ideas.

There were several great ideas, and one (from my sister, and actually not on Facebook) was to introduce a "quiet rest time" for all of the kids. She suggested allowing them to read, draw, or play quietly, as long as they stayed in a horizontal position in their beds. So today, we did just that.

I was beyond delighted that the new plan seemed to work! The baby girl slept like she usually does, and the other three that are here occupied themselves quietly for 30 minutes. Granted, thirty minutes isn't really very long, but I figure I'll get what I can and at least it's a start!

So after they were all allowed to get up, I sat in the floor with my baby girl. The older 2 went outside, and our precious man-cub went to the playroom. Happily basking in my success, I started to post an update to all of the, I'm sure, very concerned Facebook friends I have. As I'm in the process of describing the whole ordeal, I look up to see a naked kid, who shall remain nameless, running across the house. As if the random streaking wasn't enough, he announced to me that he had shed his DIRTY pull up AND peed in the floor like a dog. In complete horror and grossed out confusion, I chased the naked child, cleaned him and the house, and calmly explained why one should never take off a dirty pull up, pee on the floor, and run naked through the house.

And so is the story of my life as the owner of a traveling circus...




P.S. I'm currently very thankful for disinfectant and baby wipes. :-/

Just a story...

Well, so much for consistency, right? :) Every night for the last 3+ weeks, I've been falling asleep thinking of all of the things I should be doing... folding clothes, cleaning somewhere, organizing something, writing a new post on here. Pretty much every night, sleep won. The benefit, however, has been all of the time I've spent thinking about what to write next. And so, I'm going to tell you a story. It starts waaay back... well, it's "way" back to me anyway... nearly 11 years ago...

I was a senior in high school. I knew everything already, so I had no further interest in school. Only by the grace of God (and the "gentle" prodding of my mom and then-boyfriend) did I finish and not just quit. There's basically no logic behind my attitude toward school. I just didn't want to be there anymore. I was ready for something new and exciting.

So, less than a year after graduating, I married that boyfriend. He was a few years older than me and had already been married once. The blessing from that is the two beautiful babies that tagged along behind him. They were 1 and 2 when I met them, and not much older when I was blessed to become an extra mom to them. Our newlywed stage wasn't exactly your traditional newlywed stage. (But then, when has anything in my life been traditional?) Anyway, we were married only 6 months when we were given custody of those two sweet babies. So, "new and exciting" here we come...

Being a wife and a mom are two of the most rewarding and fulfilling jobs I've ever had. Not to say it has always been easy or even pleasant at any given moment, but I knew from the start that I had found what God had made me for - or at least part of it. :) So, after a couple of years, we decided to ask God to grow our family. At only about 8 weeks, our first pregnancy was probably the most widely announced for being that far along. But, Jesus had other plans for that baby, and we miscarried that child. After a few appointments with my doctor, I was told it would be very difficult to conceive naturally. (Boy, have we proven them wrong! lol) So at that point we began to consider adoption.

A sweet couple in our church were foster parents and were fostering the most precious little baby. They were "older", by the government's standards, and although they had a great desire to adopt that baby, it was questionable whether or not they'd be approved. We all prayed about it, and my husband and I stepped up to be next in line, should they be denied the privilege of adopting him. In the end, they were approved, and we could not have been happier for them and the sweet baby. A couple of years after our miscarriage, we were blessed with a healthy baby girl... then a healthy baby boy... and then another healthy baby girl.  :)

Over these past 6ish years of having babies and raising children, my husband and I have grown up significantly. We've learned a lot from people who have been in our shoes, and we've learned a lot from our own mistakes. But, either way, we've ended up learning a lot.

After several years of having our oldest two kids at home with us, we agreed to let them live with their mom. More recently, we felt like they needed to be back with us. We pursued that through the legal system - all the while, feeling very sure that we were following God's will. After all, we were wanting to do a good thing for them. So that must be God's will, right? Well, after about a year and a half of working through all of that, we felt God telling us to back off of it. I won't say I argued with the Lord, but I certainly didn't understand His logic.

Then another situation even more recently was regarding a house. My husband and I had looked at a house that I fell completely in love with. It was a beautiful old home with incredible character inside and huge pecan trees outside. It was smaller than what we're in, but I just considered it "cozy". There was even a "secret" path from the backyard to my mom's backyard. It seemed to be perfect for us. But then it fell through. I was sad, angry, confused. It was a perfect house.

Well, nearly 3 weeks ago, I received word that a dear family friend had died. The shock from such sudden, unexpected news was indescribable. However, not at all to minimize his death, my first thoughts went to his sweet son, the little baby boy that had been adopted by him and his wife years ago. It happened that my husband and I had been named guardians of that little boy waaay back when they had finally been approved to adopt him. So, our family grew once more. :)

They say hindsight is 20/20. There may be some truth in that. I believe, based on Romans 8:28, that our precious Jesus will always bring something good out of every situation. Now it may not be the "good" that we would understand. It may not be bringing two of your kids back into your home, or a pretty little house in a great neighborhood. It may be that He is preparing you for the unthinkable. He prepared us. His ultimate goal is to receive glory, and it happens that my goal is to give that to Him. I am beyond blessed and humbled to be chosen by God to step into this sweet boy's life and minister to him and raise him up in the Lord. It is simply amazing to think about how God has prepared us for years for this exact time. He is truly amazing.

One more thing! Our youngest daughter was born with dark hair and dark eyes, just like the rest of the kids and my husband and me. But after a few months, her hair became blonde and her eyes a bright blue! One of our earliest family pictures with her in it has this dark-haired family with this tiny blonde baby girl in the middle. Well, I'm pleased to announce that even the color of my baby's hair was all part of His plan. Our new sweet boy has the blondest hair and the bluest eyes you've ever seen. :)

My God is good. That doesn't just describe Him. It's who He is.

Welcome to "The Blessings of a Traveling Circus"!

While most of the people who read this initially will likely already know me, I'll introduce my circus anyway. :) I call our crew a traveling circus, not because we have exotic animals or are gypsies, but because we bring entertainment with us wherever we go! There is NEVER a dull moment with us around. I should clarify - it's not always entertainment in a laughing, fun sort of way, but at least you can learn something from watching us! :)

Anyway, my sweet husband works his tail off to carry the costs of a growing circus. We are so blessed to have him as the leader of our family! Our kids are 13 years old, nearly 12, 5, 2, & 15 months. God humored me and my slightly OCD personality, and they are perfectly girl/boy/girl/boy/girl. Any other kids will have to fit this pattern. :)

Our family is not your traditional American-dream-chasing family. I heard it said once that being a stay-at-home mom is like taking a vow of poverty. On some months, I feel like that might be an accurate description! But we have decided that we can best accomplish God's call on our lives if I stay at home with our kids to raise them up and teach them. Our oldest two attend public school and live with their mom & step-dad. We're homeschooling our 5 year old, and plan to homeschool the little two as well. Our main goal as a family is to encourage each other to have a close, real relationship with Jesus Christ, while pointing anyone else we come in contact with in the same direction.

So, who knows what this blog will turn out to be like! But I'm excited about this new way to share my life with you! I love to organize, craft, homeschool, and a ton of other things, so I'm sure there will be a wide variety of posts. If you have any topic ideas, please let me know!

In the meantime, I pray that God will open your eyes to see how He is at work around you and that He'll give you the courage to be a part of it!