*Sigh*

Finally a chance to get all (or at least some) of my thoughts out. I really wanted to do it in the moment, or at least sooner to every thing going down, but life did not afford me that.

The evening after I wrote my last post I got a call from my mom telling me my grandma (dad's mom) had gone into the hospital. She's had two bypass surgeries and a couple of heart attacks. She's a tough broad, and I wasn't too concerned, nor were me parents. Or the doctors, because they didn't get her in for an MRI until the next morning. After seeing that they realized she was having an aortic aneurysm and rushed her into surgery. I got a call in the afternoon informing me of all of this and that she still had several hours to go.

While in the middle of leading my small group I got a call from my sister letting me know she was bleeding out in surgery. My grandma's on lots of blood thinners, I knew it wasn't good. While going to pick up my boys my mom called to tell me she hadn't made it. I broke down. It was so sudden and unexpected. I'm so thankful I had friends that immediately started praying over me.

Thankfully we had already been planning on leaving Saturday to go to STL for my cousins wedding. We moved up the departure time, and helped with funeral details.

See my grandma wasn't just my grandma. She was my name sake, my confidant and my friend. We were pretty close. Not to mention, I've never had any one close to me die before so this was uncharted waters for me.

I honestly wasn't completely confident of her salvation. We had talked about faith, but it had never been point blank asked. God was SO good to give me peace in that. At the visitation some of her dear friends from her neighborhood came over to me. They told me they wanted me to know they rushed to the hospital Tuesday night and point blank asked her, she said she was a Christian and that she prayed every night, that she knew Him, and she knew He knew her, then they told me she proceeded to talk about me and how my faith had influenced her. I am so grateful to the Lord for knowing what a peace that would give and making sure I heard those words through the Body of Christ.

In the process of details it unfolded that Chris was playing piano for the service, and he also ended up randomly being the "officiator". I can't remember being more in awe, impressed and in love with my husband on one day as I was then. He completely allowed the Holy Spirit to indwell in him and speak through him. Not only did he honor my grandma and what she was about, but he LAID OUT the gospel in a largely unbelieving room. He even looked my grandpa (agnostic) in the eye as he gave the gospel. I know God is going to use what Chris said. It was so incredible to see him walk in such faith and submission that day.

There was an open mike time where people got up to speak. I said something, but I didn't feel like I was very eloquent, or quite did justice to her. Mainly because I was crying the whole time. Any how, here is what I would have said had I been composed enough:

My grandma always used to tell me I was just like her. No teenager wants to hear she is like someone old so I usually just brushed it off. In the past several years my grandma and I have become very close. Her tenacity and how she handled moving multiple times gave me strength and wisdom as I was going through similar circumstances. She had a way of listening that was so non-judgemental. She would usually have her opinions about what I told her, but she would always let me finish and then would tell me what she thought matter of factly. No more drama after that, she had said her peace and I could do with it what I wanted. I always appreciated her honesty and directness.

As I've grown I've noticed things about her that a younger more self absorbed person doesn't tend to see. She is always giving. Rarely expecting any thing back. Every one who knows my grandma has something she has made for them. Those that really know her have difficulty storing all that she has made or given them. If she hears about a need she drops every thing to help meet it. Whether it be quilts for a cancer center, a weeks worth of food for a neighbor or just helping to pick someone up, she was some one you could always rely on. The way she served others was remarkable.

She was super thrifty as well. My grandma used to be the coupon queen, and always had a coupon for every thing. She di ligently served her family and helped save money in this way. While she had gotten away from doing it as consistently in the past few years there was never a time she sent a package to me that didn't have a diaper coupon in it. Also, instead of throwing out papers, magazines and other publications she though of others even as she read. Dad got the Rush Limbaugh papers after she was done and I got all the cooking magazines. And if she saw an article in the paper she thought you would like she cut it out and sent it to you.

She was also super crafty. One Christmas we got a suitcase full of handmade barbie doll clothes. All self created. She has made hundreds of quilts and afghans, and any thing else she could figure out to sew. She saw no need to buy some thing you could make yourself and because she was the one who made it for you, you loved it even more.

She was also wonderfully organized and planning oriented. You knew what she wanted, when she wanted you to be there and what she wanted you to bring. It made life so simple. The only reason my closets are the least bit organized is due to her affinity for making me clean mine out every time she came to visit. Even in the last few days before her passing her planning was a blessing. She had Chris', mine and both of the boys birthday presents wrapped ready to go with cards on it. Now I can keep and treasure her last gifts and the last words she wrote to me and the boys. As my husband said well in his talk "she always knew what you were going to need before you needed it." She knew an education in organization would lend a life time full of use. She was right. Like she was most of the time.

Just like she was right when she said I was just like her. I so am. And I am so proud to be. Crafty, organized, service oriented, and thrifty. I love to create things, grow things and cook things. I'm also stubborn, strong willed, tenacious and outspoken, just like she was.

Grandma was big about passing things on that meant a lot to her. While I can try to do that with the physical things she left, more importantly I want to do that with her memory. My children will know GG Sue was a big part of who I was, and in turn who they are. They'll know the attributes of her they have in them, and why that's such a blessing.

I'm going to miss my grandma. She was someone safe I could talk to, and share things with I hadn't told others about. She understood me in a way that no one else can. She poured so much wisdom and love into my life. I am a better person because of her, and proud to be just like her.

To say there is a lot going on in life right now may be a bit of an understatement.

I really dislike when I have a lot going on and yet am craving time to just be in the word...or books about His word and spending time with God. I just want to sit, and be for at least an hour... without falling asleep.

Maybe it's because God is doing a lot in our lives right now.

For the first time in five year Chris and I are both plugged into our own individual small groups, a small group with couples, and are serving the body.

We both love it, but at the same time during all that spiritually stagnant time (a.k.a. Connectisuck) there were areas we slacked off in, or strongholds we allowed Satan to form. So along with involvement has come a lot of coming back to where we once were, and working to break through those strongholds.

I feel like my mind is just now beginning to fire on some of the cylinders it used to run on. I used to be filled with lots of deep theological and philosophical ponderings, and while I still have those thoughts they are more simple (because as much as people try to complicate it, I think our faith and the questions it brings up really is rooted in simplicity), or consumed with issues more applicable to my day to day life, like marriage and children.

I think the biggest areas God is helping me gain freedom in is insecurity, and finances. Finances seem like a silly one, so let me explain a bit.

I have swung to both extremes in the view of money. Growing up in a well-to-do high school where Coach purses were low end, and there were rows of BMW and Mercedes in the parking lot, I became very materialistic...and very aware of what money did. After Ukraine, I swung to the other extreme, judging those who drove the BMW's and bought designer purses (especially those within the church). I didn't want to have any money because I saw what it did, I viewed it as evil, not as a gift from God and a tool to glorify Him.

Both extremes unhealthy. Besides, now I'm somewhere in the middle. We don't drive a BMW, but we are by no means poor (no matter how Dave and our budget some times makes us feel). We don't want to live like no one else so we can live like no one else (Dave's motto). We want to live like no one else, so we can help others live. So we're working on honoring God with our finances. And for us that means more than tithing. My attitude towards money was very off and God is helping me work through my issues towards it. And trusting Him with it, and to provide it. This also goes back to a lot of worry issues for me that being a planner I'm prone to.

It's amazing how in working through finance issues, I'm dealing with so many other related issues (insecurity, lack of trust, selfishness, pride...), so I feel like there's a whole slew of struggles I'm just at the tip of.

With insecurity, I feel like I am just at the beginning of what will more than likely be a life long process of fighting for freedom in this area. It's a fickle one to fight through. In the process of working through my issues with it I find myself focusing all too often on me. My hurts, my triggers, my thoughts...and while some of it is helpful, to gain insight on what has made me who I am and the choices I make...it's not okay to stay self focused (my issue with existentialism, but that's another post). We are supposed to be Christ focused, with our thoughts and actions. So after I spend so much time processing through what brought about the result of my current personhood, I must be quick to relate it back to Christ and regain my focus.

Even though looking back gains insight, I need to look up to remind me of why I've dealt with and been formed into what I am. To glorify God.

I've heard people talk about needing salvation just as much now as the day they were first saved. I actually find myself even more dependent on it now. I am more aware now of how completely repulsive my heart is, because Christ has entered my life. Each day He gives me more awareness to the sin that lives within, unclouding my vision, making it more like His.

All that to say...here's hoping for some down time on the 10hour drive to get some extended JC time. It's all up to the kiddos. At least I don't have to drive. And after a 18hour drive up to Philly, and a 15hour drive home, that is something!

I know I have a whole mission trip to post on...but I'm not sure I can do it justice now. Actually, I'm not sure you can ever do those trips justice with words. It's just something you have to experience.


Any how the gist of it is, I feel torn. Torn between missions and ministry and my heart for that and my current call for the season to be a great mom and wife and to invest in my family. It's a hard line to walk and I feel like I'm always leaning to hard to one direction.

I feel like I'm taking too much time way or neglecting my family when I do the level of ministry that I want, and when I throw myself into my family and neglect serving I feel like I've lost a part of myself.

I think this is the tight rope walk of parenthood. We have to give up some of ourselves and desires to be good parents, but we must maintain outside connection and activities to not loose ourselves in our children...who need to learn to be self sufficient and will eventually be gone.

Other than torn...it was a great trip. Different from others (in it's essence and location) but mainly because I had a different role. Instead of being the main participant or helping create the tone of the trip, I went as a leader which ended up being more of a directing role.

I helped plan and communicate the ideas of VBS each day, but other than that the students ran the show. The first day I tried to help set the tone by jumping into conversations with others and working hard, but after that I tried to back off and make sure the students had every opportunity to be the ones communicating and interacting.

I felt like I was there more to serve the students and enable them to have an impactful trip. One that hopefully opened their eyes and gave them the desire to do more.

And I think that was the best part. Getting to see mainly 15 year olds jumping into conversations with intimidating people, listening, praying, helping. Not being afraid to do some hard work and stepping up and taking leadership. Especially my girls. I know their struggles and hang ups, and to get to see them work through those and take huge steps that week was awesome. It was a reminder of the opportunity I have every single week I help lead them to make an impact.

I wish I could write notes to all of their leaders and parents telling them how proud they should be at what their students did that week. I was especially blown away by the guys. I pray that Josh and Jack will be in the same place as some of our students at that age. I got to hear 15 year old guys talking about their parents with respect and admiration and see them step into leadership roles...they were respectful of the girls and of the leaders. So neat to see.

So that's the summation of the trip. God is good.

Wow. It has been quite the last few weeks, filled with a lot of ups and downs.

First off let me tell you how much I love my job. The one I actually make money with, not the one that involves more work! It took five years to discover something that I could do successfully from home and almost six to get where I was being somewhat consistent about how much I brought in.

I dropped a cupcake cake off tonight and the 12 year old who it was for ran out and exclaimed "awesome, that's exactly what I wanted!" Which if you know many 12 year old girls, then you know that's a big deal. Not to mention, I'm kind of self-conscious about the looks of what I make. The area I feel like I nail it out of the park on is taste. So if I won them over with looks...just wait until they taste it!

I feel SO blessed and grateful to be able to stay at home and still help bring in some extra income doing something I love!

Especially since we have started Dave Ramsey's FPU. It's kicking our butts. There are good days, and hard days, but we have made some pretty big changes and set some pretty big goals. We canceled our Dish. And shipped off our DVR. That's a big sacrifice for us. We're trying to honor God with our finances and be smarter and wiser about what we do with them. I wish someone had told us some of this stuff before we got married!

I've also almost finished Beth Moore's So Long Insecurity. That book has taken me through the ringer. It's definitely in my top 3 life changing books! I'm already ready to read it again. Of course any area you try seek freedom in Satan usually tries to attack you in, and in true form he had me pretty bruised last week.

It might have been because the weather where a lot more skin is showing has arrived, or because two of the people that make me feel most insecure called and made some fun comments, or because I was feeling like a failure in a couple of areas....no matter what it was he took advantage of it.

I'm doing better this week, but I've also been saying "she is clothed with strength and dignity" every couple of minutes as well! Of course right before I'm getting ready to leave on a mission trip when I should NOT be focusing on myself and mentally and prayerfully preparing for what's ahead, he messes with me. Jerk.

Every one keeps asking if I'm excited for my trip. The truth is: I haven't even had time to think about it. And when I do I get....you guessed it- insecure. I know it sounds dumb, but it's been 7 years since I've been on a mission trip. That is a long stinking time. Not to mention the last trip didn't exactly end in the smoothest of fashion, and I had about 3 months of emotional recovery that followed it.

I don't have enough scripture memorized, I'm out of touch with apologetics, I don't know how best to minister in an inner city type environment, and I'm supposed to be leading my girls in how to do this?!?! Thank goodness these things aren't about me. In fact I think the top thing I always leave from trips like this feeling is *humbled*. By what I have, by what I've been given, for grace and mercy, and JESUS. Besides, I think going in knowing I'm not prepared and I'm not ready is exactly where I need to be. Because if I feel confident in my abilities, then I will rely on those, and not seek Him in and before all I do on this trip.

I'm ready to transition....to focus on tomorrow, and SUNDAY, and the fact that not 5 hours after the greatest celebratory day of our faith I get to leave to put it into action. We may not get to dye eggs this year, or even have as cool of Easter baskets, heck I may not even where a dress on Sunday...but I do get the opportunity to go tell people that HE ROSE. And if my kids remember nothing else about this Easter, hopefully they'll remember that mommy left to go tell about what Jesus did on Sunday.

Please pray for me. For humility, grace, patience, kindness, wisdom, strength, rest, safe travels, words and compassion. To be able to pour myself out, and leave knowing I gave my all there. No regrets. To lead well and know the time to step in and the time to step back. To love beyond my own capabilities. To show Christ to those who don't know Him.

I've discovered the key to marital bliss and raising children well. But you're not going to like it.

It's selflessness. As in the opposite of being selfish. dictionary.com defines it as: having little or no concern for ones self.

Let's just say in ministry there are lots of conflicts and issues we seem to find ourselves surrounded by or immersed in. And I haven't seen one yet where the issue wasn't someone in the picture was being too selfish. Self focused.

Although let me be clear, while I think selflessness is important I think this means focusing less on ourselves, not loosing ourselves. I think we as moms in particular have a tendency towards this. Finding our identity, and sole purpose in being a mom. That's not good either. While we may be called to be moms and wives that is not our sole purpose, or else God will take us home when our kids reach 18. We as women have the opportunity to impart life to many, not just our husband and kids.

However I think for most of us our tendency is towards being self focused. Nine times out of ten when I am feeling frustrated in my marriage it's because I am being self focused. When I take time to stop focusing on myself and my needs or wants, nine times out of ten my marriage is happier. I know not every one's situation is like this, but I think more often than not it helps. Same with parenting. When I start getting to the point where I just want to lock myself in a room (or literally have to in order to have a conversation), when I step back and try to focus more on my kids needs they magically start behaving better.

It's not easy.

I've heard people say that each stage of life teaches you more about God and Christ, which is why they created institutions like marriage and parenthood. I can totally see that. Especially with kids.

I think a good 60% of parenting is consistent boundaries. For about 4 years I have been telling Josh some of the same things. He still doesn't listen to a lot of them, but there are some he does now like clockwork. I ask him to do something and about 70% of the time he does it. The FIRST time. This never happened two years ago. But we were persistent, and held our lines.

God gives us guidelines too. We ignore them or turn away but He always finds away to put them back in front of us and remind us of them. He holds His line, and eventually (hopefully!) we come around. My struggles from five years ago are not the same as they are now (except for pride, but I think this is the root of most sin and one I will battle until I die). I have grown and matured.

But Boundaries aren't easy. To draw or to hold to. It's not easy to change the game on people by creating new boundaries. It's not easy to enforce them either, particularly on little blond haired boys with adorable blue eyes who have the sweetest smile ever created, but still keep telling you "no". Or telling your husband your sorry for how you treated him and that you were out of line (have I mentioned I have pride issues?!). I've also had to ask forgiveness many a times for stepping over boundaries God created I never thought I would cross. Doing these things involves selflessness.

Not going out all time and leaving your spouse with the kids, not zoning out when your kids are craving interaction, not sitting on the computer for an hour when your spouse has asked to talked to you...not focusing on your self.

Focusing on the bigger picture. God's bigger picture. For you, for your marriage, for your children, grandchildren and generations down the road. We have the opportunity to do things right, to change what has been done before, to create a new standard. But it takes not focusing on ones self. Giving up ones self and focusing on the One who gave us self for His purpose.

Josh had a field trip this morning to a pizza place. They got to make their own pizzas, see how they were made, and then eat a lot of it.

I always enjoy field trips and parties because it gives me the opportunity to interact with the parents. That may make me sound like a big dork. Most of you know I'm pretty social, but it's also one of the few times I get to hang out with non-believers. I like those opportunities.

One lady I was talking to who I've chatted with before was joking around with me (because I was taking so many pictures) and said I was probably a blogger, and a scrapbooker since I am so "with it". The blogger comment threw me (since, hello...) but I quickly corrected her on the scrapbooking. I think making homemade sugar cookies with all the kids names on it for Valentine's Day gave me a bad rap.

I was slightly amused by the comment. Because in my life I feel like I don't seem to have any of it together. I've got a dozen balls juggling and at any point one could drop.

I found it very entertaining that somehow I could be perceived as being "with it".

But how many of us think that of other people? I know I have a few people in my life who always seem calm, collected, organized and "with it". Isn't it funny how we perceive things? I seem "with it" because I take lots of pictures, make cookies and blog. The only reason I made cookies for Josh's class is because I was already making them for cupcakes and it made my life easier. I spent all day making his and 5 dozen other cookies completely neglected my children and had to go out for dinner that night. My pictures make it to Facebook at best and haven't been printed out for anything other than grandparents. And the only reason I blog is to remember what the heck is going on in my life and get the overflow of thoughts out of my head.

I've been reading "So Long Insecurity" by Beth Moore. It's changing my life. I knew I was insecure in some areas, but thought I did a pretty good job of keeping it under control. Until I read her definition of insecurity. Then I realized I was a hot mess who was ready to have a breakdown at any given point. Her definition virtually pegged me to a tee.

I don't have it together. No one does. That's why we have a savior and why we need saving and grace.

I'm tired of creating standards in my head to live up to and making other people my yardstick to measure up to.

Hoping the book tells me how to stop : )

Life is crazy right now. In fact, I shouldn't' even be typing this...however I need to empty my brain a bit.

Business is crazy. Which is good, but an adjustment on our family life. Between that and some other big changes going on there may be some big changes/transitions going on in our lives. Not to mention being a parent to a school aged child is apparently demanding. We're learning.

Speaking of business being busy, this means more people are knowing who I am. Which is okay, except for the fact that I do not want a bunch of strangers reading my personal thoughts. I'm giving even more consideration to making this blog private, or at least where you have to be logged in with your approved (by me) email to access it.

Life seems kind of hard today. Mainly because there are people in my life that I love that it's hard for. While it makes me feel so grateful and blessed for what I have...it also make me feel small and helpless and very aware of Satan's presence in our world.

This is not our home.

Praise the Lord. Life and love seem so very fragile right now.

I also find it interesting how much ministry Chris and I seem to do even though we are not in ministry (career wise, this is a whole rant I could do about how we all should be in ministry despite what our other professions are). Which I love, but sometimes it's rough to do the difficult part of ministry and not get to see as much of the great side of it. Not to mention it takes a lot of time and heart.

Speaking of time. I'm out of it. Sorry for the randomness, but it is the essence of me.