Some of our normals!

Praise God we got to experience some of our normals this week, at OUR home!! It was Heaven!  

"Big truck" drive
 

 

What kind if gum???

Parker loves his gum!  Well, every time he hears paper crinkling he will holler up to the front seat and ask "what you eatin daddddddyyy?"  So then we announce "gum" and Parker wants some....then as he is looking through the gum bag he asks Blake what kind if gum he is eating to help make his decision!  I love that!  :)

Water tower!!!

I love that my boys point out every water tower they see when we are on the road!  Oh, these little joys of raising kids.  Here is one we saw :)

 

New house!

Here us our new house!  We love love love it!!  It is such a blessing from The Lord, and I will forever be grateful!  It's cozy, comfortable and is everything we need!!! 

Sweet

The boys looking out the big huge window of our new house at a squirrel in our awesome backyard!!
 

It is my calling- motherhood...

"I have found that embracing God's call to motherhood once and for all has brought me great peace.  Instead of seeing fusses and messes as irritations in my day, for instance, I am more likely to see them as opportunities to train my children to be peacemakers and to learn to be responsible for their own messes.  Instead of resenting the interruptions in my schedule, I am more likely to accept them as divine appointments.  More and more, I have learned to see my children through the eyes of God and to accept the stages of growth through which he has designed them to grow." "Mission of Motherhood"

I am currently reading this book and am loving it.  As a stay-at-home mom it is so easy to get caught up in the drudgery of motherhood.  Whining children, fighting children, defiance, training, training, TRAINING...it is so easy for a mother to want to just yank out the few strands of hair left on her head.  So as I am reading this book and learning I have realized that motherhood is a calling...God has CALLED me to do it.  It's not easy...it's a calling...but God blessed me with children therefore I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that God has called me to it.  Once you look at motherhood this way, you realize that when your idea of how you want your life to be, gets disrupted, you won't let that frustrate you or make you mad...you will to "die to yourself and your desires" so that Christ may live through you.  For example (as given in the book Misson of Motherhood), when you are giving your kids a bath and they jump in the tub, playfully, and splash bubbles and water all over you and creation...a lot of times (depending on the day we have had) we will react in frustration..."You guys!!!  I didn't want to get totally soaked and I didn't want to walls to get soaked either!!".  Why would a mom react that way?  Because in our minds of how we want our lives to be...we would rather not have soap and bubbles all over our clothes and walls!  We want our lives and homes to be neat, tidy and QUIET sometimes :)  But, if we have the mindset that motherhood is a calling and these children are a gift from God and if our mindset is that of death to our expectations for how our life is, then our reaction is free to be that of relaxation and calmness for the chaos of a situation...because why?  Because our expectation for how our lives SHOULD be doesn't matter!  Now, it's about using EVERY opportunity to train and raise these little gifts to love the Lord. 

My Spirit is heavy...

Well, I made it through the sell of our first home...I made it through walking through my home "for the last time"...as I look back on that I truly can't believe I did.  It was the LORD holding me up.  The last time we spent in the house it was completely empty and clean and the boys were running around like maniacs squealing and laughing with the echo of our vacant home.  It was such a joyful experience.  They weren't sad that we were moving and I was so grateful to the Lord for that.  However, it was a beautiful end to what our lives had been in that home...joyful...playful...blissful.  I think the hardest part of driving away was looking at the home...OUR HOME...and knowing I couldn't go inside it...knowing that I had to now ask permission from someone to walk in OUR HOME...I had to ask permission to walk into my boys rooms...that was such a weird feeling and left me so heavy.  Tears constantly flooding to my eyes, yet the Lord giving me strength to move on.  Oh how I love the Lord...what in the world...HOW in the world to people survive this world without Him.  SO...as long as I stay clear from my street...life moves on and God is giving strength!  I'm still not ready to face our old home or even think about it without tears welling up.  Though I am SUPER excited about getting settled in our new home and moving forward with life- I have such a heavy spirit in this new transition.  I think it's because we are still here and there are still "lasts" that I have to face before I have the closure of our move.  We had my family birthday last week and I knew that this was the last time I could just drive for the evening and go home...the next get-together was going to be much more planned and strategic. 

We are living with my in-laws right now, which has been great.  Every-time I tell people that I get "the look"..."oh!" is typically the response!  ha!  But it has been as great as it possibly can be.  My in-laws are gracious, respectful and kind- I think you truly can't get better than that.  However, not having my "own" nest to take care of and being in someone else's has been hard.  I am a mother and a wife...I'm supposed to nest and take care of my family- and though I am doing that here- it's still not truly my own nest, so I have felt a little "off". 

Blake's job is still up in the air- we are unsure of him transferring or doing something different.  Blake is walking through the doors the Lord opens, and now we are waiting for something to shut or redirect.  That leaves a little bit of a heaviness as well because we don't know what life will look life up there...what his schedule will be like, what our income will be like???  God...we are waiting here!!!  hehe :)

So, as I am sitting here doing my Bible study- I have been convicted of these feelings of heaviness and concern....almost like, I need to not feel that way.  I came to one of my scripture verses I want to memorize and it hit me...Psalm 73:26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but GOD is the strength of my heart and my portion forever".  My flesh my give way to heaviness and my heart my fail me...but deep down...I KNOW MY GOD has this.  I KNOW my God has led us here and that gives me STRENGTH.  Though my flesh is heavy and fails me- God is my strength and that is the only way I'm standing today.  That is the only way I am facing leaving E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G I know and love to move.  So ya, I maybe a little heavy...but I am standing!  Praise GOD!  That encourages me so much!  I love God's word!  Ya know- when God lead the Israelites out of slavery- and when HE told Moses what was going to happen- it wasn't easy...it didn't go peachy smooth and clean- but GOD-FOUGHT-EVERY-BATTLE.  God provided...God made a way...and God was their strength!!!!