What about him?

We live in a world today where if you are a mother of young children your worth is based on how "good of a mommy" you are.  We have Facebook, blogs and Pinterest all to broadcast our awesomeness to the world.  You read on Facebook how we love and cherish our children and how we did this and that really cool activity or outing...leaving the rest of the moms wondering if their day was productive enough with their children to let them rest in the assurance they are a good mommy.  Lately, God has been gently nudging my heart about a simple statement "what about him?".  "What about Blake".  If you read my blog, 95% of it is dedicated to my children and me cherishing every moment...but what about my marriage?  Do I invest the same energy, prayer, thought and WORK into my marriage that I do for my kids?  Sadly, I must say no.  

This past weekend I went to a womens conference called the Art of Homemakeing.  It was excellent.  I went to a breakout session that was talking about how to bring joy to your husband without losing yours.  Ya know, I new I needed work in the marriage department, but I didn't want to go in and here the same ole things...meet his physical needs, cook for him and brush your hair before he comes home from work.  I almost skipped this session, but I decided to go and I'm really glad I did.  The speaker reminded us that though my above points are needed, they aren't what will sustain the joy in your marriage.  You and Jesus are what will sustain your marriage.  Spending beautiful time with your savior every day is what will fill your heart and your mind with power.  I also was talking with a friend about praying for your husband when I realized I was praying for Blake the wrong way.  I need to pray biblical traits over him, but I also need to pray that God would change ME!  I am the problem here.  I am full of selfish ambition and I hate it!  I realized anything nice thing I did for Blake had motives ....hoping that he too would do something nice for me.  Wow.  I never really saw that.  Selfish ambition can destroy.  Get it out of your mind, hearts and lives.  The speaker reminded me that it's NOT ABOUT ME.  If we have that mindset in our marriage...wow...how awesome.  Once you remove that "it's not about you", then nothing will bother you!  He leaves dishes in the sink?  Whatever, it's not about me!  He loses the desire to surprise you with flowers??  Whatever, it's not about me!  It's about my savior, and I'm serving him by serving my husband!  It's time ladies...we must invest in our husbands the way we invest in our children.  Trust me, this is super hard transition for my mindset as well.  I need to be his cheerleader and I need to make a haven for him to come home to instead of it being about me when he comes home.  Ugh!  I hate selfish ambition...there is nothing good about it and that's why Paul tells us to do nothing from it!!

Invest in your husband by investing in your Lord.  You want joy in your marriage?  You want peace?  Quit looking to your husband for it.  You will get all of the above, when you go to your Savior every day, allowing him to fill you with all of that.  When you relieve your husband of the job of pleasing you and appeasing you, you will find that your marriage is different.  You will have more joy, and you will live in the peace of your expectations being in The Lord.  

Update...

Well, here we are, it's been 10 and a half weeks since we moved up here.  It really has been so amazing to see God work in our lives.  

One big answer to prayer was in the homeschool department of my life.  I knew I had felt called to homeschool, yet how on earth was I going to do it??  I was SO unequipped!!  Let me count the ways!!!  1. I am sooo not routine, how could I keep up with a schedule?  2. I am lazy, I don't want to do lesson plans or encourage my kids to do their school 3. What curriculum??  I have no idea how to do this?  4.  Totally average intelligence on my part...feeling inadequate there 5. 6. 7. 8....goes the list.  Well, The Lord reminded me that it was HE that was going to do the work, not me, so just follow His plan.  

1. My former childrens minister told me about a fantastic curriculum, so I bought it

2. God moved me 270 miles away so that I would not have this super busy schedule that would keep breaking up my routine

3. Because I am not strung out into a million different activities and play groups, I now have energy and time to do lesson plans and prepare and then teach.

4.  God brought a friend along who is now co-teaching with me and she teaches all 4 kids on Tuesday and I get the day off to do whatever I want!  Whaaaaaat????!!!  Oh God, you outdid yourself!!

Here, what I thought was impossible, God made SO possible.  I LOVE it!

Pleasing to you, Father

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer"- Psalms 19:14.  I love that verse.  As I am sitting here, it is the beloved nap time and I am drinking a cup of hot coffee, feeling the Lord's pull to blog about something.  I felt Him tug at my heart and say "just open up a blog post and start typing", so here I am and here I go.

Why is Psalms 19:14 so important to me?  Well, scripture says that whatever is in our hearts will eventually make it out of our mouths into the world.  I, as all may know, am a young mother of two precious, stinky boys, 3 and 4 years old.  A huge part of their character is being developed right now; before the age of 5.  So why would this verse be so vital to me?  Because whatever is on my heart, will come out of my mouth...eventually...and into the ears, minds and hears of my little boys who are soaking SO MUCH of what I say on a daily basis.  For example, we have these two dogs, one of which is Sancho Panza...let's just say, in my heart of hearts, I don't really looooove this dog.  So, when he is bad, everything in my heart about this dog comes out of my mouth..."Sancho!!!!!!  You are a BAD DOG!!  Sancho, no one really likes you!!!" Etc etc.  Well, who is watching this bad behavior of mine?  My boys...especially Parkerman, will watch me and be able to recount the whole thing to daddy (who by the way adores Sancho) when he gets home.  Yikes....Parker learned behavior...what did he learn?  When a dog frustrates you...you yell and scream at it.  "Anger of man, does not produce the righteousness of God"...my anger, no matter how justified, will NEVER produce righteousness in my children for whom I pray all-of-the-time that they will hunger and thirst for righteousness!!  

I know that was a silly example, but it's not really.  These little boys LEARN right and wrong majoritally from me, due to my husby working and going to school full time.  So all of my behaviors are being watched.  My heart needs to be meditating on TRUTH and what is pleasing to HIM!  When fear, anxiety, jealousy, and other "gunk" crowds your mind, and therefore your heart, you will notice that it will show up in your life in some form...you snap at your kids, you yell at the dog, you criticize everyone you know, you gossip...are these things we want our little children who we are desperately trying to raise to love Jesus to see and learn?  I sure don't.  Yet everyday I will find one of these lovely "flaws" show up in my life.  I pray on a regular basis, "Father God, please cover my mistakes with my children, help us unlearn bad behavior together, and take from my children's mind the mess-ups I had today." 

So how do we slowly fix this?  "Let the words if my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable to you, oh God!".  When you find "discord" in your mind or emotions...check it against The Lord...is it pleasing to Him?  No?  Then "put it away".  The Bible tells us to "put away" bad behavior...which means we have to get up, and take action, and put away a thought or reaction, etc.  Confess it to God, and replace it.  Instead of focussing on how mad you are at someone who wronged you, or how you feel like you were jipped in the area of life...whether it be salary or money or lack of time by yourself as a young mother...start reciting scripture, use Psams 19:14 as your starting place.  And most of all, know that it is impossible for you to be the perfect parent.  You MUST rely on God's beautiful strength to raise these children and know they will not be perfect...even God, who was the PERFECT parent, had kids who rebelled... :).

I love you dreams...

Tonight, Parker was getting into bed and he said "mommy...tonight I'm not going to have bad dreams...I'm going to dream that I followed you around and said 'I love you' all day".  Agh!!!  I love that boy!!!  He melts me!  Of course...that comment started the "I love you fest" between me, him and Beckham!  It was the best!

One of my favorites..:

To dunk Oreos in milk with my little loves...

 

My God, with the riches of His mercy...

I sit here with my heart filled so deeply with gratitude, I must "count the ways", I must stack my rocks outside of MY Jordan so that I will never forget what The Lord has done....
Where do I begin...ok, I will start with the YMCA.  I have ALWAYS wanted and desired to be able to go to a gym and exercise and let my boys play in the children area.  Well, that has NEVER happened due to a) finances haven't lent themselves and b) my children cry the whole time and I can't do it.  Well, we get out here and God placed the home HE HAND PICKED for us 2 minutes down the road from my little Canaan, the Ryan Family YMCA :).  Not only can we afford it, but my kids have a SUPER BLAST in the kids area!!  They are surrounded by windows so I am constantly peaking at them and they are either running through this giant play gym or sitting and doing a craft, or having story time, or having a snack or outside doing an obstical course!!!  I KNOW!!!! Pretty unbelievable!!  AND I get to go exercise ANY time I want!!  I LOVE IT!!  The next beautiful thing about the Y, is that it has precious little kids classes that I will go to with Parker and Beckham for their "exercise" class...they think its the cats meow!  They love it!!!

Ok, so that alone was such a GIFT from my God, I am so grateful for.  The last thing I will highlight, though there are more is the pool.  Now, one of the things that broke my heart about leaving our home was that we would never have our amazing pool experiences anymore...there are NO pools up here............eeeeeeeexcept at the YMCA....LOOK AT THIS POOL!!!!  It's almost exactly what we had at home....God most preciously kissed me on the forehead and said..."here my sweet daughter, I want you to still enjoy your pool" 

Oh Father!!!!!  THANKYOU from the bottom of my unworthy heart!!!

The second massive blessing is this park. 

 One of my concerns about up here is there were not neighborhood parks on every corner....where was I going to take my crazy energetic boys to go crazy at???  Well, I never noticed this massive amazing park until we officially moved up here, but it's right down the street, it has covered picnic tables for picnics, soccer fields, tons and tons of play areas...my heart overflows...the boys love it and I am ECSTATIC!  It's so close to home and well...BLESSING my father...another kiss on my forehead from HIM!

Another sweet blessing that is kind of silly is HEB.  Everyone who knows me, knows I LOVED my Summerwood HEB.  Well, the nearest one is 30 minutes away here.  So I was kind of bummed, but God has filled my grocery cup with amazing farmers market type stores around here that I am loooving.  However, the other day I had to make the trip to what would be now known as my HEB...as I approached the store and walked in, I noticed it literally was a carbon copy of the Summerwood HEB!!!!!  I truly felt like I was in Summerwood doing what I did ever week, and it felt amazing...I looked up to heaven and said..."Father, THANKYOU for bringing me home, for an hour or two....you blessed me with this"...It was so much like my HEB, that I had a guy ask me if I knew where the peanut butter was...yep!  Isle 2!!!  Oh HEB, it was so good to see you again :). 

 
Days are so so fun....just enjoying my boys, playing at our house is so so fun...it is such a fantastic home, yard, driveway and street!!!  So cool!!!  However, I'm starting to feel the finality of leaving
Houston...my family, my church family....it's starting to hurt!!!  However, my God has been so kind,
so gracious so AMAZINGLY GOOD to me, I cannot help but just praise and thank Him.  Father, though my heart aches for the people that filled my Houston life....I am so so so grateful for your kindness here...I am so at peace that I am where you want me and THAT alone makes it easier.   Oh Father...it is well!

Trucks!!

Today had sooooooo many blessings!!! One of the blessings was figuring out a route for the boys to drive their power wheel trucks on.  You see, one of our absolute JOYS back in Houston was going over to a cul-de-sac close by and them driving their trucks around while I sat in my lawn chair and blissfully watched.  Well, here there is NO cul-de-sac and it was wearing me out walking/running after them constantly looking over my shoulder for cars!  It was getting to be a dread instead if excitement for me.  Well, God took care of it!  I realized the street our driveway is on is super slow...and it's a PERFECT truck route for the boys to drive up and down.  I just sit on my driveway and once again blissfully watch my boys drive up and down our little cross street!!!  Isn't God so good?!?!??