Maddening Moments

Each day, I have a verrrry small window of opportunity to actually get out of the house and run some errands. We are having about 20 people over this afternoon for a farewell for one of Graeme's staff who is having a baby, as well as a double shower for the same person plus my sister-in-law, whose baby arrived March 15th. I needed a couple more groceries, and I just plain needed to get out of the house.

Joshua dirtied my window of opportunity. Well, actually, he completely broke the window. That kid, so sweet and charming and obedient most of the time, also has the ability to throw the rhythm off completely. He can get his boots on quite handily. Straps and all. Today he decided that he would only try for about a nanosecond, and then he got mad and chucked his boot at the door. Wham! Okay, try again, buddy, just be patient, don't forget about the tongue...Wham! Against the door again. One more time, just relax...WHAM!! Mama says, "Go to the couch and cool off!" Screams follow, Dustin gets upset, Joshua is miserable...

It was time for Dustin's nap soon, so I couldn't even put off the outing. Their naps will be staggered today - I think that Dustin is losing his third nap, meaning that he will be napping when Joshua is up, and Joshua will be napping in the middle part of the day when Dustin is up. Having said that, Joshua is so grouchy and miserable that I put him to bed, too....it's WAYYY too early, but he might actually sleep. Who knows. But I need him in a good mood for this afternoon!

There's my rant of the day. (Sorry...)

Sweet...

I was going to post a picture of Joshua and Dustin out for a walk with some geese, but the photo uploader isn't working again!!!! ACK!!!

I have a headache. The wind really messes me up. I'm glad I don't live somewhere really windy - I'd have chronic headache problems. I'm also on a Cadbury Mini-egg overdose. Yup, I slipped up today. Bigtime. I'll pay with a sugar-hangover tomorrow. Hopefully the weather is decent and I can get out for a nice walk tomorrow with the boys again.

I was going to write something deep an introspective, but I just can't seem to put words to 'paper' right now in a manner that would do justice to my thoughts. It needs to come out right, but it just isn't. I've hit the delete key too many times already tonight so I think I'll pass on those thoughts until I can form them a little better!

Time for bed. Graeme is almost done pounding nails in our bathroom. I need to get some sleep!

G'night!

Nuttin' much...

Well, now that I have the ability to post pictures again (at least for the time being), I figured I should blog more often again! This sweet little picture of my baby boy was one I took from outside the window the other day. He thought it was great fun that I should be outside and he was inside, with me snapping a picture of him!

The boys are upstairs napping. Or not. Dustin is eating his crib rail (I do feed him, really I do!) and whimpering pathetically. Joshua is alternating between calling for me and singing. As if I'm going to go up there!

Hmm. Someone just dropped something heavy. I suspect that Joshua is the 'someone'. The 'something heavy' is probably a book.

It's a crazy week ahead. Actually, more like a crazy month. We have someone here doing some finishing work for us, as we've had some trouble getting to it. Some painting - it was time to get rid of the pink bathroom! - and some mudding the 'fort' that Graeme started building. I'm so glad we've had Peter's help! It looks amazing...

So anyway, he's almost done his jobs. Then I have to clean this place up for a big party this Saturday we're having. Party, you ask? Not that kind of party! No, we're having a double baby shower for my sister in law and for the other main pharmacist at Graeme's store. And a farewell for the pharmacist as well. Darcy already had her baby, 11 days ago. Sandra is due in about 3 weeks. Wow!

In between all of that, I have a major choir rehearsal, and a whole schwackload of music to finish memorizing for Easter Sunday - I was asked to be part of the ensemble (a tightly-knit harmonizing group of 6 vocalists) that will sing on Easter. It's an honor I take very seriously, and it's quite exciting as well! Humbling, too....

There are a bunch of other things in between now and then, too. My to-do list is spread out on 7 different pieces of paper - one for each day of the week from now till next Sunday. I'm a little overwhelmed, but it helps to have it at least organized a bit so that the thoughts aren't spinning so badly in my brain!

Beyond that, Graeme has a couple of seminars, we have a birthday party to plan for Dustin, I might be hosting Easter dinner, and I'm itching to spring clean! And I've been asked to sing at a fundraising banquet a week past Dustin's birthday! Eeeek!

Somebody help me!!!!! I'm going crazy! (Or am I already there????....)

It's been a while...sorry to keep you waiting!

So yes, I realize it's been forever since I've posted.

First off, some great news - tonight, for the first time in what feels like months (although I'm sure it hasn't been quite that long), I can post pictures! I held my breath for several minutes, and then they popped up! Wooooo hooooo! These are pictures we took today at the park. The kids loved their wagon ride, Dustin loves the swing and squeals with delight all the time, and then I took a 'natural lighting' picture of Dustin this afternoon. The sun was shining so beautifully into our front room, I just had to try it again (normally I need the flash for all my indoor pictures - I was pleased with the result!).
Yes, I still want to briefly visit my weekend at the Beth Moore Simulcast Event - getting out of the pit.

One of the biggest motivations for getting out of the pit is this: An incomparably intimate relationship with God! Psalm 18:2 tells me that The Lord is my Rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my Rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my Shield and the Horn of my salvation, my Stronghold. Who wouldn't want to trust a God who is so steadfast? If I choose to stick it out in my poorly-decorated pit, then I lose out on the fullness of the relationship with the One who can truly be trusted!

Psalm 18:3-6 - I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.

Whoo! This sounds like the cry of a man (David) who was in some serious trouble! His enemies were really out to get him - to kill him, in fact. He was desperate, and cried out to the Lord.

I wonder how many times I've felt that desperate - no one has ever been out to kill me, but I certainly have felt at the end of my own rope at times. Yup, I've cried out to God. Psalm 18:16-17a - "He reached down from on high and took hold of me. He drew me up out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy..."

Our enemy is not people - bad bosses, mean family, or back-stabbing 'friends'. Our enemy is unseen - it's the forces and principalities set in motion by Satan himself. It's important to define who our enemy is!

We need to call out to the Lord. When Beth Moore was describing this, she used a lot of reference to the original text. It's been a while since I actually heard the simulcast, but my notes are decent and I hope I get this right. The word 'call', in the original language, means 'to make a specific invitation to'. We need to invite the Lord, in the times of our distress, to come to our aid! She also explained it as a cry of desperation - an invitation made in anguish at our breaking point. Let desperation be a gift, she said - so often we simply stuff our feelings and go about our relationships with people so clinically. We shouldn't let feelings rule our world or decisions (in my opinion, because sometimes our feelings are based on wrong motives or other such misguided things), but we need to at least acknowledge our desperation for God!

She then said that every season of calamity is an invitation to deliverance - meaning that we can be delivered before we even get into the pit! How cool is that??? Calamity will come. Temptation will come. It's not a sin to be faced with those things. It's how we deal with those things that determines whether or not we end up in a pit or end up victors. (Thankfully we can still be set free from the pit into victory - the win just takes longer to come around!)

God reaches out. He takes hold. He draws us out. And he sets our feet up on the Rock of His Son, Christ Jesus.

I'm so thankful for these thoughts. My life isn't perfect. My thoughts aren't always properly motivated. I am human. I struggle with imperfections and stresses and external forces that I can't control. But I've found lately that placing my trust anew and afresh on Christ the Solid Rock has enabled me to see each day more clearly. Sure, I still stumble. Sure, I still have my 'bad' days. But by God's grace I can face each day with a more positive attitude. I am beginning to be able to chooose joy more often. Even in the midst of an upside-down house (don't ask...), which used to get me down because I just couldn't keep on top of life, I can say that God is my strength and my shield. Even when I get 3 hours of sleep a night or have changed a dozen poopy diapers from a sick baby in one day, I can say that God is good. I couldn't always say that. Negative and destructive thoughts creep in. But I'm allowing God to renew my mind, and it's been refreshing.

That's enough for one night. I haven't proofed this, so I hope there aren't too many typos! Blessings to ya!

Clarification to yesterday's post

...I just wanted to clarify for some of you that might be wondering if YOU are on the wallpaper of my "people who have hurt me" pit...

Put the thought out of your mind! I mentioned about half-way through my post that "none of my blog readers are on my wallpaper". The people to whom I'm referring don't even know I have a blog!!

So, if you're worrying about stuff, don't! Normal relationships naturally have discussions and debates, but those get worked out. The wallpaper is made up of negative people and things that you just can't seem to let go of....

Does that help?

Be blessed today!

I'd write more, but I'm too exhausted to discourse more on Getting out of the Pit...it was a very busy weekend full of marathon housecleaning, a winter excursion to a friend's place for a tobogganing date, and hours and hours of paperwork and computerwork.

Toodles!

Wall-papering Pits

Well, in addition to the pit-dwelling discussion from the other day, I now I have time to share some more thoughts.

What is your pit wall-papered with?

See, sometimes the pit we live in is so familiar to us - we're so used to it - that it becomes a place we are comfortable staying, even though it's miserable. We don't know how to get out because getting out would mean leaving everything that's known to us. Satan likes to make our pit comfy cozy so that we don't want to leave!

My pit is wall-papered with food. My pit is also wall-papered with insecurity. My pit is wall-papered with people who have hurt me.

See, those things in themselves can be hurtful things. Food, the one exception, can go either way. Unfortunately, with struggling with post-partum depression this time around, I have become a slave to food and it's one thing I just can't get a grip on controlling. I find myself in a starchen stupor, as my friend Sharon termed it, and described it as this:

You are going to end up in what my sister and I call a "starchen stupor". I think they should actually add that term to medical dictionaries! It's so real! You end up eating not enough veggies and too much starch, and it's a vicious cycle - weight gain, sluggishness, depression ... leading to reaching for more starch because it's "comfort food"... on and on.

Oh, SO true!

So anyway, that's one of the things my pit is wall-papered with.

Another thing my pit is papered with is people. People who have hurt me. People who meant well but then turn and stab you in the back. People who just want to use you to elevate themselves. Do I want to be free of these people? Well....not exactly. Let me explain.

I want to be free of what these people do to me! It's not that I hate these people - it's just that I wish they would be interested in reconciling a relationship. But they're not. They don't think they've done anything wrong. I'm certainly not going to go into details here, but some of you know what I'm talking about (and thankfully, as far as I know, no one reading this blog belongs on my pit-wallpaper!). So, the question is: how far do you go in trying to restore important relationships before you just throw in the towel and pursue new relationships that will benefit both of you? Relationships where there is no other motive but friendship and love and fun and support? My wallpaper has the undertone of insecurity because I just don't know how far I'm supposed to reach to keep fallen relationships going. Forgiveness is there, but I'm not going to continue to put myself in positions of being hurt, when I know the person will just turn around and hurt me again and again. So, I'm confused.

Earlier, I said that "Satan likes to make our pits comfy-cozy so that we don't want to leave."

It's not like we see ourselves in trouble or distress and say to ourselves, "Yeah, I'd like to be miserable for the rest of my life." No, it's not that at all. It's a simple case that it's tough to reach out and grab hold of God's hand when we can't see what's outside of the pit. The unknown is a fearful place!

Another quote Sharon shared with me the other day is this:

When we are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, of this we can be sure . . . either God will provide something solid to stand on or . . . we will be taught to fly.

What I keep coming back to is this: God has been SO sovereign in my life. Sovereign to protect me as I was growing up with an alcoholic father. Sovereign to keep me pure in a messed-up world - because young women who are abused often turn to other 'comforts' to try and find acceptance - but God blinded me to all of that. Sovereign to give me gifts that I would one day use for His glory. Soooo, how can I doubt His sovereign hand now? Why not reach out and grab the mighty hand of God - He will give me something solid to stand on, even though I don't know what's on the other side of these pit walls!

My prayer for you today is that you are able to start recognizing your own pit (if you have one), and that God would reveal His sovereign plan to get you out of the pit and start living in the joy and freedom He has for you!