Our family recently spent some time captivated by the emerald green waters of Destin, Florida. It was fun to watch my husband and daughter roll with each wave among the ombré hues of the Gulf. With each swell, they would lean back and let the wave carry them and then look to the shore to measure the distance. They would then swim out and wait for the next big one to carry them further. As I watched them from the beach, a pressing upon my heart began and the words, “Keep watching me.” filled my mind. It wasn’t a watching of people but something of the waters that stirred within my heart.
Continue readingTag Archives: John 16:33
Mom Life: Road Signs
We have entered a new area of training with our older children. Driving!! I can feel my heart beat faster just by typing the word! Teaching them to drive has been…let’s just say….there is not a GPS to guide you through the anxiety, bumps, swerves, near misses, tears and yes, even those wide turns (overly wide turns… eh hem). Sometimes I cannot believe we arrive at our destination unscathed! I’ve always known what the handles on the ceiling of my car were for….really I did. With that being said, never in my mind did actually using them surface! That was until several months ago when one of those wide turns came without the aid of braking. I’ve never grabbed something so fast with all my might as though it could save me from the impending doom ahead. Needless to say, it has become my friend over the past few months. I just hope it will remain intact until my kids carry out the necessary training with responsible driver as their destination.
Mom Life: Car Troubles
Laughter overflows as my husband’s voice echoes in my ears. “How can you not notice or pay attention to the things going on outside your vehicle!” to which I reply, “I’m so focused on the chaos going on in the car that my mind cannot focus on anything else!” The stories that I or my children tell, leave just about everyone wondering how I could scrape the side of the car backing out of the garage, or knock off mirrors, or side swipe my husband’s car twice (who by the way didn’t park correctly….that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), or back into a car that I clearly saw behind me in the drive, or the most recent a poor tree!
Moms you know what I’m saying…right! Sometimes, Taylor Swift’s song, “Trouble” begins among our children the minute we step foot in the car! I know I’m not the only mom since our carpet cleaner verified his wife doing this when he went above and beyond and popped out a small dent and used something to buff off the black streaks on my car. With that being said, how can my car troubles be a living example of truth and light? Let me unfold the tree story for you!
Failure, Is it as Bad as it Seems?
Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
C. S. Lewis
We live in a world that sees failure as a negative and something determining who you are as a person and our self-worth. Failure lurks everywhere and we strive as business professionals, parents, and teach our children to avoid it at all costs. We stunt their growth when we take over their lives, over-protect them, leap tall buildings adverting any struggle along their path so they never feel the pain or disappointment of failure all out of fear. Inevitably we set them up to fail in ways we never imagined and I have to ask is failure as bad as it seems?
Lesson 2: Understanding in the Process
I had a love/hate relationship with Bob Bender. I hated to start my bending therapy for the day and I loved when my time with Bob was over. As I got to thinking more about my love/hate relationship with Bob, I remembered other things I had this relationship with too. It was there in exercise, sweets, helping with homework, seasons, as well as growth and yes, even in obedience.
While each have its “perks”, they also have things that I dread or do not like about them. I hate to exercise but love the benefit it gives to my mind and body. I love sweets but hate how they make me feel when I have consumed too much. I don’t like to help in homework because of the grasping I feel when I try to find a way to communicate the process to my child but I love when they grasp the understanding and with renewed strength can move forth on their own. I love the changing seasons, each has their own beauty but they also carry things I don’t like such as ice, extreme heat, mosquitoes, and extreme cold.
Just as with the changes in seasons, my life goes through seasons. Growth can be painful and there are seasons that I just want to rush through because they are hard to bear, explain and endure. Obedience is key to my growth and it is required in these difficult seasons.
Tumbleweeds
I don’t know if or how familiar you are with tumbleweeds. Being born and raised in the southwest parts of Kansas, it seemed sometimes we were inundated with these pesky weeds. The winds caused them to get caught up in the wind breaks and in drought or raging wind became an added fuel to fire. To me, a Kansas farm girl, it made for fun chasing after one in the summer winds and heat. Either way, growing up with tumbleweeds was a familiar nuisance or added fun however you looked at it.
Life Unfolded 