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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

I Just Love White!!


So the irony in my love of white is that I rarely use white.

You know, with 4 kids, 2 dogs, and a husband, well, white would end up brown or grey or dirt colored.

But one day, when the kids are grown and the dogs are gone, this is what I want my house to look like......

Click HERE to enjoy this awesome blog!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Your Husband is NOT Jesus.

I'm sure you're thinking in your head, "You got that right!" along with a long list of his faults.

But that's not what I mean. We all have a long list of faults.

What I am talking about is having expectations that he be perfect.

I think that our little human hearts just expect too much from other human beings. We chase the emptiness, we chase it in our marriages, in our friendships, even in our children. We want that empty hole in our hearts to be filled by someone. We expect the other person to rescue us and take away our pain and solve all of our problems.

NEWS FLASH..... IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

We must somehow remember what it was like to be Adam and Eve, before the downfall of mankind, before the apple incident. I think God wants it to be like that so we crave him. The problem is, we are short sighted and we only see what's right in front of us, which are other fallible human beings just like us... searching.

Searching for comfort and safety and self fulfillment. We're so needy and self-centered. We create so much conflict because of our deep seated desire for those things.

Why is the divorce rate over 50%? Maybe it has something to do with our expectations, and our unconscious selfishness. What happens when we don't get our needs met?

We demand.
We argue.
We get angry.
We build walls.
We stop listening.
We become more self centered.
We crawl away and lick our wounds.

What if we stopped,
stopped the vicious cycle.

Stopped putting so much pressure on the other person.

What if we just accepted them for who they are?
What if we just treated them like they were a normal person who sometimes screws up?
A person who wasn't there to fix you, or solve your life's problems.
Maybe our husbands are just there to go through life with us, so we're not alone in this world.

What if we tried to get closer to God, you know, like read the bible, pray, talk to other like minded individuals?

God isn't going to solve all of our problems either, but it sure is sweet to have Him on your side, reminding you that someday, you will be made perfect, in Heaven.

Maybe, God just wants us to let him love us.
Maybe focussing on Him would take the focus off of them (our husbands).
Maybe it would free us to love others without expectations.

I dare you to try..

Oh, and BTW men, your Wife is not Jesus either.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Complacency

com·pla·cen·cy
self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies

Today was a busy day in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). I work in a hospital that is fairly new. The NICU has been open for about 3 1/2 years. We have 6 beds, with a staff of very well seasoned NICU Nurses, most of us have worked in other busy NICU's before coming here. We have a really unique work environment. It seems that we are either very busy or very slow. It cycles, depending on what was going on 8 or 9 months ago, or what the weather is like, or if there's a full moon out that week, or who knows what.
We accept babies as early as 30 weeks. There are other NICU's that accept babies as early as 23-24 weeks. And even though we don't accept babies less than 30 weeks, we have to be prepared to stabilize babies as young as 23-24 weeks. We need to be able to stabilize these babies and prepare them to be transfered to our sister facility that has the specialists available to provide care for them.

We need to always be prepared for the unexpected.

So as I worked in the busy NICU today, I realized that during those slow times, many of us have become complacent.

What I mean is, we get too relaxed. We forget to check our equipment or our supplies, we forget to prepare bed spaces. We get comfortable.

We become unaware of what might happen.

So as I worked in the busy NICU today, getting vital signs, feeding babies, hanging IV fluids, I wondered if sometimes in life we become complacent too. We get so wrapped up and comfortable in our lives that we forget about God. We forget about our final destination. It made me think about the verse in 1 Thessalonians......

I don't think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master's coming can't be posted on our calendars. He won't call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody's walking around complacently, congratulating each other—"We've sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!"—suddenly everything will fall apart. It's going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3 (The Message)

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Thankful Thursdays.... CHAOS!

ALEC
He's 11 years old and a very smart and caring young man. He is known for his guitar playing and for his Alec-isms, (the very deep and cerebral things he says). So, I wanted to share this video of him playing his guitar.

Let me set it up first...

The day started off with a strange vibe in the air. I was at Romp and Roll with John Ashton (my 2 year old), and it seemed like every kid in the room was super charged with energy. If I didn't know better, I would think it were a full moon. The strange energy continued at home, as the day went on, things got more and more chaotic.

What was meant to be a video to show case Alec, turned out to be, well, somewhat of a disaster. Please try to look past the background noise. Next time we will hide in the closet while filming. This is the perfect ending to the perfectly chaotic day...




Today I am thankful for chaos. It lets me know I'm alive. It keeps me on my toes. It overwhelms me and helps me realize that there are just some things that are out of our control.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Liar

What a great post this is, gotta read it @ The Gypsy Momma, go there, read it..... you'll be blessed.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Bloom

Gotta tell you a story, a story about how God works in my life. If there is one thing I have learned in 43 years of being on this earth, it's that I need to be open to things, and content with not always having direction.

Ok, I admit it, that's hard for me, the goal oriented over achiever that I am.

But, there's this book that I bought about 5 or 6 years ago. It was in a rack at the Kroger or Food Lion, can't remember which. I bought it. It's called "Strong Women, Soft Hearts" by Paula Rinehart. 
For some reason, I stuck it on my book shelf and never read it. It later made it's way to a box stored in my shed. As I was cleaning out stuff for a yard sale, I came across the book and decided to sell it at the yard sale. I figured some other women might enjoy reading it. It was in a box in my daughters car ready to be sold. Later that night I was reading this blog that I had discovered several months ago. The blog is called Bloom. It's an online book club, where women read and discuss certain books, and the book that they are discussing now is.......
"Strong Women, Soft Hearts".

So, I ran to the car, and grabbed the book out of the yard sale box. And started reading, and knew that God had totally planned it this way. I really needed to hear this stuff now, not 5 years ago, but right now!

And here is why, in a nutshell, I'm just beginning this next journey with God there is much to be discovered......

In the midst of my mid-life crisis, I feel empty, like I should know what I'm doing, and have a sense of accomplishment. I know, I have accomplished a lot, but it's this emptiness that I can't explain. Paula Rinehart put it like this in the first paragraph of her book, 
"People often complain of such things during that season of life (mid-life is what she is referring to) -- like someone drilled a hole through their souls. While everything looks the same on the outside, they feel hollow and restless, bored in ways that make no sense."

THAT'S IT!!!! She just put into words what I am experiencing right now at this point in my life! 

I love how God speaks to me.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Cycles


I'm drawing a blank these days. I think that's called writer's block or something like that.

Perhaps this is just how life is... it cycles.

There are times of creativity, times of productivity, times of introspection, times of contemplation, times of application, and the list goes on.

Each of these has it's purpose.

It's nice to step back and really take a look at things... gain perspective... wonder.

Ask what if?  and  why?

Stay in the indecision for a while, stay uncomfortable for a while, it's all part of the growth process that we all go through. (yeah, everyone goes through a growth process, but not everyone is aware of their growth process, open your eyes)

We complicate life so much.
We expect too much from ourselves.
We expect too much from others.
We expect too much from God.

If we really knew Him, we would have no other expectation than to love Him, like He loves us.

God created us for him.


He's not a Genie or Magician that answers our requests in the form of prayers.

He's not something I add to my life, schedule in, make time for.

We are part of His creation, His purpose, His plan.

Donald Miller put it ever so wonderfully when he wrote "If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you." (from his book "A Million Miles In a Thousand Years")

So where are you in the cycle?

Where are you with God?

What are you creating in God's story?

Why do you do what you do?