What I Want My Kids to Learn from Me...Marriage

There's a reason the words are in this order...
Live, Laugh, Love

Never underestimate how hard marriage is. Yes, there are a lot of good times, but even those only come from the work that you put into the bad times. You know how you feel about your brother and sister some days? You will have those same feelings about your spouse too. They are in your space, they know too much about you, you have to compromise when you don't want to. That's why it is so important for you to learn now how to play with others. Make sure you marry your best friend, and make sure you play together every day. Learn how to be a team, to work together, to laugh at yourself and each other. It makes the hard times easier, and it makes you want to keep trying to get through them. Romance comes and goes, but friendship will last throughout the good times and the bad. It gives you someone to live your life with and to enjoy the little, everyday moments that seem so mundane. If you marry your best friend, you don't need a date night to connect with your spouse. If you marry your best friend, you will reconnect through every situation every single day. If you marry your best friend, life is fun and your family time is a party. Never underestimate the value of marrying your friend!

We sat in the stork, and 9 months later Maddox joined our family...
maybe there's more to the story than meets the eye

Don't try to plan out your lifestory, just live it while it happens. The most enjoyable moments in marriage are the ones that are unexpected. If you are busy trying to live your life by the bullet points you have set, you will miss out on what life really has in store for you. Be flexible, be willing to change your plans at a moments notice, and learn to go with the flow. Remember that you are not perfect, but never stop striving to be your best. The greatest freedom is learning to give up what you want in your life and allowing God to take control. Allow God to take your marriage and turn it into what he has planned. Allow Him to make the big decisions for you, and trust Him with it. He knows you better than you know yourself, and He wants great and wonderful things to come from your life. Don't settle for a marriage that the world sees as great, strive for a marriage that God sees as amazing. If you think God will do wonderful things with you, just imagine what He can do with the partnership you have formed with another person!

Every July 4, we go to a game together.
Marrying a baseball player, I rarely get to enjoy the game WITH him.
It's nice to connect doing something he loves and I love supporting!

Enrich your life together with traditions. There is nothing more important than forming lasting memories together. Make traditions that bring you closer together, give you time to get to know eachother better, and, most importantly, have fun. I hope that as I strive to form traditions with you, that you will enjoy them so much you want to use them with your own family. But never forget to make your own traditions. The traditions I make for us are important to me, so go ahead and make some traditions that are important to you. And if you could pass along my name, so I become the cool great-great grandma B, I'd appreciate it!

There's no better way to see the beauty of God's creation
than to enjoy it with the one He created for you to enjoy it with.

There's not one perfect person for everyone, until you're married. Don't ever settle for less than what you desire, but don't waste your life searching for the "perfect" person. No one is perfect, and even those who you think are, you will soon learn that they are not. When you find someone worthy to spend your life with and make the committment to each other, then that is when God's seal is placed on your life together, this is when they become "The One". When you make the vow to remain with each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, so long as you both shall live, mean it. It's not just words, and from that moment on, no matter what, you are meant to be together. Divorce is not an option. The hard times will come, but fight through them as if your life depends on it...because it does. And when you make it through, because if you both fight for it you will make it, you will be better together than you were before. Do not ever doubt the power God has to transform your marriage, I have seen it first hand. Do not ever doubt if this is the person you are meant to be with. There are no "what-ifs" or "if it were so-and-so" there is only now. You made the choice, so stick by it and do not back out, ever.

Nothing will prove how great of a team you really are than
children. Nothing will make you as strong of a couple as dedicating
yourselves to the common goal of raising a family together.

And if you are as lucky as we were, and God blesses you with children, dedicate your life to them. Recognize the fullness children bring to your family, how they bind you together, how they make you an even stronger team than you were before. I never even knew what true love was, until God gave you to us. Children change your entire life. They make the trials worth it, the future seems brighter, and they will reveal the nature of God to you more than you could ever imagine. Marriage is just the beginning, family is what happens when the dreams of marriage come to fruition. It may be hard, and it may not come easily, but it will be the most important thing you will ever do with your life if you chose to give your family over to God and dedicate your life to making that happen. Follow God's will for your family, for your children, and you will have the greatest impact on the world any person could ever have!

The Beauty of Darkness

There's a reason evil lurks around in dark places. Pretending it's beautiful, masquerading as perfection, a promise of greener pastures. Wishful thinking, regret, what-ifs. Mocking, luring, destroying. We hold these secrets inside. Guarding them in the core of our being, protecting them as if our life depends on it. Reveling in the beauty, the seduction, the raw emotion. Oh, how beautiful these inner secrets seem. How precious to our sense of being. We become lured in and entangled, and we like it there. The way these secrets feel, the tingle up our spine, the promises they make. Oh, but these secrets, these beautiful, wonderful, glorious secrets that we curl ourselves up in, once exposed to the light are nothing but ugly, dirty, worthless lies. The way others feel about us that serve as our motivation. The secret pain in our hearts, the lust of the flesh, the burning anger. The wounds that we peel open, the desires that we seek, the flames that we fan. We keep them in the dark, because they are beautiful there. We hide them as far from the light as we can because we know, we fear, that once they are brought into the light they will be revealed for what they truly are. Brick walls built up around our hearts, chains enslaving us to another, a passionate fire destroying us from inside our own selves. Yes, it is beautiful, but only in darkness. Once exposed, we can try to pretend, but we know the truth. We can try to cover up, but it has been revealed. We can try to get the feelings back, but the excitement is lost. There is beauty is the dark, but only true beauty can survive when brought into the light. And the ugly is only uncovered once we recognize the darkness it's been hiding in. The truth that it hides behind. The true joy and pleasure that awaits us, rather than the un-fullfillment, the hunger that these secrets will bring. The ultimate lie that hides in the darkness so well, that there's really no beauty there at all.

The Not-So-Perfect Life

God's sense of humor, or rather irony, seems to be a pretty on-going theme in the story of my life. His constant little "tests" to see if I'm going to practice what I preach. OK, so maybe that's not God, maybe that's just life doing what life does while God is preparing me for it, but doesn't it seem like every time you try so hard to master something, every little thing is going to start going wrong? I've been trying to "master" the art of Thanksgiving over the past 25 days, to truly be thankful for the hard things in my life. To pour the fruits of the Spirit into everything I do rather than living through my own strength. Well, the past 24 hours have been just one test after another (hopefully, I passed more than I failed, although I know there were times I could have done better...but, hey, I'm a work in progress!) It was one of those times when I could almost feel God's eyes on me, wondering "Is she going to have a pity party, or is she going to put into practice everything she preaches?"

I think the quote "Life's what happens when we're busy making plans" perfectly describes my Thanksgiving this year. While I had everything all planned out a certain way, while I had my ideas of how to make this Thanksgiving successful, life had other ideas. I've had an on-going migraine for 4 days now. We've had a difficult time juggling family schedules this year and, of course, no matter how hard you try someone's feelings get hurt. My house is a disaster zone and none of our projects have been finished. And, on the children front, my oldest got a stomach virus, while my daughter began having nightmares, and my baby is going through a growth spurt. All of this is a recipe for disaster for me. Not feeling well + already feeling like things are just not working out + a not-so-inviting and increasingly stressful environment + dealing with sick, cranky, non-sleeping children = perfect opportunity for me to completely lose it. Thankfully, I feel like God has been preparing me for this moment. From learning how to parent in the Spirit, to my gentleness and wife challenges, to learning the art of being truly thankful, everything God has been speaking to my heart is what helped me make it through this week with my sanity still intact. So, even when (or maybe I should say "especially when") things seem to be going perfectly in my life, I know that right around the corner are those not-so-perfect moments just waiting for the perfect time to ambush me and it's normally all at once. Luckily for us, as Christians, we are prepared, we can handle it, and we can make it through these times. And even though this Thanksgiving is probably the "worst" when I look at it from a situational standpoint, it has been the Thanksgiving of the most learning, the most growth, and the most opportunity for growing together as a family.

God's Masterpiece is Mother

God took the fragrance of a flower,
The majesty of a tree,
The gentleness of morning dew,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The beauty of the twilight hour,
The soul of a starry night,
The laughter of a rippling brook,
The grace of a bird in flight.
Then God fashioned from these things
A creation like no other,
And when his masterpiece was through
He called it simply – Mother.

 Herbert Farnham

Moments of Inspiration

Inspiring things happen every day. It could be a little thing like your baby's first smile 

or a miraculous thing like my 11 year old niece going for her last chemo treatment after 3 years and many close calls. No matter what it is, it is a reminder that life is worth living and worth living well! We are fearfully, wonderfully, and purposefully made!

Gentleness: The 30 day challenge

Having 3 children 3 and under one can only imagine the noise level in our house. During breakfast "Little Einsteins" is blasting on the TV while the kids are jumping from couch to couch either singing along, laughing, or fighting depending on their apparent mood. At the same time I'm trying to get dishes done while they "eat" and the radio is tuned in to the local AM talk station so I can get my dose of local news and conversation. Of course the radio is turned up so I can hear it above the running water, clanging dishes, and to try to cover up the noise coming from the living room.
To top it off I am one of those people who is just "loud." I mean, I am physically LOUD. My voice just carries! Then the icing on the cake, I grew up in a family with four children where, unfortunately, our conversations consisted more of arguing and raised voices than nice, gentle conversation.

So combine this family background with my naturally loud voice and the noise level in our house and top it off with an autistic child who at times doesn't even realize there is anyone else on the planet and it had begun to seem impossible for me to ever keep my voice to a normal level! I began to feel like I wake up screaming! The need to speak so loudly put a major strain on my emotional health throughout the day. I felt like my children weren't listening, that in order to make them listen I had to speak louder. And because I was already speaking loudly the level I felt like I had to reach in order to discipline my children reached levels that I'm pretty sure our entire neighborhood, if not the entire city, could hear. I'm talking birds flying out of trees, dogs howling, make my children's eyes get as big as saucers loud. Mommas, this is not a part of our calling.

Have you ever reached that point where you are shouting so loudly you don't think you can shout any louder? Then some how you find it in you to give it just a little more? I always picture the scene in "Beauty and the Beast" when the Beast is yelling at her to get out when he discovers her about to touch the rose. Why did he react this way? Out of fear that she would touch the rose and it would jeopardize him ever being able to become a prince again, out of anger because he told her not to go in there, and probably a little out of surprise. Seems pretty similar to why I react the way I do as well.(Yes, I know I am analyzing a Disney movie, but if you have ever been in my house to see me scream you would realize just how perfect that scene is so stick with me!) Do you remember Belle's reaction? She is so afraid that she runs not just out of the room, but out of the castle, and runs straight into the wolves grasp as she escapes into the forest. Are you beginning to see why this scene is so perfect for so many reasons?

Commit to memory Proverbs 15:1 (The book of Proverbs is where my entire knowledge of discipline has been learned. If you haven't read it lately you should read it searching for truths about discipline. It will amaze you.) Proverbs 15:1 says, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." I love the New Living Translation which says, "A gentle answer defects anger, but a harsh word makes tempers flare."

This verse is perfect for any relationship, but let's really look at how it will effect our relationship with our children. My children are all still small so that's why the image between Beauty and the Beast is so perfect for me right now. I am at least 2 feet taller than my children, and I promise the fact that I am a very petite person compared to most adults does not make me any less frightening to my kids! We have reenacted this scene many times. I realized I really needed to change the way I was reacting when I saw the same reaction in my children as I saw in Belle. They ran from me screaming with terror, into whatever room was closest, and locked the door. My son was screaming, "I don't want to unlock the door," as I pounded on it so hard I swear the door was about to fly off of its hinges. Talk about giving in to my flesh! I had completely lost all sense of the fruits of the spirit, but I wasn't the one who was getting hurt in that moment, it was my children. My children had run from me and had reached the point where if there was a fire in the house I would not have been able to convince them to open the door. My children were becoming afraid of me, and I knew that once they were afraid of me my chances of being an effective parent were shot.

How did I know this? Insert the scenes that were flashing through my mind while I was yelling at my own children. I saw all of the times my parents had yelled, gotten physical, and let their anger show more than their love for me. Trust me the scenes I remember from my childhood that matched up so well to the scene in "Beauty and the Beast" were NOT the scenes that I wanted to run through my children's minds as well. I knew what would happen once my children began to feel those feelings from me and for me because that is how I had felt towards my parents. As children they ran to the safety of a locked room to shut me out, but as they got older I knew they would run to very different and even more dangerous places. So here's where it led me...

I challenged myself to 30 days of gentleness. I chose 30 days because I heard somewhere that it takes about 27 days to break a bad habit and I figured I'd need a few more days. So for 30 days I did not allow myself to raise my voice. Did I fail at times? Of course I did. At the beginning it wasn't until I was coming up on minute #2 of shouting at my children to listen, that I caught myself and switched to my "gentle" voice. Trust me, there is no effectiveness to the "gentle" voice once it has been preceded by the "harsh" voice. In fact, I think my children realized I had done something I didn't want to do and decided to take advantage of the moment of weakness. This led to even more opportunity for me to practice my "gentle" voice.

After about a week though I realized that I had gone a couple of days without raising my voice! (Please, don't confuse things here. During times of discipline there is still a need for a very firm tone, but tone and volume are two very different things. Also remember that a firm tone needs to be used with gentleness rather than anger). The funny thing was by the third week not only had I began to go days without raising my voice, but my children did as well. I promise you when I realized what had been happening the heavens opened and I could hear the angels singing and that is the complete truth!
Remember our children model everything from what they see, and that means they model everything they see in us.

I cannot even begin to describe the changes that have come from this 30 day challenge. That natural reaction that I used to have of yelling and waving my arms and all the other craziness I used to do has now been replaced by a reaction of bending down to their level and speaking with a calm, quiet tone. In turn, their reaction to me has been one of obedience and even more tenderness. My children now give me a hug when I scold them. I promise you I did not see that one coming, but they do. It's almost like they are thanking me for not yelling at them (I have to guess here since they are so young it's not like they can even begin to explain to me why they do what they do.) It has also changed the way my children have reacted to each other. If you ever want to know what you sound like, listen to how your kids talk to each other. I found they talk to each other the same way I talk to them. The good thing is it makes it very apparent to me when I am doing something wrong.

So, I challenge every one of you mommas who struggles with this to take a 30 day gentleness challenge. I know it will work for you the way it did for me. Commit Proverbs 15:1 to memory, write it on your mirror if you have to, put it on a rubber band that you wear around your wrist to pop yourself whenever you find yourself screaming. Whatever works for you, do it! Then just sit back and watch in amazement the changes it will bring to your life! Here's a hint on where to begin: I learned very early on in the challenge to turn the TV down, leave the radio off, and enjoy the peace and quiet while I do my dishes. It's amazing how easy it is to be more gentle when you don't have so much noise to compete with!

UPDATE: CHECK OUT THE RESULTS!!!

“No Time to Play”

My precious boy with the golden hair
Came up one day beside my chair
And fell upon his bended knee
And said, “Oh, Mommy, please play with me!”

I said, “Not now, go on and play;
I’ve got so much to do today.”
He smiled through tears in eyes so blue
When I said, “We’ll play when I get through.”

But the chores lasted all through the day
And I never did find time to play.
When supper was over and dishes done,
I was much too tired for my little son.

I tucked him in and kissed his cheek
And watched my angel fall asleep.
As I tossed and turned upon my bed,
Those words kept ringing in my head,

“Not now, son, go on and play,
I’ve got so much to do today.”
I fell asleep and in a minute’s span,
My little boy is a full-grown man.

No toys are there to clutter the floor;
No dirty fingerprints on the door;
No snacks to fix; no tears to dry;
The rooms just echo my lonely sigh.

And now I’ve got the time to play;
But my precious boy is gone away.
I awoke myself with a pitiful scream
And realized it was just a dream

For across the room in his little bed,
Lay my curly-haired boy, the sleepy-head.
My work will wait ‘til another day
For now I must find some time to play.

Dianna (Mrs. Joe) Neal

Idle hands really are the devil's playground...

I'm always amazed when my Bible Study moms pull out their calenders so we can schedule a girl's night out. The days are packed! I never really thought about why until Rob came home from his first few days of teaching 4th grade completely defeated. The first words out of my mouth were, "You just have to keep them busy. You can't stop for a minute!" I swear it was like the heavens opened. I got it! I finally understood why I have something solid scheduled for 3 days of the week and fill the others with playdates with whatever friends are available or "special" activities for me and the kids to do.

We have a yearly zoo pass, a stockpile of Chuck E. Cheese tokens, and I even have a list of the kids' favorite places to go that I keep handy for those "I need to get the kids out of the house NOW" moments. Chick-fil-A for breakfast is pretty common since they can play on the playground while I enjoy my coffee, do some Bible Study, or read a good book. The BREC indoor playground has become a favorite place for playdates since it is gated off and there is so much for the kids to do we mommies can have around 3 hours of adult conversation without worrying about children wandering off. I will even go to the mall before it opens since there's no crowd but the mall is open for employees (and those cute mall-walkers).Now I'm not saying you have to spend every single second out of your house. In fact, if you walk into my house at any point during the day it will look like a day care in here! Why? Because it IS a day care!

Our home is where our kids play, learn, and live! We have a playroom upstairs where I keep their "mess". I go up there no more than once a week to clean and the kids can just do what they want to do. BUT that is not the only place we have toys. We have a "play" section in every room of our house. A box of toys will even make it's way into our master bedroom and bathroom on occasion. The kids wander from room to room pulling out whatever they want and rarely put one thing back before getting out something else. And it will stay that way until they go to sleep because I do not follow them around all day picking up the trail of mess behind them. Usually I am on the floor beside them making the mess too. Even though my house may look like a toy store exploded (and most of the toys look like casualties of war), I get more joy at the end of the day looking at this hot mess of a house than I ever did looking around at a house where everything was perfectly in place.

In fact the days when I tried to keep everything perfectly in place were the most stressful, most unenjoyable moments of my entire life. It is literally like trying to follow after a tornado to clean up after it. Not only that, but imagine that after that tornado passes another comes through and then another and another and another. Yeah, spare yourself the stress! Learn to not only love the mess, but learn to help make it!

Teach a mom to pout, she'll be happy for a day. Teach a mom to shower, she'll be happy for a lifetime.

The most important thing to remember is that we are weak, weak people. We are weak emotionally, physically, and we easily become weak spiritually. If we are not careful our flesh will literally suck the life right out of us. But here's something we seem to forget, if we surround ourselves with flesh we will get the life sucked out of us even faster! God recognized this in us from the beginning of creation. He gave Eve to Adam, Aaron to Moses, Elisha to Elijah, Silas to Paul, and on and on and on. Even Jesus had 12 chosen disciples. Sometimes we just need something physical to plug into so we can reharge our battery. The problem when trying to plug our spiritual selves into a fleshly socket is that we will short out and become, well, useless.

But what does this have to do with motherhood? This is why it is so important to practice discernment when we decide who to surround ourselves with. Here's a real life example: I am beyond exhausted, frustrated, and cranky. Eden was up all night with a cold, Maddox was having night terrors, and as soon as we finally got everyone settled down and asleep at 3am Kason decided it was time to par-tay! Physically I am done, emotionally I am hanging off of the cliff, and my spiritual self is on the back shelf completely.

I call up a friend who says she is on her way and for me to put the coffee on. She gets here, we pour a cup of coffee, and spend the next two hours while the kids nap talking about how difficult being a mother is. I cry, she says she understands and even cries a little herself, we hug and she leaves. The problem is, I feel even more exhausted after she left and now that the kids are awake I feel completely d.o.n.e. done. But I don't know why because I felt "better" while she was here. I felt so "understood". I felt "encouraged".

Now imagine if I had called a different friend. I tell her what happened, she tells me to put on a pot of coffee because she's coming over. As soon as she walks through the door I start crying, but instead of letting me have a pity party she tells me to go take a shower and she will take care of the kids if they wake up. While I'm in the shower I have my time to relax and finish "pitying" myself. As I come out and see that she has done the dishes and is folding my laundry I immediately feel the need to get to work cleaning up this crazy mess of a house while the kids are taking their nap. She leaves and my house is in better shape, but so am I. Why? Because instead of having me spend two hours plugged into my flesh and focusing on how difficult things are she realizes it is time for me to wake up. She realizes that I need time to pity myself, but that it's also time for me to pull it together. She encourages me that, yes, I had a bad night, but guess what it's morning! The kids are all napping at the same time and instead of trying to make the best of my day I am still stuck focusing on the worst of my night.

The spiritual gift of goodness is one that I absolutely adore. It is the partner to the gift of kindness, but it is the physical act of it's emotional counterpart. The reason I love it, is because, ironically, goodness is all about rebuking others. That is what I need! I need a fellow mother to have a tender heart for my situation (kindness) but a firm hand when it comes to how I handle it (goodness). I don't need a mother to give me advice, I need a mother to give me guidance. I'm so blessed that very early on in motherhood I learned the art of taking a shower!

If you haven't yet read about your super powers now is the perfect time to do so!!!