Growing

So part of the reality of a confession is to grow and move past the issues that have caused you to sin in the first place. And although I talked about three areas in my life that I am struggling with last time and I am very concerned about my struggle with money and food, it is my struggle with my children that grieves me the most.
But here is the thing about God, sin, secrets and satan. As long as satan can convince you told hold your sin and secrets to your chest, he can keep you from truly seeking help and revelation. He keeps you from growing past what it is that keeps you locked in that sin.
Yesterday we were getting ready to go to the park to play. The little ones were acting crazy (excited to go... being their age). I got frustrated at being ignored and I could feel myself filling up with anger. I threw a toy down and stomped out of the room, crying. Keith followed me and we talked for a couple of minutes. I was unable to express to him what I was feeling and he was unable to understand what I was going through. I told him that we should just head to the park and we could talk there. I was feeling calmer and I wanted the little ones to have the fun time promised.

We headed off to the park and were having a nice time when Evynn fell and hurt her nose (she is fine now and I will not go into all that for sake of time). Keith and I decided we should take her to Children's to get it checked out.
As we were driving there (after dropping two off at Jennifer's) he and I had a chance to talk and really began to understand each other.
Here is what I have been thinking - there are two areas that I struggle with –

One, feeling like if I do not teach them to obey immediately and right now (I mean while they are young) they will grow up to be disobedient adults who cannot function & follow God's will for their lives and…

Two, that when I get mad at them it scars them for life. Every time I lose my temper and yell at my children, I feel that it is going to causing permanent damage.

I understand that they are going to act like little children. THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE. But the burden of believing I must see the results of training “them up” right now coupled with the belief that I am ruining them every time I raise my voice in frustration is overwhelming me. It is a pretty heavy burden to bear and one that my husband pointed out as wrong. I feel like that one moment is going to damage them for all eternity. First because I have obviously NOT trained them well and second because I got mad and yelled at them. My frustration that I feel does not have anything to do with them. It has to do with me.

I struggle with this burden every day. I mean, really, I do not spend all day yelling at my children. We actually have a lot of fun together. But I am so convinced that any moment disobedience followed by my "losing it" and yelling at them is going to cause permanent damage that I when I do lose it, I spiral. I get frustrated with myself, and then my focus is no longer on God and the Holy Spirit (and let's be honest, the only way to get through parenting with any amount of calmness is through the Holy Spirit).

So that is it, satan has won that battle. He has taken my focus away from God and turned it on to myself. Then I tend to get more frustrated and yell more, feeling more guilty, more condemning, more frustration, more yelling, more guilt... you see where this is going.

So yesterday, BECAUSE I AM NO LONGER KEEPING SECRETS, Keith exposed the lies I was telling myself.

Who would not feel enormous amounts of pressure, thinking EVERY mistake will be life ruining? For the first time, HE UNDERSTOOD why I was feeling so crazy about this. We were able to identify it and attack satan's lies through prayer!

Today, at the end of church we sang a beautiful song about how much God loves us and as I sang, I was actually brought to my knees, overwhelmed by His love. Overwhelmed by the reality that is actually feels good to be broken by Him. These last few days have been hard. It is hard to let down the people who love you the most. It is hard to really look at behaviors, label them and attack them. It is hard to be exposed. But is also feels really good. The other thing about secrets is that you get so caught up in them that you can no longer focus on the One who loves us the most . These are the words from that song and I am struck by the first line... He is jealous for me... He wants all my attention, all my love... He does not want me to get all caught up in manufactured drama...



He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane
I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy

When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

And oh, how He loves us so
Oh how He loves us
How He loves us all
Yeah, He loves us
Oh how He loves us
Oh how He loves us
Oh how He loves

And we are His portion and
He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking
And Heaven meets Earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest

I don't have time to maintain these regrets When I think about, the way...

Confession

Romans 7:15-20 (New International Version)

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.... For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

Or to put it another way.....

Romans 7:15-20 (The Message)
What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. ...
...For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

Yesterday my husband looked at our credit card statement and the reality of a secret I have been hiding came to light. I have a problem. I have a problem with self-control. In manifests itself in three big areas of my life right now. Money, food and anger. So, I have come here to confess my sins and maybe seek some accountability. Even as I type this, I have a knot in my stomach. I would much rather keep these secrets to myself. Keith and I talked at length about this last night. He knows everything. And God certainly knows everything. But as Keith pointed out, there is something to be said about accountability partners - people who help to keep you on track.

Let's talk about secrets first. Satan loves a secret. As long as I keep my secrets, then he can use them build guilt in my heart. As long as guilt is surrounding my heart, my communion with God is stinted, maybe even shut down. My connection with others is crippled. When holding onto a secret, we forget that God has ALREADY forgiven us for our sins. THAT debt has been paid. We hide in shame from something God already knows we did and we shrink away from the life of abundance that we have been promised, thinking we are not worthy. Secrets also keep us from getting help and helping others. How many others struggle with our same issues but out of fear and embarrassment, we keep the secret and lose out on the chance to help & be helped.

So now let's talk about confession. Brandon talked about confession on Sunday. I do not have time to go back and listen to all he said (nap is almost over & Bowden is being really good entertaining himself but how long will that last?) But the gist of what God said to me there was confession is NOT about admitting to God what we did (He already knows) but about stating it out in the open so that the issue can be dealt with and resolved. Blanket confessions are not enough. "Hey, God, I am sorry I spent too much money this week..." I could go on and on about this... I would like to because then I do not have to get to the actual confession part - but let's just say, I need to confess because it takes the power from what I have done away from Satan and gives God the power to help me move past my sin.

So here goes,

1. I spend money we do not have and then I try to keep my husband from finding out so I can pay it off with money I get from pitching lessons. This is not the first time I have done it. This time it was over $1000 over a couple of months.

2. I have serious issue with eating too much and eating things that are bad for me.

3. I get angry with my children and yell it them in a very harsh way.

All three of these things boil down to self-control & my lack of it. I feel like I have been a hypocrite over the past couple of months as I have seen these areas of my life spiraling out of control and tried to let everyone think that I have GOT IT ALL TOGETHER.

The Scripture I posted to start this off scream to me every day. I know the life I am supposed to live and I just cannot seem to get there. I wake up each morning with good intentions and then one thing or another will happen and I start to slip down a slope of sin. Then I listen to satan whisper in my ear and I am overwhelmed with guilt. How could I talk to anyone about what I am going through? They would NEVER understand. And they would JUDGE me.

Let me say, I have the best husband ever. He is an encourager and a man of God. My sins financially have been a burden on him and he is neither angry nor discouraged. As I have gained A LOT of weight, he has always shown me how much he loves me and is attracted to me. As I have struggled with being harsh to our children, he has prayed with me and helped to lighten my load. God has blessed our family with a man who will lead us in His path.

Another thing, many might say these struggles are related to having four children in 4 1/2 years and I would say strongly that is not so. These are things I have struggled with my ENTIRE adult life. I can remember when I used to go to the GAP and spend $400 $500 without a thought (back when I was single). I always lived paycheck to paycheck and had people calling about past due bills. I have always struggled with eating issues. Back before children I bounced back and forth between eating too much and not eating at all. And as for anger, ask any of my old players and they will tell you that I certainly had anger issues.

Perhaps having all these children has brought these issues to a head. Perhaps it is that I see the effect these issues have on the people I love more now and I am more moved by it... Whatever it is, I do know that my life cannot continue to roller coaster through these sinful actions. I want more for my family than this. I want to be the wife and mother God has called me to be.

So that is my confession.

So I have been homeschooling for going on about a month now. I can honestly say there has not been a moment of regret. Frustration and irritation but no regret. I feel in my heart that this is completely the right thing to do and God continues to affirm this is so many ways!!!

Evynn and Kailyn are doing pretty well too. The get a little needy or loud at times but really, I am amazed at how they are able to entertain each other. I enjoy listening to them play as Bowden and I work on school.

Perhaps the funniest moment of homeschooling so far was yesterday while working on lowercase "m". I was explaining to Bowden the proper way to make an "m" which he did not agree with and he looked at me and said "Mommy, that is ridiculous!" I told him if we ever came across the person who came up with the proper way to write letters we could tell him. I have to say, I do agree with Bowden. he can make a perfectly nice "m" without doing it the "proper" way!!!

Bowden started at Homeschool Academy last week. it is a one day program that allows moms some free time and gives the students some social interaction and outside instruction. Bowden's teach said on the first day "He certainly has a lot of energy". And today... he got a note sent home saying he is struggling with self-control and talking (no, not one of our children... talking too much????). Not shocked by this!!! One of the big reasons that we started going down the road of homeschooling in the first place. I cannot imagine how it would be going if he had to sit in a class all day every day. I love that he goes to Academy once a week to work on these skills but he is not getting int trouble all day every day!

Well, that is about it for now! Off to enjoy an evening with my blessed husband!!!!

Expectations

Homeschooling is just one more way for God to reveal Himself to me, for Him to mold me and shape me… So, as I mentioned last time, I have a bit of a pride issue and boy did it rear its’ ugly head this week. Mix that with my expectation sickness and boy did I have a rough Wednesday!

Last week we had a babysitter and I wrote out a little note for Bowden to copy. I did not have high expectations for how it would go seeing as we had not gotten to several of the letters that were included in the note. He, however, was focused and did an awesome job. I was so proud of him. So this week, I decided to have the little ones color pictures for the grandparents to celebrate that day on Sunday. I printed out some coloring pages and gave them over to be colored. My plan was to have each do their best on a couple and then have Bowden write a little note on them. Not one minute after I gave them the sheets Bowden returned with his, covered in black crayon, saying, “I am done.”

Me: “Oh, no you are not. I cannot believe that you just did that. This is for Omi or Grandma. Don’t you want it to look pretty?”

*Please keep in mind; he is only 5, only been working on writing letters for three weeks and never really liked to color….

He looked sad and sat down to do a little more. Then I wrote out the note for him to copy:
Hi Omi & Taid
Love
Bowden
Evynn
Kailyn
Ryen

He immediately said he could not do it. I got frustrated again but after a little thought realized that perhaps making him write his sister’s names was a little too much… He went to work but immediately started off doing it wrong. It was not centered… it did not look right… He was not being careful… I took a fun project for my son and ruined… WHY? Because of my pride and my absurd expectations.

You see, the week before, when he had created the masterpiece for the babysitter, I had no expectations. We had never copied a note before and I did not really think much of it. But once I saw what he was capable of doing, my expectation became “this is what he should do every time…” My pride reared its’ head because I was sending this off to the grandparents, some of whom think I am crazy to home school. This was my chance to show them all that Bowden was learning… really all that I was teaching him… I did chill out and apologize to him.

However, I did not stop thinking about it and what God was trying to teach me. This evening, while doing the dishes and listening to Keith go over AWANA with Evynn I started thinking about God and His expectations. I realized that I do not think He has expectations for us. He has hopes but not expectations. Then I started thinking about how God knew everything BEFORE He created this world.

For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:20

He knew Adam and Eve would fall. He knew every sin that would be committed before it was committed and yet He still made the world. He knew, when He created us, that His son would die on the cross in order to redeem us and even after that we would STILL sin.

The vision of Christ on the cross flashed in my mind & landed on my heart, and I thought about how God let His son suffer unthinkable pain all the while knowing that He would never expect anything from us in return. He expects NOTHING from me. He desires my love and my devotion. But He expects nothing. He hopes I will follow His will. But He expects nothing. He knows my heart and the sin that lies in the recesses of the dark spaces there and He still sent His Son to die for me. Hoping for my love but expecting nothing.

How much easier would my life with my husband, my children, and my friends be if I could be like God? Sacrifice the things that mean the most to me to serve those I love and then expect nothing in return?

This was a pretty profound thought for me. Expect nothing. Sit and teach my son and expect nothing. Give him all my love and attention and expect nothing. Does this mean I am setting him up for a life of mediocrity? I do not think so. I do think it will teach him that I love him unconditionally. My love is not based on performance or success rates. One of my main reasons for home schooling was my desire for my children to develop a LOVE for learning. You cannot learn to love something that is forced upon you. Isn’t this why God gives us the choice to love Him? It is not true love if there is no choice.

So tomorrow I will tackle another day of being a wife and mother. I will pray for the ability to sacrifice my desires for those I love and the strength to set aside any expectation of something in return.

Some thoughts at 4am

Yes, it IS 4am and I am awake. My little one has been sick and waking me once or twice a night for about week now. This would have killed me with any of the other three but God is growing and stretching me. I realize the season is short and soon she will not need me at these ridiculous hours. I am not happy about the lost sleep but it does not fret me the way it would have not long ago. The only thing that does frustrate me is periodically I struggle getting back to sleep... like tonight. Church will be a little groggy eyed tomorrow, I am sure.

Home Schooling
We have been going on about three weeks now and I have to say a few things stick out to me. First is my ever present amazement at what Bowden is capable of doing. I love watching him learn something new. The joy is his eyes is really asweome! Then there is the ever present feeling like I am not teaching him enough, doing it right, trying to teach him too much, doing it wrong.... I could go on and on here. I have to face and deal with MY frustration level every day.

The girls have also been amazing. They play with each other for the majority of the time while we do school. I considered doing school during naptime but decided that mornings were better because we are all fresher. I am usually in a better mood and that gives us afternoons to finish up if something goes wrong. The television was an option but I decided that I did not want to rely on that as a crutch. So I decided that they are just going to have to learn to either listen or entertain themselves. It goes pretty well every day. Sometimes they get a little needy or loud (they love to stand on the fireplace and sing). After Bowden is done with school, I sit with them and do "school". Knowing this is coming seems to keep them entertained. I suspect it will get a little harder when little Ryen quits her morning nap but why borrow trouble worrying about that now?

I am so grateful that we decided to home school. I am really enjoying the time and I cannot imagine sending Bowden off every day. It is amazing to see the developmental differences in him that just a year makes. I believe that many of us put WAY too much pressure on our first borns. We think they should be able to this or that and if we would just be patient those skills will come. Case in point - last year I bought a book to help teach the skill of cutting. It was age appropriate according to the cover. He and I banged our heads against each other for a while before I gave up and decided he would just be one of those people who lacked the ability to cut things out! Periodically I would give him some scissors and paper and he would just cut whichever way he liked. So with our first day of school there was a cutting assignment. I was NOT excited about this. But my boy surprised me when he picked up his scissors and cut along the lines, it was not perfect but pretty darn good. I think he was just not ready to do that skill and by forcing him, we were both just frustrated and irritated. There is a cutting assignment every day now and that is the part of the day that I can go and do a load of laundry of some other chore. It will be amazing if this child makes it through to adulthood not completely scarred from all the mistakes I make on him..... his sisters should be VERY grateful!!!!

Proverbs 3

VS 7
Do not be wide in your own eyes...
So many time I do things that seem wise to me but I am not looking to God's word or the Holy Spirit for direction. I do what I want to do....

Proverbs 2

1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,

2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,

3 and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,

4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,

5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.

6 For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

7 He holds victory in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,

8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.

9 Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.

10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11 Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.

12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,

These first 12 verses say it ALL. Listen to God, treasure what He says, apply it to my life then God will protect me.

I love the part where it compares God's wisdom to silver and seeking treasure. How many of use would do just about anything to get our hands on more money and valuable things? And yet we do not do whatever needs to be done to read God's word. We complain that we would LOVE to have a quiet time but we are too tired in the monring (but we do not go to bed earlier). We complain that we are too busy (but we do not cut back on activities). We are NOT seeking God's wisdom like it is a treasure.

When we are deep in God's word, He is our shield. he protects us from making bad decisions.
ANyway, I LOVE this chapter, especially the first 12 verses. It was very clear.