It's Tuesday again!

Seems Tuesday is my official unofficial blog day! I think it's easier to blog when the kids take good naps and they take the best naps after playing hard at MOPS!

Today I  wanted to update y'all on my Love Dare experience. I can sum it up in two words: I suck. I don't know if anyone has done the Love Dare before, but day one is patience. I don't have patience. At all... Probably one of the reasons we go through these 'tense' periods in our relationship. Anyway, everyday I start the day out going, 'OK today is the day!' And then end the day with, 'Oh shoot... I totally wasn't patient with the Hubby today!!'

I really want to thank my friend Kendra for encouraging me to continue! Hopefully with her help and encouragement (plus knowing that this blog and potential readers can and probably will hold me accountable!) I will make it past the dreaded day one!

Been reading up what God says a wife should be. It's one of those passages where you read it and think 'Wow, I'd love to be that!' but at the same time it makes you squirm because you aren't that woman. Here's the passage I've been focusing on (and trust me, you probably already know it!)

1 Peter 3:1-6

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, ² when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. ³ Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. ⁴ Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ⁵ For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, ⁶ like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

Wow... I just reread the passage... And I am thinking of a prayer request I made to my table today. I mentioned how the Hubby was worried about just being a 'Sunday Christian' and not really connecting with the Lord outside of church. Wonder if God is trying to say something with:  if any of them [husbands] do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives. I got just got chills! Isn't it such an eye opener when you feel led to a passage in The Word and it connects to what you are going through in more ways than one?! I think the time for my words to the Hubby to stop and let my behavior speak for itself. I think working double time on this patience thing is in order! I was going to talk about how I loved lines 3 and 4, but seems God has something else he would like me to learn from that passage!

With all that said here is my prayer request to you readers: Please pray with me that I can be patient with the Hubby. Pray that the Lord will open and change my heart to make me into the wife He dictates in the Bible. I pray that by doing so not only will our relationship become  deeper and more meaningful, but also that it will put the passion for the Lord back in the Hubby's heart!

On an unrelated note, I also have a prayer request for an idea I got brewing! Please pray that with the help from some of the amazing MOPS ladies (and my wonderful Mom!) that we can create a 'miracle' for a friend! I know without the Lord we won't be able to help, but I know with His backing we can move mountains!
 
Thanks in advance for the prayers! Many Blessings!
SAHMommy

God attends MOPS

It seems like every time I go to MOPS God really speaks to me through the message and the beautiful women there with me. I am positive God is there with us at MOPS! In my head I get a giggle out of visualizing Him in line for breakfast with us! Anyway... Today at MOPS we were talking about being an 'Acts woman.'

I got to be honest... Only some of the message made an impression on me because I kept gnawing over the part I did take to heart during the rest of the message... Oops... *insert sheepish grin* The part I did take away from it was about listening to the Holy Spirit. I don't think that I can honestly say that from day to day I listen to the Holy Spirit. Or even try to hear for that matter. The idea rarely even crosses my mind. Enter Christine C.... Can we get a standing ovation for this woman?! She might not know personally how much she has changed my life, but she has. Well, I got to tell the story... I wasn't going to, but it really does give you an idea of how the smallest things you do and say can impact someone's life!

It was a Friday like any other for me... I was with Little Man and the Captain. I want to say the Captain was only a month or two old? I wasn't planning on going out this Friday, but I just had to get out of the house. I decided a trip to Barnett Park splash pad was in order. I was completely tired and frazzled, but I knew for my children's and my own sanity we had to go... Just had to. I sat feeling a bit defeated on a bench watching Little Man run around like a mad man in the water geysers and just felt so alone. I was itching to talk to some other moms or any adult for that matter. During this time Little Man has been watching these two little girls play with buckets in the water and he decided he wanted to play too. When the little girls ran over to their mom (who was sitting on the bench next to mine) Little Man plotted his attack and struck! Little Man kept trying to steal the buckets while the girls were being dried/fed/watered by their mom. Embarrassed I kept taking him away from them apologizing left and right. While doing this I noticed the mom had a MOPS bag. I had heard of MOPS, but I wasn't too sure about it so I asked her about it. We probably talked for a good 5 to 10 minutes on the subject and she encouraged me to look her up on FB and to come to a meeting. Back home, after getting the boys down for a nap, I did just that and quickly looked Christine C. up on FB. Not only did she invite me once again to MOPS, but she also followed up on me several times to ensure I would go. Thank you Christine, Thank you!

 Back to what I was originally saying: Christine had a testimony today about her girls accepting Christ and how they have been hearing the Holy Spirit talk with them. She said that they had recognized that both her husband and herself have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Yowzers! Her little ones are 3 and 4 years old! As a mom I had never even begun to think that Little Man and the Captain would look for that in the Hubby and I. Or that they would be able to process a belief in something not visible. I guess I think of Christianity as something so complex and difficult to understand, when really it has been repeated in the Bible several times about having faith like a child. They can believe, but it is our responsibility to our children and more importantly to ourselves to have this faith and to make sure our children can see it in our actions/words/behaviors.

Christine's testimony was followed up by a Bible study message about being an 'Acts woman.' The Acts woman makes Satan go 'Oh No, she's up!' I want to be that woman! But in order to do so we all need to slow down and listen. God speaks in a whisper.

At first after hearing this I kinda scoffed a bit. Forgive me, but in my head I was going 'What, does God speak in their head? Wonder if it's the Darth Vader guy type voice.' Oh Yeah I went there... and I'm ashamed of it now. Because as I sat there and thought about it I realized God was speaking to me. No it's not James Earl Jones's voice I was hearing. It was just a thought that popped into my head and it's something that I didn't really feel like doing, but when I tried to think up excuses of why I shouldn't do it I got that tummy twisting feeling I got when I knew I was doing wrong. I was feeling led to do something and by trying to get out of it I was disobeying God.

James 4:17 says: Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

Wake up call huh? 

Not going to spill out all the gory details of what God asked, but I did do as he said and I feel happier for it. I also realize now that I know God's voice within me. I've heard it before and it's never led me astray. I'm hoping by posting this that it will hold me more accountable to trying to quiet my mind and letting God's voice speak louder than my worries, doubts, etc. I only hope that it will become evident to my children and others around me that God works in my life. I feel reassured that if I continue to listen and be that Acts woman that makes Satan tremble, that my children will have an example to follow.

Today I pray that I will have the wisdom and strength to listen and to follow. I pray that my children will see and will know God in our lives. I pray that this fire will continue to burn in my heart.

 I also pray for my next adventure... Starting tomorrow I'm going to start the Love Dare for the Hubby! I happen to know that he doesn't ever read this blog, so I'm pretty confident that I can blog about it and keep it my little secret! However, if you do run into him or talk to him please don't mention it? I want to blow him away! Thank you Tiffany and Selina for listening to me today and for mentioning the Love Dare! You both have been such a blessing!

Much Love!
SAHMommy

Toddler Logic for the Day

If you lovingly peel and cut an apple Little Man will refuse to eat it. However, if you just slice an apple, leaving the skin on, Little Man will eat the apple and leave little apple skin 'boats' on his plate. Guess without the skin it is too risky to eat it. Who knows what healthy food SAHMommy might have tried to sneak onto his plate! The opposite applies to cucumbers. They MUST be peeled.

Got to love Toddler Logic!
Heart,
SAHMommy

Soul Searching

I hate that phrase... Soul Searching... Makes me cringe every time I hear it. But I've been doing quite a bit of that the last few hours. I must warn you, I am dealing with a horde of emotions I've been trying to hide from everyone including myself, so the post might be a bit disjointed and un cohesive. I will do my best to draw my thoughts together in order for them to be understandable.

For a long time now I have felt heavy and icky. As a mother I felt like a failure. I had somehow failed my kids. I felt I was the worst wife imaginable. I thought that I was just so unworthy and unimportant in God's eyes and his plan. Everything just seemed to be wrong and I couldn't accomplish anything right. I wanted to scream out to Him 'Why Lord? Why? Where am I supposed to go? Where is this 'magical' purpose you supposedly have created me for? What is wrong with me?' But I couldn't even say that to him because I felt so unworthy to talk to him.

This feeling of 'unworthiness' had slipped into every aspect of my life. Just recently The Hubby and I had a fight over something totally dumb, but the fight ended in me crying to him saying, "I'm worth it! I'm important!" Just somehow, it didn't seem true. It has seemed like every fight of ours was started because I didn't feel worth anything and the anger I showed was just to cover my huge gaping wounds. I was never the perfect wife and I always thought to myself, "Well, if I do this maybe I will be a better wife." But it still didn't seem like enough. I could do more or better and since I wasn't I was failing my family and husband.

As a SAHM I also encountered feelings of having no value because I had no definition other than 'Mother' and society paints that out to be a failure. I felt that because I wasn't making money that I was doing nothing. And it seemed like all the other SAHMommys I encountered had something else to define them. For example, my mother has been a SAHM for several years now, but she dedicates her time to a Homeless Ministry that her and my father have started up and before that had been involved in an outreach ministry for children. At MOPS I meet these wonderful women that not only parent, but do these amazing, brilliant things.... I can't even begin to descibe some of the things these women have accomplished, and all in God's name! So they had a definition other than just SAHM. They are co founders in homeless ministries, supporters of Ugandan women, Prayer Warriors.... All these strong wonderful things... And here I was just icky plain ole Alicia. I felt like they were some (and this example just came to me because I'm sitting in the kitchen staring at the floor as I think. lol) beautiful wood flooring. You know, the kind you see in those houses on TV that you just drool over? And I was just laminate with a wood plank design. Maybe even the kind that is curling up and cracking a bit at the edges? Where was my purpose and calling? What was my definition?

With my children, it always seemed as if I was one step behind. I was never doing it right or doing enough. There was always more I could do. I could spend more time doing this, or that. I could feed/clean/teach/etc. them better. It was this frantic anxious energy just pushing me and at the same time dragging me down because I just couldn't compete. I couldn't reach that goal of being a good enough mother to my children. The sense of guilt that accompanied this was crippling to say the least. It was a huge weight I carried with me all the time.

In my typical control freak way, I have tried to force several callings upon myself. Lets just say it hasn't worked. And it seemed like each failure was just another sign that I was in no way good enough for God. I would tell myself, "Oh well, I would have failed at it anyway," or "They would see right through me and KNOW I wasn't good enough, so it's better I suppose..." And I was scared people could see through me. I figured they could tell I was just that laminate and not the wood. That I didn't have it all together like I had been pretending.

Well today at MOPS we had a bible study and one of the points brought up was that God works in you the way he designed you and in order to be able to have Him work in you, you must accept you as you! The exercise used to explain this was several light bulbs. There was the CFL bulb, outside flood light bulb, fluorescent light bulbs, a chandelier bulb, and several others. We were asked to identify what type of bulb we were. I was immediately drawn to the chandelier bulb. It would give off a soft pleasant light... One that would be comforting to turn on during a storm to read a book by. (I so love reading!!) A type of light to leave on at night so there was always a light glowing to come home to. It would give off a light that you could snuggle in. It just seemed so me. Then we were told that God created us in the way we were to serve a very specific purpose. There was no way that chandelier bulb could function as an outdoor flood light! And vice versa! Then a light bulb went off for me!

After spending the rest of the bible study fighting tears I went straight up to the lesson leader to talk. Bless that woman, I was in a mess! She prayed with me and had me pray to God and have him take that icky guilt and shame away!

Here's what I learned: I was unworthy. God knew that and that's why he sent Jesus to save us. Through Him I am worthy. All these negative feelings were nothing but Satan whispering into my ear to stop me and deter me from my walk with God. I don't have to do anything to get Him to love me, I just have to believe and receive it; have faith in it. I am worthy and I am loved!

During the bible study we were directed to Matthew 15:16. Peter had asked Jesus to explain the parable and Jesus' answer was: "Are you still so dull?" He might as well have been sitting next to me going 'Alicia wake up! Isn't this what you hear every Sunday? Isn't this the basis of Christianity?! That I make you worthy and you are loved?! There is no need for this guilt! Let me handle your journey! I planned your calling long before you were thought of, give me credit and some faith here!' In my head I even have a mental picture of him doing a face palm at me! This had been accepted in my head for so long, but it took till today for my heart to accept it.

As to my calling, I still don't know. It will be something I will spend a great amount time praying about. I know there are periods in one's life where God prepares them for the journey He has planned for them. Maybe I'm just getting prepared. Or who knows maybe I'm on it now, but I'm just too much in the thick of things to see.. I'll leave those details to Him. The Lord will give me a definition, a purpose, a journey, a calling designed just for me. It won't be a flood light calling, but my chandelier bulb calling will be no less worthy or important.

The peace I feel has been overwhelming. The tightness in my shoulders I always seem to have is gone. I have had more patience with my kids today and I feel I have more love to give them. I know I still have a long journey to take. This problem hasn't been conquered, but I think with prayer, faith, and some time reading scripture this should become easier.

Well, it looks like I have written a novel! But I do feel so much better getting that all out! Thanks for listening to my ramblings!
Much love and many blessings!
SAHMommy