Ding Ding Ding...Round 2

Tomorrow morning we leave for round 2 of Holiday travel.

I must first point out that I have turned into an old woman, or someone from a different ethnic group. Please notice to your left the 2007 Chrysler 300. Fully equipped with all the hoopdyness you can handle, enough head room to hold the big old lady hair when you leave the beauty parlor, enough "class" to drive down the road with one arm out the window while the other rest comfortably on the stearing wheel looking as cool as you can be. Enough stereo to bounce the car next to us out of their lane. I think I need to go hang some dice or Mardi Gras beads from the rear view mirror!

To my friend Stacey, please don't be scared when we pull up...it's not the mob coming to get you...it's just us...the Bhamsters! Yo!

Oh my...we have quite the rental car. See its like this...our van is sad. We can't open the back of it. The check engine light is on. The check engine light blinks, and the car sputters when you go up a hill. We are getting horrible gas mileage. We have to put the 93 octane in it, just to upgrade to semi horrible gas mileage.

So hubby suggested to save headaches (which always happen when we travel at the holidays) lets rent a car. He works next to Enterprise (there...I have given them their plug!) so we get a good deal and it's all smooth sailing.

We were supposed to get a small car. He wanted to upgrade for $3 a day to a mid size...they were out of those, so for no extra charge they upgraded us to Hooopdy status!

Boy, I hope this doesn't come back to bite us later when we are mistaken for Tony Soprano, Kanye West, or Elizabeth Taylor!

Adoniram Judson

One of my early New Years resolutions is to read more about Missionaries. My sister is a missionary and I thought it would be good to read about the lives of some older missionaries.
I have started with Adoniram Judson. I have only been reading stuff from the internet, but will try to find a book soon. Anyways. Adoniram Judson was a missionary to Burma in the early to mid 1800's. What an incredible testimony he has to TRULY believing in and grasping the sovereignty of God. He and his first wife, Ann, lost two children on the mission field. After the loss of their second child his wife Ann said this...

"Our hearts were bound up with this child; we felt he was our earthly all, our
only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land. But God saw it
was necessary to remind us of our error and to strip us of our only little
all. O, may it not be vain that He has done it. May we so improve it
that He will stay His hand and say...'it is enough.'"

There is no need to expound on that statement. My words would be inept.
Adoniram Judson was imprisoned for 21 months. His wife Ann was instrumental in pleading for his release. She also died not to long after his release.
Adoniram married again...suffered the loss of more children...experienced the life of children as well...then bore the pain of losing another wife.
He then married again. He married a writer that he had commissioned to write a book about his second wife. They had two children. The first one lived...the second one died at birth, 3 weeks after Judson died.

I look forward to reading much more about the life and ministry not only of Adoniram, but that of his wives as well. Any woman that can write such a statement while living in Burma and losing two children, I think is someone worth reading about.
John Piper stated on this subject that he preaches to produce mothers like that and that he fears there are too few. Am I a mother like that? I don't know. I've never lost a child. But I don't think I have to lose a child to be the kind of wife and mother that is reaching for God's truth and trying to rest in His sovereignty.

Late in Adoniram Judsons life he said this...

"If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by
infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated
suffering."

That certainly begs the question in my life..."Do I recognize the trials in my life as those from an infinitely loving and merciful God?"
If I don't recognize them as such, then where is my hope? John Piper goes on to say in the same sermon about the Judsons, that he wants to build a fence around the sovereignty of God. So which side of the fence do I fall on?
I have two choices...recognize God's sovereignty in every aspect of my life, or don't. I rejoice in God's sovereignty when I have a good day. I am thankful for his provision for that day. I am thankful when unexpected money arrives to pay an over due bill. On those days it's easy to praise God for his sovereignty. But on the days when I can't pay that over due bill am I still trusting in God's sovereignty.
God is not going to sprinkle me with sovereign dust and suddenly I accept what life is throwing me. I have to choose to believe, as His child, that every trial is from His hand of infinite love and mercy. That is a much better option than to just not know why. I don't have to understand, I just need to know God is loving and merciful. Then I need to praise Him in that.

Well, I am going to enjoy learning more about Adoniram Judson and his wives. I look forward to learning what God will teach me through these studies. If any of you want to study with me, come on! And if you have any ideas on who I should study next, let me know.

Christmas Top Ten

10. I got an MP3 player. Yes, I am cool now!
9. Stacy was suprised by the movie "Tombstone" that I got him. Suprsises are always good.
8. I succesfully made a Red Velvet Cake complete with Cream Cheese Frosting. Yumminess!
7. Lana was very cute singing "Away in a Manger" at church Sunday. She has no stage fright.
6. I am a hero because I spent $8 on a pocket knife for Logan. Hopefully I don't spend $800 at ER.
5. My brother brought his girlfriend to Christmas Eve festivities and she's sweet. I like her!
4. I got to at least see a snowflake mixed with sleet on Christmas day. So it was a wintry mix Christmas.
3. Despite the rain the whole way home, the drive was nice and hubby and I chatted contently! Ah, companionship.
2. We ate Ham, Turkey, and Rib Roast. Can't beat meat!
1. Enjoyed nice time with family. Craziness and all! That's what it's all about.

I'll be home for Christmas...

Isn't it funny how we say we're going home when we're going to our parents house?
I've never even lived in that house, and yet I say I'm going home.

Oh well...It feels like home anyway!

We definitely enjoy being there.

The presents are wrapped.

The suitcases are packed.
The car is loaded.

We're about to take naps to prepare for our journey tonight.

There is a slight possibility of snow for Christmas.

We are stopping at Starbucks before we leave tonight.

AH, all is right with the world.

Well except the fact that I'm irritated with my husband.

I'm leaving a lot of laundry to deal with when I get home,

and it will most likely be raining when we leave tonight.

All was almost right with the world.

By tonight I will get over my irritation. I have no choice.
That is what you have to do when you are married. Like it or not.

Sometimes you have to do things for the greater good.

Maybe the Laundry Fairies will come down and take care of my laundry while I am gone.

I deserve at least that right?

And we will pray for safe travels and get out ahead of the rain.

So maybe all is at least tolerable with the world.

Merry Christmas all of my fellow bloggers. It has been a joy journeying with you guys over these past few months. I look forward to being blessed by your blog company even more in 2008!

I pray you all know God's love and grace even when all is not right with the world!

Love to all!!!

Glorious Sleep!

Last night I took Tylenol PM.
I was sound asleep at 10:00pm.
I awoke at (gulp) 9:00am.
I know...Crazy...but I had to make up for some sleepless nights!
I feel much better and ready to do laundry, wash dishes, do my typing job, and whatever else comes my way today.
Thank God for Tylenol PM!
Thank you all for your advice.
Now, I must go wash me some dishes.
You know...there just is no exciting way to say that.

Help me please!!!

I have serious sleep issues. I can't sleep at night, therefore I am cranky during the day.
I have to leave the house at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow for work, and yet it is 11:35 and I am still up. I just got through wrapping Christmas presents and I my brain won't stop.
What is a girl to do?
My friend Stacey suggested today that I get some special tea. I will do that tomorrow.
I may have to do the Tylenol PM route a few nights just too get into a sleep groove.
I don't know.

Have any of ya'll gone through this before?
Let me go ahead and rule things out:
I drink little caffeine. None at night.
I don't nap during the day.
I am very active during the day.
I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs.

OK...I am going to go now and try to sleep. 6:00 is going to come early.
Tomorrow will definetly be a Starbucks kind of morning!
MMM...Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha Frappacino is calling my name...
Now if it could just lull me to sleep!

Insomniatic Ramblings

Notice the time. 1:30 am....What is wrong with me? I have been going and going all day and I can't stop. It's like I've been nesting for days and I'm not even pregnant. Good grief. I will be so worthless in the morning. But thats OK...I've decided that this week of school is going to be all about Christmas! Fun stuff huh!

Today was a good day.
We had great church service this morning.
Came home and did some cleaning.
Made homemade pizzas.
Took Lana to do her Christmas shopping.
Organized pictures on the computer.

Went back to church for Choir musical.
It was very good. Filled with worship and very God centered.
I enjoyed it emmensly.
Then we had our friends Ken and Gwendy and our Pastor and his wife over to eat the homemade pizzas.
We had a super fun time chatting with all of them.
We covered a wide variety of theological and life topics.

I was given 3 Christmas gifts today. And they weren't Gold, Francincense, and Myrhh!
What a very nice treat!
I am thankful for those gifts and for those givers.
I am thankful for new friends and friends that over time start to become more like family.
My friend Gwendy and I made arrangments to swap kids this week allowing us both time to wrap presents. Thats a good thing. She's a good friend :)

I can't beleive that we leave Saturday to go to Mom and Dads for Christmas.
I really want a white Christmas.
I REALLY wish Laura and the fam were coming to suprise us for Christmas.
I am going to make some White Trash this week. Oh my yum!
We are going to a Christmas party Monday night ( which I guess is tonight now).
We are playing dirty Santa. I hope I get the last number. I want to be really mean! Bwaa Ha Ha! (Kim Hill evil laugh)
I am going to bring Johnchies Jello. It is the best thing ever.

It is too hot in my house right now. Bald husband needs to get a night cap so he can absorb heat better. Or I should shave my head. HMMMMM.....

Well..it is 1:43 now. I should go to sleep.
If you are an early blog reader, and you actually read this whole blog, please don't call me...I will hopefully, finally, be asleep!

Swirling Thoughts

Do you ever just feel overwhelmed by your own thoughts?
I have been feeling that way for days.
I feel like I can't get enough of reading other peoples encouraging words.
I have been loving reading what God is doing in other peoples lives.
It is so encouraging to know that when I am about to loose it, somebody out there has got some words that are going to point me right back to the Gospel.
It always comes at the right time too.
God is so good to know what I need.
It is not His plan for me to loose my cool...it is my depravity and lack of self control.

This has been part of my crazy thoughts. Brace your self...it's a weird flow.

I love puzzles. I love games like Tetris and Bejeweled and right now my favorite is Jewel Quest.
I love to see things fit together.
I love seeing these shapes or whatever coming down and I have to make sure they get to the right place. When they all fit together, I win.
When I'm lazy and just watch them fall, I loose.
My relationship with God is so much like that. Life is throwing things at me.
I have the choice to either let them fall or make it all fit together.
When I choose to let them fall I choose to leave God out of it.
If I want to make it all fit together I have to do it with Him.
I am fully aware that this is the weekest analogy in the world of what God does in my life everyday.

Yesterday Logan came at me with wanting to know how to get the full armor of God.
I answered him the best that I could, which is usually not enough for him, so we tabled it until Daddy got home.
Stacy is able to explain things to him so much better than me. It was such an encouraging conversation and it did my heart good to hear my son so eagerly want to soak up what the word of God says about really, equipping ourselves for daily sanctification. I loved hearing my husband instruct our kids about filling ourselves with Gods word...memorizing, reading, studying, worshiping, proclaiming the Gospel to others. All of those things that help us to put on the armor of God, that push us a little more towards Gods righteousness.

In Sunday School our pastor has been teaching us out of Eph.4. That we are called to walk worthy of the calling by which we are called. That we are to walk this walk with lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endevoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.

The fruits of the spirit instruct us to love, have joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

We don't pick and choose these things. God didn't say, here Missy...this is part of the puzzle...you pick which part you would like to have. How easy would that be? Anyone could pick one or two attributes to live out. Well maybe for at least a day!
But we are to put it all on. The whole armor...the Whole Fruit...Walk the whole walk.
For me it's all apart of that puzzle. It doesn't just randomly happen. I have to put the pieces in place. God, through the sending of His Son, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has given me the tools by which to do this. I sometimes am just too lazy to make it work. I would rather watch it all fall apart than just make one little move that will make all the difference.
I get so frustrated with my sinful nature. I get tired of fighting it.

I am thankful for the body of Christ. For the real struggle that you all so freely share. For the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For the Sovereign God that has known from all eternity that I would belong to Him. For the fact that He sacrificed His Son so that He can show mercy on undeserving me.

Wow..this is a long post...I have just had all of these thoughts swirling in my head. It was nice to give them a place to come together. Thanks for listening.

Ornaments and Snowman

Here is the link for the Ornaments. They say to use Pie Plates. I thought you could get more out of Cookie Sheets. The templates are included.
FamilyFun: Pie Plate Ornaments - and More Family Fun

And here is the picture of the snowmen.
The one on the left is Lanas's. She is using it to hold "special" stuff.

Christmas Craft Day

Make a slideshow!

Thanks to all of you who came out and helped with Craft day.
I think all of the kids had a good time.
It was nice to get together and hang out with everybody.
Plus, we proved that our kids are socialized! ;)
Enjoy some pictures of all your kids having a memorable day.
Oh, and Heather...We really missed you and the boys!

Grace, Grace, God's Grace...

I love that song. I've had it in my head for days now.
A family at our church lost their 22 year old daughter in a car wreck early Friday morning. My heart has been breaking for them. I can't imagine the pain and the sorrow they feel right now.

I've been thinking about a lot of people lately that have lost children.

The O'Neill family lost 16 year old Sarah 11 years ago.

The Pearson family lost their 14 year old daughter and their 16 year old daughter had an extensive stay in ICU after a bad car wreck 2 years ago.

The Hinson's lost 3 year old Madison going on 6 years ago.

The Bookers lost their 3 hour old baby 3 years ago.

We knew a family that lost there 5 year old son on Christmas day in a car wreck.

The loss of a loved one is a terrible hard thing, the loss of a child, I can't even bear to imagine. It seems to be magnified if it happens during the holidays.
I have seen these families that have lost children. Some I have been closer to than others. But all of them, I have seen Gods grace completely cover them. I have seen them morn, but with hope.

I have heard the story of Jeff O'Neill witnessing to two teenage girls at the graveside of his only daughter and leading them to Christ.

I have read accounts of the Pearson family giving all the Glory to God for giving them their daughter for the time they had her.

I watched Mandy Hinson graciously ooh and ahh over my baby daughter, months after her little girl passed away.

I saw Christy Booker live out her faith every day, living in a new place far away from the comfort of old friends, as she prepared to deliver a son she knew would not live.

All of these people have had a dramatic impact on my Christian walk over the years. As I have seen these great children of God persevere through the unimaginable trial of losing a child, I have marveled at the grace that God gives to them to withstand the trial.

My heart breaks for the lost person that loses a child. Where is the hope? Where is the grace? Our pastors have really been driving home the fact that we need to be outward focused. Focusing on sharing the Gospel with the lost. I can feel the Lord burdening me in that area. I recently left a party where we had been with unbelievers. I left sad for them. Sad to see the emptiness in their lives that only God can fill. And not "God" in the way that our society portrays, but God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The God that sacrificed His Son for the purpose of redeeming me, a stupid, sinful, wretch of a person. The God that sacrificed His son, felt that anguish, and therefore has reserved a special kind of Grace for those that lose their own child.

I have seen Gods grace in my life more this year than I think at any time in my life. He gave me grace at a time in my marriage when I couldn't have stood up if not for His grace. He has continued to show Himself to me even when I buck Him and think I can do it on my own. How foolish of me to ever think that I can do anything apart from Him.

I am sometimes gripped with fear of losing a child. And while I pray that God blesses me with raising these 2 beautiful younguns for a long long time, I know that they are not mine alone. It was His grace in the first place that saw fit to entrust me with this responsibility. It is by His grace that I daily strive to raise Godly children and that I fight my flesh to be a Godly mother.
I am heartbroken for the ones I have known that have lost a child. But I am thankful that they allowed God to minister to their souls. I am humbled by their example and I am amazed at God's Grace.
Grace, Grace, God's Grace, Grace that is greater than all my sin.

MISSING

One Chrismtas wreath.
Green with Blue and Silver ribbons and balls.
If you were the person that drove by my house and stole it please return.
I will not press charges.
I will not scream at you.
I will even bake you a batch of "special" Christmas cookies...
You know, to thank you for bringing it back.
Hope to see you, and my special wreath soon!

Special Day

Dec 7th 2007. My husband turns 36. He is such a great & likeable guy. Do you know what I mean? Some people you can just say that about.
I think my husband is like that. He has such a nice personality. It's hard not to like him. He makes me really mad sometimes, but then again, I make him mad sometimes too.
He's what I need though.
He knows how to encourage me.
He knows what I'm thinking.
He knows my quirks and still lives with me.
He makes me feel pretty and desired.
He makes me laugh. One day we were somewhere and he said something funny and I laughed harder than anybody. It made us both feel good that I thought he was so funny!
He thinks I'm funny, even when I'm not. Which is never of course because I am always funny, but if the day comes when I am not funny he will still think so!
He appreciates what I do.
He humors me on things like decorating and silly stuff.
He works so hard for our family, rarely doing much extracurricular stuff for himself.
He cares about my feelings.
He doesn't care if I sleep in or take it easy.
He is a wonderful dad!
He has taught me so much spiritually. More than I know probably.
He respects the Gospel. That sounds weak, but I guess I mean he holds it dear and he points us to it.
He is real. He's not afraid to say he's weak or he's struggling with something. Probably because he can take himself back to the Gospel.

So to sum up...I love him a lot. God has brought us through some pretty rough spots this year in our marriage, but I truly believe it has made us stronger as a couple and in our relationships with Him. I am proud of him in so many ways. I am thankful that the Lord can bring together two fallen people and sustain them through a life that can be hard. I'm thankful that He gives us the grace to not quit sometimes and too love each other more.
Mostly I'm just thankful that God gave me the Godly man that He knew I needed!
So today I will celebrate the birthday of a great husband and try to make him feel like the special man that I think he is!

It's Been 7 Years...

Actually if you want to be exact, it's been 7 years, 5 months, & 8 days. Since what you ask? Since I have been to the bathroom by myself! Oh yes...that was my thought today when my children, who had been playing quietly in their rooms for an hour, suddently needed me as I sat on the toilet. I sat there and calculated it. 7 years, 5 months, and 8 days. That is 2,715 days with someone either watching or talking to me whilst I do my thing. I figure I use the bathroom at least 5 times a day...so 2,725 x 5....well that makes 13,575 that I have had no peace while peeing, no privacy while pooping. Granted they have outgrown the age of being in there with me. But you'd better believe, someone is knocking on the door, yelling for Mom, or crying because "I didn't know where you were!".
Is it comforting for them to hear me pee? Does it remind them of being in the womb?
The sad fact remains...I'm not half way through. My youngest is only 5 1/2. So I still have 12 1/2 years of this to go. That is 4,565 days more. That is 22,825 more trips to the bathroom with interruption.
Maybe if I just start sitting in my chair and peeing on myself noone would bother me!