God tested me and I PASSED!!!

Last night I prayed for more patience and to do better during the day. I had strayed and wasn't including him in my day like I usually do.

This morning I go to pick up Baby M who is crying in the bouncie seat to see a BIG wet spot on the couch. Lil O had peed on the couch! I set a crying baby back down to clean up. Not once did I fuss. I put Lil O on the potty and then in the bath. I brought Baby M in the bedroom and nursed her while Lil O played. I sat there on the bed and laughed knowing I had been given a test!

I PASSED!!! :)

That was just what I needed.

As I was laying on the chaise today in my living room. I wearily picked up this workbook I have been eyeing the past week. It’s called the Frazzled Female. Finding Peace in the Midst of Daily Life. By Cindi Wood

Day one said to read Luke 10:38-42.

I admit it was just what I needed and I heard it very clear! Jesus was telling Martha to stop and smell the roses. She didn’t have to be “doing” all the time! Well, he didn’t say it in those words but that was the idea.

I can always find something to do. A house to clean. Clothes to wash. Project to start. ETC… Being the CEO of my family with 3 kids and 1 husband keeps me very busy.

I am going to make myself a promise. Stop and smell the roses every day. I think I can handle that. Can you?

I am glad I picked up the workbook today and it made me see something very clear. Michelle stop doing and listen!

Well, I am cooking out today at my house. I have to go make those baked beans.

I hope that everyone is well today. I am still in shock that school is about to start soon. WOW, where did the time go?

Underline Part 3

The Workbook: What Every Mom Needs~Balancing Your Life
By: Elisa Morgan & Carol Kuykendall
With Bible Study Activites by Betty Hassler

~I left off at making a list of 10 things I want to do before I die. I am still working on that one. It may seem easy but I find it rather hard.

Tell Someone Else About Your Dream
Everyone needs a nudger.

All of us have great, untapped potential.

I’m a good mother, but I don’t want to discover someday that my kids are grown and I have nothing else in my life.

Brenda hunter writes: “When God gives you a dream, he will help you to realize it. It may take a year or a lifetime, but God planted that dream in your consciousness for a reason. God and you will make dreams become realities.

Week 4~ Intimacy~~Sometimes I Long To Be Understood.

Being understood by another helps me understand myself.

That One and Only Lonely Feeling
Keeping up with the kids isn’t the hardest part of mothering; it’s the loneliness.
Mothers of preschoolers overwhelmingly report that their greatest struggle is with loneliness, a feeling of being disconnected or isolated.

Intimacy is being understood, sometimes when you don’t even understand yourself.

Stumbling Blocks:
I’m too tired to be friendly.
Keeping up with the constant responsibility of putting meals on the table, cleaning up, and doing laundry, few of us have energy left over for friends. Moms are often too tired to relate well even with their husbands.

“A friend is a gift you give yourself.” Robert Louis Stevensons

Ask. Listen. Act. Risk. Adjust. Forgive. All of these are suggestions for building intimacy with spouses.

Friends for the road are the people God puts in our life for a short time or a specific purpose. But a friend for the hear…that’s the friendship that’s meant to last.

Week 5~~Instruction~~Sometimes I Don’t Know What To Do

An informed mother knows best.

Maternal Knowledge~Mothering is a skill that will become easier with knowledge and practice.

Every mom has a built-in sensor of what her child needs.

“God would not have given you this child without also giving you the means to care for this child.” Dr Sears

Week 6~ Help~~Sometimes I Need To Share The Load

Help Yourself~Learning to help yourself is the first step in conquering this need for help.

It has been said that there are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it. But there is another tactic. You can train your children to help.

Learn the art of delegation.

What we teach our children now will make a difference in who they become later.

Week 7~Recreation~~Sometimes I Need A Break

If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

~Even if I’m over at a friend’s house having coffee, I can “hear” my children. Even when I’m asleep, I’m still listening for them. There is no time when I’m “off” duty.~

Always on Duty~Most moms of young children report that is it not a single major crisis that brings then to the edge of breakdown. Rather, it is the constant accumulation of everyday hassles with no breaks. It’s also the constant drive to live up to expectations: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” “Don’t put off to tomorrow what you can do today.” “Don’t play until your work is done.”

We’re worn out! Wrung out! Sucked dry! The unceasing needs, the responsibility, the pressure to be all our children need.

A mom is constantly surrounded by her responsibilities, and that means work, work, work.

Moms need a break, but they don’t take it.

A woman is trained to be self-sacrificing. To get through her list of things to do, she first sacrifices her free time. Then she sacrifices her sleep.

Re-Creation
The word re-create actually means “to restore, refresh, or create anew”
Re-Creation Makes Us Better~Re-Creation Makes Us Better Moms

Taking a break is not selfish but self-preserving.

The fact that caring for our own needs better equips us to meet the needs of those who depend on us.

Learn to Laugh~Laughter is contagious. Smile awhile and while you smile, another smiles and soon there are miles and miles of smiles because you smiled.

Lighten up~What’s the big deal?

Slow down~What’s the hurry? Savor where you are.

Mom Fun~Every mom needs something that is enjoyable for herself alone. Expose yourself to new people and places. Develop a hobby.

Week 8~Perspective~~Sometimes I Lose My Focus

Fit today into the bigger picture of life.

You can’t control everything. You have to go with the flow.

I can’t do it all, but I can do what’s important.

Enjoy today. Make the most of life’s irretrievable moments…now.

Lighten up. Children are resilient. Handle them with honesty and humor.

When you make a mistake, learn to forgive yourself and let go our your failure. Say you’re sorry and move on.

I have to remember that I am a home-maker, not a house-keeper.

Keep things in Perspective~Perspective is the ability to stand between yesterday and tomorrow and understand how today fits and what matters most.

Make a moms stress sack. Include:
~A piece of chalk to use when somethings unpleasant happens, so you can “chalk it up” to experience.
~A tissue to remind you to dry someone’s tears with a kind word, a note, or a hug.
~An eraser to remind you to wipe your slate clean.
~A thumbtack to remind you to not just sit on your problems. A-tack them one by one .
~A favorite cartoon, bumper sticker, or greeting card to remind you to laugh-often.
~A small stone to remind you God is your rock.
A nail to remind you that Jesus coped with some pretty heavy stress too.

Week 9~Hope~Sometimes I Wonder if There is More To Life

Hope is a personal relationship with God, who meets all our needs.

Misplaced hope:
~circumstances
~optimism
~people
~self-help

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matt. 11-28

Stumbling Blocks of Faith~Emtional Barrier~Intellectual Barrier~Volitional Barrier

Perspective~Sometimes I Lose My Focus
Perspective means developing a God-view of life. When we learn to see life as He does, value what He values, to evaluate decisions and daily matters in terms of what matters in eternity, we obtain a whole new perspective. Real hope is finding the Source who meets all needs.

When you are wondering how to handle your child’s tantrum, ask Jesus.

What Every Mom Needs

~things I have underlined so far in chapter 1, 2 & 3~

Week 1- Significance
You are the mother your child needs. God has chosen you for the job. no one else in the world can mean as much to your child as you.

Jeanne Hendricks warned that we are more concerned about making a better world for our children than we are about making better children for our world. Mothering matters not only to the child and to the mother, but also to the world in which we live.

Week 2- Identity
“Sometimes I’m Not Sure Who I Am”

To know me-who I am and who I am not-is to love me.

A mother tends to define herself most easily in terms of her external circumstances. She looks into a mirror and, instead of an identity in its own right, she sees the various facets of her life staring back at her.

A mothers business card: I am the CEO of my family. Well put.

To understand who we are, we have to come to grips with who we are not.

I am Unique. I am Imperfect. I am Loved.

You are imperfect. You are fallible human beings who are a process. you will make mistakes; you will lose your patience; you will sometimes act unlovingly.

We try to be good mother, but sometimes what we see surprises –and disappoints –us.

Valerie Bell says, “It’s hard for a child to trust an adult who is like an emotional yo-yo–loving one minute, angry and explosive the next. An unpredictable parent, one given to wide emotional swings, is an unstable parent.

God reminds you who you are. He tells you the truth that sets you free to know yourself, to accept yourself, and therfore to be yourself.

Week 3- Growth
“Sometimes I Long to Develop Who I Am”

What I am is God’s gift to me. What I become is my gift to God.

In this season of life, moms often make time for everyone and everything except themselves.

Mothering, by its very nature, requires self-sacrifice.

All around you are those who need what you have to offer.

I am still on Chapter 3. Something I am working on is a list of 10 things I want to do before I die. Narrow the list to 5 and rank in order of importance.

I am really pleased with this workbook! 2 Thumbs up!

Significance

~Notes from Chapter 1~

*It’s tough to see what value in wiping applesauce faces, runny faces, and messy bottoms–not just once–but over and over again.

A quote from Phyllis Diller, “Cleaning your house while kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”

One mother of young children, tired of feeling insignificant, decided to prove her husband that what she did mattered by simply not doing it for one whole day. “What happened here today?” he asked when he walked into a kitchen strewed with dirty dishes, half-eaten sandwiches, and spilled cereal. Sitting on a couch amid the clutter of toys and newspapers, she replied, “You’re always asking me what I do all say, so I decided not to do it.”
~I love that little story.~

Mothering makes a difference in the life of your child. You are the mother your child needs. God has chosen you for the job. No one else in the world can mean as much to your child as you.

The value of mothering is discovered in the peace of mind that comes from knowing you are doing all you can with all you’ve been given.

Today:

Hello everyone. I am without cable at the moment. This means no internet or TV! So I had to keep myself busy while O took her nap. I made some cookies. Worst ingredients ever cookies. BUT THEY ARE YUMMY!!!! This morning I finally sent off the camera and a package to a friend. I dug out the old camera a bit ago to see if she still has a few more shots left in her. LOL I took a picture of the huge plate of cookies to show you and share the recipe. When hubby gets home and tells me where to find the cord to hook the old camera up to the computer I will give it a shot. I ran to Target to buy diapers. I was going to walk in and walk out with only diapers because my HB always teases me about how much money I can spend there. Well, ummmm looking around……..

I came out with Mothers Day Cards, a nightgown for O, a shirt for O that says ‘Everyone Loves a Brown Eyed Girl’, a pitcher with 6 matching cups for my lemonade, Bee Spray, 6 things from the dollar bins, O a potty chair, pool toys for O and of course diapers. I hate it that he is right! LOL ~mumbling~
Shopping at Target is like eating chips, you cannot just have one. In my case, leave with one item.

Anyway….I want to share in something I am going to do.

A 9 week study. The workbook is called

“What Every Mom Needs. Balancing your Life”.

I am not a religious person per say. I believe and I have faith in a higher being. I grew up in a very southern Baptist church. The one that shouts and screams “Thank You Jesus!” kind of church. Terrified me as a child let me add. Later on in life, we moved and I started visiting a Methodist church that was close. I really liked it there. Then later on in high school I went to a friend’s church and I knew I had found home.

I stayed at this church until my divorce from my first husband. I guess he got the church in our divorce. My kids still go there with him on a regular basis. The pastor I adored is no longer there; so things have a way of working out. I would go to his new church but he moved to China. Too long of a road trip to follow him.

After all that, if I went to church I went to Unity. I really enjoyed Unity and there is one really close to me, I just haven’t been. I can come up with 1 million reasons to stay in on Sunday morning. Not that I am a lazy person and stay in bed either. I really don’t have a reason I do not go to church. Okay, my point.

I went to the Christian bookstore last week and picked up a few books to read. Mostly women and religion type books. The book I am starting is the 9 week study. I want to share with you a few things about week 1. Maybe it would be something you are interested in. Maybe not.

This week is about Significance. Sometimes I Wonder If Mothering Matters
Verse: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is older he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Something to Remember: Mothering matters because today makes a difference tomorrow.
Over the next couple days I will work on this chapter. I’ll type up a few things to post–some key points that I would find interesting and want to share. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I think I will. Well, still no cable or internet. I am writing this in Word so I can transfer it over when I can.

I hope that everyone has a lovely afternoon and night with their family. Bye