God's in the details

As I type I am sitting here trying to decide if I am cold or hot, having a fever on a school day can make a girl tired! Its days like today I realize how God is in the details and how I am reminded to take everything, every moment to Him alone. For someone like me who likes to just get it all done and be in a regular routine I often forget to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. Its spring which means wrapping up the school year, preparing for the next, planning some fun summer things and hopefully making progress in our adoption. In all those areas I always think I have it figured out and then we get another curve ball where I can choose to get flustered and distracted or I can choose to see God once again telling me to trust him. In our house I am constantly telling the kids that I can be trusted with what they need. Some of our children from more chaotic backgrounds tend to have a hard time believing that. To me it seems so easy to accept, everyday its provided therefore they can believe I will provide tomorrow. They usually need to see it or at least get constant reminders that it will still come again. For some they have lived with the reality that those who are expected to provide don't always come through. However from my adult perspective, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am not like those who have let them down and that my promises are trustworthy. Its hard for me though to make them believe me due to their previous experiences. It hit me today that I am no different. In the past I have placed me sense of trust in worldly things that have let me down, that didn't provide for my innermost needs. I wrongly placed me hopes in those things temporary, as my children had in their orphanages and foster homes instead of whats eternal. I find now how that has tainted my own faith. As I look at my children and know they can forever trust my love and provision, my Father in heaven looks at me and says the same. Like my children I wrongly put God in the role of those things that had replaced him in my past and hold back the faith I could put in him because I fear that I may miss something or lose something or hurt. However I am learning that He can be trusted with it all, with all my thoughts, my fears, my anxieties. I can trust that his way may not look like my way but it is He who knows best, His ways are not tainted by the world or by sin like mine. His ways are perfect and I can rest in that as I pray my children can rest in knowing they can be children and rest in me to provide their needs. When they rest in that they will realize the blessings that come from simply being loved....and so can I.

Waiting

I have sometimes heard people say and have even had the thought myself, when I meet God someday I have some questions or I am going to find out the whys.... Randomly I was thinking about this the other day in a quiet moment in the car after dropping my daughter off at her music lesson. I began to think about that and thought ....really... we will enter heaven and we will be coherent and unaweinspired (not sure if I just made up that word..) to ask God a whats up with that question? I thought about my mom that I lost a few years back and thought if I knew I could spend time with her today even if I knew I could spend many times with her, being apart from her from so long I would not begin with ...so mom what was up with that time you didn't let me.... or what were you thinking when you let me wear... I would embrace her, I would probably collapse into her as I did as a child. I would take it all in, I would tell her about my children, the grandchildren she didn't get the privlidge to meet on this side. I would tell her about my accomplishes in life. Not list off the things I didn't get, didn't have or didn't think was fair. I would value each precious minute we had. I would want to hear her laughter and see her eyes crinkle up when she smiled. Remember I only spent 25 years with her and I have only been apart from her for some years. Then I turned my thought to my Jesus, He who has known me since he formed me in his mind. He who has walked by my side for my last 33 years. He who has saved my body and my soul. He whom I haven't had to privledge to sit with in heaven. How much more will I be ready to fall at his feet to collapse into Him as His child. To breathe in the scent of God and revele in his beautiful light. How I will want to tell him how I spent my days and see him beam when we speak of His children whom he gave me to love. Let this be what spurs my days on, doing the right thing, leaving what I sometimes want for me for what will make Him smile. Thankful for the waiting arms.

The internet....

Oh internet time, why are you so addictive! I have a problem its called I check my email and check this or that and then next thing I know too much time has passed. In fact I am guilty of it now as I write this post! I meant to do more spring cleaning but I checked something then something else and now here I am. I did have this random thought though, the problem with the internet. Before we had magazines to waste time reading but they had an end and then you had to wait for a new issue which took a few weeks. The internet is a never ending constantly updating magazine there is no last sentence close it up and wait another month. Its a total time sucker!! There is some great things about the internet, lately I have been checking out pintrest and my family has had lots of new and delicious foods to eat thanks to the new recipe source! Ahhh not sure where this post is going.... The End.

More random thoughts...

First I find it ironic that we the White House making a get healthy and moving initiative while I find my children can no go anywhere without being served a snack, usually an unhealthy one. I hate to have to start this way at only 33 but.....back in my day.... we didn't have a snack at church or ccd, we didn't have a snack at school, just lunch time, we did get a snack after playing a basketball game or a snack during a football game. Are our children REALLY this hungry? Do they need a bag of chips and juice box after playing an hour of basketball and are probably going to return home after where they will have food? It seems any kids activity that lasts more then 20 minutes the kids get a snack, its crazy to me! Imagine at home if we gave our kids snacks every 20-30 minutes...yeesh! Also crazy to me is the world telling kids to get up and move while more and more schools are medicating kids who can't sit still.......I will just leave that one as is.....

Running update....ok not great, I did it for a week, then last week I kept forgetting, but I am not quitting! I just need to find a regular time to get on the treadmill!

Lastly we are growing again, looking like number 8 is coming from Bulgaria!! WOohoo...more details to hopefully come next week!

Go mom go....see mom run...

For a very long time I have envied people who just like going for a run. I so wanted to be runner. Even joined track in high school and joined the group of kids who hid behind the shed next to the track during lap time and eventually tried things like shot put that did no involve any running. You see I want to be a runner, but I haven't ever been able to stick with it. Anyway the older I got the more I thought now I can't, I am so out of shape, I get winded walking around the zoo! I don't have time, I am raising 7 kids here and homeschooling! Until I fell apon a blog of another woman, who is a runner. She started 2 or so years ago and now runs marathons, she is only a year older then me and here is the kicker....she has 12 kids!! I was inspired! However for me inspired usually means a 1 to 2 week commitment before something else catches my eye or time and I am off on another rabbit trail. But not this time!! NOPE I am doing this and I am publicly putting it out there so that I have the fears of public humiliation to face so I won't give up! Also I hope I can get other moms who "can't" up and going. I started tonight and am being realistic, people understand that I am SOOOO out of shape. I made it 30minutes on 2.5-3 speed on the treadmill without any cramps or pain :) See I am really starting at 0... I have a little running plan to follow and I will update as I go. I don't know what I want to run, I know I want to be healthy and strong for my kids. But I also want to prove to myself that I am capable of doing hard things :) Sooo stay tuned and feel free to de lurk and post some advice for a newbie.

When did we stop??

I learn a lot from watching my kids. Now that they are getting a little older its fun to watch the excitement contained in all of them about the future. I love that most any teen you meet has this energy that allows them to pursue anything that piques their interest. They like music, they play an instrument or sing their hearts out. They like sports they go out and play and run as if they were in an Olympic event. Take a minute to watch a bunch of 10-13 year old boys run no matter if they are big or small, fast or slow the determination on their faces and the quick pumping of their arms, you would think they are in serious training! The excitement that comes with getting old enough for a "real job" or getting that first drivers license permit. I think we all remember the excitement when you first have your license and someone asks you to run to the store...alone!! Ohh the freedom we felt, the radio on the station of our choice, the newly printed license sitting in the new wallet you now have to carry.... So then what happens, when do we stop believing in making our lives our own. When were we told we can't, we won't or we aren't and when did we start believing it. When did the security of the mundane take over the excitement of the unknown? Its our one life. In the end it will matter who we have touched, and who is by our bedside. Famous or not, rich or poor, we all end up exactly the same, we enter the world with nothing and we leave the world with nothing. It all amounts to how much we lived while we were alive. I say all this as the most security routine person alive! There is some value to knowing how to stay orderly and disciplined and a place for it. However I somehow believed the lie along the way that said, you are getting older, you cannot do this or that, your time for this or that has passed. I don't run through life because somewhere along the line I sat down. I believed the lie that it matters to conform. No one wants to be the awkward lady, but us quiet ladies secretly envy the ones who aren't afraid to stand out be bold and laugh! I read about ladies who live life with gusto and think back to when I believed I could be or do whatever I worked hard enough for. Its time to get up and run, let the kids energy be contagious! Its my one life, I don't get a do over!! So run people!!! Dance, laugh, enjoy :)

I am very good at...

While spending a little quiet time with a cup of tea this afternoon and checking in on all of my favorite blogs, it occurred to me. I am very very good at reading about how very very good many of you are at wonderful things! I read about amazing crafts people make and then about amazing homeschooling ideas and then I read about amazing dinners people are making....Yep that's the extent I read it :) I think ohhh that is snazzy or that is a great idea! Then I close up my computer and I go back to doing what ever I was doing. So I salute all you crafty, baking, curriculum making, spotless home ladies of the blog world. You are my inspiration and maybe after I get the dog off my feet and my hiney off the couch I may just may try one of those delightful ideas :)