A 30 Day Challenge.

Okay so maybe I didn't make it back yesterday...

A new challenge has presented itself.  One entirely different from the last.  Not about food, weight or exercise...or is it?  

The food would be His Word.
The weight would be the responsibility.
The exercise would be discipline...of the mind and the tongue.

While meandering through Pinterest last week I ran across a pin with a sweet looking picture of what appears to be a bride and groom sitting in the back of a truck bed at sunset.  The comment under it simply said "30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge".  Intrigued, I followed the links.

What I found was something scriptural, focused genuinely on building up the man, daily entries were short and to the point, convicting without being condemning and gave a daily challenge that was entirely doable but also stretching.  My first reaction was to simply pin it to my "for our marriage" board and check it out later.  The Lord seemed to have other plans.  It didn't just sit quietly at the back of my brain.  It jumped full force to the front of my brain with full out jazz hands that could not be ignored.  A list of wives slowly came to mind....some who would simply enjoy the beauty that it existed and others who would love the guide and encouragement to the season in life they are in.  Share it.  So I did.

My expectation was at zero.  I thought I'd share it and if I got any response back it would be a "Thanks, that's neat!"  and nothing else.  What I got.....was much more.  Inbox messages of thanks and confession of struggling in the area.  Requests to do this as a group and support each other.   Surprise was about all I could muster at first.....then I had to chuckle at the Lord a bit.  He knows my passions, He knows my buttons and where to get me.  This would be it.  Being a godly wife by the Book is one of my greatest passions, held second only to my passion at being as consistently Christ-like as I can be - which I am significantly less successful at.  But the two connect and stretch each other....and encouraging another wife in this area is exciting.  Four, is even more!

Yesterday was our first official start date.  On day One the two challenges are set up:

1. You can't say anything negative about your husband...to your husband...or to anyone else about your husband.
2. Say something that you admire or appreciate about your husband...to your husband and to someone else about your husband.

What came to my mind was "hold your mind captive to the obedience of Christ" the verse in 2 Corinthians 10.  So When I went to look it up I found that all of Chapter 10 was just pure goodness on this subject.  Not specifically for wives but on the discipline of the mind and how that is so important.  A mind run loose is a dangerous thing and it can trample anyone, yourself included.  

Sound interesting?  Want to join in?

Here's the link: http://www.reviveourhearts.com/static/challenges/1-30DayHusbandChallenge.pdf

Blessings for a disciplined mind and tongue and encouragement that flows easily from and to you.

the Mrs.

a new era welcomed

The winds of change are coming.  I can feel them.  Transition into a new season for our family.

No more elementary school.  No more need for babysitters. The boy has a J O B for goodness sake!

Wonderteen will be a Junior.  11th grade.  Amazing to think my tiny little pumpkin head has grown into such an amazing and beautiful young woman.

Mr and I are entering into a new era.  Older kids.  More freedom to be spontaneously social and building a new core of relationships.  Our marriage continually growing stronger....and in a way makes me laugh at how we've grown into this beautiful relationship that also mimics the intensity of young love.  We often tease our daughter and her boyfriend about that high school love where things are so intense you immediately miss each other when out of sight.  Time apart can be crushing.  Oh the days of young overwhelming love! ...and we discuss on a fairly regular basis how wonderful retirement will be when we can be together all the time or his regular comment that if only we could win the lottery so he could be home with me everyday.  The million times we say I love you, sometimes less than 5 minutes apart...yes, that is our truth.  We are silly, cavity inducing, head over heels crazy for each other.  And we don't care how many times people tell us to get a room. Our affection is not hidden, nor excessive.  We keep it G people....maybe PG sometimes. :)

In this new era the trappings of formal ministry obligations have been thrown off.  The kind that tie you to a place, time and topic.  Nothing wrong with them, I'm not being critical of formal ministry.  As I've gotten older I have become more and more aware that I am personally in a constant state of ministry.  Some refer to my maternal nature with those around me.  It brings me to minister to whomever is in front of me at the time.  It isn't conscious or premeditated.....it is simply how He has grown me, wired me.  Formal ministry wears on me more quickly than I'd like to admit because of this.  My ministry is my family, my home and whomever may be placed in my path.  Facebook is so trivialized but I have spent more time ministering to people on there than you may believe.  I minister via email and kitchen door.  Yes, I have a young man who just shows up at my kitchen door, unannounced and just to talk.  He is 20 years old now, he calls me mom and has been showing up for several years.

Perhaps is the natural growth of being in the second half of my 30's.  Or maybe it's that I'm in a season in life more typical for one in their 40's. Maybe it's my confidence coming forward with over 30lbs shed.  Either way I feel a new settling in myself.  A disinterest to please simply for the sake of keeping others happy or not tarnishing someones view of me.  Who they think I am does not make me who I am....anymore.  Its a lovely freedom.

I will probably always be a one track person.  Whatever current focus will probably always be THE big deal until it isn't anymore.
I am not a crafty person.  I won't pick up scrap booking or stamping.  I am capable of crafts but that does not make me crafty.
My kids school work will still be mostly thrown in the trash.  Because who really looks at their spelling tests from 4th grade?  This isn't a treasure to me.  Exceptional works of art from them, yes.  Essays that depict who they are or their unique point of view at the time, those are things I will keep for them.  The funny, the deep, the personal, the beautiful.  Perhaps that's cold.  Though I take great pride in watching my 11 year old purge objects more efficiently than any adult I know because he doesn't form deep emotional connections to objects.  He loves people and that is where love should go.
I'll always have a horribly immature sense of humor.  And that is okay.
I'll always be strong and stable.
I'll always have a heart that breaks easily.
I'll always be a homebody who loves, loves, loves solitude and quiet.
I'll always be passionate about the truth but frustratingly calm and non-argumentative.
I will always care about doing what is right more than what is popular.
I will always be trying to grow and improve and learn about something.

There is unknown on the horizon but it's not scary.  The Lord always has a plan and it is always amazing.  The only plan I have is to try and walk through it with as much joy and grace as I can, no matter how things feel.  Feelings are deceiving and often not rooted in truth.  A fact that is hard to remember when we are in the middle of them but it is something good to remember.

It's been a good couple weeks here.  Lots of fun, lots of crazy and lots of me remembering how every summer I think I'm going to accomplish SO much and never do because I simply can't get it done while my kids are home.  They want attention and talk time or maybe just hanging out not talking time.  If that is what they need then that is what I try to give them, with measures of work in between.  The school year is my most productive home keeping season.  This year I hate to say even the garden has not been tended to the way it deserves.  It has been a disgustingly hot and humid summer though.....I have not wanted to even venture out there.

Time to get some work done.  This is the last week of summer school and Wonderteen is off on a trip with her mom and girl scout troop this week.  My last week of any alone time.  I want to make the most of it!

Blessings of peace and calm to welcome whatever new era comes to greet you.
the Mrs.

"cuz yer hot"

So apparently there is a down side to downsizing.

When your husband is late to work because he hit the snooze button too many times....he's late "because you're hot".

It's becoming an excuse for a lot of things.   The compliment wrapped in humor used as a distraction from whatever the question might be.

I'm not buying what you're selling, Mr.

Though I will confiscate it and use it for motivation to get on that treadmill.

But don't think that I will believe that you forgot to do the dishes because my 'hottness' distracted you.

I'm not yet halfway to my goal weight so you better get a hold of yourself or when I actually get there, you'll be a drooling mess incapable of completing a task.  We can't have you getting fired because your wife is hot.  This, would not be good.

Am I the smallest I've been since about when we got married?  Yep.  But do you remember when we met?  Think on that my love, and no, I will not eventually fit into your pocket. Sorry.

It is funny what happens when you downsize.  More sass, less....well, you get the point. Though the downside is that when goofing with Mr it's a whole lot harder to stand my ground.  I used to be able to, at the very least, push hard enough to get him to take a step back...(picture a Yogi and Boo boo moment)....now, he can kinda just pick me up and move me.  Granted that's kinda fun too in a "sweet, I'm less fat" kind of accomplishment.

I don't really care that valentines day is coming up.....lately......every morning I wake up feeling like it's valentines day.   We might be the mushiest couple that I know but I have more gratitude in my heart, than I have words, for what the Lord has done in our marriage.  I can say that in the last 6 years, each new day finds me falling more in love with Mr than I was the day before.

Who needs valentines day when everyday you have your valentine?

Blessings of abounding love,
the Mrs.

help arrived

Sometimes all the little stresses snowball into something big and overwhelming.  They get tangled and jumbled up together, hard to tell where one issue starts and another one ends....more menacing and powerful than if they just lined up nicely as individuals.   Seems they like to attack on just the right days...the weak ones.

Mr knows that sometimes the calendar creeps up on me.  It and some deep part of my mind or spirit get together and have things timed.  Often I am not even aware of the collaboration until I am reacting, feeling, the anniversary.   It's funny how it happens....in an ironic, questioning my sanity, kind of way....I start noticing that tears come more easily and for things that ordinarily wouldn't trigger them.  I start wondering if somehow I've completely lost track of time and the PMS monster has arrived...when I realize that it hasn't I then wonder some more.

Mr stayed home with me yesterday.  He knows me well.  Staying home to help me catch up around the house, cross things off my list....might seem like something small but to me it is huge.  Clutter got cleared, things got cleaned, donated and delivered.  Discussions and decisions made.....weights lifted.  I still feel gloomy, tired, and the weather we've had is not helping.  ALL the snow is gone, it's been rainy and yucky out.  No trace of sun - though there was a tiny moment this morning when it showed its radiant face...hoping we get more snow soon.

There was also a glimpse into how some days it's hard to get things done.  One extra phone call can change the overall productivity of the whole day because there is a guarantee that I will have one excessively long call in my day.   No matter how good, wanted, filling and nurturing a second call is.....there is little I can do while on the phone.  Due to the nature of my brain injury, any distraction means I have no idea what the person on the phone said.  So often, if I'm on the phone, I need to just sit and participate, listen actively and focus.  Mr got to witness this yesterday - I'm not much of a phone person and if I do take a call it is always during the day - less distractions and it is quiet - so for him to see me on the phone is rare.

Today I'll be trying to get more done around here....the main goal is to actually get on the treadmill.  I haven't been in the last 3 days.   That's the longest I've gone in more than a month or so, I think.  That's going to make it really tough to hit that 2.9......but we'll see.  I'm heading off to help a friend this afternoon and sit with her twins - one of which is our god-daughter - so she can run some errands and get out of the house.  They are just the cutest girls and such good babies!

I have 45 minutes until phone call time.....I must go run....or at least walk fast on the treadmill.

Blessings for joyful productivity in your day,
the Mrs.

So much for consistency!

Okay....so I said I'd be writing more about life in general and not limit myself huh....so why haven't I been on?

I am still not in the swing of the season. Strangely it's taking longer than usual BUT I have pulled out my schedules again and am going to get back on track.  I have seen so many people have routines in their Homemaking binders, or whatever you may call yours, and they all vary so much.   I came to the conclusion that a rotation worked best for me.  So I work with four sheets, one for each week of the month and I have four sets - one for each season.  Because lets face it, I'm not gardening in February when there is 5 feet of snow outside.
I also got myself a day planner....hmm....maybe I mentioned that already...anyhoo...so far I feel like it's helping.  As the kids get older and with my Mr's work stuff I need to keep things organized or something will fall straight off the radar!

Here's my schedule and day planner.  I have a copy of my schedule in my binder (of which I now have two! - one for home and one for family) but the ones I use are in plastic sleeves and held together by a metal ring.  That way I can move them easily from place to place without messing with my binder but still keep track of what I need to be doing.

I am in an epic fail cycle with weight watchers.   Before school started I took a break from counting and managed to hold still for nearly a month....then....September hit and I just seemed unable to get back on track and I couldn't figure it out.  Now we are in October and I have regained about 5lbs - 5! It may not seem like much but considering where the weight goes and my 5'3 frame - they are visible.  TOTALLY visible and they mock me.  Lame.   SO, I had some sort of light bulb moment and realized that my fairly extensive vitamin regimen was off.  I hadn't taken vit C in weeks and a couple of other things were out.....so I wondered....and then I read some random link between hunger and vitamin C levels and figured, what the heck! SO I reordered and restocked - and guess what just came to the door!

Yup those are all mine.

I've never been so excited to pop pills. :)  Hopefully I can get my body back to feeling normal - for me - and crack the whip on points and getting activity in daily.  Something has got to give!  

On other notes - today is the 13th anniversary of the day I married my Mr.  All those years ago people didn't think we'd make it.  It was silly for us young 21 and 22 year olds with a little one to think we could be grown ups.  But we did it. Today I am so proud of our story.   I am so thrilled and blessed to have had a front row seat to watch what the Lord was going to do in our lives, how He was going to grow my Mr into such an amazing (not to mention smokin hot) man of God.  Our anniversary is so cool because it's also the anniversary of us becoming a family.  I got a package deal - wife and mother in one swoop!  She's gone from my punkin head to my wonder teen - she went to homecoming last weekend!  Craziness. 

Happy anniversary to the most amazing man I know.  I could not have dreamed up a man as wonderful as God has made you.  I am blessed to be your wife and with each year I fall more deeply head over heels for you.  I love you so much!

I'll be back......hopefully sooner than later.... :)

Blessings, 

the Mrs.

Hand over the pants...

 I confess.....I'm a long time pants stealer.  I was raised in a pants stealing family.   I was such a pants stealer that I didn't know it was stealing.   It was normal and I had no clue it was wrong or there was a better way to live.  

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.  1 Cor. 10:22

uh oh....{seriously God? isn't that just a little sexist? I mean really? I can do anything he can and probably better....wait that sounds like a song...

....hmmmm...okay so my argument about girls being more mature is out....}

To the woman He said,"I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."  

Genesis 3:16

Part of the consequence of that very first sin was that the beautifully ordained pairing of man and woman would now be tainted by a power struggle for leadership.  We are still struggling for power....it's no wonder that men are always saying that they don't understand us.   We simultaneously desire them and fight them for leadership....if those aren't conflicting messages I don't know what is.   

Submit.   Respect.  Head of the house.   Who wears the pants in your family?   Typically the fruits of these words are conflict and discomfort.  But why?   The fruit of the Lord's Words and commands are sweet.  They multiply into goodness and righteousness and all things profitable.   So where does it all go terribly wrong?  Us.   We keep shoveling our sinful pride into the roots of those words, fertilizing it and covering up the Truth of His desires with our modern day denials that those statements are no longer culturally relevant.   Except they weren't cultural statements......it was prophecy.  He was sharing with us why He didn't want us eating of the tree in the first place.

Submit.......we use this word to turn over papers and then wait to see if they will be accepted; it feels like the precursor to a fight but when Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord."  It doesn't tell us "all men" or "you have no say" but that this submission is a yielding to the man's leadership in the marriage relationship.  I think too often we get uncomfortable with this and stop looking....and miss what he tells the husbands next.  Verse 25-27 "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."   I won't dive into that too much because I have already addressed that beautiful command of love here.  But later, Peter urges the same sentiment.  In 1 Peter 3, we are again told to (v1) "...be subject to your own husband..." but after we are given instruction, he then addresses our husbands again.  Verse 7: "Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayer may not be hindered."  

Hindered.  A husbands prayers can be hindered by the way he cares....or does not care for his wife.  I think that we forget this....as wives we are all too eager to point out our husbands flaws for our own prideful dance of "I can do anything better".   Yet, it is not yielding, it is not loving, it is not encouraging, it is not helping.   

"However, let each of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Eph. 5:33

It is a battle waged since the beginning of time.  Society tells us what to think and say and do but it is always filled with such venom.   Commercials market products to women by demeaning men and making men look like ignorant fools.   TV shows depict the men to be bumblers and that the women are who really know what is going on and are the wise figures who are really in charge......but condescend to allow the men to believe they are still "wearing the pants".   

We joke easily. Men rib each other about how they know it's the women who are really in charge.  But under that I sometimes sense a primal wound.  They were created to lead and we have stolen their pants.....leaving them to stand out in public, exposed and often humiliated. 

It is a continuous battle but one I will continue to fight within myself......I will hand over the pants as often as I realize I've stolen them.  They weren't made for me, they don't fit well and the Lord did say "You shall not steal."

An excellent wife, who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trust in her,

and he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good, and not harm,

all the days of her life.

Prov. 31:10-12

Blessings to you on the journey and may the depth of His love for you be revealed more fully during this Easter season.