As I was partaking of the communion at church yesterday, it sunk in that I forgot who I was.  Once when communion was finishing the worship team started singing “In Christ Alone” it hit me, I am not alone.  I have Christ and He is the one that is making me who I am, not me.  Then the sermon just topped it off.

Here is a few things that stood out to me in the sermon:

• Every single day matters.
• How often do I have a great day?
• Do something today that YOUR future self WILL thank you for!
• Am I going to live with pain of discipline or pain of regret?
• Today matters!
• Psalm 118:24 (NLT) This is the day the LORD has made.  We will rejoice and be glad in it.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when striving cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground, all other ground
Is sinking sand.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=In+Christ+Alone+with+lyrics&vid=6f40877fcd658e85fed57d1505e88ad6&l=5%3A25&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608005054127672384%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DE3ExMwj9Efw&tit=In+Christ+Alone+%28Lyrics%29&c=23&sigr=11be8d91o&sigt=10oihi2oe&ct=p&age=0&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&tt=b

I am going to be very vulnerable to the world and to my friends because I feel like I need to share what has been going on with me.  I want to be open and not feel like I need to hide anymore, so if this hurts anybody I am sorry.   It is not my intent to hurt anybody but to be honest in how I am struggling and feeling right now.

I haven’t been myself to my immediate family like to my husband or my children.  I have been short, angry, distant, frustrated and getting annoyed very easily by them.  My husband keeps asking me what is wrong with me or if I am okay and I usually responded with “I am fine” but finally the last few days I told him, “I don’t know how I am”.   I had to no clue what I was going on with me but knew something was wrong.

Finally, today while I was showering I finally figured out what was causing me to be distant, short, angry, frustrated and annoyed.  I think it all started in September and I finally got what I was struggling with in the shower.

Who am I?  That is the question I have been struggling with lately because I feel like I don’t fit into this world. I don’t feel like I have a purpose and I am lost in finding it.  I think I have struggled with this for most of my life.  I felt like I was never good enough for anybody.  I didn’t have many friends and felt alone on many occasions.  When ever I think about friendship I think they cry with each other, lean on each other, laugh together, help each other, vent to each other, tell each other everything and share many memories together, it’s never just one sided.  Though I feel most of my friendships growing up and now is just one sided.  I have learned lately to open up to some of my friends and vent and ask for help but they never call me to vent or need a good cry or let them know when they need help. I really desire a friendship like the one I see as friendship, maybe I am just not looking close enough or I have friendship skewed.   I know I have friends and some are closer then others but I don’t feel like I have that intimate close friendship.  That is just one of the struggles.

What do I want to do with my life?  Since I was a child I wanted to be a wife, mother and own a home and I have reached those goals.  Now what? I have no clue what to do.  I don’t know if I want to go to school, work or just keep going the way I am which is not going well because I don’t feel like I have a purpose in life.  That is my last struggle not knowing where to go and what to do now.

I don’t want to feel lost anymore because it’s not fair to my family.  They deserve a better person then the person I am being.  So, here’s to me finding myself and making myself a better wife, mother and friend.  Love you all!

Day 12; 7/6/2012:

Yesterday was a fun day with my kids, I wanted to take them for the day and just have fun since I am leaving for almost a week.  I didn’t tell them where we were heading and we sunblocked and left.  I took them to a park where we played for over an hour then we did the free lunch program.  Since they were getting bored of the playground I asked them if they wanted to surprise Grandpa and Grandma and of course they said yes.  Right after I said that my dad called and asked what the kids were up to and was wondering they could come over to help with loading wood into their shed.  Perfect timing, we went and some helped for a little.  Greggory was a work horse and worked about 2 hours helping, he sure did sweat.  He enjoyed helping Grandpa!  Josiah helped at the end and he was loving it too.  Then they found potato bugs and started playing with those.   Katelyn and Angelique got bored real quick and they played in the playroom for hours without fighting.  I am proud of them.  I let them know and let Brett know in front of them how good they were.

I went out with some friends and watched “Monty Python; The Holy Grail” and that was funny.  After that we went to a restaurant and chatted.  It was a good evening spent.

I really enjoyed yesterday and it was a good send off for my vacation.  I will miss my kids and my husband.  This is the first time I have every done anything like this.  I will be bringing my book to read and study it along the pool side or any down time I have.  I pray that I will come back feeling refreshed and ready to be a better parent.

(I will not be blogging while I am gone so it will be over a week before I blog again.)

 

Day 11; 7/5/2012:

Today was a pretty good even though I had some trouble with Katelyn.  I stayed calm through the whole thing at one point I started to get a little heated with her but then remembered slow to anger.  I let her know I was trying very hard not to get angry with her and that she need to stop allowing Satan to run her life.  I advised her to pray to God and allow the Holy Spirit control her heart.  After that talk she calmed down and has been a great kid.

I had special moment with Katelyn today.  The movie “Hop” finished playing and the ending had some really cool music playing as she came into the kitchen I swooped her up and started dancing with her.  Well she is getting so big now well we almost fell to floor.  I was cracking up and so was she.  It was a good moment for us.  I love her!

Greggory and I had some moments together as well but it’s harder to get through to him since he doesn’t have a relationship with God yet and he doesn’t understand it yet.  I do keep talking to him about God and how his behavior should be with his siblings and the dog and how he should be loving them.  I did have one conversation with him today  about loving and I think he understood he wasn’t being loving.  Another time he accidentally hurt  Josiah and Greggory instantly apologized to him.  I will keep what I am doing with him and eventually he will understand.

It has been neat seeing myself change and how the children has even noticed my change in my parenting.  Spiritual parenting has been a blessing to me and I have only gotten to the 2nd chapter of it.  I am excited to see more change in myself and my children.  I praise God for my change!

Day 10; 7/4/2012:

Yesterday was a good day.  Brett and I got a nap while the kids watched a movie downstairs.  They were good kids for us, I am proud of them!  We also sat around and relaxed during the day. We went to a park for fireworks and the kids had a blast.  I am so proud of them for being good kids and no fighting.  I was blessed yesterday!

At the park I saved our spots for the watching of the fireworks, I worked on rereading chapter 1 of Spiritual Parenting and brought a journal to write the points that stood out to me.  I am finding new things that caught my eye while rereading it again.

Praise God for my day yesterday and Him working in my heart to change as a parent.  He is the only one that can change it and I am grateful for Him for doing it because I am becoming a better parent because of it.

Day 9; 7/3/2012:

Yesterday started off so well with the kids.  All the chores got done by 11am without fighting and they got to play.  It all changed after Katelyn got home from spending some time with my mom, don’t know why her behavior was like that.  She was treating Angelique unloving when she got back.  Angelique wasn’t doing anything to her at all so I don’t know what happened to cause this kind of mood towards her all evening.  We had guest over and they both had an incident to the point Kate got in more in trouble than she should have gotten.  I know I could have handled a lot better but I was really embarrassed by both of their behaviors.  Brett took Ang and I took Kate but Kate wouldn’t listen to me and eventually Brett had to step in with her.  I tried to stay as calm as I can but I don’t know how well I did because I felt like a failure as parent in front our guest.  It was hard, Kate snapped out of it for the rest of evening while they were at our place.

Then bedtime was not good moment for us either with her, she wasn’t be loving towards Angelique again so we put Katelyn in the boys room.  We had one more altercation with her during that as well.  I don’t know what to do with her at times, we stayed as calm as we could.  She keeps lying to us and that was the biggest thing for the bedtime stuff.  She claims she doesn’t do anything even though we see it and calls us the liars and unloving parents because we tell her no.

So reflection on yesterday is that I have a lot to learn and work on with my parenting.  I wasn’t going to bringing my book on my vacation and take a break from anything parenting but I have decided I am going to be bringing it with me.  It may be the best thing to do in my down time there and come back refreshed with new ideas to help me.  I know I didn’t surrender myself yesterday and I need to be trusting and putting my full faith in Him.  I need to surrender myself every minute of the day and I chose not to do it every minute than I don’t handle things well.  Surrendering myself is the biggest key for me to be working on.

Day 8; 7/2/2012:

Yesterday was a pretty good day.  I love hearing my kids singing with the station on Praise & Worship on Pandora, it warms my heart especially when I hear the kids around the neighborhood that are 6 and younger singing not so good songs.  We had a neighbor girl over at our place yesterday she is 14 or 15 years old and comes from a home that isn’t very good (her and siblings use our place as a safe place to come over to) and she told me she loves the music we are listening to.  This is one environment I am creating in my home by playing Praise & Worship music all day long, they are soaking in good clean music that sings about God.

I went to lunch with a really good friend of mine and we talked about things regarding people we have in our lives and Spiritual Parenting.  It got me thinking how am I going to create environments in my home that will be pleasing to God and me surrounding at all times to God. I also want people that come into my home and feel that God is present in our home.  I haven’t read farther into the book because I am rereading the first 2 chapters to understand my faith better.  We talked about getting a journal book to have with reading so we can make notes on it and what we have learned from the thing we learned from it.  In the book chapter 3 and on are the chapters that help you create the environments in a home.  So I know I will be taking notes and that and following through with it.  I think this will be a book I will want to read yearly to keep the training I am learning.  I want to be that parent that my kids can tell others and say mom loves God and she used Him to parent us.  I know I will not be perfect because a spiritual parent isn’t a perfect parent but how we handle our mistakes as parents is how it will show.  Am going to keep those mistake and hold it against myself or am I going surrender it God and learn from it?

I had another heart warming moment with one of my children since starting this new journey as a parent.  Angelique was getting mad at Katelyn for something I asked her to come down and we talked about her raised voice.  After we were done (which was only a 2 minute or so conversation) Angelique says “mom, I will try to slow to anger next time.”  I praised God after that, what a proud moment for me and see my change in parenting is blessing them as well.

Katelyn was hanging out with this neighbor girl and the girl’s behavior rubbed onto Katelyn.  We had some issues with her but not too bad but I could tell Brett was getting angry so when he started to go to her I reminded him to slow to anger and slow to speak, I saw him take a deep breath and didn’t hear any screaming.  The James 1:19 & 20 has become a huge help to our family in anger issues.  I recommend others that struggle with anger to start praying over it and use it.

Day 8; 7/1/2012

God is awesome and He gave this day to be Spiritually refreshing.  The kids were really good today and I am very proud of them.  I had a few conversations with them about Christ like behaviors but it wasn’t because they were doing anything wrong but just to keep it fresh and in training of having them.

For our Sunday night group we started to do a little worshiping with the kids and read part of “The Big God Story” to them.  We want to teach them why we get together on Sundays and allow them to start forming their own faith.  I don’t want to think we just get together for food, play and send them across to our neighbors place because we want to get rid of them.  I want them to form  a relationship with Christ and fellowship with other Christians at a young age.  I am excited to watch all of them grow in Christ and be able to be help them develop the relationship with Him.

Today was a good day for me because I got to share with others about the things I am learning through reading “Spiritual Parenting” by Michelle Anthony and sharing about my faith in Christ to my fellow believers.  I feel rejuvenated after today because all of the conversations I have had today was mostly about unconditional love, kingdom perspective and faith.  I am ready to hit this week surrendering to Him and allowing Him to be my guide, to use the Holy Spirit to change all attitudes and be my all.

Day 7, 630/2012:

We had a good day even though it was busy and tiresome we had no melt downs by anybody.  Before we left for fun at Oaks Park I reminded them of being loving towards everyone and they were.  The kids were even good for Tanisha when she watched them while Brett and I went to friends house for the evening.  It was a successful day!

Day 6 6/29/2012:

When Katelyn and Angelique need to clean their room (shouldn’t be that messy since they cleaned it yesterday but it is) it brings the worse in them.  I keep talking them about being Christ like and if they can’t be loving towards each other then don’t talk to each other.  They had to sit for a calming time out to think about what there reactions have done.  They lost out on our fun activity I was going to do, we were going to a park and eat lunch there but since they couldn’t get along do as I asked them we aren’t going.  Maybe next we can do it, we will see.

While they were sitting they were backing talking me and kept arguing with each other I lost it with them because they just wouldn’t listen.  I don’t know how to deal with them when they are like this so is when I need to learn how to be Christ like and not lose it with them.

One good thing I did today with them was having them pull a chore out of the chore bag since they wouldn’t stop fighting today was the first time they did it.  Katelyn pulled out cleaning the microwave (she’s lucky since I just cleaned 2 weeks ago and it’s still pretty clean) and Ang pulled out cleaning the light switches. When they were done with that chore they could play, Katelyn went out and told everyone she learned how to clean the microwave.  She seemed pretty proud of herself.  They didn’t fight anymore after that.

Let’s just say this day wasn’t a spiritual parenting day and I have a long way to go and learn.  Katelyn was in one of her moods and Angelique kept egging her on.  I lost it with them and I dislike I do that and not stay calm.  I failed as a spiritual parent especially since I didn’t surrender myself to God today.