Practice Makes Peace...

A day of rest. A day to look at what God has made and reflect that it is, indeed, "very good." Today was truly a Sabbath. I'm still a little shocked by it all. Does it ever amaze you when God's presence is almost tangible? When you focus on His Word and experience the power of it? It was one of those days today. Yesterday was not. Yesterday was full of fighting. Whining. Anger. Frustration. Foiled plans. Yuk.I was NOT a happy mommy. My wonderful husband sensed this. I think it may have had something to do with the multitude of texts he recieved from me during his workday. Or the mild meltdown he experienced over the phone. Or the twitching eyelid and pronounced, throbbing vein he encountered when I met him at the door upon his arrival home. Whatever subtle hint he picked up on, he decided that it would be wise to have some adult-only time last night. And so we did. The kids got pizza and big brother babysitting. The adults went out for a real meal and some conversatio...

The wait is finally over. You can take those worms out of your mouth now. (Sorry - reference to a bad joke from my childhood: "waiting with bated breath". Get it? Bate = bait = worms. I know. It's bad.) Where were we? Oh, yes. The next chapter in the healing story. The one I've been avoiding like the plague. It's one thing to feel the release of living through it and quite another to be willing to share it in print. You're still only going to get a sketch with few details on this one, but much of this involved the marriage relationship, and, well, some of it is just going to remain there. When last I wrote on this topic, I left us in a new career, a new definition of our walk with Christ, a new understanding of who we are to be as the church, a new focus on our family FIRST as our mission field, and a new seeking of the Lord in how we were to proceed in life rather than in "ministry." And I told you that's when things got tough. As if they hadn...

What's a girl to do? Short answer: NOT what I did . What did I do? I listened to teaching because it was coming from people of note, people of great education. But I failed to double-check it for myself. These were folks that had thriving ministries, were holders of high offices, had endured much in the ministry to which I believed we were called. So I soaked in every bit of advice, every stricture on my personality, every social lesson in "how to support your man by being the kind of wife every church wants to see in it's staff." And I didn't realize the chains that were growing tighter and tighter. I didn't see the lie I was buying. Because I trusted too much in people and not enough in the Holy Spirit that says that he will teach *me*. That if *I* seek Him in His Word, He will reveal Himself directly to *me.* Not once did I question that what I was soaking in was truth. And I was busily squashing down my inherent penchant for debate, practicing keeping my m...

Hmmmm...I'm finding it harder to blog these days. Not because nothing interesting is happening; more because I'm so busy actually *living* my life rather than lost in depression and reflection about *how* to live it. The last of the walls have crumbled (Praise God!!) and I'm finally free to live the life God has called me to live. You'll recall that the beginning of this blog was an accountability thing. A tool to get me to consciously focus on the GOOD that God had brought into my life. Unexpectedly, focusing on that also brought a lot of the ugly to the surface. The more I desired to see the good, the more the hurtful was made apparent. The more I didn't want to focus on my pain, the more God nudged me to DEAL WITH IT, ALREADY! You see, I thought that hiding it, pushing it aside, denying it existed *was* dealing with it. It wasn't. It wasn't even being "spiritually mature" as I had so labeled it. God never asks us to "suck it up and press on...