The Three P's

Rick and I were listening to a message given by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hills Church in Seattle. He talked about remembering the 3 P's in your life. It spoke to me and I'm still pondering it so I thought I'd share.

1. Plate
2. Priorities
3. Prune

1. He says that #1 we need to remember our plate size. Some of us have dinner roll sized plates and some have platter size plates. The key is to know the size of your own plate and not to over fill it or under fill it! Do just what God made for you to do. I have recently come to realize that my plate is not as big as some of my friends or family. I need to stop trying to compare my plate and just fill my plate but not overfill it!

2. We need to know our priorities. Then fill the plate only with those things that fit into our priorities. My priorities are 1. God (seeking Him and His plan for me daily!) 2. Rick (knowing how to meet his needs and wants and making life good for him) 3. the kids (home school both kids, teach them the ways of the LORD, keep them safe and clean) 4. my home (the one I hate the most...clean, cook, plan, prepare, run things here) 5. my extended family (my parents and in-laws, my siblings, my nieces and nephews...pray for them, check in with them, love on them) 6. ministry (worship team, prayer team, nursery).

3. Pruning. This is a new one to me. We need to take the plate, look at the priorities and see what is falling off the plate. If I spend too much time on #6 and not enough on #1 I need to cut some things on #6! Also, he mentioned that each season has a different pruning. While the kids are little they demand a lot of attention and sometimes my time with God and Rick suffers. I just need to be more diligent that other things don't take over. And one day the kids wont need as much attention and I'll have more free time to do more ministry or whatever else the LORD has opened up for me. I am often asked to do things at church or Katie's home school group and I need to say no. It may be a good thing. It may be a fun thing. It may even be a godly thing. But if it over fills my plate, I need to say no or I need to prune something else to make room. Because an over filled plate means nothing is being done well.

This is something that is running through my head. I am really wanting to keep my P's in order. Because when I get to heaven I want to see a smile on God's face!

I Am A Mom!

I am going on a Pastor's Wives Retreat today. I have been very nervous since I said yes. This week I have really searched my heart as to why I am so scared to go. Rick is a very capable father to his kids. Katie and mostly self sufficient and her schoolwork can be scaled back to be easier to do with her daddy. Eli is now potty trained and weened. So why am I reluctant to go? Is it guilt, fear, anxiety?
As I have searched my heart and mind this week I came up with the answer, I think! The answer is...I am a mom. That is who I am. I wont always be, but I am in the stage of life where that is what I am. This is not a negative thing as the world may think. This is a wonderful, joyous, sometimes tiring but always rewarding calling on my life! I am a mom. Do I deserve a break to go sit at Jesus' feet? YES! And I am going. But feeling guilty in going isn't really what I'm feeling. I will miss my family! I love hanging out with them. I love seeing my kids grow everyday. I love talking with my husband! I love being right in the center of God's calling on my life!
I am a mom! And I love it!

Exactly....

I've been asked how homeschooling is going. And really I love it. But I am more exhausted than I have been in a very long time. I was browsing a friend's blog and ran across this post. I think the columnist sums up how I'm feeling perfectly...please read. You may feel the same!

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn Hax
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page C10

Below is a letter to a columnist.

My best friend has a child. She says she's exhausted, busy, has no time for self, no time for me, etc.

I have no kids.

I sympathize, and say wow, sorry. What'd you do today?

She says, Park, play group . . .

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

The columnist's reply...

Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, ortellme@washpost.com.

Your's

I was cruising YouTube and found these clips. I was blown away. As many of you know, Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman lost their daughter a little over a year ago. In that tragedy, Steven added a verse to his song "Yours". Here's his explanation and then the added verse...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYkNm0RALnQ&feature=related

If you've never heard the whole song, here's the whole song with the added verse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_lHevMdpc

I know that my "troubles" this summer can not relate to the death of a child. But in my own difficulties I have come to understand that God really is in control. He really does have the answers. He really does love me. And I really am HIS!

We're Gonna Party!

This is Eli's favorite song. It's from Chris Tomlin on the Passion "Glorious" CD
...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy7G8VHWuXc

Let's think about this one...

I read a quote by John Piper that has me thinking.

“If you could go to heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauty you ever saw, all the physical pleasure you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with that heaven if Christ were no there?”

Tell me what you think...

Nehemiah's Prayer...mine for the USA!

I was reading Nehemiah 9 in my study time this morning and was struck how like the Israelites of the Old Testament we Americans are. We too have been very blessed by God over our 230+ years of existence. Yet we have turned away from Him. We have sought our own pleasure and not His highest for our land. Here's Nehemiah's prayer. Can you see the parallels to the USA?

⁵Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah, said, "Arise, bless the LORD your God forever and ever!
O may Your glorious name be blessed
And exalted above all blessing and praise!
⁶"You alone are the LORD
You have made the heavens,
The heaven of heavens with all their host,
The earth and all that is on it,
The seas and all that is in them
You give life to all of them
And the heavenly host bows down before You.
⁷"You are the LORD God,
Who chose Abram
And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees,
And gave him the name Abraham.
⁸"You found his heart faithful before You,
And made a covenant with him
To give him the land of the Canaanite,
Of the Hittite and the Amorite,
Of the Perizzite, the Jebusite and the Girgashite--
To give it to his descendants
And You have fulfilled Your promise,
For You are righteous.
⁹"You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt,
And heard their cry by the Red Sea.
¹⁰"Then You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,
Against all his servants and all the people of his land;
For You knew that they acted arrogantly toward them,
And made a name for Yourself as it is this day.
¹¹"You divided the sea before them,
So they passed through the midst of the sea on dry ground;
And their pursuers You hurled into the depths,
Like a stone into raging waters.
¹²"And with a pillar of cloud You led them by day,
And with a pillar of fire by night
To light for them the way
In which they were to go.
¹³"Then You came down on Mount Sinai,
And spoke with them from heaven;
You gave them just ordinances and true laws,
Good statutes and commandments.
¹⁴"So You made known to them Your holy sabbath,
And laid down for them commandments, statutes and law,
Through Your servant Moses.
¹⁵"You provided bread from heaven for them for their hunger,
You brought forth water from a rock for them for their thirst,
And You told them to enter in order to possess
The land which You swore to give them.
¹⁶"But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly;
They became stubborn and would not listen to Your commandments.
¹⁷"They refused to listen,
And did not remember Your wondrous deeds which You had performed among them;
So they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt
But You are a God of forgiveness,
Gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness;
And You did not forsake them.
¹⁸"Even when they made for themselves
A calf of molten metal
And said, 'This is your God
Who brought you up from Egypt,'
And committed great blasphemies,
¹⁹You, in Your great compassion,
Did not forsake them in the wilderness;
The pillar of cloud did not leave them by day,
To guide them on their way,
Nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they were to go.
²⁰"You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them,
Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth,
And You gave them water for their thirst.
²¹"Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want;
Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell.
²²"You also gave them kingdoms and peoples,
And allotted them to them as a boundary.
They took possession of the land of Sihon the king of Heshbon
And the land of Og the king of Bashan.
²³"You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven,
And You brought them into the land
Which You had told their fathers to enter and possess.
²⁴"So their sons entered and possessed the land
And You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites,
And You gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land,
To do with them as they desired.
²⁵"They captured fortified cities and a fertile land
They took possession of houses full of every good thing,
Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves,
Fruit trees in abundance
So they ate, were filled and grew fat,
And reveled in Your great goodness.
²⁶"But they became disobedient and rebelled against You,
And cast Your law behind their backs
And killed Your prophets who had admonished them
So that they might return to You,
And they committed great blasphemies.
²⁷"Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their oppressors who oppressed them,
But when they cried to You in the time of their distress,
You heard from heaven, and according to Your great compassion
You gave them deliverers who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors.
²⁸"But as soon as they had rest, they did evil again before You;
Therefore You abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they ruled over them
When they cried again to You, You heard from heaven,
And many times You rescued them according to Your compassion,
²⁹And admonished them in order to turn them back to Your law
Yet they acted arrogantly and did not listen to Your commandments but sinned against Your ordinances,
By which if a man observes them he shall live
And they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen.
³⁰"However, You bore with them for many years,
And admonished them by Your Spirit through Your prophets,
Yet they would not give ear.
Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
³¹"Nevertheless, in Your great compassion You did not make an end of them or forsake them,
For You are a gracious and compassionate God.
³²"Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness,
Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You,
Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people,
From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.
³³"However, You are just in all that has come upon us;
For You have dealt faithfully, but we have acted wickedly.
³⁴"For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your law
Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them.
³⁵"But they, in their own kingdom,
With Your great goodness which You gave them,
With the broad and rich land which You set before them,
Did not serve You or turn from their evil deeds.
³⁶"Behold, we are slaves today,
And as to the land which You gave to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty,
Behold, we are slaves in it.
³⁷"Its abundant produce is for the kings
Whom You have set over us because of our sins;
They also rule over our bodies
And over our cattle as they please,
So we are in great distress.

Please LORD, forgive us and heal our land!
AMEN