Fun Night

Tonight we had week 1 of our Be Transformed study at our house. It was so fun to start it again with a new group of brothers and sisters hungry for God! I love it. We talked about The Beginning and saw The Fall from a new perspective. I always love to go through it. The Holy Spirit speaks to me every time.
Tonight I was overwhelmed by how much I have believed the lies of the enemy and how those lies have kept me in bondage. God renewed my mind again with His awesome Truth of who He is, who I am, and what I have in Him.

Tonight while we were putting the kids to bed we were all laying in their room after Matt prayed. I was laying with A on her bed and Matt was laying on the floor with his head on S's bed. I think S was scratching his head, which is probably why he wasn't in a hurry to leave! :) Anyway, we talked a little and we had been laying there quiet for a couple minutes when A said in a very matter of fact voice, "Why is there someone laying on my bed when I have school early in the morning?" Oh my! It struck my funny bone! I busted out laughing and Matt and I slowly peeled ourselves up and left their room. We haven't heard a noise since...haha! The trick to smooth bedtimes is to put them to bed at 10:45 pm???? Well, that's not going to work! :) Tonight we had special circumstances that kept us up late, but we can't do that every night! At least little S had bedtime success for tonight! (She's 3 and has been having lots of trouble.) Her reward in the morning for a good bedtime is an early morning walk down the street in her jammies with a juice box! She is going to come pounding into my room in the morning knowing that she gets to do it and she's going to be PUMPED! Yay for little S!

One thing I have been learning lately is the Holy Spirit's voice. He often puts thoughts in my head and I explain it away and have reasons why it is just me or something. Lately I have been realizing that He speaks to me a lot and I just don't recognize Him until later. Tonight I was headed out with some friends and had the thought/feeling that I really needed to be home tonight at bedtime. I called Matt and asked him to keep the girls up for me until I got home. He got them all ready for bed and then brought them to come pick me up. When we got home, we had the most precious family time and it was so clear to me that it had been His voice suggesting I be home to put the girls to bed. I am thankful that He speaks to me and thankful that I am learning to listen and recognize Him. This is quite a dance with the Holy Spirit!

I love my little family and I love my God. I feel that He is creating in me and desire for Him alone. Not what He has to offer, not for more head knowledge or a better looking life; just Him. To desire and love Him more each day is such a gift of grace. I am thankful.

This Weekend

So I actually put the "acceptance with joy" thing into practice this week! Wow, that's a miracle of grace in itself! :)

God has shown me that I am like a turtle. I am a self-preservationist...is that a word? I guess you know what I mean! When danger comes, I immediately retreat into my emotional shell where I feel safe and comfortable. When I don't feel taken care of by God or my loved ones, I go into selfish take care of myself mode. The only problem is that the shell is miserable and constantly looking out for myself is miserable...not to mention disobedient! It isolates me and others and it is destructive to relationships. Can you relate? My husband can't, he is more like a puppy...loyal, loving, forgiving. He doesn't have an instinct to protect himself, he has an instinct to play and love! It's awesome-I love that about him.

Anyway, that is one of my rights I have been holding on to. I so want to retreat whenever I want to and stay there as long as I want to. This weekend, by God's amazing grace and strength, I was able to deny myself the right to retreat. I relinquished my "personal rights" :) and put my husband above myself on several different occasions. It has been wonderful! Living in Christ is so fulfilling! His intentions for us (though sometimes quite painful at first) are wonderful and bring us such full life. You are probably thinking that all of this is a no brainer, right! I know, I should know this put my husband above myself stuff by now. Honestly though, I have been living so deeply in my flesh I have been incapable of living that way. It's not until I surrendered to Christ living His life through me that there was strength enough to make "others first" choices.

The lies that I have believing in this flesh pattern are:

I have the right to protect myself.
No one else is looking out for me-I should look out for myself.
This is just my personality-Matt has to understand that!
God is not trustworthy with my emotional or physical safety.

The Truth is:
I do not need to protect myself. God has taken that yoke from me and I can trust Him with all of me and all of my life. This is not my "new self" in Christ that needs to self-preserve. That is the old Dani that was crucified with Christ on the cross. The new Dani has all of the care and protection needed...In Christ! God is, always has been, and always will be trustworthy with my emotional and physical safety. He does not promise me physical security, but does promise to be with me always and work all things for good in my life. Because of the faith of Christ in me, i will believe that to be true and rest because God is good, God is big, and He is trustworthy!

Thanks to Much Afraid and an amazing God, life gets fuller and fuller around here! Don't our attitudes and beliefs affect our families so much? It's incredible to watch God bless my family by blessing me with a transformed heart!

Six Random Things about Me

6 Things - I was Tagged by Celena.

So here are 6 random things about me:

1. I have an 8 month old baby and my body makes an incredible amount of breast milk. So much that I am unable to nurse without taking some sort of medication to slow the factory. I pump instead! My body somehow missed the memo that with each delivery I have delivered only 1 baby! It seems to think that I have 3 at a time!

2. I have experienced a miraculous healing from God. Not a slow recovery sort of thing, but an instantaneous miracle. I lived with an eating disorder for about 6 years. One day in my apartment bedroom I looked in the mirror as a sick child. I saw a distorted image and I was emotionally and mentally sick in my eating, binging, and body image. I fell to my knees and cried out to God for healing. When I rose, I was completely healed. Emotionally and mentally-my eyes saw a completely different figure in the mirror than I had seen 30 minutes earlier. I have had a healthy relationship with food and my body ever since (10 years)! Praise God.

3. I have a love/hate relationship with being a stay-at-home-mom. I love my children and spending time with them. I love being with them as they discover and grow. I love knowing them so well because I spend so much time with them. I enjoy eating with them, playing with them, laughing with them, snuggling with them, teaching them, etc. I just don't like doing it alone all of the time! If I had the money I would pay a nanny to come and be my friend-at-home! I love being alone other times...just not working alone! Go figure. I renew my mind often with the truth that I am not alone. God is with me and I can experience Him during the day at home with my kids!

4. My marriage has gotten so much better in the past 3 years. The one thing we can connect the improvement to is that we both QUIT TRYING! We quit trying to meet each other's needs and quit trying to get the other to meet our own needs. We started believing and experiencing the truth that all of our needs are met in Christ and boy, marriage is good! :)

5. I love to be organized, but I am too much of a scatterbrain to get organized! It's the biggest conflict in my life. :)

6. God provides for our family's financial needs on a month to month basis. My husband quit his job as a youth pastor and started LIFe Ministries about 2 years ago. We have been living on support ever since. At times it is so hard, but it has been revolutionary for my faith. I always believed The Gospel because I felt that I had nothing to lose. Now, I have everything to lose (my family's basic needs!) and God is teaching me to believe and trust because He Is, not because I have nothing to lose! I still tend to get into the mind frame that our supporters provide for us and I become afraid that they will stop and we will not get paid. This has happened a few times (a supporter has stopped giving) and that is when God teaches me that it is Him providing, not our supporters. We have been paid during every pay period for almost 2 years now...why would I stop believing?! Just as He did with Thomas, He has given me all the proof I need to believe His promises always.

TAG YOUR IT! :)

High Heels in High Places
Life's Little Adventures
Days and Times of the Sundbergs
Learning Dependence-My Hubby
Poppyseeds
Simply "Jenn"-sational


Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the person who tagged you know your entry is up.

And of course, this is just fun. If you don't have time or just don't want to-no pressure :)

Friends

Two of A's best friends moved away about a year ago. She has missed them so much and often asks to visit them. Coordinating three family schedules for a visit has been difficult, but we finally made it up yesterday to see both of her friends.
We played at a McDonalds with Andy and Ellie first and then played at her friend Anabeth's house.
We all had a really nice time and enjoyed catching up with special friends.
We took a few pictures with Matt's iphone at McDonalds.