Blogging Within My Mission

Posted on by Mary

Hi all,

So it’s been no secret that I have not been around much. Life has been busy and I wear so very many hats!  And sometimes I have to throw off all my other hats in order to take care of a hat that grows exceptionally heavy…..usually it’s the one with a husband, four kids and a house crammed inside of it.

And over the last year or so I have become increasingly uncomfortable with all the…”this is how you should blog”. And the “you aren’t doing things right”. Critics out there.   I also have a lot of personal critics in my life wondering “why do you waste your time doing that” and “How can you possibly have time for all that you do?”   And to be completely honest I think that Satan has used those critics to spread seeds of doubt, and frankly I have come to the realization that I was letting him!    

Did I whine and complain….maybe on the inside a little convincing myself that I had nothing anybody wanted to hear.   And everywhere you turn, people are oh so concerned about numbers……numbers!  Ugh, I’ve always hated Math! It’s a necessary evil in my mind!   Anyway, over the last 8 months I have spent A LOT of time reading and praying.   And while we were on vacation in July , I stole away a few times and focused on me.  Ways to better me.  And one of those things that I did was write my own personal mission statement.

Each year I write out goals but rarely if ever meet them.  I pick books based on areas of my life in which I desire to grow…..along with knowing I will review some as well. I choose them according to the areas that are focus points in my life.  I then also choose fiction that maybe I either missed out on in school or something that strikes my fancy! (No none of them are Romance novels….ICK)

So I wrote this Mission statement….

It is my mission to live my life with the sole purpose to give God the glory in everything I say and do-to abide in Christ, to grow in my daily walk with Him.

 It’s nothing fancy and I know it’s not short and sweet like five words or less BUT IT WORKS FOR ME.

I then added action statements for each of my main focus area in my life.  These areas include

  • My Daily walk with God…it’s a relationship and like any good fruitful relationship it takes nurturing.
  • My hubby….I love him dearly
  • The munchkins…yep four smiling, funny, keep me on my toes munchkins!
  • My home…..I want it to be a safe haven for all who cross it’s threshold .
  • My ministry….which is 2 fold, the people of our church, and my readers here on my blog!
Here is what my action statement under Ministry says
To intentionally challenge fellow women who love Jesus to grow deeper in their walk with God.  To speak truth in love and encourage women to be bold in their faith.

The Better Mom Monday-The Gum Ball Machine Gamble

Posted on by Mary

A few short weeks ago before school started we found ourselves in a grocery store.  This trip held a different tone , one of sheer excitement. For our 6 1/2 year old special needs son.  Hubby and I…..not so thrilled, you see our son had gotten this “passion”.   It was a passion to earn Money…how much?   50¢. Yep That’s it. Two quarters was just enough to get him something tiny (he has a thing for ALL things tiny). And a few weeks prior he had spotted something that bears all things tiny…..GUMBALL MACHINES!  

Now hubby and I aren’t fans for 1 major reason and lots of other smaller reasons.  But the 1 big reason…

It’s all JUNK!   Everything you get breaks easily. We believe that you should save your money for something worthwhile.   Something you really want that is great quality!   BUT as is the case with most kids like  our son, they obsess, and obsess, and obsess some more…..and sometimes we break, we go against our better judgement and we cave, because we can’t reason with him until….he learns a lesson….the hard way.

GUMBALL machines advertise the best case scenario On their fronts but in reality there’s a lot of silly stuff with the best of junk hidden in there somewhere.  So we made a bee-line right for the machines. (We had spent a better part of a week explaining why we didn’t think it was a good idea) He knew exactly which one he wanted.  It advertised little tiny men (go figure…his favorite).  But this is what he got…..

Do you, my friends, know what that is?

Tha,  my dear readers would be a hair extension….for a DOLL!

What ensued next was not pleasant to say the least.  I handed it to ladybug and he began to bawl.  Tears of lament.

Did we give him another two quarters to “try again”?   Nope that wasn’t going to happen.  God had just handed us the perfect teaching moment.  We got to teach not one, not two, but all four kiddos about gambling.  There was no guarantee he was going to get what he wanted.  And in this world we live in all those 50¢ adds up pretty quick.  He sobbed the entire time we were at the store!  He lamented the loss of his hard earned money.   (That was his biggest concern ” BUT I WORKED SO HARD”)

Did people stare?  Of course (people are rude like that)

Did some people think he was spoiled?  Probably (some people are just that arrogant)

Did some people think we were being mean or just too hard on him?  More than likely ( but those people didn’t watch him EARN the money back when we got home)

He learned a lesson, (unfortunately the hard way).  But now since then he is fast approaching the $5 dollar mark.  He is working towards a pull string Woody (from Toy Story). He’s been asking for him (and Jessie) for over a year now.  They went on clearance a few weeks ago and we scooped them up for his upcoming birthday.   

A few days after the GUMBALL machine fiasco he came to hubby and asked if he could save  towards the Woody (which he has no clue sits a whopping 5 feet from his bedroom door).  We said yes.  Some days he is more diligent than others, but he is working towards a great reward one quarter at a time.   He learned a valuable lesson.  He grew as a person.  He learned the value of working hard and then loosing it on a silly piece of hair.  Yep it was painful.

For him. AND for us ( I hated watching his little heart break). But it was all worth it.  Because now he understands that we shouldn’t waste the money God has blessed us with on things that are a gamble!

 

Naming our Kids…….a complicated Process

Posted on by Mary

Ok so I have a pretty strict Privacy standard here on the blog.  Actually it was just a few years ago that I let you in on my first name.   We do this for one sole reason, we live in a creepy world.  You might say Mary Mary Mary, you should not be fearful. I’m not or I wouldn’t be doing this…..I am afraid of hiegts ……I am wise about details here……

All of that being said I want to share about how we chose our names for our children……so let’s start with Ladybug

She has a Greek word used in the New Testament. And her middle name is a thing of beauty.  It is through her first name that we have an oppertunity to share the gospel with people who are curious about her name.  We didn’t plan it that way it just happened.  We had her named picked out long before we were married we just both liked that name.  Many seeds have been planted since then!

Now the boys…..

They each have an Old and a New Tesament name.  Their initials then in turn spell something special……but I can’t tell you what.   If you know us in person ask us, but if you’re a reader here sorry!    

But that’s how we picked them.  The boys names were totally hubby’s brain child (pun intended).   We took naming our children very seriously as do most parents, but we wanted our children to have an everyday reminder of  God and who He created them to be….Christ Followers!

Wordless Wednesday 7/30/2014

Posted on by Mary

Ya know, I have seen kids cart around pretty strange stuffed animals.

I chuckled one day as one of our youngsters came out of the playroom swinging a stuffed armadillo buy the tail.  We have some very random but cute stuffed animals.  People constantly comment about  how our children  know specific animal names and the details about them…bur a few weeks ago as we visited the Creation Museum in Petersburg KY, one of our munchkins (weasel to be exact) decided to spend his five dollar gift from friends on this cutie….(who would’ve thought I would ever say a mammoth was cute!?!)

Later weasel and I had a conversation about Wooley ( how original right?)

I said ” how do you know it’s not a mastodon  instead of a mammoth?”

He paused and thought.

Then said ” cuz his back slopes”

And I was quickly taken back to earlier that day as we sat and listened to Buddy Davis explain all about Ice Age animals in his workshop!  How amazing that this little boy who sees the world in such a different way and seemingly focused on other things retains most of what is being said!

This same little boy is the one who rushed Buddy Davis the previous day after his concert…….a superstar in his eyes….and that is quite ok by me!

SIDE NOTE:  ALL of our kids struggled the first day at the museum when referring to the mammoth skeleton as the “HOLY MAMMOTH”

I love my kids!