What two specific, creative steps can I take this week to ease this problem and turn it into a positive growth experience?
Meditate on Ephesians 1:17-20, turning it into a personal prayer for yourself.
What might God say to me if He were sitting here with me now?
Read more...Meditate on Psalm 139.
1) Which cause of a low self image is most true in my life right now?
What part of this chapter did you relate to the most? What did you find particularly helpful? Is there anything else that has helped you in these areas in the past?
Read more..."List the most priminent challenges in my life right now."
Psalm 28:6-9 and Jeremiah 29:11-13
"What promises do I see here for me?"
Isaiah 40:10-11 and John 10:14-16
"What images describe the character of Christ? How might I bee like a sheep?"
Wow, I think that this book was good timing for me. I hope that it is for all of you, as well! Isn't it funny how God works sometimes? My biggest problem at the moment is feeling a huge need to get to the next chapter. Now that she has helped put some of my "endurance test" feelings into words, I am feeling a little frustrated and want to get on to the next chapter.
I think that one thing that stuck out to me was what she wrote in the "low self-image" section about doing something that lasts more than just a couple of days. I turned this one into advice and trimmed the bushes around the house one afternoon. It started raining, but I didn't care! I just kept right on trimming away. I think my mom thought I had lost my mind...but now, if I get frustrated because toys just can't seem to get back in their homes and the dishes only stay clean for a maximum of 2-3 hours, I can walk outside and see my nicely trimmed bushes! I highly recommend it to anyone who shares this frustration!
Not enough time with my husband - I can sure relate to that one! I must say that this has gotten much better for Zach and I since we have moved. I can only count a handful of days that he has not made it home for lunch. They are sometimes rushed lunches, but it at least gives us an opportunity to find out how the other's day is going and sneak in a hug and kiss in the middle of a hectic day. Being near my parents is also a huge blessing because we had never gotten to take date nights before. We had our first date since I can remember a couple of weeks ago and it was wonderful. We honestly had not realized how loud our household is and how little we get to talk while the kids are with us until we closed the car doors on the way to the restaurant and we could actually hear each other speak!
An atmosphere of tension - I am afraid that I might have one of those in my house right now. At this point in my life I almost have to make myself stop rushing around, give the kids a little bit of slack and just relax and have fun with them. Those of you who know me, know that I am not the best housekeeper, but it still bugs me to have a messy house. It makes me very tense to have the house in disarray, but I basically have no choice at this time in my life. I am working on giving that over to God so that hopefully ooze his peace instead of my tension. This morning I was all over the kids for any little thing that they did, but I wasn't frustrated with them, it was because the house is a mess and I am exhausted. I felt like I was being pulled into 5 directions and over reacted with the kids. I had to appologize to them and just prayed for that tension to be taken away. The morning is behind us and this afternoon is a new time. Praise God for his mercy!
An exciting Christian home - that is one of my goals. I love it when the boys ask us faith questions - they are so cute and it lets us know that we are on the right path. We are struggling with some prayer challenges, though. Right now we are trying to find a balance in our reaction to the kids when they goof off during prayer. We want them to be respectful and not act silly in an effort to make each other laugh, but we don't want to be legalistic and make prayer a negative time. We want them to know real conversation with Father as they grow older. They are still only 4 and 2 (plus E is not quite 4 months), so right now we are simply talking to them about being respectful and giving God our attention when we pray. Any other ideas?
Please give any feedback that you have in "comments". I may have to play with this format a little and see what works best for us in an effort to allow us to have meaningful discussion.
Sometimes I think that it is hard to remember that gratification in raising our children for Christ may seem very delayed, but the payoff will be huge when we see our children grown into men and women fulfilling a wonderful plan that only the Father knows about right now.
I just finished "Bringing Up Boys" by Dr. James Dobson and it was great. It is a "must read" for anyone with sons or grandsons. It will be one that I plan to go back and read every few years as my boys grow and develop through different stages of life.
I promise to post something on "And Then I Had Kids" within the next couple of days. We will have to work out any kinks as we go along, but it seems like the easiest way to do this is to give each other feedback and encouragement by using the comments section.
In the meanwhile...check out the poll to the left of the screen and be sure to vote! Obviously, this blog set-up should enable everyone to go at their own rate without feeling pressure to rush through a chapter. However, your input is important because it will show me how quickly most of you prefer to read, so I can try to go that rate posting blogs and questions.
It looks as though our first book will be "And Then I Had Kids: Encouragement for Mothers of Young Children" by Susan Alexander Yates. Obviously, we can all do this at our own pace. I think it would work best if we were at least somewhat close to each other. I am going to set a goal for myself to start reading next week. I will try a chapter or two per week and see how things go from there.
There is a pretty cool feature on here to set up a poll. I think it might be a good feature to try out for the next book. Some books already in the hat are "Choices: For Women Who Long to Discover Life's Best" by Mary Farrar and "Waking the Dead" by John Eldredge. If you have any more ideas, please leave a comment!!
Hello, Ladies!
I know that some of you received e-mails from me to start up an online book group, similar to the ones we did together in our life group. I started thinking about the way we were able to support and encourage one another during our discussions and thought..
What if I could start one that we could do in a blog format? That would allow us to participate and not have a set meeting time. We could log on and leave comments any time of the day or night, any day of the week. If we had sick kids or just too much going on one day, we wouldn't be restricted to a specific meeting time or place. And then I thought....
What if we could make that group of ladies bigger, to include women that weren't necessarily in that life group, but other friends of ours as well! Then I was praying and God showed me that I was thinking "small time". Our God is BIG, so think BIG!
What if we were able to invite women that we know from different places, different states...countries even...different walks of life, women that we meet at the library, in the grocery store...What if women were surfing the web and decided to join in. What if they didn't join in, but found a little bit of much needed encouragement to get them through a rough day. We are just a handfull of women, but we are women who love God..a VERY BIG God. Only He knows what can happen and grow from a simple little book group!
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