the great adventure begins...

My heart has been heavy for several weeks to write to you about prayer. Specifically praying for your husband. What a joy and an honor it is to be able to pray specifically and intimately for him! What a difference it makes in your life and his! I don't really know where to start on this journey God has me on but I know once you catch the vision He has for you regarding this area, your life will never be the same!

I want to start by typing out some of my journal entries from the past few years. This is in no way intended to slander or hurt my husband in any way; my only intention is to touch some of you in places you may be hurting by sharing my heart-felt prayers and thoughts with you.

October 24, 2008 I will try to describe how I am FEELING...R and I have no oneness. My feelings get hurt easily and often, I see no outward tenderness, thoughtfulness, or expressions of love from R. I have said to him, "I will not leave you but we have no relationship. I have no feelings for you." I feel like he is detached. Worse than anything, I feel this separation, aloneness, etc. and I see it as all his fault. Obviously, it is not one person's fault and I KNOW that but I can't SEE my own sin in this relationship. I am asking God to shed light on areas I need to work on. I am asking Him to show me how to love R.

As you can see, I started out pretty selfishly. My only desire really, was to feel loved. I begged God to change R. Show him how to love me, show him how to encourage me, etc., etc. What God began to show me is that I had no idea how to love R! As I began to realize that I needed to learn a whole lot about laying down my life for my husband, God began teaching me what it looks like to love another person from HIS PERSPECTIVE!

Now, this sounds pretty corny, but the first book I read was "The Love Dare" by Stephen and Alex Kendrick. This book was instrumental in putting action to what God was teaching me. I had a verse in hand and I had an activity to "live out" love for R. The first lesson I had to learn was that love is patient. I could choose to control my emotions, my thoughts, my attitudes toward R. I could show kindness and love instead of returning an evil for an evil. Once I began renewing my mind with scripture and allowing God's word to penetrate my thoughts instead of my own evil, selfish ideas, I began to see God at work in me by leaps and bounds!

October 25, 2008 I want R to be able to count on having a patient, understanding, kind wife. Wasn't kindness one of the things that drew him to me in the first place? I can choose to be kind and say kind things to him even when I don't FEEL like being kind.

November 2008 I find that I am becoming more aware of how often I allow my mind to run away with me. Unfortunatly, my tongue quickly follows suit. I seem to dwell on all the things R is or isn't doing...of all the ways he is continually falling short (of my standards not God's). Lord, please show me how to practice self-control. Help me to quit taking things personally. Teach me to lead my thoughts instead of allowing my thoughts to continually lead me. Help me to hold my tongue and speak blessings instead of irritations. I ask You, O LORD, for Your holy perspective.

I think I will stop here for today. Take time to seek God's heart on this today.

Update

Well, we had to postpone our trip again. We are hoping for Saturday. The B & B is out for this trip....maybe this summer. We are just hoping to get to Fredericksburg to be able to visit a little with my parents, take Maya out to lunch for her birthday, and do some shopping (poor girl hasn't even gotten a birthday lunch or present yet!)

On the upside, we are all feeling much better and Bo has a new tooth! Yup...in the midst of all that flu-stuff, he popped out the top left tooth! (funny thing is at first, I thought all the fever and diarrhia WAS from teething)

He has also taken his first few steps! He kinda pivots on one leg while the other one does the "walking". He also climbed up to the fourth stair yesterday! He is our little explorer! There is no way he is going to be left behind anymore! On the really nice days we have had, I have begun leaving my dining room door open onto the patio. The first time we couldn't find Bo anywhere in the house we panicked...now we know just to go look out on the front porch! He is usually out there exploring to his little heart's content! (I just try to keep the porch swept off really well so no roly-polies, dirt, rocks, etc. end up in his little mouth!)

It has been interesting to have Ryan off all week and not have any plans per say. We have done small odd jobs around the house, went grocery shopping all together, taken some very productive naps (!) and just really enjoyed being together at home. It has been very slow-paced and VERY nice! You would think that with me being at home ALL the time with the kids I might really look forward to time away and although I do enjoy brief times away, I have really enjoyed just enjoying our family at home!

I guess all in all, you could say God has been giving us a crash-course in trusting Him with our days. We can make plans but ultimately HE is in charge! How do I react when MY plans don't work out? Am I able to rejoice that God's plans for me are best and trust Him when things don't go my way?

I am thankful for the rest we have all been given this week! To think that Ryan had a whole week off ready and waiting for him to be able to rest up after being so terribly sick! Wow! God is amazing!

Oh, and the children decided to name the puppy "Arrow". Amazingly he did live (I honestly thought he was a goner). They said they would name him Arrow so they could always remember his life points straight to God who made him well again.

Singing the Blues

OHHHHH....I don't think I have ever been this sick before! We just got over a bugger bear of a flu around here. We have all had it except Sarah. MISERABLE! I literally slept for 2 days straight (well, except for nursing the baby) Thankfully, we seem to be on the mend and hopefully we will be able to go on our planned trip only delaying it by a day.

Ryan had taken leave this week so he and I (and Boden) could go to a bed and breakfast in Fredericksburg while my mom watched the other three kiddoes. The B & B was a gift we got for Christmas a year ago and we have been looking forward to time alone for a long time (Isn't funny how when you have four children, only having one with you means "time alone"--I think our last "date" was October a year ago!) Our reservations are for Sunday and Monday nights so hopefully we will feel up to a road trip by Sunday morning...we were planning on leaving on Saturday (which is also Mai-Mai's birthday) but none of us are up to being away from a toilet yet!

Tomorrow

So, we got this puppy from a friend of ours. Our friend breeds and sells registered German Shepherds and wasn't going to be able to sale the runt. Poor little guy had his tail broken off by his litter-mates! Yes...literally! He is now a stub-tail German Shepherd by de-fault; anyway, so our friend called us and asked us if we would like to have him for the kids. Well, of course we said yes, so now we are one-dog richer...I hope...

We got the little guy yesterday and the kids have LOVED on him! He is tiny. Today, I started noticing he wasn't playing or acting very puppyish and then I started noticing he wasn't eating and then I saw the diarrhea and throw-up..yep, I'm pretty sure he has parvo...ucky stuff indeed! So after about two hours of sobbing on the kid's parts and an hour of calling around on mine, we decided if we could keep him hydrated enough he might have a chance of making it. So we agreed we would syringe-feed him Pedialite and Gatorade through the night and do what we could to give the poor guy a chance. So, I have my alarm set for every hour from 11:00 PM until 6 AM. The kids are all camped out on a pallet on the living room floor with the puppy between them and I am on the couch. The idea is that they will each take an hour shift of watching the puppy, feeding the puppy, taking the puppy out for a potty break and then wake the next one up at the hour mark for their turn. I warned them that if the puppy messes on the floor during their shift they are also responsible for clean-up duty (this was supposed to be the incentive to help them get the puppy outside on time!) They will rotate throughout the night and I will "supervise" from my spot on the couch. Hmmmmmm......I just came downstairs from taking a shower...everyone is crashed out already!

The other thing that is going on is...this is also the week I am supposed to be weaning Boden from my bed into his own bed. He has done pretty well so far, only waking about three times last night, nursing briefly then going back to his own bed just fine.

So, I am calling this a week of "night school!" (Ryan is on night-shift right now too so he is working from 11:00PM until 9AM) Actually, it is probably totally out of my character to allow the kids to be up all night taking care of a dog but hopefully I have learned some things too in the past few years:

1. THIS IS the important stuff...the three R's they can learn anytime from anyone, certain things they will only be able to learn from Ryan and I as the opportunities present themselves.

2. How often do you get the opportunity to stay up all night nursing one of God's creations back to health?

3. Encourage their servant's hearts whenever I have the opportunity.

4. Do I believe God will provide all I need (including joy after a sleepless night?)

5. What better way to allow them to express love, dedication, perseverance and a shared responsibility for something that matters?

By the way, they decided to name the puppy, "Tomorrow".