My Ministry

There is something about getting out in the fresh air that clears the mind and enables you to think a little more straight, which is just what Crewe and I needed. I keep making excuses as to why not to get out of the house, when if really just boils down to the fact that I hate to be cold.
 

 

Yesterday I made it happen. Crewe has been my little hip baby ever since Daddy came home and his sleep has been hit or miss, so I have been feeling sorry for myself lately.

 

We got out the little wagon he got for Christmas and walked and walked and walked and it was glorious. I wasn't telling him "no"  every other sentence and we were able to just enjoy each other completely.
 

 

The more my negative days are mixed in with the good, granted the negative are far outweighed by the good, the more I am understanding that my ministry right now is in my home.

 

I have been going through a search, so to say, of way I feel like everyday is the same thing over and over. Asking things like....Is what I do everyday even going to make a difference in the world or would I be better off at an 8-5 (cry me a river), but that is how I have felt.
 

 

 There is good in this search though because it is stretching me, molding me, changing me and the good kind of change. The change that makes you a better you. The change that makes you want to go climb Mount Everest and scream your heart out that you did it, when you get to the top.

 

 The search is leading me to learn that my ministry IS doing the laundry, cooking the meals (with a glass of wine), making the beds, nurturing Crewe, taking care of my husband.

 

It IS making our house a home.. a warm, welcoming place for us to escape the world.

 

It IS making sure my desires and heart are lined up with God and nurturing Crewe's little desires and heart to be the same.

 

It IS to provide a center of life for all who live here.

 

It IS being all the things that I have felt for the last 2 years are not contributing to my family in a big way or having much of a ministry at all.
 

 

But you see if I can make my home my ministry and find joy in that task everyday I CAN affect eternity! Because the home I am creating for Crewe WILL effect who he chooses for a wife and the values of a mate he holds high. It WILL effect the home he wants to create for his children and it is a domino effect from there.

 

And you know what??? I hold all of that in the palm of my hand right now, it is mine to decide what I want to do with it. It is completely and utterly my choice. Oh how that makes my heart flutter with excitement and realize just how big my ministry, that I once thought was nothing, IS.
 

I think back on starting my journey with the Crazy Wrap Thang and my "why" for wanting to work from home. I wanted to be able to bring a little bit of income in to save for a family vacation once a year. In my head I HAD to have these monumental vacations once a year so that my son would have fond memories of his childhood.

And while that "side job" has allowed us to take a monthly vacation if we chose... it is not some once a year BIG vacation/ memory that is going to shape my sweet babe... it is the day to day little moments that are going to shape him the most. The kissing of ouwies, the rocking at night, the dinner time prayers, the patience through fits, the walks around the park, playing peek-a-boo behind a tree.

Oh how I had it so backwards.
 

So Crewe, thank you for taking me to the edge and back with your sporadic sleep and 24 hour need of me. I will never have these years back with you and one day I will be wishing you were under my roof, wanting to sit in my lap, on my head, and pulling on my pants. God is doing big things in me, through you.

"Wherever you are right now - BE THERE ... that is where God is - with you - right there - right now"- Christine Caine 

 

Truths about Crewe

For some time I have wanted to dedicate a portion of my blog directly to my boy. I want him to know and never question his worth to God, our family and this world. How much he is loved and prayed for by so many. I am hoping to start this as a weekly letter to Crewe, of sorts.

I shared a powerful series of sermons I worked through, in THIS post. I was thinking how much I want Crewe to be able to have stuff in his life that speaks to him how these sermons have spoken to my heart. I know God will put things like this in his path to help him grow in his faith, much like God has done for me, but I also want Crewe to get a glimpse of my heart, struggles, successes and failures.

 

We learn so much from our parents.

 

I saw this on pinterest yesterday and am seriously thinking about taping it to my bathroom mirror so I can refer to it on the days that seem long, trying and my patience is running thin. The importance of always chosing kindness because you always have a choice.

 

 

Dear Sweet Boy,

 

This world is going to feed you words of lies your entire life that are from the enemy and not true, so don't for one second EVER believe those words and question your value, purpose, or how much you are loved.

 

Every week I am going to post just a few of the wonderful things you are to me... to your daddy... to your savior, so when you get older and life gets harder, when people are mean, when life gets you down...you can just refer back to this list and see the truth in who you are, over the lies.

 

You have one of the most kind hearts I have EVER seen in a toddler. You are so so sweet to everyone you are around. In fact other kids will take your toys or push you down and it takes everything in this momma heart to not instantly come to your rescue, but I know my job is to teach you how to navigate this world and I will not always be able to recue you from everything. I like watching to see how you are going to react and everytime you do not fight for the toy and you never hit back. People might tell you. later in life, that is a wimpy way to act, but trust me sweet boy it makes me so proud to see how kind your heart is. 

 

 



It is a bit hard for me to put into words how much you Daddy loves you. Just today I found out that he has been doing a video diary for you to have when you are older and lets just say you are super lucky to have a Daddy that adores playing with you and letting you "work" with him in the garage.

 

 



Such concentration

You are such a good helper. You come running if anyone inserts the word "help" into a sentence that contains your name. I love that you help with every ounce of your being. You are totally present in that moment of helping, which your momma is learning from and how important that is. Never lose that quality. In whatever you are doing always be 100% there and present.

I cannot tell you the amount of joy it gives me to be your best friend everyday and how much joy, purpose, and love you bring to my life. Your zest for the simplest things in life constantly remind me that things can wait and to truly slow down and enjoy every moment of life.

You are only 2 and we are aleady so proud of who you are.

 

 

Always remember that in your entire life you cannot control what other people say about you, but you can control what you believe and you better believe you are the best.

 

Love your Momma

Insignificant

It is amazing how wrapped up I can get in the insignificant happenings of life, that seem so huge at the time.

Crewe has been waking up again at night and it has utterly thrown me for a loop. I love my sleep and felt so blessed when, at 14 months, he decided to start sleeping through the night and I feel I live in fear any night he wakes up that we are going to start the cycle again. It is not so much the getting up that bothers me, it is the fact then when he goes back to sleep around 4, I am wide awake. Losing sleep is not my favorite.

I am not greatest at segwaying (don't really  even know if that's a word) so hang with me on this.

Loss seems to be a prevalent happening right now. Just this week I have learned of a sweet baby girl who was born early and lost her battle and was taken far too soon... to a young man who's life was  lost in a car accident just 2 days ago, leaving behind a wife and precious 11 month old daughter. 

It really has put some perspective in my head about what the signigicant and insignicant things of life are. How that momma that lost her sweet newborn would give anything to hear a crying baby through a monitor wanting to be rocked or how the wife who lost her husband would  love to crawl back into bed, after rocking her baby, to her husband peacefully sleeping.

THOSE are significant, life changing, tragic events.... no matter how much I would like to think a waking toddler is.

 

It causes me to question the decisions God makes for our life. I know that God is soveriegn and would never make a wrong decision, but I just don't understand and know in this lifetime I never will. All  I can do (and am called to do) is trust and work daily not let fear dominate my thoughts.

 

THAT is a daily battle for me... when there are people on this earth that I cannot even fully grasp my love for or thought of them not being here.

 

This statement that I stumbled upon calmed my heart a bit in my fear of not fully trusting God.... 

 

"Faith is not the absence of doubt, but still walking towards the presence of God so He can deal with the doubt.."

 

Just some of my thoughts before bed. I will definitely have a different perspective when my sweet boy whines through the monitor at 3am.

 

 

 

Committed

Warning: There is a lot of rambling and ho humming about my bad day yesterday, but there are pictures at the end. Don't say you weren't warned :)

Do you ever have those days where you just feel like a complete failure and that the devil has gotten the best of you? When I have those days they seem to stick with me for several days and I end up crawling in bed feeling liked a whipped dog. That would pretty much sum up my day yesterday.

                                                                             source
I would not call myself an unconfrontational individual. Sometimes there are times when confrontation is necessary and even beneficial, but then there are those times that catch you totally off guard and you stand there after, wondering what in the hell world just happened. 

There are so many changes happening in our family right now and luckily none of the problems of yesterday had anything to do with that. Having somebody question your integrity is a very humbling experience, especially when you make a point to be an intentional person. If you want to see me go from "sweet momma" to "blood boiling momma" question my integrity. The conversation ended heated and I will probably never talk to the person again.

I was able to step back from the whole situation and look for the meaning in this madness when it hit me. I realized some pretty important changes and steps that I am taking with my faith right now and to me if you believe that God plays an active role in your life then it is safe to believe that so does Satan.  The crappy parts, but active none the less. He wants us to question our value, who we are, what others think about us, do we really have what it takes, are we loved, desired, accepted and the list goes on.

THAT is exactly what yesterday did to me. I questioned all of those things mentioned above.

Our church sermon last Sunday was about experiencing God and the avenues God uses to communitcate with us, the bible being number 1. That's when it hit me how little time I spend reading my bible and how much time I seem to have for blogging, facebook, pinterest, etc.....

I have fully committed to spending time each day to reading the bible, to the extent that I have an alarm set on my phone and will not let myself do anything internet related until I have had that time. I have a  LARGE small addiction going on with a little thing called Pinterest (to the extent that I do not allow myself to browse until Crewe goes to bed (sad I know)). Can you have a parenthesis inside of parenthesis? Hmmmm....

Of course you will be attacked when trying to grow your faith, but we need not back down from those attacks because it means we are doing something right. The way I see it, if you are being attacked it is because you are doing something good that he is not happy with, which even though it is hard in the moment I truly feel the outcome is worth it, so I will stay committed.

If you stuck with me this far bravo and thanks!

On to some cute pictures. Our week has not been super picture worthy, but the weather has been so beautiful I fully intend to take Crewe to the park.

Crewe tormenting Sophie

This was my little man exactly a year ago today! Where does the time go!?!?

Helping dad work on his truck

And of course his "Blue Steel" ALWAYS brightens my day!

Hope your Wednesday was fantastic!

He's Got My Back

Every since I was 5 I wanted to be a momma. My mom would always ask how many kids I wanted to which I responded 60. Now that I have 1 that number might be a little high. Raising babies is hard. Needless to say being a stay at home momma has always been a huge desire of my heart.
I think there is a huge misconception with stay at home momma's as well. It always seems like people assume that becuase you stay at home there must be ample amounts of money falling from trees in your backyard. This in no way discounts the hard work my man puts in and sacrifices on a daily basis to make sure this dream of mine is possible.

sharing a popsicle with Daddy

We are hardcore budgetors (is that a word)? When we found out I was pregnant we immediately started living off of his salary and shoveling ALL of mine into savings and did a quick version of "Financial Peace".

God had a lot in plan for our little family after Crewe was born. We went from Abilene to Fort Worth and finally to Lubbock. Fort Worth to Lubbock was somewhat unexpected and we were lucky to have a place to land. We literally packed our place and moved in 1 week. My Dad and Cindy humbly took us in and we have been living with them for about 5 months. Yes all the pics of the beautiful house is not ours.

Stick with me on this and I will tie it all together with a pretty bow on top. John and I have always been avid tithers. Finances is the only place in the bible that God tells us to test him on. We both have been struggling with this lately, in the fact that we always tithe and we have had some tough financial breaks in 2011.

We are closing on our house March 1st and I have had some serious cold feet. What if this.... what if that.... and I have to remind myself to not live in fear. God has always made sure our needs have been met and I can only imagine he will continue. This post would probably keep anyone from tithing, but I encourage you to start. God has done some AH-MAZING things in our life from tithing. Little things happen hear and there. A random checker at Wal-Mart gives us a $15 discount, the Dr.'s office waives our co-pay. Little things hear and there that reminds me, Gods got my back.

John called me a few days ago because our feet were to the fire about making a decision on the home. We had 1 day left in the option period and I wanted out. He told he had been praying the night before and point blank was frustrated with God that we tithe and things just don't add up sometime, when God gently reminded him of a chapter in "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. The short of it, Francis talks about never wanting to be so comfortable financially that he does not have to be somewhat dependent on God for how his family is going to make it.

This really spoke to my heart! I don't ever want to be so comfortable that I don't pray multiple times a day for God to work in this or that situation. If he keeps us close through finances right not then I am okay with that.

God has always prevailed in letting me stay at home with this jelly faced baby.

Thanks honey for reminding me that God has a plan for our little family even when I can't always see it.

Love that jelly faced smile

Stay tuned for a "How we make it all work" post.

Nested Egg!

I will get to the title in a bit. My honey and I are currently sitting on seperate couches throwing a toilet paper roll back and forth to wipe our runny noses, watching a Christmas movie, refusing to accept the fact that Christmas is over and we have to wait another 10 months for the season to start again because I put up our decorations the day after halloween ; ) ( was that a horrible run-on?) I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and everyone remembered the reason for the season and had full hearts and homes. We were so blessed to celebrating with a bunch of 18 (13 adults and 5 kids). Lots of stocking and of course 24 hours of "A Christmas Story"!

Can I get a bit more serious and let you know I struggle with trusting God? Got serious fast, huh? It has been struggle of mine for years. I don't struggle with knowing Jesus is our Savior; however, I have had my moments of "what if none of this is true". My honey always brings me back to reality when I doubt. I stuggle most with fearing that if I trust God with every fiber in me, something bad will happen to me. I have been really praying hard about this, because I know the only way to unconditional happiness is total surrender to God. My biggest fear is something happening to Crewe.

ALLLLLL this to say a really neat thing happened through all of my prayers. I have decided that God wants us to pray about the big events and happenings in our lives as well as the little and I REALLY wanted to have a white Christmas so I starting praying for snow and low and behold this is what I woke up to Christmas morning. This is Lubbock Texas, by the way, so we are not known for having a white Christmas!

It was such a gentle reminder to me that God hears ALL of our prayers and I know if he listened to a prayer as small and insignificant as a white Christmas, he is listening to my pleading prayers for trust. In his time not mine, is another hard one for me.

On to the title and something a little more light. I found, yet another, recipe on pinterest that is fantastic and easy if you are feeding a large bunch. The recipe name is Bacon, egg, and toast cups, but we felt it needed something more, so the honey and grandma starting throwing out names. The worst was Poached pigs feet and the best was Nested Egg. How cute is that?

I forgot to take a "final product" picture. Luckily there was one left over. I sprinkled a little cheese on top and think this one is a keeper. I think I ate 3! You can find the recipe here.

Finally it was time to open up presents. I think it is sooo hard to buy gifts for your spouse when you share a checking account. I mean how are you supposed to make a large purchase and them not notice. Luckily I have a small job on the side that pays cash and my honey has been wanting a Citizen watch for a while now and NEVER ask for anything, so I decided is was time for a surprise and starting hiding (saving) my cash so he would have no clue. There was so much anticipation for giving him the gift and then I forgot to get a single picture. Bummer!!! Here some others of our Christmas.

Crewe practiced his walking.

An abundance of presents were opened by all.

Christmas lunch was a hit by Crewe's standards. (He reallly slept through lunch and ate after everyone else). Who wakes a napping baby? Not me!

Drinks were enjoyed, juice for the kids and peach bellini's for the adults.

The boys played and adult version of nerf wars.

And to all a goodnight!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!