Words Fitly Spoken

A few weeks ago I took the children to the Anchorage Museum.  It was a fun afternoon.  There were many fascinating things to see and explore.  The children and I all had a good time.  The first floor was lots of fun.  There were so many hands on activities that I thought we would end up spending the entire time there.  We did make it to the second floor which was much more interesting to me.  There were almost full scale Alaskan homes of different kinds and time periods.  Each structure was cut in half so that you could see the inside which contained a full portrayal of what the inside of one of these homes was like.  We spent quite a bit of time there.  Then it was on to the third floor.  This floor had very many interesting things but things that are not as eye catching to a youngster as lets say to someone like me who loves museums.  The littles were beginning to get a bit antsy and I was beginning to get a bit frustrated by the fact that I was having to stay more on top of them than before.

We finished the third floor and got on the elevator to go to the fourth and final (and tiny) floor.  I was a little stressed and wondering if we would make it through the fourth floor before I felt like I was going to loose it.  There was another family with two children in the elevator with us.  As I was about to let out a big sigh to calm my inner stress levels the mother of this family spoke.  She began to praise my children and how well they behaved.  She began to praise me and how well I was handling them all by myself without loosing my cool.  She praised me for the fact that I was even doing this without their dad along that day.  Then she mentioned that she and her hubby could barely do it with their two children.  I simply said thank you as they exited the elevator.

I let out a big sigh and released all that pent up UNNECESSARY stress.

God has done this to me on several occasions to be honest.  When I get to the point of loosing it, He gently reminds me through others that I am focusing on the wrong thing.  I am seeing their being children and shorter attention spans as misbehavior rather than what it is.  I was focusing on my tired feet and lack of energy than the joy of being a mother.  I had to pray and ask forgiveness.  I then praised my children for their good behavior and pointed out how it had made an impression on others.

The Lord used that lady in the museum elevator to discipline me and to encourage me at the same time!  He is good like that!

The fourth floor was so much more enjoyable than it would have been if the Lord had not given me my much needed attitude adjustment.

Proverbs 25:11 comes to mind when I reflect on situations like these.

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

The NASB puts it this way.

Like apples of gold in settings of silver Is a word spoken in right circumstances.

That is so very true!

Have you ever experienced anything like this?  How has the Lord used others and their timely, fitly spoken words to discipline and encourage you? Leave me a comment to share how the Lord has worked in your life in this manner.

It’s On Your Face

It seems that when my hubby is gone if something can go wrong it will go wrong.  There have been so many stressful things that have happened since he left.  On top of just being without him it has been doubly hard with all of the added stressers.  I am thankful though that I have a Lord and Savior who reminds me that he is here and I am not alone.  It is still hard to deal with the stress though.  There are days when I know I am not dealing very well with it, I pray for strength to go on.  Then there are days that seem to be almost stress free, I praise God for an easier day.  Then there are those days when I think I am fooling everyone (hehe-yeah right).

This past Sunday was one of those days when I thought I had it all together and was fooling everyone.  As I was speaking with a friend and she made the comment that she could see the stress on my face.  What??  I thought I had it all covered up!

Image by angelsk via Flickr

At first, I was not overly happy that it was showing  but then I began to be thankful.  I was thankful that someone noticed!  It is hard when no one seems to notice or even care!  We military wives are expected to just suck it up and get over it!  That is often easier said than done. It is nice to have someone tell you that you don’t have to be tough all the time and that it is okay to struggle. I tell you, if it was not for my amazing church family here (and one neighbor) I would have no support.  I am so thankful for my church family here and how I can always count on them! I am thankful for how they step in and meet our needs.   I am thankful for how they encourage me, how they remind me to point my focus back on the Lord when I begin to focus more on my circumstances. I am so thankful for the friends that I have there!  I am thankful that  they notice and they care when I have had a rough week!  They have truly shown the love of Christ to our family.

Since my hubby left I have spent so much more time in prayer!  That is a good thing!  I have not had my hubby to depend on and it has forced me to rely more and more on my Savior!  Sometimes though it is good to have that physical hug from a friend.  I am glad that I have that with my church family.  I am thankful that the Lord provided me a family here.

So let me challenge you.  If you have military families where you live (well anyone for that matter).  Take time to notice and take time to care.  If you can see stress on their faces be an encouragement don’t just turn and walk away. Make sure to remember them, their situation, and their struggles throughout the separation not just in the first month. Sometimes just noticing and genuinely caring can make all the difference in their day!

Please leave a comment and share some ways that you encourage others or what others have done to encourage you.

Schooling,Week One

School is going well so far. We are finishing in a timely fashion. Some things are taking a little longer than anticipated but I think that is due to the fact that we are using a few new curriculum items and are still trying to “figure it out.”

We are still on our summer schedule for extra activities and that will soon mix with the school schedule. It seems everything switches from summer mode to school mode at different times which really makes the scheduling interesting.

We have had two field trips in this first week of school and completed four days worth of lessons (more in some subjects).  We took a trip to the Anchorage Museum which also houses the Imaginarium.  The Imaginarium is a hands on museum for children.  Lots of fun learning without realizing that you are learning!  We also went on a berry picking expedition.  You can read a little about that trip on my Soaked in Adventure post.

I think that the first month or so of homeschooling is always such an encouragement.  Most of the beginning of a new year is review.  I know many homeschool parents who tend to skip a lot of stuff located in the front of their books because their children know the material and they want to move forward rather than just having busy work.  I understand that.  I, however, have decided not to do that.  I think the review is good for the children and it encourages them when they can sit down and say “This is easy Mom!!!”

We are able to move through school lessons quickly and the children like that.  It just seems to get our year off to a good start.  We often do more than just a day’s worth of lessons and the children are motivated to do more because it isn’t such a challenge.  It begins to develop a good work attitude before things become more difficult.

Our school year has started out well!  I hope this is a good indication for the rest of the school year!

How is your new school year going?  Even if you haven’t started yet, what is your usual plan for the beginning of the year?  Do you do a lot of review?  What field trips do you have planned?  Share with me!

My Daily Sunshine

One thing I have learned living here in Alaska is the value of the sun.  Sunshine is something that you have to learn to live without for a while.  One thing for sure is that I appreciate the sunshine more now than I ever have in my entire life.  When the sun is out I will find myself just stopping and soaking it in, like I did the other day when it was actually above 50 and sunny.  But I remember it might not last long.  April here is a hard time for me.  It seems more like November in the midwest.   Right now, it is in the 40′s, slowing melting, mostly dirty, yucky looking snow, and LOTS of brown!!  It is cloudy and gray!  It is mostly rainy and just icky out at the moment.  The thing is, the weather forecast says it is going to like this for at least another week!  I am definitely in need of some sunshine!

To add to the dreariness of the weather, I am not feeling well.  That is to be expected.  When one is feeling yucky and needing to just lounge it adds to the blahness one is already feeling.  The children are starting to feel the effects of daddy being gone.  The younger ones really do not realize that is why they feel the way they do.  But they act out at times and are grumpy, whiny, tearful, and sometimes even mean.

Life can sometimes seem to be filled with clouds.  Literally and figuratively.  One must always remember though that clouds come with a silver lining.

Even when the sun outside isn’t shining I still receive my daily dose of sunshine in different forms:

• Knowing the great God I serve and his grace, his mercy, his love, his providence, his protection, his holiness.
• Knowing that the literal sunshine will soon appear.
• Knowing that after April comes May.
• Seeing my littles dance and play in ballet shoes, high heals, and pretty little crowns.
• Knowing that when they are down I can cuddle and comfort them.
• Hearing from my hubby and seeing him on Skype.
• Listening to my children play beautiful music on the piano.
• The phone call from a friend when I needed it the most.
• The vitamin D I can take when skies are gray.
• The joy of new child on the way.
• Being able to laugh with hubby who is on the other side of the world (Skype is great).
• The knowledge that my first trimester is half way over and better feeling days are ahead.
• Comments of encouragement from my great blog readers.
• friends who stop by with lunch and a birthday cake
• friends who come over when I am out and clean my house and do my laundry
• more time in prayer
• Hearing a little one say “mommy I love you”
• many, many, many other things………………………………..

There are so many blessings one can miss if you are focused on the clouds rather than looking for that ribbon of silver that is woven throughout the gray.  Who knows, the sun may shine sooner than the weatherman thinks!  God IS indeed so very, very good!

Prayer Filled Stars

Several months ago as I began to anticipate and prepare for this deployment, I began to pray for a meaningful way to count the days away.   On our first deployment we put up a paper chain.  One link for each day and took one off each evening.  That was a visible way to do things and one that the younger children can easily understand.  The chain worked pretty well but was draped all over the house and sometimes was too much of a reminder.  It was however easy to adjust the number of rings in case the dates changed.  It didn’t serve much of a purpose other than counting down though and I wanted something more substantial.

I had someone tell me that what they did was get a large jar and put enough Hershey’s Kisses in them for each child to have one each day.  When the jar was empty, dad should be home.  It was also easy to adjust the number if days changed.  I have so many people in our household that I would need to buy stock in Hershey’s to make it worth while!  That would be A LOT of chocolate (even for me).  A kiss for daddy has a little more meaning than just paper chains I suppose but it isn’t what I was longing for.

I continued to prayer that the Lord would show me what to do.  I am not the most creative person in the world and nothing was coming to mind!

Then one night the Lord woke me from a sound sleep and this idea was running through my mind.  For several minutes I willed myself to not forget in the morning.  Sadly, I often do forget things by morning.  I did remember but forgot to mention to hubby and eventually over the following days the thought vanished from my mind.  I knew I had forgotten something great and prayed that I would remember.  The Lord woke me a few more times from sleep in the following weeks and reminded me of the same idea.

I mentioned this to my hubby and he thought it was a wonderful idea too.   So we went with it.  Let me explain how we are counting away the days.

One thing I would like to mention is that one of the ways daddy will be greatly missed around here is at bedtime.  Bedtime is daddy’s job.  He prays with each child before bed.  That is just daddy’s job.

What we have done is purchased enough die cut stars for each day that daddy will be gone.  They will be easy to adjust if the dates change a bit.  They do not take up too much room and are neatly stuck on the wall in the corner of the hallway.  They are visible but not “in your face” for a too constant reminder.  We will take one down each night before bedtime for our countdown.  Here is the blessing part.  Since daddy is the one who prayers with the children at bedtime and that will be sorely missed, we have written a prayer on the back of each one.  Daddy wrote some before he left and I wrote some.  They are prayers for him, for us, for leaders, for giving thanks, for the cars to not break down, and just about anything we could think of that we would need prayer for during this separation.  There is meaning and substance now included rather than just counting the days away.  It helps to fill a void that is there because daddy is gone.  The Lord is so good to show us this.

So here is a photo of our hallway corner with approximately 200 prayer filled stars.

Got Great Tweets?

Image by Dave Delaney via Flickr

It seems that people liked my twitter RT recap last week so I think I will continue with it.  There are so many great quotes that come through on Twitter each day that I just cannot help but to share them.  So here are a few for you to sink your teeth into.

• You should not believe your conscience and feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you. Martin Luther…
• RT @burk_parsons: A man preaches that sermon only well unto others which preaches itself in his own soul—Owen
• RT @burk_parsons: Either our religion will transform us or we will transform our religion to suit our sympathies—Horton
• RT @ReformedGlory: ‘I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever! ” Isaac Newton
• RT @RevJohnOwen: The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it, the course of the world takes away the shame of it.
• RT @HavetheChoice: Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.– Mother Teresa
• RT @burk_parsons: No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good—Lewis
• RT @burk_parsons: The life of holiness is a life hidden in Christ and His holiness resulting in a life of repentance/faith/obedience.
• RT @burk_parsons: We need to be more shortsighted, thinking less about how holy we’ll be tomorrow and more about how holy we’ll be today.
• RT @ReformedGlory: “You lose your strength, Christian, the moment you depart from your integrity” Charles Spurgeon
• “Faith does not have value; it is the instrument.” Francis A. Schaeffer (The Finished Work of Christ: The Truth of Romans 1-8 )
• RT@ReformedGlory: Works?Works?A man get to heaven by works?I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand!George Whitefield
• RT @ReformedGlory: “The richness of God’s Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.”Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• RT @burk_parsons: Sin will not come to you, saying, “I am sin.” It would do little harm if it did—Ryle