Musings of a Stay-at-home-mom: Accepting your Spiritual Gift

This blog turned into something where I share what I have been learning while going through life. Hence the title. One thing I have struggled in the past with my spiritual gift. I have taken lots of tests, several classes, and yet couldn't find a place where I fit in to serve at my church. Until recently. Recently, I took a class at my church that really broke down, who I am, what my passions are, and what gift God gave me to serve His church in sync with my passions. And you will not believe what I found out. Drum roll please, my spiritual gift is:

Helps

Yes, that is actually a spiritual gift. Promise. It isn't really flashy. It doesn't really have a specific place. Like if you have the gift of music, or teaching, evangelism. It is really easy to figure out where those go. But what exactly does a person do when they have such a non-specific gift. I know it might be easy. But I struggled with this for a long time.

How many times did I try to make myself, and my spiritual gift into something it wasn't? I tried writing, it went well for awhile, until I was exhausted from having to tap that part of my brain too many times, I have a serious respect for those who have that gift. I tried leading a small group table during a bible study for Experiencing God. Towards the end, I was begging to be joined with other tables to take the pressure off of me, it was exhausting, once again. This was not supposed to happen. Your gift energizes you, not exhausts you!

And here is where the fun part comes in. God revealed to me where I actually fit in, and serve in my church. I help. I know, it sound so simple, but it really has taken me a long time to figure it out. Teaching, writing, leading bible studies, all these things take too much commitment and a lot of pressure for me, honestly, it's a lot of stress. But committing to help is stress free.I helped out with VBX and taught fifth graders over the summer. Currently, I help out with a friend when she teaches GA's it's awesome. I help out in the preschool whenever they need me. I LOVE being the person who the church calls if they need help when they are short on volunteers. I love being a person they can ask if they need help. I love lending my help when needed.

It is crazy that it took me that long to figure it out. It is crazy how filling in when help is needed makes me feel joy. I can't lead a children's class, it's just not in me to teach a group of children for a long period of time. But if the teacher can't come in, and they are scrambling to find someone to fill in? I can do that. You need someone to do the menial tasks you don't want to do, so you can focus on the big picture of your project? I. Can. Help. So freeing, so fun because I get to be a cog to make the big machine work. So thankful for God revealing to me my roll. So thankful that I finally feel apart of my church and find joy and get energized from what I do.

I may not be a flashy part of the body. I'm more like the little toe, The smallest part of the foot, but without it, you can't walk. Grateful to have a roll, and that I get to use my gift. Grateful that God stripped me of my pride so I could see clearly where I fit in best. But most importantly, looking forward to seeing how God is going to use my gift, now that I have accepted and love it, in the future.  

I Want...

- A vacation, probably from the kids
- warmth, like literal warmth, I'm over the cold.
- To see my friends in Orlando, I miss them.
- For that matter, to see Jenn Morris in Texas, again.
- An In N Out burger, or a weeks worth of them
- A pedicure
- A girls night out
- A real date night with Tim
- Kareoke night with my family again
-To lose a couple more pounds


To find Joy in all things, whether I get to cross things off of my want list or not. My new word for this year is Joy. We were singing a praise song this morning and this lyric really got me:

"All my deserts are rivers of Joy."


Slowly but surely, God is turning deserts in my life to rivers of Joy. Can't wait to see what desert (or deserts!) He is going to rivers of Joy in 2014.

Love y'all lots,
LA

Musings of a Stay-at-Home Mom: What to do when you find yourself alone with your second born

After much thought and deliberation, we decided to try out putting K in a preschool program at our church, it's really called a Mother's morning out, but around here, we call it school. It's super fun for Karis, and it gives me five hours with one child two days a week. I'm sure some of you are wondering, since I don't have a job (other than being a full-time mom) What I do with all that time?!?

Here is what I did, in order of importance:

Give the second born much needed love and attention without having Karis vie for my attention.
Enjoy her smiles.
More kisses.
Sweet nose cuddles.
Grocery shop.
Lots of smiles and baby talk between the two of us.

There is the temptation to do 100000000 errands that are so much easier to do with one child. But I LOVE getting alone time with Autumn. I had two years of alone time with Karis, so getting about 10hrs a week with Autumn is pretty cool.

I love my girls.

I love Preschool!

Musings of a Stay-at-home-mom: Episode 1

Tim got me this really amazing tablet/laptop combo for Christmas. It's original purpose was to help me for when I got a job. I haven't gotten a job, so I use it to blog while I watch some hulu while K and A sleep. How much fun am I? At least I'm using it!

And I'm using it to tell you some stuff.

First and foremost: I am SUPER excited, and maybe a little nervous. I'm excited cause this weekend will mark a huge event in my life. Me, my two best friends from college and life, our husband, and our collective four children will spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods. It's what dreams are made of! Well, really, it's what the musings of three college age girls who thought it would be super fun one day to spend a weekend together in a cabin in the woods. When we were talking about it, I honestly did not picture it with children, but nonetheless, I'm excited!


But here's the deal: Tim and I hold a friday night bible study at our house for college/career folk at our house. When telling them about our weekend and how much we were looking forward to it, a girl sadly exclaimed, "I don't have any girls that we plan on going to a cabin in the woods with our husbands with!" And my first thought was, "Get some!"

No, seriously, get some! Women, I'm talking specifically to you. I have this feeling that, for women who aren't married college/post college age, sometimes life gets lonely. That makes me so sad. My friends pulled me through so much in life, and one thing that also pulled me along was our dreams together. To one day vacation together, to watch each other grow our families together, to support our marriages with each other together.

Girls, let's be honest, sometimes we are so focused on the male species that we sometimes forget to foster relationships with each other, especially in times when we need each other. This is true of us when we are single, and in relationships. Get some girlfriends, appreciate them, love them, and grow old with them. I, for one, cherish each of my girls, and am so thankful for them as my friends.

And am looking forward to spending a weekend in a cabin, in the woods, with our husbands! And children...

Love y'all lots,
LA

New Year's Revolution

No, I didn't misspell the title. I don't do resolutions. I did one a couple of years ago, posted it on the blog, and I'm pretty sure failed at all of the resolutions, and that failure stuck with me the whole year. Nope, I'm done setting myself up for failure. I would rather challenge myself with success. So, I revolt.

Against myself.

This year, I want stop being the person that has been so negative, tired, and can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Who's dreams are on the horizon, you know, the fictitious line in the distance that can never be reached. I want to revolt against all of that.

This year, I want to be happy, to feel hope and relish the Sun, even when I can't see it. I want to cherish my dreams, but instead of focusing on them and bemoaning my present life, I want to hand those dreams over to God, for safe keeping, and find so much contentment in my present.

To look into both of my daughter's eyes daily and be blessed by them, instead of focusing on all the things I have to teach them and worry. Autumn will sit up on her own one day, and then one day she will crawl, and then she will walk. It will happen, stop trying to get her to a year before it's time. The first year really is so hard.

I want to stop worrying about Karis' speech and potty training. I still have no idea how I'm going to get her potty trained, but I'm so tired of being defeated by that. I will potty train her, I don't care if she goes to the bathroom all over our house, it's going to get done, and I just need to stop worrying about that.

A revolution is so many things. It's the earth's rotation around the sun. It's when a people over-throw their current government. My favorite definition of revolution: sudden, radical, or complete change. Whatever kind of revolution you think of, the one thing that stays the same in all circumstances is, you always change.

Here's to my New Year's revolution. Wonder where I'll be in a year?

I am a Child

So, this might not be very long or deep, but it's what's on my heart now. And since I rarely have time or motivation to write about all the fun, silly, possibly deep and thoughtful feelings I have, I'm taking this time to run with it. One of my friends posted a link to a tumblr blog on reasons why their son is crying. I laughed SO hard at this. The child who cries because they want more cinnamon roll when they have a whole plate in front of them. Or the one that cries because you won't walk on them as a human bridge. And it makes me think of Karis. As she is rapidly approaching two, and since she still amazingly and stubbornly refuses to verbalize a sentence, we are having all kinds of crying fits over things that are so simple. She cries when I leave the room, instead of just asking where I am. (Mind you, she knows what "mommy's room", "kitchen", "Karis' room", and "garage" mean, she just would rather cry out instead of look to find me). She cries when I don't get her what she wants when she wants it NOW. She cries if she does not understand what I'm doing, when what I'm doing is what she wants, it's just a process. And the more she cries, the more I fall in love with her, cause the more she puts me in my place when it comes to God.

I am that child.

On a daily basis it's like, "Why haven't you done what I want you to do God!?" "Where are you and why aren't you coming to meet me where I want you!?" "I said I wanted _______ NOW!" "Fix him/her/ ALL OF THEM!" "Why won't you just give me what I pray fooooooooorrrrrrr!? (extra whiny voice).

Tears, yelling, definitely pouting, and then when I'm really tired of looking up at the sky, I just, you know, give God the cold shoulder. Right? I mean, totally giving God the cold shoulder helps me in MY life, and makes what I want come to fruition. Correct? No. I will say it again, just so you know that I know my heart needs a serious transplant. NO. Do you know that the last part of the love chapter in I Cor. 13 states, "When I was a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child, I spoke like a child, when I became a man, I put away my childish ways." I did not copy that word for word from the Bible, that is my paraphrase. And would you believe it, this verse has been one that has been echoing in recesses of my mind, whispered in my ear by my Heavenly Father for quite some time now. 

Maybe I should start a tumblr on reasons why I am crying?

I hope you don't think I'm like walking around all the time whining like a child. I don't do it in the day hours, I promise. Thank you for loving me right where I am y'all!

Love you lots,

LA

DNow

Our church just finished it's DNow weekend, and as I was trying to hurry Tim to the sanctuary because I knew there would be less seats, it never occurred to me that there are just as many kids out there who have no idea what DNow is as there are that do. He thought it was so strange that a bunch of highschoolers get together over a weekend to sleep in other people's home and then all go to church together on Sunday. I love having Tim in my life because he brings me out of my church bubble. I mean, we try to make a church bubble now for Karis, but there are definitely things that I accept growing up in the South, in a family that goes to church regularly, that is very involved with the church, that I just don't think about the other side of that. So I don't know if it's because it hit so close to home because Orlando had DNow, they just called it something different, or because our new church is a little smaller and I sat closer to the highschoolers, I just started thinking about all those great times growing up in church.

I don't think I've ever told anyone this, but on the last day of church camp my Senior year, I balled like a baby. Not because I'd necessarily miss that camp, or the people at the came. (Just to be clear, I do love me some Camp Cherokee, and I do love and miss my close high school friends). But I knew that never again would I be a camper at a camp. They have no church camps for college kids, singles, marrieds, or marrieds with children. The closest thing you get when you are older are retreats, and marriage retreats. All are nice, and seriously needed when you go on them. But none are church camp. A camp where you go for the week where activities are planned for you, meals are prepared with you in mind, speakers are flown in, bands play amazing music, and counselors are literally there to pray for you, talk to you, and teach you about Jesus and His Word. (Now that I think about it, really the closest thing to that is a marriage retreat, but I could never afford to go on one for a FULL week, like church camp, so I'm saying there really is nothing out there like that). No, it's like when you graduate high school, you are cut off from being a camper. No one sat down and told me that, we didn't have full conversations about the gravity of that situation, that I would never be a camper again. It just happened, and really in such a way because my last camp as a Senior was followed immediately by middle school camp where I was a counselor. Like, BOOM, transition, done. And then as I was mourning the loss of that part of my life, and just wishing, maybe for a second that I could be a camper again, God whispered this lovely verse into my head:

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man (or woman, to those who need that), I put childish ways behind me."

God reminded me that it's no longer that stage of my life anymore. That while being a camper, being ministered to was a sweet and special time in my life, I had to become the camp counselor because we can't drink spiritual milk forever. I have to digest the more hearty truths of the Word because I have others in my life I have to care for, because (and this is super hard to believe for me) others (somewhere out there, maybe...) are looking at me, at my life and thinking about whether or not I am a good example of someone they want to be like. That Karis does not need a camper for a mother, but a counselor. And I need to minister to her, and to others. I need to honor the time, efforts, prayers, and sacrifices of those who invested in me as a camper, in order that I may grow up to replace them or help them in this circle of ministry. Don't get me wrong, being a camper, is not being childish, it's just, I did think differently, as a camper, I was self-absorbed because when I needed to talk to someone, divulge my problems or fears, I expected someone to be there for me, asap. To listen, and care, and pray, and hug. That is the example that was set, so that I may grow, put the self-absorption behind me, and be there for others. 

We've got a bit of a road ahead of us ladies and gentlemen, right? But then again, God also says this:

"...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

God specifically did some things in my life within the past six months or so, namely moving me away from some very solid friends who where amazing Christian mentors to me, that had been my "camp counselors", and it has been an extremely hard process to move away from my camper mentality to the counselor mentality, but I'm convinced it was the right time, and God always knows what He is doing, and it is always good.

So, while moving was and is extremely painful, it has produced some small, steady growth in my heart, and I look forward to seeing where God leads in that. So, now I'll lead you with the last verse He just laid on my heart:

"See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland."

Grateful that God is not content with leaving my heart a wasteland, I love you all,

LA