*I see the moon

and the moon sees me;

God bless the moon

and God bless me.*

Thanks to My Friend Suzanne B. for the Reminder

When I am tired and I can't sleep,

I count my blessings instead of sheep,

And I go to sleep

Counting my blessings.



(brownie points to any reader who can tell me what movie that song is from- leave a comment:)

P.S. Eldest Daughter, no fair being the first to respond- I know you know!:)

Good Advice

.
The Handy Dandy Boy's

Book of Answers, Tip # 403:

(over heard at a recent birthday party)

"Just lick it off, and wipe it on your pants!"

...can be applied to many situations, but in this instance the dilemma was caused by having no napkins after cake and ice cream.

Good advice like this is dispensed throughout the kingdom of Boyhood. It is simple consideration, a needed mentoring, if you will. There is an unspoken brotherhood amongst their kind that begs for such little tidbits of wisdom to be dispensed and circulated.


Girls, on the other hand, just accompany each other the the restroom to wash up in a sink.


PSHHH! What a giant waste of time! Don't they know the line is forming already for the Pinata?

Somebody ought to write a book or something.

That's what I think.

Blessings,

Suzanne

In the Moment

I recently attended a night of worship at my church- 1 1/2 hours of singing and music to bless His name. My church offers it once a month.

The Lord is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And that is how I always want to do it. But I have been locked up lately because my ideas, expectations and timing have not matched His and I am holding it against Him, which makes it hard.

It makes it hard to confess His goodness and faithfulness if you are suspicious that it just isn't true.

So knowing this has been my struggle, I still went to the worship service- because in my heart, I just want to break through that, even though my head is being real stubborn.

Somehow I managed to get there early enough that I was there for the opening prayer. I have never been there for that before. The band members and worship leaders came down and prayed in a circle with- not just themselves- but all of us who had come. It was pretty nice. Time was given to allow anyone who wanted to add something to chime in.

I stood there thinking, "I am NOT going to pray. I have nothing to say." Already I could feel my mental heels digging into the ground. I was just so mad at God.

Then at the end, someone piped up, "God, let us just worship you in this moment. Let us not be filled with our yesterdays or our tomorrows."

The notion hit me like a ton of bricks.

WOW. If you remove the sting of my past and the uncertainty of my future, it suddenly becomes real easy to confess all of God's attributes to Him in adoration. Such a simple, yet profound prayer. It totally freed me. I had a great night of worship.

Thanks, Snake. (yeah, that's really his name)

Me thinks I will have to return to that posture an awful lot in coming weeks and months.

Because it changed my attitude from "Whatever, Lord" to "Whatever it takes, Lord."

I may not like my past and I may not know my future, but at least I know who God is right now.

Right in this very moment.



Blessings,
Suzanne

Of Moonwalking and Other Admirable Feats

That's just how it is.

If someone would have told me this would happen when I was a brand new Christian, I would not have believed it.

If anyone would have tried to tell me when I was a brand new mother, I would have rejected the very notion.

Even if a veteran homeschooler would have tried to break it to me, I would have balked and confidently vowed it would never happen.

But it has.

My five year old daughter is a Micheal Jackson fan.

Yes, you read right. After years of sheltering... after cushioning them all against the world and it's pop culture... after telling them the truth about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy right from the get-go...

At last all attempts to be separate from the world have finally failed. And why? Well, because Micheal Jackson died, of course. Otherwise, I am quite sure I would have been able to maintain "the bubble" a little longer.

We don't even watch TV. We have it, with all the satellite channels and everything, yet never really find the time to watch it. But news of this sort is bigger than TV. It has permeated everything. So when my children went to a friend's house, they were treated by the other children to a crash-course tutorial in Micheal Jackson. They heard his songs, saw his dance videos, and I think even received some history factoids. My two younger boys found new reasons to think Jackson is ridiculous, and one even demonstrated the "crotch grab" dance move for me as if I have never seen it before. I looked properly shocked for him, and he was satisfied.

But my little spunky princess- SHE is ENAMORED. She has gone around all week singing, "Because I'm bad, I'm bad, you know it..." She was driving her brothers crazy.

"Mom, would you tell her to stop singing that song!?" They know I would have never let any of them sing it when they were her age. They can only assume mom is slipping a little in her parenting and are attempting to help me along.

I said, " If you simply leave her alone, she will tire of it and stop singing it in a week or two. But as long as she can get a rise out of you, she will continue. Just leave her alone."

"But Micheal Jackson is so dumb!!" they complained.

"SO?" she said with a scowl, taking her fingers out of her mouth."Micheal Jackson can moonwalk and YOU CAN'T!!"

Well.
Can't argue with that one.

The entire car (yes, we were on our way home from church when this took place) was briefly silenced in disbelief at how she aptly she just told her big brother off. Or was it because of her passionate defense of Micheal? Or maybe it was just because we were just shocked at her knowledge of the term, "Moonwalk." Whatever the case, the next moment, we all broke out in laughter, which then made her cry, because she is almost as sensitive as she is spunky.

Almost.

A bit of her personality make-up that is certain to last longer than this fascination. Thank Goodness.

Blessings,

Suzanne

Eggs in One Basket

How much do we love God? How much do we trust Him?

The first question may seem easier to answer initially, but when you are really think about it, they essentially ask the same thing.


Certainly, we are but dust and are therefore prone to fears. And we are assured in scripture that God remembers that fact. Yet, he calls us to things bigger than we are, to tasks greater than we feel equipped for. Things that would frighten us if we knew about them ahead of time.

We would run. We would avoid it. We would not elect to walk through it. We would not choose it for ourselves.

What are the big ugly things that we hope never happen to us? We each have one or more that we are well acquainted with. As soon as I was married, I began to fear premature widowhood. As soon as I became a mother, I feared everything else. EVERYTHING. I remember not even being able to watch the evening news for a while. Think of all the horrible things that could happen-that DO happen! It can be overwhelming.

What is the one thing that we inwardly pray, "Just don't ever let that happen, Lord"?

I am currently going through an excellent study on the book of Esther with Beth Moore. This last week she addressed fears and facing those fears.

What if the worst case scenario actually happened? Then what?

It is true that I am in the midst of that right now. This is what happens after the worse case scenario hits. As so many of my sweet readers wrote to remind me last week, I do have a testimony before my happy ending arrives.

Beth Moore taught us last week, " If (your worst nightmare) happens, Then God." Trust Him in the good, trust Him in the down right ugly.

My good friend Sue wisely commented to my last post the following:

So I have a nice husband, but if I put all my eggs in that basket I would be a fool. All men (and women) are prone to fail.

She is so very right. We can not even rely on ourselves to be infallible, much less burden those around us with the expectation of sinless perfection lifelong. The only basket worthy of all of our eggs (our love, our complete and total trust) is God.

Do we have a right to expect fidelity of our spouse? Of course we do. We also have the freedom to forgive a broken and repentant fellow sinner because we ourselves have the same fallen human condition and receive forgiveness daily through the Blood of Christ. We do have to make the decision whether or not to bestow trust to that person once again. That is a separate issue.

But to bestow trust in God is the safest bet anyone could ever make, come what may.

Whatever may come.



He is the only basket worthy of all our eggs. And that knowledge, ladies, has the power to free us from ALL of our worst fears.

Blessings to you,

Suzanne

Secret Identity

Well, 'tis the season. For weddings, that is. They seem to be happening all around us this time of year. Our own household is no exception: it is ringing with the melody of upcoming nuptials for my Dear Friend's son. He will be the first of her four children to marry. We are very happy for him and his sweet fiance.

So happy, in fact, that it never once occurred to me to prepare myself for a stinging moment (I get those every once in a while). I should know better, but I don't.

You see, I attended the bridal shower a couple weeks ago. I was looking forward to it as you would expect. Why wouldn't I? How delightful to bless a bride-to-be! My mind was naturally on her and her alone. And in I went, with no ring on my finger.

It was a beautiful garden setting. Round tables dressed with fresh colored linens and flowers awaited guests in the inviting shade. Dear Friend and I took seats at different tables because most of the seats were already taken, and I found myself sitting with one woman I knew and three others that I didn't. Two of them were young brides themselves, each the mother of a small child. My friend at the table informed the others that I was the mother of seven.

Oh, no.

That was more information than I was prepared to reveal that day. I would have much rather chatted about the field greens, tortellinis and punch and played the requisite party games with these young ladies than have to explain about my husband.

Fortunately, none of them asked.

But then came something even less expected. One of the young women, upon hearing about the size of my brood said wistfully, "I would really like to have another child, but you know, living on my husband's ministry salary..."

I wanted to encourage her. I wanted to say "Have faith! Trust God! Follow your heart!"

Because that is still how I feel. But what platform do I have? Who am I to encourage ANYONE to throw common (worldly) sense to the wind and trust God where this is concerned? My story is this young woman's worst nightmare. I know it was my own. Speaking up would only put myself in the position of possibly having to explain my current situation, which in turn would require a little of my history.

And that would not be an encouragement to anyone. Especially a young bride just embarking on her journey in life.

I would like to be able to say that if you do your very best to follow God, love your husband, serve your family and minister to the Body and community, no fate so wrong would ever befall you.

But I have found out that there is no such promise.

So it was actually better for me to bite my tongue against my will than to goad her to follow her dream. It hurt so bad to do so... to just leave her there to pine and sigh over her imagined limitations. But to offer no encouragement was better than to scare the living daylights out of her, so that's what I did. And how I hated it.

Of course, it sent me right back to God later, asking Him for an explanation. Why? Why would He let this happen? What is to become of me now? How can I operate in the Body of Christ as an encouragement when the very group of people I have always wanted most to minister to are precisely the ones I feel prohibited from speaking into their lives? What have I left to offer?

I feel bound and gagged in so many ways. I want to proclaim the goodness and faithfulness of God, but feel like I have nothing tangible to back it up. I would like to be able to point to the manifestation of Romans 8:28 in my life- I would like to be able to confidently say, "Fear not! Bad things may happen but God will turn it for good-just look what He did for me."

But I am still walking through the valley and have not yet reached the other side. I am on the journey to an expected happy ending. I have to expect a happy ending. I have to believe God would not overlook His handmaiden, or what else is there left to believe?

There is no way to change my history. It is a badge betrayal, rejection and abandonment I will always have to bear.

But I hope for the day when that badge, which I try to hide right now for the sake of others, will be out shined, dwarfed and shown insignificant when compared to the testimony of His goodness and faithfulness that my life will represent.

Hope with me, Ladies. And keep praying.

~Suzanne