Balancing Act called Life February 20, 2013

Today I am feeling tattered, worn, frazzled and lonely. I’m having a very “human” day when what I am trying really hard to do is turn it over to God and have a “Godly” day. When is all just too much? How do we find a way to just STOP all this extra curricular junk in our lives and find happiness in simplicity? Right now I am truly at the  “it’s all too much point”. I don’t want people to misunderstand, I live a very very blessed life that I am typically very thankful for, but along with the blessings in this life I’ve allowed places for a lot of unnecessary situations and items.

My husband works A LOT. I won’t lie, A LOT. Not always by choice, his industry requires it and he is very committed in all he does, which is one reason I love him so very much. We make a great income, have nice things, take vacations, I can be home for my kids, run my online eBay business,  but I feel like it’s all becoming way too much. The more we make, the more we spend and the more we spend, the more he has to work and the more he has to work is more time that we cannot be together and the more time we cannot be together brings sadness. I’m hoping there is someone else out there who can relate to me, I’m sure there are many who can!

I have such hopes and dreams for my husband and I but life is fluttering by and none of it is being accomplished, who is to blame? Us. It’s time to make a big change! My husband and I have an amazing marriage, we trust, we communicate, we love each other with all our hearts, we parent together, we crave time alone and I want to spend time with him sharing our bond with others. I have dreams of us together having couples bible studies, helping other married couples who may be struggling, helping other parents who are trying to parent and supporting each other, doing mission work. I would love for us to be able to travel and share our good fortune with others who are not as fortunate. I want to have time with him to locally help the unfortunate, but I would start with simple wish to have time to just sit together in the evening, catch up on our days, pray and read the bible together and bond. For real, we rarely can even find time for that. I won’t even go into my kids financially and physically draining activity schedule!

I know we are not the only super busy people on earth with good intentions! I would love for some advice from others who have been or are in my place, suggestions, input, anything?! How do we say enough to the corporate world, while keeping our jobs, but still have time for a life and still have time to put our mark on the world and help others?

This blog post has been more of a whine post, so thanks for letting me vent:-) Life truly is a balancing act! I pray you all have a blessed and love filled day:-)

 

M

Child rearing in a God-less society February 19, 2013

Parenting in today’s world is a challenging job that requires constant and consistant effort. In society today it seems that parents have little rights in the disciplinary world, spanking is “child abuse”, grounding them or raising your voice will “harm their ego” or “damage them” and kids have learned very quickly that they have more power than ever. I see unruly kids on a regular basis with parents who have no concept of how to gain control, in fact many of them have simply given up and the child is running the show. Two simple phrases:

“Seek God”

“Regain Control”

The reason we are in such parental crisis is because we don’t have God in our lives. We may say we do, we believe, we go to church once every few months heck, we even remember at some point during Christmas day after the chaos of gift opening and endulging in great food and desserts is over, that “oh yeah, today is Jesus’s birthday”. Then it’s simply forgotten again and we continue on with out business and festivities. We need to know God is part of our life every day in all the big and all the little things. Once we do that, we will have the ability and the guidance we need to be the parents we are supposed to be. I like this verse:

“those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” Proverbs 13:24

I know it sounds harsh to claim hate towards children from a parent, I truly believe very few parents hate their children. The second part of this verse claims that those who love their children discipline them.  I feel that when children are not disciplined they act out, they rebel, they push boundaries and they turn into lost souls which can reek a lot of havoc on the family dynamics creating ill and resentful feelings with all in the home. I feel that God is trying to make us see that if we do not discipline, our children end up out of control, troubled human beings. We may not like who they are, we may questions why they turned out the way they did, where we went wrong. The answer is that we went wrong not disciplining. It’s right in front of us “those who love them are diligent to discipline them”.

Children crave consistency and boundaries as much as we crave their respect. As much as they won’t admit it, they crave discipline in their lives. It is a parents job to set rules, to follow through with punishment when bad judgement or bad choices are made, God says it right there in that verse above. We should all read that verse to our children, especially our tweens and teens!

I am by no means perfect at this parenting thing. I feel like I do my job of parenting wrong everyday in some way, but I think we all feel that way. We need to pray and seek Gods advice about how to raise our kids. We have to know Gods expectations for us which means we have to read his word and share it with out spouses and our children.

So many children are running around with no rules, no set time as to when to be home after school, clothes showing body parts leaving them vulnerable to predators and ill willed people, using language that sounds so filthy but they think it makes them look and sound big and cool, showing no respect to adults or other peers. These children are lost and they so badly need guidance because the devil is doing a great job at running their lives in the wrong direction. As a parent, we can guide our children in the right direction, the direction God intends us to lead them, but we also can try to touch the hearts of these other kids who don’ t have someone at home to look up to. We need to be role models for our kids and all children and lead by example because their little hearts can so easily be touched with some effort.

My husband and I are raising a 13 year old boy and 10 year old girl. They are great kids but we struggle with many of the issues a lot of parents struggle with. I don’ t always make the right choices and do the right thing when it comes to parenting, in fact, some days I think I’ve done it all wrong, but I know I haven’t. As hard as it can be, it is so rewarding and fun to be in charge of these young people and to see them grow into great young adults. I’ve noticed lately, that the more I turn to God for help with parenting, the better off I am and the better the solution. It’s not always easy, rarely it is easy, but with consistency they are learning what is expected of them. If we are raising our children with Gods will at heart and the way he expects us to we are not going to hurt them. We are not going to harm their egos. They will not be scarred for life from a small spanking on the bum, they will turn out fine. It’s when we forget to let God into our lives and into our children and families lives that we are hurting them. Without God we make poor choices, we use poor language, we feel helpless and alone, if our child is acting out we feel no hope, we feel down on ourselves and it goes on and on.

Raising kids is the hardest job we will ever be given, but also the most special and awesome job in the universe. Take the time now to know there will be many hard times ahead, there will be defiance, there will be words of hatred thrown at us from our children, it’s not always going to be easy, but make a deal with yourself and your heart right now and even better, get your spouse in on this right now as well, that the next time the challenges of parenting rear their ugly head, which could be in 5 minutes or in ten days, but the next time you will take a deep breath and go ask God for help and through him deal with the situation in the right way, in His way. And share this way with friends and other people you come in contact with on a daily basis who are lost in this struggle themselves. We can regain control and discipline of our children:-)

 

Thankful

Today I am just plain thankful. I wish I could realize everyday to be thankful because life is such a blessing and a gift to wake up to every single day. When we lie down at night, exhausted from work, chasing kids, cleaning, doing laundry, after school activities, etc, we really have no guarantee at all that there will be tomorrow.  I am thankful that I woke up this morning. I won’t lie, I woke up pretty cranked up, the stiff neck I had finally got rid of had returned leaving me again with raging neck and upper back pain. So here we are back to full body turns just to back the car up and having to take it easier than I normally do. I thought “how unfair that I finally get my neck feeling better only to wake up in agony again, it truly stinks and I don’t deserve this!” As I proceeded through my morning routine, sipping my de-grouching juice, aka coffee, or coffee flavored creamer, waking kids, packing lunches, listening to them say they don’t feel good, discussing all the after school activities of the day I thought “this day is just going to stink!” Does anyone enjoy feeling like that? At least tell me that some of you other people do wake up sometimes feeling this way on occasion, PLEASE?!

I took my kids to school and when I got home I thought “you need to reset Miss Meg, because you woke up today. You have a great life, a beautiful new house, all my needs are met and in general we are all healthy. I took my weary overtired self back to my bed, prayed and asked God to please help me get past this pity party I was giving myself, gave myself one more hour of sleep and Voila! I woke up a new person. The pain in the neck is still there, no comments, please! How many people out there wish that they could wake up in a comfortable bed in a beautiful warm house, with health and overall happiness and just feel a little irritated with just a little pain in the neck?! There are people everywhere all over our world right now who would take my place and my pain in the neck. Really, I was feeling that bad over a little pain and tiredness from not sleeping well, when in reality it could be so much worse. There are people dying in cancer wards or at home with hospice care, there are people battling all kinds of illnesses, physical, mental, emotional illnesses all over the world who would trade places with me any day. I have to understand that this is really not a problem and I have no right to feel so grumpy and I certainly have no right to feel that “this isn’t fair”.

I am so thankful that I can go to God for help, that I can talk with him and let him help me. He knew I needed just a little more rest to see this day clearly and to see the whole picture. I am healthy. I have my needs met. I am blessed. Thank you God for being amazing, for giving me the ability to come to you and let you guide me to change my attitude into gratitude. Perhaps God was telling me “I gave you this neck pain to make you realize that you are being a big pain in MY neck, so please get over it!” All I know is God wants us to be happy, but we have to trust him and go to him and when we do that it makes all the difference in the world. I pray that everyone reading this can go to God and ask him and trust him to help them to deal with whatever issue they are dealing with today, because we are all human and we are all dealing with something. I hope Y’all have a beautiful day filled with sunshine on the inside and out:-)

“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:6-7

Meg

Gods Miracles at work February 8, 2013

Gods Miracles at work.

God, Friendship & Catnip Tea

God, Friendship & Catnip Tea.

God, Friendship & Catnip Tea February 6, 2013

Every human life has some key moments that pinpoint a mark of serious importance in our lives. We have moments everyday that make a mark on our lives but in this post I am talking about the lesser moments that have the greatest impact and have changed us for the better. These moments means so much more than everyday events that touch our lives because these events don’t happen everyday and when they do they are huge and life changing. In our whole lifetime we will have thousands of little things that happened that made us happy, made us better people and effected us positively but these major key moments we will be lucky to maybe have ten of in our lifetime, they are that important!

We all are given “junk” in our lives everyday, it’s what we choose to do and how we react to that junk that defines us and effects us in either a positive or negative way. The devil is a very powerful beast, therefore, so often the negative wins out. We allow him to weaken our hearts, weaken our souls and remove our confidence and happiness. We need to choose to turn to God, smile and trust, and throw that junk in a trash bag. That will give us a positive outcome.

Growing up for me was an interesting time, I’m not saying it was all bad, but I have a lot of “junk”. For years I let it consume me and steer my life. I could see what I wanted but a negative force held me back. I’m not going to get into the exact “junk” at this point but I still have moments of dealing with it at this point in time. I will say that I do not have contact with my parents or sibling. This may sound harsh to those who don’t know the situation, but there comes a point in time when we know we have prayed and put in all the effort we can to better a situation that others don’t want to better. Sometimes, as hard as it may be, we must throw negative and hurtful people and situations in the trash bag with the junk. But this is all for another time! Right now I want to share those moments that have impacted my life and changed me for the better, all thanks to God placing the right people in my life to ensure that I was steered in the right direction! Even when I was not actively promoting God in my life, he was still actively promoting his love for me.

My first big moment and great blessing was in 8th grade. I remember sitting at our usual lunch table and the “new girl” came in and we invited her sit with us. Now we were in no way shape or form the “cool table” so typically if the new girl sat with us, she never sat with us again! She had just moved here from Southern California and her dad had just started up a new church. From that lunch table moment on Kelli and I were bonded for life. Kelli was and still is a true genuine person just filled with Gods love every moment of every day and it is so infectious that just looking at her brings you peace. Growing up Catholic I longed to have the relationship with God that she had and that her parents had and felt so blessed that she and her parents welcomed me into their lives for who I was. Kelli always prayed for me, for our friends, she always trusted God and I envied her relationship with God and that she had that from such an early point in her life. She never stopped praying for me and she and her mom have had a huge impact on me! I’m not sure who I would have been had God not sent her to that little town in VT and put her in my life, I just don’t know how I would have dealt with life without her and her faith and prayers and completely selfless soul.

The second huge impact was meeting my husband, another unique special soul. I was nineteen, he was 24, had ended my long term emotionally run relationship with my high school sweetheart, dated some creepy not so nice to me guys and was a completely lost soul with no one to guide me positively, except really, Kelli. I happened in the midst of this chaos to land a really good office job right in my small town which was a light in a time I was lost. This is where I met my husband! He started in the engineering department shortly after and I would see him from time to time walk though my department and short of the long, we officially met at our company Christmas party and were inseparable ever since. He to this day always says that he had no idea why he accepted that job which required him to drive 45 minutes each way into the woods every day. I know! God was steering him there because he knew we were both at places that needed us to connect, we needed each other and I can say, 15 years later we are still so happily married and have an incredible strong marriage that I cherish and am so proud of! God could not have given me a more “perfect for me” man.

The next two events I will lump together, two of the most amazing moments of my life, the birth of each of our children! My dream has always been to be a mom!! We first had our son and two and a half years later our daughter. Another dream come true and incredible gift from God, my dream to have a boy and a girl. They bless my life everyday and give me purpose and reason to live and make me see the world in ways I never otherwise would have seen it.

The last major moment I want to talk about is the blessing of meeting my dear precious “soul sister” Beth! We moved to AL from NH a little over two years ago for my husbands job. I’ve always dreamed of living in the south, never thought it would be AL, but this area is wonderful! It was tough for our kids who were 10 and 8 and being moved during the middle of the school year. We rented an apartment that was very nice and met wonderful people right away. The first time I met Beth at our apartment complex she walking around talking on her bluetooth looking for her son Adam!(he wasn’t lost, no worries, all our kids run around and play in the woods etc!) Little did I know that her son Adam would end up being my sons best friend and she would become my best friend as well! AND our husbands are great buddies. Our families were meant to meet! Beth is truly the older sister I never had, she is more family, I think of her whole family as our family! Beths family is a very strong christian family and her influence on me has been huge, as is her sons christian influence on my son. We are now “soul sisters” representing and having a blast with our journey at feedingasoul! Gods blessings are huge and I am so thankful for these gifts he has given me!

Your probably wondering right about now where the catnip works into the equation, huh? One of the things that instantly bonded Beth and I was our mutual personal suffering of anxiety. We both suffer anxiety disorder and suffer almost the exact SAME anxieties! Having each other to rely on in these times is so important and we can talk and laugh and cry and drink lots of coffee and help each other feel better! It’s God working us for each other to help each other which is why we are placed here on earth, to help and make a difference in others lives. We made a great discovery and we call it “catnip tea!” It’s really called Tension Tamer tea by Celestial Seasonings, but the night I read the ingredients and saw catnip I text Beth and said “no wonder it calms us, look what it does to cats!” So we often get together and sip catnip tea while working together on feedingasoul or our eBay businesses. We also help each other by reminding each other that we don’t need to suffer these anxieties and we have made many many personal strides with this, we in much better places, yay!! We remind each other as I want to remind you since so many people suffer anxieties and fears, that anxiety isn’t needed. Anxiety is the devil at work and the more we are worrying and stressing, the better he has done his job and the happier he is. We don’t want to make the devil happy, we want to make God happy! We have both been better at handing over our anxieties and fears to God, praying to and trusting in him, because he doesn’t want us to waste our precious lives paralyzed in fear and worry, he wants us to be happy and get out there and be a positive change in this world!

I pray you all have a wonderful Wednesday filled with happiness, laughter and hearts filled with the spirit of God! Hand over your worries, pray, laugh with a friend and have a cup of catnip tea:-) And of course, please feel free to ask us any questions or comment on our posts!

Gods Miracles at work February 5, 2013

Everyday we have have two choices to make. To have faith, believe and live in peace, or to wander lost, fear and live with anxiety. It’s the truth that negativity and fear are far easier for us to accept as human beings when in reality so many of us could live in a better world within ourselves if we were to let go of that fear driven “comfort zone” and let Gods peace drive our daily lives. I have so many personal stories to share because one post at a time I want to touch others lives and make other people realize that they can live the life they so deeply desire and deserve when it seems so hopeless in the dark evil driven world that we see on a daily basis. I am going to share little stories post by post and hope that I am touching another life or lives with every post. Please comment and please contact Beth and myself if we have touched your life through our life stories because in reality, we are in this life together to help one another!

Where does one start?! Well as my kids tell me, just start from now! Work back, work forward to dreams, but for now, just start with now and what comes to mind, so my sweet kids, my first post is that, the now!

This past Sunday February 3, 2013 my husband and I were baptized! Growing  up Catholic going to church fairly regularly with my mom and brother (Dad never attended), being forced to teach catechism  and being baptized as a baby. I felt that my parents gave me a ticket into heaven by having me baptized and it also gave me a sense of entitlement that since I was baptized I could live my life as a fair weather God worshiper and I had a right to only seek him when times were tough. In my teen years my attendance in the Catholic church dwindled, as did my mom and brothers, and once on my own I did not attend at all. My heart still desired God though  I did not actively follow God. Growing up my two very best friends were ministers daughters and to this day I thank God for them, Kel and Amy you were my rocks in my most lost moments.

My husband Bill grew up in a small town protestant church, very congregational like. It’s a beautiful church, very picturesque  and when I met him I joined him in attending his church that he grew up in. He had built a bond with one of the ministers in particular and that minister is to this day even though they have no contact, so important to Bill. We were fair weather church goers, we were married in this church and had our two children baptized there as well. Over the years many things happened in this church, changes took place we didn’t agree with and we sought out a new church because we felt our connection to God was not being met anymore through this church. We took an extreme measure for us at the time, we started attending a Evangelist Free church and we secretly loved it and felt moved by. Notice how I say secretly….

We were not raised in environments that talked about God on a regular basis. In my world if you actively were involved in a church that called you born again you were a part of a cult or you were a “Jesus freak.” I felt embarrassed to talk about God, our savior and creator, ashamed to praise him and worship him openly. Inside I was crying for the self freedom to accept what I wanted and needed which was Jesus. Can you imagine being “ashamed” to admit your love and talk freely about our Jesus who died on the cross for us? But I know, that I am not alone, that there are many people out there who will read this and relate to this and say “Meg has inspired me and I am going to proudly and openly accept Jesus and be proud to be his child”. That is not something to never feel ashamed of.

My husband is far more reserved than myself, anyone who knows us will understand! He keeps more to himself and does not like public awareness per SE of his private life. So for him to come around and be saved and baptized in front of our whole Church was huge, HUGE! I am so proud of us both, but just so proud of him. His relationships are very personal to him. We struggled with “why must we be baptized in front of everyone, why not privately? Why must be be fully emerged in the water, is dunking really necessary? Why was my baptism as a baby not enough? We accept that Jesus is our creator and died for us on the cross but why must we “be saved”? What are these cult like Christians “being saved” from? And the one I hear the most from people who haven’t accepted Jesus “I didn’t know Jesus was lost.”  Are these questions any of you have ever asked yourself or anything you have wondered or heard in your life? I will get to the answers soon but first I have to share our baptism story. My stories are never short but there is always a point, I promise:-)

The week before our baptism, which was 2 weeks to the day of us being saved by our wonderful Pastor John, we were getting nervous. I was nervous about going under water as I have an extreme fear of water, that is another story! Bill was worried about being in front of the church, and since he is by nature a person who questions everything (he is after all an engineer and a great one at that!) and needs factual reasoning and answers for all his questions he was feeling like he may be getting trapped. He felt that “what if” after we are baptized there are rules, we are tied to this church, we are forced to donate so much money, etc, etc. All of which I think are perfectly good questions. The night before baptism was really tense in all honesty. We wanted to be baptized, please don’t get us wrong, we love Jesus and thank him for all we have and for dying on that cross for us, but we were fearing the unknown which was in all actuality, the devil doing his best to distract us from following the path of goodness. He wanted nothing more than for us to say “forget it, I can’t do this” so that he could win.” BUT he didn’t! I looked Bill in the eyes and said to him “this is not about being tied down to a particular church, our pastor was very honest with us, always is, this is about us and our relationship to God, our commitment to God. The only person we are doing this for is God”. There is one God and no matter where we are baptized that God is Universal and we can go worship him in any church we choose. I think that helped a little,  and we love our church and have no intentions of worshiping elsewhere, but there was still some tension on both ends.

The morning of baptism was rough. I had tears all morning that I was trying to hold back since I was going to be in front of our whole church in a couple hours and all I wanted to do was go back to bed and cry. But I knew I needed and wanted to do this for my relationship with God . We headed to church with the kids, car silent, emotions high. Things started falling into place and feeling better as we got there and as we were figuring out what was going to happen. We continued on with the baptism and it was a truly amazing moment I will always remember. There was another precious family there being baptized as well. Little did I know at that time that that family had a huge impact on us that day. I don’t think they really even know it. God put them there with us because he knew we needed each other! I, as a woman, took longer to dry off, fix my hair and make-up and get ready to attend the message. My husband waited in the back for me and when I came out he was chatting away in the manly fashion, hands tucked into the pockets, relaxed. He had made friends with the man of the other family who had been baptized. The man shared with Bill that they were supposed to have been baptized a while back but opted out of it out of fear and questions. He told Bill that up until last night they almost decided not to go through with it because they too had a lot of the questions like we had. He also proceeded to tell Bill that his wife was raised Catholic, like myself, and told him of the struggles they went through to get married in the catholic church since his wife was pregnant already, which in our case I too was very early into our first pregnancy at our wedding, another story! All these similarities put Bill at such ease and gave him such reassurance that he is not alone, which was nothing short of a miracle sent to Bill, even reassurance for myself, that everything is going to be OK and that we did the right thing. It was proof of God showing us his love for us. That story gives me chills every time I tell it, I know, it hasn’t even been more than a few days, but I’ve told it many times already and it just touches my heart and I hope it touches yours as well!

To answer the above questions now. Why be baptized in front of everyone? Well, why would God want to take us into his kingdom when its our time to meet him if we could not publicly pronounce our faith, belief, trust and love in him? As our pastor preached recently,  if we are ashamed to talk about God in public, with others etc, why would he want us to spend an eternity with him? He would be ashamed of us for feeling that way. We would not deserve a place in Heaven if we cannot publicly acknowledge him! Also I feel its a bond with the church to share this experience with us. Many of the people we may not even know, but we may grow to know them and this helps us connect with other church members. If you have been baptized as a baby that’s great! You were led in the right direction, but that was not your personal choice to accept God. That was your parents saying they would help you grow into a faithful God loving person and guide you to have a relationship with God but we all know, that no person can make another person do anything they don’t want to. Being baptized is something that should be done when an individual is ready and says “I accept God  as my savior”. It can be any age but is something that cannot be rushed or decided for someone until they are personally ready. Am I not the perfect example of this? Don’t get me wrong, I have always believed in God and known he is the reason I have life, but until recent times I had not lived through God, trusting him in all things and having communication with him on a daily basis. And to be honest, I never really believed I deserved Gods love until recently. Now, I have no doubts! I know I deserve Gods love, I know he loves me and it’s an amazing feeling deep inside your soul, that I hope you all are or soon will experience!

Why must we be emerged in water? Well, there really are several ways of using water to baptize, however, Jesus himself was baptized by being fully emerged in the river Jordan. When you emerge from that dunking you are starting a “new” life living your complete life from that moment with Christ. A fresh new start living the way Jesus wants us to live and made us to live. That is why emerging  the body fully in water when being baptized is so important. It’s accepting that you are living a Christ following life.

I am so happy with where God has led my life and what God is doing in my life. I am so thankful that he spoke to me and made me realize that he is the way. I am also so thankful for my dear friend Kelli, my Kel, who is my best friend who has been a God sent inspiration in my life since 8th grade, is a daughter of a born again pastor and a precious gift from God. She has prayed for me for 20 years and to know I will be a part of her life eternally in Heaven makes my heart so complete! Her mom Tina also has been such a huge inspiration to me, truly an amazing women!

If you ever have felt hopeless or lost, or not worthy of Gods love, open up your heart, open up your mind. Let go of fear and critics and let Gods peace fill you! And please if you have any comments on this post, please do share, especially if I have touched your heart in any way or opened up any questions you may have!

Have a blessed day, be happy and make the best out of this day, because we will never have this day again:-)

With Love,

Meg