My Ebenezer

I seem to be receiving the same test from the Lord with perpetual red ink across the top reading, "Do-over." "F--See Me after class!"  I came here to write about something and found I have already written about this same thing multiple times.  Different circumstances, same bottom-line lesson. Why can't I learn the lesson?  I felt the same way when we were struggling with infertility. Month after month on an endless roller coaster of "Will you trust Me?" "Yes, I mean, no...I mean, yes." Let me back up. Last week I heard for the first time a song called, "As Long As You Are Glorified." (Jen, if you're reading this and approve, I'd like to sing it next time I'm scheduled for special music) I sang it all week long. Here are the lyrics. I dare you not to be convicted! "Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings, Yet not welcome any pain? Shall I thank you for days of sunshine, Yet grumble in days of rain? Shal...

Things sort of came to a head last night.  There have been several trials in my life recently that have been testing me to show where I put my faith. I have failed each one, and been shown that my faith was in myself.  God used my husband to point these things out to me, and while it is never easy to confront or point out someone else's sin, praise God Josh did it anyway. Last night we went to Chick-fil-a for dinner with our kids.  We were supposed to have had a date, but Eden woke up that morning with a cold, and we couldn't subject the babysitter to that.  So there we were as a family, the boys fighting about ev.er.y.thing, snotty-nosed Eden on my left, who was also grabbing for my salad and threatening to spill it everywhere, and Seth on my right, who was complaining of stomach discomfort.  Great.  Me in the middle with stomach pain of my own (I've been struggling with daily stomach pain).  Finally, it had gotten to be too much.  "It."  ...

Not U-P-S as in, United Parcel Service, but "ups" as in the plural form of "up". Ups and Downs, but in this case I want to write about the Ups. Ahem. Anyway... God is slowly but surely pulling me out of the perpetual funk I was in.  I'm telling you, for a while there it was looking pretty dark.  Not that what I was going through was especially challenging or monumental, just that it felt that way. Life was overwhelming me.  I felt like I was suffocating, had no way to get help, and no one noticed. Every obstacle was insurmountable, every daily detail was too much.  It was oppressive. But God. God, who promises to be faithful, IS. I'm so thankful that He loves me and that He pulls believers out of pits, even pits of their own making.  I've been studying Exodus with the ladies in our church, and it is such a blessing to see God working on behalf of His people.  He hears them when they sigh and when they cry out to Him.  He works on their behalf...

This is Eden at breakfast time on her birthday.  We don't have a cute cake smash photo yet because I haven't made her cake yet!  Josh and the boys were supposed to fly out on Friday evening (E's birthday), so it made birthday-celebrating a little harder.  I thought about making a cake, but I knew we'd eat part of it and then they'd fly out of town and leave me face-to-face with a cake. That I would eat. All. By. Myself.  In the interest of self-control, I decided not to give myself that temptation, and we waited to celebrate.  Eden didn't know the difference anyway, and this way we'll combine her birthday with Seth's next week, Lord-willing. Here are some fun facts about Eden at one year old: We call her "E" most of the time She says 4 words, "Uh-oh," "Bubbye," "Ball," and "Mama" She takes 2 naps and sleeps usually 11 hours at night. :) Her favorite foods are fruits; pears, bananas, oranges, ...

I've been feeling overwhelmed with life lately.  It's been hard to find my joy in the Lord, and I've just noticed a dark cloud kind of hanging over me.  It's hard to fully explain, but I believe there are several contributors: My back and neck still have not completely healed.  I have been to the chiropractor once a week for the last 3 weeks, and it has not made a noticeable difference.  Every morning I wake up very sore, and though it gets better throughout the day, it is uncomfortable and I notice it. I have had a UTI for going on three weeks now, and I don't think it has gone away.  I think it's the same one that keeps resurfacing.  It usually gets bad on Sundays and then better through the week.  My only explanation is that maybe I don't drink enough on the weekends, and then I tend to go a little sugar crazy (more chocolate cake, please!), and it exacerbates the problem.  Last night it was so painfully uncomfortable that I almost didn't g...

So I went to the chiropractor on Wednesday, mostly in hopes of being adjusted back to normalcy, and partly because I didn't want this pain in my neck/back to become chronic.  I had never been to a chiropractor before, so I didn't know what to expect.  I thought I'd have to get undressed, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I didn't, but nothing--and I do mean nothing--could have prepared me for the weirdness that is being adjusted.  Come along with me for this experience: You lie face down on a cushy table and put your face into a slot.  Then, the chiropractor pushes around your back and proceeds to tell you where your back hurts.  Surprisingly, he is eerily accurate, down to the square inch.  How he can tell all of that is beyond you, and you're busy pondering that thought when he suddenly pushes hard in the center of your back and you simultaneously hear and feel your back loudly pop multiple times, all in the matter of about a second.  It ...

Surprise! I'm an introvert. Bet you didn't know that! (She said sarcastically.)  Usually I'm a stay-at-home type of person, loving nothing more than the comfort and privacy of my own home in my comfortable clothes, not talking.  But sometimes I make exceptions, and this week was full of those! On Thursday evening I was invited to an essential oils party (think Tupperware or Pampered Chef, but for DoTerra Oils instead).  I don't normally attend these things, because they are typically full of people I don't know, and full of pressure to buy things I don't really need or want at prices I don't want to afford, but I made an exception this time.  The party was hosted by our babysitter, Cherie, and I thought I might actually like to try oils.  At the very least I have a lot of questions about them, so I found myself at 6:30pm Thursday evening at an oils class.  It was very informative, and I'm praying about whether to order some and give them a try.  Josh...

I woke up at 2:30 this morning in excruciating pain.  Sometime in the 4 hours I had been asleep, I must have slept wrong.  That sounds so mellow and, well, painless: "I slept wrong." This morning the fact is that I cannot turn my head to either side, or even hold my head up in proper alignment without feeling something akin to a sharp electric shock which radiates down from my neck to my left shoulder blade. Driving Seth to VPK this morning brought me home in tears.  Picking Eden up is enough to make me shriek.  Josh hugged me, and I died a little, or so it felt. Does it surprise you how frail the body is?  That what you do in 4 hours of just  sleeping can cause days of incessant pain?  This was my first (okay, maybe 3rd) thought I had when I realized my life was going to be altered today.  How dependent on God we are!  How very un-I AM are we! Some Scripture I'm dwelling on this morning, as I struggle to even sit up straight: "  ...

My sister Lori and her husband Greg came to see us unexpectedly last week!  Earlier in the week, Lori emailed me, asking if we would like a visit.  They work closely with a group called Church Army, which was trying to help victims of Hurricane Irma.  They wanted Greg to come down on a survey trip to help them determine how Church Army could be used to help out. Boots on the ground, that kind of thing. So here they are!  Their schedule has not allowed for very much time to visit, but we're thankful for what we can get.  I'm so thankful that they were here!  It's so rare that my family is able to come down and see us. Josh, the kids, and I went to an RV exhibition at the Towns Center on Saturday night.  Though we arrived after they had closed (oops!), we were still able to view quite a number of RVs.  We aren't interested in buying one yet (no place to store it, expensive to maintain, no time to use it, etc), it's my dream to take a month or...

In this post, I'm going to show you 3 photos that were taken today (actually, by now it was yesterday), which may or may not sum up a normal day for us.   Today in Chemistry and Physics class (did you ever in your life think I would teach Chemistry and Physics???) we were studying the different states of matter.  One of Noah's favorite parts of the Apologia curriculum is all the experiments and hands-on activities that are suggested and embedded in the reading assignments.  Today one of our experiments was to make sorbet out of fruit juice, using a couple of ziploc bags, ice, and a boatload of salt.  It turned out great, and Noah loved it! Now, as a side note, the above is one of those pictures (actually all three of these are) that people post on Facebook, and then everyone and their brother looks at that and says, "Oh, what a nice day they had homeschooling.  I wish we did fun projects like that. He looks so happy and content.  Why is my homeschoo...

Well, since I posted about the lack of damage from Hurricane Irma, Josh has had no less than 5 phone calls about ceilings falling down and failing roofs.  Strangely, they don't necessarily seem like they're tied to the hurricane.  Whatever the cause though, it has meant that Josh is gone more hours during each day so that he can in some cases replace entire roofs. There's something about your husband being gone over the supper hour when you have small children that makes a day seem really long. (I understand there are tougher circumstances to live through, such as a deployment, but what I said is no less true.)  I usually look forward to Josh being home by 5, so that there's some relief for me during The Witching Hour (any mom of young kids knows what that is; it's the hour you're trying to get supper on the table.  It turns normally mild-mannered kids into whinier, clingier versions of themselves).  And then feeding them dinner all by myself makes me feel lik...

This is a view from our front yard into the street where we live, or rather, the lake that the street became.  This was Monday afternoon, after the storm had passed through in the wee hours of the morning. In one of my favorite movies, there's this line, "I've just sucked one year of your life away....Tell me, how do you feel?" (Extra points for you if you can name that movie.)  That's how I feel in the wake of Hurricane Irma; like it just sucked a week and a half of my life away.  From the way-in-advance notice and hype and predictions of the storm, to the actual event, to the subsequent cleanup and waiting for power to be restored, I just spent the last week and a half in an eerie other world.  Truthfully, I'm ready to come back to my life and never hear the name "Irma" again, but before I do, I need to stop and remember the many blessings and faithfulnesses (is that a word?) of God through the storm. 1. Protection from major damage.  My hus...

So apparently there's this storm... Hurricane Irma is on the horizon to possibly hit Florida this weekend, and everyone is preparing.  Gas stations had lines and in some cases were running out of regular and mid-grade fuel.  Wal-mart's bread aisle was empty, as was the canned food and bottled water aisles.  Candles and batteries were also gone.  Thankfully I was able to find what we needed at Publix, and hopefully they will be restocking shelves in the next couple of days.  I thought today was a little early to prepare, considering the meteorologists don't even know yet if we will be affected.  It turns out, people were starting to stock up on these things last Friday, so I'm actually late to the party. Josh is not planning to evacuate, and I am still undecided.  We stayed around when Hurricane Matthew came though here last year, but that one ended up being just a category 1 and wasn't a direct hit.  A category 5 would be a different story ...

I had every intention of getting up to exercise this morning, but when it was actually time to do it, I laid in bed 5 more minutes.  And then 5 more. And then 5 more.  And....you get the idea.  Then it was time for my shower, and as much as I don't normally put stock in the idea of "me time," this getting ready in the morning is my final taste of silence and Thinking My Own Thoughts that I have until the kids go to bed at night.  I cherish it a lot.  And so, when Seth knocked on my door while I was drying my hair to tell me that Noah had eaten a potato chip (he makes Josh's lunch every day, and grazes on lunch food as he goes) and he wouldn't give Seth one.  Tattling, my pet peeve. And meanness, my other pet peeve.  I didn't handle it well.  To my shame, I burst out of my room yelling something about Never Being Allowed To Eat Chips While You Make Lunch Again (yeah, that sounds logical and mature! Way to go!) and then slammed my way back into the ...

Sometimes I look over at Noah and cannot believe he's 10.  When I cut his hair and I see his shoulders, broader than ever.  He's growing up (this sounds trite) right before my eyes. We began 5th grade last Monday, on the 28th of August.  Fifth. Grade.  Lord, I pray for grace to continue to mold this boy into the man You'd desire him to be!

Today I woke up 25 minutes late, which is a problem on a Sunday. (I make it my policy to only set an alarm on weekdays, so that I have 2 days in the week to sleep past 6:15 am.) I somehow got everyone out the door in time for church, but it wasn't pretty.  It seems like our fuses are extra short on Sundays. Maybe it's just us...  It does give me the opportunity to rely on God's grace more, and to confess that we are weak people in need of constant mercy. We taught junior church and had charge of the nursery (which was just Eden) during the main service, and tonight the ladies started a new Bible study group on the book of Exodus. I think it will be a great study if I can find the time to complete the homework each day.  After church, we took a new guy and his sister out to Wendy's for a little extra fellowship.  They are young (early 20's), originally from Hong Kong, and just getting started here in Jacksonville with new jobs.  We enjoyed getting to know them...

This photo is pure gold to me!  Eden had her first taste of an Oreo cookie the other night, and this was her face as she was eating it.  Does this not just perfectly express all that girls feel when they eat chocolate?  Is there any more contented expression?  I have felt this exact emotion each and every time I have ever put chocolate into my mouth.  She gets it; I just love having a girl!

Confession: Last week I subscribed to the newspaper, and read all the pages for the first time in my life.  For someone who normally lives under a rock, and had been for the most part content to do so, this was a big step.  It all started with a book I read on recommendation from Josh's family, The Vanishing American Adult , by Ben Sasse.  It was an excellent read, and I found myself alternately saying, "That's right!" and getting nervous about where the author projects the country is going on its present trajectory. Some of my take-aways: 1.  While I don't normally identify myself as a millennial (I was born in 1980, right on the tail end of generation X), I saw some of the same mindsets in myself that were shown in a negative light in this book.  Namely, that adults of this age have had easier lives than any generation in history, and that that comes with a price.  To put it bluntly, we are wimps.  This is not complimentary, but highly accurate. ...

I have about a dozen blog posts sitting partially written in the no-man's-land of my drafts.  They're not "good" enough for me to post. Not upbeat enough or pithy enough or coherent enough to hit the publish button, and so they sit and I forget all about the events that were going on at the time.  I've been thinking about this fact; that I feel a certain obligation to entertain you or inspire you when I write, to make it worth your while to come read what's on my mind.  The truth is though, that that's not really the point of this blog.  I need to be remembering my daily life so that I can see (even if it's in retrospect) the Lord's working.  I think instead of viewing this blog as a place where I write these really cool Mom Blog posts worthy of re-sharing on Facebook ("Ten Reasons I Gave Myself Permission to Relax" or "Stop Being So Hard on Yourself" or some other such popular mom mantra these days), it needs to be boring somet...

Admittedly not the most flattering picture of anyone or anything, but you'll see why I chose it The baby is fussing fitfully as I change her diaper, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her chubby, dimpled fists.  She's ready for a nap, if I can just get her changed.  I hear some sort of large liquid spill transpire in the dining room, and simultaneously a fight breaks out among the older two kids over whose fault it was.  My husband is in our bedroom, calling out to see if I know where any clean work shorts are because he's trying to leave like 5 minutes ago.  I glance up and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the changing table; hair a mess, glasses on, no makeup, rocking the I've-been-up-for-three-hours-and-I-haven't-had-a-shower-yet look. And I need to use the bathroom.  I close my eyes and sigh. I'm in the weeds. This may sound like hyperbole to you, but it's a reality more often than I'd like to admit.  I feel like so much of my ...

I'm 9 days into a Whole 30  .  You can click that link if you want to know more about it.  Meanwhile, this is me, desperately craving bread/chocolate/cheese/coffee creamer, and not getting any of it.  Hating my life and loving it all at the same time.  Because, while I can't have any of my usual favorites, I do get to eat healthy food like this:   Grilled Citrus Chicken with Cauliflower Mash and a salad with homemade Ranch dressing.  And almondmilk to drink.  So there.  It was all delicious, but an hour later I was staring into my cookie cupboard, mouth watering.  I've even stooped so low as to open a bread bag or a cookie jar and smell the inside. Free smells, right?  Why do I do this to myself? Once upon a time there was a girl who had health problems even though she was only 36.  Her hormones were messed up, her iron was way low, and she was tired.  Dead dog tired.  All. The. Time.  Not to mention...

I absolutely LOVE dressing a girl! This was Eden and me, just before we left for church one Wed night.

(It has taken me weeks to write this post! As a result, some of it is old news by now.) On Fridays, Josh takes Noah with him to work. He's been doing this since Eden was born partly to give me a break, and partly because it is so good for Noah to learn things about Josh's business and how to deal with a variety of people and problems.  Noah gets one-on-one time with his dad, learns (hopefully) how to work hard, and I get some time with just Pep (aka Seth) and Eden.  There is zero fighting from the kids all day long when Noah is gone, which is a great reprieve for this mom-turned-referee. Last Sunday we had some missionaries at church who are trying to raise support to go to Japan.  They brought with them several origami cranes, as well as other paper crafts, including something like what is pictured above.  From way back in the recesses of my mind, a memory surfaced.  When I was in fourth grade, when my friends and I weren't busy trading funky-shaped eras...

Well, here I am again!  Every so often I get the urge to write; usually when I've just read something I wrote about in the past and thus remember something I would have otherwise completely forgotten. Also, it turns out that writing has a similar affect on me as eating chocolate does, without all the extra calories and guilt. Win-win. My life has drastically changed in the last three months.  I now homeschool a fourth grader, try to entertain my four-year-old while sneaking in some preschool work when he's not looking (he gets suspicious if he thinks he's actually learning), and somehow balance the needs of a 3-month-old. Plus the other housework and wife stuff added in for good measure around the edges. I'm not bored fo' sho! Here are some highlights of what thrills me these days: I'm so thankful that Eden sleeps through the night now! My sanity has returned, and with it some semblance of clear thinking. I still have moments where I lock myse...