Spiritual Gifts Part 2

I have been thinking a lot about spiritual gifts and how to use them. This past Sunday our pastor taught on spiritual gifts again, but this time he talked about God given desires. How God places desires within each of us that, if we are truly following him, will bring such fulfillment and joy to our lives. This week I also read something in Oswald Chamber's my utmost for his highest.

"We look for visions from heaven, for earthquakes and thunder's of God's power (the fact that we are dejected proves that we do) and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us. If we will do the duty that lies nearest, we shall see him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized."

When I read that it jumped out at me. I was wondering what do I do with my life for God and all the while God was saying here is your life just do it for me. I remember being a senior in high school and praying that God would do what he wanted with my life and all the while I was hoping he wanted this for me. I was hoping to be a mommy and a wife and secretly hoping to be Todd's wife. LOL Tonight as I was reading to Lizzie before bed it struck me. I am living out my heart's desire. Praise God for planting that in me. He wants me to do this for Him and I am humbled by this call. It is so big, yet so commonplace. I have been entrusted with the hearts and minds of two precious babies and been given the opportunity to take care of Todd, who is one of the best men I know. I do not always do this well. In fact most days I am pretty sure I am only doing a good job at best, but I know that when I rely on Jesus he does this through me and I cannot think of a better use of my gifts than to serve this wonderful family and home he has blessed me with.

Snowed In

I know I am not the only one feeling it. It is generally a michigan thing this time of year. I feel so trapped. I want to go outside, play with the kids, open the windows. I would be happy just to not put on a dozen layers to walk out the door. This year I am especially feeling cabin fever. In years past I may have gone to the mall or just target to escape the trapped feeling, but it has been extremely cold for most of this winter and with both kids it is so hard to go anywhere by myself. We usually stay in unless it is absolutely necessary. So I am feeling the winter blahs and wishing for an early spring. Can't global warming at least give me that? LOL.

Spiritual Gifts

Yesterday our pastor preached about spiritual gifts. It was a very good sermon. A reminder of how all gifts were created to be used within the body of Christ and if we seperate our gift from the body it is like we are taking a chain saw and cutting off our foot. It will severely impair the body and the foot will be dead. It was a good reminder and it was nice to actually hear a sermon. We have been on the search for nearly a year for a church home and during that time it was very difficult to put our kids in a nursery. We were not even sure if we were staying at a church half the time and we did not know anyone at most places we visited. Since about October we have been going to a Life church and we are very excited about the possibility that this might be a place we can plant ourselves for more than a month. So we finally, ( we as in I, Todd was ready a while ago) decided to leave the kids in the nursery. They have gone three times and I was able to hear two sermons. (Last week I was in the nursery the whole time.) It is immensely nice to sit in church next to my husband and listen to the word of God being taught. I miss it. But back to my thought on spiritual gifts. I know that God gifts his people with special "abilities" so they can serve the body and glorify him and I thought in the past I may have known some of my own gifts, but it leads me to a thought I was having pretty much the whole time he was teaching. I was thinking about my kids. I was missing them and wondering are they ok? Is Lizzie still crying? Is Claire getting fussy? I know that the Bible is very clear about a woman's role when she is a wife. She is to love, care for, meet her husbands needs, care for her home and children. I also know that God calls all of us to preach the gospel. He calls all of us to lift up the name of Jesus. To point others to the redemption that he brought by sacrificing himself on the cross. But what does that mean for someone like me? What does that mean for anyone? Most of my day feels so mundane and far from extraordinary, how am I using gifts to glorify Him? Or is it in the mundane that he is glorified? Is He glorified by, living life connected to him even amidst diapers, spit-up, crying, timeouts? I know all of us cannot spend hours a week "serving" at church? What do you think?

Random Thought

It is funny how when my house is organized and "clean" I notice just how dirty everything is. Like the cobwebs on the door trim and the gunk (what is that anyway?) on the outside of the cupboards. I give up for today. And probably for tomorrow too.

Potty Training and Broken Heart

Wednesday we had a full out potty training day. We took off Lizzie's diaper and put big girl panties on her. We hyped it up and made a big deal about it before hand and she was exited on P-day to wear her Elmo panties. We set her elmo potty up in the kitchen and had m&ms and stickers ready to go. I wanted her to see what it felt like to be wet in panties, so she can start to learn when to use the potty. We stayed home all day and I asked her every 45 minutes or so to use the potty. In the morning she did very well. She had no accidents and even stayed dry during nap. (We had a pull up on her just in case.) After nap, however, was a different story. She had many accidents and just could not seem to make it to the potty. We did not scold her, but I could tell she was upset by her accidents. The next day we woke her up and she seemed very anxious about the potty. She did not want to go and even ran and hid in the other room to pee and poop in her underpants. At that point I did not make a big deal. I just said ok let's go to the potty and we will try harder to make it next time. At this point she was crying when I would ask her to use the potty. So, pull ups came on and we backed off for the day. Today she stayed in diapers, but I asked her if she wanted to use the potty and up until this point she has not wanted to. I know it is ok. She is only 26 months and is very smart. When she is ready she will do it. I know that she will eventually get it and I have to be patient.

On another note. I am sure many mothers have had their babies break their hearts, but yesterday was a bad one for me. Lizzie was playing at my mom's house while I was working in the office with my aunt Sherry. I went in the house to tell her it was time for nap. (It was almost 2:30.) When I came in the room she said, "Mommy no get you.( She refers to herself as you.) Mommy go away. Go see Sherry. No like mommy." It broke my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I know she was just having fun and did not want to nap, but it still made me sad. Sometimes it seems like she wants anyone, but me. But I know she spends all day every day with me and needs interaction with other people, but it still is not fun to hear that. I licked wounds and told her, you don't have to like mommy, but I love you. And sent her to bed. She quickly recovered from her dislike of mommy because that evening I was leaving the house for a little while and she and Claire were staying with daddy and as I was walking out she was sobbing and saying "my mommy no leave." I know she did not mean it and it is probably stupid to let it bother me and I am sure it will not be the last time she breaks my heart. But it still was sad. She is becoming a little girl and is no longer a baby. She is asserting her Independence from mommy and figuring out her likes and dislikes. It is just sad to watch her grow up sometimes.

A moment of joy, unlikely to repeated in the near future and pray for Nicole

So as humorous as this is, my moment of joy is this: Every room in the house is clean, at the same time. In general, if I am cleaning while Todd is working, Lizzie is destroying one room while I clean another. But last night after the kids went to bed Todd helped me clean downstairs. (By the way Claire and Lizzie are consistently going to bed within 15 minutes of each other and staying asleep. Yeah!) It was nice to wake up to a clean house. And then after the kids had breakfast I was able to clean upstairs. And at this rare moment every room is clean! I am so excited and feel so together. Clutter and mess makes me crazy, but a lot of the time I just cannot do anything about it. I either do not have the time or energy to fix it. But I will enjoy my clean house even if it will probably only last a few hours. LOL. I am still trying to figure out how people with young kids keep a clean house consistently. I am sure some people are just way more diligent than I am.
Anyway on another note, we live next door to a business and for two nights in a row, Tuesday and Wednesday, the alarm system went off from 2:00 am to 5:30 am. It woke Claire up both nights and she was up, off and on, the whole time it was going off. It drove me crazy. The first night we finally called the police at 5:00 am and then it turned off at 5:30. The second night we called the police at 2:30 and again at 5:15 because it was still going off. I am sure the police were sick of us, but seriously, an alarm going off for 3 hours is annoying. Thursday I called the business and spoke to a manager and told them that the alarm going off so long was keeping our whole house up. They were very apologetic and said they had a new system and it had some kinks and I guess they thought it could be turned off remotely and apparantly they did not know it was going off so long. The manager assured me they would do something about it and it has not gone off since. That is good because one more sleepless night and I was about ready to go throw a rock through the window. I seriously wanted to give them a reason for that alarm to go off. LOL.

On a much different note I have a very good friend, Nicole, and she is experiencing some pretty serious health issues. She lost vision in one eye about 7 years ago due to a psuedo-tumor that caused some elevation in her spinal fluid. The doctors put a shunt in to help regulate her spinal fluid and up until this point it has been workig great. She recently has had some strange blackouts and her doctors just did some tests to try to figure out exactly what is going on. I talked to her the other night and was amazed by her faith. She is so calm and reassured in Christ. She has always been an amazing woman and always makes me stronger in my walk with God, but the past couple of years she has gone through a lot of junk and has always handled herself with grace and a passion for Jesus. I love her dearly and just wanted to ask people to pray for her.

Romans 8:35-39

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.") No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demon's can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.