Writing A Book...

     I have been throwing the idea around for some time now to start writing a book... I have a friend who is in the process of her book and she just seems to have it all-together..makes me really want to write one but I have no idea where or how to begin. I wanted to share a few thoughts with you and kind of write a summary of what my book will be about.. This will be based of true events and ideas, and I am hoping that one day my book will help someone else in their marriage.



     Marriage is not a number of how many years you have been together as a couple. Most people that have been married for 15 or 20 years would say that 8 years is not a long time. For me, however, it has felt like a lifetime. Marriage is the struggles, disappointments, and tears that you overcome; joys, achievements, and thrills that you celebrate, together. In my marriage all of these have happened to an extent that most couples would either never deal with, or would take the span of the entire marriage. Most people would, and do say, I'm crazy. They would say the same thing to my husband. There is no other explanation why Derrick and I should be together today, except by the grace of God. Honestly, we should not still be together. We have overcome big hurdles and celebrated gigantic victories. Both, Derrick and I, have grown spiritually, mentally and emotionally. Based on true events and cicircumstances, we are embarking on a journey that will be continued until death do us part. This is my story.....


I would love some feedback or any ideas that would make this better. Especially from my writer friend :)

Mother's Day

     First, I would like to say that I love being a mommy. It's the BEST job anyone could ever ask for and I would would never trade it for anything else in the world.
     Yesterday was Mother's Day, and it was the best one so far in the 6 years I have had children. My 6 year old presented me with flowers that he wanted to get me as a gift. He had been talking all week about how he wanted to get mommy flowers for Mother's Day, so that is exactly what he got me. We had breakfast which consisted of french toast and eggs (which I had to make, because the hubby does no good in the kitchen) and then I was presented with the BEST gift ever from my hubby. A mother's ring. I have wanted one for a little over a year because, after four children in 7 years, that is all for me. I wanted a ring that signified the love I have for my babies. The best thing is that my hubby actually planned the ring. He had been looking for one, the perfect one, for a couple months and decided on one he liked that looked good with 5 stones. It is beautiful and has my birthstone in the middle with the kid's stones around it. I could not have asked for a better gift. And for him taking the time and putting the thought into it that he did, makes it even more precious. The rest of the day went wonderful, from church to lunch then back to church. One of my favorite things that took place, was the ride to evening service. My oldest wanted to listen to the Casting Crowns CD so I turned it on to the song "Shout to the North." We had it turned up and over the music I hear him and his younger brother singing the song at the top of their lungs. It was the most beautiful music I have ever heard and it is such a blessing to hear my children singing Christian songs.
     I am so blessed to have the family I do. My kids are the world to me and my hubby isn't too bad either. :) I hope everyone had a blessed Mother's Day like I did.
    

     How was your Mother's Day? What is your favorite thing about being a mommy? Share your stories...

The Right Place

   It has been a few weeks since I have blogged, but things are going utterly insane in my life right now... The previous post I wrote was about a recent trying time in my life and marriage. We managed to get through that :) Now we have some big decisions to make in the next few months, and I am hoping and praying, it is what God is willing for our lives. It is so hard to understand the right places where God wants us to be. We ask ourselves over and over, "is this the will of God, or just my own selfish desires?" This is a question that I have been asking myself for the last two weeks. There are going to be some serious and huge decisions made and I want God in the midst of those decisions. I'm just not sure if this is what He has planned, or if it's mine and my husbands own way of dealing with this struggle. 
    I want to tell more but right now I can't. I'm not really looking for feedback or input, I just needed to get some things said to make me feel better. I have been constantly praying about this particular situation, but I'm not sure if I'm getting many answers. There have been a few doors close, that I am totally aware of, and it seems as if others are opening. I'm just not sure in which direction to go. I am trying very hard to not stress out about this, as much as I would like to, so I don't completely lose my sanity... 
     So for now things are just dormant. Hopefully, in the next few weeks God will give me a certain answer and make things ever so clear for me. I am completely trusting Him in this whole situation, and I believe that He will show my hubby and I just the right places we need to be...

Forgive and Forget

     There comes a point in your life when you have to make yourself forgive past mistakes. Everyone does it, everyone messes up. There's many times when we say something we don't mean, do something we regret later, or even don't do something that we wish we would have. Jesus, tells us to forgive the past, because if we dwell on it especially, we will kill ourselves with hatred. He forgives us for things that we do everyday. I know as humans, it is very hard to forgive and there does come a  point where enough can be enough. God does not want us getting run over like freight trains either. But I think about this, God gets run over all the time. He loves us so much that He gives us the free-will to do as we please. He doesn't tie us down, back us into a corner, or demand that we follow Him. That's our choice.

     So why can't we be the same? Yes, we do get hurt, we disagree, we sometimes get taken advantage of, so does God. If we are supposed to be in Christ's image that means that we need to act as Christ is in us. I do admit more often than not, I don't act like a Christian. I have my faults, we all do. Forgiveness, is one of those, in most people.

     I learned a long time ago to forgive. More often than not I forgive way to easily.

     As an early teenager, I had a very hard time growing up. With losing my virginity at a young age, and having inappropriate things done to me by a family member, life was not easy.
   
      It took me many years to forgive these things and move on from those experiences. They affected the way that I interacted with my friends and family. They affected every aspect of my life, until I learned how to forgive the one's who caused the trouble.
     I read my Bible, looked up passages about forgiveness and what God says about it. Then I found the story of the cross. We all know the story, heard it a million times, but when you actually need to forgive someone to that magnitude, it shows a whole different story. After what was done to Jesus, He still hung there on the cross asking His Father to forgive those who had persecuted Him. Now, if He can forgive something like that, then it should be simple to forgive the minuscule things that happen to us. Yeah, right!
We have to learn to forgive, it doesn't come naturally by any means.

     Forgetting is a whole other story in itself. We can never 100% forget about the things that happened in the past, but we CAN move on from them. I don't think God intended us to ever truly forget the past so that we may learn from our mistakes, and correct them for future reference. We may not ever forget, but we can learn and not repeat those same mistakes.

   

Watch Out!

      Satan is on a rampage lately in my life. He is trying to destroy a now great relationship, with some old history. It's a little too complicated and drawn out to explain the whole story, but these are some past mistakes that were made. A few days ago I receive a phone call from someone I don't know, with some information about my husband. I had no idea who this girl was or how she knew me. The phone call was disturbing, so I talked to my husband about it. So, we talked and he did admit to me that the events that took place did happen, but previously, not within the time frame she had said. Now I don't know about you, but I am a little more inclined to believe my husband over someone I have no idea who they are. Anyway, things got worse and the situation escalated to where some of his family got involved. It's a big mess. This happened in the past, and things are going really great for us, that I don't at all understand why this is all happening now.

     I know that no matter how hard you try, the past always has a way of catching up with you.
     
     The thing for me is that I haven't gotten angry, really stressed, or worried myself sick over this incident. It may sound a little self-centered but I truly believe that both him and I have grown up, given our previous experiences and screw-ups with each other. I truly believe that we can get through anything because of what we have encountered. This is just another one of Satan's horrible tricks to make a happy family (that we have fought very hard for) dissolve.

     We have been studying the book of Revelation at church, and we are growing in our faith together, and Satan hates that. He despises that we are working very hard at making our relationship work and forgiving and forgetting the past mistakes. He despises that we are studying and learning from God's Holy Word. He despises that I, personally, despise him. He is also trying so hard that now some of the family is involved, which of course, makes it worse.

     So, I'm not sure what we are going to do. I am very angry at the person(s) responsible for this, and the fact that it is just now being brought up. I am also very angry because it has escalated to a point where no one can imagine.

     With this said, I warn you may dear friends to be very watchful and alert of the things that Satan is trying to do. I am praying from this time forward that Jesus' return is very soon, so that we don't have to deal with this mess, called life, anymore.

     What trials and tribulations have you overcome recently? What things has Satan tried to do to ruin a good thing in your life? Please share, maybe it will lift my spirits :)

God Stops

     Let me explain...

     My way of seeing things through my God given eyes, have become my God Stops. Little things: the way trees grow beside each other and seem to bow to each other to create a sort of arch, the twinkling of each star in the night sky, the moon being the brightest it has been in 20 years, sitting outside wondering what else is out there. Even if you are an unbeliever in Christ, you have to wonder the complexity of nature and the universe. Take a minute to think about it.
     Last weekend, the moon was the brightest it's been in 20 years, 16,000 miles closer to Earth. How else could that happen? And my husband and I got to enjoy a part of that night. Things have been so crazy the last couple months, and even though we have been out on a couple dates, I wanted quiet time with him. Just us. No kids, no noise, nothing. So we decided to go outside and sit under the stars. It was later I found out about the moon. I had no idea until a few days after our sitting. You can't tell me it was coincidental. I have realized that nothing in life is coincidental. Things happen according to God's Will and only His. He created the universe and He says the way things should be. The weather, nature, animals, everything responds to His voice. He gives us the choice to respond to His voice. That's a pretty BIG God Stop to me. I have learned to appreciate things for the way they are because it was exactly the way God created it to be. I notice many things now that I would have never thought about before.
      I challenge you to do the same. Look at things from a new perspective. See the little things. A cloud in the sky shaped like an animal or object, a butterfly flying in the wind, a bird gathering twigs to build it's nest. I challenge you to find a God Stop. Look at things through your God given eyes, and appreciate the little things.

       Do you have a God Stop that has gotten your attention lately? Tell me about it, I would love to hear your God Stop stories.. :)

Time Travel

     I have been thinking a lot about time travel lately, due to the fact that I watched a movie about it over the weekend. I've been wondering about things like, what would I change, how could I do things differently, or maybe not do something at all. Do you ever wonder about those things? If you could go back in time what you would change about yourself or something you did?
   

       There are some things that I probably would have liked to handle differently in the past, but I'm not sure if there's really anything inparticular I would change about my life. Things that happen, happen for a reason. Most of the time we have no idea what the reasoning is behind something that happens until much later, if ever at all. No, I wouldn't even change the loss of my child. I would, however, like to go back in time to examine myself on the way I handled it. It's been 4 years and the memory of those days are slowly fading. I would like to see myself, within that time, to see how much I've grown from the experience. There are many things I would like to go back and watch myself as I handled certain issues, problems, or occurrences. Mostly, just to look at how foolish and immature I was in the way I managed situations.

     God reminds us "not to dwell on the past, and to forget the things of old." (Isaiah 43:18) He doesn't want us to ruin our lives thinking about what "could have" been, or what "might" have happened. He wants us to learn from our mistakes and heartaches that have happened and then grow from them. We never will completely forget about our pasts, but it helps us to remember what we once were and what we now are. 

     It might be fun to take a trip back in time to see things in a new perspective, with a little more "grown up" in us, but to actually change or "fix" something, would be a mistake. Take life for all it is worth, and live each day with the outlook that this too shall soon be the past. You can only go day by day, so make yourself proud of today. One day you'll look back and wish you would have done things differently.