God's path to righteousness

I mentioned to you in my last blog post that I was planning to reveal what I have learned thus far on my path to righteousness. This began last Summer, or probably way before that, but I didn't notice a change occurring until then. I guess I will start from there.

I guess this all came to a head during the Winter of 2008. I'm not sure whether it was January or February, but none-the-less it was Winter. I remember feeling like I was in a rut. A huge rut. Scott had been working at the same job for years, I was homeschooling the kids, I was burnt out from volunteering too much at church, and other organizations that I felt obligated to help with, and my house always seemed to be a mess. I was yelling at the kids, the kids were yelling at me, and Scott was yelling at everyone. We were miserable souls. I remember thinking on this cold and bleak afternoon, that nothing would ever change. We would remain this way forever. I remember calling up to God for help, but not even certain that He was listening. Life was the pits.

Spring forward into May 2008. Skaterboy was graduating 8th grade soon, and feeling obligated to have a celebration for him, because all his friends were celebrating, soon became a reality. I invited mostly friends and family to this event, not even considering adding the local homeschool group to attend. Before I knew it, I was hosting our local homeschool 8th grade graduation in our backyard. How this happened is beyond reason. All of a sudden I was ordering tasseled key chains with '07 printed on them, and printing out personalized diplomas for a number of families that wanted to attend. Little did I know that it was in God's plan for that party to take place at our home that sunny May afternoon.

One of the families who wanted to come to the graduation, I had never met before. They were newer to our community, and had a boy about Skaterboy's age who would be graduating 8th grade. When they got here, it was only the son and mom who came. They said that their daughter had been in the hospital for quite some time, and just so happened to be able to come home the day before the party, so the father was home with her. The mom had thought about not even coming to the party, but wanted to do it for her son.

Them being at the party at that time had no significance to me. I was happy they were here, and everyone seemed to have a great time. After the party, everyone left, and life went on as usual.

Little did I know that this family would become so near and dear to our hearts in the coming months. Soon after the party we began looking for a different church. The size of our church had grown considerably, and there were some problems that we began to see, that we just didn't feel comfortable with. We started trying different churches in town. Scott was not into this. He felt comfortable at our old church, and didn't feel a need to change. I was adamant that we must find a different church. After being disappointed with some of the local churches we visited, I digressed that we would never find a church family that we could feel a part of. I remember on one particular Sunday, after visiting a church we chose to check off our list, sat down at the computer and googled "churches in ..........., IL." Well there were a number of churches listed, some we had already tried, and very few websites. So I chose the first one with a website. I clicked on it, and up popped a photo of a nice church, the hours, and the pastor's name, etc... As I skimmed through the information, I recognized the pastor's last name being the same as the lady and son who attended our homeschool graduation a few weeks back. Under the pastor's name it said "family blog" , so of course I had to find out if it was them. Sure enough, it was them. I noticed on their family blog that the wife had written a book that was downloadable from their website. Of course I had to read that too. It took 12 hours to read, but I read it, on-line, without printing it out. It was very good. This confirmed my decision that this church must be next on our list.

So the following Sunday, we attended church there. It had a small congregation, just what we were looking for, and more teenagers, than I could have ever hoped for. There were potlucks scheduled, and a camping trip at a nearby campground. It seemed like we had found our family church, and everything finally felt like things were going right for once. I started reading Edith Schaeffer's book The Hidden Art of Homemaking,
http://cgi.ebay.com/Hidden-Art-of-Homemaking-by-Edith-Schaeffer-1985_W0QQitemZ190290257940QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Nonfiction_Book?hash=item190290257940&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

I had purchased it on ebay some time before, and it inspired me to basically clean up my act, and my house. Things were good.

Fast forward to late October 2008. Things were still going good, and our lady's group at church decided to start a new bible study by Beth Moore called Breaking Free. http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=beth+moore+-+breaking+free&tag=yahhyd-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=42582012011&ref=pd_sl_4yp15vrmnt_b

Little did I know the impact that this bible study would have on my life. This was also in God's plan, but I didn't know it yet. As I daily went through this bible study course, I began to learn many things about my life, and how my sins, generation sins, and other people's sins, have effected my life. The best part was that at the end of this bible study I could be free. Free from the bondage that had kept me prisoner for years. It was true freedom I felt, and nothing could disrupt that, or so I thought. I felt closer to God than I had felt in a very long time, and I was actually enjoying my bible reading every day, and planned to continue my reading as time went by.

Well, as most people know, Satan hates when we are no longer in bondage, and he whammed us harder than we had ever been hit before. I am talking smacked, pummeled, beat-up, spit us out, and continued to do it over and over again. I thought that it would never end. But we remained steadfast. Shaky, but steadfast.

In November alone, our washer broke, our dryer died, our van broke down, our microwave died,
our computer had to be taken in a number of times, as did Matt's laptop. We were running on empty. It was downright ridiculous all the things that were breaking down, but I remained steadfast. Shaky, but steadfast. Then WHAM....the biggest one hit!!! Scott called one cold and snowing morning in mid December, and said that the company he had worked for for 10 years was closing down in 3 weeks. Okay... I have to admit that I panicked. I got off the phone and just cried. I felt defeated. I was angry. Why had God allowed Satan to do this to us, after I had worked so hard to be faithful to him. Then immediately I felt ashamed and completely unworthy of any grace that He gave me, because I was so undeserving. I was completely numb. Then God himself gave me a peace that I cannot comprehend, that this was all in His plan, and things would be alright. I did some figuring on paper, and felt secure that things would be alright. Surely Scott would find a job soon, and we could live on unemployment for at least 6 months, and our tax return, if we needed to.

It was great having him home at Christmas. The kids enjoyed every bit of it, as did I. It was a wonderful Christmas, although we were more careful than most years not to over do it. Little did I know that this would probably one of the few Christmases for years, that he would have off work to be with us.

The day after Christmas, I started to feel sick. My stomach hurt unbearably. I could hardly eat anything. I was miserable. I remembered that I was supposed to have an upper endoscopy back in July, but dismissed the appointment, because of other things that came up, and I felt well. So Scott ended up taking me into the ER. Long story short, I was very worried that I had esophageal cancer. Don't ask me why, because you know the answer. I got on the web, and did some symptom searching, and found some blogs. Oh, you don't want to know the rest. All I can say is, bad idea. So I was so worked up, when they scheduled the endoscopy, sure that my life was entirely over, and even to the point of wondering where my kids would go, it was bad... real bad.

Anyway, I had my endoscopy in late January, and everything turned out fine. Better than fine. The Barret's esophagus that I had had for 7 years prior, was gone, completely gone. Praise God!!!
Being that it was January, and January is the most depressing month of the year, I began to despair about Scott's job. He had been applying at places, but no one was hiring. I was starting to worry a lot, and stress a lot about the situation. I was trying not to, for Scott's sake, but unfortunately that was easier said than done. It seemed hopeless, and the future seemed pretty bleak. Luckily, our bills were still getting paid on-time, because we had gotten our tax return back, and Scott was getting unemployment. This made things easier to digest, but an uncertain future feels..... well, unsettling.

Then, about a month ago, a man from our "tiny" church asked Scott if he was interested in security work. Scott told him that he had worked security for many years, but it didn't pay well. The man asked what companies Scott had worked security for, and Scott told him. The man told him that his company bought out the last firm that Scott had worked for. He then asked how much Scott needed to make. Scott told him, and the guy started laughing, saying that since 911 they were paying security officers much higher, little did we know how much higher. The man told Scott if he was interested that he should go into his office the next day, and fill out an application. When Scott got there the next day, he was all ready for him with a few client interviews. One was at a low income apartment complex in a larger city near here, that seemed kind of unsafe to me, and the other was at the hospital. He interviewed for both, and praise God, he got the job at the hospital. The Lt. at the hospital that hired him, was very impressed with Scott's record, and background, and best of all, Scott loves his job. He loves it!
He will have to work many weekends and holidays, but I'm okay with that. He is much happier than I have ever seen him in quite a few years.

For Valentine's Day (our wedding anniversary) we watched Fireproof at our church with a group of other couples. What a wonderful movie. It has totally inspired me to give our marriage more attention than I have been giving it. It's so hard sometimes when you have kids; because you sometimes forget that you have another life with another person. At least I had forgotten.
So, now I am working on that, and other things too.

In closing, I want to ask you a question. Do you see a profound path here, in the story I have just told you above? I do. I see a clear path, a road in which God is leading me and my family on. I don't know where this path will go, but I do know that it's headed for an eternal place where we can finally find peace and happiness once and for all. It's the only place that we can see God, and know what righteousness really means.

Yesterday, the boy who made me a mother, turned 16. How can that be? What a joy these 16 years have been! Love ya kid!

Sending up prayers...

Well, just when you are thinking that everything is going smoothly, the rug gets pulled out from under you. I haven't been blogging lately, because I just finished a 10 week Beth Moore study on the book of Isaiah. The study was called "Breaking Free". After 10 weeks of Biblical and Spiritual enlightenment, I was truly filled with the Holy Spirit, and felt that I could pretty much take on anything Satan had to throw at me, because God had my back. I still feel that way, but am not as excited as I was a week or two ago.

I had heard many a time from various people, that when a person feels at one with Christ, that's when Satan starts throwing poisonous darts at you. Well, not in those words, but I am sure you know what I am saying. Anyway, I was truly excited to be at one with God. Nothing could shake that. I felt that surely God was saying that He was "well pleased" with what I was doing, and how I was acting. Oh how we should never question God's reasoning or timing? "I am learning, Lord, please stay with me!"

So about 2 weeks ago, Satan started throwing his darts, which I knew he would, but felt I was ready for whatever he threw. Now, I am questioning my reasoning. First our dryer broke. We couldn't really afford a new dryer, so we started looking for used dryers. None to be found at a reasonable price. Then a nice man at church said he thought that there was an extra dryer in the basement of a home he was working on, and said he would ask the owner if he wanted to sell it. The owner said yes, for $50. So we received a nice "fairly new" dryer, that works great, on my birthday. So the following day I started to catch up on our laundry that had been piling up, and 2 days later, our washer broke. Uggghhh... annoying, but the piece that had broken on it, had broken a couple years ago, and we ordered a new piece on-line from the factory, and Scott had installed it, good as new. So I knew we could do that again. I felt that I was handling the situation quite well, even with all the stresses that were being thrown upon me. I recognized them right away, and knew that God was in control. Everything would work out just fine.

Yesterday morning, at 8 a.m. my dear sweet husband called. I could tell something was wrong in his voice, and asked what was bothering him. He began to tell me that the head boss was there, and basically told everyone that their company would be shutting down, for good, on Dec. 31. Okay, right then and there, I started to panic. I had wondered over the weekend if his company would be effected by the Home Depot stores that were reported to be closing after the holidays this year. My dh's company supplies all the Home Depot stores with their lumber. I had also heard from one news reporter that it was all a big hoax, and that the long list of stores that were closing was not true. Well, as of yesterday, it was confirmed, with Home Depot, anyway.

This was a huge "poisonous dart" thrown at us. All the questions have arrised, and I have calculated what I could. They are giving each employee $500 extra dollars on their last paycheck, as a sort of severence pay. Not much for 10 years of service, is it? So my dh will be entering the job market again, after 10 years with a company that he really enjoyed working for. He's a good forklift driver. The best! I am sad to see it all end. I know that God has a plan for our family, and although, I don't know that plan, I am still praising Him, and sure that He has something even better for us in His sights.

All that has happened, reminds me of a verse I memorized during my Bible study class.
Isaiah 58:11 says: The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land, and strengthen your form. You will be like a well-watered garden. Like a spring whose waters never fail.

I believe this verse. He will take care of us. He will satisfy our needs while we follow this path He has set before us. We will be fine. Better than fine! I know that whatever plan He has for us will make us better than we are now.

Please pray for our family, and that Scott finds a new job soon after Jan 1. The jobs are scarce here, so we really need a miracle.

A small thought for today!

This is not an original quote. I found this on Michele's Blog: Family Centered Living. Isn't it the most profound quote? How important for us all to remember it. So true... So true!


“I take a deep breath and remember: We’re only lost when we’re outside The Story. We’re only angst-ridden when we’ve lost our place in God’s grand narrative. We’re only unsteady when we’ve slipped from the Word and into the whirl.“

It's been a really crazy week. Sorry I haven't posted lately. I swear we have been running around all week. I will try to post on it later.

My heart is changing for you, Oh Lord...

"God does not account for His actions nor does He reveal his plans to us; therefore, it is difficult to endure in faith and hope - difficult, but not impossible, for God never sends us trials which are beyond our strength, just as He never abandons us unless we first abandon Him."

"God loves us, not because we are without sin, but because we are his children, in whom He has diffused His grace. We should never insult God by refusing to believe in His forgiveness; neither should we become discouraged because of the faults which escape us in spite of our good will. If we become discouraged, it is because we are seeking perfection not for God’s glory alone but for our own satisfaction as well, and also because we would prefer to find security in ourselves rather than to rely upon God alone. All this, in reality, is the result of subtle pride. Instead of becoming disturbed and irritated by our imperfections, we must acknowledge them humbly, present them to God as a sick man shows his wounds to his doctor, ask pardon, and then immediately renew our efforts with great confidence."

I did not think up the quotes that are listed above, but when I read them first, they spoke to me. Do they speak to you too?

Today :)

It is 8 am on a Wednesday, as I sit looking out the window on this glorious day that God has provided for us all to enjoy. The boys are still sleeping. It is my time to focus on the day ahead, and worship God in my own humble way. God is so good!

I have been doing a bible study on the Titus II woman. This has been such a difficult struggle for me because I really don't want to be a Titus II woman yet. I don't want to be the older woman giving advise to younger women, although I have a few friends that I frequently visit with, that are in actuality, younger moms. I just am uneasy about accepting the role as an older woman. I never thought turning 40 would be so hard. I somehow feel that a door has been slammed in my face, and I now walk the path of middle age.

I have asked the Lord to help me accept this new role, and to be open to what He wants, and not what I want. Why am I so sad lately? I have never suffered from depression, or even postpartum depression.

Some great things have happened to us recently though, that I feel compelled to share. We have found a new church. As some of you know, it has been a struggle leaving our beloved old church. We have made so many friends there, but will continue with those relationships. We are Christians after all, and God in my humble opinion, does not favor one denomination over another.

It was a long difficult decision to leave, but I felt that I was no longer growing as a Christian. I was staying the same. Not hungry, like I used to be. It scared me. I thought at first that it was because I was burnt out from teaching Sunday School for so many years. Dealing with 22, 2 & 3 year olds 2 Sundays every month, would drive anyone insane. Then I thought maybe it was because our family was grieving the loss of Scott's dad. Scott's aunt talked to me a lot about becoming Catholic. Scott and I knew in our hearts that that was not for us. I was trying to make sense of it all. The stress of dealing with 3 additional family members was taking it's toll on me. Scott's family has severe processing problems. Scott does too, and he admits that. Sometimes I wondered whether I made the right decision to marry Scott, although I didn't recognize these problems when we were courting. I have to be honest, and say that I have lost it quite a few times with them. More than I should have. I just never thought I would be helping raise a BIL, a UIL, and a MIL, plus a DH. I remember once, after Scott and I were married for 2 or 3 years, I was going through some old papers in our file cabinet, tossing out things that were no longer relevant, and I came across Scott's medical records file. Of course I peeked, I was his wife. I would expect that he would peek at mine. It had lots of records from when he was a kid up to his adulthood. On most of the records the doctor had listed Scott as mentally retarded. How could that be, I asked myself? I felt betrayed. Had they mixed up his documents with his brother's? I was confused. After being married to him for so many years, I can see what the doctor meant. I love Scott with all my heart, and always will. He was my angel sent from God. Yet, I feel sad because we will never have the relationship that we would have if he were "normal". I use that term lightly, because in most ways he is normal; and what does "normal" mean anyway? That someone conforms to certain standards set by someone else. How many of us are really "normal"? Actually, in a moral sense, he is more "normal" than most people. He has very moral standards that he stands behind. This was one of the things that I fell in love with. I sometimes wonder if his narcolepsy is a result of his handicap? I pray each day that my children will not have these processing issues. Skaterboy definitely does not, and Truthseeker doesn't appear to either; Thumbody, I am still unsure about.

So I have all these mixed emotions going on, and possibly early menopause to boot. Why me? God has lead me in many directions lately, and of course, they were all good directions. He always points me to scripture, and that helps tremendously. When we were seeing problems in our old church, and the ways it was being run, God directed me to the books of Timothy; When I was feeling blue about all the stress I was under, God led me to Proverbs, and Revelation; And now, I am being let to Titus. Why Titus? I ask Him. I am sure he will reveal His answer to me someday, even if it isn't here on Earth.

My outlook lately has been better. The new church I believe God has lead us to, has brought back my joy, and hunger for the Lord. I feel at peace. Which I haven't felt in a very long time. I am joyful to worship our Lord again. I no longer feel like Satan is clouding my vision, and my focus is not on what Satan will do to us next, but what God will do. He is so much stronger and wiser. Satan has no power over Him. Everything feels right now, as it should.

Have a Great Day :)

Small Blessings

This morning we woke up to a blanket of ice covering everything, including our vehicles. We were debating whether or not to go to church, but we had a delivery to make there this morning, and we needed to find out whether the Christmas parade was still going on or not, so we decided to go. We took the truck, incase we needed 4wd, and the roads weren't nearly as bad as I had anticipated that they would be.

At church, we found out that the parade has been reschedules for Thurs. night at 7 p.m. So we will be braving the cold weather that evening, I believe. The kids really want to see Santa. He was supposed to be at the Oasis right after the parade today, but we will have to find out if he will be making his appearance on Thurs. night.

We came home, had lunch, and put the little one's down for a nap. It was quiet and enjoyable. I went into our family room, and started rearranging my scrapbook area, and did some cleaning for my busy week I have this coming week. If I get everything done this week, it will be a miracle. I just love this time of year. This Christmas especially. I am starting to really enjoy homeschooling, and am learning how much fun I can make our day, and instill in my children's minds the true meaning of this blessed holiday.

Truthseeker woke up just as I was finishing the family room. He was very disappointed because Skaterboy had gone down the hill with a neighbor friend to go sledding. We have great sledding hills here. Scott and I made the decision that Truthseeker is too young to sled without adult supervision, thus the disappointment. So I changed the subject quickly, and offered to play a game with him. Of course, he chose his favorite board game, Pay Day. I put on some Christmas music, and by the light of the fire, we enjoyed about 6 rounds of Pay Day. He was very pleased that he beat me, again. I felt truly blessed that I had an afternoon to spend alone with my 6 year old. Scott was in the LR watching the Patriots game. Truthseeker and I played and talked, and just had a nice time together. So in effect, the ice was a small blessing after all. I just pray Scott makes it to work tomorrow without going in the ditch. In the past two years, he and I have gone in the ditch 3 times, each time doing lots of damage to our vehicles.
This year will be different though, I can feel it.

Last week, the kids and I constructed an advent wreath, for the first time ever. We have one at church of course, but I never really incorporated it into my curricullum before. The wreath turned out beautiful, and we all have enjoyed taking turns lighting and blowing out the candle, for the first week of advent. Tonight, of course we start week 2. This is truly a tradition that we will carry with us every year from now on.

Last Friday the kids made their yule logs for their bedrooms; another new tradition. Our 7 foot tree we cut down at the tree farm last week, soon became a 5 footer, when we realized how crooked the trunk was. All in all, it's a beautiful tree, and we had enough trunk to make 3 beautiful yule logs.

I have been getting up with Scott lately in the mornings. It's nice to chat with him alone, before he goes to work. We can discuss the day ahead, and plan our week. After he leaves in the morning, I pray, and do my devotionals. It's so peaceful, and beautiful with the Christmas tree lights twinkling in the background.

A few weeks ago at our small group meeting at church, I mentioned that I was struggling with my alone time with God. There just didn't seem to be enough time. At least that was what I was trying to express, if someone didn't understand it that way. After we returned home from Missouri, after Thanksgiving, I started waking up when Scott did in the morning. Believe me, 4:30 is early, but I have adjusted somehow. I feel like God has revealed to me that I need to schedule time with him, not just go to him hap-hazardly. So I have been faithful lately. I am really enjoying our date together each morning. He is revealing things to me through his word, that I haven't seen in this light before. I feel truly blessed. A Christmas gift from God this year. What could be better?

We are trying to keep things simple this Christmas, and trying to get by with less stuff, and more giving to others in need. I need to keep this locked in my brain on Tuesday, when we do our Christmas Shopping for the kids.

Skaterboy turns 15 one week from today. I can't believe it. I can still remember the moments after his birth. The time passes so quickly. I pray that I get to experience the feeling of having another baby grow inside me, and to hold that little bundle, and watch him/her grow. In God's time....not mine.

Blessings, Amy