Tag Archives: ImNoMary

Slacking

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I don’t know what it is about this year already. For some reason I have been slacking in sticking to my readings. Not only the readings, but I have missed too many Sundays already. I haven’t been praying like I should either. If you were to look at my life the past few months, you would be able to tell. It has been a roller coaster of ups and downs; mainly downs. The ups aren’t as big as the downs. It’s that whole “1 step forward, 3 steps back” type of thing. For instance, my car going out when we are about an hour away from home wasn’t pleasant. Finally getting it towed to the shop so they could tell me the transmission is just shot. Unfortunately, them ordering a used one is the same cost as having someone rebuild it; $2500, not including labor and fluid. Now, I don’t know how many of you can drop that kind of money just whenever, but I am not one of those people. So I started looking online, and there were some options, but though they may be cheaper, they may not be as good. So, do you go with the cheaper option that is only warrantied for 6 months, or the expensive option which is warranted for 3 years? Well, here is when I did that thing where you hit hard times and ask God for help. Never mind that you haven’t been keeping in touch like you should have been for the past 3 months. At 8:10 last night a text message comes in. On the outside it just seems like a dad helping out his daughter, but I know the truth. It was God, and he was saying “see what happens when you let me do the work”. He is really good about giving you those “I told you so” moments.

There is something about these times though. When you have been slacking in your faith, and then turn yourself around to find the light again, it’s refreshing. I can honestly tell when I have been getting sloppy and sidetracked from my path. I get tired, lethargic, lazy, moody. Just all around…..blah! When I start correcting these mistakes, the light starts shining on my face again. I feel more energetic. I get more stuff done. I’m just all together happier and more productive. When I am purposefully walking with God, even the bad things don’t seem so bad. Life becomes more “3 steps forward, 1 step back”.

When hard times come around, think back on when it started and take a look at your faith. Has it faltered, even just the tiniest bit? God knows we will stumble and fall, but He is always there for us when we try to get back up.

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” –Proverbs 13:4

The Devil Never Sleeps

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Drove an hour to meet family at the zoo on Saturday and it was a fun family outing. Leaving the zoo, however, is a different story. My transmission quit working and my brother-in-law had to drag me through the city to a parts store for a new battery because mine had quite a bit of corrosion build-up. Prayed it would fix it enough to get us home; it did not! Couldn’t even drive it around the parking lot. He pushes me back into a parking spot and we all pile in his truck. Thank the Lord it is a large truck. Between the two families there were 7 of us. They live about 2 1/2 hours in the opposite direction than we do, but they were nice enough to get us home. My sister got a hotel room for them so that the brother-in-law and I could get a trailer and go get my car. The crazy part….when we got back to the car it drove right up on the trailer with no problem at all. When we got it home, it backed off the trailer with no problem. The strangest intermittent transmission problem I have ever seen. This odd ball behavior is what led 3 different people to think it was/is an electrical problem. Hence the replacing of the battery. We didn’t get back in town until after midnight. Needless to say, me and the little slept through church Sunday morning. Since my car can’t be trusted, I am sharing a car with my mother until my car gets sorted out.

Now for an annoyance, the steristrips (butterfly bandages) on my incision came off in the shower last night and personally, it doesn’t look closed up enough to leave it uncovered. With it being on the palm of my hand, I’m assuming all the movement just wore them off faster, so now I have a giant band-aid. It was either this giant one or a few of a smaller size and something told me I didn’t want to risk the sticky part getting stuck on the incision. Something about that happening did not seem like a good idea.
Plus, the night before I was sitting in the floor taking the harness straps out of the little’s seat for him to start using it as a booster. You don’t realize how important hand/wrist health is until you are trying to get those suckers out. I don’t remember these being that hard to put into the seat. If you have ever dealt with straps on a car seat then you know the ends are thick. They fold them over, I’m assuming so they don’t come out by themselves, more than once so they are thick and won’t go through the space, so there they sit; random straps. To top it off, getting up out of the floor I lost my balance a little, and natural instincts kicked in. That is right, I righted myself with the wrong hand. Worst pain I have felt throughout this whole experience.

It has been a rough year, to say the least, and it is only March. The thing I keep telling myself is that I will come out of this. These troublesome days are part of Satan’s plan to break me down. It is hard, but I will not bend. My faith is in God, and He will get me through it. He is my armor and arsenal. I will keep my eyes open to what this is. The devil trying to break me and I will not let him.

The Devil never sleeps, but neither does God. Keep on moving, keep your eyes on the right the side. The winning side. God’s side. In the words of Rodney Atkins:
“If you’re goin’ through hell keep on going. Don’t slow down, if you’re scared don’t show it. You might get out before the devil even knows you’re there. Yeah if you’re goin’ through hell, keep on movin’. Face that fire walk right through it. You might get out before the devil even knows you’re there. ” –Rodney Atkins, “If You’re Going Through Hell”

 7 “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.'” –Job 1:7

11 “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'” –Jeremiah 29:11

On The One Hand

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I have never related to Rachel Green so much in my life. (The One with the Chick and the Duck – 11:14) February 20th I had carpal tunnel surgery. Fun, right?! The worst part isn’t the discomfort or pain, but rather trying to do things with one hand. I am a right handed person, and as such, I never noticed how much of a right handed world we live in until now. To all those southpaws out there, kudos to you for making it in this right hand world.

Another thing about being a hand down, is the fear of your 40-50 pound toddler eyeing you from the other end of the couch (which happens to be on my right) with his legs looking like springs. Trying to explain to a toddler why he can’t do the thing he loves doing is harder than you think. His mouth says “ok mommy” but his brain just doesn’t quite get it the first time. I think God put this instinctive reaction in us for these purposes. I’m not a fast person and yet when the turddler gets that look in his eyes I’m suddenly Usain Bolt going for the gold!

Also, taking a shower when you can’t get your hand wet is interesting. It takes what feels like a good 10 minutes just to get the plastic in place before getting in the shower. To whomever decided to put pump nozzles on shampoos and conditioners, I thank you! It’s the things you don’t think about until you are in this situation that make the biggest impact. Another example are leggings and other pant like clothing. I haven’t worn a pair of jeans in over a week. Buttoning, zipping, and belting is something I never knew I took for granted. Along with tying shoes, peeling a cutie, punching the straw into a capri sun pouch. There is a reason why there is a specialty that helps children/people make sure their fine motor skills are up to par. (Bless those people!) This also means no makeup has touched my face. My left hand isn’t the greatest in the fine motor skills area. It is a little shaky and mascara/eyeliner on the eyeball is definitely not the greatest feeling. Plus, knowing my luck my hand would jerk and I would end up with eyeliner line going up to my eyebrow instead of across.

I would like to ask God one thing though; why do we have a dominant hand? Couldn’t we all just be ambidextrous? Wouldn’t it be easier? Maybe instead I should ask creators of the stuff we use to make the stuff ambidextrous? Like the computer mouse. I don’t think my left middle finger has ever worked so much. The phone is on the right, the shifter in the car is on the right, which I’m thankful I don’t drive a standard anymore, even the cup holders are on the right.
You also don’t realize how much that second hand comes in handy until you are driving down the highway and your mom calls and you don’t have “handsfree”. You don’t shady button ya momma. If you do….you weren’t raised by my momma!!!!

My follow up appointment is in the morning (3/3/20) and hopefully I can take this….thing off my hand. Not only do I miss being able to do things, my arm gets hot and itchy! If I didn’t have an incision to worry about I would do the old pencil scratch trick!

Moral of the story, be grateful for all the little things God has given you in life!

16 “Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” –1 Thess. 5:16-18

“2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” –Psalm 103:2-5

The Blankey

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I feel it is safe to say that at some point in time, every toddler has that one thing they want to take everywhere. Which is how they get to be so dirty. Finding the time to wash the thing is the trickiest. Can’t be too close to nap time during the day or bedtime at night. If you are like me and work during the day you have to be sneaky about it and pray they don’t notice you putting it in the wash. They could leave it somewhere for over an hour but the second they see it disappearing into that machine, Lord have mercy on you.

We were at a basketball game Monday night and if he had not just been woken up we wouldn’t have taken the blanket to the game, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do . That is when I realized, this thing is FILTHY! He was slinging it everywhere, ya know being a 3 year old, and wollering around with it. It wasn’t until he was sitting on my lap with it kinda wrapped around himself that I smelled it. Oh the smell of little boys!

My son is one of those whose body heat sky rockets as soon as he falls asleep. If he falls asleep snuggling with you, you both end up sweating. Add on to that by him sometimes putting a corner of it in his mouth, and his thumb sucking and you can imagine. I didn’t think about it being that bad smelly. Then, it hit me. He spent all day with his great grandma because his sitter was sick, which meant EXTRA snuggles!! I kept hoping the people around us couldn’t smell it like I could. This would just so happen to be a boys game, so the place was packed!!

By the time the game was over it is bedtime so I couldn’t go home and throw it in the wash. I had to wait for him to be gone the next day. He doesn’t take it with him to his sitter’s house and I get off at 2 in the afternoon which meant I went home and started a load of laundry. I had about 2 hours before going to pick him up and going to yet another game. I knew the washing wouldn’t take too long. It is the drying that holds up progress. Like I said earlier though, we don’t usually take the blanket to games so when we got home and he couldn’t find his blanket…here comes the worry. You can see it all over his face, hear it in his voice. This thing is the first thing he wants when we get home. “My lightning blankey!!!!!” I tell him it is in the dryer and he beats me to it. He opens the door and pulls out the holy grail! Along with the other clean clothes. Now Lightning doesn’t smell like little boy anymore. He smells like Snuggle!

“Security is a strange thing, a myth that the brain allows in exchange for a brief moment of peace.”
― Alessandra Torre, To Have

The Kids & The Oxen

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This week, at our Wednesday small group class, a topic arose. The topic of a clean house. One thing was pointed out, without kids our houses are clean and tidy. Everything has a place. Even when our kids are babies, the toys have a basket or something to go in. Then they get a little bit older and start doing things themselves and dumping whole toy boxes out. This is where things get messy. As our kids get bigger, so do their toys. So do their messes. However, if you take a look at it, a lot of it is just clutter. That isn’t a dirty house; it is a full house.

One thing we as mothers tend to focus on is the cleaning of the house. Picking up toys all day, along with socks and clothes that get left in the floor. Again, it is clutter. We need to remember that a home with kids in it is going to be full of this clutter. In these circumstances a cluttered home is a home full of play an laughter. Let the kids be kids and don’t worry about the clutter. Kids are the ones that you can truly say, the messier they are, the happier they are.

“Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.”
–Proverbs 14:4

The Sandwich

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Here in this town there is a running joke. Being in the South means, we don’t get a lot of snow. Usually it is more ice and when we do get it EVERYTHING shuts down and people suddenly lose all common sense and still think they can drive. So, if the weather man even mentions “winter weather” there are 2 things the stores run out of. Milk and bread. Just those two things. Running joke being these people eat a lot of milk sandwiches in the winter. However, I did the same thing yesterday. Grant it, I’m not sure if the weather man ever forecasted “winter weather” but I had gone all weekend without milk. Having a toddler AND being the cereal lover I am, that was too long. Plus, It is January; the month after Christmas and before tax returns come in….Momma is broke! Being broke means we eat sandwiches. Here lately these sandwiches have been tasting really good too for some reason. Nothing fancy, just basic sandwiches. Well, we ran out of bread by Sunday. So, yesterday, Tuesday, I run to the store when I get off work and by my milk and bread. Feeling like a goober with my milk sandwich ingredients I get home and start getting the real stuff out. Ketchup, mayo, cheese, all that jazz. Lastly I go for the sandwich meat. Guess what is gone. Was there Monday, not there now. Really?! Looking forward to eating my sandwich all day and I still can’t get it. Being a toddler mom I do have the pb&j. Then I see something in the pantry. Instead of pb, I used Nutella. It didn’t quite hit the spot though. So, of course, I still spent the rest of the afternoon looking for something to snack on. I hate it when your taste buds get excited for something they can’t have. It leaves you eating everything in sight trying to fill that seemingly bottomless pit. Cravings will get you everytime.

“Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”
― Mark Twain

Struggle Bus Coming Through

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Sometimes I feel like an inflatable lifeboat in the middle of a hurricane. Even though the holiday season is over, this momma is still recovering; mentally and financially, but mostly financially. Christmas is one of the hardest seasons on an income and this recovery process is rough. Getting a third job seems more and more necessary. Seeing the good side of things gets harder and harder. However, I know God has plans for me. I know He is going to take care of me and guide me through these troubled waters. Until I see land I just have to keep on rowing and just stay afloat. Doing this means I just gotta keep trusting and turning to Him.

With all this, I have to be real and say that this was brought upon myself. Last spring, summer, and this past fall I was fine, I had enough money to put back, but I am one that likes to shop in my free time and well, you get the picture. I mean, my son didn’t need ALL of those clothes and toys. Trust me, he has plenty, of both! I did have some big necessary purchases in the fall, but still, I tend to splurge more than I should. I argued with myself multiple times of day about my spending, but I kept on trucking. Of course, these good days were the days I was putting God first. Yet, the whole month of December He was pushed to the back burner again. Honestly, He has been there this month too. Just in the nick of time, the scheduled classes and d-groups are starting back up. Yes, it means a busy week but it helps me keep Him in my main line of sight and makes it harder for me to push my faith to the side. I know I have to keep reading, and learning, and spreading His message and love.

This struggle bus will push on!!

**Am I the only one that sees Ms. Fritter from Cars 3 when talking about the struggle bus? undefined

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” –Romans 8:18

#Mondays

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It’s a Monday again. Usually I am not one to complain about Mondays, but I certainly could have slept on sleeping when my alarm went off this morning. I thought I was going to be really late to D-Group, when in fact I was only like 5 minutes late. Plus, there was only 1 person on the road that almost caused a wreck. Just an FYI, it is always best to look before you merge into a lane; but all was good. I went on to work at 9 and I overcooked my pop-tart. There is no toaster so I was heating it up in the microwave which I have done too many times to count. This time, I left it in there just a few seconds too long. The thing about overcooked pop-tarts is, when done in the microwave, they don’t burn. Instead, when they have cooled off enough to be edible, they get HARD. I’m not talking crunchy hard, I mean they quickly
become chewy like the candy sugar babies,
undefined and then they become a brick. Needless to say I am anxiously awaiting 2:00 so I can have something in my belly other than half a chewy pop-tart and a Pepsi.

Days that start out like today tend to make you wanna use a few choice words every now and then. Maybe call a person a name or too.
FEAR NOT!!! The Lord is with you!!

“For we live by faith, not by sight.” –2 Corinthians 5:7

No Coincidences

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Last night was the first night of me leading a small group class. A midweek class. I decided to do the study “Becoming Mom Strong” by Heidi St. John. I was super nervous, I have never led anyone in anything. Especially not a bible study. I am not a teacher and in no way an expert on anything. I was truly surprised by the number of ladies that were there last night. Almost 20 ladies are in the class. Not only did I get to break the ice with people I don’t know at all, I got to see other connections being formed. This was my first glimpse into what God has been telling me to do.

After the class I got to witness even more. One of the moms came up to me with tears in her eyes and told me how much she needed this. A few years ago she had gone through something similar with her husband and hasn’t fully found a solid ground yet. In that moment I had nothing but confidence and reassurance that I was on the right track. The need I thought I saw in the church was even bigger than I had realized. I asked this mom if she had gotten into a sunday school class since then. Being a fairly recent single mom, she was nervous because most of the classes that meet in the hour she attends are couples classes; or are at least labeled “couples”. Now, 3 other ladies had stuck around for a few minutes and when one of them heard this mom needed a class, she immediately jumped in. Turns out this lady is starting up a new class this Sunday. No labels or anything.

A little bit later me and the new leader were walking out and she told me she had received a list of people to reach out to who may need help getting connected within the life of the church. Those that need a church family to lean on. It just so happens this mom that is going through all this is on that list. God was in that room!! Never before have I been so reassured that I was doing the right thing!!

This was just one of the connections I saw happen. I witnessed with my own eyes. I now see just how much my vision was needed for this.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens”
–Ecclesiastes 3:1

No Coincidences

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About 2 weeks ago I got news about my position in the office being eliminated. Well, after 2 weeks I now have a new job starting January 2 at United Way. What leaves me awe struck isn’t how fast I found a replacement job, but the circumstances around it.

We all know offices don’t just make hasty decisions like this. At least not this one. Everything gets prayed over for weeks before anything is decided. So, as my current employers were deciding to take out my position, my future employers were deciding to create a new position in their office. As my door was closing, another was opening.

Throughout those 2 weeks I kept saying that God just has a plan for me and I didn’t know it yet. God is taking me somewhere and using me for something. What that is, I have no clue, but I am going to follow where he leads. (Cue the Gilmore Girls theme song) Going through life without God is like hiking through unknown mountain ranges without a guide and compass. You are going to get lost.

5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” –Proverbs 3:5-6

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.'” –Isaiah 30:21