Two Homes In One Day! September 27, 2007

Yesterday was a day of beautiful blessings for us (as every day is).  When Bill got home from work, we left for the lawyer’s office and closed on our first house!  We have been praying for a house for more than three years, and God gave it to us to yesterday.  Praise the Lord!  When we got in the car, Bill prayed a prayer of thanksgiving, and I loved something he said.  “I praise you God for letting us borrow Your house for a while.  Give us grace to be good stewards and use the house to further Your kingdom.”  I pray I always remember this house is really God’s to do with as He wills.

A couple of hours later, we went to church for our interview with one of our elders.  This was our last step to becoming partners (members) of Sojourn.  The interview really helped us think about different aspects of the gospel and encouraged us greatly.  We have been challenged to become more intentional missionaries in our home, so I plan on doing some posts in the future sharing what we are doing in that area.  At the end of the interview he told us he had no problems nominating us for partnership, so we got our church home, too!

It is extremely important to Bill and me to daily pray for and encourage our leadership in our church, so I’ll mention something as a side note.  We were thankful to be interviewed by the elder who is our main preaching pastor, Daniel Montgomerey.  We got to share with him how we came to Sojourn because of his inability to get away from the gospel in his preaching.  This man’s preaching is saturated with the grace that has been shown us by our Savior’s substitution for us on the cross.  Besides my hubby,  Daniel is my favorite preacher to listen to.  You should listen to at least one of his sermons on Sojourn’s website.  You will be greatly convicted and encouraged by what the Holy Spirit says through him Sunday after Sunday.  This man is bold yet full of grace, and we are so grateful the Lord put us under his and our other elders’ leadership. 

Praying with Your Children September 24, 2007

As with many parents, I have been greatly influenced by the books “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Tedd Tripp and “Don’t Make Me Count to Three” by Ginger Plowman .  Each parent or parent-to-be should make these books a priority.  They talk about the importance of not only correcting your children but always directing their hearts to God by showing them through Scripture why their action was wrong.

Bill and I already use these principles with our children even though they are young, but some friends of ours, Kyle and Hilary, gave us something else to think about–the importance of prayer when disciplining.  Kyle was explaining how they have their daughters pray to ask for forgiveness when they have sinned.  That’s not all, though.  When Kyle or Hilary sin they ask their daughters to pray with them as they ask for forgiveness.  What a beautiful picture of humility and faith! 

Bill and I have recently begun doing this with our children, too.  Liam is already beginning to say parts of prayers on his own which is such a blessing, and it’s amazing to see him watch in wonder when we confess we sinned against him and pray for forgiveness.  I pray God will use this to bless our family and teach our children about the power of prayer and grace.  Thanks, Kyle and Hilary for sharing your wisdom in this area.  We praise God for you and parents like you who truly shepherd their childrens’ hearts.   

My Husband’s Priority September 20, 2007

Bill and I have lately been reevaluating our priorities based on some new insights.  This mainly came after reading “Feminine Appeal” by Carolyn Mahaney.  In her chapter on working at home, she addresses the woman’s top priority–to be a helpmate to her husband. 

After talking with Bill about this chapter, we began thinking about how I would be the biggest help to him, so we looked at what was Bill’s greatest responsibility.  According to Scripture, this responsibility is to pursue godliness himself and to lead his family in godliness.  We began realizing that everything I do as a wife and mother needs to be centered around helping Bill in this pursuit.

Based on this knowledge, Bill began evaluating every aspect of our lives–our kids, home, food, health, sleep, schedules, activities, etc. and thought about how each area fits in to helping him achieve that goal.  He then began to delegate some new tasks to me, took some of my tasks away that weren’t important, and we both began to change our priorities.

Here are a few things we have changed: 

1.  I changed my exercise time to later in the day so I could sleep in thirty more minutes in the morning.  This way, I can stay up thirty minutes more the night before so we have sufficient time to talk about things and read and pray together.
2.  This may sound strange, but when I wake up at 4:30, I shower right away instead of waiting until he leaves for work.  When we have our quiet times during the same part of the morning, I selfishly can’t seem to stop myself from running to him to tell him something I’ve discovered or ask him a question.  Each time I do this, it takes away from his time with the Lord.  If I’m in the shower, I can’t disturb him. 
3.  When I am working with the kids during the day, I now think about their salvation instead of having a smooth day.  For instance, our main goals with Liam right now is to help him understand language.  The more he understands, the more Bill can teach him about our amazing Savior.  That’s a different perspective than I’ve had before.
4.  Many days I talk way too much when Bill gets home because I have hardly talked all day long.  Because I am married to the greatest listener in the world, my talking would often prevent Bill from doing his work at home or spending time with the kids.  We came up with several outlets for me where I can talk to other women during the day.  I have joined MOPS, go to a mom’s day twice a month at church, meet with another woman once a week, and have begun scheduling a play date once a month among other things.  Though my schedule is a bit busier, our marriage has been blessed greatly because I have become a better listener to my husband and I have freed him up more.
5.  I take the kids on an outing most afternoons and don’t return home until around 4:00.  Since Bill gets home around 3:40, this gives him a short amount of time to be completely alone (something he doesn’t get any other time of the day) to pray and gather himself before the demands of being a husband and father come bursting through the door.
6.  We have made diet, exercise, and sleep a bigger priority so we can have the energy to serve the way we need to. 

These are not the only changes we have made, but we have both been amazed how much God has blessed us for simply changing this priority a bit.  The decisions I have to make each day are clearer, and I have joy watching my husband and our family grow in Christ each day.

Separation Anxiety September 18, 2007

Liam, like many two year olds, can get rather upset when people he loves, especially his parents, have to leave him.  It’s always so hard to hear him screaming and crying from a  little broken heart.  When it comes to his friend Thomas, though, we get quite a different response.

Bill and I swap date with our friends Brian and Kacie once a month, and Liam thinks Thomas, their youngest son, is his best friend in the world.  When we pull around the corner to their home, Liam begins chanting Thomas’s name over and over. 

Last weekend was our date out.  As soon as Liam was out of the car, he ran (across the parking lot I might add) to our friends’ entrance.  I felt like he was a dog on a leash that had just seen a cat.  We could barely hold him back.  When we left, instead of his usual crying, he quickly shouted, “Bye!” (as in, “Hurry up and get out of here”) and began laughing gleefully.  I don’t mean the sweet little boy laugh.  I’m thinking more like the wicked witch of the west.  He was anything but sad to see us go.   

I have to say I think it is precious how much Liam loves Thomas (and the rest of the family).  I just thought the joy from knowing your parents were leaving you alone with your buddy didn’t happen until the teenage years.  How wrong I was!  

New Pics of the Kiddos September 14, 2007

Here are some new pictures I took of our ever-growing, always loveable kiddos last weekend.

Home Missionaries September 13, 2007

Bill and I were at a class last night at church that talked a bit about what it meant to be a missional church.  At the beginning of the class, our pastor had us reflect on the last time we reached out to an unbeliever.  I realized it had been a while.  I have lived in a little “believer bubble” pretty much since I became a stay-at-home-mom 2 1/2 years ago.  I basically hang out with my husband and kids, church family, and other believing friends.  I probably could count on one hand the amount of unbelieving friends I currently have.  I was ashamed to think about it.

Our pastor explained that missional is not the same as missionary minded (though we are also missionary minded).  Missionary minded basically focuses on overseas missions, wheras missional focuses on understanding and being a part of the culture around us so we can more adequately share the gospel with people where we are.  As the night progressed, I realized that if we uprooted our family to become overseas missionaries I would most likely be aggresive and intentional about getting to know the culture and sharing the gospel every chance I got.  I wouldn’t be O.K. with making that big of a life change and then failing to do the job I had gone there to do.

The fact is, God has placed me here in Louisville, KY (and soon New Albany, IN) to do the same work as He has called overseas missionaries to do–to spread His gospel to those around us.  If a mission board were funding me to go overseas, I am quite sure they would send me home if I were making no attempts to spread the news that Jesus, who was sinless, took the wrath of God that we deserve upon Himself.  I don’t have to go before a mission board, but I will have to stand before God some day and give an account of all I’ve done or not done, and if that were to happen today, I’m certain I would not hear the words, “Well done.”  This was the one command Jesus gave before ascending to Heaven, and I have barely made an attempt at it.

When Bill and I were on staff at our previous church, our pastor wisely asked each of us in staff meetings each week to give an account of how we had shared the gospel with an unbeliever in the last seven days.  I remember many times I wished I could excuse myself right before that time.  It was difficult, but he helped to hold us accountable and regularly pushed us to be more intentional in this area.  I need you, my friends, to hold me just as accountable.  Be my mission board.  Ask me each time you see me (or ask me here on the blog) how I’ve been working to share the gospel.  I will try to do the same for you.  Imagine the work God might do if we show faith in Him by being obedient.

How Do You Shop? September 12, 2007

I was raised by a wonderful woman who taught me more useful things than I could count, but there was one thing she hated and avoided at all costs–shopping.  My mother shops like a man.  She knows what she wants, walks straight to the rack, and buys it, sometimes without trying it on.  Window shopping was unheard of (unless it was antiques or pets), and her idea of fun definitely was not going to the mall to try on all kinds of fun stuff.  She likes efficiency.  Can you blame her?

To the dismay of my mother, she still ended up raising a daughter who enjoys shopping.  I mean, come on, one of the most fun parts of prom is trying on every cute (and ugly) dress you see, no matter the price.  The problem, though, is that I never really learned how to shop for the best prices.  Now that we have kids, this is becoming a problem.

Here are a few tricks I know: shop at consignment shops, buy clothes at the end of seasons, and the greatest bargains are the days after Thanksgiving and Christmas.  However, that’s where my knowledge ends.  Thankfully, we have never really had to buy clothes for Liam because of hand-me-downs from one of his cousins, but with the cooler weather yesterday, I panicked when I realized Ariana doesn’t have a single pair of pants or a jacket.  Though we usually shop at Walmart for the kids, we ran to the mall to look.  After seeing the prices, I couldn’t bring myself to buy more than three items.

Clothes shopping is an area I would really like to improve, both the amount I pay and being better prepared so I don’t have to make last minute trips.  For all of you shopaholics, would you mind sharing some advice?  Besides the sales times I mentioned above, are there other times in the year or season (or week) you typically find good sales?  What are your favorite stores for the prices and sales?  How can I find out about sales that are going on without going to the store?  Also, I do love consignment shops but was wondering what your favorites were?  Any additional advice is also welcome.

Rappa P Diddy Homefry September 10, 2007

So, my brother Paul is not a very public guy.  He doesn’t care for the spotlight and certainly doesn’t enjoy making a fool of himself.  Well, when your paycheck is on the line, that can change things a bit.  And this video (which actually did air as a commercial in western Kentucky) is proof of that.  So, presenting my nearly-CPA brother Paul or, as I like to call him, “Rappa P Diddy Homefry” (he’s the one with hair, by the way):

NOTE: You’ll have to click on the picture below to go to YouTube and watch the video.

Recipe Organization September 10, 2007

Since we will be moving at the end of September into our new home, I have been working extra hard to try to organize a few more things so the move will be a bit easier.  The recent project I have almost completed is my recipes.  Recipe books are great, but who only has recipes around that are in a nice binding?  It seems that half of our family approved recipes are cut-outs from magazines, prints from the computer, or sheets of paper or note cards from friends.  Many are even just scratched down on whatever scrap I could find at the time.

When it comes to menu planning, my lack of recipe organization was one of my biggest hinderances.  I would spend too much time looking for that recipe that I knew was around here somewhere.  So with the help of other resources, I came up with a better system.

My first rule is that the recipe books I use a lot get to stay as is.  Everything else goes.  I started by buying a set of 3×5 notecards, tabs that are the same size, and a small storage box made for the notecards.  I then began tackling the stray recipes.  I took time out to write each recipe that was tried and true with our family on one of the notecards and then filed them behind the tabs under such categories as appetizers, breads, main dishes, etc.  I made the categories according to what worked best for me to find the recipe quickly.  A lot of the transferring to note cards happened during dinner prep.

After finishing all the “we know we love this” recipes, I actually went through my cook books and wrote down recipes that I use a lot.  This isn’t really necessary, but it has helped to save time trying to remember which book each entree is in.  Recipes I don’t use as often stay in the book.

For all the other recipes, I purchased a few full-size file folders and found a box that they would fit in.  I wrote “Recipes To Be Tried” on the outside of the box in a black permanent marker and labeled the file folders with the same categories I used on the 3×5 tabs.  Then I simply stuck all the rest of the loose pieces of paper under the appropriate category in the folders.  The box is not on public display but is in a closet.  I almost always pull it out when I am planning the menu each week. 

French Dip Sandwiches September 7, 2007

This is one of Bill’s favorites.  We actually made it for friends tonight, and it worked really well.  I just doubled the Au Jus sauce.  We served the sandwiches with ruffles chips, raw carrots, and ranch dip, and it was a very easy meal that allowed us to fellowship instead of cook the whole time.

3-lb beef boneless chuck roast
1 1/2 cups water
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 clove garlic, finely chopped (1 used 1/4 tsp. garlic powder)
1 dried bay leaf
3 or 4 peppercorns
2 loaves (1 lb each) French bread

1.  If beef roast comes in netting or is tied, do not remove.  In 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker, place beef.  In small bowl, mix remaining ingredients except bread; pour over beef.

2.  Cover and cook on Low heat setting 7 to 8 hours.

3.  Skim fat from surface of juices in cooker; discard bay leaf and peppercorns.  Remove beef from cooker; place on cutting board.  Remove netting or strings from beef.  Cut beef into thin slices.  Cut each loaf of bread into 5 pieces, about 4 inches long; cut horizontally in half.  Fill bread with beef.  Serve with broth for dipping.