Never Say Never

I take my job as a mom very seriously and I believe that God put me on this earth to raise two Christian men. Not just two men but to Christian men that are not like the world but set apart from the world. Both boys as infants were clinging for their lives with two different illnesses. One with congestive heart failure at 7 months and the other born with a lung disease that resulted in RSV and a life full of asthma. Doctors told us with both of them that there was a 50% chance they would not pull through but through prayers they did and are healthy teens. I knew when God saved each one that it was for a reason, each child has a purpose on this earth and my job was to raise them to know God. I have always had my family in church, even changed churched once through many prayers, scriptures, devotions, and many other confirmations from God that we were being called to a new church home. Being faithful to call even as a lay person is very important! God has abundantly blessed our call. Our children have grown in their faith so much and one has accepted a call into ministry with our obeidience. My title "Never Say Never" leads to this. I am very protective with my teenagers and have always been. I have locked codes on our tv's that only I have the code to, I have ratings set on the computer, I have rating locks set on their cell phones, I have their grades and attendance emailed to me daily, I have an abundance of accountabilty parents that we all watch out for our kids together and notify each other if we need to, most importantly, I talk to my kids all the time. We talk about drinking, drugs, sex, movies, music, what kind of girls to date, equally yoked, what type of witness they are, cursing, how to handle a bad situation, friendships, difficult teachers or adults, honesty, kissing versus making out, where their hands are allowed to go on a girl and where they are not allowed, talking to their friends about God, making sure they always act in a way that they do not ruin their witness, do not do anything with friends that they could not do in front of their parents, etc. We cover it all and we have talked to our kids about these things since they were very young. They will wake us up in the middle of the night sometimes to talk. Well, Sunday after a lunch at church, my kids asked if they could go to a movie with some of the kids at church and one of the women at our church. I said yes. They were wanting to see a scary movie. I was exhausted because I had been at the church for two days preparing for this day and I did not ask my kids the details of the movie. I slacked off, my fault! My assumption was they know the rules! Almost 17 and 15, they will not go to an R rated movie, especially without calling me to at least ask and let me look it up. I honestly did not think another thing about the movie once they asked. My kids do not give me any trouble. They always tell me what they are seeing and they never ask to see rated R movies. My youngest son is the one who wanted to see this movie because he heard it was so good. He said to a group he wanted to see it. They wanted to go, he looked up the times and saw that it was rated R and he told them that it was rated R and then this mother of a teen says she will take them to see it. He says OK!!!!!!! Not a word to me! I do not find out until the next day. I am so upset and disappointed! I look the movie up and find that it has brief nudity. That makes it all the worse! He tells me when he looks it up on his phone it says violence and language but he promises that he did not see anything that says nudity. Both of my children who have been taught better did not go against the grain and say I better call my parents and ask if I can see this. I never thought they would do this. This is why I always say, I will never SAY my kids would never do that because as soon as I do, they will. This is minor, I know. I am blessed with two wonderful kids who are the light in the darkness. They are the minority in the High School. They have never had a drink and are proud of it. They do not go to parties because they choose not to, not because we do not let them, they are very respectful to girls and honestly they are very wise in who they choose to date and do not date often. They do not use foul language. They tell me often that they will not participate in these things. They both have committed to purity until marriage. They both are very respected by their peers for their faith and the way they carry theirselves. But, they are human and they are tested and pressured just like we all are. So, as parents, we can never get lazy, we can never assume, we must always check their stories for their sake, check out the movies for their protection, check out the music they listen to for their protection, check into their friends for their protection, get a facebook and myspace so we can see what they are doing and saying again, for their protection, learn everything you can about their boyfriend/girlfriend definitely for their protection. Last but not least, pray, pray, pray! I am learning that my kids even though they are great are struggling in this tough world and need as many prayers as the kids who are hooked on drugs, having sex, or drinking. I needed this reminder and wanted to share with all of you!

Crushed Toes

Today being a Sunday, I go to church like always. I'm in Sunday School, with a new teacher because my old teacher had to move because God called him the Colorado Springs. Imagine that! He took one of my best friends with him! Anyway, this new Sunday School teacher, whom I will not mention his name is just a young pup, and I love him dearly! We are learning the 7 Deadly Sins. The last couple of weeks have been really good. I have been telling everyone what a great job he is doing and that they should come to class. Attendance really dropped once the other guy left. Well today attendance was double. Of course, TODAY attendance was double. We are talking about the 7 deadly sins, Beattitudes, Armor of God, Fruit of the Spirit, etc. How the conversation got to this next thing I do not know but let me tell you it was quite uncomfortable for me! It did not just step on my toes, it crushed my toes! The are still sore and black and blue!!! It came up about being slothful and we all know what that means but it was being discussed that if you let your house become cluttered and not kept that you were slothful and that is sinning against God. Of my!!! I pride myself in not drinking, cursing, smoking, watching rated "R" movies, being nice to people, trying to control my temper so I do not ruin my witness, setting a positive example to teens, being a good mother, being a good friend, try to be a good wife, go to church, tithe, volunteer my time in the youth, etc. Now I am learning that because my house is a mess that I am a lazy beast and I am sinning? That was pretty humbling. I have spent so much time outside of my home doing for others that I have let my house go, the home that God blessed me with. Where is my self control? Just when we think we are pleasing God, he shows us an area we need to clean up. Today, I came home and spent all afternoon scrubbing and organizing my bathroom. One room at a time, I will get control of my house because God has blessed me so abundantly. While I am cleaning, I will take that time to praise him, talk to him, and drawer closer to him. Please pray for me because this is not going to be easy for me. When someone ask me to do something for them, I will want to say yes, or I will want to find something else to do, so I ask that all who reads this to please lift me up in prayer. Love ya!

Heart of Worship

One of my favorite songs is "Heart of Worship". It does not matter how often I hear that song or where I am when I hear that song, it will bring me to tears because it reflects my life and my heart most of the time. Here are some of the lyrics to the song.

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth
That will bless your heart

I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it,
It's all about you, It's all about you.

Im coming back to the Heart of Worship because it's all about you Lord, it's all about you.

I get so busy in myself and in everyone elses life that I forget why I was put on this earth. But when the music fades or when things come crashing down, or I slow down and reflect on life I realize and remember how simple life is suppose to be. It is suppose to be all about God. All the fuss, the stress, confusion, anger, anxiety, worry, bussiness, that is the thing I've made it. It has all been brought on by me. When I come back to the heart of worship and make it all about God is when I find relief and refreshment. I find pruning in my life that does cause some pain but their is always release from the pressure built up within. I cannot do what God wants me to do when I do not obey him in the little things. I cannot help reach the lost when I am not being completely obedient in my own life. I still want to do too much my own way and handle relationships my own way. How can God use me with lost souls when I am not listening to him in my current relationships? When I talk about relationships I am not just meaning my husband. I am talking about all the people I love. We too many times get in the way of what God wants to do in peoples lives because we know so much and we think we can fix things. God fixes things, not us. God uses us to love people, not fix them. God teaches us to live a life according to what he wrote about in the bible. He spelled it out for us all to read and practice. We when fail we are to ask for forgiveness and try very hard to not make that mistake again. We are to worry about OURSELVES and OUR LIVES and let GOD worry about everyone else and their lives and their sins. This is where he is working on me. I have to live by the ten commandments the best I can, and when I mess up I need to ask forgiveness and work harder not to mess up again. I need to keep my eyes on me. I focus on myself alot but I also watch everyone else like a hawk too! I am an almighty protector and I do not want anyone hurting the people I love or the people in our church. This is not my job. My job is to pray for protection and let God do the protecting. I was raised like this so this is going to be like taking a happy meal toy away from a 3 year old! But, I want to change. I want to be more loving and forgiving and not see the dishonesty before the honesty in people. I want to see them the way God would see them instead of the way the world sees them. Right now, I am no better than the people on the street as far as loving the people who are so messed up. I want to tell them to get it together and get on with life. It is a choice! I feel God wants me to be more merciful. That is why he put a friend in my life that is so merciful that can show me other ways of seeing things. Nothing happens by accident, people coming andd going from your life are not by accident, I believe. God gives and he takes away according to your needs. Thank you Lord for all the wonderful blessings in my life. I am truly truly coming back to the heart of worship because it is all about God!

Dawson's Call

Ty and I knew when God spared Dawson's life as an infant from Congestive Heart Failure that he had a plan for him and we had a big responsibilty as his parents to raise him knowing God. We did not know or claim to know what God had in store for him all those years ago but we knew Dawson was special. Now, we know without a doubt that he has been called into the ministry. Dawson felt that call a couple of years ago but it has been confirmed in many ways these last two weeks to him. What is so special about this situation is many people struggle with knowing whether they are really being called into the ministry or not but God has made it so clear to Dawson that he has not doubts whatsoever and Ty and I as his parents know now from his sickness and healing that God spared him for this reason. As a mom, I cannot even explain how peaceful it feels to know that God has chosen his child, my child, to lead his flock. I know with this brings hard times, temptations, frustrations, sacrifices that no other can understand other than those who are in ministry but the rewards will be seeing the lives of others being changed by walking so closely with God and sharing the word with all that he can. God has blessed my family so much by the people he has put in our paths and a few years ago he changed our direction a little and we thought we knew why but we really did not know anything. God lead us to the First Church of the Nazarene for so many reasons other then the ones we thought. We have grown beyond limits that we thought we could and are in less leaderships roles, we have built stronger relationships with people in a few years then with some people we have known a lifetime, and our children have grown in their faith to a knowledge we cannot keep up with. God is so good and we are so thankful he picked us! Dawson is forever changed and hopefully will be forever changing people with the spirit of God working within him. Our church is definitaly blessed with the Holy Spirit along with our Pastors and I thank them for giving their lives to the Lord and to their Church! My prayer is that God will unite every person that enters our doors and that we will all worship as one.

Youth Garage Sale

We worked yesterday getting things organized for the youth garage sale and we really got alot accomplished! Lorenia, Laura Fuller, Robyn Miller, Jeff E., Ty, Tracy, Ers, Shawn, Randalyn, Josh and Fallyn were all there. We are planning to get together again on Sunday immediately after church and work until whenever. Tracy has a very simple plan of pricing things and we hope to have more items to go through and put out. Please continue to bring things and spread the word so we can get as much as possible to sell. We have a great start and I think we will have an awesome turn out. Waymon will be running the ad for us in the paper this week. We will need workers for Friday as well as Saturday. If you think some of the parents of youth would come Sunday and help or bring stuff while we are there please give them a call. Thanks and hope to see you Sunday.

Believing in our Blessings

I called a friend this evening to talk about something that has been on my mind for awhile and the first thing she said to me was "Have you prayed about this?" before I could even talk about what was bothering me. I was able to answer yes!!! I was even able to tell her that I was not even mad, I just needed to take what was going on in my head and put it into words and get someone elses perspective to make sure I am on the right track. As I am talking, the longer I am talking, the less important this situation becomes to me. The more I talk the more I become focused on the many blessing that my life is filled with. It was so amazing! I started a conversation with a small bother that was making me uncomfortable to a feeling within me in minutes of how good I felt about how much God has given me in my life! I have such a wonderful loving husband. Two really good kids. A great church. A good job, very demanding but good. We always have enough money to pay the bills, put gas in our vehicles, and buy food. I have lots of very loving friends. I have a wonderful and supportive family. I have a nice home. I am in pretty good health compared to many. Why would I waste energy on anything other than the fact that I am blessed beyond measures and I have so much to be praising God for. So many times we focus on the tiny specks of negative that cloud our judgement or enter our minds, hearts, etc. and it only takes that speck to make us forget all the good that God has done. Think about when you have something in your eye how bad it hurts and how it feels like it is huge and you feel like you can not do anything else until you get it out of your eye. Your eyes are watering and you are absolutely miserable. You get what is in your eye out and you see that it is this tiny little thing that does not amount to anything that is causing you so much pain. It is a speck. When it is out you can see just fine but your eye is still red from irritation from that tiny little speck. What if you where wearing eye protection? You would not have the specks in your eyes. There would not be any lingering irritation. This is what God is trying to teach us by preparing ourselves with spending time with him in prayer and reading his word. We will have his protection so when the specks come at us we will not let them in! We are protected and they cannot irritate us. If they do we can handle them easier and the irritation does not last as long. I am so thankful that God never gives up on me! I have leaned on him so much lately and he has taught me so much about myself and I feel I am really growing. It is painful, there is no room for pride at all but I know from experience recently when I started removing specks from my eye, the world has become a more beautiful place!

Taking a break!

You are all at Youth right now and I am suppose to be studying! I have studied for two hours and I hit a wall of frustration and had to take a break! I came to check our blog sites and this was such a breath of fresh air. First, I see that Ty has accomplished his first blog and wrote such nice things and then I read Paige's blog about the Women's Retreat along with Brook's comment. I knew Saturday night when my mom called that I had missed a great thing but Sunday I was hit with several of my friends that I bonded with last year at the retreat that said it was so good. I vow to never miss another Women's Retreat again. I normally go to all of these type of things but Dawson had a Winter Guard Competition here this weekend that Ty and I had to work at and we had not seen him perform at any of them yet because they have all been out of town and we have been bad broke parents and have not traveled to them. So, I had already committed to work this event earlier in the year. I get there 30 minutes early to find out it has been cancelled due to the weather. This just makes it worse now knowing what all I missed! It never crossed my mind to go on to the retreat Saturday because I was suffereing from a migraine that I had all week. I even hosted a house full of people Friday night with the migraine! (which I enjoyed despite the pain!) I can't get the weekend back or the speaker back but I have learned that it is ok to put my needs first sometimes and tell people NO even if it involves kids and take a much needed ladies weekend for myself! I will be with the ladies next year!

My Heart Stopped

I play Bunco the 1st Monday of each month with a group of Christian Women that I have grown to love more this week then ever before. I normally go each month and play Bunco but I have been somewhat reserved with my "Bunco Babes" as we call it because I do not know them well and I have to really know you to trust you much. Well, even though they all seem really nice, the past year and half that I have spent one day a month with them has been really shallow on my part. That is until Monday, March 3rd, 2008! God made me "Get Real"! Here is my story!

Dawson who is 16 and you all know how overprotective or (if you must, you can call me overbearing), I am with my kids I have to know where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing at all times. Ty was working as always and I was off to Bunco. Dawson and I talked earlier and I told him I had to have the car so he would need to find a ride home with so in so or so in so. Can't mention names. I told Drew to have Dawson call me as soon as he got home. I left the house at 6:00 and Dawson should have finished practice at 6:30. He would be home no later than 7:00. I am playing and we are loud and having fun, the most fun I ever had at Bunco. Then I realize, my phone has not rang. I stop and call home. Dawson is not home yet. I ask what time it is and it is 8:00. I HONESTLY THINK MY HEART STOPPED! I got confused and questioned the again. When it was verified that is was really 8:00 things after that are a little fuzzy! What I can remember is Mary immediately was dialing his coaches number who she has in her phone. I am calling home again. I call another friend and ask for help. I call Ty. Still no Dawson. I am thinking he has been in an accident. So far, as a mother, this is the scariest thing I have ever experienced. Not just as a mother but ever! We almost lost Dawson as a baby to congestive heart failure and I was more scared Monday because of the unknown. Dawson shows up at home within minutes of the start of the phone calls and he was in our driveway all along talking to a friend. I was furious! Relieved he was alive but furious that he had been so irresponsible. Brook quickly came and hugged me, I remember once I knew he was okay. We continued playing and I did the best I could to contain my composure. I wanted to just cry! At the end we always have prayer request and we all started talking about my situation with Dawson. They were in fear of his life once I got home. Lorna suggested that I say nothing to Dawson right away and let him just have to think about what was to come and about what he had done. This is so not me! I did it anyway! I said nothing, not even the next morning. Not one word! I scheduled my parents to pick him up from practice the next night while I was at school and nothing was discussed. That night I met them at a restaurant after class where they were eating and I acted like nothing was wrong! He shared with me his success on a test and we acted like nothing happened. I decided to let him come to me. As soon as we get home and I change my clothes, I see him come in and out of his bedroom a couple of times looking nervous. Then about 5 minutes after we are home and I am settled, he comes to me and apologizes for the fear he caused me. He sincerely apologized and told me where he went wrong and why he would never do that to me again. I just sat and listened and when he was through, I said "Thank you". My hearted stopped the night before when I thought he was hurt or dead but my heart broke when he came to me and owned up to his mistake like a man. To all my Bunco Babes, thank you! They were praying while I was franticking, they shared with me and loved me through this in a way I would have never done on my own. I believe God worked through these women to reach me and show me how to be merciful when my child made a mistake. I learned more about loving Dawson this week then I ever have. I have to give to him time and space in order to receive! Love you all!

Living to learn

It amazes me that no matter how old we get or how much we think we know, God continues to remind us that we have so much more to learn. Every week I learn so much more about what God has in store for me in my life and how he wants me to grow and move out of my comfort zone. We think we are the youth sponsors and we are there to lead the youth but I promise you that there is not a week that goes by that I do not leave knowing God has spoken to me that night and has shown me where I need to step up my game. Raising two teenagers so far has been the hardest experience of my life but yet, the most rewarding. On more than one occaision I know I have told them that Ty and I are not experienced at being parents of teenagers and we are learning as we go just like they are not experienced at being teenagers and are learning as they go. It is all trial and error and there are so many bumps and bruises along the way that leaves us so scarred and sore sometimes but in the end I know as a family we will be strong. I feel this same way as a Christian. It does not matter that I have been a Christian for such a long time, and that I have been a leader in my youth group when I was a kid, and a camp counselor for as long as I can remember and worked in a church in some compacity for most of my adult life as a volunteer. I still fall daily and bump my knee, I still stay sore and get stiff, BUT what I do know is that I have a Father who loves me and picks me up when I fall and dusts me off and sends me on to try again. He never gives up on me. I may give up on myself but he never gives up on me. Now, my job is to remember he is always there and lean on him when I am weak and unstable so that I do not fall and when I am strong I need to praise him for his strength and use his strength for his glory. If I use this in my parenting skills with my children, imagine what kind of home my house could really be? Love you guys!