Living Beyond yourself

Ok, so that is the title of a Beth Moore study that I am currently working on...based on the Fruit of the Spirit.


I am just in the first lesson, but I felt discouraged today because it's so different and "disjointed" in comparison to the Daniel study that I did last year. I flipped to the front of the book and saw that the copy right date is 1998...Daniel study is 2007. Let me just point out this one thing...she has gotten a LOT better. LOL


Anyhow, there is still some pretty good stuff in here if you take the time to slow down and reread certain parts. She shoved so much in these chapters and has you looking up 3 or 4 verses for each point. Now she zones in and goes much deeper into ONE verse. I guess that is more my style, I like to pick one area apart and turn it over 100 times and get every bit out of it instead of skimming 4 verses to gather their common theme. BTW, she just finished a study on Esther....I LOVE THAT BOOK of the bible. It will be interesting to see what she gleaned from it.


Okay, I need to focus, now who's flitting about?

I had to answer a question at the end of this chapter and my own answer suprised me. We read through Galatians 2:20, " I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I read through her 10 very in depth points on the characteristics of a crucified life.

1. Few will understand.

2. you must abandon your own will and your own agenda.

3. Your intimate spiritual companions will be few.

4. Intense times of aloneness with God are required.

5. You will be constantly on the witness stand.

6. You must go "outside the camp".

7. There will be times when your dignity is forfeited.

8. you must fore go your rights.

9. You must accept that death is painful.

10. Because He was forsaken, you never will be.



Which of these characteristics of a crucified life spoke most personally to you? - the question

I am tired and it's late and I instantly wrote something without giving it a ton of thought. I wrote that "Death is painful" was the one that stood out. Then I had to sit up and stare at my painting of "starry night"...it brings me focus . Why did I write that so quickly? What made that stand out to me? I turned back to my book and wrote..." The "death" of things that I desire so strongly is surprisingly excruciating". Sometimes I beg and pray for God to take that "pain" or to change the outcome, but it never seems to happen quickly. Lots and lots of sleepless nights are a result as I wade through it...lots of pain. How silly am I? Death IS painful....and if I am killing off something in me that is not God's will, then it will hurt. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh....thank you 10 years ago Beth Moore for bringing your chaotic book into my brain today. LOL



Interesting to me anyhow. Now I guess I will go stare at Stary Night some more....the chaos of the sky is beautiful, but the tiny church standing boldly in the center of that painting....ahhhhhh that's the beauty. That's our "island" in the storm, you know? The over powering mountain (evil), the chaos and madness of the sky ( life)...the little church is the center of the painting...the center of "life". Can we stand firm in the midst of evil and chaos? Can we be like that island of stability in this painting? You can if you aren't afraid of the pain of "death"...being crucified with Christ and giving up that stuff that He doesn't want from us or for us. It's not an easy road, for sure...but it's my road, it's my choice.

Typical morning

Jake is such a character...he really is "different".

This is my morning with Jake far.

7:30 - Wakes me up by coming into my room with a prescription tube of cream for his eczema. "Mom put this on my arm because I think bugs are crawling on my skin and making me itch".

I go downstairs and ask what he wants for breakfast. He answers me with , "Bleep blorp" because he is wearing a soccer ball Easter basket on his head as a helmet and apparently he is now an alien astronaut. Then he says, "Hey mom, can I wear this for Halloween? Can we go to Shelby's house today and tell her it's Halloween and then she can give us candy".
Me - "you can wear that for Halloween, but we are not going to lie to Shelby and make her give you candy. You just have to wait until Halloween".
Jake- "okay, but do you think they sell Austin costumes?"
Me - " Now you want to be a backyardigan? I thought you wanted to wear that soccer ball on your head?"
Jake- "I do! I am going to be Austin soccer ball head martian".

I get the child some cereal and come upstairs to read email. He pops back up here pretty quickly and proceeds to tell me that I am required to give him "ten thousand one hundred million fifty six dollars" when he scores a goal tonight at soccer. Whatever!
Then he goes onto his tirade of questions that require no answer, nor does he wait for a response.

- I am going to play for the Indians. I'm a good batter.
- Do I need a blue bat or a brown one?
- I think I'll play for the Dodgers too because I miss Casey Blake.
- Is it winter? It's cold outside (yells out the window, "hello winter")
-Mom, can we go outside when it's cold?
- Is Alex coming to my game tonight? She will give me 26 billion dollars for every goal and then I am buying toys and a cool shirt.
-Logan has a Wii , but he doesn't play it because his mom said he's little.
- I am getting bigger cuz I drank milk today.
- what color is my tongue?
- If I lived in Bikini bottom I would be spongebob and you can be one of the fish in the Krusty Krab and I will make you a Krabby Patty.
- Dad can be Squidward, but he never eats so I am not cooking for him.
- what time is it?
- When's my game? Can we go now and wait?

Suddenly he leaves the room and comes back dressed in his soccer uniform. The game is only 9 hours away...tick tock...

- Mom, I am scoring a lot a lot a lot a lot of goals tonight.
- I think it's warmer now, can we go outside and play soccer?
- I think you are pretty. (his form of bribery I guess)
- How do you spell Noah? Is it N O? His name says "no"...hhhaaahahaa
- I don't want to spell Haliegh cuz it's to big, but I can spell Alex, A - l - e- x
- I can do a better cartwheel than Mikaela, but Alex does a better one than me
- I'm gonna go watch tv

Sheesh....that is like in 10 minutes time with a lot of swinging a bat, jumping on the bed and kicking a ball mixed in. He's so silly, that child. I'm sure anyone else with a child under the age of 8 can relate. Your ears get tired!!

Soccer and Jake

It's hard to believe that Jake will be playing his last soccer game tomorrow. He had a rough start, but ended up having a wonderful experience. He is considerably smaller than the rest of his team as you can see in this picture, but he didn't let his size become a hindrance. Once he came out of his shell he was a force to be reckoned with!! LOL

He was shy and scared his first game against the "yellow" team and they beat us 9-1, but it was a different story last week when we played them again. Jake decided that he was the "sweeper" and no one was going to score. He played like he was on Micah's U-15 competitive team. He hawked that ball and did not let the other team score. He would chase down anyone who tried to make a fast break and slide kick the ball out of bounds. He was ruthless and aggressive...and made 2 or 3 kids leave the field crying (because Jake didn't let them score). At one point he stole the ball and ran all the way across the field to his goal and scored. Then he ran back to the middle of the field screaming, "YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH". I knew he'd be like that if he got past his shyness. He smiles the entire time he is on the field, as you can see in this picture as he's punting the ball away from a boy that was making a break for the goal.

The final score for that game was 7-1 (the other team scored their only goal when Jake was not in the game). Our team lost their first 2 games, but once Jake decided to really play, they've been undefeated. He's a nut!!

I just wanted everyone to know that his first year of soccer ended really well for him and he's sad to see it end. However...we start gymnastics next week, so here we go again! LOL

Time flies

This is my favorite picture of all time.

Micah asked me yesterday if we could go to Mill Creek park and look at the leaves and this picture instantly came to mind. Jake was about 1 month past his first birthday and still a bit wobbly in his walking, but he was in extreme independent mode. He saw that path before him and would have nothing to do with holding my hand because he wanted to explore.

I guess it's because he's my baby, but I felt a pang of sorrow go through me when I took this picture because I knew that within a blink of an eye I would be taking him to his first day of school and suddenly it would be time to plan his graduation party. There was my baby...my little miracle child...taking his first independent trip away from mom. He was completely oblivious to the dangers around him, but they were so clear to me. I came home that day and printed the picture and stuck it to my fridge. Tilden asked me why I liked it because, "you can't even see Jake's face". I don't need to see his face- - I love the picture because of the journey and the fact that he was so small. I caught a moment in time that symbolized his future as well. It's priceless to me.

January has never felt like the beginning of a new year to me. It's always September when the leaves change and the kids start a new grade in school. It's a new beginning and they are a year older suddenly and we are transitioning from summer into the "cold" months. You don't realize how much the kids have grown over the summer until you have to buy them new winter clothes. My jaw dropped when I took Micah to Kohl's for some jeans and he needed a size 14. Just last fall the size 12's were to big on him. I am going to wake up tomorrow and he will be asking me for the car keys. Time is no friend to a mother.

As I start MY new year and track the progress of my 4 amazing children, I love to stop in front of my refrigerator and freeze time as I look at this picture of Jake. He was starting on his journey down his path of life. All I can do is pray that he makes it safely "around". Alex , Caleb and Micah all started on that same path just as determined as Jake. It makes me proud and sad at the same time. sigh

Hurricane?

Apparently, we have just felt the remnants of Hurricane Ike. We knew that the rain was coming and it poured Friday night and most of Saturday, but we were not prepared for the winds. There were no weather warnings on the tv until well after 8pm, but by that point most of us were without power anyhow.

Our power went out around 7pm last night. I called dad to see if he still had power over in Howland and he did, so we piled in the car at 7:30 and drove over there to watch the Browns game. Wouldn't you know that on our way there I got a call from mom that said, "Hey, our power just went out too". LOL Since we were already on our way we decided to go there anyhow. We sat on the front porch and tried to cool off because it was soooo muggy and the wind was actually hot. Dad brought out his radio and his 3 inch (yes I said INCH) portable tv. We listened to the first quarter of the game and took turns watching the mini screen. Jake was not happy though. He was scared of the wind and wanted to go home. Since the Steelers scored and the Browns were not making me happy, we went home. Driving home was crazy though. Most of the traffic signals were without power and the roads were littered with branches and other debris. We got home and our power was still out, therefor we could not open the garage door. Our entire town was dark , so seriously it was pitch black outside. From the headlights of the van I could see that we had a big branch on the garage roof. I said, quite casually, "oh look, we lost a big branch". Then I got out of the van and walked along using my cell phone as a light and found that I couldn't open the gate to our back yard. I peered through there with my very poor flashlight phone and said, "ohhhh man, it's a whole tree and it's blocking the door". We went around to the front door and got the lantern (I highly recommend keeping a big camp lantern within close range at all times. It's annoying and collects dust most of the time, but in a moment like that- it's your best friend in the world).

Micah and I crept our way around branches at the back door to get around the tree and we were horrified and fascinated by what we saw. Our giant maple tree had split in half. Half of the tree was still standing and the other half actually split into 2 halves and fell in 2 different directions. We couldn't really see to much because it was dark, but we saw enough to feel lucky!! Our power came back on and we got to watch the last 2 quarters of the Browns/Steelers game on our beautiful 47" LCD HDTV screen. ahhhhh...to bad the Browns disappointed me yet again!

This morning I went out and took pictures. It's pretty fascinating when you look at these shots. Consider the fact that my neighbors built a new garage in June this year and look where that tree fell. What are the odds that it didn't fall on my garage or their garage? God was taking care of that for sure!

Can you believe how that split?

Micah is standing there to help show the size of the tree.

This branch came through the roof of our garage.

What's with sleeping?

Seriously, what gene is missing in our family that makes us stay awake for hours on end night after night after night.

Here is an average night...since as far back as my memory goes. YES, I do remember staying up half the night when I was 5 or 6 years old. Maybe the massive memory quality links to the non sleeping thing too. Hmmmm....this is boring, I think I'll interject a picture of me the last time I slept through the night.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Night time thoughts...feel free to add your own...

- did I remember milk when I went to the store? Oh yeah, I bought that.

-wait...did I need milk? Did I put it away? I don't remember seeing it when I unloaded groceries.

-Danggit...is that a moth? Why is there a moth in here? I wonder if it came through the air conditioner. Maybe I'll turn the tv on and it will be attracted to the light.

- Dude, I've seen this episode of Will and Grace like a million times, I love this one. It's so clever, but I guess it wouldn't make sense if you haven't seen "The Sound of Music". Why does Grace have a moustache? OHHHHH that's the moth. I wonder how you spell moustache...I should turn the computer on and type in into a word document and let it fix it for me.

- Kill moth, step on hot wheels car, stub toe on dresser...fall back into bed.

- I should turn the tv off...the moth is dead. Well, it's only 1:15am I might as well stay up until 1:30.

- Was that the cat? Why is she so noisy? She's a cat for crying out loud, be fleet footed already you fat cow. I wonder if cow's are smart? They don't look smart. At least Maggie LOOKS smart, but she's probably stupid.

- Ohhhhh WHY do they start the next episode of Will and Grace without putting a commercial in between? Now I HAVE to watch it...I like this Fanilow episode. Ha, I remember when "Mandy" came out and was a new song. I think I was in Jr. High. Janine used to listen to Y-103 non stop and I remember hearing it anyhow.

- I wonder if Micah is buying lunch tomorrow or packing. He's so picky!

- I wonder if Alex is awake. I used to catch her up at all hours of the night reading books or making doll clothes out of Kleenex for her barbies....man, I had the coolest Barbie Jet. I wonder what happened to that? I wish mom had saved our old toys. I would love to have my old Bionic woman doll and her car...but those wires in the car never hooked up to her arm like they were supposed to. that was so frustrating!! Is is so hard to make toys that work? Sheesh!!

- great...now I've been up long enough that I need to go to the bathroom again.

Eventually...sleep wins and I doze off. But what a pointless conversation I have with myself on a weekly basis. How about you? I KNOW Allie is up planning on places to store her cell phone in case of a water landing. LOL

Oh my gosh, ALLLLISON...I stayed up the other night planning exactly what I would take and how I would pack it up if we were ever evacuated for a tornado or hurricane or fire. I'm so ready now...in my mind. :)

Vita...will you do my hair?

Dorm rooms

Alex and Caleb have been living in the dorm for 2 whole weeks now and they are basically settled in. Jake and I went to "cowage" yesterday to eat lunch with the big kids. We ate in the cafeteria, which is Jacob's favorite thing to do, btw. Afterwards we went to Alex and Caleb's rooms to hang out for a bit. I didn't end up bringing my camera because I had to much other "crap" to bring....so use your rusty old imaginations!!
First, we went to Alex's room. Jake immediately took his shoes off and climbed up on Alex's top bunk to play with her stuffed dog. He looked down and said, "I can't jump from here or I will die and break my knee". LOL He came down and rolled around on the carpet for awhile and then played with the refrigerator magnets and admired all the pictures on the walls and doors. It was such a "girl" room. They have coloring pages taped to the walls and little decorations scattered all around to make it cute and homey. Their comforters are bright colors and the doors are covered with little foamie people or animals bearing their names. (the get a new one each year, but like to save the old ones and hang them up together) The 8 "girl" suite shares a common room that is neat and tidy and rarely has anyone lounging around. Most of the girls are in their rooms studying or at class when we visit.
Caleb lives on the same floor, but in an 18 "man" suite. He has one room mate, just like Alex has. We walked all the way around the floor to get to Caleb's room and one minute after arriving Jake said, "I want to go back to Alex's room". hahaha It's such a BOY room!! They don't want a carpet, so they just have the bare linoleum floor. The room looks exactly as it did the day we moved Caleb in, except for the addition of his Arsenal soccer poster hanging on the wall. He and his room mate have solid dark colored sheets and absolutely no decorations or things that make it "individualized". Not a single toy exist...no stuffed animals...no pictures to look at, except for the single shot of Micah playing soccer that is magneted to Caleb's fridge. Micah should feel REALLY loved!! The big difference is the common room. The boys are lounging in there all over the place. They are draped across every chair and couch watching each other play video games on the communal tv. There is a Rock Band set of drums in the middle of the room with tube socks rubber banded to each drum head. Apparently, they are trying to muffle the sound, but it looks more like someone is drying their socks. It has such a boy "feel" to the room....stinky and messy. LOL They all looked pretty happy though, so I guess it suites them fine.
We walked back to Alex's room where she promptly sat at her desk and got her biology book out to study. I just had to laugh on my way home with the final sights of dorm life. Alex at her desk with her Little Mermaid light up pen and Caleb in front of the tv , playing some crazy Lego star wars game on X-Box. They are no longer living at home, but they haven't changed a bit!! Caleb will probably have all his books and projects strewn about his bedroom floor late at night. He's always done that...covered his bedroom floor with his homework at 11pm, he's a late night crammer. Alex isn't willing to give up her precious sleep for study time, so she does it in the day when she's "alert". heehee
That is my story...hope you had some nice pictures in your mind!

yes, more soccer

I just wanted to update my "siesta's" on Jake's soccer progress. LOL

He played his second game and he was sick with a cold...and it was drizzling outside. It didn't stop him and he was anxious to be out there with his team. His first game was a disaster, full of tears and tons of jangled nerves.

He did a fine job and took part in the game like the rest of the "pack". He even saved 2 goals from going in and his team won that game. He didn't play up to his full potential, but I think he will be the ball hog that he truly is within the next 2 games. It just takes him awhile to warm up.

I didn't take any pictures during his second game because of the rain. Here are a few shots from his first game...when he was scared to death! LOL He looks so dang cute in his over sized shirt and little shin guards.