This One Thing

As the New Year approaches, what are you focused on? Have you made your list of New Year Resolutions? Did you know that 40 to 45% of American adult make one or more resolutions each year. Among the top new years resolutions are resolutions about weight loss, exercise, and stopping to smoke. Also popular are resolutions dealing with better money management / debt reduction. The following shows how many of these resolutions are maintained as time goes on:
- past the first week: 75%
- past 2 weeks: 71%
- after one month: 64%
- after 6 months: 46%

Now what would you say if I told you there is a way to achieve all your goals by just focusing on One Thing? I am just going to brush the surface of a message I heard, but if you feel lead to hear the whole message you can go to http://www.impactchurch.info/ and listen to the podcast from Sunday December 27th, 2009!

The bible gives us several referances to this One Thing. Lets start with Philipians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." ...
This is the core to what I am about to share. Now if you go back just one chapter to Philipians 3:10-14 you will find more! Referring back to achieving all your goals... Phil 3:13-14..."forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

Are you seeing where I am going with this?

Now there is priority which has to take place when you are trying to achieve a goal, so lets talk about that for a minute. Matt. 6:33, "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things will be given to you as well."

JESUS HAS TO BE THE CENTERPIECE OF YOUR LIFE!

This is the One Thing that should be our focus for the New Year! So go shred, tear up or burn that list of New Year Resolutions that you have been writing, start reading your bible instead and keep your eye on the prize! I know I am!

Bah Humbug

I am trying not to feel this way, but I do. I am in a rut and cannot seem to pull myself out. There are no signs of Christmas at our house. While everyone else talks of decorating, baking, putting up the tree, shopping, etc., there is none of that happening here! We are struggling financially and even though I know that is not what Christmas is all about; the shopping for gifts I mean. It is still depressing to know that I cannot even afford to go to the dollar store right now. It is depressing to know that I scheduled an appointment to get family pictures done and I might have to cancel because in all reality we cannot afford it. Christmas has just become another day on the calendar and that well is depressing. I think of it as work; putting up the tree is work, decorating is work, putting up the stockings is work. I usually put out our Christmas Cards, but I have not because well it is depressing. It reminds me of the fact that I cannot afford the stamps to send out any of my own. Nathan and Alex do not believe in Santa anymore and Abigail and Luke are too young to care, so that is depressing. I honestly don't even know if I want to teach Abigail and Luke to believe in Santa. I am trying to get in touch with the true meaning of Christmas, but that is not even helping. I think it is because I have always believed Christmas is about giving and well we cannot afford to give and that is depressing. My mom and dad are doing this www.christmasjars.com for Christmas next year and when I heard about it I thought, "I am a needy family right now!" I honestly felt like they should have been offering us some kind of help and not asking us if we wanted to help. That is depressing because I know there are families worse off then us, but we still have needs. Yes, we have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and food in our stomachs (barely), but our bills are piling up, the food we have is from a food closet, and well he clothes are the same clothes we have had for years and years. It would be nice to be able to go grocery shopping, buy a new outfit for the kids, pay rent on time, etc. I am not trying to sound ungrateful or greedy, because I am neither of those, I am just well depressed and not feeling the Christmas spirit this year. So Bah Humbug!

What are you Thankful for?

What are you Thankful for? If I had a penny for how many times I have heard this question in just the last day I would be rich. What are you thankful for, well where do I start. I am thankful for the wonderful family that I have. I am thankful for my mom, who I still think is superwomen. I am thankful for my dad for supporting us all. I am thankful for my wonderful husband who has gone above and beyond what I ever imagined. I am thankful for my awesome children, who have come a long way. I am prouder of them then anything I have ever been proud of. I am thankful for a roof over my family;s head, food in our tummies, and the jobs that my husband and I have. Although we have struggled and contine to struggle, we have each other and for that I am so thankful. I am thankful for my church family and all that they have done for my family. You all cannot believe how much you mean to us!! I am thankful that I am walking with God by my side. I would never have made it where I am without him. I am thankful for good friends and co workers. I am thankful for all the men and women who are putting their lives on the line to give us the freedom that we have. I am thankful for our health and healthcare. I am thankful for answered prayers. I am thankful for all the little things. I am sure there are many other things that I am thankful for and I am forgeting them. What are you thankful for?

Leeps and Bounds

As this year comes to an end, I have been reflecting on my marriage, my kids, and just life! I don't get a lot of time to do this normally, but some recent health issues gave me a chance to slow down. On November 3 I had what is called a Leep Procedure to remove abnormal cells that were found on my cervix and in my vaginal canal. Sorry for TMI, but that is what it is! This was due to the HPV virus and found during a routine pap smear. The pap smear came back abnormal and my OBGYN did further test to find the abnormal cells. It is not Cancer, but what she called, "Precursors". The Leep procedure is an outpatient procedure, so I was home the same day. I was on strict bed rest for the rest of the day, and light duty after that. This gave me lots of time to reflect on things!

During my time of reflection, I decided to make some changes; good changes. I am spending more time with my kids, my husband and most importantly my Bible. I realized that all those things are getting dusty because I leave them on the shelf for too long before I pick them up and pay attention to them. Life is too short to take these important items for granted. It is time for me to step up and for me to put my actions where my mouth is. This is going to be hard for me because I have a lot of bad habits I need to break, but I will do it for my family.

Alex is doing better in school now and I need to step up to encourage him. I need to be a good role model and show him that hard work pays off. Nathan is growing up and becoming a man, so I need to work hard to lead him in the right direction. My husband is a hard worker and provider for our family and I need to show him that we appreciate him. So with that being said, I am off to go care for the baby, read my bible and get some housework done!

Abigail pictures

LONG OVER DUE I know! Abigail is 5 months old today! She is about 14lbs 10 oz. and I am not sure how long. She is still nursing, but gets solid food everyday around 6pm. I am making most of her food and sometimes give her store bought. We are cloth diapering at home 90% of the time.She can roll in both directions. She interacts with toys, people, the cat and anything else she sees. She is almost crawling and we predict she will be fully crawling by Thanksgiving. She is very happy and spoiled.
Luke is so good with her and so are the other boys. It is so fun having a girl in the house. She is definately the baby! She gets held a lot and loved on by everyone. We are going to have to put up the baby gates again soon, so that she stays in one room. It seems like we just took them down. We will also be transistioning her into her room soon. She has been in our room since birth. She will share a room with Luke. I am a little anxious of this transisition and not sure how either her or Luke are going to handle it. I will let you all know how it goes!

FYI

People have been asking for pictures and I would love to comply. However, our computer is on the frits and I cannot upload pictures right now. Just thought I would let you all know that!

Sickness

A horrible sickness plagued our home this last week! It started on Thursday with Nathan suffering flu like symptoms. Then on Friday Alex was not feeling well and threw up that evening. By Saturday Luke and Abby were coughing and Abby had a fever. Sunday it hit Lloyd and he ended up calling in sick on Monday. I am the only one who did not get it. Abby and Lloyd are still fighting it and the rest of the family seems to be doing better. I hate that Abby has it because she is miserable. She sounds hoarse from coughing and I keep having to suck her nose so she can breath. I took her to the doctor and he says it is just a cold and she should be better in a week! That seems like an eternity to me! He also said not to give her medicine because it does not make the cold go away it just makes her feel better! Well DUH! Isn't that the whole idea is to make her feel better. I have been giving her little bits of cough medicine when I feel she is really needing it, but I try not to give her to much. With this sickness has come new challenges with Luke. He is not eating much these days. I would say he gets 95% of his calories from drinking milk. I am trying to put a stop to this, but it is hard when that is all he wants. To get him to eat these last few days we are having to treat him like a baby. Even then we can only get him to take about 3-5 bites. It is very frustrating! I know this shall pass and prays it does so quickly! On a side note, Nathan got a position on the Freshmen football team and is working hard to stay with it. He has practice everyday after school and does not get home until after 6pm. I wish Alex would find an extra curricular activity to put all his energy into!