Well...whatdoyouknow??

Amazingly the past year of my life has been...SHEW!! Busy, chaotic, aggressive, calming..you name it! But over the past year I have learned some valuable life lessons. I don't want to ever forget them so here they are...

In the midst of chaos, you can have peace.

Seemingly normal people will do anything to feel more important including abandoning their family and call it God for justification.

Never confuse boldness with rudeness OR vice versa!

Until my children are grown up and moved out I will have mismatched ornaments and kid friendly Christmas decorations.

Don't EVER leave your car lights on (not even for a minute)

Change is inevitable...GO WITH IT.

No matter where you go...there you are! Running never solves a thing.

Even folks with the best intentions can twist scripture to make it line up with what their flesh believes.

People LIE.

Some things you dread can turn out to be so easy (like potty training a 2 year old boy) when you make the decision to refuse to apply pressure.

What's in your heart will for sure come out when the pressure is on.

It is neccessary to be content with where you are before you can really go anywhere else.

I have the best pastor ever and an awesome church family.

Never, ever assume that you know what someone's home life is like.

Although 24 hours in a day is never enough, 24 hours in a day is plenty.

Girl time is a MUST.

I have the best book club members!

Dunkin Donuts has YUMMY hot chocolate.

I have a GREAT husband that loves me.

Praise and Worship isn't about who is on stage. It's what I make of it.

TV is overrated.

Mickey Mouse Club House must have subliminal messages because my son is addicated (HOT DOG)

I know lots more about football than I give myself credit for.

It's ok for friends to grow apart and go separate ways. It happens.

I am NEVER gonna be satisfied with my hair :)

When I am open to give, I am open to receive (GULP!)

Kristen Miller ROCKS! Heather Seyer ROCKS! Michelle Rodgers ROCKS and I love the new bonds being created.

Pinterest should have a 12 step program. Hello! My name is Michelle and I am a Pinterestaholic (Check out itsthesmallthings blog...it's awesome! I found it via Pinterest)

I am called to minister to women. Just typing that makes my tummy flip flop. I think that is God prompting me to believe it!!

When something doesn't feel right...listen! It's probably God ;)

The biggest thing I have learned so far?? God speaks to me loud and clear. I will never, ever misread the signs from him. He is my rock. My provider. He has called me to his kingdom and takes me as I am. I will be bold. I will be honest (with myself and others). I will yield to the annoiting and just BE!!

The End!

Call a tow truck!!

Funny story...my two kiddo's had an incident a couple of days ago. My son asked my daughter to start his car one cold morning. Now my daughter is only 14 and has only driven maybe twice. Both times she was driving my AUTOMATIC car. Well, his car is a straight drive. He gave her instructions but she said to him, "I don't know how" his response, "Yes, you do"...needless to say that turned out with a car stuck in the mud in the neighbors yard and my clothes line on the ground. Well, a tow truck came and pulled the car out and all is well but today I was thinking that I would take some pictures of the tire tracks and the fallen clothes line just so we could look back some day and laugh when all of sudden it hit me. This is exactly what happens when we expect someone to do something they are not capeable of.

Don't we do that with people all the time? We expect them to fulfill our lives, create our happiness, complete us and when they don't...CRASH goes our world. There is only one person that can fulfill our lives, create our happiness and complete us and that person is God. What a great remembrance. I knew this but it was a sweet reminder this morning.

It goes along with something else that I have learned over the past couple of months. I have felt so invisible for such a long time. It seemed like I would show up to events and remain unseen. Now, I don't know if that is true or not. That could simply be a vain imagination. Either way, I have to remember that if NOONE else in this world ever chooses to sit beside me, if NOONE else ever chooses to invite me to lunch or a dinner party, if NOONE else ever SEES me in my happy times or my times of need GOD SEES ME. Think about Haggar a minute. She was going along minding her own business working for Abraham and Sarah. Sarah asked something of her and she did it then Sarah turned on her. Because Sarah was so mean to her Haggar fled to the desert(side note: Haggar's name means "Flight", interesting huh?) anyway, while out in that desert you know Haggar must have felt invisible. Invisible to everyone around her-especially to God. But then an angel appeared. Another side note: God didn't wait for Haggar to come to him...he met her where she was in her desert. Everyone knows the story. After the angel appeared to her and gave her instruction, Haggar gave God the name "El Roi" the God who sees!! He sees US. He sees YOU and ME. He sees that we are scared. He sees that we need comfort. He sees when we are happy and when we celebrate. He sees everything and CARES about US. That is such an amazing thing.

So, remember...don't expect things from people that they aren't equipped to do. Expect everything from God knowing he SEES you. If you expect things from people they can't provide, we might have to call a tow truck! :)

Honoring my time

Since I missed day #2 I decided that I should really honor my time. Time is precious and once it's gone you can't get it back. I love to spend my time doing things I love like spending time with my kiddo's and Jason. I LOVE girl time with the best girls ever. MOVIES are another one of my favorite past times. In order to honor time so I can do my favorite things I will make them a priority. Things that really don't matter so much will not seek precedence. TV, Dishes, Laundry...you guys can wait :)

31 days

Like everyone else in the cyberworld, I am going to do a 31 days of...
But unlike everyone else it's not gonna be Thankfulness! I am gonna choose 31 days of HONOR!

For 31 days I will find things that I will choose to HONOR and decide how I will HONOR them.

Day 1:
GOD!

I will honor God with my words and my actions.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the world and what is going on around us that we forget to do a self check about what is coming out of our mouth and what our hands and feet are doing! I will honor God by choosing words of life, by lending a helping hand, by offering a compassionate ear. When someone needs it I will have a strong, non-judgmental shoulder to cry on. My feet will take those difficult steps needed to mend a fence if I have offended someone. My heart will be wide open to forgiveness of myself and of others! Today, I will HONOR God.

I've got my memories. They're always inside of me, but I can't go back
Back to how it was. I believe it now, I've come too far!
I can't go back. Back to how it was!
I was created for a place I've never known.

This is home! Now I'm finally where I belong. I've been searching for a place of my own. Now I've found it.

Enough said...

Blogging is good for the soul...

Blogging is good for the soul. I posted that on Facebook a couple of days ago but I don’t think I realized how true that is. As I type this, I am hoping that my soul can shake some of the grief and sadness I have been feeling for the past couple of months. I knew something was up with me but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I wasn’t myself.

I felt heavy.

I felt out of sorts. I felt out of place. Shaken up. Weighed down.

D.E.P.R.E.S.S.E.D.

I couldn’t figure it out…

Along comes praise and worship…isn’t it funny how God talks to you at just the right time??

There have been so many changes happen in my life! Some of them subtle and some of them M.A.J.O.R. but changes none the less and with most changes I can embrace them! Adapt and Overcome!

But these changes that have happened lately were of a different kind. These were people changes. That’s weird to say but that’s what they were.

Steady people are hard to find but I found some. When I say steady, I mean steady. You could count on them to be where you knew they would be. I LOVE these people. I had relationships with these people. When I would need advice about things I would ask these people and there were lots of them. Then one day these people were G.O.N.E.

Back to praise and worship…
I was praising and thanking God for my life and family. Not openly and shouting and raising the roof, just quiet to myself cause I really wanted to sing. We were singing a song that I really like but I just needed to thank him. Normally, my talks with God do not consist of a begging for things or asking for things its normally a thank you session for the things I have but this time I really needed this burden/this heaviness lifted off of me. I know the scripture “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I needed REST.
One question: God, WHAT IS UP WITH ME? One answer: YOU NEED TO GRIEVE.
Grieve? For what? That’s when it came…

If anyone has ever had to break the news to a child about divorce this will be easily understood. I realized also last night that anyone that says this to a child is a liar (maybe not on purpose but this is not a true statement). Here it goes:
“Mommy and Daddy are getting divorced. Things will not be different. We will just live in different houses”
That is so not true. Things will be different. Things will be VERY different.

This is where I was. I had gone through several “Mini-divorces”. I had people saying, “It’s not going to be different. We will still be here, just in a different place”….bologna! Things are different. Our interaction is different. Our relationship is different. My confidence in stability is different and it hurts my heart. It hurts my soul. Going certain places is a constant reminder that you aren’t here! And you know what? I am angry.

BUT, just like children that love their parents, I love my steady people (insert smiley face here). I still love them with my whole heart and always will. I will grieve; I will move on, my heart will heal.
I already feel a little lighter today. My heart feels a little happier.
I have done a couple of things to jump start the process:
1. I have asked God to heal my heart. (Rip off the band-aid and start over)
2. I have let these people go to be the people that God intended them to be. He is my stability.
3. I have made a commitment to myself to continue in a relationship with my steady people because DUH…they help keep me steady and are certainly in my heart forever!
4. I am SO THANKFUL for the people in my life. ALL OF THEM. The one’s close up and the one’s a little further away!
Thank God for praise and worship!! Thank God for his stability!! Thank God for thankfulness!!

Somedays you just gotta laugh!

So I don’t normally blog about my dreams but my good friend actually inspired me to do this. I know that I want to start a dream journal but me and writing with a pen doesn’t really make me all gooey on the inside so I think I will start here!

Here we go:
I was in our café at church and there were two people that appeared to be speaking (the man was dominating the room and the woman just kind of in the background). One of my friends was standing and watching our Pastor with a look in her eyes like “I was supposed to be speaking tonight”. We were all just sitting around and chatting. Well, our Pastor finally looked at my friend and said, “Is he here?” and she said YES so Pastor interrupted the man and my friend took the floor. She said, “If you want to see God look at the ceiling tiles”. Everyone started doing this but me. I laughed on the inside and said to myself, “that is the silliest thing I have ever heard”…God in the ceiling tiles? Really? Then out of nowhere this force started pushing me out of my chair. I fought it too. With all my might I fought it but eventually it won and there I lay on the floor LAUGHING uncontrollably. No one was looking at me or paying me any attention but there I lay on the floor laughing. That’s when God said, “If you would just do things the way I say the first time it would be easy”

Life lesson? YES…

God puts people in our lives to direct us. Sometimes the things or the people that God puts in your path may seem illogical or silly at times (like God being in the ceiling tiles) but they are there for a reason and being obedient is important. That doesn’t mean that you do or say EVERYTHING someone tells you too. By all means, use your own wisdom and the Holy Spirit will guide you but you might be surprised where God shows up!