Heartache and Hangups

Berkley will be 9months on Thursday! Oh, how she has blessed my world!


The sermon on Sunday was about how when you are generous, you will be rewarded tenfold. Other thoughts that follow along those lines are: when you give, you recieve; when you forgive, you will be forgiven; you need to show mercy, to get mercy. (BTW, sorry for using semicolons and what not incorrectly. I have only taught 4th grade and below and I totally forgot highschool English/Grammar).

Anywho....listening to these principles in church and knowing in your heart you have some work to do, are easy. It is stepping out those doors and walking the walk. I have some things in my life I need to repair. Relationships, habits, etc. I can sit there and logically know that a verse is speaking to me. I need to forgive, so I can be forgiven. I need to do this, because when I do it has an impact on me. It impacts my thoughts, my actions, my faith, others around me, and my future. It is so hard though to take that first step. Especially when the last time you took it...it blew up in your face. It didn't work. You got hurt, again. What I notice in those last few sentences is the word I, over and over. I keep focusing on how I am hurt, how I feel and I am not putting God and his commandments first. I am not putting his people first.

I read a blog a few days ago that talked about priorities. Do we have them in check? How do we know what our true priorities are? We may say what they are, we may even write them down and tell the world what our priorites are. But, then our ACTIONS show what our real priorites are. Did we break a promise to a friend, did we choose what we wanted first over what was best for our spouse. Did we give up too easy. Did we make excuses. The old saying goes "do as I say, not as I do." What a messed up message we send sometimes. We tell our children one thing, then we do another. We tell our spouse one thing, then we do another. We tell our friends one thing, then we do another. We tell our God one thing, then we do another. I want my prayers of my priorites to be my ACTUAL priorities, my actions.

Our God tells us something and he follows through. He is faithful.

My goal today is to take little steps. To fake it, till I can make it. I want to have my actions match my words in all I do. I want to live above reproach. I want to live my faith and be a woman with unquestionable character. I know I am a sinner. I know I am not perfect and I know Iwill mess up. But, if I am showing what my heart feels, making my prayers my actions, then when I do mess up....I know I will be forgiven. I know people will know the real me. I know my God knows my heart and He is who what matters. It is his approval and his forgivness I seek.

Do you have a heartache and hangup you need to work on? Give and you shall recive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened.

Love and Blessings,
BB

old friends...

I had the joy of spending some time with a good friend and his family this weekend. He was one of my best friends in highschool and I love him, his wife, and his whole family. They have always been like family to me. You always feel welcome in their home and in their lives. They have always treated me with so much kindness and love. My friend married a wonderful woman and I feel lucky to have spent some time with them here and there over the past few years. They are fun to be around and always ready for a good tiem! While we live in different cities, have different lives from day to day, it is such a blessing to my heart to get to reconnect from time to time with old friends like this. This friends' older brother just had the first child of the family. What a blessing that little girl is to the whole clan. It was a joy to meet her and to see all the love she has brought to their world. I am so proud of the life my friend has built for himself. I am so blessed to still know him and his wonderful family.

I had a rough week, so I want to say Thank you Lord for always sending 'restoring spirits' into my life at just the right time.

Love and Blessings,
bb

Clarification....

I got a funny pic via email, was having a bad day and it made me laugh, really hard. A wise friend of mine commented on how sad it was to see the jersey shore pic and it shows how low family values have come. I agree. I don't watch the show, I hope the little kids don't and I would never let my child dress up like that. I probably shouldn't laugh at most things I laugh at, including this. I really hope it was just some parents trying to get a laugh and the kids had no clue.... Still made me laugh though. You can not like me because of this. I can handle that.

Why didn't I think of this??

Jersery Shore Baby!

Things you shouldn't pray for...

...0r at least not admit to them?

I have been following the blog of Jon Acuff called 'Stuff Christians Like'. He is the author of a book by the same name. Very humorous Jon Acuff is. (name that movie character?)

He recently wrote a blog that made me laugh REALLY hard. You really should go read it. Praying for things you shouldn’t pray for. It is about praying for things that maybe you shouldn't, or at least not telling anyone about it.

Being an educator(like I am) we sometimes think things about kids we probablly shouldn't. In frustration, we (ok, me) also might pray for things we shouldn't. This week is parent/teacher conferences at school. While I probablly shouldn't, there are parents that come in to talk with me and I say what I can to try and be encouraging and helpful and nicely discuss academic concerns with their child. I do want to help thier child and hopefully tell them things I think could improve their students achievement, etc. I also secretly am trying to not blurt out that I prayed their child was absent today.

Sometimes, a parent comes in and it becomes really clear why a child is the way they are. It's like an Oprah "lightbulb" moment. I am sure at somepoint this will happen with me and my children. I really just want to tell that parent that I was so frustrated and annoyed with their child yesterday that today, I prayed their student wouldn't be at school. I prayed that so my class might actually go smoothly because their child wouldn't be there to be the class clown, to goof off, to distract the other students and to have a behavior issue every hour on the hour that took up half my day to deal with.

After reading Jon Acuff's blog about this sort of thing....other people's children that is. I realized
1. Ok, so I only have an 8 month old and boy do I have many school years ahead of me. Here's to hopin I have one of those sweet old lady teachers for B that never thinks a bad thought about anyone and loves ALL children. Even the spirited ones.

2. I used the words active, spirited and social today a great deal when discussing children. I wanted to use the following words: spolied, obnoxious, rude, disrespectful, lazy and slow. Yes, I said slow. They are slow because you allow them to play 4 hours of computer games every night on killing people and stealing cars. Then you feed them junk food (every night). Then you add to this by sitting them in front of the tube to watch more junk till THEY feel it is their bedtime.

3. I know it is a busy world. I am not perfect, you are not perfect and no one parents perfectly. But, there are those that try. Could you please, please, TRY! Or, just try Oh I dunno...maybe not having more kids?


Sometimes I pray students will move. This might make me look bad in your eyes. I can accept that.

Word.