This is something I have come to realize:

If you don’t hear what is whispered to you, eventually you won’t hear a shout either. The ears of your soul become deaf from lack of use.

I am so glad that I serve a God who {most often} uses whispered thoughts as a way to communicate with me.  I am glad that He doesn’t demand or force His way in my life or yell at me.  Because I don’t think that is what love looks like.

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately…the whispers of God’s wisdom.

He gives us our intuition and Godly wisdom {not OUR wisdom…note the difference} for a reason. 

I have too often ignored God’s whispered warnings and ended up regretting it.  He loves me enough to care about the trouble I may be walking towards or the situation that may end badly if I don’t pay attention to my intuition.

But when I let seemingly “obvious facts” override God-given wisdom…the results are usually not good.

I think that part of the reason we ignore whispers is because we are too busy cruising through life on auto-pilot to really pay attention to the small stirrings in our hearts and souls. 

When we actually slow down and take the time to listen to what our heart is telling us, it can be quite enlightening. Maybe even a little scary in some ways, which may be the reason we don’t “go there” more often.

Having the confidence and trust in God that leads to a confidence within ourselves as we face the myraid of situations that life throws at us is priceless.  And not to be tossed aside as if it is lacking value.

Due to a number of circumstances in my life, I have recently went through a period of time where I had a lot of doubt in my own ability to hear God’s voice.  It feels quite unsettling to second guess everything, to not be sure of yourself and to just pile guilt on yourself for things that maybe aren’t even your issue.

God has shown me, in a most kind and loving and uplifting way, that I am able to trust myself. To not get too caught up in other people’s opinions. To trust my instincts. To state my needs with clarity.  To hear His whispers. 

And then to CHOOSE to rest in that.

Sunday was just one of those days.

It started out great and all, but by mid afternoon when the husband was taking a nap and the kids were grouchy from getting to bed too late the night before, things had taken a downhill turn.

Jeremy had plans to be gone all evening and I was home with the kiddos.

Do you ever have those days when you are just fairly sick of your kids?  Your patience is just wearing quite thin? You feel the beginnings of a small nervous breakdown?

Like, what you really want is an empty house and a bubble bath and a glass of wine.  Not three kids who are bouncing off the walls and bugging each other and asking if they “couldn’t just have another snack.”

You can try to change your attitude.  You can pray.  You can give a shot at playing games with them or reading to them, both of which may not end well.

(Picture this:  poor sports when they didn’t win the game and Mom eventually saying “I’m not playing with you guys if you can’t act decent” and fighting over who gets to hold the book, etc.)

Or, you can say…to heck with it…and turn on the TV and make some popcorn.

And all will be well.   Sanity will reign.

I have long felt like TV is a poor substitute for, well, pretty much anything.

Whether we are talking adults or children, TV watching is not high on my list of things that people should be spending their time doing.

Not to say I haven’t used the TV as a babysitter at times throughout the years. Especially when my kids were little and I had bookwork I needed to get done! But I have always felt guilty about it. 

I know it is not completely consistant because I would rather be working on something and the children playing something (separately) than having all of us sitting down and watching TV together.

To me…TV watching together does not equal quality time.  I know lots of people who do look at it that way. The whole family sitting down.  Spending time together. 

But in my mind, there is virtually no interacting happening.  Really, you’re spending quality time with the TV and people happen to be sitting beside you. 

Even with Jeremy and I…we watch a show together because we want to see it…not because it brings some sort of connection to us.

Somehow, I feel like a wimp when I take the easy route of “Hey, you guys wanna watch TV with me” instead of doing something more interactive with the kids.

But maybe, instead of being a wimp, I’m just stupid. 

Either way, Sunday night was one of those times that I felt the occassion called for it.

So I made a huge batch of popcorn and we sat around watching “Penguins of Madagascar” and shoving handfuls of popcorn into our mouths.

Like I told Jeremy later, “I figured that option would be the best for the kids and for me.” 

Sometimes, being a Mom is about knowing when you’ve had enough and making choices accordingly.

And I like to think that’s OK.

A Lesson Never Forgotten

Once upon a time, back before the days of cell phones and texting, there lived a teenage girl.

Now, this teenage girl had a tendency to like boys.  Quite a lot.

In fact, sometimes, spending time with boys was preferable to spending time with girls. 

There was, as is often the case, a certain boy that this girl had a small(ish) crush on.  He was a few years older and quite handsome and the girl wondered if he even noticed her. 

But, sometimes they would hang out and talk and the girl would enjoy that very much.

One night, a group of friends, including this boy and girl, went to a local fast food restaurant and hung out for a while, chatting and having a good time.

Lo and behold, ten o’clock rolled around and the only people who remained, standing there talking in the parking lot, were this boy and this girl.

It was a cool evening, so the boy suggested they hop into his truck to chat.  This seemed like a good sign to the girl, so she agreed.

(Maybe you think you know where this is going, but you don’t.  Believe me.)

That sat and chatted in the warmth of the truck cab for what seemed like a half hour, but in reality, the time was getting later and later and no one really saw any reason to leave a great conversation.

It may or may not have been around one in the morning, when, in the midst of a great discussion, the girl noticed a vehicle pulling up beside the truck she was sitting in.

Not thinking much of it at first glance, she soon realized, to her horror, that the vehicle that had pulled up belonged to her Dad.  And that now he was at her passenger’s side window, requesting an audience with the teenage girl.

It seems as though the Dad had been waiting up for his teenage daughter to come home.  As the time got later and later and he couldn’t sleep, he decided to get in his car and take a little drive.

It wasn’t hard to find her, since she was still in the parking lot of the restaurant where he knew she had been earlier.

But, oh how the girl was mortally embarrassed!! To be tracked down by your Dad and told to “Get home immediately” while in the presence of a boy whom she liked very much.  Now that was humiliating.

Although I can tell you this.  It was a lesson she never forgot.  And she never stayed out in trucks with boys past mid-night again. 

At least not without first letting her Dad know where she was.

**Names have been changed to protect privacy.  Although some sisters or sister-in-laws of “the boy” may read my blog and put two and two together! 

(You have to read the title like you would the title of that kid’s book:  Llama, Llama, Holiday Drama.)

Those simple pleasures in life…like finding a quarter in the washing machine or making an awesome salad for lunch or getting to sit down and read for a long awaited 30 minutes…they make our world’s go ’round.

It is the little things that make up the days and keep us feeling excited about life!

But sometimes…our expectations come crashing down around us.  And one of our little moments in stolen away from us.  Just.like.that.

One of my best friends recently “accused” me of being dramatic.  This was a very hard pill for me to swallow, and, as a matter of fact, that particular pill may still be stuck in my throat.

Me?  Dramatic?  Intense. Maybe.  Strong-willed. Sure.  Opionated.  I guess so.  But dramatic?  I’m not exactly liking the connotations that brings up in my mind.

So, let me share this little story with you and I guess I will leave it up to you to decide whether I am dramatic or not. 

I need to back-track a few days to Monday afternoon.  I decided to bake something different than my normal “brownies-from-a-box-with-boughten-frosting-and-sprinkles-on-top” for our Bible study gathering on Tuesday night.

I had a carefully formulated and well thought out plan.  You see, there are these brownies/bars that I make that are my absolute favorite!!  They have a really long title, something like “Delicious Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars.”

And since I have discovered them about a year ago, I have made them many, many times and I think I can pretty much recite the recipe from heart.

1 cup of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of white sugar

1 T. vanilla

(Mix all of these together)

Add 1  1/4 cup peanut butter

Mix in 2 eggs.

Add:

2 cups of flour

2 cups of oatmeal

1 tsp baking soda

Then put in 1 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips.

Pour batter into a greased 9 X 13 pan and

Bake for about 25 minutes at 350 or until the edges are slightly golden brown.

(Yes, I just wrote that all down from memory, but now I will double check in case I made any mistakes. Nope. I got it right!)

These are the BEST bars.  They are chewy and kind of “heavy” but oh.so.yummy!  And they go PERFECTLY with my morning coffee.

My carefully formulated and well thought out plan was this:  I could make the bars for Bible study.  They probably wouldn’t all get eaten.  I would have left-overs, but not have the whole pan there for me to eat too much of, you know. 

It worked out great! I took them to Bible study Tuesday night. About 3/4 of them got eaten. I brought the rest home.  I had one with my coffee yesterday morning. 

There were 2 left in the pan, I noted.  Yay! 

I got up this morning, got dressed and padded out to the kitchen to get my morning coffee going and to check up on the bars.

There was the pan. Right where I had left it.

But when I took a closer look to confirm that, yes, there was still at least one bar left (in case Jeremy had eaten one this morning), I literally gasped out loud.  BOTH bars were gone. The pan was empty except for a few measly crumbs scattered about!

What???!!  How could this be?  I was SO looking forward to a “Delicious Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bar” with my morning coffee!

I went through the first four stages of grief in about 30 seconds.

First, denial.  This can’t be! Check the pan again. Yes. It is still empty. 

Secondly, anger.  How could Jeremy do this to me?  Doesn’t he know how much I love those bars?  And to take TWO of them!!  I texted him in regards to my disappointment and sadness.

Third, bargaining.  Could I possibly make a pan of bars, bake them immediately, and still have one ready in time for my morning coffee?  Probably not gonna happen with the time I have available.

Fourthly, depression.   How did my morning just get ruined like this?  Will my day even be worthwhile?  Should I just crawl back into bed?  Is life really worth living with no brownie with my coffee?

And finally…acceptance.  Actually, it is 10:30 AM and I am still working on that one. 

You see, sometimes those you love can inflict the greatest pain.  Whoever said that must have had their husband take the last brownie too!

**added drama for effect.  But seriously. I was upset!

You have all probably heard the old saying “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

But what does it mean?  And how does it apply to the life of a follower of Jesus?  How does forgiveness fit into the picture?

These are some questions that I have been thinking about.

We’ve all been “burned” by people in our lives.  Someone who we thought could be trusted betrayed us. And we’ve probably been the betrayer a time or two as well.

Maybe you thought a relationship was built on certain foundations and then you realized that those foundations weren’t there at all…and that the whole thing was built on lies and misconceptions.

Just today I was talking with an acquaintance about an ex-boyfriend of her’s.  She is trying to decide whether she should get back together with him.  He has been pursueing her.  It is flattering. He says he has changed.  Should she believe him and take him back? 

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

This is what I told her and something that I believe I have learned from personal experience.  Unless a person can tell you WHY or WHAT has changed them (a specific experience, an encounter with God, an eye-opening wake up call), they probably haven’t changed. People can modify their behavior for a period of time to get what they want, but true change has a source that usually can be traced.

But, then, in the life of a Christian, where do wisdom and cautiousness collide with love and forgiveness and grace?  And what does that look like? 

Big questions.  Elusive answers.

I know that one thing I need to keep in the fore-front of my mind is what grace that I have been shown. By God and by others. To remember the times that I have messed up and been in the wrong.  Not with a sense of shame, but with a sense of realizing how vulnerable I am to making mistakes and how much I need HIS guidance.  Always.

I don’t think that there is a cookie cutter answer.  I am sure various situations are different.  Maybe the history that you have with the person otherwise comes into play.  I also believe that there are times God asks you to do something that is beyond your comfort zone and you need to obey. But I also believe that God gives us a sense of intuition and wisdom when it comes to tricky relationship situations.  And I have learned to trust that as if He was speaking out loud to me.  He gives us those intuitions for a reason and too many times I have second guessed my intuition and later regretted it. 

But I am curious.  What are your thoughts?  Have you ever given someone a “second chance” and regretted it?  Or have you been happy that you extended that gift of trust again, even when it felt scary?

Do you walk away from a relationship when you sense a pattern that is not healthy, or do you tend to stick it out in hopes that things change? What are some ground rules for building relationships after you have been “fooled” once?

And so…this is where the random word of the day {twice} led me in my thinking!  Hopefully you followed along!

I would think that anyone who has blogged for some length of time goes through those “non-writing” periods of their lives.

There can be many reasons for that. A new baby. A new job.  A change of schedule. Feeling like there is nothing new to say.  Or, like me lately, the things that are going on seem to be too hard to put into words. And even if you could, they feel too personal to share.  And the urge to write just kind of goes underground for a while.

I wouldn’t even say that my desire to write has returned, but I thought I would give it a shot today. I do miss writing to a certain extent and I miss the interaction that comes with blogging.

So…here goes nothing (as the saying goes)

Since I have last blogged there has been…

{some} days of Christmas vacation for the kids.  Twelve days in a row off of school, to be exact. They flew by, for the most part!

Just chillin’ on the coffee table.

{some} visiting with family.  Lots of that, actually.  Jeremy’s parents came from Ohio over Christmas, bringing with them lots of gifts!  It was really nice to have them here!  And then we spent a day and a half over Christmas with my family.

(Jeremy’s parents with the kids)

Playing “Dice” or “10,000″ with the family

My Dad opening a gift our kids made for him and Mom (some personalized plates)

My oldest brother Loren and his wife Lourdes…lounging

My sister Debbie with her daughter Sherra

Jeremy’s parents again…with Nikki

{some} good-byes.  My sister Lynette and her husband Paul left the Saturday after Christmas to move back to Grenada. For good.  It was hard to say good-bye.  They will be so missed!  And, my brother Joe left for a 6 week trip to Brazil around the same time.

Lynette and Paul – And my niece Lori

My brother Joe

{some} gifts were opened.  Ok. Lots of gifts.

I LOVE this picture of our family that Kendall drew.  For one, he made me super skinny.

The carnage.

{some} supernatural clarity about some issues in my life.  I continue to be amazed at how God is such a PERSONAL God and how He speaks to me in ways that I will understand and that are meaningful to me. (This blurb is the part that I could write pages and pages about…if I was able to put it all into words.)

{some} good times with friends. Including New Year’s Eve.  We are so rockin’ now that we are all in our 30′s.  Do you know what us girls did on New Year’s Eve??  We worked on a 1,000 piece puzzle.  It was super-duper hard and I complained a lot. 

This was not the puzzle we did, but this was one I did last weekend.

{some} re-evaluation of the way that I do life.  And relationships. Particularly my marriage.  Choosing to not let fear and old patterns control me.

{some} yummy food.  For sure.  Jeremy’s Mom brought SO much candy it was insane.  I shared some and we still have a bunch of it around.  I made buckeyes and the day before the kids went back to school we finally got around to making sugar cookies.  They turned out awesome. For once.  And my Mom always goes “all out” with the Christmas meal, too!

Her hair was done in a whole bunch of little braids after we washed it so that “it would be curly for school” the next day.

{some} getting back into taking my multi-vitamin and exercising. Yes, those two are related. The multi-vitamin gives me the energy I need to be able to exercise.  Ironic how this point comes right after the “yummy food” part!

{some} dates with kids.  One for me with Kendall and one for Jeremy with Derrick.  Always a good time!

{some} sickness.  Every.last.one.of.us got the flu over Christmas break.  I had said some words to Jeremy about how he “catches the kids’ sicknesses because he lets himself get too run down, blah, blah, blah” and then guess who got sick next??  And took a long time to get over it completely.  I guess I should learn to not speak quite so quickly.

{some} being stuck in a rut with suppers lately.  Taco soup.  Chicken and rice.  Fish and rice.  Potato soup. Meatballs and potatoes.  I am trying to make healthy meals and I feel like that always cuts down on my options.

{some} working on a living room re-do project with my friend/consultant Angie of “Melting Pot Interiors”.  I am excited about it all and especially excited about the finished product! 

What have you been doing {some} of lately?]