A full year and a full mind

2015 was a very full and ( mostly) good year for us.

My hubby left his high stress job in corrections to a job that he loves as a construction manager. We are moving from our small house to a much bigger  house. We had bouts of pneumonia and I passed out for the first time ( exciting lol). We got to see a niece and nephew that live a ways away and meet our gorgeous grand-nephew but lost a brother to Oklahoma ( perhaps the only state more barren than Kansas) ! Emma decided to get good at reading and really put emotion into her pages and Noah seems to remember anything that is taught in song form. Isaiah is going to have his own knife design made and Judah is starting to talk a lot more. I am more in love with my family than ever before and feel truly blessed every day.
 While the physical and financial aspects of life have been increasingly blessed and appreciated my souls growth hasn't been as enjoyable.
. I have done a lot of internal reflection this year. I see my weaknesses as a woman, a wife, a mother and a Christian. I am facing my struggles more honestly and praying for grace and forgiveness much more regularly.

 I think a lot about my wonderfully patient husband and how that my fear of betrayal kept my from being truly immersed in my marriage for way too many years. God has used him to teach me that it is possible to truly trust in another person and to believe that it's true when they say "I love you". Before him I had never known anyone that wouldn't tear me down, either in person or to others.
 I also think a lot about my children and how I may make them feel. I think about the future and how much I want them to be able to trust me and each other and how hard it is to trust in God if that trust is lost. I think about the past and that I have learned an awful lot about trust over the years. My influence upon my child's heart is so powerful; No one can destroy your ability to trust like an untrustworthy parent! Whether it's physical abandonment or emotional manipulation or it's the "small" errors of insults, back biting, face slapping, gossip,putting walls between siblings, etc.. Or the unimaginable betrayals and abuses.

 Once you know what a person will do for selfish gain and spiritual pride you would be a fool to forget it. When a person has a long and repeated history of back stabbing and abuse they should never be trusted.
I often fear that I will accidentally do something to crush the trust my own children have for me. It would be one of my worst nightmares to destroy such a precious gift. That is a thing that you can never get back. Then I remind myself that the fact that I love my children causes me to deny selfishness and cherish their hearts. Love and selfishness are true opposites!
 So, with that said, I am struggling to accept the permanency of the death of trust caused by other people's selfish and sick hearts, without letting is cause any more emotional and relational destruction in my own.  I am trying to use the things Satan did,(through his too-willing tools), be turned into something that is used for the good of my children.  I am trying to keep the things done to me and said to me be parental figures from crippling my own ability to parent.

I  have spent a lot of years just trying to ignore the wickedness and the damage it has caused my heart,because I wanted something that I've never really had with the source-s,and because I want to be forgiven for my own sins, but Ignoring an amputated leg doesn't help you walk. 

 So I am learning from the failures of others and working on my own. I will not feel guilty for never again trusting untrustworthy people or not wanting to have them involved in my daily life,but I will do my best to be polite to them.
 I will try to be humble and honest with my children. I will never insult their femininity or masculinity. I will never take the side of their enemy. I will never use the  law to control them . I will never talk badly about them to others. I will never make them distrust their own siblings with insults and gossip... I will always pray for them, encourage them and, even though I will fail, I will try my best not to fail them so badly that it breaks their heart.
I will spend more time cuddling. Reading,playing and complimenting. I will try to know my children as people and not as extensions of myself. I will be proud of their accomplishments because they are wonderful and not because it makes me look good to be their mother. I will pray, pray, pray and always LOVE.
 2016 is a very hopeful year for us as we grow closer, wiser and bolder.
God is good and He will not betray our trust or fail us!

God's Simple Plan

 Looking at scripture,and at nature, it is amazingly obvious what God designed mankind to do. He put a man and a woman in a beautiful outdoor setting and gave them a few simple assignments. Be friends to God, Love each other, have sex and make babies, take care of their home, and enjoy all of it! In living this amazing life humanity was worshipping the God who's image they shared and showing the blessed joy of humility, unity and love.
 Looking at scripture, and then at fallen society, it is glaringly obvious that these simple (yet profound) plans and design are what is constantly attacked.
 Marriage is devalued through both the acceptance  "shacking up and the acceptance of divorce. " Sex is constantly defiled and abused, feminism, (in both the world and the church), feeds rebellion in the hearts of women and destroys marriages, telling women that we should be "independent" and strong, rather than meek and gentle. Divorce is accepted and excused for the most minuscule inconvenience of "I don't feel happy". Homosexuality mocks the image of God and abortion rips apart the most precious and pure reminders of God's design.
The church has women "pastors" who, by their very acceptance of that role, are training people that scripture can ( and should) be ignored and that God's design is unimportant and outdated.
If God wanted men and women to be the same, act the same, and have the same roles, He would not have emphasized the absolute requirements of each one's different callings REPEATEDLY throughout scripture! When a women becomes dominant, controlling and authoritative over men she is operating in the same deception that a man is when he dresses in drag. The Jezebel spirit and the effeminate spirit are both evil perversions.
Homosexuals are getting "married" and singing in church choirs; telling every onlooker that God's designs and purposes are completely unimportant and that purity is easily exchanged for perversion without consequence.
 In the end we see that it all comes from the same spirit. When we can write off one part of scripture as "outdated" or "cultural" we can write off ANY of it..and we are. If a women can be masculine and have authority over men in church why can't a man be feminine and submissive?
 If you are receiving a teaching that tries to minimize the value of marriage, children, gender differences and the inerrancy of scripture you are receiving the voice of Lucifer!
God's plan is simple and will never change. One man, leading his family, one wife loving her husband, two becoming one ,who works for Christ and care for His creation. There is nothing that we can add to this plan to make it better and there is nothing that we can take away from it that doesn't completely destroy it.

All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth

Everyone loves Judah