when 20 men show up at your door...

that is what happened this morning.

it could have been more, but i am thinking it was at least 20!

i had a post of gifts all ready to go this morning. even had it categorized by the days of the week :)

but then, this morning happened, and i could not post that list.

because what happened this morning was such a HUGE gift to my family i had to write about it.

see, we are moving. out of state.

and we got these moving 'pods' delivered last friday, and they have been sitting empty while we tried to scrounge up some help to load the big furniture into them.

we had sent out emails, even put an event on facebook...only 2 people were confirmed for this morning, and yesterday one man said, send me an email so i don't forget.

i realized when we got home from church i didn't have his email.

so we spent our afternoon and evening yesterday packing, sorting, and generally causing more chaos than order.

8 am...there was a knock on the door.

i kid you not...8 guys walked in. football type guys. big burly guys who can lift a LOT of stuff.

they swarmed.

more came.

they swarmed some more.

i was marking boxes and furniture with blue tape so they would know what to pack in this load. (we have 4 more 'pods' coming on thursday.)

even more came. i had to run to keep up with them.

at some point we had over 20 men in our house packing, wrapping, putting stuff in a pod, organizing.

my house looks like a cyclone hit it.

but...

all four pods were packed in under 2 hours.

woh.

what an incredible gift to us! we thought the job would take all day and we were worried over how we were going to get all the heavy stuff down our very steep stairs.

so my gifts this week are the 20 or so guys who swarmed my house and packed my pods and gave of their holiday.

most of them didn't even know us. but, GOD knows us.

and they just came because they wanted to serve us.

wow.

GOD is good ALL the time, isn't he??

gifts 88-108. i can claim each guy, right??

on my own...

my hubby left this morning for a business trip. he only does these kinds of trips a few times/year. but i always miss him terribly when he is gone.

i don't know about you, but my mind often turns to the worst possible scenario. in my mind i play out what would happen if something dreadful happened to him on the trip. like getting in a car accident, or even worse, dying. i start imagining how i would handle the news, how i would tell the kids, how i would manage, who i would call first, etc.

morbid, i know.

and full of fear.

i know that i am not to fear what can happen on this earth. that the perfect love of God casts out all fear.

i know this to be true.

but that doesn't stop my mind from racing. esp at night when the house is quiet. and i cannot get to sleep because my mate who has shared my bed for nearly 11 years now isn't there.

when we first got married, i had a hard time sleeping with him next to me.

now i cannot sleep when he is gone.

i love that we have become closer over the years. that our marriage has grown stronger instead of growing brittle like more than 50% of marriages these days.

that the word 'divorce' is not a part of our vocabulary, and that we have decided it never will be.

that he has, over time, become my best friend.

that i shed several tears over his parting this morning. when we first got married, i didn't. not because i wouldn't miss him, but just because i wasn't that sentimental. now, he leaves, and i ache.

i love his sense of humor. i don't get it most of the time, and i usually pretend annoyance with it, but really, i love it (shhhh. don't tell him!)

i love that he plays his guitar for the kids and makes up 'monster truck' songs for them to go crazy with.

i love that he writes songs that reflect where he is at in his walk with God.

i don't tell him about the little things i love... i hope i get a chance to and that nothing happens to him on this trip.

i love you, honey.

gifts #79-87

Tuesday's Torment

right now i am being tormented by tape.

tape and boxes.

and stuff.

how did we accumulate so much stuff?

we have lived in this house for two years. and when we moved, we lost 600 square feet. (i am gaining it back when we move back to CO... yippeee!!)

we are discovering boxes in the garage that never got opened! how is that possible?

i am tempted to throw away the contents without even looking into them. i mean, really. i haven't needed their contents in 2 years. what could possibly be in them that i want?

but, we are going to go through them and sort, throw away, give away, or re-pack.

is there irony in this or is it just me?

1000 gifts

my MIL was here for a few weeks. she split her time between us and her sister and mom. i have written in the past about how much of a trial it is to have her here. how uncomfortable it is for me to share our small space with her. not that she isn't a very nice person. and the kids adore her. she and i just have never "clicked" and there was an incident a few years ago where i felt she overstepped some bounds and i have been VERY cautious in sharing anything with her since then. i guess i just have issues.

this visit was no less stressful for me. the times when she was here in the house were stressful for me as i watched every word that came out of my mouth. every time i disciplined the children i felt her eyes on me. it was very intimidating. i needed to find some good in her visit, to put it into perspective. and although i haven't been very faithful with my gift counting, i thought it fitting to restart my list by finding things to be grateful for in my MIL.

68. my MIL prays for each of my children specifically, by name, and on a constant basis.

69. my MIL prays for my husband and me, probably more that i will even know this side of eternity.

70. my children adore it when she reads to them. bedtime becomes a little more manageable with grandma reading bedtime stories.

71. grandma lets the kids climb on her. (i don't)

72. my MIL is a sweet soul who loves the Lord.

73. i am pretty sure she loves me even though our relationship is strained.

74. for the first time since i have known her, i actually cried when she left this time. i felt bad that she couldn't stay longer. i felt her pain as she cried her way out the door, saying "so-long" instead of "good-bye."

75. she is a daughter of the King. and HE loves her.

76. and, yes, i love her. even though we don't mesh perfectly.

77. she is a faithful intercessor on our behalf.

78. she supports our efforts to homeschool (as opposed to my mom who still sends me articles on public school!)

avoidance and change

i have been avoiding my blog.

we have so much going on right now, i have not wanted to stop and process it.

everything seems to be coming to a head, and i do NOT want to stop and think.

cuz it hurts.

changes are coming and they are drastic.

change #1. we are relocating. not just changing houses, but across a few states.

i guess i shouldn't complain too much about this one. at least we have a place to go to instead of just losing our home and having to rent (which we couldn't qualify for now anyway) or live with some kind-hearted soul who doesn't mind my four VERY loud kids. we know we have church family here who would open their doors in a heartbeat, but that always proves to strain friendships over time.

we kept our home in colorado, and so we are able to pick up and move back.

this is a good thing for a lot of reasons. we will have a bigger house with a full basement and a huge utility area with an oversized 2 car garage. best thing about the house is the YARD!! the development we live in here has very little yard with NO landscaping. we have huge trees in our other home and a play structure and bushes and, according to the boys, the best part is the snails, slugs and worms that can be found year round :)

at least the kids are excited!

change #2

i have to go back to work full-time. at least for now. the KISA is starting a CFO business, and it will take a while to get it going. although, at least in CO he already has a great network. and it seems like it is all about who you know. he has a good head start there. here it is like being a minnow in a huge ocean with thousands of other minnows all looking for the same food (yes, i know there are lots of problems with that analogy). the competition there is a lot less numerous.

i am at odds with this change #2. i am heartbroken that i will not be at home 24-7 to care for my children. i feel fortunate that my KISA will be home when i am not, but that is still not a replacement for MOMMY. i am grateful that i am an RN and jobs are easier to find (not as easy as it used to be, but it is still easier than most professions). i am hoping to work at the same hospital i did several years ago.

i have laid my desires at the foot of the cross, however, and i am trusting that HE knows more than me, and that HE will bring us through this. we will be stronger on the other side. i will have more faith in HIS provision. my husband will know that i will stick by him, just like our vows said : for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse.

as i sort through more, i will probably post more. forgive the crazy ramblings. if i don't make a whole lot of sense, well, that is because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

change #1 brings about a whole host of other problems with it:

• being nearer to my family (parents and sib)

• leaving a solid, reformed church with genuine worship

• leaving an amazing support system that has lifted us up in all ways imaginable

• new homeschooling laws

• less homeschooling support

• a need to be WAY more organized so that our schooling doesn't fall behind

• a need to be a better housekeeper and meal planner so that life continues smoothly

• a need to declutter and pack and throw away and give away

and a NEED to grow closer to the Father... i cannot let the busy-ness of this time rob me of what is most important.

i am sure there is so much more, but i cannot wrap my heart around it yet, let alone my head.

the gift from my Father...

the other day was hard for my 5 year old. he has a temper that steamrolls. he mows down anyone or anything in his path and then it gets even worse as the consequences start. we have had this problem for some time, and have recently devoted it to regular prayer.

i am sure you can picture it. we told him to leave the table where his older sib and daddy were playing a game because he kept bumping the board pieces.

so he started by stomping. that earned him a sit-down on the stool to cool-off. not happening. he sat down on the stool and started making up curse words to spit at us through clenched teeth and grabbed the sides of the stool and started making it jump underneath him and moving it across the floor.

we then sent him to the laundry area to calm down before the rest of his consequence was delivered, and he decided he would pick up the trash can and throw it, then the bathroom door got slammed against the wall, and the bathroom rug was pulled out from underneath the bathroom stool with great force. seriously?

this all occurred in the grand total of 20 seconds, so i think we just watched with our mouths open in shock. it took a little while to register what happened.

we disciplined him and then he had to spend the afternoon in his room. i went up to talk with him, bible in hand, and we read some out of Prov 17 and 18. several of the verses applied and we talked them over. then we prayed and he asked if he could go down and apologize to daddy for his attitude. by all means!! he has the hardest time apologizing without falling down in fear, so i was excited to see him want to 'make it right' without any prompting from me.

fast forward to dinner. as the KISA is praying for dinner, bonobo gets out of his chair and onto the bench. i start to chastise him when i realize what he is doing.

he kneels on the bench, folds his hands, and leans over to put his forehead on the bench.

rewind to our talk on his bedroom floor. he had asked me if this (the position i described above) was a good way to pray. i told him it was, and that it showed humility before our Lord.

fast forward again.

my son wants to be on his knees and face before God while we give thanks for our dinner.

i teared up.

then the tears fell. (the kids were pretty baffled about why i was crying over meatballs)

they are falling now as i write this.

we so worry about our 5 year old's heart before the Lord. he just seems so angry all the time. so rebellious. so defiant. not wanting anyone in authority over him.

and yet. God gave me a glimpse of how He is working in our son's life and heart.

just as we have asked Him to do.

thank you, Lord, for being faithful to answer prayers and showing us in tangible ways how you are working.

taking a break

ok. i decided it was time to take a break from blogging, at least for a little while. i had an "oopsie" occur when posting from snapfish to my homeschooling blog, and it freaked me out a bit. i tried posting a pic from snapfish to the blog and it automatically titled it with my full name! i tried deleting the post, but it is still showing up in readers! i should have just changed the title, and maybe that would have made a difference, but i thought deleting the post would solve the problem.

i know, probably not a huge deal. it isn't like i had a huge following on it. but i started thinking about the possibility of absolute strangers having my full name (and my daughter's name, btw) and it really creeped me out.

so i think i need to take a step back and really evaluate why i am blogging. there is a safety in the anonymity, but then again, there isn't. i mean, i love knowing that someone from across the world wanted to read the words i wrote. there is something very satisfying in that. maybe a little too much pride in it. am i really posting simply to have a record of my thoughts and to share my a-ha moments in Christianity with others? am i sharing my thoughts to encourage others? or am i sharing my thoughts so that i can gain sympathy and share my 'knowledge?' (ha!)

*sigh* i think God has little cleaning house to do in my heart. i fear i have gotten a little ahead of myself in the whole 'blogging' world. i don't know what path God will take me on next in the cyber world, but i know that if i seek Him and His will for me, then it will be the right path!