Challenge and encouragement from Family Life Today

One of my favorite radio programs is Family Life Today. They discuss the hard issues of family and life. The past two days, I have been catching up on what I have missed lately. These programs are too good not to share.

The first set of programs are a challenge to raise our children to do hard things and to finish well. The second set, originally for blended families, is a challenge to put off old, sinful practices and put on new, godly ones. The speaker also addresses anger. This message is applicable to everyone, no matter their place in life.

Spiritual Boot Camp - Aug. 16, 2017
Growing Spiritually - Aug. 17, 2017
Risk Taking - Aug. 18, 2017

Put off the old, put on the new - Aug. 21, 2017
Application for blended families - Aug. 22, 2017

Enjoying the moment

As I write this, I am on a public transit bus, headed home. Beside me is my growing and adorable baby girl. Just moments ago, she was singing her sleepy song, blowing drool with her tongue, kicking my arm and playing with her giraffe. Now she is sucking on her pacifier and giving me sleepy smiles. Oh how I love this girl.

My mommy heart will miss there days. I feel like I miss so much and don't enjoy her as I should. I know that it will go so fast. But before I get caught up in guilt, I will focus on the moments I do have, enjoy the big, toothy grins and give all the kisses I can.

The solar eclipse

I'll admit it - I was one of those people with the silly-looking glasses who was staring at the sun today. But those silly looking glasses revealed some pretty cool views of the solar eclipse.

Where we live, we were about 93% eclipsed. One of the comments I heard in our area was about how light it was for how little sun was showing. There was a definite temperature drop though. It was actually a nice change from the heat.

The solar eclipse reminded me yet again of how amazing our God is and how He made the universe in such an orchestrated way.

"When I consider the heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man, that You visit him?

For You made him a little lower than the angels,

And You have crowned him with glory and honor."

Psalms 8:3-5 NKJV

It's been a while

It has been way to long since I posted. Between busyness, exhaustion, camp and traveling for a funeral, I gave up. I gave up on a lot of things.

Before you get scared, no, I didn't give up on life. But I did give up on projects that I have been working on the past few months. I also gave up on my house. (It's finally starting to look sorta clean.)

When I wrote the post in July about life after a mountain top experience, I didn't realize how much I would actually struggle. While I am tempted to beat myself up, I need to remember what I said in that post.

I think it may have been a quote from C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity. As we start on our journey of total surrender to God, we take a step, maybe two, then fall down. We pick ourselves back up and we repeat the same process. After a while, we start getting along better, less falling and more walking. Finally we get to the point where we have little to no falling and lots of walking.  

Most of our lives are spent in the valleys. We need to learn to walk smoothly there. Thankful we aren't alone. God is there beside us filling us with Himself.

I'm in the get up stage. In this case, I think getting up also involves getting more sleep. It involves attempting to schedule what projects I do on certain days. And I definitely need to stress less and to, once again, make reading God's word a priority.