The time with the B.O.

I was at the gym this morning, loving life and thanking God for healing my finger so quickly. What happened to my finger you ask? Well yesterday morning my finger ended up between a barbell and the bottom of a bench, causing it to swell by the hour and turn purple, black and blue. It was painful, I couldn't hold much with that hand and was afraid it would mess up my plans to work out the rest of the week. But this morning the swelling had gone down quite a bit and the pain was almost nonexistent.

Anyway, where was I... oh yeah, so I'm at the gym, thinking of all good things when suddenly, the smell of lavender and lemongrass from my somewhat natural deodorant starts to dissipate. I begin to question my choice of deodorant for today and my inhales become stronger as I try very hard to remember if I did in fact use deodorant before leaving the house. "Maybe I just forgot..." I thought to myself, "...it wouldn't be the first time". At this point, I start to sweat [a lot more], which would have been normal if I'd been in the middle of my workout, but I've only been 10 minutes. I can't help but wonder if it would be totally weird if I dig my nose into my underarm arm pit to confirm my suspicions, so I can spare the rest of the dedicated gym-goers who made it there before 9am such odor pollution... when suddenly, the odor disappears, along with the person next to me... and all is well again, I can even smell the lavender and lemongrass again.

(insert sigh of relief)

This moment has played over and over in my head, as if God has something to teach me, and a few thoughts came to mind:

The first thought is how proud I am of myself for not saying (whether out loud or in my head) something mean or snarky, or anything along those lines about the situation. Instead, I thought of the times I have forgotten deodorant (come on, we've all been there at one point or another) and how uncomfortable of a situation it is. I thought of how some of the times I've had the worst B.O. it's been due to hormones, not poor hygiene. I thought of cultural differences that sometimes influence people's body odor.... I thought of so many things, but judging this person wasn't one of them; and this is not because I'm that nice or has such a kind heart. It is because I have asked God to help me show grace towards others and to help me see people through His eyes a little more. It's because I am now surrounded by friends who don't meet to badmouth others, but to encourage one another instead, like God calls us to do. It is because I had a problem with my identity in Christ that always let me to deflect on others, but I am now in a church that speaks tons into our identity in Christ, through which I have come to understand and accept and live in my identity in Jesus Christ. It is because of Him that I am changed still changing. So I shouldn't say I'm proud of myself as much as I am in awe of my God, who likes to work in our hearts, even in mine.

The second thought I will leave for another post, because I don't like doing super long posts, so instead, I'll ask you this:

Are you being intentional about showing grace to others?

When you see people, do you see a man or a woman or a child for whom Christ died on the cross, just like He did for you and me?

Are you prayerfully considering your friendships and investing more into those that are edifying?

Are you living in your true identity in Christ?

Are you letting God work in you?

The time with all the broken pieces

Today I set out to write about something else, something completely different, something I thought I'd never write about, but God had other plans (I guess He doesn't want me to write about that other topic, huh?).

Anyway, I've been having a couple of off days. Not sure if its because my kids have been sick since Monday, and by Wednesday night, I finally caught it, or if its just the fact that I haven't worked out the last couple of days (if you work out regularly, you know how addicting those endorphins can be). So, when I went in the kitchen to cook lunch and dropped one the the mixing bowls I use the most, a loud curse word came out of my mouth (not that I never ever curse, I'm not perfect, but I try really hard not to, especially with the kids around), and I couldn't help that immediate feeling of defeat, of loss, of frustration. 

Isn't it amazing how easy it is to go towards the negative at first instance? 

But God (you know I love these two words) despite my reaction, as I was picking up the broken pieces, gave me a song; without even thinking about it the words started coming out of my mouth: 

All these pieces
Broken and scattered
In mercy gathered
Mended and whole
Empty handed
But not forsaken
I've been set free
I've been set free

 Then that feeling of defeat and frustration turned into hope and joy. I thought about how those pieces of glass scattered all over my kitchen floor have no use to me anymore, and as I threw each piece in the trash, I saw myself in this broken mixing bowl, but unlike these worthless broken piece in my hand, in His hand our broken pieces are mended and made whole, and turned into something new. God can take our broken life, our broken relationships, our broken world, and turn it into something beautiful.  

His grace is amazing, His voice is sweet, He brings new mercy, He freely offers salvation.
We are broken, but He makes us whole.

I don't think I will ever fully understand His goodness, but I sure am grateful for it.

The time with the breakfast... part 2

If you read this week's post you know we've been dealing with our oldest choosing not to eat his food, making this an emotionally taxing week.        

We've never had this problem before; our kids have always eaten pretty well. Plus, where I come from, you eat, you just do; there's no "I don't like that food" or "I don't want to eat that", you taste everything, you learn to eat everything, period.  

I was hoping this would only last a day, but boy was I wrong.

On to day two.

The day started very similarly to the one before: I made a sandwich for each kid, which they were to eat before having the last bit of apple-cinnamon bread (aka yummy apple cake) we had left. My oldest, the six year old, ate most of his sandwich, which consisted of a slice of black forest ham and cheddar cheese between two pieces of WHITE Wonder bread (this evil mom didn't even try to feed him wheat bread)... But, like the day before, he refused to eat the last two bites, those last two bites, you know, the ones that don't taste anything like the rest of the sandwich. 

My husband was off from work that day so I was really hoping that having daddy at home would make a difference, since they usually don't like disappointing daddy, sadly it didn't!

That morning we were babysitting for a friend, so after she dropped off her adorable two year old, my son seemed a little more motivate to eat (instead of three hours, it only took him one hour to finish the last two bites of his sandwich). Maybe we should watch adorable two year olds more often. 

In that time, we read a book and watched Finding Nemo; he only missed half of the movie.

"On the bright side, at least its getting better" I thought to myself, despite the usual drama and the constant visit to the living room to "tell me something..."  (FYI: the "something" he needed to tell me was always along the lines of "I don't like it" or "I don't want to eat it" or  blah blah blah)

I just can't wrap my head around it sometimes, how this kid smart, this very smart kid (and I'm not just saying it because he's my son), will from time to time make choices that seem a lot less logical than those made by his younger siblings; then I remember: he's also very strong-willed. I guess that's what you get when two strong-willed people marry and have children. 

As sad and frustrating as it can be sometimes to raise a [wonderful] strong-willed child, I try to constantly remember [and pray] that God can do amazing things in and through this strong-willed child. The things that we see as stubbornness today will become tenaciousness tomorrow.






We don't always see how God is working in our own lives when we are in the middle of raising kids, because raising kids is not easy; being obedient and doing what is required of us is not easy. We forget that God gave us this child, and our other two kids, to do amazing things in us as parents too. We want to raise kids who will do what's right because they love God and they love people; because one day these kids will become part of society and these strong-willed kids will become leaders. Are we going to continue to raise a generation of entitled brats or are we going to raise world changers?