Sorry I haven't blogged much lately. Now that I'm "officially" schooling 3 (with a 3yo and 13mo in tow), although I do have "time" to sit at the computer, my brain is pretty much shot. I just have wayyyyyyyyy too many things going on in there!

Anyway, I have a free moment (sort of LOL), so I thought I'd share what's been going on, some assorted "Wow!" things I've been getting from my Breaking Free study, etc.

A few weeks back, on the drive in to church for the study, I was just laying it all out before the Lord. I told Him that I felt like the Apollo 13 astronauts. I felt like I'm being asked to make an oxygen tank out of duct tape, a hanger, a toilet paper roll, some chewing gum, and some dryer lint. I've been given a particular set of circumstances and "oh, by the way," maintain your home (and trust me, my standards are NOT high ;-) ), raise your children in the ways of the Lord, get enough sleep, make sure the children get a decent education (again, the standards are not too high), etc. I felt just very OVERWHELMED. I've been praying about this for YEARS. YEARS YEARS YEARS. The circumstances have sort of changed but not really. So I quoted God's Word back to Him. I quoted Luke 11:11-13:

"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (NIV)

So I get to Bible study, and the chapter was about brokenheartedness. I struggled with this chapter because, to be quite honest, much of my heart has been broken by God. He is my All, however, so I knew that for whatever reason, He was doing something by breaking my heart, but throughout this chapter it was tough dealing with that. For example, one of the questions Beth asks is,

If you've ever felt betrayed, was part of your injury knowing that the other person would have been aware how hurt you would be?

I marked the "Yes" box with a big ol' X (larger than normal LOL). Because since God knows everything about me, I knew He'd know, and yet for whatever reason, He did it anyway.

Anyway, then in the video time Beth talked about finding satisfaction in Christ. Empty places are in our lives for a reason, so that God can fill them. (I am so not doing this justice LOL!) But toward the end of the video, Beth quoted Luke 11:11-13...the exact Scripture I had quoted to God on the way there that very night!!!!

Still working through all of this, but I just though it was, ahem, "coincidental" (cough cough sputter sputter) that I had just prayed that Scripture a few hours before.

Another thing that hit me between the eyes occurred when we were taking a deeper look at Isaiah 30:15:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it." (NIV)

Beth shares in the study guide that

Isaiah 30:15 is telling us that in returning to God and resting confidently in His promises and His power, we will continually find salvation.

We all know that God wants us to return and rest, but what kind of equation would tend to more readily reflect the practices of your past? I'll give you mine so you can the idea: In repenting plus being determined to do better on my own strength has often been my downfall. (empasis mine)

I don't know about you, but this is SO TRUE for me!!! I get so determined that I'm gonna do xyz or I'm NOT gonna do abc, and then I fall flat on my face!!! When really I need to REST IN THE LORD!

In the same section she said something that I found very poignant:

The exact Hebrew word translated trust in this verse appears only once in the Old Testament. The word bitchah means "there is nothing more that one can do."

We are simply to obey God. Period. And then we wait for Him to do what He is going to do, rather than obeying and then trying to help things along a bit. ;-)

Something else that struck me in this chapter on obedience was just what obedience IS. So often we think of obedience as following a set of rules. "Do this...don't do this...etc." And ohhhhhhhh how popular this line of thinking is among conservative Christians!!! "This is what obedience looks like." But that is so not true.

Obedience does not mean sinlessness but confession and repentance when we sin. Obedience is not arriving at a perpetual state of godliness but perpetually following hard after God. Obedience is not living miserably by a set of laws but inviting the Spirit of God to flow freely through us so the power to be victorious comes from God and not from us. Obedience is learning to love and treasure God's Word and see it as our safety.

HOW FREEING THIS IS!!!!!

OK so then there came a section about God's Daily Rule. Beth states

We don't develop an appreciation for His presence from crisis points.

We must walk with Him DAILY,

perhaps in the mundane more than the miraculous.

And sometimes this requires a shift in our thinking.

For years I asked God to walk with me...I realized God wanted me to walk with Him. For years I asked God to bless what I did...I formerly wanted to take my feet of clay and walk where my heart led and count on the Potter to bless my sweet-if-selfish little heart...Suddenly I realized God's blessing would come when I did what He said...For our own safety and for the pure enjoyment of God, we are so wise and blessed to learn to walk with God instead of begging Him to walk with us. (emphasis mine)

And then Beth shares this AWESOME word picture:

Imagine going to heaven and standing by God as He lovingly shows you the calendar of His plan for your earthly life. It begins with the day you are born. Once you received Christ as Savior, every day that follows is outlined in red. You see footprints walking through each day of each week of your life. On many of the days, two sets of footprints appear. You inquire: "Father, are those my footprints on the calendar every day and is the second set of prints when you joined me?"He answers, "No, My precious Child. The consistent footprints on your calendar are Mine. The second set of footprints are when you joined Me."

"Where were You going, Father?"

"To the destiny I planned for you, hoping you'd follow."

"But, Father, where are my footprints all those times?"

He answers, "Sometimes you went back to look at old resentments and habits while I was still going forward, hoping you'd join Me. Sometimes, you departed from My path and chose your own calendar instead. Other times, your footprints can even be seen on another person's calendar because you thought you liked their plan better. At other times, you simply stopped because you would not let go of something you could not take to the next day."

"But, Father, we ended up OK even if I didn't walk with You every day, didn't we?"

He holds you close and smiles. "Yes, Child, we ended up OK. But, you see, OK was never what I had in mind for you."

"Father, what are those golden treasure boxes on certain days?"

"Blessings, My child, I had for you along the way. those that are open are those you received. Those still closed were days you did not walk with Me."

All I have to say is "WOW."

So that's what has been going on Bible study wise. Here at home...well it's the same ol', same ol', I guess. Dh has been traveling. His boss and his boss's boss have been in town this week, so they have been traveling around to the different plants that my dh has authority over, checking things out. He has several vacation days that he has to use by the end of the year or he will lose them, so he is planning to take off every Friday until the end of the year. Woo hoo. He needs the break too - he is just run ragged with his job!

G is learning that more is expected out of him now that he is in the 3rd grade. This is somewhat hard for me too because it's hard for me to know if I should be expecting mastery out of certain things or not. He's not very self-motivated, so I have to prod him some. ;-) But he did like making a three-corner hat in history the other day and wore it around saying, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" LOL!

C (1st grade) is sloooooowwwwwllllllllly starting to read. I think sometimes he gets in the way of himself, ya know? OH! (Kelli, this one is for you. ;-) ) The other day he was doing his math. He had to look at a picture of squares and then determine if there were enough ones to rename into tens. He looked at the picture and said, "17," before I even got a chance to count them. I was amazed. Visions of Rain Man were dancing in my head. (C was diagnosed with PDD-NOS after all, which IS on the autistic spectrum, so hey, I guess it could be possible LOL!) I said, "C, how did you count that fast?????" He said, very nonchalantly, "Mrs. Vick told me." (He does his math with the HomeSat DVD, and she HAD already told him how many were there.) LOL!!!!

L loves her kindergarten DVD. (I do too!) She is learning to read (sort of LOL), and she is really doing well at memorizing her verses for Sparks. She is BEGGING for a Barbie house for Christmas.

J (3.5) has taken well to his daily "storytime with Mom." I realized that since I don't do school with him and don't have to nurse him anymore, he just sort of flits through the day and falls through the cracks (which typically gets him into trouble!). So I've put a storytime in our schedule, right in the middle of the morning. We go up to his room and read a book, just he and I. Ohhhhhh how he loves this, and he is sure to remind me!!! We are reading through the Complete Book of Farmyard Tales, and we are really enjoying that.

S (13.5 months) SLEPT FOR SEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!!! THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!! I felt like a new woman! LOL!!!! I have no idea what was different about last night than oh, the past YEAR, but I am thrilled to bits that it happened!!! I put her to bed around 10 (she had fallen asleep in the van on the way to AWANA, which pushed her bedtime back a bit...doncha hate it when that happens???), she woke up at FIVE (we couldn't believe it!!!), I nursed her in my bed and she passed back out, I got up at 6:20, and then she woke up at 7:50. WOO HOO!!!!! I have been praying for God to do SOMETHING with the whole nighttime situation because it was just FRUSTRATING BEYOND ALL GET OUT, and He finally did!

We're thinking about rearranging our house. We have a four-level split (note: this is one of the dumbest house plans I've ever seen). Since we have such a massive dining table, we currently have it in what should be the living room upstairs on the main floor, and we have our living room in the den, which is 2 levels down in the basement. I don't really care for this arrangement either, though, so I think we are going to try to get the dining table in the actual dining room (well, they call it a "room," I call it an "area" LOL) so we can have the living room upstairs and the school room down in the basement. I'm so tired of having school books covering the dining table all the time. :-( I think we may do that this weekend. We'll see.

And last, but certainly not least, check out this video. (HT: Sal) A few comments:

1. OH MY WORD ARE THEY FUNNY
2. The guy behind them cracks me up. Does he not see them? Is he ignoring them? Or is he in on it and there for effect?
3. I wonder if they think this is how Americans are.
4. I miss having a friend that I can do dorky stuff like this with.