Sometimes I Write

Hot under the collar that is. So Benny decided to put this picture of me into my blog profile because it’s one of his favorites. You can’t tell very well, but my eyes match my sweater and he loves that my hair is longer. (He won’t give up that dream) LOL I like it, but it’s a year old and my hair is now short, brighter red, and curly most of the time. I don’t think the picture to the right is a true representation of me now. (I know, I can be really anal about things sometimes.) I’d much prefer to post a picture of say…Julianne Moore instead of myself. Afterall, she has red hair, but she’s thinner, she’s taller, has more money, uh-oh I’m beginning to ramble. The picture was just the beginning of the fun-filled night I like to call “Computer dates gone wild and wrong”.

Since Benny officially became a blogger (and now admits it) we’ve been playing around with his blog, adding stuff like links, reading lists, sitemeter, etc. We have also been dabbling in basic html to cut and paste codes into the template. I got the bright idea to see what my blog would look like with a different template, so we copied my template and pasted it into a word document in case we had any trouble, all my codes and add-ons would not be lost forever. That was about the only smart thing we did all night! We found a template I liked and Benny said it was more “me”, and got to work trying to add html code. NOTHING we tried worked like we wanted it to. The spacing was off, stuff wasn’t appearing in the right places, we were caught in this game of having to get it right, sometimes being frustrated and sometimes laughing at ourselves for being html illiterate. (My Yoda is on vacation this week!) After two whole hours of this, we gave up and went back to our original templates and pasted everything back in. LOL I guess that’s why Blogger has ready made templates for us to choose from, duh! Two hours of time wasted trying to be as smart as the computer programmer/template designer when we could have been doing a million other bonding things.

Normal couples have normal dates like going to the movies…oh yeah, that requires a babysitter and money and we are short on both at the moment. I guess we’ll stick to the gifts God gave us, accept our limits, and keep blogging about our boring dates. haha They aren’t all boring, just lastnight was. As a matter of fact this post is boring. I can’t believe I’m actually going to post it anyway. I can’t believe you read it and you’re still awake. Please come back tomorrow and I’ll post something more exciting for you.

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Because of Benny’s Texas roadtrip, the people who have pledged support, and those who have already been part of our support team, it looks like we have reached our financial support raising goal! God is so amazing! This has been a long hard road so far, but things have sort of fallen into place anyway. We have had many discouragers and cheerleaders along the way, so I am so excited to be able to tell everyone that we did it! God did it! We are so blessed.

We have learned so much about depending on God for everything. We know the difference between what we want and what we need, and have experienced both. We have good friends who have believed in us and spurred us on during the moments we questioned our calling. We have even been blessed through the people who thought we were crazy to do this, worried about us, or told us there’s no way we could raise the amount we wanted to. You see we took the leap of faith God called us to take and He has blessed us over and over again. It hasn’t just been OUR faith growing, but the faith of everyone around us as they watch the support being pledged and start to come in from around the country. They have watched our prayers being answered. We have so many new partners in our ministry that I am overwhelmed with joy and honestly, relief.

Our financial prayers are being answered by God through so many of you, but my prayer requests will not stop. Satan knows what he’s doing and some of my thoughts yesterday were, “Well, we’re going to be taken care of for the next year, but come next Fall we have to do this all over again”, and “What if someone changes their mind and decides to pull their support?”, and “What if we have an emergency? Will we have enough?”. Can you believe my nerve? Why on earth would God move us here to learn how to start this ministry, take care of all the details for us BEFORE our official start date, then when it came time to fly on our own, drop us on our faces? Why would he provide for our basic needs and leave us alone during an emergency? Where’s my faith? Who am I putting my trust in? The people sending money, or the one who REALLY owns it all? So I ask for forgiveness and echo the plight in Mark 9:

Jesus is asked to heal a boy possessed by demons. The disciples have tried to cast the demons out, but have failed. Jesus asks the father of the boy how long this has been happening and the father gives him the details then ends with,

“Have mercy on us and help us. Do something if you can.” “What do you mean, ‘if I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.” The father instantly replied, “I do believe, but help me not to doubt!” (NLT)

The story ends with the disciples questioning Jesus about their failure at casting out demons. Jesus tells them that this kind of evil spirit can be cast out only by prayer.

So I ask you to join me in thanksgiving for God providing what we need, and ask for your continued prayers for our ministry and specifically for strength and faith on the days I believe, but doubt. I’m grateful for your presence in my life, and your shared faith. I am humbled by what God has done in my life in the short time I’ve been blogging, and thankful for the opportunity to share it with you! God Bless Us All!

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If you look at my links list, you’ll notice the word “Flylady”. This is the BEST website for moms whether you are a stay at home mom, or work outside the home. Actually, it’s awesome for everyone, mom or not! Even Benny has found it very useful and helpful with his youth ministry stuff. About three years ago my friend Laurie and I discovered it and it changed my life. I am already known in my circle of friends as “the organizer”. It’s my Type A, I’m sure of it. But this system of FLYing (Finally Loving Yourself) was revolutionary for me. I went from CHAOS (can’t have anybody over syndrome) and obsessing about my home to FLYing (having regular routines and a cleaning schedule). It works!!! Don’t take my word for it, try it out for yourself.

Organizing is my specialty. I was one of those annoying kids that had everything neatly filed in my locker for easy access. I could have invented locker storage solutions! I was probably the first woman to buy Martha Stewart’s, Good Things for Organizing book, and I have atleast 6 books in my personal library that are organization related. (And all my books are shelved by topic.) I have clear plastic containers all over my house that store everything from Q-tips to coloring books. We have before bed, morning, and lunchtime routines posted on the fridge that the kids can mark off with dry erase as they go. I am the poster child for organization.

Here’s the thing…Someone clipped my wings. Probably me, but I think I had help. So what’s the problem? Let’s see…Procrastination, tiredness, and maybe I’m still recovering from pregnancy brain. Hey…3 kids in 5 years is hard on a woman! But enough of the whining, and I already had my tantrum this week. So after much discussion with dear hubby (some heated and with tears) I went back to the website and re-read the whole thing. How many times can you hear, “Life was much happier around here when you were a FLYlady”. (my paraphrase ofcourse) It took me a few hours, during which he watched the kids. (I should have made a pot of tea and some scones first!) 🙂 The more I read, the more I remembered and I started to get excited. I thought, “I can do this! I have already been there so I know I can”.

Since I’m good at organizing and I really enjoy it, Benny thinks maybe Satan has been attacking me in that area of my life. It is easily the most discouraging thing in my life right now, being semi-organized and semi-cluttered. (I’ve had way too many pity parties complete with chips and dip). I know the difference between moving clutter and regular clutter, and my moving clutter was gone a month after we got here. Physical clutter is mental clutter, and my mind hasn’t been very free lately. So, I am so excited that I’m going to be FLYing again! Life really was much simpler then. Ofcourse I only had 1 child then. On a positive note, I now have 3 children that LOVE to help me around the house. I can’t get them to leave the vacuum cleaner alone. I might as well teach them how to use the darn thing! LOL

It is also going to be invaluable for our Homeschooling which begins in 2 short weeks! When I’m FLYing I’m free to enjoy my hubby and kids because the dirty work, literally, is out of the way. I’m taking what I’ve learned from her system and making it fit the Nowell family. Babysteps is the key! I’m growing my wings out again!

www.flylady.com

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He has finally done it! Benny started his blog today. “I’m not a blogger” he said. “Yeah right, you’re powered by Blogger”, I reminded him. “You’re posting things for other people to read and comment on, that makes you a blogger.” And that’s how the verbal volley ended.

He has decided that a blog would be another good way to keep our support team and anyone else that stops by our website up to date on the latest activities of Dry Bones and the lives of the kids we encounter and befriend. So, if you click on the “Update” button from our site it will take you to his blog. OR you can just click on his name to the right of this post in my blogroll.

I’m excited that you, my friends and blogging family, and also chance readers who accidentally land here from tapping the Next Blog button (Sandy ;)), get to hear (read) about life from his perspective, which is TOTALLY different than mine. Well, mostly different than mine. We truly are opposites in so many ways. So welcome my passionate, daring and dangerous hubby to the blog world! What are you waiting for? Go click on his name already!

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My friend Adam posted about his Trek experience last week and how God gave him the gift of a new heart. Read his post. It’s great!

As you know, I had a collection of rocks shaped like hearts started by Benny, then Max added to it. This past week I added 9 more rocks from my hike with Tawnya. When I saw the first one, I almost left it there because it wouldn’t mean the same thing as the rest of my collection if I found it for myself. Then I picked it up and thought I’d give it to Benny, but as I put it in my pocket, a thought crossed my mind that maybe it was a gift from God – it was the first heart shaped rock I had ever found. A special reminder that sometimes our hearts are found on high places, out in the wild, and surrounded by God’s creation. I thanked God for the gift, and in the next hour I found 7 more! (Tawnya found 1 and gave it to me too).

We had such a good time talking and laughing on that hike. Most of the laughing happened during all the breaks we had to take to catch our breath! We were determined to reach the snow even though I told her it looked deceptively close. I found the first rock on the way up the trail. I told Tawnya about my collection as I was thinking about whether or not to keep it. After that she started watching for them too. We both picked up several that SORT OF looked like hearts. I laughed and said I’m a purist and it needed to really have the shape or I wouldn’t keep it. But I got to thinking about the ones already in my livingroom and decided I shouldn’t be quite so picky. You see, some of the rocks I’d received as gifts were not perfectly heart shaped. Some had a few jagged edges, some looked like they had been carved, some were smooth and roundish, some were small, some were big, and some had moss growing on them, some were dark, some were light, and some were heavy. Do you know any hearts like that? We even found a very large one that was about 10 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. We don’t know how thick it was because it was partially buried in the ground. It was way too big to dig up or carry around. We joked that we’d come back for it someday.

All of the differences in the rocks of my collection and the ones collected this week, make them special and unique – something to treasure. One of my favorites is the one Max found for me and autographed. The look in his eyes when he excitedly pulled it from his pocket and placed it in my hand was one of such love, and hope. He wanted so badly for me to love it and hear me squeal with delight over his gift. I am amazed when the Lord uses my children to show me His truth and love. When I presented my heart to God, I believe He too squealed with delight at me finally trusting Him. I could almost feel Him lean down to hug me and thank me for the gift of my heart as He promised to hold it, strengthen it, and give it back to me.

They turned out a bit dark, but here they are, every one a reminder of my own heart and the hearts of others:

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