Sunday, January 31, 2016

God's ironic

Typically Sundays are a somewhat relaxing day for me. Church is followed by an afternoon at home, getting a few things ready for the next week, doing a bit of crafting, and watching some TV. On a really wonderful Sunday, I take a nap. (Oh naps, how I took you for granted when I was young! I didn't truly understand what "tired" was then.)

Today was not typical. I had a few more run-around things that needed to be taken care of. I don't like to venture out to stores on the weekends. The population of the store is doubled from a regular weekday. 
And, because of the nature of my purchases, I chose to go to Wal-Mart. 
With my kids.
On a Sunday.
Not one of my wisest decisions.

I was a bit on edge on the drive to the store, probably because I was a bit stressed from all that I wanted to accomplish before my husband got home from his trip down south this weekend. (He ran a Spartan Race this weekend and I'm really proud of him. If you don't know what that is, it's okay. I just needed to brag on him a bit because, although he'll downplay it, I think it's pretty rad!) Anyway, I like to have the house in order when he gets home. Not because he demands it, but because I like to provide a place that is comfortable and somewhat free of chaos for him. 

So we arrive at Wal-Mart and the place is full of people. And for some reason all these little tables have been set up with random clearance items on them. It's like a giant obstacle course that I have to weave a cart and two children through. And nobody there smiles. Which might seem normal, but I hate that people don't smile very often. Finally, we get in line with our stuff and I soon discover that there is a hold up and I should move. So the next line I chose was more HORRIBLER (yeah, that's a word for today). I think we waited in line for at least 25 minutes. At this point my own children are telling me that they will never come back to Wal-Mart. I can't even look at what's going on ahead of me in line because it is so chaotic that I suddenly understand why NO ONE IS SMILING!! 

Wal-Mart, why do you hate me so? 

So at this point, my patience is gone. However, I strive to maintain my composure in front of my kids because I think patience is such an important thing for them to learn and what better way to learn than by example, right? 

But then we drive home. Country roads. Slow cars. No room to pass. Our 15 minute drive took 25 minutes. Not the end of the world, but at this point my kids are teasing me because they know my struggle with patience is over. I have lost. I am groaning and complaining! I still have another couple of errands to do and clean up that has to happen at home and....AUGH!!

My daughter says to me, "God is sure funny about how he teaches you patience at the times when He knows you don't really have much, huh?!" 

Nail on the head, sister. Nail. On. The. Head.

I learned a few valuable lessons today.
First of all: No Wal-Mart visits ever on Sunday again.
Secondly: Children are wiser than we give them credit for.
Third: God teaches what He wants, when He wants. Deal with it.

Lesson(s) learned.

KC


Thursday, January 28, 2016

like a sword

Last night I crawled onto my daughter's bed to spend a few minutes with her before I said good-night. Usually, this ends up being a 5-10 minute conversation about something that is on her heart or mind. And although I'm pretty low on parenting reserves at that point (I mean I'm typically below empty at bedtime), I'll try to listen through her emotions and pull out the words of wisdom she is seeking. (Believe it or not, she actually thinks I am wise! She has told other people this! She has told me this!! This is kind of a huge deal for me...let's see how long it lasts!)

Last night's issue was about a group of girls her age and a comment or two that was said in her direction. Not necessarily a rude comment, but said with enough undertone that my perceptive girl knew she was being made fun of. And she was hurt. She did her best to keep her composure in the situation and then blurted it out as soon as we had a moment of downtime to chat.

People, my heart BROKE. And it will always break when I hear of little girls being rude or mean to each other. It starts so young! It's no wonder we struggle with relationships as we get older. We don't trust each other because we've been torn down by other girls since we were in 4th grade! At least that's when it started for me.

So you know what I do when my daughter tells me these things? I try desperately to get her to understand her feelings in the situation and encourage her to remember those feelings when she wants to speak rudely to someone else. I cannot change other little girls, but I can try hard to teach my daughter to be considerate of the words that come out of her mouth and how they might affect someone else.

I know she still struggles. My girl speaks a lot more from her emotions than she should.
But hopefully, by the time she is a teen (lots of prayers and conversations happening now) she will have a heart for others that governs the words that come out of her mouth.

What a lesson to be learned from our little girls: let's be careful of the words we speak that we are building each other up, not tearing one another down. Because if we're being honest with ourselves (at least for me), as adults, we are just as hurt by words as we were when we were little...


KC

iron

Oh my goodness, I am starting this post at 11:50. Let's hope the words come quickly and clearly!!

Today I talked with (and by talked with, I mean over the phone and via text) a couple of gals who are my iron. 

You see, I had a pretty insignificant issue that happen to me this afternoon, but it was irritating and was nagging me. I didn't know exactly how to handle it so I was going to ask one of my close gals, who knows my heart quite well, how I should handle it. Before I could start a conversation with her, she texted me! It was almost as if she knew....😳. So I explained the situation to her and told her what I wanted to do to handle it...and she promptly told me, "No." Then she proceeded to tell me exactly how I should handle it, thereby putting me in my place, which is exactly where I needed to be put. That's iron.

Another dear, dear gal of mine called to get my opinion on a pretty significant situation in her life. And I told her my honest opinion because that's what she wanted. This same gal and I will often send pictures of outfits back and forth because we need a truthful answer on it's adorableness or on how big it makes our booties look. And I will call her any time I need a push in the right direction, especially in regards to homeschooling! Because she is my iron too.

I have more irons in my life. Friends whom I respect, who shoot me straight, who give me their honesty, who tell me when my attitude sucks, who tell me that I handled it wrong and should look at it from another perspective. I would not be who I am today without these people and I couldn't live without them.

You know why? Because "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17.

These friends who aren't afraid to speak truth in my life are making me a better person. They challenge me and speak to me with love. I want to be held accountable and to a higher standard by people who love me and care about me and want to see me grow. I am grateful that God has put these amazing people in my life.

These same people trust me to be iron in their lives so that I might help them become better people also. 
Do you have friends who sharpen you?
Because they are valuable!
Or maybe more importantly, are you that kind of friend?

(Found this beauty on Pinterest!)

KC

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

real life

There are so many wonderful things happening to wonderful people who live such wonderful lives! I know this because I see it on Facebook every day! I had this conversation with a dear friend this morning. Life on social media is just about perfect. 

Well, all y'all perfect folks are setting some pretty high standards for me to live up to! My hair doesn't look beautiful every day (I'll be honest: if you see me wearing a hat, it's because my hair needs to be covered up, not because it's a cute accessory. My dear friend that I ran into at a fundraiser this evening can attest to that! 😉) My children are cute....sometimes....when they brush their hair and take time to match their outfits (which happens when they care, which is almost never. But if I'm being honest, I'm actually okay with my kids not putting too much stock in how perfect they look...but it would be nice if the brush met the hair once in a while.) My kids are funny and creative and smart...and stinkers and misbehave-ers and are mean to me and deserve every bit of the yelling I give them. (Yes. I yell. Not all the time. But when my wit meets it's end, my voice raises a few decibels. Because I have not yet met the perfect standard.) My marriage is wonderful and my husband and I have a great friendship. We enjoy each other's company and everything is always sunshine and roses (except when it's not because he's a guy and I'm a gal and we just don't always see things eye to eye or treat each other with ooey-gooey love. Because, try as we might: STILL NOT PERFECT!) 

Our house: not perfectly put together. It never will be.
Our yard: not perfect. Children play there.
Our vacations: not perfect nor typically extravagant...unless someone else is paying for it!
My truck: not perfect but it works to get me from point A to point B.
My job: as passionate as I am about teaching kids music, it's not a perfect job. Some days 6:00 hits and I am FINISHED!

If I'm being perfectly honest, I know that many of my friends in the social media world are posting the good things in life, trying not to air the bad. I get that, completely! You won't find me posting a picture of me in my pajamas, hair awry, yelling at my children with piles of laundry in the background! Because that's kinda a drag. And I don't like to be a drag. 

But I don't have a problem with being real. There are a few folks in whom I take special interest in when they post because they aren't afraid to put their emotions out there, to tell the truth of living through life's difficulties, to share their weaknesses and struggles. Those people, they are real. And someone else's "real" is usually something I can relate to, something that makes me feel a little less lonely in dealing with my own weaknesses. 

So that's why I write: to be real. 

And because being perfect is WAY too much work!!

KC


Monday, January 25, 2016

tired of failing

I realized something today while I was homeschooling my kiddos and it hit me pretty hard. Hard enough to make the kind impact that changes a person's perspective on life. 

Over the past few months, maybe even years, I have been losing my joy in my calling.

I guess I've seen it happening. Everything in life started to seem like work. Even some of my favorite things lost their enjoyment. 

But today the reason behind it hit me square between the eyes: I've been so caught up in the areas in life that I'm failing, that I'm struggling to find the joy in what I'm doing each day.

Homeschooling
Finances
Exercise
Mommying
Wife-ing 
Laundry-ing
Cooking
Cleaning (HAHAHAHA! Constant failure!)
And 75 other things (minimum)
All areas where a majority of what I see is failure.

And the crazy thing is that if I look back at that last month since the busy schedule of the holidays has passed and I've gotten back into my ridiculous routine/schedule, I've actually been more organized and productive in day to day life. 

And yet all that sticks out in my mind is my failures. 

And feeling like a failure is exhausting. I'm constantly trying to do better, make improvements, get more accomplished, work harder. All that would be great if I felt like I was making progress, but the shortcomings glare at me. 

You know why? I think that stinky devil has a way of making our failures so obvious that we can't see past them. 

But today, God gave me a little song. It's a bit repetitive but it goes a little something like this:
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
(There are other verses, but this one has been running on repeat in my head today.)

So I finished out the remainder of my day realizing that although I might not be perfect, it's okay because I can draw the strength I need from the God who is. He is the source of true joy. I've known this for many years, but some days it gets buried beneath life. Today I dug it back out again and starting searching for the enjoyment of what God has called me to do:
Mommy-ing
Wife-ing
Teaching
Homeschooling
Cleaning (okay, maybe there's not a whole lot of joy in that...)
and about 75 other things!

And for the first time in a while, I'm looking forward to enjoying tomorrow, even though there are appointments and whiny children, school and a thousand piano lessons, mom being a taxi driver, children whining (some more) and 20 other reasons for me to be crabby. I'll look for the joy.

And find it.

KC 

Monday, January 11, 2016

busy

This evening around 10:00 I was watching a movie with my husband and I fell asleep. This is not an unusual occurrence for me but unfortunately, instead of my body waking up after the movie and trekking the short distance up to bed so that I could plop in and fall right back asleep, my mind decided that short amount of shut-eye was more like a little nap.

The super duper side of that is that as I laid in bed with my eyes wide open, I was able to mentally outline my agenda for this week as well as add a few items to the already large to-do list. I also ordered a set of business cards, which I have been meaning to do for weeks and then I read a couple chapters from Jen Hatmaker's book: For the Love, so that I could attend a book club session at our church this week, which I had already added to my mental agenda for the week, and reading her book prompted me to write a blog post this evening which was supposed to tire me out so that I could try to plop back into bed and fall asleep. Unfortunately, I completed the entire post and apparently found some button that magically deleted the entire thing - wonderful. So here I sit, writing it all over again!

The not-so-super side of that mini nap is the fact that tomorrow morning I will try to roll out of bed in utter exhaustion and try to function through Monday with copious amounts of caffeine, which is really not much different than any other day of the week so.... welcome back, Monday!

So 2016 started out great, pretty much like 2015 ended: busy, busy, busy.

Just looking at the calendar for January has got me exhausted! But I know this is just my current season. God is constantly reminding me that where I am is just for a season. This is what God has planned for me and my family right now. And someday it will change...maybe once my kids go to college or perhaps when folks get tired of me teaching their kiddos piano lessons. (Then again, I am a bit like my mom. She's 70+ years old and she's still busy! I've never known her not to be busy. Busy: that's my future.)

We're all in our own seasons of busy. I remember the "diaper/toddler/baby gate/potty training/reading the same board book over and over again" stage. And the "pulling an all-nighter to study for a test that I'm probably going to fail anyway" college stage. And the "spending every spare minute with my father before he passes so that I don't miss a moment with him" stage. I know that "driving teenagers everywhere pretty, pretty please" stage is just around the corner.

I'll admit that I seek out moments to rest: watching an episode on Netflix, or enjoying a white mocha while I catch up on the Morning Daily Social News (also know as Facebook and Instagram). And when I wake up in the morning, I do not hop out of bed. My bed has a very soft blanket that makes it very difficult to get up in the morning, so I enjoy it and often my kids will come and snuggle with me for a bit in the morning (and I'm also not much of a morning person so taking a little while in a cozy, comfy bed to accept that it really, truly is morning is my way of coping). I cherish those moments of peace before my feet hit the carpet and I'm off and running!

Being busy is exhausting, frustrating, stressful, and can make a gal anxious. I've been all of those!
But I have chosen to see my busy life as a full life. Perspective.
My life is filled with time spent with my children and husband, filled with enjoyable moments with friends and family that I love, filled with memories, adventure, no regrets, and using the gifts that God has graciously given me. 

Busy can be crazy.
But there is value in finding the enjoyment in the fullness of your life.

Maybe when people ask how life is these days, my response will be "full" instead of "busy."
Yes, my life is full.

KC

Thursday, January 7, 2016

God in the situation

So I lost at parenting tonight. I was winning all day, doing and saying all the right things to my kids (except for when Jayne sat on Lincoln while he made the most annoying sounds ever to pass a 7 year old's lips all while I was trying to respond to some emails. That was maybe not a winning moment for me...but other than that, all good mommying things!)

And then late night hit, followed by the drama of an overly-tired daughter and a mom who was done with her day 2 hours earlier. (Seriously, I thought she was asleep and I had already gone into "non-functioning mom" mode.) I did not handle this well. 

And the stupid thing is that I was actually trying! It's not like I got so angry that I was speaking purely from emotion. I just couldn't bring the wisdom or the right words of comfort to handle this drama. I have struggled with drama (as in I dislike it greatly) since I was a kid so it's funny, ironic, I suppose, that my daughter lives a highly dramatic life. 

Finally, after trying to calm my daughter with my words of wisdom that were pretty much just making the situation worse, I started talking about our great big God who is able to do more than we ask or imagine. He is our protector, our healer, our guardian who gives us courage. 

And, of course, shortly after bringing God into the situation, she mellowed out and fell asleep.

And, of course, there's a moral in the story for me too (because God's always trying to teach me something through this blog): how many worries, how many stresses, how much wasted time fretting about anxieties, how much fear am I going to allow in my life before I realize that I need to bring a God into the situation a lot sooner? 

Tonight I guess I'm grateful for my parenting fail because it brought our focus, both Jayne's and mine, to where it was supposed to be: on our Father. 

KC

Monday, January 4, 2016

the purpose

In a couple days days I go back to a full schedule again: homeschool, piano lessons, and household stuff. I kinda like vacation though and I'm thinking of staying on break permanently.

Most of you probably started work again today. Or maybe never really got a break for the holidays, which is a huge bummer. (My husband works in the medical field. I get it. We've had years of working the holidays.) 

Whatever the case, it can be very difficult to go back to a job that you know is going to exhaust you or frustrate you. And then to try and find purpose amongst the irritation and aggravation of a job you have to do? Nearly impossible.

There are days when I'm teaching my two kids and I throw up my hands and ask myself why I'm putting myself through this? And other days when I've taught eight piano students in a row and I'm mentally drained and wonder how I'll ever get my brain to work at full capacity again. 

Some days I want to run away! This adult stuff is hard.

But I'll tell you what keeps me sane, what keeps getting me out of bed each morning (some days later than others):

Having a purpose in everything I do. 
No matter what I am doing, I am doing it with the idea in mind that God has called me to do it and He wants me to do my best at it.
I am an example of Him no matter what I am doing: teaching my kids, teaching my piano students, interacting with parents, being a wife, mom, daughter, friend, chef, chauffeur, pianist, therapist, housekeeper (we all know I'm not fond of, or good at that one), writing, buying groceries (another non-favorite). No matter where I am, no matter what I am doing, I am there as a representative of Christ: no higher calling, people!!

Now, I'm not as good as Jesus at being Jesus. Actually I'm really bad at it. 
But I'm trying.
And that gives me purpose.

So when I want to lock my kids in the pantry for the afternoon (What?! There are plenty of snacks in there!) or when I'm on my second highly caffeinated drink during my piano lessons, or I'm running an errand when I'd rather be sitting on the couch in my pjs, or I'm cleaning cat puke off the ground (she's a really old kitty...🐱), I have a purpose: to try to do it as Jesus would do it. (Although I have to admit that it makes me giggle to think of him cleaning up cat puke...but he did wash his disciples feet!) 

I don't know what your job is (well, actually, I probably do know most of your jobs; this is a small town and I'm pretty sure my reader base doesn't really reach very far out from people I know!) but I do know there is a great purpose for you to be there: to be Christ in all you do. 

Kinda changes your focus for today, doesn't it?

KC