Back At It Again

Well, I did finally lead worship again yesterday. It seemed like it went well and baby did just fine without me. I asked for one song to be recorded so that I could send a copy to a family member that I felt really needed to hear the song. When I was listening back to the recording, I felt the attack of the enemy telling me that it did not sound good at all. I started to feel like, why do I do even do this if I sound so bad when I sing (and all the other stuff he tries to throw in our faces sometimes). Now I know that there are others out there who sing better than I do, but I know that God has given me my own gift and that he is using it as he sees fit. As long as I am willing and able, I want to continue to do what he has asked of me. Nothing more, nothing less. I will not allow Satan to tell me I'm not good enough. That's all there is to it.

On another note, if any of you have never taken the Love Language assessment, I highly encourage you to do so. It can provide some real insight on yourself as well as your spouse and children. My husband and I both took it and I also had both my boys take it as well. The results (especially for the kids) were a little surprising, but it is an awesome tool. It allows you to know how you (and they) best recieve love in one of 5 categories: Acts of Service, Recieving gifts, Quality Time, Physical Touch, or Words of Affirmation. Sometimes what you thought might be the answer could be wrong. I am almost dead even with Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service. This is definitely accurate in my case, and my hubby's was definitely on the money as well! Here is the sight to access the assessment: www.5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love

There is also an assessment for the Language of Apologies. This was also helpful to see how each other best recieves an apology and what feels most sincere to them. Hope you enjoy these tests and that they help you figure out something you didn't know before!

Valentine's Day

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I've never really thought Valentine's Day was super important, but I felt blessed this year by having the people I really care about in my life let me know they loved me. My mom always gets us something for Valentine's Day and the boys especially look forward to it. This year they got little stuffed animals and some money, which they are always excited about. My mother-in-law got us all McDonald's gift cards, so they kids and I had our Valentine's dinner there. I bought the dinner and let them get a special treat with their cards (Oreo McFlurries).

Since my husband works 3-11pm most days, we had to go out for lunch instead of dinner and we had a nice time. On Friday before Valetine's the UPS delivery person arrived with a bouquet of mixed flowers for me. The roses, lilies and snapdragons were beautiful and I set them up in their vase to be displayed proudly. On Tuesday (the day after Valentine's), UPS was back again with a beautiful array of lillies. Then on Wednesday, here they were again (they were probably wondering how many boyfriend's I have)! This time there were a dozen red roses. There's been some times in the past where I wasn't sure my hubby had a romantic bone in his body, but he has now proven that to be the farthest thing from the truth. Thanks for making me feel so loved this week!

It's not the gifts themselves that make me feel so loved, but truly the thought behind the gift. The fact that he took the time to think and plan ahead as to how to make me happy is so sweet. I have to admit that I didn't really take the time this year to do something like that for him. He has upped the ante for the years to come. Guess I'll have to start planning for next year...:)

Passion for Others

We've been doing a series at church recently about having a Passion for one another. I've really been enjoying the sermons on this subject as I am a people person and am always striving to have positive relationships with those around me. I really appreciate pastor's openness about his own personality and relationships and I love that he's not afraid to let us all know he's not perfect. That's a very respectable trait in my book! Today he talked about conflict resolution. I am a person who is always trying to get along with everyone and hates when someone is upset with me. I'm not often involved in an argument with anyone, but when I am, it eats at me until it's resolved.

My husband is probably the person I get upset with the most naturally because we're together the most. Most of our arguments are not over anything of importance and are usually just the result of a miscommunication between us. We just have very differing personalities in the way we talk and like to discuss things in different ways that are not always compatable! We always figure it out and move on quickly though.

Pastor also mentioned some differences between being an extrovert and introvert. In one of my classes, we just had to take a Myer-Brigg's personality test. I have taken this assessment several times over the years, and have always been slightly extroverted, but usually close to the border of introversion. It had probably been at least 5 years or so since I had taken it last and now I am very highly extroverted. I found this change interesting. I'm not sure if it has to do with the fact that as a nurse, you are introducing yourself to new patients everyday and this can be difficult if you're not used to being around people. The other thing that has changed since the last time I took it is that I am now living nearer to people whom I have known for a long time and feel comfortable with. I no longer have to move every couple of years and make new friends each time. This allows me to express my true personality more than I would otherwise.

I'm glad I'm not a person of conflict. I have seen people struggle with family arguments and other difficult situations that I don't know if I could handle well. I sometimes struggle with trying to make everyone happy and not necessarily being able to accomplish that. I'm not a hard person to get along with (at least I hope I'm not), but there are times when it's just not possible to please everyone. This is hard for me to deal with and an area in which I really need to learn to accept that it's sometimes just not going to happen. I pray that I am a blessing to those around me and not a source of strife. To any of you who read this, please know that if there's something I have done to offend you in any way, it wasn't intentional and please let me know about it (gently of course :) so that I can grow. I'm sure there are times I have spoken without thinking (a pitfall of an extroverted personality) and have probably hurt feelings in the process. I hope that's not the case, but I'd love to make things right with anyone who feels that way about something I've said or done! Just send me a facebook msg or email!

If you're interested in taking the MB personality test, follow this link:
www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

Feeling Frazzled

I worked night shift last night. I had a great night and came home and went to bed around 9:30 this morning. Of course I can't sleep for long stretches during the day due to needing to feed the baby, but I slept on and off again until around 3pm. I got up and did some homework for my classes. My husband came in and said he would make dinner. Of course, I thought...'Great, one less thing I have to do tonight!' Somehow, he ended up inviting 5 people to our house to have dinner as well, which he proceeded to inform me of at 4:30. Dinner was scheduled for 5:30. Now those of you that know me well, know that I have not been blessed with a neat freak gene and most of the time would rather find anything else to occupy my time rather than clean. That being said, since I hadn't been in cleaning mode for about 3 weeks, my house looked horrid and in no shape for visitors, especially one that I barely know. To top it off, I was still in my pajamas and badly in need of a shower. I was a little ticked off at him at first, and let him know it while I was desperately trying to make at least the main rooms of the house presentable. By the time I was done with my shower, I felt better and wasn't mad at him anymore. He just wants more people to try his food when he cooks and I can respect that. Anyway, it ended up that the 5th visitor (the one we don't know very well) didn't come and it was just my parents and his parents. This was doable with no problem. They all know what kind of a housekeeper I am, so I've given up trying to impress them!

Anyway, it kind of made me think that maybe I do that spiritually sometimes. Isn't it so easy to let your spiritual life go take a backburner, occupying our time with anything else we can think of. Kind of like I do to my house, and then hurry to try and clean it up when you know someone's going to be looking? I know that I feel that way sometimes. If we'd just keep it presentable all the time, we'd be so much more welcoming and hospitable in both respects. I want that both for my physical home and my spiritual life. Anyone else ever felt that way?

Return to Leading Worship

I started leading worship at our church about 2 years ago and have done so about once a month since then.  However, I haven't led since a month or so before the baby arrived and I'm scheduled to return to it next week (Feb. 20th).  I love doing it, but I'm a little nervous about it this time for a couple of different reasons.  One is that I am of course feeling a little rusty and just hoping my voice and hands will cooperate.  However,I think the biggest reason I'm a little nervous is that I'm not sure how it's going to work logistics wise.  We always practice from 9am until shortly before service starts at 10:30.  However, since I'm still breastfeeding, I'll have to stop practice by 10 in order to make sure she's going to last through worship.  Our worship is not like most church's where you sing a couple of choruses and that's it.  We usually press into God's presence for the better part of an hour, stopping only when we feel the Holy Spirit is done with what he's doing at the moment.  This can make for some incredible times with God and is always awesome, but I haven't been in the service for the entire worship segment since the baby was born due to her feeding schedule.  Therefore, I'm anxious to see how this will work out. 

That being said, I am really excited to get back into the swing of leading worship again.  This will be the first time I've led since our former youth pastor has been gone.  She was my second vocalist and I'm going to miss having her sing with me so much.  She is following God's plan for her life and I am so proud of her, but I miss her a lot!  I have asked a teenager with an incredible voice to join me, so she will be singing with me for the first time and I'm excited to see how that goes.  She is a really sweet girl and I'm looking forward to getting to know her more as well.

I'm also looking forward to trying a new song (at least it's new to me).  I heard it on the radio a week or so ago and scrambled to find a pen to write it down on my hand so I could look up the chords when I got home.  It is a powerful reminder of how great just the name of our Creator is.  There is no limit to his love and power.  Here's the song if you're interested in checking it out:

Beginning The Journey

So, I've decided to try my hand at blogging. I'm not sure exactly why I'm doing this, other than I felt a push from God to give it a try. I've been reading friend's blogs and really enjoying them, so why not, right? I'm thinking that God wants me to try this as a way of sorting out my thoughts and feelings and I trust he will use it as a tool for my spiritual growth. Truthfully, I don't really think anyone will even read it, but that doesn't really matter. I intend for this to be for myself and my own growth. If other's want to come along, that's okay, but I'm most certainly not counting on it.

As far as who I am and where I'm coming from, I'll address the personal side first. At first glance, I'm a small town girl with a hubby and 3 kiddos. From the outside world, it may look like I've had life pretty easy. However, there are things that I have been through I have simply chosen not to share with the world. I married at a very young age and while my husband was in the military, we spent more days and nights apart then together. We battled things I still choose to keep private and after his discharge, returned to the area where we grew up to raise our family near both sets of parents. We will have been married for 10 years this year and though it hasn't been easy, I wouldn't trade any of it. God has used each occurence in our lives to generate growth in us and we are stronger now then we ever could have been had we not faced each trial. Our children are the joy of our lives. We have 2 boys (ages 7 and 5) and a baby girl not yet 3 months old. They are so much fun and we are so blessed to have been entrusted as their parents. Our oldest officially started elementary school this year and we have begun a new chapter as far as parenting is concerned.

Professionally, I have been a registered nurse for nearing 2 years now. I chose to return to college and nursing school after moving back to the area we grew up in. It wasn't easy completing it with everything else that was going on in our lives, but with the help of our parents to watch the boys, I was able to do so. Truthfully, I didn't just get through it, I excelled in school. I never could have done as well as I did without the support of all those around me. I felt such a great sense of pride when I recieved my diploma, and then when I passed my boards and recieved my license. I worked full time for over a year in 2 different hospitals and really enjoyed it. Halfway through my last pregnancy, I decided that I didn't want to work full time and became only a PRN worker (meaning I just work when they need someone to fill in and can pick and choose most of my own hours). This works great with the boys being in school and having a new baby at home. I'm able to work as much or as little as I want and though it has been a strain financially, being able to take care of my own kids is such a blessing, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am currently taking classes to continue my education and am fully planning on earning a bachelor's and master's degree in order to expand my oppurtunities. I'm not sure exactly what the end goal is and I continue to debate between earning my Nurse Practitioner's degree, a Nurse Midwife degree, and a teaching degree, so I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to end up. I'm just trusting God for one step at a time.

As far as the Spiritual aspect goes, I have been a church goer all my life. My family attended church at least 1-2 times per week, every week growing up. We attended 2 different penecostal churches and I had a very charismatic upbringing. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I really took my personal relationship with God very seriously and starting pursuing him myself. It was then that I realized the faith of my parent's wasn't enough to save me and I had to have my own relationship with Jesus Christ in order to be saved. Once I did so, allowing God to be in charge has been my biggest struggle. It's so easy to try and direct your life the way you see fit, but God's plan can be so much greater and more rewarding then we could ever imagine. I had no idea where life was going to lead me when I began my journey with God, and I still don't know where he's going to lead, but I'm trusting that he is in charge. I try to listen for his direction and take his lead, being extra careful to not trust my own instincts over his guidance. It's definitely not easy, but I'm working on it.

I hope that this blog will help me to grow spiritually in ways that I wouldn't see otherwise. My plan is to use it as a tool to organize my thoughts on different subjects and that it will help me to learn more about my own thought processes. If anyone choses to read this, I hope that you are able to get something out of it and that somehow, God challenges you to grow spiritually in your own life.