Who do you think you are?

I know people may have assumed that this title should be said with a head swagger, finger wagging, sassy sort of way.  And if you didn't , go ahead and try it now.  I'll wait. 

But that's not what I meant!  I mean it quite literally.  Who do you think you are?  If you had to sit down and write out a list of who you are, what would it say? 

I have a challenge for anyone who is willing to accept it.  And before I throw it out there, let me just say, we'll be doing this at my dinner table tonight.  Write it out.  Who do you think you are?  I both look forward to and dread seeing what my children might write.  As I was reading today, this verse was part of the text:

Words kill, words give life;
    they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.

Proverbs 18:21

 

Wow.  I so hope I see that my words have given my children life and not poison, and the same for my husband, and sisters and brother and parents, friends, enemies, everyone.  I do not want my words to be poison for anyone.  And sadly I know I have used my words as poison.  I want my words to bring life, I have to continually control my thoughts and emotions to do so.  This is going to be something I try and work on everyday.  I love words.  I love to speak them, sing them and write them.  Sometimes, I even make up my own words.  And since I fling words around like confetti, it is my choice to make them be life affirming. 

 

Tonight when I peek through my fingers to see what my children write, I will ask God for forgiveness for any harshness I see exposed that I contributed to and I will pray for healing for my children in that area, that their wounds will be bound and seen no more.  I will also praise God for the wondrous ability he gave children to see more clearly who they are than those of us who have aged and been wounded by life.  Then I will do my absolute best to confirm that my children ARE and CAN be all of those things they see as great in themselves, and they can use them to fulfill dreams and their purpose. 

 

There is a second part to the challenge though.  I'm asking you to take a step out of your comfort zone here.  I want you to call, email, send a letter, Facebook message, WHATEVER way you can, communicate to someone you have used your words as poison.  It's ok to start small.  I'm not saying you should call the person that has hurt you most  (although if you think you are ready- I am so proud of you!) and call it a day.  The thing about forgiveness is that is doesn't excuse the behavior of the person you are forgiving, it releases you from the prison (anger, pain, abandonment) you have been trapped in by their actions.  But that is a whole other post.  I digress. 

 

Communicate with someone who you feel your words may have poisoned.  Ask them to forgive you and then give them some life affirming words.  You'll have to give about 10 times as many affirming words to overcome the negative poison words. 

 

I truly believe that deep down we want to be built up and yet we often so struggle to do that for others.  One day soon, I am going to write out a mission statement for my life and one of the first statements will be : I want to lift and encourage others with my words.  I choose to be a life giver. 

Let's break the crazy cycle of poison words and just encourage each other.  No matter what is happening in our own lives, we can be positive for other people. 

 

Sometimes we don't feel worthy to encourage others, but we are!  I read this statement today and I feel it down to my toes:

 

"Don't go through this baloney of "I can't forgive myself."  No, you can't forgive yourself.  No one can.  God forgives us and we accept His forgiveness and we are forgiven.  God will say to you in His word "Woman, I forgive you because I died in your place for that dirty little sin."  (Luis Palau)

 

We've all said it, Why can't I forgive myself?  And now it's clear, we can't.  We must accept God's forgiveness and then we are cleansed.  We may not feel it, but when we choose to believe it daily, we will begin to feel it! It's not feel it and then believe, it's believe and then feel it. 

 

So who's taking the identity challenge with me???  Once you've made your list, I pray that over the next week or  month, you'll go through each thing you wrote down, reflect on it and decide if it's true.  If it is a lie, something you've been told so often, you believed it to be true, I want you to mark it out.  Lies have no place in our identity! 

 

I would LOVE to hear how this works out for you all and you can be assured, I'll be sharing with you!!   You can message me here, or if you want privacy you can email me at inshockmom@gmail.com

 

"Let your only evaluation of worth derive from the awareness of God's love for you. All other measures leave one in a state of delusion."  Anonymous

 

 

Comparison kills!

My mom makes me strong! 

How often do we as moms feel that we do that for our children?

We get so good at trashing our self and tearing ourselves apart because we can't be the Pinterest mom that does this:

Or maybe that is just me that feels less because I don't do this?  Guess what?  I can't do this either:

 

 



 

 

There are a LOT of things I can not do in this life.  Some I really want to do and others, well, my inability doesn't bother me at all.  I could run through an entire list of things I don't do well and give you reasons why I believe it. 

But I'm finally learning to say NO! to that type of thinking.  Who says I have to focus so much on shoring up my weaknesses?  Who says I can only focus on what I can't do?  Yes, working on weaknesses can be good, can be necessary, but what we can't do, does NOT define us.  I'm weary of being told constantly what it is that is wrong about me according to the small few who dictate what is ok or not in our society.  I may never fly to the moon, pose on the cover of Vogue or sing songs so well I record a platinum record and that is ok.  I have a list of things I can do and so do you!

I can teach my children about God and his love.
I can encourage and lift up my husband.
I can keep 4 kids and a husband alive.  (I have a pretty impressive 9 year record there!  GO ME!)
I can talk.
I can write.
I can laugh.  I can make other people laugh!
I can read and pass on the love of reading to my children.
I can cook.
I can organize.
I can play sports and pretty well at that.
I can play games on a rainy Saturday with my kids.
I can plan family date nights and scavenger hunts.
I can make friends and keep in touch with the golden oldies I have...
I can use my every breath to love, encourage and inspire others.

I can't do any of this on my own power though.  God gave me all of these abilities because it pleases him for me to use them.  I don't always use them properly, I don't always think of them as gifts or abilities.  Sometimes, I just don't want to do anything for anyone else.  I want to do only what I want.  Then I sigh REALLY loud, suck it up and realize parenting is all about sacrifice.  But the joy from that sacrifice is without compare! 

So I am vowing to stop comparing myself to other moms.  The thing about comparison is, we are comparing our BLOOPER reel to their highlight reel.  And the mom we wish we more like is probably beating herself up because she can't do XYZ either.  So let's start encouraging each other because the one thing we all want to teach our children is how to love. 

God loves us, He created us because we please Him exactly as we are, not as we should be.
"Worthy, O Master! Yes, our God!
Take the glory! the honor! the power!
You created it all;
It was created because you wanted it." Rev 4:11 The Message

He WANTED us, so he created us.  Wow.  We are exactly right.  God created us for his pleasure.  We please him by simply being us. 

And even after I throw myself under the bus, cry in the bathroom, feel inadequate, wish I could take back those harsh words I just spoke to my sweet 7 year old daughter, I'll remember that Tessa (my five year old) said: 

"My mom makes me strong!"

Wild Women of Faith

I went to Women of Faith this weekend in Hartford.  It was amazing, it was enlightening, it was FUN!  I laughed and I cried and I laughed and I cried. 

The speakers this weekend were Sheila Walsh, Lisa Harper, Angie Smith, and Liz Curtis Higgs.  They also featured Mark Lowry (absolutely hysterical!) and Stovall Weems.  I got to see a concert by Third Day! 

A small group shot o top, and one of Angie Smith and I:

The weekend was full of Revelation for me.  I could probably go on and on for hours about it.  I'll spare you and hit the highlights! 

1) YOU were created by God FOR God's pleasure.  You exist simply because you please God.  He made you because you bring him joy.

2) Doubt is an emotion, Believing is a choice.

3) God hears.  God answers.  The space in between is God's time.

4) Strive to look like God, not like God's people.

5) Guilt tells us we did something wrong, shame tells us we ARE something wrong.

6) I'm not unwilling, I just don't know how.

7) Be thankful for what you have, it will become what you want!

8) Luke 19:10 "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”  The Greek word for lost used here is Apollymi.  It means "ruined, broken beyond repair"  Jesus came for us in our mess!

9)  Our job/finances/life circumstance do not define our core identity.  Our identity is in Christ alone.

10)  God loves the impossible!  Try him, you'll like him!

I hope that these 10 highlights can help you!  I hope you bring them close to you and hold onto the knowledge of being a beloved child of God. 

I am ending with a video that we watched at Women of Faith.  I hope it amazes you and moves you as it did me.  He is risen!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RMWFzVLaQ

Funny how a melody sounds like a memory

When I think about you
I think about 17
I think about my old Jeep
I think about the stars in the sky
Funny how a melody sounds like a memory
 - Eric Church "Springsteen"

Funny how a melody sounds like a memory...this line has been going around and around in my head all afternoon.  I saw something on Facebook today that took me way back.  All the way back to High School.  I think, I am an anomaly, I loved high school.  Every crazy, hormone induced, intense minute of it.  There were parts I would change if I could, and other parts (good and bad) I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. 

Today I have been thinking of something I would have changed, even then not knowing what I know now, and FOR SURE would have changed had I had the foresight and knowledge of my experience.  Many of you know me and went to high school with me, so even if I don't name names, you'll know who I am talking about. 

It's a story about the first boy I loved with all my heart.

I can't say that I remember exactly how I felt the first moment I saw him or that time stood still or went in slow motion but I can say from pretty close to the first moment I met him, my heart sure did flutter.  Young love.  Is there anything more enlightening, frightening or innocent than the first encounter with love?  I loved him in the only way I knew how, and boy, looking back, it must have been intense, scary and thrilling all at the same time for him, maybe even annoying.  Thank God he was blessed with a kind heart.  I could only love him in the way I knew to love, in the way I longed to be loved.  Which was really needy and afraid.  If you weren't around me, would you remember me?  I If I couldn't make you happy or didn't make you happy, would you still like me?  What would you do if I disagreed with you?  So many things.  Love tested. 

I had an absentee father.  Were some of my reactions to love colored by that?  Of course, they were, and as much as I hate to admit it, my husband still gets some of my knee jerk, abandonment issues with love reactions.  It's funny how much we can change and yet still be so much the same.

I've had some memories in my head today that have made me smile in fondness, laugh in happiness, and tear up in sorrow.  We can't go back and I don't want to, but boy, I wish that relationship had ended differently.  As an adult, I know that some friends are for life, some for a season, some for a reason. 

I truthfully loved him with all of my teenage being, but more I liked him.  I considered him my best friend through High school and I miss being able to say "do you remember that?  It was so hilarious, sad, crazy etc."  I have that with other life long friends and, I cherish those friendships.  But I wanted to cherish this one too.  It's been so long since I have thought about the way that friendship died.  Most certainly by my own actions.  I betrayed a confidence, the when, the how, the what are between he and I and certainly not up for sharing them in my blog, were they High school-ish?  Yes, but some of it was just human.  And it was all extremely personal. 

The implosion came the summer after senior year.  It was ugly, it was fierce, it was swift, it was final. Looking back, it could have been a combination of withdrawal in preparation for leaving for college and the secret shared.  I can't know the whole of what caused the severity on his part, but it hurt me.  His part of it, my part of it, the whole sum of it!  It was a painful lesson.  It was a painful loss. 

Obviously, I survived and I don't mean to be melodramatic, just truthfully nostalgic.  And I never knew how to say what I felt then, so now, it helps to say how it made me feel.  It was a loss that I wasn't able to cope with, I was ill prepared for the swift finality of it.  I made some poor choices following that, AND that is all on me.  I alone am responsible for how I react to my feelings. 

It's all brought me to where I am today.  When all is said and done, I can mourn the loss of the sweet first blush of love I experienced, I can mourn the loss of an amazing friendship, but it wasn't meant for me.  Everything that has happened since has shaped who I am today, everything that happened DURING has shaped me in some way. 

As I sit here finishing this blog, I am surrounded by 4 people I created with a man I love.  A love that has matured through age, experience, happiness, and sorrow. A love that makes my heart flutter. It grew out of my experience with a boy, who was becoming a man, from a girl who was trying to become a woman.  And my woman's heart can look back and smile on the experience a young girl shared with a truly remarkable boy. 

The Top Ten Things the (almost) Government Shutdown has taught me

According to the US Census Bureau at the time I wrote this post, there are approximately, 316,792,241 people in the United States.  And our Federal Government (The Legislative and Executive branch anyway) is made up of 537 people.  And those 537 people are keeping our Country hostage in a game of tug of war.  That is 0.0001695 % of the population.  Am I the only one that bothers? 

It's time we set down our ipads, our games of Candy crush (and trust me, I am an addict) , and small world views.  We need to look around and see what is becoming of our Great Nation!  America has never been perfect, but it has been good.  At the rate things are going, good won't be here much longer...and many argue it's already gone. 

You know what makes America great?  Service.  Serving as an elected official to run the government by the people FOR the people.  Americans who proudly volunteer to serve in their US Military.  Neighbors serving neighbors.  A place where it isn't about ME, it's about WE. 

I fear we've lost that. 



The Top Ten Things the Government shut down has taught me:

10.  People don't know the basics of how their US government works.

9.    People don't CARE about how the government works as long as their style of living remains unchanged.

8.   The government is encroaching more and more on our personal rights as private citizens.

7.    I care more than I thought and feel incredibly overwhelmed that there aren't more people wanting to challenge and change our government Status quo.

6.    The elderly and the military are used as pawns in the tug of war Congress has going on.  Fear tactics are unbecoming Uncle Sam.  Just thought you should know.  We will not bow down to fear.  Remember Pearl Harbor?  9/11?  Where is that American spirit in the face of this domestic threat?

5.   The media is no longer a source of unbiased information.  And despite what you may have heard, you can't trust everything you see on TV, read in a newspaper or find on the Internet.  Making fact finding that much harder. 

4.  Our society teaches our kids it's ok, no, it's NORMAL to have debt. 

3.  My husband and I can agree on a budget.  He is the sole source of income in our family and yet, we manage to compromise and agree on a budget.  Then we stick to it.  Without him threatening me to a grocery store shut down.  Nor will he raise my debt ceiling.   Want something new?  Can't afford it?  I have to save for it.

2.  No matter what happens, I have a family I love.  We have quirks and a diverse range of opinions, but we love each other and work together for the greater good. 

1.  God is great.  All the time.  He will provide us what we need.  It may not be what we WANT, but it will be what we need. 

If you agree with anything I have written, I'd love to hear from you.  And pass this along would you?

If you disagree with me, I'd like to hear from you too! 

Diversity

I haven't been very active here, have I? 

 I didn't really have anything to talk about.  Maybe I have the back to school blues.  Maybe I have the "oh no winter is going to come" depression, or maybe, I just haven't been moved to write. 

I think a million times about blogs to write.  I wish when I had the thoughts I could drop everything and hop to my computer and write my brilliant words.  Haha.  But often they come and go. 

Today, I've been thinking a lot about how we separate ourselves.  Labels.  Brainy.  Popular.  Beautiful.  Ugly.  Mean.  Naive.  White.  Black.  Good.  Bad.  Friendly.  Lutheran.  Baptist. 

Not all labels are bad.  But it seems to me that labels have really limited us. Do we label ourselves?  Do we let others label us?  We do.  But what difference does it make what I think on labels?  Not much, except how I can help reach out and help someone regardless of their label or my own.  The only label you should accept and wear is the one God gives you.  And I guarantee you, he thinks you're lovely.  He thinks you are enough.  He thinks you have unlimited potential with Him by your side.  He doesn't just think this, He knows it.

Jesus speaks to us in the bible about diversity.  I strongly suggest reading 1 Corinthians 12 in it's entirety.  But for the purpose of this blog, I'll only be sharing parts. 

The words of God share this point more eloquently than I ever could. (1 Cor 12:12-14 and 24b-31)

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many....(vs 24 b)But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

That is a label I can live with..."Hi, I'm Trisha and I am a part of the body of Christ. " I like how that sounds. 

I've been a student of the bible since before I can remember, mainly because I had to...I had to at church, I had to at school, but I felt imprisoned by a moral code I couldn't live up to.  I was told either verbally or by action that I failed, that I couldn't be good.  My life as a checklist Christian was miserable.  Go to church, check.  Pray before eating, check.  Memorize bible verses, check.  And when I failed, no one pointed out mercy to me.  In truth, maybe someone tried, I was probably already starting my rebellion period.  Which if I am honest, I still rebel at times.  What did it take to get me back to a real stance, a real relationship with God?

The death of my daughter.  I was pissed.  I was hurt.  I felt like I was being punished.  I felt like my whole life was crumbling.  And boy did I let it rip at God.  I said things to him that should send me straight to hell, and should have in the instant I said them. 

But do you know what he did?  He held me while I raged, He held me while I cried, He held me when I didn't have the strength to hold myself up.  Because He loves me.  Because His way is peaceful beyond any worldly understanding.  He did not say to me that I don't know what I am talking about, He didn't tell me that there is a procedure to follow, He didn't tell me that I was bad or hateful or wrong.   And He could have.  But He chooses to bring us to him by love.  Yes, love has discipline and consequences.  I've had both.  But it isn't shaming.  It isn't hurtful.  Painful, maybe.  But it is painful to realize we have done wrong, that we have hurt others.  It is painful (for me anyway) to admit when I am wrong.  It's painful to be vulnerable and ask others for forgiveness when we confess our sins against them. 

I didn't really see the blog going this way today, but apparently He had other plans.  I am not saying that we should accept things that are not the truth, not all paths lead to God, everyone isn't right, but what I am saying is we are set apart by the LOVE of God, so let that be what I show the world.  His Love. 

Today, no matter what your beliefs, I pray that you try and live the following words,  And I also pray that something I have said, say or will say, will one day bring you to our own relationship with God. 
^"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. "  Ephesians 4: 2-3

 

Quiet on the Blog front.

How can I have the need to say so many words in one day and yet have my blog be so quiet lately??

I guess I have just been enjoying my summer with the kids and catching up on "How I Met Your Mother."  Yes, I am a new addict to that show. 

My mom is coming for a visit tomorrow and Elijah told me today that tomorrow is "going to be the best day EVER!" Because Mawmaw Puppy will be here.  Could be that he knows she ALWAYS takes them to Chuck E Cheese. 

School starts up in 9 days.  How did that happen?  Summer flew right by.  Goodbye PJ lounging until 9 am.  Hello, crying, whining  and arguing over breakfast. 

Poor Levi is going to be so bored without anyone else here with him.  Guess we'll be able to plan more play dates.  Just me and the dude. 

Anyway, I don't have anything awesome to post about today, just wanted to say hi!