Making a bigger story for my kids. Valentine's Day Edition.

I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming Valentine’s day, and what that means for our family.  Ordinarily, Valentine's day is a time when I make pink heart shaped pancakes.  It is a time when I help the girls make their class cards, and we each make cards for each other.    My favorite part is in the morning on Valentine's day before the kids go to school.  I make a bigger breakfast than usual and they each get a very small trinket.    

  I love the holidays and I find great happiness in spreading joy to my family and friends.  I know that my daughters see me loving other people, and they see me giving.  But in a world where they receive so many things I think it is important to show them that their life story is bigger.  Life is bigger than just getting pink pancakes and a Lalaloopsy doll.   

In order to really make this clear for my kids, and to make it fun I created a Valentine's Day challenge.  I created 7 daily challenges.  One for each day leading up to Valentine's day.   Each morning when the girls wake up they will open an envelope that gives them a challenge for that day.   I am hoping that by spending the next 7 days doing things for other people they will see a bigger story to loving other people.  After all,  Jesus came and told us to Love God, and Love Others.    Jesus taught us that love is the most important thing of all.  

I tried to incorporate the challenges with a verse each day.  That way the girls see where the challenges are coming from, and have a better understanding of why we are doing them.   

Here are the challenges:

Day One:   Say something kind to someone at school today.   "Kind words are like honey- sweet to the soul and healthy to the body."  Proverbs 16:24

I think with so many unkind words going around the schools, and the daily challenges and frustrations it is important that my daugthers practice kind words.  

Day Two:  Do a secret service for someone in your family.  "The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life; a wise person wins friends."  Proverbs 11:30

Secret service for us is just at term that means a favor.  Maybe they will choose to make someone else's bed, or do a chore.   It can be any basic act of service.

Day Three:  Bake cookies and deliver them to one of your neighbors.  "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Mark 12:31

This challenge is a little more time consuming, but the time we will spend baking the cookies and deciding who we will deliver them to will also open up a little time for more conversations about why we are doing the challenges.

Day Four:  Spend 10 minutes with Jesus today.  Thank Him for loving you so much.  "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."  Matthew 6:33

It is just as important to love God as it is to love others, and while it is more tangible for kids to deliver cookies, or help others I think it is also important to teach them to give time to God.

Day 5:    Call someone today just to tell them that you love them.  "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."  1 Corinthians 13:13

I love this challenge.  How much fun is it to get a call from someone just because they love you!

Day 6:  Write a letter or send a card to someone who might be lonely, or who you miss a lot.  "Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."  Proverbs 3:3

Who doesn't love getting a letter in the mail?  

Day 7:  Think of your 3 favorite things about everyone in the family.  Share your words around the dinner table.  "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing."  1 Thessalonians 5:11

I  love this challenge because I think it makes our family bonds stronger, encourages each other, and once again leaves us open for conversation.

When the challenge is over of course, I will still be making pink pancakes, and yes my daughters will still get a small trinket.  But I am excited to see how much more their hearts will change from the challenges!!

Rice and Beans Day 5: The day that broke me.

I have to admit it I started off the week pretty excited.  I was somewhat prideful thinking that I could make it an entire week on rice and beans.  I like rice and beans.  Well, I thought I liked rice and beans.  I am not sure that I will like them again after this week is complete.  Not for awhile anyways.  My pride is gone now.

Let me take a second to tell you what I have been feeling this week.  I am hungry.  Hungry all the time.  I can just eaten another plate of rice and beans and within an hour or two I am hungry again.   I am grumpy, and tired.  I have had a headache every single day.  My stomach hurts every single time I eat.

I know I am not alone in this feeling.  I know that everyone who is doing this experiment with me is feeling all of this on some level.  I know that there millions of people around the world are feeling what I am feeling, but worse.  Way worse.  There are people that have much worse than the little bit of suffering I have had this week.

Day five is the day that brought me to my knees.  Day five is the day that when I turned to God and said I need you today.  I need your strength and I need your guidance today.  I need your help to continue on this journey.  I need you to hold me together.  And I got His response.  He said no, you need to listen.   You need to stay in my presence.  You need to let me work through you today.   You need to stop worrying about what you think you need, and trust me.

So that is what I did.  And I broke.

I reached the level of compassion that surpasses charity.  I cried.  I cried a lot.   I prayed, and I prayed some more.

I cried out of thankfulness when my almost two-year-old daughter asked for more milk, and all I had to do was open the fridge to get her some.  I cried out of compassion when I ate my second meal of rice and beans and my stomach hurt so bad I didn't think I could go anywhere.

We started a thankful list at the beginning of the week.  A list of foods we are thankful for, and things we take for granted every day.  We have added a few items every night.  Items like pizza, fresh fruit, and chicken.  I had a whole new level of joy when my daughter asked to add rice and beans to that list.  Why?   Because she was so thankful that she had rice and beans when there was nothing else. And because she knows by eating the rice and beans she is helping someone who would otherwise have nothing.   "Someone out there is going to have clean water because of me mom.  Just because I ate these rice and beans."

Joy.  That is how day five ends for me....Joy.

Rice and Beans Day 3: Cheerful giving?

Day three is here, and I am not going to lie...    I am getting tired of rice and beans.  The good news is I am three days in, I have made it three whole days!   The bad news is that I have four more to go.  It is kind of funny because I start to complain about rice and beans a little bit.  I begin to wonder if I am going to make it an entire week.  And then I remind myself why we are doing this and I am a little ashamed.  

Am I really going to give up?  Can I really not go out of my comfort zone for one week?

The answer to that is no.  I alone, probably could not make it an entire week without cheating.  I am being totally honest here.    I have food in the freezer that I could use, and I have leftover Halloween candy that I could eat.   It wouldn't count towards the money we are saving, and I could argue that it won't hurt anyone if I eat some of it.  But I feel called to do this.  I feel that this week Christ is working through me as I experience this with my family, and with my friends.    It is Christ who is strengthening me enough to do this.   He is the one who extended his grace to me, and now I can extend that grace to others.  

  Below is what I have posted to read whenever I am feeling hungry.   Whenever I feel discouraged because my kids are grumbling about eating rice and beans again.  Whenever I want to remind myself why I am doing this, and whenever I want to pray for those who have taken the journey with me.


“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I."

Isaiah 58: 6-9
#eatlessgivelife

Rice and Beans: The beginning of the journey

I am staring down an entire week of Rice and Beans.  I am not really sure if I am registering that as a complaint because I have never eaten rice and beans for an entire week before.    I am sure at some point when I am forcing myself to eat rice and beans for breakfast I am not going to 100% enjoy it, but I believe that the spiritual benefits this week are going to far out weigh the discomforts.

The girls and I went to the store and we bought rice, and several different kinds of beans.  (Because you have to have variety in beans, right?)  They are excited to try it out.   Again, I am not sure that they will be excited as the week goes on.  I am trying to include them in the process as much as possible.  We have pinned several recipes on pinterest to try, and I am going to let them help me with the cooking.

I am praying right now that the Lord speaks to my heart, and the heart of my family this week.  That the money we donate from this fast is put to good use.  I am praying for the hearts of the families that are walking down this road with us.  I am praying for the thousands of people that are going to be helped from this project.  That they know that we did this out of love.

Right now I am feeling excited to start, and excited to be a part of something that will bring love and care to so many pepople.  I will let you know as the week goes on what I am feeling.  But for today I will leave you with this!

"God's kingdom isn't about eating and drinking.  It is about pleasing God, about living in peace and about true happiness.  All this comes from the Holy Spirit."  Romans 14:17

#eatlessgivelife

The post where I can feel my wrists again

I did it.   I finished Nano (National Novel Writing Month) in one week.   I cannot believe how much determination it took to get it done.   My best time before was 10 days.  While I am happy to say that I blew that time out of the water.  I also have to say that finishing 50k words in one week was crazy hard.

My story is not entirely complete, but it is almost there.  But don't worry you won't get to read it anytime soon because then I have to begin the tiresome project of editing.  Editing is the part that I do not enjoy.  I am currently working on an editing plan, one that does not involve me neglecting everything else in my life, but will allow me to edit more effectively.

November is a month that I take a little bit more.  It is a month where the extra projects that I like to do around the house go to the wayside.  It is a time when I get to be a little bit selfish, and take time to myself.  Time to myself is something I am not always good at taking.

I am extremely lucky and thankful for my husband.   My husband not only ignores the little bit of extra mess, but he continually tells me how proud he is of me for taking the time to write.   I could never do what I do in November without his help.   He helps me when I need ideas, he helps with the kids, and when I feel like my brain has shut down he is there to push me to write a few thousand more words.

I will write some more this month.  I am determined to finish the end of my novel, but for tonight I am going to sit and enjoy the fact that I met my goal.  

Nehemiah

I found this post saved, but not posted.  I love that I am stumbling across it again today about half way into fall because It is a good reminder!

This week I have been reading in Nehemiah.  Nehemiah is such a great story.  It is short and it is sweet, but this time around I hit a part that I have read a thousand times before and it struck me so I wanted to share.

 I just love how Nehemiah is so focused on what God has called him to do.  Nehemiah is rebuilding a wall, and nothing will deter him.  It is a great example of staying focused even in times of strife. Fall this year for me isn't necessarily a time of strife, but it is a really busy time for us.  Sometimes it is easy to let things slip.  Things like spending time in the word.  I believe that the times that we are feeling OK, and not spending time in the word are the times we really need to buckle down and make it a priority.

Anyways, back to Nehemiah. The book opens up with Nehemiah receiving the news that the wall had been broken down, and that God's people were hurting.   What is the first thing that Nehemiah does?  He mourns and prays.  I LOVE this.  How often, when something happens is the very first thing we do pray?   I can tell you that this has been my focus this week.  Every time something happens good or bad I am on my knees immediately and what a difference it makes!  

  Later, in the book Nehemiah is busy rebuilding his wall, (Chapter 6) and everyone is starting to get tired.  Nehemiah is starting to worry that the people are not going to be able to fix the wall.  And so he prays:  Now strengthen my hands.

Strengthen my hands.  I know that Nehemiah means this figuratively.   He prays it to feel less discouraged that the wall will fall down.  What a perfect prayer to pray as a mom, as a wife, as a woman.  Sometimes the days get weary and I have been praying.  Lord, strengthen my hands.

This books is kind of my focus for me going into this fall.  A focus for me, and for my family.   1. That we would pray before anything else bringing God into everything we do.  and 2.  To continually ask God to strengthen our hands a we do His work.   :)

Beauty and the Heroine

I am gearing up for Nanwrimo again.  Ideas are spinning in my head.  I am eager to write, and eager to get to know all the new characters that are just starting to formulate in my head.  For those of you who don't know what Nano is, I will explain.  Nanowrimo or National Novel Writing month is an event that happens each and every November.  The challenge is to write 50k words in the month of November.    Those 50k words are a start to your novel.  :)  This year will be my 6th year participating!!

While thinking about my main character who is yet unnamed have run into a double edged sword.  Is she Beauty?  Or is she the Heroine?

I love pink.   I love sparkles, and I love to dress up for my husband.   I love having dinner on the table.  I love taking care of my gorgeous daughters.  We sit around sometimes and we do mani/pedis.  We watch princess movies, and we have dance parties in my family room.   I am a girly girl.    I love being a girly girl.

I am also tough as nails.  I have been through emotional turmoil, and I have overcome.  I have been abused, been a single mom, I have survived.  Not to mention, I am quick, strong, smart and organized.  If you need a heroine.  I am your woman.

Wow, rereading that I am thinking that it sounds really like I am tooting my own horn here, and that is not my intention at all.  I am only trying to make a point here.  Why is there always a choice?  Why can't my Beauty be a heroine?    I intensely dislike it when people assume that to be strong you cannot be beautiful.  Or to be beautiful you cannot also be strong or smart.

I have a challenge for myself this year, and for other writers out there.  Stop short changing female characters.  We can be strong and beautiful!