God Says I Am

I've got some great photos to share with you this week. Mark and Kate took some pictures at the Daddy Daughter Dance and they are stinkin' adorable! Are they not peas in a pod?! Carol Cardwell does fabulous work!

 

A couple weekends ago, for our day of Sabbath, we sat down as a family and wrote down who God says we are. I'd gotten this idea from a friend and it was really cool. We prayed and then wrote down what we heard. I loved seeing what God spoke to each of us. I also realized just how much my voice and encouragement to my children is the voice they often hear when God speaks to them. Meaning things I've spoken over them that are true about what God says they are, they hear and listened to. Make sense? So good and yet so difficult. I really need to make sure my words are encouraging and truthful.

This was mine.

 Kale's - as if you couldn't tell by the Lego sign :)

 Kate's

 Jack's

 Mark's

I love that we can have these to look at and refer back to when all we hear is the yuck around us! This is what God says and that's what matters more than anything.

Since my last post my sister, Kelly, had her baby - a boy named Calvin (we now have 4 nephews and 3 nieces on my side of the family and 2 nephews and 1 niece on Mark's). I had so hoped to get up to Denver to meet him but life is still messy here. Gymnastics and Jiujitsu twice a week plus life group and a possibility of jury duty (although that fell through), AND a pastor's conference in California, planning for a writer's conference, camp and finishing up school. Thank goodness we are practicing rest. We don't have it down quite yet but we're working on it! We also have family coming to visit 2 weekends in June - woohoo!

I've got lots more to share on the transformation - and struggles - that Mark and I are going through but I'll save that for another post. For now you just get the 411 on the last couple weeks.

Oh and one more thing. You'll have to click on my Instagram account (on the right side of the page) to see the latest fun we've been having with an app on my phone. Oh. My. Goodness we've laughed so hard!

Receiving Grace and Resting

I really can't believe it's been 2 months since I've posted on here. I was just looking back and rereading one that I wrote in February about being busy. Unfortunately that hasn't changed yet but something else did - me. It's been my quest this year to enter into God's rest. To really know what it means to walk and not grow weary, run and not faint. To truly know the rest that God offers me as His child. 

Through study and books and people I've come to a place of understanding what sabbath is and now desire to practice true Biblical sabbath. Not as a duty but as a delight. I wrote a bit about it on my other blog and if you'd like to read it you can click 3 Reasons to Keep the Sabbath. It was also a message I preached this weekend. You can listen to it on the church's media page if you'd like. Go to this link The Land of Promise: Sabbath

I'm not sharing all of this to promote myself but to promote a word that God has been using to change my life. Mark and I are rearranging our schedule so we can intentionally slow down and enjoy this life we've been given and to not always feel run down and weary. I'm quite sure that's not what God intended for us. 

So far we have celebrated 2 Sabbaths (only 2 so we have much to learn still!). Here are some pictures from our time. We have committed to not using our phones on those days for anything else other than pictures. 

On our first sabbath we all sat down and wrote down things we'd like to do as a family on sabbath as well as our family guidelines (like no media or work). The kids seemed excited about it although it was definitely a challenge. They had a hard time knowing what to do outside of work, school and media. This is a great thing for all of us! 

Our next sabbath was last weekend while Mark was away on the church's men's retreat. The kids and I pumped up our bikes and headed down to the river trail. We rode our bikes to the library, checked out some books, stopped for lunch on the way back to the car, dropped off the books and then headed down the trail further on to another park. We rested and played in the sun and then headed back to the car. Unfortunately Kale's bike had a slow leak that we didn't realize and his tire was flat before the last leg of the journey and we had no way of fixing it. So he and I walked our bikes back  - that was a long walk! 

It was a really fun and sometimes difficult day. We are all learning how to relax, have fun, slow down, reconnect with each other. It's similar to our Fun Fridays that we used to do and got out of the habit of doing because we were so busy :(. Now we are working towards the goal of enjoying one day off a week and being reminded of our value in God and not in our busyness.

This all hit in the middle of a challenging time for us. We had 2 funerals - one a very tragic one - a young man who Mark just married in December was killed in a car accident, we had done their premarital counseling, and the other was for Mark's aunt who passed away after a long period of illness. This meant a quick trip to Boulder to be with family. While there we got to meet our new nephew who was born the night before we left to come back to Durango.

The weekend after all of that was a wedding (we had done their premarital counseling as well) and I was in the delivery room for a dear friend as she delivered her 2nd sweet baby. An amazing experience! 

Add to that the Daddy Daughter Dance,

Easter, Mark's 41st birthday, a women's breakfast and "normal" life...I was just about at my breaking point. Enter my desperate plea for sabbath.  :)

I believe God wired me to be able to handle quite a bit. But that doesn't mean I do everything. And that's difficult for me. I've placed expectations on myself (some came from me and some came from me accepting what others have placed on me) that truly aren't realistic or mine to do. It's a hugely delicate balance between ministry, family, friends and extended family and quite often I feel like I'm letting everyone down. 

I was reminded of a post I wrote in February (What am I watering?). It's been a long learning process and I still have a long ways to go. The word I have now is wait. Wait on God as He is working on me. Wait on Him as He's working on my family. Wait on Him and enjoy the sometimes painful process because I know it's for my good. He desires for me to enter His rest in order to better water what He's put me in charge of. 

My hope and prayer is that through sabbath I can reconnect with God, myself and my family so that I can more thoroughly enjoy all the people and assignments God has perfectly placed in my life.