Fair 2008

Tonight I took the boys (plus Jack's buddy Cameron) to the fair. I also met my good friend Teresa, who is the mom of Wyatt's best buddy, Connor. I loved the fair growing up. Still do. The rides (love to ride them ALL btw), the food smells, eating the food. Well, I didn't get to eat all the goodies that I normally enjoy, but it was still fun. My Jackson is a rider just like his mom. He will ride anything!! Anyway, a good time was had by all!

More Fair Pictures

Love Dare Day 24

Well, I have decided to take a break from watching the TV. Don't worry though, I will go right back to it when I am finished blogging tonight. Which may be a while... It's okay though. Remember I told ya'll that Frank was out of town ALL week on a pheasant hunting trip? So, I don't have to divide my time :) The only part I like about him being gone...

Why is it that many times we are never satisfied with what we have? Is it that what we have is bad? Is there something better over there? This being dissatisfied, it's not anything new. It goes all the way back to the garden.

Look at Adam and Eve. What more could anyone possibly want for? I mean, they lived in a beautiful garden with crystal clear waters. They had plenty of food that they didn't even have to work for. And they had God Himself walking with them everyday!! Plus, they got to run around naked for crying out loud!!!! Was this enough for them?? Sadly, not even for them.

Most of us can say that we need for nothing. Yet, we set our hearts and eyes so often on worldly things. We try to meet legitimate needs in illegitimate ways!!!

We lust after so many things. And I don't just mean for us to think of "lust" in the way that we normally would. We can lust after anything, whether it be person, places or things. We see what our friends have and suddenly we need it too. Then we think that we won't be happy without it and make the decision to go for it.

Lusting simply means to set our hearts on something that is forbidden. And that's the first step to falling away from fellowship with the Lord and each other. What is really gets down too is that lust is a misguided thirst for satisfaction that only God can fill. Lust should be a signal that we are not filled with God's love.

I John 2:15 says Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

The dare for today says IDENTIFY EVERY OBJECT OF LUST IN YOUR LIFE AND REMOVE IT.

I gotta say, I really don't know of any areas of lust I have. At times I allow myself to be distracted with what I want over the things of the Lord. And I think that is the real issue. That AND learning the true difference between a want and a need. Learning to train my focus on Him and His desires and replace those with my own is not an easy thing to do. I understand how it has an affect on my marriage, too. I can't focus on Frank's needs if I am busy thinking about my own.

Bloggy Award!!!

WOW!!! My new friend Elaine at Matters of the Heart just gave me this great award!!!  She is so sweet and I love hopping over and reading about her family!!  Here is what I have to do for this award.

Post the award on my blog

Link back to the sweet person that gave it to me

Link back to the originating post

Pass it on to 5 more deserving people

Post the rules for the recipients

So here is the really hard part.  Choosing 5 people.  I would just like to choose everyone!!  But, we must follow the rules so here are my picks for this award in no particular order!!

Jennifer (she's taking the love dare too!!!

Hayley (always puts interesting out for us to read!

Ang (do I really need a reason!  LOVE YOU!

Lori (new to her blog, but LOVE her country roots!

Amy (each post is like a new "chapter" in a story that I love to read!

So now make sure you guys share the love!!

Love Dare Day 23

I can remember fantasizing about what my marriage would be like when I was a little girl.  Who I would marry, what kind of man he would be, the dress, the wedding, the babies.  Seems like most of us as kids thought about that kind of thing a lot.  Many of us probably even had already named those babies too!

I'm sure, though, that not many of us ever imagined the fighting and the hurtful words.  We never pictured it to be like a battleground.  But in a way, it is.  There are many things that fight for our attentions and affections everyday.  So, we have to go to battle in a way to protect our marriages before it's too late.

Not everything that vies for our attention looks bad.  Which is precisely the point.  We have to be so on guard.  Song of Solomon calls these things "little foxes".  And he says to get those foxes out of our vineyards before they are destroyed.

TV and internet can be a big one because those are things that take time away from each other.  I have to be honest here.  I struggled with the internet.  Well, blogging.  Man, I hated to admit this was a problem.  I hated that it WAS a problem.  The minute I had a free moment I ran to the computer.  The instant the kids went to bed I was on it.  And, I was staying up WAY too late at night.  This caused me to be wiped out the next day and most of the time made for a crabby mommy and wife.  I am sure I'm totally alone on this one, right??

It's not that those things are bad.  They aren't.  It's when the balance is off that it can become a problem.

Sometimes a "little fox" can be an unhealthy relationship.  And I'm not talking about the male/female relationship either.  Although, let's just go there for a minute.  I know that there may be some of you that say you have some good male friends (obviously I am speaking to all the girls here) and that's great.  I do too.  However,  if you are spending time alone with them... you are just setting yourself up for trouble.  I don't care what you say about nothing ever happening.  You are NOT in control of every situation.  It's great to care about those friends.  But care about your husband and your marriage more.

An unhealthy relationship is not limited to male/female.  You can have a friend of the same sex that is bad news for your marriage.  They could constantly bad mouth your husband/wife.  They might try to push you to spend more time away from your family.  Or they may just have a sour taste in their mouth about marriage and therefore not be able to give you the kind of support that you need.  Anyone that does these kind of things is not worthy to be given the title of "friend".

Of course, any kind of addiction whether it be pornography, drugs, gambling will suck the life right out of your marriage.  These types of foxes do the most damage and are the hardest to recover from.

We both as husbands and wives have certain responsibilities in protecting our marriage.  For us girls, we have to constantly guard our hearts from being swept away through books, movies, or anything that distorts our perception of reality and puts unfair expectations on our men.  We have to spend time building our husbands up. Proverbs 14:1 says The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down WITH HER OWN HANDS.  That says to me that I need to be so careful.

For the dare today I am supposed to REMOVE ANYTHING THAT IS HINDERING YOUR RELATIONSHIP, ANY ADDICTION OR INFLUENCE THAT'S STEALING YOUR AFFECTIONS AND TURNING YOUR HEART AWAY FROM YOUR SPOUSE.

Okay, remember earlier when I said that I knew that blogging was a big time consumer in my house?  Well, it was.  And Frank did his thing of making little remarks or little jokes about it.  I ignored them at first because I knew that was really his way of letting me know it DID bother him, but I was having a great time.  And then I realized that he was waaaay more important than the computer.  

So, I made sure that I did a little during the day and only did it at night if he was doing something else (like ironing or paying bills. And yes, I will explain the ironing thing later!) or after we had a chance to catch up from the day or whatever *wink*.  And if he ever asked me to do anything, I close it immediately or turn it off right then.  

Because nothing is more important than going on a little fox hunt!

Not Me! Monday Edition 7

Time for my weekly therapy session!  Here is what I did NOT do this week...

I did not get overly aggravated when something was wrong with my music player on my blog.  I listen to it while I clean the house so therefore... I decided NOT to clean the house!

I did NOT laugh to myself when a girl came into aerobics wearing leg warmers... with tassels.  I felt like I was in FLASHDANCE.  Come on, those days are over!

I also did NOT get out of step with everyone else because of said laughter and lack of paying attention to what I should have been doing.  This did in no way cause me to trip over my step and make a big scene.  Thanks God.  I got the point!!

I did NOT lock myself out of the house while trying to get out the door to take the kids to school on one of the coldest mornings we have had so far... in my workout clothes!  It would have been silly to walk out the door on a morning that was 35 degrees in those kinds of clothes and I am waaay smarter than that!

I did NOT secretly get excited when my 4 yr old didn't take a nap.  That would mean an early bedtime and I love for my kids to stay up late!

So, what did YOU not do this week?  Head on over to MckMama's and see what the rest of us have... I mean don't have to confess.

Love Dare Day 22

Well, first of all I want to say that the FIREPROOF MY MARRIAGE conference was great!! Heard a lot of great things and I can't wait to share them with you. (because I love ya'll I took great notes to share!!) However, so that I don't just completely overwhelm you with information and a VERY long post I have decided to give it to you in pieces. Maybe some tomorrow and maybe some more a couple of days after that... Just know that it was so good to be there.

Also, something very exciting to share with you is that THE LOVE DARE has been made into an 8 week Bible Study course! You will be able to do it in your Sunday School classes or in small group settings or your ladies Bible Study class! I will let you know when it will be available. Probably will be around the same time the movie is available on DVD!

On to Day 22!!!

Our love for one another is supposed to be the way that others identify us as followers of Christ. It is a quality that we should grow in more and more, always getting better and being defined by that love.

So, if love is supposed to be what we are growing in, what happens if that love is rejected? How should we react? I can tell you how I have reacted in the past. And it wasn't always pretty either. If Frank rejected me in any way, I just returned the favor. I would hit him with as much rejection in as many ways as I could. (sometimes I wonder why he put up with me so long :) ) Thinking that this would make me feel better about the way that I was feeling, it usually just led to a lot of hurt on both our parts instead.

Consider the story in the Bible of Hosea. God instructed him to marry a prostitute!!! I bet Hosea thought he didn't hear the Lord correctly on that one. But he had heard correctly. And what's more... he obeyed the Lord.

Hosea's wife, Gomer (how bout taking THAT name for your next daughter!) didn't reform her ways just because she had a godly husband. Even though he had loved her, she broke his heart in her unfaithfulness.

As time went on, the Lord spoke to Hosea again. Now he was supposed to reaffirm his love for his wife. By this point, Gomer had to be bought out of slavery by Hosea. But he paid the price and brought her home. And even though she had treated him with contempt and total disrespect, he still welcomed her home.

What a beautiful picture of God's unconditional love for us. Even though many of us have rejected Him and His love in many ways, He still loves us anyway. He is still faithful.

Our model for love is Christ. If our love is to be like Him then we must love even if our love is unwanted, rejected. We can give undeserved love to our spouse because God gave us undeserved love! And He gave it over and over again. Love is often expressed the most to those that deserve it the least.

Today my dare says LOVE IS A CHOICE, NOT A FEELING. CHOOSE TODAY TO BE COMMITTED TO LOVE EVEN IF YOUR SPOUSE HAS LOST MOST OF THEIR INTEREST IN RECEIVING IT. SAY TO THEM "I LOVE YOU PERIOD. EVEN IF YOU DON'T LOVE ME BACK!"

Praise the Lord I can say that to my husband and don't have to be concerned if he will return my love or not. I know that Frank loves me and he knows that I love him. Sometimes we don't show it like we should, but I do know it. But I do remember a time when I couldn't say that. It's very painful to be in that kind of a relationship. Our marriage didn't change until I began to change. Once I quit waiting on him to be the one to make the first step or to change all the things on my list FIRST and I focused on what my responsibilities were (notice I said responsibilities NOT rights) and if I was actually doing them THEN things started to change.

See, my circumstances didn't really change at all. Just my perspective on my circumstances did.