Forgiveness

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37)

How do you begin to forgive someone who has hurt you? Do you begin sifting through your pain to find the one grain of rationale that could excuse the other person's behavior?The truth is that forgiveness has nothing to do with who is right or wrong. Forgiveness is a free agent. It is not attached to reason or agreement or even understanding. It is, however, attached to wholeness and to your healing and liberation.Unforgiveness is a prison. It slams the door on new beginnings and entrenches you in your present pain. It chains the heart and stops it from beating. It suffocates joy and paralyzes your ability to move on. Unforgiveness is the cancer of the soul. It slowly eats away the marrow of your existence and impairs your judgement, your personality, and your ability to love again. The desire to want the other person who hurt us to also be hurting can be overwhelming. We become jealous of their joy, wanting them to feel the torture we think they deserve. How can she act as though nothing ever happened? we ask ourselves. It's not fair? Where is God in all this? Is there no justice?Yes, there is justice. But justice comes only after we have released our offender into the hands of the One who is solely in the position to judge. Only God knows both sides of the story. Only He knows the deficiencies of both parties. The fears, the past wounds, the generational conditioning, the weaknesses, the insufficiencies of character and integrity. He knows the things that we in the glow of the love failed to notice. The things that should have warned us to guard our hearts.Only God knows the hidden motives and the unspoken regrets of the one who hurt you. The assumptions we make usually do more damage than the truth. Yes, our imaginations can be unmerciful. Trust me, it's never what you think. Your guesses will always be more cruel than the reality of what really transpired, adding unnecessary injury to insult.You need to let it go. You need to forgive. Not for his sake-for yours. It's time to redirect your focus and move on. And you won't be able to do that if you continue to nurse and rehearse your anger, the many wrongs done against you, all the reasons why.If you can't forgive for your own sake, forgive for God's sake. He needs your hands open in order to bless you. Cooperate. No one who wronged you that much deserves so much of your attention. Your fixation is standing in the gap between that person and God, shielding him from conviction. Move out of the way. Free him to receive the proper correction from God.

Still working on this....more to come....

It's really early for me...or is it late?

It's 5:45 a.m. I am not usually up right now. This is wierd but in my defense, I've been awake since three....ugh. I'm sure I COULD have gone back to bed, but I didn't really want to. I fell asleep with Anthony again, his bed is just way too darn comfy! Then when I woke up, I wanted to do all this stuff, sew, crafts, cook, you know, anything except housework that really NEEDS to be done, lol!

Today they are having "Cruising Keesler", a car and motorcycle show on base, and I'm taking the kids to it. It should be fun. I took them to Lynn Meadows last night to see Bob the Builder (in Ayden's words, "Fun seeing Bob the Builder!") and play for a little bit. They had a lot of fun. They haven't been in a while, cause I normally work on Fridays, and Adam is just too tired after working all day to take them (I don't blame him). But this Friday I was actually off work. I've been out of work since Tuesday because I hurt the tendon in my left arm. I left work early Tues. night to go to the ER because it hurt so bad. They gave me prednisone, aleve, and vicodin. So, thanks to my friend vicodin, I've gotten lots of sleep the past few days, so I'm not worried about being up so early. At least, I'm not worried right now....just give me a few hours, lol.

It's the time of year that I absolutely love, fall! I love all the smells, all the leaves blowing, the cold, crisp air, Halloween, and the start of Christmas season. I had a lot of fun painting a jack o lantern flower pot (pictures to come) a couple of nights ago. It was one of those things where you're afraid what's in your head will not be the final outcome. But it actually turned out better than I imagined! I really like it. It was cheap, too, the pot was $3, the paint was $3, and the finishing spray was $5. And I still have lots of leftover paint and spray.

Now I'm trying to think of some fun crafty things to do with the kids. I bought a really cute plastic picnic table at the thrift store on base, and they love to sit out there and color and paint, but I think this weekend I want to do a big craft thing with them. I just don't know what. I have these masks that go over your eyes that you can glue and paint and decorate, and some glitter and stuff, so maybe I'll do that.

I also found a really good recipe for homemade oreos - here is the link:">http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/05/my-kingdom-for-a-glass-of-milk/
And I mean, it is GOOD. The first batch I made I cooked for nine minutes, and although oreos ARE crunchy, these came out a little TOO crunchy. So the next batch I cooked for eight minutes....and they were HEAVENLY! They tasted like a mix between regular oreos and cakesters. Man they were good.....they didn't last too long, either.

I love fall because I get so much more inspired to bake. Baking is definitely a passion for me. If I can bake something really good, that will just make my day. I would love to open up a little bake shop one day. Who knows, though....I always change what I want to do on a daily basis.

Now it just needs to get light out so I can take pictures of my flowerpot...................

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.....

Yay! I found a bread pan that I love today! I've been wanting one for a while now. It was $15, but it was WELL worth it. I made the YUMmiest bread today! I would have a picture, but the camera batteries are dead and I can't find the charger.Here's the link to the recipe from AllRecipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Bread-Machine-Bread/Detail.aspx?prop31=1
I used regular all purpose flour in it, mixed it on the dough cycle in my bread machine, then punched it down and let it rise for about 1-1 1/2 hours and baked at 350 deg. for 20-25 minutes. Yummalicious.

Before I found my bread pan I stopped at a yard sale down the street from us. I got a ton of really neat stuff:

- a big Micro Machines camper that folds out into a "city"
- 2 or 3 bags of "men"; Spiderman, Batman, various soldiers, etc.
- a bunch of trim, ribbon and bias tape
- a bunch of elastic
- a bag of colored leather so I can try out making leather shoes
- paint markers
- Fisher Price binoculars
- a big bag of play food and utensils
- a huge bag of Crayola markers, and a binder type Crayola thing full of more markers
- a miniature police motorcycle (which Anthony LOVES, he said, Mom, I LOVE this motorcycle! I'm going to be so careful with this one, I won't let it get broken ever! I give it 2 days....)

And my grand total was...dunh duh duh duh.....$5! Yup, that's it. Purty sweet! The Micro Machines camper even had a little Micro Machine hidden inside the garage that we discovered later. Anthony was really excited about that.


Other than that, today was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep with Anthony in his bed again. It's so wrong when your 4 year old's bed is comfier than yours! I mean seriously, his bed is like sleeping on air. I love it. So does Adam. He joked about buying 2 of them and putting them side by side in our bedroom. I actually considered it for a minute......

Well, off to bed, it's calling my name. That is , after I update myself on Hurricane Ike...ugh.

Gustav poo-stav

I cannot believe it is already September! Where the heck did summer go??? Anthony is back in preschool, it's starting (well, as much as it can), to get colder here, and I am really wishing we lived up north right now. Fall is my absolute favorite season. It's so pretty up in New York, when all the leaves change, and you can smell apples everywhere, it's just so.....romantic? Maybe? I don't know, but whatever it is, I miss it!

The kids and I got back on Tuesday from our hurricane Gustav journey. We ended up stopping Saturday night in Montgomery, then heading on to Columbus, GA to Fort Benning the next day. It was interesting....the kids drove me CRAZY the whole time. I'm sure it was partly because I was so distracted by watching the weather channel constantly while they wanted me to play with them. And who can blame them? They got to stay in fun hotel rooms for a few days. The room in Gavin Hall on Fort Benning was freakin awesome! It had just been renovated, I believe, and it was so nice. They had a little kitchen area, with a microwave, full size fridge and freezer, sink, an a little 2 burner stove. Then there was a living room area right next to that, and in the other room were 2 queen beds and the bathroom. I thought, "Yay! 2 beds! I'll have one all to myself!" HA! I should have known better. Both kids were curled up next to me by the next morning. I didn't mind, though, cause they're very snuggly when they're sleeping :)

I'll post more tomorrow.

Well, so much for blogging every day! Oh, well. Life has been crazy here lately. We moved into our new house the beginning of this month. It's really been a lifestyle change for all of us. We came from an old house with no neighbors and a more...spread out neighborhood I guess, to a nice BRAND spankin new house with lots of neighbors, which I love. It's nice to know everyone when you move. It's pretty much the same people, George and his family, Chris and his family, Stacey and her family, and all our old neighbors, plus a few extra new ones. We've had to change our "eating in the living room" policy to a "no eating in the living room" one. The kids are doing pretty good with it, they forget sometimes, but for the most part they remember.

This has been a rough month. Moving has always been hard on me, but with kids, it's a nightmare. Just setting up the house, making it safe for them to play, making sure they had food..... for the first week, it was very trying. And we had a few incidents along the way (gentian violet....), but now we're pretty much settled. I realized that since I was 16, I have moved 18 times. A couple times I moved back into the same place (dad's house), but I still moved nonetheless. I guess I should get used to it if we're going to stay in the AF, but it's still hard. You would think after 18 times I'd have the hang of it! For me, though, it's not the physical part of moving, it's the disruption in your life, and your daily schedule. I'm a creature of habit. When I can't take a shower in the morning, watch out. If I can't find my whisk, watch out. Seriously! It's sad.

I decided to make Ayden new bedding for his bed. I bought all the fabric, washed it, now all I have to do is sew. It seems like I can never find more than an hour to do anything big, and I can never get it done in an hour. If that makes any sense......

Well, I'm tired and off to bed. Short and sweet. Well, maybe not so much sweet, but.....whatcha gonna do?