You Are Wonderful

Tonight as I started my nightly routine with the kids of cleaning up the dinner mess, getting baths, etc. I began to feel myself growing more and more angry and hurting for the people in my life right now.

This evening I got a phone call from someone who was struggling with low self-esteem and fear of failure. So as I went about my routine I was thinking about not only this person, but myself and many others who I know are struggling with feelings and thoughts of inadequacy in their lives right now. And that hurts me so much to see loved ones being so down and hard on themselves. The anger that I felt was because I knew in my gut that this is Satan’s doing. He hates us, he wants to destroy us and how he does this is by seeping lies into our lives. And I refuse to let him win.

I want to just say this- YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE WONDERFUL, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!

God loves you more than you could possibly fathom!! You are enough!! No matter what you have done or what has been done to you- you are so so so enough!! God aches for you to know how much he loves you! He created you for such a special purpose!! David says in Psalm 139: 13-14,” For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

I want you to just let that sink in and wash over you. God created your inmost being, he knit you together while you were in your mother’s womb!! I love that David used the word knit here; because knitting is such an intricate thing, you have to plan what you are going to make, you have to keep the right tension in your yarn,  you have to slide each loop carefully off that needle otherwise you end up with a disaster. God knit you with such care and perfection- he planned your life before you were even born!

You are fearfully made! I looked up the definition of “fearfully” and one of the descriptions said this, “full of awe or reverence.” And Reverence means,”deep respect for someone or something.” When God made you he was in awe of you and had deep respect for you and he still does and always will!! Don’t forget that wonderfully made part- you are wonderfully made- the complete knitted together human being that God made a perfect plan for!

David goes on to say, “your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Just let this wash over you- God’s works are wonderful, you are wonderful, God is in awe of you!!

Don’t let Satan win in your life- God wants and he aches for you to know how loved you are. And if you let him he will help you stop Satan and his lies dead in their tracks. I am praying for each person that reads this- that they feel the overwhelming love of God right now and will allow that love to conquer all fears and doubts.

 

Sweet Sorrow

Anyone who has experienced sorrow in their life knows that it comes in many forms and shows up whenever it wants- no warnings- just crashes down on you; it sweeps your feet from under you and you struggle to keep yourself grounded and together, but to no avail the sorrow wins.

Today it hit me while I was driving into town to get groceries. I wasn’t expecting it. My sorrow hit me when I heard these words on a worship song.
“I will breathe in, breathe out your presence
I will sing the praise that’s on my lips
I will breathe in, breathe out your goodness
I will sing the wondrous name of Jesus.”

To me I think each time of sorrow in my life always has a theme. When my dad died my sorrow’s theme was “Anger.” Anger towards everyone and everything. The problem with that kind of sorrow is that it is unrelenting and poisonous. It not only hurts you; it hurts the ones you love most- the ones you least want to hurt. It slowly grows into every crevice of your heart and chokes you out; until -if you are brave enough to face it- you decide to put a stop to it. Sadly a lot of people don’t make the choice to face there poisonous anger and it swallows them whole. I praise the Lord that he broke me free of that unrelenting anger and I no longer am choked out by that sorrows poisonous hold.

When my brother died I decided I wasn’t going to go down that angry path again. I know grief has it’s stages, anger being one of them. But I hope and pray that God gives me the discernment to keep a good eye out for that one and that He will help me not let it take root.

The theme of my sorrow this time is ‘sweet sorrow’ I’m pretty sure I stole that phrase from a recent Bible study, but it fits my sorrow well. The Bible always teaches that in “All things give thanks to the Lord.” This time- no matter how I feel- I will and am giving thanks to God. I’m finding that when I take the focus off myself, my loss, and feeling sorry for myself and focus my eyes on God. Great things start to happen. I find a sweet sorrow start to take form.

I feel God’s goodness washing over me; and his love embracing me. When I heard that song- I just lost it- cuz in my sorrow I truly am breathing in His presence and goodness and it’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. I am thanking God for the years I had with my brother and trying to take in and hold onto the memories I have of him. Thanking God for the people He has blessed me with and who are still in my life. But most of all I am thankful that in the deepest parts of my heart I know that Wally is in heaven; he is so happy and so whole and best of all he is hurt free!!

I think a lot of people are angry at my brother for the way he left us. Old “me” would have been too. But I believe Wally had an undiagnosed disorder, he had a lot of health issues, and I still think he had some sort of auto immune disorder and depression. I kept telling him he needed to get some tests done etc. and change his eating and exercise more, and he would always say “yeah I know I probably should…” but he didn’t. Once he told me that he did drugs cuz it was the only way he felt “normal” he had energy, could focus on things easier and didn’t feel “sick.” I can relate in a way- with having fibromylagia- I would love to feel “normal.” So I could see where he was coming from, but of course, I always tried to steer him the other way.

A few days after Wally died I was taking a shower and while I was crying and praying to God, he gave me a vision. It was so clear; it was like I was right there in that moment. I saw it was a gray outside like it had been raining. Wally was lying on the ground in the woods- lifeless, cold, sick. I saw Jesus (Wally’s Shepherd) coming up from behind him; He picked up Wally and put him over His shoulder’s- like a shepherd would do with his lost sheep. And He carried him off into the light.

You see how can one be angry when he is with the Great Shepherd! That is my Sweet Sorrow. I miss him dearly, but oh am I glad he is with his Shepherd and Creator! He isn’t battling addiction and sickness. He is free!!

When I think of the way Wally left us- I feel more hurt than angry. Hurt for him. Hurt that he was hurting that bad, sad I couldn’t hold him and comfort him. But in my Sweet Sorrow I am so happy that he had Jesus there to pick him up and carry him home. Even if I was there to comfort him I know that I could never have given him the comfort he is experiencing now from Jesus his Shepherd.

Today is my sweet brother’s birthday, he would have been 23. Today I’m sure he is having the best party anyone could ever have. He is celebrating with the one who created him. In my Sweet Sorrow. I hang onto that. CELEBRATING WITH THE ONE WHO CREATED HIM.

I’m sure Wally is breathing in and breathing out his presence on this day filled with sweet sorrow.

 

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

I didn’t pick the pictures in this post, the title, or the quote. When I signed up for my blog; WordPress put this together and I thought it was applicable to my life today- so I stuck with it. I thought it applied to my life right now and the journey God is taking me on. A journey that is new and I believe will be life changing.

I’m not gonna share my name because I don’t think it’s necessary and I wanna try and stay off “the grid” as Ron Swanson says. I don’t know how much you can really stay off the grid these days- especially if you have a blog, ha! But I can try can’t I?!
My nick name is Can so I’m gonna use that name. It’s a lovely nick name isn’t it?! LOL
I always hated when people tried to give me that nick name growing up; so I never let anyone use it. When I started dating my husband he found out I hated that name, so to pick on me he would call me it; than EVERYONE started calling me it! So here I am… I have accepted the name and come to terms with it, thanks to my wonderful husband!

Anyways… I’ve been feeling led to start a blog for about two years now, I think it will help me organize my thoughts and feelings more and make sense of things. God has been laying it on my heart to start one and so to get him off my back, I finally did it!!

I have a wonderful husband I’ve been married to for 9 years now and two great kids! My son -M- is 7 and my daughter -E- will be five next month, I can’t believe it! I feel like I just had her! I got married when I was 21 and had my son at 23. Some people say we started out so young, but I’m glad we did cuz I will still be young when they leave the nest; so I will hopefully be young and energetic enough to enjoy my freedom!! haha!

I stay at home with my kids and homeschool them, as well, and I love it! I am definitely on a new Journey in my life- when my kids were younger I kind of lost myself; as a lot of new moms do. I Lost sight and hope of my dreams and goals, lost myself as a person. I didn’t know who I was outside of being a wife and a mom. I finally reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

A little over four years ago we moved from Minnesota to Florida. My daughter was nine months old, and we moved half way across the country. We were in the thick of it. Two kids, one a baby, no family to help us- they are all in Minnesota. My husband got a job down here; it was truly a blessing, but definitely an adjustment. I felt lost and depressed.

Finally after about nine months of living here and not really making any friends; I couldn’t take it anymore- I had to get out! I joined a MOPS group and it changed my life.
The number one thing they talked about was taking care of yourself. Yes, taking care of your family is important, but in order for your family to be happy and successful- mom needs to be happy. I needed to put myself first for once- learn who I am separate from my family. Those were the things I needed to hear, and so I started to work on that.

Here I am 4 years later… so happy and blessed and taking care of myself. Yes I am still figuring out what I want to do with my life outside of my family- what God is calling me to do. I know part of my calling is to be a wife to a wonderful man and a mom to 2 wonderful kids; but I know I have a calling for something separate, as well, and I feel God is slowly putting those pieces together for me and I am so excited about it!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton