Making God First

I feel like our life is changing at a break neck speed right now and I haven't updated you all about it. Well, this post will not be about our rapidly changing life, that post will come later. No I promise it really will. This post will be about something else. Something God has been pounding into my head, and heart, a lot lately. Its come up in so many conversations, and in my Bible reading, and sermons. Just oh so many places.

This thing God has been showing me is how important a personal walk with Him really is. A personal relationship with God has to be everything in your life. It has to be the thing that you make the most important. I have to admit that lately I have not been doing a good job at working on my relationship with God. I have not made it a number one priority. So many times I think about working on my relationship with father, my family and others, and I start to neglect my relationship with God. What is wrong with me? Why is it that my relationship with God is one of the first things that I so quickly drop when things start to get busy? I know, I am ashamed to admit it. It is so wrong. But I have promised to always be honest on here.

So back to what God is showing me. I am realizing that he does not want my leftovers. He does not want what I have left over in my time to give Him. I know that in my relationship with my husband I have to make an effort to build our relationship. I can't just give my husband my scraps of time, and expect my relationship with Him to grow. I am realizing (and yes God has taught me this before, but in my somehow human mind I seem to forget this) that God needs my attention. He needs more than I even give my husband. If my other activities are taking away from my relationship with Him, than it should never by my relationship with Him that suffers, it should be that I need to take something out of my life that is distracting me. Working on my relationship with God should be the most important thing in my life.

Something that I have seen in my growing up (I'm at the ripe old age of 20, gasp!) is many of my friends, and aquaintances that I thought would never leave their faith are leaving everything I thought they believed in. Many people that came from good Chrstian families, and who I thought had strong Christian backgrounds are renouncing their faith. Now in many of their lives, it has to do with many different reasons, and I'm not saying that any one reason causes this, but something I am seeing as a big issue is that these people do not have their own personal relationship with God. In so many of these "good" Christian families the parents have a relationship with God, and teach their kids a certain way to live, but the kids never develop their own relationship with God. They rely on their parent's rules, and their parent's relationship with God, and then they grow up, and their parent's relationship with God will not hold them anymore. They flounder. I have definitley felt that way.

Something I have found, as a wife, is that it is easy to rely on my husband's relationship with God. Its easy to just say ok well He has a relationship with God, so I'm fine (ok well maybe not quite that simplified but you get the general picture). I know, that is so wrong. When I try to rely on His relationship, it puts so much pressure on Isaiah, and not only am I not getting what i should from God, but it hurts my relationship with Isaiah, and his relationship with God.

So here I am, saying that I am far from perfect. My relationship with God is far from perfect. But I need to work on not letting my busy life get before my relationship with my Savior. My Savior should be the most important Thing in my life. But ashamedly I say, sometimes He isn't.

I want to start making my Lord a priority. I want to make spending time with Him the most important thing in my life. I want my God to be first.

Need Some Help From My Readers

Lately I've been thinking a lot about homeschooling. As many of you know, I was homeschooled until college. It was an interesting experience, and definitely shaped who I am. We were not the family that you think about as "homeschooling". We interacted with others. We had a good education that prepared us for college. We did not wear khaki jumpers (not saying that those who wear khaki jumpers are bad). I am just saying I went through homeschooling and came out the other side.

Now I am studying to be a teacher myself. It has amazed me how much of a prejudice there is against homeschoolers. I know that it is a very touchy subject for many people. But I feel like I am coming from both sides. I went through homeschooling and yet I'm studying to be a teacher.

I also have a unique perspective because I have been all the way through it. I look back and see things that worked well, and things that didn't work so well for me. I have been thinking about an idea. I wanted to get some feedback from you all on it. What do you all think about having a homeschool blogathon? I was thinking about having some moms that homeschool write, and some ex homeschoolers write and all link up. And maybe have an opportunity to take questions from people. If anyone is interested in doing this with me, or would be interested in what would be said, let me know. I am trying to feel out and see if there is any interest in the blog world.

If anyone that has a blog would be interested in reposting this and helping me feel out interest, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

Healthy and Beautiful

If you go back to my first blog post this year I said that I wanted to get healthy. So far this year I have done nothing but let myself go. I have had stress after stress and lots of excuses. I have gained weight. Its bad.

I hate the way I look. I know its not good to hate the way you look, but then some would say its not good to be content with yourself with you weigh as much as I do. So I guess no matter who I talk to, I'm not a winner. but I do hate myself. It got to the point that I don't want to go out because I'm thinking about what people are thinking about how much I weigh. I don't want to see any old friends because I wonder what they are thinking about the way I look.

I know that I may sound very self-centered, and that added to all the guilt and frustration I had. I felt that no one could love me because of my weight. It was exacerbated by the fact that people so many people started talking to me about the my weight. I know it was because they cared, but it felt like no one loved me for me.

I guess I felt like no one loved me just for my personality. I felt like if I didn't look the part, I wasn't good enough. This comes from many years of feeling fat, ugly and then hear I go, gaining weight. I just wanted to feel beautiful.

Thankfully I had Isaiah telling em I was beautiful even though I was overweight. I guess I didn't believe him. More than that, I wanted to believe that someone God had made me beautiful. I wanted to think that He loved me and had made me special. I felt like somehow He had made me beautiful and yet somehow I had messed it up and He didn't want to look at me.

I know the way I felt was wrong, but I promised to always be honest on here. So I will be honest. I still struggle with all this. Part of my resolution to get healthy was to see myself as beautiful, and I have to admit that I'm still working on that. I still feel ugly because I am overweight. I still hate the way I look. But I'm starting to accept that for some reason God made me not stick thin. He made it harder for me to lose weight. He didn't make me naturally thin, and that's ok. He made me beautiful to Him.

And I am starting to realize that I am beautiful to Isaiah. I am so thankful for a husband that sees me as beautiful no matter my weight. He tells me he thinks I'm still beautiful. I don't understand why he thinks I'm beautiful, but somehow he does.

So I'm still working through how I feel about myself, but today I started working out. I wanted to workout, and start feeling better. I hate how tired I am. I hate how I look. I don't want to lose weight through crash diets, or purging. I want to get healthy in a way that can be long term.

So I start working out. I start getting to a place that I can feel like I'm healthy and I'm happy with the way I look. I know I need to work out how I feel about the way I look.

So as you can see, I'm a work in progress. I haven't arrived. I am not perfect. I struggle, I gain weight. I'm imperfect. But I'm honest with you. I want to feel beautiful and accept myself.

Submission, LDD, Partnerships (and all kinds of things)

I recently heard about something called Loving Domestic Discipline (or LDD). I saw a comment on facebook about it and it made me want to learn more. LDD is where the husband disciplines his wife using spankings, and other ways of implementing pain for things on their wife. They do this in the same way many spank their children, for disobedience or failing to perform correctly. Also many do maintenance disciplening where they spank or punish the wife somehow at certain intervals to help keep her obedient.


I have to say, after learning about this I was greatly disturbed. LDD is presented as helping women be submissive to their husbands. If the women somehow disobey their husbands, or do not respect them, or are not submissive they are punished.


I am very much believe in wives being submissive to their husbands. I have always heard about marriage being a partnership, which it is. But in any good partnership there is a senior and a junior partner. The junior partner has a say in the desicions, and many times makes many of the day to day desicions, but when it comes down to making big desicions the junior partner knows that the senior partner makes the final desicions. 


In my marriage, Isaiah and I work together. There are times when we haven't agreed on a decision and I have to let him make it. Many times it works out much better, and he is able to see things I am not able to see. When I don't agree with him, I voice what I'm seeing, and feeling to him. He is great about listening to me, and taking what I say into advisement. Then he makes a decision. Yes, sometimes I don't agree and I have to give my feelings to God, but it always works out.


I have seen many marriages not do well when the wife tries to take over and be in control. There is no such thing as an equal partnership marriage, or I have never seen one. There will always be a senior and junior partner. Something I have noticed is that typically when the woman says there is an equal partnership, its typically the woman in charge. 


 I am not saying women are second rate to men. I am not giving up women kind or anything. I also know my opinion can be very uncomfortable and unpopular, but its what I believe.


But I wholeheartedly disagree with LDD. I can't even believe that a husband would want punish his wife like that. This idea demeans women because it makes it feel like they are not as good as men because they have to be punished and are not able to do what they need to do without a man punishing them. It tells women that they are not capable of making desicions.


But my basic issue is that it just seems like an excuse to beat women, without being looked down on. I feel that violence against women is cowardly. Isaiah has really taught me that men don't hurt women. He feels terrible even when he accidently bumps into me, and he has taught me that real men are that way. Even though many of the women say they want this LDD, I feel like a man that would agree to beat his wife is a coward, and not very secure in himself as a man.


The idea that a man would punish his wife for not doing her "work" at the home is something I struggle with also. I know that I have things I take care of around the house, but Isaiah is always there to help me. I can't imagine him handing a list of what he wanted done and knowing that when he got home I would be spanked because I didn't get it done. This does not breed a loving home, and does not create a sense of a partnership.


I feel that that this type of a marriage would breed fear and resentment towards my husband. I can't imagine fearing my husband getting home because he will punish me. My favorite part of everyday is when he walks in the door from work. I look forward to it all day, and thinking about him coming home to punish me makes me very sad. I can't even imagine this idea of Isaiah punishing me by spanking me.


As you can see, I hate this LDD idea, but I also hate any kind of violence against women. I think that abuse against women is terrible, and learning about this made me just mad. I know that submission and partnerships are not easy subjects, and there are many different opinions. 

I'm Not Superwoman

I have to admit, sometimes I think I am superwoman. I think I can take on the world, and handle everything. I know, you are laughing in front of your television screen. Have you ever thought you were superwoman (or man)? I tried to take on the world, and well everything kind of fell apart.

So this semester I thought I could take on all these crazy classes. I took on a lot of heavy homework classes. Even my professor said I was crazy to take all this on. I thought I could handle taking it all on. I thought I could keep up my classes, and decorate the house. I thought I could handle classes, life and everything else.

I thought I could handle everything on my own. I thought I was superwoman. Then God laughed. 

Things just started taking a turn for the worse. I found that I was paddling hard to keep up with my school work, but it was still manageable. The house was starting to slip, but Isaiah was helping. I thought I could handle it all. And again God laughed.

Then life started hitting the fan. Things with our family got a little crazy. I found that I was stressing about school, and life. I started drowning in school. I started getting very behind on my schoolwork, and I was constantly doing school. It was to the point I wasn't able to send time with my husband, or ever relax.

I finally hit bottom when I started pulling out chunks of hair, because of the stress. I wasn't sleeping at night. I was starting to realize I wasn't superwoman. I couldn't do it on my own. 

So I started praying. I was not sure what I could do. I felt like nothing could give. I felt like there was nothing I could give up, and there seemed to be no hope. I just finally gave it all to God and told Him, ok I'm not superwoman. I'm just human. I am not sure what I'm doing here, and I can only do it through You.

So after I gave it to God, I was still drowning. I still wasn't able to get it all done. Finally I just fell apart on Isaiah. Have any of you ever done that? Just totally fallen apart on your man?

So I fell apart and  after I calmed down some Isaiah helped me figure some things out. I had to come to the realization that I am not superwoman. I know right, an amazing idea. 

Then we realized that with everything going on in life, there is no way I could keep going with the amuont of school I had. I had to drop something. That completely tore me up. I had hoped that I would never have to leave a class. I felt like I was a complete failure because I had to drop the class. I just couldn't believe that I had dropped the ball. I was failing my classes, and there was no choice. I knew I couldn't keep everything up, but I also felt like I had totally failed. 

I dropped the class and I felt a huge sense of relief. I realized that its ok to admit you are not superwoman. I had to admit that I'm not perfect.

I realized I'm not superwoman, and honestly thats ok.

Fall is Here!

Its fall time. I am quite excited about the end of summer, and the start of fall. There are some exciting things happening with this time of year, and I wanted to post some of my favorite ones. 

1. Its not as hot! I live in Florida, which is a blessing, but during the summer just becomes brutal. Its the perfect time in Florida in which its 80 ish during the day and 70 ish. Its amazing, beautiful weather.

2. Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks! I always feel safe and cozy drinking one. 

3. Sweaters are in the stores. I love sweaters. I wish I could wear them all year. They are so cute, and so much fun to layer.

4. I love seeing pictures of leaves changing. Because I live in St. Petersburg, FL, leaves don't really change too much. I've never actually seen leaves changing in winter in person, but I love seeing pictures of leaves changing!

5. Pumpkins!!!! I love pumpkins! I love pumpkin pies, decorating with pumpkins and all kinds of things pumpkins. 

6. Football. Since I've gotten married I've gotten into college football, and now I enjoy it. I am an Auburn tiger fan!

7. Christmas is coming! Fall means that Christmas is around the corner, which is all kinds of exciting (this coming from the girl that thinks Thanksgiving is just a dress rehearsal for Christmas).

Fall is here. Right now, I needed something exciting to think about. What are some things about autumn that you love?

Remembering Faith

So right now is when I would have been due, if I had not had a miscarriage.Its been a rough journey. I am still going through it, and I'm not sure I will ever be fully done, but these months have been hard, and a time of great change.

And just  For those of you who have joined me since then you can find  The Day We Lost Faith. If you have never lost a child you cannot understand what it is like. The pain is hard, and it takes a while to work through. I'm not fully convinced you ever fully get through it, and it always stings.

So what have I learned since the miscarriage? I have learned that sometimes life just doesn't make sense. I love babies. I want children. I have greatly struggled to understand why God took away my baby, and gives babies to women who don't want them. Life just doesn't make sense.  But I also learned that when life doesn't make sense, and God's plan just does not make sense, all you can do is know that He has a plan, and that He is in control. I still don't understand why God took Faith away, and I'm realizing that its ok if you don't understand. But you can't lose faith.

I also learned that its ok to struggle with your faith in God. During that time I started studying my Bible and I realized that so many of the legends of faith struggled with their faith. They sometimes screamed at the sky "Why?" and felt like God had betrayed them. I felt so guilty for struggling with my faith, and feeling like I couldn't understand God. But realizing that its ok to struggle, and that God is still there to love you. And I slowly came to realize that God didn't take Faith away to hurt me somehow, or to torture, but because He loves me. I still can't understand why God took Faith, but I slowly realized that it was out of love. I don't know why, but I have faith that God will never do anything to hurt me (Jeremiah 29:11).

I learned that something like this is not something you get over quickly. I always got frustrated with people when they were still hurting a long time later, but I've realized that it takes time to work through something. Its not a few days and then you are fine. It takes a lot of time, and then sometimes certain things just trigger something.

I now am able to empathize with women who are having a hard time, and have lost children. I never had a stillborn, or had a child die after he has been living . I can't imagine what that is like. I feel like miscarriage is something we almost don't want to talk about. Its almost like women are ashamed of miscarriages. There are not many resources or information for women having a miscarriage. I've been amazed how hard it is to find information, support or resources about miscarriages. I really want there to work to help women not feel stigmatized by miscarriage, and be able to get the help they need.

I look at where my life is now, and realize how different it would be if we hadn't lost Faith. Soon after we lost her we got our cats, and we absolutely love them. I'm still in school, and for the first time, just relaxing and really enjoying my classes. I am so thankful that I'm in class and able to work towards becoming a teacher. I love where my life is right now.

So yes, I still struggle sometimes with loosing Faith. With this being the time that was the due date, its a reminder that we lost her. I have learned so much to through this, and have grown so much in my relationship with God.