Resurrection Sunday!

Happy Resurrection Sunday! One thing that keeps resounding in my heart is the reminder that Christ choose to live for you today! Isn't that is a wonderful truth. People talk about how Christ died, but today He chose to LIVE for you. Woo hoo! I hope you can rest in the peace and freedom of that reality.

The Blank Slate

As I'm writing this, tears are streaming down my cheeks. I just read the simple introduction of the blog of a friend of mine at the beginning of a new found freedom and love in Jesus and I am undone. 

For years, I've had these plans... these goals that in my mind would be attainable if I just worked a little harder, managed my schedule better. Always falling short. Never to succeed. Not until reading a simple excerpt full of conviction did I even think- even consider surrendering all those seemingly unattainable plans. Write a book, sing on a CD.  Publish a children's book, lose weight, open an art gallery, open a youth camp, join the peace corps. The list goes on and on. The expectations at one time may have been God things, but the God that I serve is into doing new things. WOW. To place everything at His feet and begin again. No expectations. No plans. No deadlines or feelings of failure as I watch unattainable goals pass me around the merry-go-round of my life again and again. 

Its Blank Slate Time. Wow. The thought of it is so very liberating. No expectations. No failures. Just me and God. Amazing...There is so much freedom in that.

 

-Mel

My daily soapbox

Humanity is so oft gripped, and overcome by fear. These fears so easily prevent us from becoming and accomplishing all that we were born for. Too often, we live lives as shadows of what we could be, all the while longing for greatness that seems to never come into the clutches of our grasp… because of fear.

Now, not all fears are irrational. We come to know fear because of experiences that shape who we are and how we see everything around us. The irrationality of fear is recognized when we come to understand our true worth, potential and destiny. Your greatness, when realized, trumps all fear, making it null and void.

Within us all can be birthed or is already present a fledgling desire to thrive. Unless snuffed out or suffocated, there is also a desire to overcome… a desire to attain predestined greatness. If fear continues to rule a life, the potential of greatness inside a soul will scream to be realized everyday of your life until it is active.

The duty that you owe to yourself and to humanity is to face and eradicate your own fears so that you are able to freely walk and thrive in the greatness of your destiny. It is not your duty to emulate the destinies of others.  YOUR personal purpose was meant to be attained so that God can use your life to bless the world.

Face your fears. Kill your fears. Chase your destiny. Change the world.

Complete Mother of Two

Disclaimer: This is a post-c section rant that I need to release. My system is full of pain meds and I am exhausted. If I sound a little out of it, this is why. I can’t help it…writing is such beautiful therapy and I need it right now…plus, I ran out of chocolate. lol

I’ve never had a pregnancy without some sort of complication. As I sit here in the wake of my second c-section and 4th son to be born, I feel like I am finished. There are so many beautiful joys of the process of getting our little miracles here. For some, the journey is easier than others. 

There has been a nagging question in my mind lately- am I finished? Many mommies do not feel complete without having a clone of their own to do hair, paint nails and wear matching outfits. After birthing 4 boys (2 in heaven), I’m starting to feel like I don’t need a daughter to feel ‘complete’ as a mom.  Unfortunately for me, the pressure is all too real for me to keep trying. “You’re still young, don’t make that decision now.” “You know you gotta have your daughter.” Is what I always hear… or “the next one will be a girl.”  I have to admit, those words make me a little offended. Its not like I can choose the gender of the child that I will be having, It’s the blessing of God to welcome whatever gender I am given. For our family, boys are our blessing. 

So, I’ve been toying with this question as to whether or not I will be finished with pregnancies- especially yesterday. As I sat numbly under the effects of an epidural, a thin blue paper sheet covering a delicate dance of scalpels and incisions, the smell of my own cauterized flesh almost solidified the decision in my mind. This is never the way I wanted it to be. For the duration of my life, if pregnancies continue, they will be marked by cerclages, repeat c-sections, pelvic rest until delivery, no exercise, pre-term birth at 36-37 weeks and the frustration of jump starting milk supplies and a very painful recovery. When I look into the eyes of my sons, yes I always will decide that the journey was undeniably worth it, but I think it is a journey that I no longer want to take. 

Being a mother of two will allow me and my husband to pour into and invest in the lives of our sons. We will be in a better place financially to bless and support them in ways that our own parents were unable. We can spend the intentional time and effort needed to truly follow the heart and leading of God to craft them into wonderful well-rounded men. It has always been a desire of mine that none of my children be left behind or feel neglected. I honestly can not envision balancing more than two in order to keep this desire. 

This is not to say adoption is not an eventual option. I just think the journey of my own body birthing sweeties into the world is about over. 

My prayer:

Lord, you see my heart. You know the journey, joys and pains that child birth has brought to me.

I never desire to put you in a box, but I am so very tired. Tired of mourning, tired of pain, tired of worry. 

Ready to love, ready to smile. Ready to give the best of me, ready to celebrate my grounded family. Ready to fall deeper in love with my husband, ready to pursue my dreams. 

Ready to travel, ready to worship! Lead me in the way that I should go. Let me know your undeniable grace and peace concerning my family and your plan for me. I love you with all that I am. I need You to the very core of me. 

Thank you that you do not condemn my heart. Thank you for your loving arms that surround me. 

-Mel

Always close by.

so, I was trying to understand the nearness of God. In my experience, it has been so easy to make Him into a conditional Father, when yet He its not. The conditional nature that I envision Him to employ hangs on whether or not I open my bible or spend sacred time in prayer. He has been challenging me to understand that no matter what I do-however I go about my dealings, He its always ever so near to us. I have truly noticed a difference in my personal feelings of closeness when I spend time with Him on a regular basis. All I can equate it to is the similarity of the frequencies of a radio. sometimes the station is hazy, much like us when we don't spend regular time with God. The more time we spend, the clearer the frequency, yet the station was always there. Before we know it we're singing right along with Him to the tune of a beautiful upbeat melody. It is at these times that we are at our best.
Jesus is so very near to you today. If your communication with Him feels a little like static, spend some time with Him. Before you know it, you will be able to hear the beautiful song He has been singing over you all along.

More for your money

All this for less than $5! 

So, I've finally decided to become wise and take advantage of  price matching at Walmart. I never really thought it would do much good... more specifically, I was trying to avoid compounding the workload of the already exasperated employees at the checkout lanes.

This week, I was broke and decided to stretch the money. I found an employee in the store who was more than helpful. She directed me to a binder full of the ads of the stores in the area. I took out my list and we price-matched until I either increased the quantity of what I was trying to purchase, or cut down the price of my purchases by about 50%! It was amazing. I will definitely be Price-matching from now on. The greatest thing was once I checked out, it was fast and easy. No problems, and a whole lot of groceries!

By the way, you are seeing 3 pounds of bananas, 4 pounds of carrots, 5 pounds of oranges, 4 pounds of Roma tomatoes and about 3 pounds of broccoli.

Woo hoo! Do you have any great price-matching stories to share?

Some good food.

So, I've said it before... I love food! Jon and I recently decided to go Paleo- almost a month ago. I have to admit in the beginning I was having junk-foodie remorse, but now I can honestly say that I'm loving it. I feel like I've been far more creative with my meals than before, cause I'm all about taste. If its gotta be Paleo, it's gotta taste good. I'll share with you one of the recipes from this week. Check it out:

So the recipe is adapted from Lobel's Meat bible, a pretty awesome cookbook about meat!

INGREDIENTS
	4 tablespoons olive oil 5-8 chicken drumsticks or thighs 3-4 cups chicken stock 1 large onion, chopped 3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped kosher salt 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme 5-8 pitted dates, chopped 3-4 medium carrots, peeled and chopped 1/3 cup almonds, blanched and slivered 1 tsp ground cumin 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/4 tsp cinnamon  1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
DIRECTIONS 1. Begin by boiling the chicken in 3 cups of stock, add a bit of garlic, onion, thyme, salt and pepper. Cover and cook for 25 minutes 2. Meanwhile, place chopped carrots, dates and remaining ingredients in a shallow pan and simmer in remaining cup of stock until carrots and onions are tender. 3. Add 3 tablespoons of oil to a pan. Once hot, add 1/3 cup of almonds and cook until toasted. Add almonds to vegetables. 4. Remove chicken from pot. Spoon vegetables over meat and enjoy. Let me know what you think. It was a hit at our house:-) Ps. Sorry I didn't add a picture. I took one but it didn't do the meal justice at all. lol