I will faithfully pray for him

Our daughters had an interesting conversation recently that was relayed to me by a faithful friend. Three of our daughters (Madison 13, Moriah 12, and Hannah almost 11) were at their friends house for a little Christmas gathering. They had been watching "The Nativity" and were having a conversation about how young Mary was when she gave birth to Jesus and married Joseph. The topic then changed to arranged marriages and would it be Ok if their dad picked the man they were to marry. My girls and the daughter of my friend all agreed they would be happy with that because they knew their dads loved them and only wanted the best for them. Of course we have no plans to arrange their marriages, but it was nice to know they trusted their dads to make that decision for them. They soon began to talk about their own weddings and of course they all shared what their weddings will be like. At some point, Madison said to everyone that she knew exactly who she was going to marry. Of course everyone in the room (and out of the room, thanks Tamera) waited with baited breath for her to reveal this juicy piece of information. Without hesitation she said "I'm going to marry someone exactly like my dad". This faithful friend told me that the girls had no idea she was listening and that Madison's comment was completely unsolicited.

As my friend told me this story, tears fell. I was unprepared for the flood of emotions. I was instantly struck with an urgency to be on my knees in prayer for my husband. I pray for him regularly for the usual things like work, financial stress, health; stuff like that. But this is a whole different thing. I know that it is normal for little girls to love their daddys and even talk about marrying them, but when a thirteen year old girl still looks at her daddy and knows that someday, the man she marrys will be just like him, the magnitude of the role he plays in her life goes off the chart.

In the midst of the mass of Christmas greetings on this desk are three precious pictures. They stand out to me right now because all three families have only daughters. Precious little girls who are looking to their daddys to be an example. Pray for those daddys and the priviledge they have to be the object of such affection.

I am blessed to have a husband who understands the weight of his responsibility. He knows he holds his daughters' affection until they meet the one God has chosen to be their husband. I am sure he wouldn't have it any other way. So I will faithfully pray for him.

Be Blessed,

Trina

Maintaining My Sanity

There are a few questions that I have heard more than once in the last couple of weeks: How do you maintain your sanity and how do you manage to have a quiet time in the midst of everyday life? These are very good questions and I have to admit that on some days I don't do either very well. After all, no body's perfect. Right?

To answer the first question though, in order to maintain my sanity one must imply that I had my sanity to begin with. That depends on how one would define sanity. If sanity means I can remember my own name; I'm sane. If it means I can remember my child's name while he's standing right in front of me; Not so much. If it means I can teach simple addition and subtraction facts; I'm good. If it means I can remember that the Pythagorean theorem is that the square drawn on the hypotenuse of a right triangle has the same area as the sum of the square drawn on the other two sides; . . . huh? If being sane means I can tie my own shoes; I am. If it means I can find shoes for all my kids; Nope. So you see my dilemma? In my world I feel completely sane. If you were to step into my world for a moment, you might not have the same answer.

I do understand the heart of that question and my answer to that is: I do one thing at a time. OK maybe two or three things . . . OK sometimes four things, but never five. I never do five things at once. . . .I guess I don't have a great answer to that question. Let's move on to the next one. I do have an answer for that.

How do I have a "quiet time" everyday? I don't. Before you judge me too harshly, let me explain. I learned sometime back when I had lots of little ones and I was feeling like the great "need-meeter" that if I was going to survive, I needed to maintain my relationship with Christ. I tried to get up early. After all this is what everyone was teaching; that if you didn't start the day with a minimum of three hours of praying and worship and reading the Word and more praying and worship and meditation, that there was NO possibility for growth. OK, that's not really what they taught, but it might of well have been. In my little world at home, I could not make that work. No matter how early I got up, even if my feet didn't hit the floor, at least one of my children would wake up. And then inevitably, I would start the day resenting the fact that my children were "hindering" my walk with the Lord and THAT is never good. So I changed my game plan. I made sure that I was always involved in a bible study somewhere. Then at least I was getting something from The Word at least once or twice a week. (church counts, too.) This also motivated me to get my study done. So I would try to do my study during nap time or during any other quiet moment the day would offer me. I figured out that if I left my bible and my study open on the kitchen counter, I could do one question at a time and eventually get the whole study done in time for the meeting. This led me to have an open dialogue with God throughout the day. I am constantly shooting up "arrow" prayers. Like "Lord give me wisdom.", "Help me to be the mommy they need me to be right now"," Lord, please help me not to eat that cookie when there is an apple that would taste just as good and be better for me". Really! I really pray like that and believe that my relationship with Christ is closer now than it has ever been.

As my life has evolved from having many little ones to having bigs and littles, I am finding more of those quiet moments. I don't have nap time anymore, but I do have dentist appointments and piano lessons. I take my life journal and bible study everywhere with me so I can take advantage of those moments.

We have a garden out in the "way back" . Our soil is very sandy. If we turn the water on full blast and leave it on for an hour, the water will go straight through and will be less effective in keeping the plants hydrated than if we turned it on to just a drip and left it on all day. My encouragement to all of you mommies who feel like you are being sucked dry. Turn on the drip system. Let God's word saturate every part of your life. Open your bible and just read a little bit at a time. It will soak in to the very deepest parts of your heart. Don't let Satan convince you that if you can't meet God first thing in the morning with an hour of quiet that you might as well not even try. That's a lie! God knows exactly where you are. He knows how busy you are and how tired you are and how burdened you are and He wants to bear those burdens for you. But there is no way for Him to help if you don't go to Him with those things. It might seem silly to talk to God about what you are eating, but I have had conversations with my close friends about what I eat and wear and do. God wants to be that close to you. Give him the chance!

Be blessed!
Trina