Nehemiah and Me

If you are like me, you haven’t spent too much time with your Bible open to the book of Nehemiah.  Until the past couple years, I think I may have only been in that chapter once.  Did you know that Jadon’s name is in the book of Nehemiah?

“Next to them, repairs were made by men from Gibeon and Mizpah—Melatiah of Gibeon and Jadon of Meronoth—”  Nehemiah 3:7

Did you know that after the Children of Israel were carried off to captivity in Babylon.  Remember Daniel?  God called Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city.

Jerusalem was a mess.  In Nehemiah 4 we learn some of the shape the city was in..

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, "What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?"

Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, "What they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!"  Neh. 4:1-3

I am not sure when this story was brought to my attention and became a parallel to my life.  I know I am not clever enough to come up with these things on my own.  See that part about the stones being burned?  “Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?”

That has been my thought over and over.  Just last week again, I was struggling with the thoughts that this is too big of a mess to be fixed.

“to bestow on them a crown of beauty  instead of ashes,”  Isaiah 61:3

I know that God is using this charred, burned, heaps of rubble & ash, and is bringing life back into it.  Slowly. 

“So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.”  Nehemiah 4:6

Sometimes I feel like this.  I work with all my heart… get about 1/2 way through what I know I am supposed to be doing and lose heart.  Getting frustrated at how long it is taking.  How much work it all is.  How things aren’t going the way I wanted them to.

“Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, ‘The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.’" Neh. 4:10

How often it just looks like too much.  My strength gives out.  I can’t keep going takes over my mind.

“Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."  Neh. 4:13,14

And people come to stand with me and fight.  At the “exposed places”, “with their swords, spears and bows.”  And I am not alone.

“Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."

And so I post these words around my house.  I remember to fight.  I remember that I am not alone.  I am fighting for my home.  My sons.  My daughters. 

“So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out.”  Neh. 4:21

And we continue to go on fighting.  Standing together.  Using burnt stones to rebuild a family that was completely destroyed by an unseen enemy. 

But, what of the father of this home?  Is there no hope left for him?  Is he part of this rebuilding process?  God alone holds that secret mystery.  My prayers still gravitate towards the hope that the rebuilding will include him.   The opposition is very heavy against it.  The area that includes him is burned beyond recognition.  Three years to us is much different than three years to God…

I find it quite interesting that Jadon was one of those wall builders.  Makes you wonder.

Pam

The Waiting…

I read this on Sarah's blog.  I love it when I don’t really have to come up with the words to describe what I feel or what happened.  Someone else already did it, and my heart is understood.

Wait on the Lord

Author Unknown

Wait on the Lord
Desperately, helplessly, longingly I cried.
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and wept for due to my fate
And the Master so gently said, "Child, you must wait."

"Wait? You say wait?" My indignant reply
"Lord, I need to know answers, I need to know WHY!
Is your hand shortened? Or have You not heard?
By FAITH, I have asked, and am claiming Your Word.
My future and all to which I can relate,
Hangs in the balance, and You tell me to wait?
I'm needing a 'yes', or a go-ahead sign,
or even a 'no' to which I can resign.
And Lord, You promised that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive,
And Lord I've been asking and this is my cry.
I'm weary of asking...I need a reply!"

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, "You must wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting...for what?"

He seemed then to kneel as His eyes wept with mine,
And tenderly said, "I COULD give you a sign;
I COULD shake the heavens, and darken the sun
I COULD raise the dead and cause the mountains to run.
All you seek, I COULD give, and how pleased you would be.
You COULD have what you want - but you wouldn't know me.
You'd not know the depths of my love for each Saint:
You'd not know the power I give to the faint,
You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair,
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.
You'd not know the joy of resting in me,
When darkness and silence were all you could see.
You'd never experience the fullness of love
As the peace of my Spirit descends like a dove;
You'd know that I give and I save (for a start),
But you'd not know the depths of the best of my heart!
The glow of my comfort late in the night
The faith that I give when you walk without sight
The depth that's beyond getting just what you asked
Of an infinite God, who makes what you have last.
You'd never know should your pain quickly flee
What it means that MY grace is sufficient for thee
Yes, your dreams for your loved ones overnight would come true,
But, Oh, the loss if I've lost what I'm doing in you!

So be silent my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though my answers seem terribly late
my most precious answer of all is still 'WAIT.'"

Try Living.

Last weekend when we were watching Beth Moore, Live Via Simultcast from Louisville, her worship leader spoke at the beginning.  His name is Travis Cottrell.  I just found this on his blog!  You will hear Travis singing, and see pictures of the people who were at LIVE, Live in Louisville!

Living Proof Live Louisville KY Simulcast from Rich Kalonick on Vimeo.

As Travis spoke, he told us of a time he was leading worship, and someone was wearing a T-shirt in the audience that said “TRY LIVING”. He said that during the whole performance he was convicted about that statement.

I am sure we can all be convicted about that statement.  It’s what we do with our conviction that counts though isn’t it? 

As much as I’ve hated and not wanted to just barely function and live in survival mode over the past almost 3 years since HSSH left, there have been so many days that have been just that.  A friend will call and ask how I am, and my answer would be “I’m breathing”.  Living one moment at a time, not able to look beyond this moment without the overwhelm  setting in.

I would grow tired of living that way and resolve myself to functioning.  And I could do it for awhile.  Until some circumstance would hit and send me tumbling back into that oblivion that I’ll call the pit.

Recently, I’ve set that resolve again, but this time with the honesty that there is no human way I am capable of stopping these circumstances from coming and putting me into these barely functioning days.

I watched my friend, Dorie, return to her life after being here and get hit with depression and despair all over again.  We have fought this together for so long, and as I listen and try to encourage her along the way, a part of me is gripped in fear for knowing that at any moment I could be back right where she is.  It is a very familiar place. I’ve visited there often.  And the more you visit the easier it becomes to return.

I’ve fought these circumstances that I find myself in, divorced-single-mom, for so long.  Even typing them now, an anxiety builds.  That can’t be me!  How did this happen?  How do I live like this?  I want to be restored, but this isn’t what I want for my life.  So how do I live? 

I honestly don’t know how.  All I can say is that as I learn to be honest with God over these things and as I learn to surrender them to Him, somehow He seems to be doing it (gasp) without my efforts.  I have failed too many times to think that I could do this on my own will-power.  It’s taken 3 years of digging my muddy fingernails up out of pit of slim and despair repeatedly to finally understand that.

And even today, I type with hesitation, short term memory loss could set in at any time…

Last night I took a major step in the healing process!  PTL!  My sil, Judy, came over and I was telling her about a dilemma I have.  Cooking. 

I’ve never enjoyed cooking.  At least not nearly as much as I enjoy eating.  Ahem.  Anyway, I’ve learned some things about survival and cooking.  First of all, buying those frozen casseroles from Stouffer's is still cheaper than going to McDonalds with 6 kids.  Cardboard pizza and chicken nuggets, hot dogs and nachos.  They all get old and expensive and fattening over time.

This has been life in survival mode for me.  I used to cook.  I used to plan.  I used to have lists.  I used to have menus.  Now, I can’t seem to put the thoughts together to make a list ahead of time, so I muddle through Walmart with my children and end up buying only snacks, frozen meals (because in reality I know those are what I will end up making) and 1/2 the ingredients for a meal or two that I won’t end up making because I won’t have the right ingredients when I get home!

Quite honestly, part of me didn’t even really care.  Without a husband to cook for much of the pleasure was gone.  And I also found some pain there coming from another source.

It’s hard to describe.  There are parts of who I was before HSSH left that I really don’t like about myself.  I’ve had a hard time letting myself be anything like that person at all, because then I might become that person. 

And that person got left. 

As much as I know in my mind that none of this was my fault.  Who I was didn’t cause him to make the choices he made.  Who he was did.  My decisions didn’t cause him to lie.  My lifestyle didn’t force him to cheat. 

As much as I know these things, there is still pain.

As I pulled out the recipe books and recipe cards with Judy last night, there was an anxiety in me that was trying to choke and stop me.  We pushed through together, though and came up with enough practical ideas to fill 4 weeks of meals with 5 meals per week!

After she left, I was tempted to just shove it all back into the cupboard and deal with it later. 

That “later” would have turned into, never (or the next time someone “helped” me along).  And we would have started the busy school year and ball game schedule eating frozen meals and carry out, and the meat I’ve been given would have rotted away in the deep freezer.

I put the little ones to bed, and tackled those menus with grace and strength that were definitely not my own.  I now have 4 weeks of menus complete with grocery lists!  This is 3/4 of the battle for me!

I’d still like to type out the lists and save them so I can keep reusing them, but at least I can use these for now if I don’t get that done soon!

Healing can be much like peeling and onion I’ve heard.  I guess that is true.  Another layer was peeled off last night, and VICTORY was won!

TRY LIVING!  I really want to.  Help me Jesus!

Pam

It’s only Applesauce

Yesterday, I cleaned out my deep freezer.

PROOF, I do more that blogging! 

The reason I tackled the freezer, is that some friends have offered us some meat.  I said, yes, and they are bringing it over tomorrow.

The freezer was bad.  So bad.  Oh, so bad I didn’t take a picture, so bad.

The week that HSSH confessed and walked out, SuperMOM had just purchased 4 or 5 bushels of apples to make into applesauce.

Then SuperMOM went into shock and couldn’t deal with the apples.

Then SuperMOM’s AMAZINGLY, SUPER, WONDERFUL, GRAND friends came over and made the applesauce for her.  While SuperMOM walked around dying an agonizing death, and crying over everything.  Even apples.

Unfortunately, a couple of the bags of applesauce had broke open.  Leaving my freezer in a state of applesaucy goo… There was no way to use the remaining applesauce without getting a hammer and pounding out the stuff.  And then there was the 3 year old meat that was now stuck to the bottom of the freezer in 3-4 inches of applesaucy ice.  The food was basically worthless because I couldn’t get it out of the freezer!

As I am cleaning it out, waiting for it to defrost, washing out the goo, I start thinking about that applesauce.  How far we’ve come since the day that was made.  How horrible those days were.  And how God has cleaned up the mess of my life.  How glad I was to have that all wash away.

Just another amazing step in the healing process.

Pam

Stepping up… Stepping out…

This morning I finished my second to last day of homework in the Beth Moore Bible Study I have been in this summer, Stepping Up.  I am really going to be sad to have it end! 

God is really using Beth’s writing in my life.  She has become like a wonderful friend I have never met!  If you have been with me in the past 3 years, you know how often her writing has spoken directly to my circumstances.  The Holy Spirit is amazing! 

This is what I read this morning in the study…

“Ask any song writer of our time and he or she will tell you that the clearest and deepest words God grants the soul are often those that come in a dark season of life.  One of the dearest treasures in your darkness will be the God-song He will give you if you’ll receive it.  To stand in the presence of the Lord when you’d rather go to bed and never get up, and to praise Him in the night when taunting voices tell you to curse Him—these things are nothing less than a battle cry of victory.”

This is exactly what my journals are to me.  The deepest words God granted my soul in the darkest season of my life and my battle cry of victory.  I am gonna make it, and crazy as it is, I believe he will too.

Stepping out of my comfort zone to share these things is hard sometimes.  I don’t see the things that you may see.  I read what I wrote and I remember that they were survival.  I remember the pain. 

Pray with me about what to do with this story.  What God wants to use it all for.  Another thing that Beth Moore says often is, "He has given you life experiences intended to turn into testimonies and ministries that help make the Savior irresistible to the seeker."

I want to be found faithful.

I had a dream last night…

…in the dream I was getting a different house.  It was a huge house.  More space than I could possibly use.  Custom built and more than I ever imagined I needed from a house.  The problem was that the people who were selling me the house hadn’t moved out yet, and I was moving in.  It was also interesting that it was an older house and the roof leaked.

I spent the whole day working on the house, moving our things in, and working around their things.  It was frustrating and impossible.  By the end of the day I had given up on it.  I decided to wait until they moved everything out before I moved anything in.  And I hoped that they didn’t take my things with them when they went.

Before I opened my eyes I knew that God was speaking to me through this dream.  God has things in our future He wants to give.  If I move forward and try to take them before the appointed time I will only be met with frustration and defeat. 

Waiting on God is so difficult. 

Ephesians 3:19-21 (HCSB) and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think—according to the power that works in you— 21 to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Pam

More building… staying out of God’s way?

Good Morning!

CHOOSING to take the time to write this morning!  I have less guilt when I know that I have started a load of laundry (Kiahna putting her Pull Up on inside out last night helped that process!)  I have run the dishwasher.  I am dressed to the shoes. 

I reached a point last week while we were at the lake where I decided that I was tired of living in survival mode.  And that I am tired of living in a shamble of a life.  I am tired of my life being unrestored just because I don't see things in the picture I want there.  I need my life restored.  My kids need my life restored.

Like I wrote the other day, I know that there have been times that I have let God begin to restore.  I begin to panic when I don't see things the way I want them and sink into a pit of doubt and frustration.

I confess I don't understand.  I don't understand what God has in mind.   Sometimes I get so confused.

Thanks for lending me the Meet Me at the Well book, Twila.  It continues to be so refreshing.  In the chapter "I feel like a miracle in slow motion" she writes this,

"Extended periods of stress can end in slow motion.  One by one the pressures release their grip.  You can breathe normally again.  Freedom seeps back by small degrees.   But will it last?  It seems too good to be true."

I relate to that.  Will it last this time?  Will I slip back into a state of overwhelm?  Will I become frustrated with my circumstances again today?

Coming home from the lake I had a renewed desire to do some house cleaning.  Realizing that this is a short season where we are actually NOT running carpools or sporting events made me realize I really need to do some things around here!  I was afraid I was going to overwhelm myself and take too big of bite and burn out fast!  So far I have had 2 good days of going back to FLY LADY and getting some things accomplished!  Fly Lady talks about baby steps.  Doing things 15 minutes at a time.  Having a morning routine. 

I wanted to freshen up my house again too.  Sunday night I was telling my sister what I wanted to do, and the ideas I had.  How I was afraid I would jump in with both feet and panic!  Then I said, lets just move this over here right now!  So we did!  We moved some things, we rearranged some of the pictures on my walls, we moved some of the decorations around!  It felt so good!!

One of my ideas is to paint my kitchen cabinets.  My neighbor did hers awhile back.  I remember how neat they were and how simple she said it was to do.  It is kind of the distressed look (fitting for me!  LOL!!)  I decided yesterday to try it out on a smaller project, my hutch.  I did.  At first I was in a panic, I wasn't sure at all if I liked it.  My mom and sister have come over and both given the thumbs up.  Not sure if I am up for doing the whole kitchen yet, or how it would look to do it in the whole kitchen, but I am considering it.

Here are some pictures of the progress…

Before…

After painting…

This is the top, not the bottom, but this is after sanding and staining over the paint to make distressed look…

I need to finish the bottom and do a coat of varnish on it.  Simple and not too overwhelming!!  (okay, I was a little stressed last night and sent the kids to bed without their evening routine).

But, when you have a teenager doing things like this what do you expect!!

 

First of all MY FLASH STARTED WORKING AGAIN ON MY CAMERA when I went to try to take this picture last night!  And as to why he is parked this direction (see my van behind his car parked the right direction) I have no clue.

I didn’t buy the insurance on my camera.  For it to start working properly is a miracle!!  THANK YOU JESUS!!!

I didn't start Kiahna's hair yet, painting is more fun.  It's looking pretty shabby (the hair, and the cabinet I guess!)

Have a good day!  Thanks for listening, praying and supporting us.

Pam