Hi/Lo Thursday

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and get your link on their site.

Hi:  One high for the week was starting a new Bible Study!  Esther, by Beth Moore.  Meeting with two very good friends and having adult conversation!  UNINTERRUPTED!! 

I have a deep love for studying the Word of God with Beth.  She is such a blessing to my life.

Lo:  The kids are off of school today, because of thick fog this morning… so another day of school into the summer for us.  Bummer.

Pam

Forgiveness Comments… and Hi/Lo Thursday

I thank those of you who left me such encouraging comments yesterday on my post about forgiveness.  I am touched that you were touched. 

I checked, my blog got 193 hits yesterday.  This post got 11 comments.  I wonder if the 182 of you who looked at the post, and didn’t comment, thought… she’s just crazy.  Out of her mind.  Delusional. 

Or maybe you thought, yeah that is fine for her… but she didn’t have x, y, and z done to her.

Or was it, he must be some great catch, to want him back so bad.

Or maybe the pain is just too raw, and maybe I don’t have the right words to speak to just everyone’s hearts…

Let me address a few of those unasked questions…

Yes, I’m crazy!  ;)

I have purposely not exposed HSSH’s failings on this blog.  But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I’d talk to anyone personally, or by e-mail if you wanted to get more in depth with me on the specific things you are struggling to forgive and the specific things that God has helped me to forgive.

Please don’t think this is easier for someone else than it would be for you.  Forgiveness is not easy for any of us.

In fact, as I was thinking about this more yesterday, I wondered about the things that happen to us that are not maybe so HUGE and UGLY, but smaller and kind of like a pebble in your shoe.  Maybe that is the thing that you really need to forgive.  Not a huge thing, by man’s standard, but God doesn’t see sins on the levels that man does, does He.

What if your pain is too raw?  Too recent?  Too much?  What if it just doesn't stop even if I forgive and forgive?  What if it is just too hard?  What if no one understands? 

Someone always understands.  No matter where you are in the matter.  years past.  In the midst.  Or just a raw, open, oozing sore that is continually being ripped open.  God knows.  He sees.  He hears.  He never misses a tear… He feels the pain with you. 

“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy”

Psalms 126:5

“You've kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights,  Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.”

Psalms 56:8 (msg)

I write all this with scars that are very fresh.  From wounds that couldn’t seem to heal, because they were constantly being torn open again and again by my circumstances.  My doubt.  My worry.  My disappointment.  My unforgiveness.   

There is no pride in what I write here.  Only confession and glory to God who has brought me through it, this far.  Yes, I am a little crazy.  Crazy enough to believe that God can do this in all of us, if only we will let Him… because I am feeling it in myself.

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This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and for a chance to win $100.

 

How about a few Hi/Lo Thursday things today…

Hi…

• I won over $200 by doing this post last week!  If they offer a prize again, I’ll take my name from the drawing!!  ;)  So go give it a try yourself!!
• My parents are returning from their never ending 12 day vacation tomorrow!! 
• I got my furniture put back in place after the water we had come in last week! I even got things scrubbed down and organized as I put it all back!
• Kiahna’s second day at her new preschool went much better than her first one!
• In one month we will be leaving, with my parents (yes, they get to go again! but this probably doesn't count as a true “vacation” for them!) and my sister, bil, and their 4 kids for FLORIDA!!  SPRING BREAK!!!  11 kids (James is taking a friend) 5 adults. 3 vans.  It’s an adventure, to say the least!
• Most of those things that were making me crazy on Monday, I can’t even remember now!

Lo…

• James isn’t doing so hot in Spanish class.  (trying to be kind here)  Consequences are in place.  Consequences that he, of course, believes are totally unfair.  And I struggle, again, with the reality that I am doing this alone.  And that is still hard.
• I had a conversation with Kiahna this week.  She was telling me something, about “dads”. 
• Me:  “Do you have a dad?”
• K:  “No!”
• Me:  “Yes you do, his name is ‘J’. 
• K:  “NO! ‘J’ is NOT my dad!  James is my dad” 
• Me: uhg.  “No, James is your brother. ‘J’ is your dad.”
• K:  “No.  Jadon is my brother.”
• Me:  “No, you have 4 brothers, James, Zach, Lucas, and Jadon.” (holding up 4 fingers)
• K:  “oh”

Oh Lord, help me know how to help them. 

Pam

Hi/Lo Thursday:Pray for me… Pray for others.

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts.

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request.

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Once again I find myself amazed and humbled by the Riggs family.  Their amazing faith amidst the trial of their daughter’s battle with leukemia.  And the grace they are receiving to reach out to others during this time.  They have started using their blog, and the traffic it is getting to reach out to others. To create a community of praying people.  Praying not just for them, but letting us pray for others, and giving us a place to meet and read other's prayer requests, and pray. 

I completely agree with the perspective that the Riggs family is taking on this.  I just wish I had done a better job of living that out in my own life over the past few years of intense trial.

I know that when I have managed to take my eyes off of myself and all the circumstances, it’s always been a blessing.  So, I invite you to join me in striving to take our eyes off of our own trials and pray for others too.

If I reflect on the past years, I remember a time that I got the chance to get on a plane and fly to be with a friend who was going through a trial.  I got to leave behind my circumstances.  Temporarily, remove myself from my own life.  I was blessed to sit with her, her friends and family through some trying days. 

I confess that before I left to visit her home, I wondered if I would have what it took to climb outside of my own muck and help her.  I found that I did.  And not only that, I found that the more I helped someone else, prayed for someone else, let someone else’s life take precedence over mine, the more blessed I was, and the easier it became.

Honestly, living out my daily life, I struggle with this.  My own home, responsibilities, children keep me from being actual hands and feet to another.  I think that is one reason why it was so nice to give to my friend.  I have been given so much here, to give some back felt so good.

Realistically, I can’t do much else in my daily life outside of praying for others.  I can give my time as I drive, cook, clean, fold laundry, or write to another to pray.  Sometimes it doesn't feel like much.  But, it is what I have to give.

Next week, I have the opportunity to visit my friend again.  I’ll get on a plane, spend a few days in her home… her trial rages on, as does mine.  but hopefully we can spend some time focusing on healing.  On hope, on the future.  I don’t really know where the trip will take us emotionally.  But, I know I will be blessed to leave my circumstances behind, in the hands of my capable parents and spend some time  my friend. 

Hi/Lo?

Lo:  Receiving news from my friend, mentioned above, that things didn’t work out in their circumstances the way we were praying that they would.  Hearing her heart break, feeling very helpless to be able to change anything, and feeling outraged at the way things were happening.

Not embracing the extra time with my kids this week as much as I should be.  Having a hard time appreciating having all our plans messed up and postponed… and knowing that this means some beautiful summer days in the first part of June we will be in school.  I haven't had the best attitude about that.

Hi:  Knowing I get to have a little vacation next week!!  And it is to a state that should be decidedly warmer than this one!!!  WHOO HOO!!

Seeing Zach’s team win the first game of the tourney by coming from behind on Monday night!  (this weather is messing up the next games!  I hope it doesn’t get pushed back into my trip time!!  NOOOO!!!)

Watching my kids play outside in the snow… and watching them wrestle around on the floor.

Visit the The Riggs Family blog to participate in their many new blog carnivals… and pray for the prayer requests, enter your own, and be blessed!

Pam

Hi/Lo Thursday on Friday.

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts.

I am well aware, I think, that it is Friday… but I really wanted to take part in this again this week, and after homework, swim meet, putting the kiddos to bed, getting ready for Leah to bring her friends here tonight for her birthday party… I didn’t have it in me to get this done yesterday… I went to bed.

Sigh… this is interesting when I start to think about highs and lows from this week.  Quite honestly, I don’t feel like we have had too many lows… at least not when I stop and consider what The Riggs Family are walking out… or if I read how Linn @ A Place Called Simplicity is sifting through the remains of their home destroyed by fire… and I join others in hoping and praying that they will receive a new home one way or another.  How hard.  Then yesterday morning I hear from my friend, Jodi that her cousin’s baby girl died in her arms yesterday… My brain doesn’t even want to go to the places that imagine any of these things happening.

Then I think, I don’t think anyone’s brain wants to go to the place where they imagine what we are walking through either.  And then I realize, that the Mighty God who has walked through each and every step of these past years of trial with us, is walking with all of them.  I remember that  I can’t imagine the grace it takes to walk in their shoes, because I have not walked in their shoes.  I’ve only walked in these.  And walking in these shoes has changed everything for me.

As I consider lows for the week… it hasn’t been one of my easiest weeks.  But, in comparison to the weeks I was walking out one, two, or three years ago.  It’s been a cake walk.  It was hard to realize that yet another wedding anniversary date has passed… It was hard to help James deal with a break up in his own life, when my own memories are so very real and vivid.  It was also hard have Leah tell me that she received an e-mail from her dad.  Read it, and be face to face with the reality of his thinking.  Again. Or to find out that James car is going to need some big repairs done on it.

The lows are, that this week we have dealt with some tough life stuff.  We’ve dealt with the reality that those around us hurt us.  But, I have a hard time calling them lows when God is so close and provides so amazingly for us in each circumstance.  How could that be a low when we are walking so closely with HIM?  Isn’t that incredible?  My mind is blown by Him today.

Highs…

James and I had a chance to communicate more this week.  He took my advice and is finding out that I actually knew what I was talking about, and is on speaking terms, at least, with his friend, Alisen.  That is good.  He is happy, laughing, singing, being silly, and not grouchy.  I am so thankful.  Thanks for your prayers for him this week.

I took James car in for an oil change and to find out why the “check engine” light is going off and on.  We found out that it is going to need some pretty major repairs.  Many of you may wonder how we get by financially.  It is a hard one for me to talk about sometimes, I don’t quite know how to express it.  These were some major repairs that actually will cost more than the car is really worth. That is always a tough call to make.  Thankfully one I didn’t have to make.  God has placed us in an incredible community, with incredible people.  People who are really walking out the gospel of Jesus, and being His hands, feet, arms, legs… pocketbook.  I was told to go ahead and fix the car up right, and the bill would be taken care of.  I sit here shaking my head, how do I wrap my little brain around that?  I can’t.

When Leah told me her dad had e-mailed, my heart was racing.  He hasn’t tried to contact us since Christmas.  I confess I was, oh, Livid, for about an hour after I read what he said.  I am thankful she wasn’t around until later, after I’d processed it and decided how to handle it.

I had this fear in the back of my head every since I wrote more about standing.  It was a fear based on the words of the enemy that said, you are only so bold in your stand because you haven’t had to deal with him in so long… once you deal with him again you won’t be so bold.  You’ll cave under the circumstances just like you always do. 

And I confess, for an hour or so, I did.  It took me a little while, and venting to a friend, to realize that this was the same ole-same-ole, and that the enemy’s lie was what was getting to me more than anything… this e-mail contact was not changing a thing… frustrating as it is to realize that even though I pray and pray, once again, he still sits in his pit of selfishness, seemingly from human eyes unchanged, and digging his pit of despair deeper.

So, I take it as an opportunity to teach my daughter about life.  About people. About not being a victim of other people’s attempts to take their mistakes and make them your responsibility.  Not something that you fantasize teaching your 12 year old daughter, but something very real in this world we live in.  I just hate it that it happens to be her dad that is the subject of our life lesson.

And I resolve myself to continue to stand and pray.  And I have amazing peace.

It’s been God who has brought us through another week.  It has been His grace that has helped us through these minor lows, the same way He has gotten us, and will get all the families mentioned earlier, through major ones.  He is there.  Good. Bad.  Sad. Mad.  Always available with the grace to walk out each and every day.  And not only that, giving us the ability to actually find and experience beauty out of ashes.

It’s always a joy to see these two being silly… yah know, because it did reach 40 yesterday, and the sun was awfully bright!  My sunglasses were the cure!  Good thing they are such good sharers… ahem…

Be Blessed!

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!”

Ephesians 3:20-21

Pam

Guilt Free Blogging Moment…

Does spending time on blogs ever make you feel guilty?  Like, you start settling in to reading an inspiring update by one of your blogging friends, and you hear the dryer go off… or the dishwasher stop… or a child scream for help…or ya know… mommy guilt kicks in that you somehow just haven’t done enough… then your seventeen year old accuses you of being on the computer all the time, just because he is angry that you wouldn’t let him play until his room is clean…

Hold that thought… the washer just quit.

Anyway… I am going to have a guilt free moment!  Now! 

Dinner in the crock pot.  check.

Cleaned two bathrooms.  Check.

Mopped a dirty floor.  Check.

Dishes.  Beds. Laundry. Shower.  Check.  Check. Check. Check.

I am even letting my children swim while I write! Yes, Jadon just asked me to get out their swimming pool… and after discussing the weather with him… they settled for this…

They are entertained…

Like Jadon’s hair cut? 

The weather… we are enjoying a beautiful day. 

I really can’t complain… yes it is –1 degree F outside… but the sun is shining… the snow is gorgeous… the fire is going in the wood burner… kids went to school… and some are even swimming… life is good.

You will much more likely hear me complain come March with it’s mud, no sun, and I am oh so tired of seeing brown, days.

The Riggs Family (praying for Abby) is hosting a new blog carnival… Hi/Lo Thursday. 

They are asking us to share with them a High and a Low from the previous week… in light of who is hosting it, and the lows they are enduring, and the fact that they can still find the grace to call anything a high… that’s a tough one.

I sat here this morning with my 4-year-old adopted daughter on my lap, tears in my eyes as we watched Abby's Video… and they prayed for her with me… How could anything be low for me?  Then I followed a link on McKMamma’s Twitter Post, to pray for another family… rip my heart out… Linn @ A Place Called Simplicity writes about their recent house fire.  Oh. My. Wow.

I just sit here thinking.  How dare I?  How can I complain?  How?  My healthy daughter is sitting on my lap, (well, she’s swimming in the tub, drenching my bathroom at the moment)… my house is warm, dry… I have clothes to wash… a floor to clean…

Lows?  I wish I’d have handled a confrontation with my son better last night.  I wish I wouldn’t lose hope that God is going to work miracles in our family so often, and didn’t have to repent for my lack of faith so often.

Highs?  Outside of having healthy, happy, active children?  Outside of having a warm, toasty, semi-clean house?  I guess if I need to choose specifically… getting a call from a friend today asking about helping me more with my electric bill.  getting a call from another friend, just to chat… making a very cheap plane reservation to go visit another friend in February, and finding I had the funds in Pay Pal to cover the entire ticket…  Having parents who are healthy, young and willing to care for my children and give me breaks… shall I go back more than 24 hours?

Lord, I am a blessed person.  May I learn from those I am watching walk out tragedy… and may others see a glimmer of You in me, as I see in them.  I don’t know that I have handled tragedy in my life nearly as well as I could have.  I do know this.  Walking out what I have, reading about The Riggs Family, Linn's Family, or McKMamma's Family… it is so hard to imagine experiencing that level of grace until you’ve been there… I pray it has looked 1/2 as good on me as it does on them.

So, there is my first Hi/Lo Thursday post.  Go to the The Riggs Family and check out their post, and the others who joined them.  Pray for little Abby… Pray for Linn @ A Place Called Simplicity … pray that when trials come, each of us can walk them out as gracefully as these.

Pam

I posted a song over here today... check it out, be encouraged with me!