The End

I have decided that I do not have the time or passion necessary to keep up this blog. Thank you so much for reading and growing with me the past few months. I think this was a great experiment and I learned so much from all of you.

I will of course keep up with Captive Thoughts . It is more of a journal of my thoughts and experiences. I hope you'll visit from time to time.

Bye!

Break Time

Hey, everyone. I'm taking another blog break. I'm going to try to focus on story writing for awhile. I'll be back in a few days or a couple weeks - whenever I'm ready with some new ideas to share!

Thanks as always for reading and responding.

Epiphanies

No, I'm not reading the Apocrypha. Not that reading the Apocrypha is a bad idea. I've read some of it. It's interesting.

And I want you to know I spelled it right on the first try.

My epiphany is a little more personal in nature. I've made a discovery about myself in relationship to this blog.

I am not a blogger.

So why, you might ask, am I blogging? Well, I am a writer. There's not any doubt in my mind that I was born to be a wife and mommy, and to write. But my true and everlasting love is fiction, and I only feel natural when I am writing fiction.

The bad thing about fiction is that it has fallen out of favor with the general public. Who wants to go to all the trouble to read a novel when you can go into a trance in front of the 57 inch flat screen?

Uh... me.

But I concede I am not among the majority. And for a writer who has not sold any fiction yet... in today's market, I'm a long shot.

So my job is to figure out what in the world I am going to do with my dream. I have an idea, but it's scary. I've created a website called "The Writer's Block" where writers and readers can come together. I'm hoping there will be some interest and other aspiring authors will submit their work and we will get readers that are interested in free fiction and nonfiction.

It's a long shot.

But you can check it out. So far it's me and my sis. I can always count on her to jump on board any idea I have. We look a little lonely on the members page. Part of the problem is that I can't figure out how to create a "join here" button where folks can easily become members. If anyone has any ideas I'd really appreciate the input. You can find the site here .

And I will get up and do a happy dance if that link worked on the first try.

Linkin' Up to Love

A breakthrough! I think I may have actually figured out how to post links. Everybody applaud for me. Or laugh at my complete lack of technical ability. No, really, I want you to laugh at me. I'm learning humility.

28 Days Of Love

My blogger friend Katie started a linky party to learn about putting love into practice. Check it out, link yourself up and join the party. You know you want to.

Here's the short version - read 1 Corinthians 13. Then prepare to do the following for the next 7 days:

Week 1

Day 1: Meet a Need. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to someone's need you can meet today. When the need presents itself, act. Meet the need without expecting anything in return. Thank the Lord for using you to bless someone else.

Day 2: Don't react. When wronged, offended, or slighted today, resolve by the Spirit's power to allow Him to produce a "longsuffering" spirit in you that doesn't react or strike back. Let it go. Overcome evil with good.

Day 3: Give something away. Loving always involves giving. Bless someone by giving them something of value-some money, an item, some time, your attention (just don't give them a piece of your mind) "Its is more blessed to give than to receive."

Day 4: Pray for an enemy. Instead of stirring up your anger by replaying that person's wrong against you, pray for him or her. Ask God for the grace to love your enemies by praying His blessings upon them.

Day 5: Write a note. Let someone know how much you value their friendship or appreciate their contribution by writing, texting, or emailing a note. Make the effort to communicate what is in your heart. Take some time and write more than a sentence or two.

Day 6: Spread some joy today. Do a random act of kindness for an unsuspecting person.

Day 7: Initiate something. Take a small risk. Go out of your way to talk with someone you don't really know. Engage them in a conversation about something that interests them. Show genuine interest, learn what you can about them, and review it later in your mind.

So get busy and start loving!

A special thanks to MacGyver who figured out how to add links after I discovered that my link was still not appearing. Engineers. Gotta love them.

New Year's Resolutions

Someone told me that January 5 is the most stressful day of the year.

So be REALLY REALLY impressed that I'm writing today. Because I don't feel it. I feel exhausted. I'm ready to hibernate from life for awhile. I've had about all the teaching/diaper changing/cooking and cleaning/moderating ridiculous arguments that I can take for 2011. That's right, I've reached the quota. Do you hear me MacGyver, Eldest, Secondborn, Not-so-toddler and Baby J? I've had ENOUGH.

Deep breath. Slow exhale.

I wrote in my journal last night before I fell asleep. I said "Why is it so easy for me to park myself in neutral and let life push me along?"

When things get stressful, I go limp. I just do what I have to do to survive and turn my brain off. I like to call it hypersensitivity, overstimulation, anything that makes me sound like a victim.

Truth is, it's just plain old laziness.

So I have one single resolution for 2011. I shall endeavor to do, act, feel, think, write, and any other verb that applies in any situation in which my normal response is to ride out the wave and do nothing. Even if it annoys me. Even if it exhausts me.

I've gotten off to a good start. In two days I have exercised for 3 hours. I have watched what I am eating even though detoxing from the holidays is no easy process. There is no doubt I've room to do better. But the point of this year shall be to do a little better than before.

What about you? Resolutions? Plans for the new year?

While We Were Sleeping

A Christmas story borrowed from my blog, Captive Thoughts.


I don’t remember another time when I was so unable to sleep. The moon was high overhead and my family was piled in cots and mats around the room, the sound of their snoring the only sound touching my ears that night. Or was it? I slipped from beneath the warm arm of my husband and headed to the window. The night was quiet, the sky full of stars. I looked up into the vast expanse, quite shocked to realize that the brightness flooding the window was not the moon, but a star. I had never seen such a light in the night sky before. Something deep within told me I would never see it again. It seemed to cast its brilliant light right over the heart of Bethlehem.

That’s when I heard what had awakened me. A baby’s cry. I knew the sound well. I hesitated, looking back to check on my own little ones as they slept on, then I pulled my heavy cloak around me, gathered a few supplies from my store, and headed down the road to follow the tiny cry.

As I walked, I tried to imagine what little one would be making an appearance. There were no babies due this month. I would have known, I was the town’s only midwife. I remembered then that there were quite a few visitors due to the Roman taxation. Every house was filled to overflowing. It must be one of those weary travelers giving birth this night. My pace quickened.

The sound led me not to a house but to a cave, cut out of the rock to provide shelter for animals. Surely no baby was entering the world in a cold and dark place such as this. My heart went out to whoever the unfortunate family must be.

But the cave wasn’t so dark. The light from that star above just happened to shine through the doorway, as if Yahweh Himself had ordered such an illumination on just such a place. I pushed my way through the animals, huddled together trying to keep warm, and came upon the little family just beyond the animals, resting in the hay. A tiny babe was lying upon the hay in the manger screaming his little heart out as a frightened father tried to tend to an exhausted mother. My expert eyes quickly noticed that there was too much blood. This woman needed my help.

“I’m a midwife.” I found my voice, hurrying to her and gently pushing the young man out of the way. “Hold the baby close to keep him warm. Wrap him in these.” I handed him some cloths I had grabbed from my supply.

“Grave clothes?”

“They are all I had. But they’ll keep him warm. Wrap him snugly then hold him inside your cloak.”

I turned my attention back to the baby’s mother. She gave me a grateful glance before she succumbed to her fatigue as I began to massage her abdomen to release the afterbirth. I managed the bleeding as best I could with the herbs and preparations I had on hand, offering a prayer that Yahweh might spare her life. When she seemed to be doing better, I reached again for the child, unwrapping him to wash him clean and rub oil and salt on his baby soft skin. He was a bit on the small side; I assumed that they had not been expecting him to come so early. But he seemed healthy with a hearty cry and wide, alert eyes, peering from their darkness to observe me so closely I almost felt that he could see within my heart.

“You’ve a special boy here.” I smiled at the parents, finding myself almost unwilling to hand the child back to his mother to nurse. She was tired, but I assured her that the nursing would hasten her healing. The child quickly began to eat, as if he wished to spare his mother further suffering as a result of his birth.

“He is special.” The father said softly. “He’s the Messiah.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that statement from a proud mama or abba. But the way he spoke it, as if he realized the great weight resting on his shoulders for the responsibility, I almost found myself believing it might be true. I smiled at him.

“I hope you’re right.”

After a few moments of silence, I spoke again. “What will his name be?”

“Jesus.” It was the mother who spoke now. Her husband nodded in agreement.

“Jesus. I have a Jesus myself. Good name. Means ‘savior.’”

“Yes it does.” The man nodded once more.

When I was fairly sure that the mama and baby would make it through the night, I slipped away and left the new family to get to know one another. As I made my way back up the hill to my home, I was struck by the odd way the boy had come into the world. Could a child have a more humble birth? Who would expect a tiny child of a poor family from the north who had been born in a stable, of all things – to be the Messiah that would save his people? Certainly not I.

But the Scriptures said that the one we should look for would come from Bethlehem. There wasn’t a soul that resided here that didn’t know that for a fact.

Maybe Yahweh had sent him quietly into the world, while we were sleeping. Maybe that’s the way He had always intended that he should come.



2:46 am. I was wide awake. In concession, I pulled back the covers and stepped into my slippers, pulling my robe around me as I walked to the window. My spirit was restless. Something was about to happen. I could sense it in the silence.

I lifted the blind and peered out onto the dark street, lit only with porch lights from homes that had remembered to turn them on to detract crime, which seemed to happen more often. My gaze drifted to the sky. The stars shone more brightly than I had ever remembered seeing them in the city. They seemed to twinkle with excitement.

On a whim, I gathered my sleeping children around me and my husband in our bed. I left the shade open and looked out into the night sky, waiting. Hoping. Dreaming that this ordinary December morning might be the day of all days. Faith becoming sight in the form of the one I had loved for a lifetime yet not seen. Yet. The darker the world became, the more I longed for him. The more I looked for him. “Be alert.” Was his admonition. “Watch. I am coming soon!”

So I watched. And just as my eyes began to close again in sleepiness, a sound crashed through the darkness and caused me to sit up straight and look. A shout. A gleeful, excited, powerful and beautiful voice called, the sound so loud and so completely evident that surely there wasn’t a soul on the planet that hadn’t heard it. My husband and children were jolted awake, and I smiled knowingly at my husband.

“It’s time?” he laughed groggily. “Can it be?”

“Jesus!” my oldest child pointed out the window. “I hear trumpets!”

We all ran downstairs and threw open the front door. I followed my family out into the driveway. As we looked up, thousands of shouts and laughter filled the sky as the first glimpse of a somehow familiar face came closer. His beautiful, friendly eyes were smiling as he held out his nail-scarred hands to those that happily waited. My own family was dancing around us in complete elation. I noticed sadly that many houses along our street remained dark. It was as if they could not hear a thing.

A moment later we were sailing through the air at what must have been light speed. And then we were with him. No more pain. No more struggle. Now, there was only Jesus. Only and forever our Savior, who had come while the world was sleeping.

And the morning dawn found them in a fog of disaster and panic. We saw, from afar, nestled safely in the embrace of the Savior, who had rescued us from the immense trouble brewing just on the horizon. He had not forgotten us. We prayed for those loved ones we had left behind, that when Jesus returned for the third time, they would not be found sleeping anymore.

10 Best of 2010

First of all - best smile of 2010. Hands down. This is what she does when someone tells her to smile. I love Toddler. Toddler who is quickly becoming Not-so-Toddler. In fact, she seems to be skipping right to Junior Higher.

I know. 2010 still has 16 days left. But since ten years ago MacGyver and I had the brilliant idea of getting married on December 30, we will be attempting to celebrate our tenth anniversary squeezed between Christmas both here and up north, and New Years.

It's going to be a really busy couple of weeks. So don't expect any blog posts.

Last year my sis did a "Best of" post and I enjoyed it. I wished I had thought about it first. I was jealous until I learned that she had simply stolen the idea from someone else.

So as I listen to the joyful sound of my baby screaming at me for no particular reason and trying in vain to make his hands and knees work so he can crawl over here and drool all over me, I shall share my personal favorites that were discovered in 2010. Many of them came straight from you, my awesome readers, and for that I give you many thanks.

Around the House:
1. Homemade Laundry Detergent. I can't begin to describe how much money this has saved us. Works just as well as store bought, at a fraction of the cost. Easy to make. No brainer.

2. Cloth Diapers. Also a money saver to say the least. A little more work than laundry detergent, but worth it in my opinion. You get used to them, and any time you need a break, you just buy a small pack of Luvs.

3. New Balance Shoes. You get to the age when the cheap tennis shoes just don't do the job anymore. I have been very happy with these shoes. They are an "inexpensive for high-end" choice. And worth it.

4. Essential Oils. They can be pricey, but they are SO MUCH FUN.

For your viewing/reading pleasure:

5. Her Mother's Hope/Her Daughter's Dream by Francine Rivers. Wow.

6. "Tangled" Best Disney film since Beauty and the Beast.

7. Fringe I admit, the first two seasons are both necessary to watch and at times a little hard to get into. (Available on DVD or Netflix.)But the end of the second season into the third has been worth it. Disclaimer - not for the squeamish or very conservative. Particularly for those who love subtle but deep character development and plots that require thought. Namely... ME.

8. Master Your Metabolism by Gillian Michaels. I don't think I'll see the full benefit of this book until after I stop nursing, but cutting out processed food has significantly reduced the number of headaches and migraines I get.

Lessons learned or being learned:

9. It's Still a Broken World. I started this blog with the somewhat idealistic thought that I could find that secret path that ultimately leads to a happy, peaceful life. After 6+ months, it's easy to see that although making some of these changes has made my life better, this is still a broken world that needs more than we could ever come up with to fix it. No matter how hard I try to make my path easy, there is always something else that blocks the way.

10. Homeschooling + 4 children + trying to become a better writer + everything else = No time. I have had to accept that I will not have the time to sit and stare into space or daydream for quite a few years yet. But I have decided that I cannot use this busy time of life as an excuse to not do the best I can in every area.

Okay, your turn! Leave your 10 Best of 2010 as a comment or provide a link to your blogged answers!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!