Defrag me, O Lord, and plant me by the living waters...

If we are friends on FB, you might be able to tell from the exorbitant....exceeding the customary or appropriate limits in intensity, quality, amount, or size...amount of time I have been spending on FB the last couple of days that I am not focusing very well. I wake up with good intentions and before I can even get out of bed I am done...just done.

I could blame the EXTREMELY cold temperatures...because -16 is MORE than cold enough to make your blood a little sluggish. And MAYBE fasting from sugar isn't helping....but this has been going on for a long time now. I do better on weekends, when my family is all here. We work well as a group and for some reason having my better half near me motivates me in some way, even though he never says a word to me about my lack of...of...self control...energy...discipline?

Anyway...I CAN NOT go on this way anymore! THERE IS A BABY COMING!!! A BABY WHO NEEDS TO HAVE A BIGGER ROOM TO SHARE WITH HIS MOMMY!! A BABY WHO NEEDS THINGS SEWN! A BABY WHO NEEDS A CLEANER HOUSE SO THAT PEOPLE CAN COME VISIT HIM!! A BABY WHO NEEDS A GRAMMY TO HELP OUT WHEN HIS MOMMY IS AT WORK!! A BABY WHO NEEDS HIS GRAMMY TO BE ORGANIZED ENOUGH TO PLANT HER GARDEN MERE WEEKS AFTER HE GETS HERE!!.....

And there are a three pretty much adult children and one amazing man who need their wife/mother too.Not as much as they used to...and for different reasons...and maybe not as much as she needs them...but yeah...they need her.

So, when I was reading one of the four devotionals I kind of rotate through during the week, I came across this in one called, "Our Daily Bread". This part really spoke to me. Actually, it is how I feel in a nutshell.

Like my computer, my life gets fragmented. One situation tugs on my emotions while I’m trying to concentrate on something else. Demands from every direction bombard me. I want to accomplish everything that needs to be done, but my mind won’t stop and my body won’t start. Soon I begin to feel weary and useless.

Recently I attended a retreat where one of the handouts included a prayer with words that expressed how I felt: “Lord, I am scattered, restless, and only half here.”

King David also went through such times (Ps. 55:2). In prayer, David presented his needs to God morning, noon, and evening, confident that he would be heard (v.17).

Prayer can help to defragment our lives. When we cast our cares on the Lord, He will show us what we need to do and what only He can do. —Julie Ackerman

Yesterday I was led to this scripture....

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
...... they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”
~Jeremiah 17:5-8

Yet another reminder that I MUST turn to him...and to no other.

I pray,I read the word and I journal daily. And just when it feels like things are starting to "come together", when my shoulders don't feel quite so tight.... I find out something I didn't want to know, I reach out my hand only to have it bitten off, someone lies to me or plays the manipulation game, I zig when I shoulda zagged....

And so I sit.

Tomorrow I will try again. I will do what I did this morning and start praying as soon as I am awake enough to form the prayers in my head. I will read the word. I will journal and even blog if so led. And I will pick one project and ask the Lord to grant me enough focus to finish that ONE job.

And then I will do it all over again the next day.

Things to do before the Wee One gets here....

Clean craft area to make room for stuff stored in middle child's new room in basement

Clean out middle child's  new room in basement

Take out one of the closets in middle child's  new room

Patch wall and prep middle child's new room for paint

Paint middle child's  new room

Lay carpet in middle child's new room

Move middle child into her new room

Clean carpet in oldest child's new room

Prep oldest child's new room for paint

Paint oldest child's new room

Hang curtains in oldest child's new room

Move oldest child's into her new room

Put up crib in oldest child's new room

Paint small dresser for the Wee One

Make bedding for Wee One's Moses basket

Make assorted "other things" for Wee One

Co-host two showers for oldest child and the Wee One

Bake obnoxious amounts of goodies for showers

Celebrate Valentine's Day

Make sure and tell my brother Happy Birthday

Make sure and tell my neice Happy Birthday

Celebrate my son's 17th birthday

Make sure and celebrate Mom's 65 birthday...somehow :}
Celebrate our 25th anniversary and tell best friend Happy Birthday

Remember to read the word/pray,eat,sleep,
tell my family I love them....and breath....daily.

All...within 62 days...and only 9 weekends.

Give me strength O Lord!

"Me Time", "Miller Time" or "Lap Time"?

http://www.crosswalk.com/11644566/page0/

I have suffered from stress issues since I was a small child. The doctors think I had an ulcer in the first grade, in middle school I was convinced that I had immaculately conceived because I felt like I was going to throw up EVER MORNING before school, I have suffered from migraines since I was a teenager,I have TMJ and I suffer from various other IBS symptoms.It is something I deal with on a daily basis.

Just recently I discovered "lap time" with my Heavenly Father. It is not something I was specifically taught. It was a discovery born out of desperation. Some days I only need a few minutes of my fathers time ...some days I need several hours. It is the only way I have made it through the last few months without imploding. I wish that my parents had been given this information when they were children so that they could pass it down to my brothers and I...so that I would have had it when my own children were small

I am sure that all of these things are why I feel led to share this article in as many ways possible. You may not need this information and if you do not "PRAISE GOD!!"...but you might know someone who does. OR...if "lap time" is something you already practice on your own...you may not have considered how to deal with your CHILD'S stress...or that they even HAVE stress!

BTW...my mom will be reading this...and she understands that I in no way hold her responsible for MY stress issues. We have discussed, at length, how as believers, each generation grows and gains more tools to pass on to the next generation. My grandmother had very few as she was saved in her mid forties but with each generation since...we grow stronger and stronger.

So anyway...read the article contained in the link at the top of this page...practice the points with your children, or if you do not have children yet... practice them yourself so that you will be able to pass then down to the next generation of believers in your family!

Feeding My Spirit So That I Don't Suck Yours Dry

As I was reading last night I came across this....

Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” Deuteronomy 1:29-31...I love Deuteronomy BTW!!

Then there was the Spurgeon devotional I read this morning....

"He was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst?" - Judges 15:18

Samson slays a thousand Philistines, and piles them up in heaps, and then faints for a little water! Jacob wrestles with God at Peniel, and overcomes Omnipotence itself, and then goes "halting on his thigh!" Strange that there must be a shrinking of the sinew whenever we win the day. As if the Lord must teach us our littleness, our nothingness, in order to keep us within bounds. Samson boasted right loudly when he said, "I have slain a thousand men." His boastful throat soon grew hoarse with thirst, and he betook himself to prayer. God has many ways of humbling his people. Dear child of God, if after great mercy you are laid very low, your case is not an unusual one. When David had mounted the throne of Israel, he said, "I am this day weak, though anointed king." You must expect to feel weakest when you are enjoying your greatest triumph. If God has wrought for you great deliverances in the past, your present difficulty is only like Samson's thirst, and the Lord will not let you faint, nor suffer the daughter of the uncircumcised to triumph over you. The road of sorrow is the road to heaven, but there are wells of refreshing water all along the route. So, tried brother, cheer your heart with Samson's words, and rest assured that God will deliver you ere long.

And on a slightly different note but just as encouraging...something else I read today....

This is what the LORD says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” Isaiah 18:4

Is not this a marvelous conception of God--being still and watching? His stillness is not acquiescence. His silence is not consent. He is only biding His time, and will arise, in the most opportune moment, and when the designs of the wicked seem on the point of success, to overwhelm them with disaster. As we look out on the evil of the world; as we think of the apparent success of wrong-doing; as we wince beneath the oppression of those that hate us, let us remember these marvelous words about God being still and beholding.

In case you are wondering if I do anything OTHER than read...and blog...yes I do. I TRY to set aside time in the morning for reading the word,a couple of different devotionals,journaling and blogging though. I consider it a form of ongoing education and maintence of my mental health and spiritual growth. It is also my way of protecting my friends and family...so that I don't suck the life out of them. ;)

Fear

I am having a lot of fear today. It has been building since yesterday afternoon. Fear of the unknown. Fear for the future. Fear of loss.

I am not getting answers to the questions I am asking. Answers that I need to make decisions. Lack of information means that I can not formulate a plan...and this causes me fear. This fear then renders me unable to do the things I need to do. So I literally become "paralyzed" by fear.

I WANT to move ahead. I have a million things I need to be doing...but everything has come to a screeching halt because I do not know how to move ahead...or if I even need to move ahead on certain things.

This fear also causes me to move backward...it brings up the past and things I thought I had laid to rest come alive again.

I understand where the fear is coming from. I understand that God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control. This morning I have prayed about it, I have journaled about it and I will spend some time searching the word. The only other thing I now to do, since there is no physical course of action to take in this particular matter...and things REALLY are out of my control, is to ask OTHERS for prayer.

So if you have a moment, please pray for me. In whatever way you see fit. And if you have any favorite "fear" scriptures...send them my way!