“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;  that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;  strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy.”  Colossians 1:9-11 (NKJV)

My mom left me a comment on my last entry that referenced the verse above from the Psalms.  She told me that she is praying for “strength of soul” for me.  Later today, a friend of mine who is going through a difficult time of a much greater magnitude than I forwarded the verse from Colossians that somebody had quoted to her.  As I read the verse, I realized again how much the prayers of other people really do mean to us!  When other people are lifting us up to the Lord in prayer, He is faithful to answer those prayers.

My mom said that she was not just praying for physical strength for me, but for strength of soul.  I believe that was the intent meant for my friend, as well, as her difficulty is not a physical one.  I was reading over the two verses together and realized that the Lord allows us to go through times when our physical strength may be lacking so that we can develop stronger souls!   And even more than that, He Himself becomes our strength when we stop trying to do it all on our own.  When I am honest with myself, I realize that there is no way that I can do it on my own – I crumble when I try.  But when I allow Him to come alongside and be my strength, the difficulties seem to shrink.  The problems may not go away, but my perspective changes and the problems don’t seem so overwhelming.

Why, oh why do I keep having to relearn this lesson?  Why do I keep insisting that I need to go on in my own strength?!?

Oh, and for those who are wondering, the test results for Lyme Disease were negative.  I’m praising the Lord!

“Bless the LORD, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”  Psalm 103:1-5

Now that my 15 year-old son is recovering from Lyme Disease, I am waiting for test results to show whether or not I also have Lyme Disease.  (I had expected to know by now, but the doctors’ office lost the test results.  Grr. )  If I do have it, it will be the 7th case of it in our family in the last 4 years!  I started to have pain in my knees when my baby was about 6 weeks old, and that pain has now spread to most of my other joints.  I feel like I would expect to feel in my 70’s, not my late 30’s.  I am also dealing with extreme fatigue.  If I did not have 8 children to care for, I believe that I could sleep all day, every day!   It didn’t occur to me at first that it might be Lyme Disease, because I did not have the high fevers that were associated with the first 5 cases our family had.  However, when I saw that my 15 year-old definitely had Lyme Disease but had not had the high fevers, I realized that I needed to get checked.

It can be discouraging to go through health problems day after day, week after week, month after month, and sometimes year after year.  I am blessed in that my health problems have been relatively minor.  I have not had to deal with any of the really life-changing problems that face many people.  Still, there are times when I am discouraged by the fact that my health is not as good as I think it should be.  ;-)

My 15 year-old and I were listening to the radio in the car together Friday evening, and we got to hear the daily broadcast from Focus on the Family.  We got to hear the story of Duane Miller, who had mysteriously lost his voice and just as mysteriously regained it several years later.  In fact, we listened to a recording of him teaching on the verses quoted above when his voice was restored.  The recording was painful to listen to in the beginning, as it sounded as if he had a severe case of laryngitis.  However, as I listened to his voice being restored, I had tears rolling down my cheeks.  I encourage you to listen to the January 15th broadcast of Focus on the Family!

Duane Miller talked in the broadcast about the sovereignty of God.  He talked about how he had to come to grips with trusting the Lord for his voice.  The Lord, in His wisdom, allowed Duane to lose his voice and struggle without it for several years.  At just the right moment for His purposes, the Lord then restored Duane’s voice.  Duane has gone on to have a successful speaking ministry.

Nick Vujicic is another person who has faced tremendous obstacles in life – obstacles that would have stopped many of us.  I had seen him on YouTube before, but was sent this video again today.  Nick was born without limbs, but lives life to the fullest, encouraging others to do the same.

Whether I have Lyme Disease or not, whether I feel good or not, whether or not things are going the way I think they should, I can still praise the Lord.  And when I praise the Lord, He will help me to get through the day in a way that glorifies Him.   Regardless of how my body feels, my youth is renewed like the eagle’s when I praise the Lord!

Sometimes, the hardest thing in the world can be to be thankful for something.  It’s easy to be thankful for the blessings we receive.  It’s easy to be thankful for sunshine and good health.  It’s easy to be thankful for happy marriages and beautiful, obedient children.  It’s easy to be thankful for good jobs and sufficient money coming in.  It’s just easy to be thankful when things are going our way.

But life isn’t always about sunshine and good health.  Marriages are failing all around us and children are going their own ways.  More and more people are losing their jobs and most of us are concerned about whether or not the paycheck is going to stretch until the next one comes in.  How are we to be thankful during those times?

I fail in being thankful more times than not, but I am really trying to train myself to look for the good in things.  And I think that it is important that my children  learn to do so as well.  Sometimes it is harder than others, like when I feel that I’ve been hit with one thing after another.  Right now is one of those times.  When it seemed as if everybody was on the mend from the H1N1 virus and we were getting back on our routine, my 15 year-old son started to get sicker and sicker until he ended up in the hospital.  The baby and I spent Thanksgiving week at the hospital with him as he confounded the doctors through one test after another.   Thankfully, the doctors finally diagnosed Lyme Disease and started treatment for him, and we were all able to come home.  However, we came home to 2 other children being sick with a cold!  That cold has now passed to my husband and to me, and I’m currently feeling quite miserable with it.

Miserable as I am, I still have much for which to be thankful.  While it does seem that we’ve been hit hard with one thing after another in the last couple of months, we still have an intact family, my loving husband still has a job to go to, and the 15 year-old is getting treatment and is doing MUCH better.  Furthermore, if this bug follows the same pattern in me that it has with the others, I should be a whole lot less miserable tomorrow.  ;-)

Once I get started, there are a great number of things that I could list about which I am thankful.  Many of those include relatively minor details that the Lord has worked out in the last few weeks.  Details such as being able to stay at the hospital with my son as he went through test after test, in spite of having my 3 1/2 month-old baby with me.  We live a fair distance from the hospital, and there is no way that I could have gone back and forth to care for the baby.  The hospital policy during flu season states that only parents are allowed to visit the patients.  The fact that the baby had already had H1N1 played a big part in an exception being made for her.  The nurses even brought a crib into the room  for her!

Even though our family missed celebrating our favorite holiday together, we are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving once we are all feeling better.  After all, who says that Thanksgiving can only be celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November?  It would be much better if every day of the year were a day of Thanksgiving!

And after having listed just a few of the things for which I am thankful, I must say that I am feeling much better.  :-)

P.S.  Just after publishing this post, I went to iTunes to try to catch up on listening to some of the podcasts that I enjoy.  The first one on my list was a Revive Our Hearts broadcast by Nancy Leigh Demoss titled “Abounding in Gratitude.”  Talk about timing!

I am happy to report that most of the family seems to have fully recovered from our bout of flu!  I say most, because my 15 year-old son got hit the hardest and is still regaining his strength, but the rest seem fully back to normal.  While I didn’t succumb to the virus myself, I did have a full-blown case of exhaustion.  This morning I woke up feeling rested for the first time in many days, and I’m eager to get back into my daily routine.

It’s not a particularly sunny day – in fact it is a “mostly cloudy” day with a chance of rain in the forecast.  The autumn colors have faded, and many of the trees are barren of leaves.  However, it is amazing how much brighter everything looks when there is strength coursing through the veins and eyelids aren’t being propped open with toothpicks!  I may be dragging later in the day, but right now it feels good to just feel good.

While physical issues do have a bearing on how the day is viewed, my attitude is an even more important factor.  I may not have a choice in how I feel physically, but I do have a choice in how I respond to the way I feel or to the things that are going on around me.  It is much easier for me to rejoice in the day when things are going well than on those days when things aren’t going so well.  Yet EVERY day is a “day that the Lord has made”, and I need to do a better job of remembering that.  A conscious effort to “rejoice and be glad” will often turn a “bad” day into a “good” day.  My attitude really does make a difference, and I’m afraid that it too often is a difference in the wrong direction.  A “poor me” attitude automatically darkens the colors and makes it harder to handle the small challenges that are a normal part of a mother’s day. Why is it that it is so hard to remember that I have a choice in how I approach the day, and that things will go much more smoothly if I choose to approach the day with joy?

This is a favorite Psalm of Christians worldwide.  It brings to mind a picture a life of ease in an idyllic setting.  But more often than not, we find ourselves weary and thirsty.  The cares of daily life wear us down, and those green pastures and still waters are only a mirage.  We search for things to restore our souls, but end up feeling more and more used up and exhausted.

Wait a minute!  Maybe the key is that we’re searching for THINGS to refresh us!  While there’s nothing wrong with mom’s nights out or scrapbook crops or a good book and cup of coffee, those aren’t the things that we should be relying on to refresh us.  Those things can help, but has anyone else ever noticed that the more things we do to give ourselves a break, the more we need/want?  Too often, it seems that the more I try to use things or activites to give me the time off I need, the more restricted I feel.  I seem to shrivel up in my soul, rather than grow and mature into a more happy wife and mother.

The Lord has promised refreshment, but He has said that HE will provide it.  If I am not spending time relaxing in His presence, no amount of other things will satisfy my soul.  He can certainly use outside activities to provide some of our rest, but it is time with Him that will truly rejuvenate me and cause me to mature and grow.  I have seen this happen over and over again – why is it that I am still so quick to neglect that quiet time when things get hectic?

Why, oh why am I constantly having to relearn the same things over and over again?!

Do you ever feel like you are in a daily battle as a mom?  Sometimes we are battling to teach our children the basics of living.  Other times, we are battling rebellion.  And still other times, we are battling against the world for the hearts and minds of our children.

It is very easy to become exhausted in our daily battles.  Some days, it doesn’t even seem worth bothering anymore.  But when someone comes along beside us and lets us know that they understand what we’re going through and they are there to support us, it suddenly seems do-able again.  This support might come from husbands or from friends.  (For that matter, it can even come from someone we don’t know!)  It can come in the form of physical help or giving us time off to recharge.  But I think the most important form this support can take is prayer.

For those of us who are stay-at-home moms of young children, it can be hard to offer physical help to someone else … especially when we ourselves are often exhausted.  However, one way that we CAN help each other is to pray for each other.  Just knowing that a friend is praying for me can mean the difference between just barely making it through the day and making it through successfully.  It can mean the difference between ending the day feeling defeated or ending the day feeling that something has been accomplished.

Are you feeling the need of prayer support today?  Who do you know that might be need to be supported by your prayers?

Daffodils in a neighbors yard - picture taken by my daughter

Today, I got to go with DH to pick up his vehicle from the shop.  The drive through the countryside was spectacular.  It would truly be hard to leave this area of the country in the spring!  My eyes feasted on

• Rolling hills
• Red barns
• Green pastures
• Horses
• Forsythia
• Cows
• Redbuds
• Ponds
• Daffodils
• Streams
• Cherry blossoms
• Ancient stone walls
• Trees with the shadow of new leaves

It was supposed to be raining this afternoon, but the sun was shining around the dark clouds giving everything that special spring glow.  I couldn’t help but glory in God’s creation!

If the Lord can clothe the earth in such splendor, surely I can trust Him to see that my needs are met.  :-)

I was reading in Exodus last night, and it struck me how often the Israelites would complain and how quickly it was after the Lord had just performed some miracle for them.  They saw the parting of the Red Sea and the deliverance from Pharoah, but three days later they were complaining to Moses that there was no water and they were going to die.  The Lord had Moses cut down a tree and throw it into the water so that it became drinkable, but soon they were complaining that there was no food to eat.  The Lord provided manna every morning and quail every evening, but they were soon complaining again about a lack of water.  The Lord provided water out of a rock, but soon…

It’s easy to see when we read about someone else complaining, but how often do I complain to the Lord?  I’m pretty sure that I don’t wait 3 days in between complaints!  Although the miracles that the Lord has done in my life may not be as spectacular as those He performed for the children of Israel, they are miracles, nevertheless.  Yet, it isn’t long before I’m complaining again and thinking that things are going horribly wrong – or at least that they aren’t going my way!

I need to do a whole lot more thanking and a whole lot less complaining, methinks.

Hmmm.  DH just now got home early with a gorgeous long-stemmed red rose for me.   No complaints here!  :-)

Some things in life are very frustrating.  A current frustration in my life has to do with a vehicle being out-of-commission.  My husband’s pickup has come up with an unidentified electrical problem.  He thought that it had to do with the alternator, but replacing it didn’t fix the problem.  Now it is in the shop, and all that has been verified is that the problem is not with the alternator!

Because my husband needed my vehicle to make his 120 mile (round trip) commute to work, I was without a vehicle for three days last week.  Of course, I didn’t have a chance to plan ahead for those days.  ;-)  Then, we thought the problem was fixed over the weekend, so DH took his own vehicle to work on Monday.  He didn’t make it all the way to work before he had to call me to go rescue him.  Another fix was tried (in a grocery store parking lot!) and didn’t work.  We were able to jump-start his car so that I could follow him to the mechanic and then take him the rest of the way to work.  I then had a few hours to drive many miles to run the most important errands before going back to pick him up.  Now here it is Wednesday evening, the mechanic has let him know that they haven’t yet found the problem, and I am still without a vehicle.

Another frustration has to do with homeschooling.  We use the BJU Press Distance Learning curriculum, and we are currently in the last year of receiving the video lessons via satellite.  I record all of the lessons so that we can reuse them for younger children.  Well, we had several days of high wind that blew our satellite dish out of alignment, so I’ve had several days of not getting the classes.   While I can get them from friends or pay to get replacement recordings, it’s a royal pain and the cost adds up.  Last night DH and some of the boys got up on the roof in the dark to try to fix the problem, and just ran into one problem after another.  DH won’t be able to get back to it again until tomorrow, so we’re just missing more and more classes.

Humanly speaking, it would be very easy for these things to stress me out.  However, I am learning that the Lord has reasons for things that I cannot see.  Rather than stress about these frustrations, I am choosing to relax and know that the Lord is in control.

When I step back and look at the big picture, I recognize that these are really very minor things.  There are much more important things to be concerned about, and my life is really rather easy in comparison with that of many other people.   How easy it is to get caught up in the frustrations of the little things and let them cause us stress!    It is much better to sit back and realize that “ALL things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

• Salvation
• A loving, hard-working husband
• 7 precious children and one soon-to-be born
• A solid roof over my head
• Plenty of food in the pantries, the refrigerators, and the freezers (yes, I have multiples!)
• A job for my husband
• The ability to stay home with my children
• Freedom
• An acre of land for the children to play on
• My husband’s truck in the auto shop giving me another forced day at home!
• Schoolwork waiting to be graded
• Loving family and friends
• Health
• April snow flurries that ARE NOT sticking.  ;-)
• The promise of a visit soon from grandparents (Hooray!)
• Noisy children (well, at least they’re happy!)
• Birds, squirrels, deer, racoons, and other wildlife visible outside my window at various times
• A rich heritage
• A need to declutter – we are blessed with an abundance of STUFF
• A definite lack of boredom!

Okay, I’ll stop at 20 for now.  What things are you thankful for today?