A giveaway and life :)

My next post will be my 100th post :) yay me and blogging...so I really wanted to do a giveaway...but I don't have the moola to give anything away...except a kid, and that is illegal here in the United States of America.  I will dig through my Thirty One stash and see what I can come up with.  Surely something cute has been discontinued and can be mailed to some beautiful reader :D

In other news, Emily is going with her daddy tomorrow to the orthopedic doctor to get a cast on her left arm.  She was playing upstairs on Saturday night when she fell on the catwalk and started complaining about her arm/wrist hurting, she played fine Sunday and Monday, but every now and then she would tell us her arm/wrist hurt.  I finally broke down and took her to urgent care on Monday afternoon and I'll be darned, her left arm has a buckle fracture and she needs an above the elbow cast for several weeks.

Not much else is going on other than I am working with my amazing Web Ninja to get a Needs page.  I have been wrestling for a few months with how to handle some outstanding needs we have in our home.  Some are personal things like kids out growing underwear, some are things professionals have asked us to get like our PT asked if we had a step stool to work with Madison with, some things are just things we need like gas money to get to doctor's offices, work, church.  I know that we are grown adults, and trust me, if we would have known where life was taking us, we would have spent and saved a lot differently 10+ years ago.  I beg God a lot to just bring things we need, to be the kind of Provider that has Underwear arrive in the mail, and step stools to magically appear on our door steps, but their is something called PRIDE that I guess I need to master.  I have also talk to God at length about the difference in self esteem and pride....but, well, yeah...  Long story short, we are not asking for help, we are not expecting anyone to DO anything besides pray.  If you see a need and the Lord moves on you to answer it...thank you for listening...if you think we are expecting anything click the little red X in the corner and thanks for visiting.  I pray daily for direction in our finances.  I pray daily for God to show us what we are missing.  We drive a 1995 GMC, we pay nominal rent compared to our friends and family, we don't eat out unless we get an unexpected blessing that is named for eating out, and finally we try to do all we can to support the family we chose to have.

I personally fight a huge sense of failure feeling when I look at our checkbook.  I try to think of ways to increase our income and decrease our outflow, all to no avail.  I have faith that God is with us, but we have been here so long that I figure at this point we are cursed to poverty and I try to teach my children better than I was taught.  We are right now only existing because our checking account allows us to go about $300 overdrawn, and we are always about that overdrawn.  Embarrassing to type that, horrifying to think of the people I hold precious in my life reading that.  But the sick and secretive things are only used by the enemy...to shine a bright light of Jesus on them helps Jesus overcome the nastiness.  I feel like I have to put disclaimers up to say we know living this way is wrong, we know something needs to change, In our circumstances today we feel bound by life and change is beyond our reach.

I am going to disable comments this post...for several reasons...one I would just die if someone chose to flame me for the honesty here, two I can't stand the comments of encouragement that ring hollow after being here for a LONG time, and three I am the president and world leader here on this blog and I want to :)

If you want to discuss anything posted today...most of you know how to reach me and if you don't, my email address is listed in my profile I believe!

See you for #100 soon :)

Wow, how is it April already???

I need to make this blogging thing a part of my daily habits.  Not that I have earth changing news daily, but I certainly can do better than I have been.

We are officially moved into our new home.  I am still organizing and unpacking, but with 7 people that takes time.  After much prayer and discussion Chris and I have placed Bailey back in public school for now.  So far all of us are loving the new school district, it is very small, and not so politically correct, meaning it hasn't really changed in the last 30 or so years.  The class sizes are small, they call it Christmas break, they sing hymns in music class, and the teachers are not afraid to discuss the Lord.  I can even make homemade treats and bring them to school for the kids and their classmates to enjoy...joyful and shocking. 

I am adjusting to being home all day with Madison and Emily alone with me.  We have a lot of fun and they are just such joys to me.  Emily coaches Madison all day in what to say. It sounds something like this...
     Emily "Say Mommy Madison."
     Madison "Mommy."

     E "Good job Madie, now say Pickle"

     M " Itle"

     E "Good job Madie, now say Cheese"

     M "Cheese"

     E  " Good job Madie, now say Thank you Emily, you are the best"

     M "No"

     E  "come on Madie"

     M...walks away hollering for her Mama

Pretty darn cute ;) I would post a bunch of photos, but sadly my digital camera was thrown in the midst of a temper tantrum by a certain little 4 year old and it broke.  So I am trying to the best I can with my pretty yucky not so smart phone.  That is also why I can't post photos of the house.  You will just have to wait, or come visit ;)  either one is great.

Bailey is adjusting to 6th grade kids and their complexities.  One of her best attributes (biggest issues) is that she is very mature for her age. Those of you that know our family testimony, this isn't surprising or shocking, but that girl is 12 in age only, her maturity is far beyond most of her peers.  So she doesn't get the everyday lunch drama of a 6th grade lunch table.  She also has little patience with bullying or teasing in a hurtful way, and she is also strong enough to speak out and call a spade a spade.  So she was surrounded by friends her first few days at school, but now that the dust is settling, she is finding she has 4 close friends, several friends, and a few enemies.  We had a long talk about safe and healthy boundaries.  I have a few women in my life that have broken my heart a few times, the exist still in my life because cutting them out totally would be wrong, they are sisters at church, or someone I mentored at one time, and a few might even be family, I am pleasant to them always, I just hold myself back from them, I don't give the ammunition or means to hurt me anymore.  When they ask how I am, I tell them I am fine, I may tell you some prayer requests, but they get small answers.  Hopefully that makes sense.  It is a lesson all women/girls/folks learn sooner or later in life, so Bailey and I had a long talk about it.  She doesn't have to be every ones friend, but she is to always be friendly to everyone....and their is a difference.

I will say it is hard to move!  I miss my friends in Sedalia so much.  I miss gathering with my girls around my table with coffee and muffins and gossip and stories and love.  Okay, most of you are laughing...very often we were in the living room, I was the only one with coffee and I only made muffins the one time...but in my mind it was perfect ;)  I am working up the courage to ask some ladies over for coffee, but I want the house to be "done" before I do.  

We have attended the local Baptist church twice now, and I have to say I really like it.  It is Spirit filled, the pastor is ON FIRE and wants the gifts flowing, it is one of those country baptist churches where you have the older generation that is stuck in the same place, they sing the hymns and occasional raise a hand or arm, then you have the other generation that is bringing in the Praise Band, we sit in the back and worship the Lord, and they are ready to break free.  The pastor does a great job of balancing the two and keeping everyone comfortable.  We are still praying and "shopping" for just the right place to call home.

I am going to try and get here regularly and let everyone know what is really going on in the Miller home :)

I haven't forgotten this place...

I need to come here and unload my brain, but not tonight ;)  I need to come here and post some amazing craft projects I have completed, but not tonight.  I need to come here and post about paint colors, carpet samples, and a new home for our family, but not tonight

But I haven't forgotten this place, I just need to get better at using this place as the safe place to put my memories of the day and events of the week.

A joke for everyone....What do you can an alligator in a vest???  An investigator!!!  HA!  I will be teaching the boy genius that joke ;)

I will be back for days and days in a row and I will blow your mind with my awesomeness again ;)

Thankfulness=Thoughtfulness

I love my facebook family, that being said, I am raw today.  I woke up this morning knowing I was going to have to explain to the landlord again that we have no money for him.  This doesn't happen often, normally I find $25 to $325 for him out of every paycheck and financial gift we receive.  But today was the rarity that I paid the one bill that had to be paid to keep electricity coming to our home, put gas in our vehicle, and had $2.82 left in the bank.  We didn't even get baby wipes or baby shampoo.  I checked my facebook wall a couple of times yesterday and was blessed to read what everyone was thankful for, the most awesome being a friends daughter took her first steps yesterday, she is almost 3 and has special needs and she walked yesterday!  I woke up this morning to a bunch of people talking about their Black Friday adventures.  It was hard to read them.  I wish I could be out there throwing elbows to score the most amazing things for Christmas.  Instead I called the landlord to say we can't pay rent.  I know I sound like I am feeling sorry for myself, but really I am thankful for the landlord who has let us be behind on rent for almost a year a half.  We have caught up 3 times in that year and a half, but we caught up knowing next month was going to be a struggle again.  I am thankful for so much this year.  Today is just hard, I am thankful that my friends are not struggling, I am thankful that those around me are blessed, and I am blessed too, just in a little different way :)

So don't feel like you need to give me some uplifting comment :) Really I am okay, I am blessed to see those around me so blessed, I just needed to express the thought today.  Since this is a place about me and my thoughts, I used it...lol.  Be careful out there today :) see their are positives in every situation, I am home in my jammies eating leftovers :oP

Not of this World

Yesterday, as I stood in my church home's sanctuary, singing praises and worshipping my King, I felt that gentle nudge.  "Are you ready?"  He asked.  "Anything for you Lord." I answer.  Then he reveals it.  A revelation, a heart change, in the next hour, as my pastor spoke, Life was revealed to me.  It is a simple, yet complex, thing.  How like our Lord!  My pastor was reading out of the book of Ruth in our Holy Word.  As my pastor told the quick version of the story, I could almost see the Lord clear His throat, "Are you paying attention?" He asked me.  "I am Lord" I answered.

As the mother of four daughters, I am often caught in a loosely tight spot between the world's influence on my daughters, and the scriptural truth of raising daughters.  I want to release four strong Proverbs 31 women from my home over the next 20 years.  I desire for them to learn from the mistakes of the generations before them, and the generation around them, and they, my sweet daughters, would escape mistake.  That they would be firmly rooted in their faith, knowing and believing fully in why we do what we do, and how we made these choices.  I am frightened regularly that my influence is not always good and right.  "Stay focused Little One" He urged me.  "Yes Lord" I answered.

Reading the story of Ruth, I see God's fairy tale, but the difference is His always ALWAYS has a happy ending.  Ruth was quiet, bold, submissive, impoverished, redeemed, restored, renewed, and loved.  What amazing qualities in a young woman.  We see her in the lowest of lows and we leave her in the highest of highs.  We don't need Disney to write the story, God gave it to us thousands of years ago.  I have often cringed watching cartoon movies of mouthy, sullen, disobedient young women that live happily ever after, hoping that my daughters didn't pick up that characteristic, or that one, or that one.  Yesterday the Lord focused me on one of my favorite movies, Cinderella.  I have always loved the story and never really saw any of the disobedience in the story.  Yesterday the scales fell away.  Cinderella is the poor unwanted stepdaughter the evil stepmother has been saddled with.  Cinderella is forced to clean and care for the home and the occupants there.  One day she begs to go to the Prince's Ball, since all the women have been summoned there.  She cleans and cleans all day, and doesn't have a chance to see to her dress. No fear, the friendly mice have picked up (taken) and acquired (stolen) all kinds of things to make a beautiful dress for Cinderella.  Upon coming downstairs to join the family and leave for the ball, her cruel stepsisters tear apart her dress and leave her weeping on the floor.  The Evil Stepmother forbids her to go to the ball, and off the Stepmother and Stepsisters go.  Suddenly an Fairy Godmother arrives to transform Cinderella into the beautiful girl in the land, uses magic to transform animals into her carriage attendants, she climbs into a magically transformed pumpkin and off they go to meet the Prince.  The only caution is that the magic only works until Midnight.  She arrives, meets the prince, they dance, fall in love, she leaves at midnight, forgetting to tell him her name, and I am sure you know the story from there :)

Did you catch it?  The issues that were glaringly obvious as I sat on my Lord's lap yesterday?  Cinderella stepped out from under her authority and was disobedient and disrespectful. It doesn't matter if your authority is lousy, it doesn't matter if they are not serving the Lord, it doesn't matter what is going on, God calls us over and over to submit to our authority.  It is a very prevalent theme in both the new testament and the old testament.  Throughout the bible we are shown that submission is rewarded, by building the Ark Noah and his family were saved, when Lot fled Sodom and Gomorrah he was saved, when Paul preached the gospel under threat of death and imprisonment the Lord caused an earthquake to allow them to leave the prison, but he stayed and brought the jailer and his whole family into the family of Christ.  Most worldly fairy tales involved disobedience leading them to trouble and magic swoops them out of trouble and rescuing the lovely Princess.  I hate that message at the base root!  Magic is not allowed in our home, because magic is witchcraft, and witchcraft is the root of rebellion.  HELLO world! What is this message we are pumping into our children day after day? If I have to teach my daughters a lesson about love, why not use the two biblical examples of strong women in faith?  Ruth and Esther changed the tide of nations and did it while bowing before their beloveds.  Ruth literally laid at Boaz's feet and called herself his Maidservant, he married her because of her heart choices!  Esther saved an entire nation of people by wooing King Ahasuerus.  I love the movie "One Night with the King"  now THAT is a love story.

Great clean love story, in my opinion :)

I want my daughters to know they are Princesses, they don't need to pretend, they are daughters of the Most High King!  If they kneel before Him, and they ask for His will to be done in their life, they will get the Prince, the Kingdom, and the Happily Ever After we are seek.  Thank you Daddy for showing me once again your ways are so much better.

I know this may not be a popular thought, but I love Him enough to just not worry about it.  He asks us to hold ourselves apart and above, so I will.  I will get rid of all of our Princess movies and instead read my daughters the stories of two women that not only did things right but both are a part of the lineage of Christ.

The best photo of how these girls really act ever ;)

On the outside looking in...

There are many places in my life that I feel like an outsider.  I, at times, find myself feeling like I am outside the group, pressed up against the window, wanting to feel a part of what is going on, but stuck outside because I didn't measure up.  Some of these areas are silly, some of them still wound my heart, some no one understands.  I feel outside the heart groups I am a member of. Madison had what the medical world terms a simple defect.  That means that it was a very easy fix, simply remove the narrow section of her aorta.  So when I am in the heart groups and mothers talk about the road they are facing or have faced I don't quite measure up.  Chris and I were never prepared for her passing, not a single doctor didn't expect her to make a complete and full recovery.  I have very sweet dear friends that have both lost and almost lost their children.  I feel like a fake in their presence most days.  I know it is my perspective on the situation that is off.  I get that.  But I also feel totally ill equipped to speak to mothers in the heart community most days!  I don't want to misrepresent myself.  We spent 10 days in the hospital for Madison's repair, only 3 days in the PICU.  So many others have lived through so much worse and so much more, that I really feel like a fraud even standing in the same group as them.  My church is the other place I feel like this a lot.  I have been attending my church home for 10 years.  I was saved at that alter, and I don't think I will ever comfortably leave it.  Sadly though I feel very pigeon holed as the not-spiritual-enough-lady.  I pray often for God to use me, and I have a dream of being known for my faith, but I don't feel used, I don't feel like my faith, my fight, my testimony has ever been noticed.  I am on the outside looking in, not holy enough because I allow my realness to be seen.  I am a fairly transparent person, I don't put on a good show of anything that I am not really feeling.  I spent a lot of years wearing the masks that I thought others wanted to see me as.  I refuse to go there any more, but instead of that being a strength, it is a glaring spot on my reputation.  I am the wild card, you never know what is going to pop out of my mouth.  I am the one telling the story making some folks cringe, others laugh hysterically, and others are realizing that they aren't alone in their struggle, sadly though the cringing folks are the ones in charge, so I lose esteem in their eyes every time. 

I understand that most of this is my problem, and no one else's.  My perception is probably the skewed one, so I keep quiet and continue to pray for God to deliver me from what ever is wrong with me that makes me feel this way.  I don't know if it is rejection, because I know I am very loved and accepted by those that love and accept me.  I don't know what it is really other than my own insecurities and inabilities.  

Tonight I read the blog of a woman I deeply admire for many reasons, I then found that I had been invited to join her closed (exclusive) facebook group, I was blown away.  I read the group page and a lot of women were posting their stories and telling this wonderful woman how she has touched their lives, and I sat with my fingers over the keyboard, stunned into silence and feeling totally inadequate to type anything.  Everything I imagined typing sounded flippant and that is certainly not my heart.  So I just closed the tab and went on to some thing else on the internet that I needed to get read.  

Maybe tomorrow the words will come.  Maybe tomorrow the deliverance will come.  Maybe tomorrow I will measure up.  Maybe tomorrow I will be good enough...

Me :) talking with my hands in the middle of a story with friends :) I don't look that weird when not talking ;)

My name is....

On a recent day Bailey and I were in the kitchen and Emily moseyed in talking as usual.  In her rambling she called me Jessica, Bailey immediately corrected her that my name is Mommy.  Something weird happened in my head in that moment.  I had this mental image of screaming "MY NAME IS JESSICA!!!!  Please call me Mommy."  Now I didn't really say anything, but it made me really think about how much of my "identity" comes from my kids.  My name is Jessica, I have many gifts and talents inside me, a few make me a good mom, but I am still more than that!  I love public speaking (but never get to do it ;), I love ministering to women, I love to bake, I love to make people belly laugh, I want to grow up and be a respiratory therapist, I am pretty smart, and I love to motivate others.  I love being a mom, but that is NOT all I am!  That sometimes makes me feel yucky, their is an evil voice in my head that tells me that being a mom should be my everything.  So I told Bailey that day that my name is Jessica, but those I love most dearest in the world could call me Mommy :)  and then I told her that someday when she is a mom, I would always call her Bailey and I would remind her to keep her identity in herself and remember that raising her kids was just a part of who she is!!

I know I still have little kids, Madison and Emily still have a lot of Mommy loving to get from me, but I have been a mommy for 12 years now, so their are parts of me that are ready for a little me time now.  It works out because Bailey is a fantastic babysitter, and she loves to feel in charge, so it is a win-win for a couple of hours a week :)

I say all that to say this...after some prayer and thought I have started a blog dedicated for Madison.  You can find it at All That Is Madison here  on blogger.  That way this can be the spot about Jess, the mom, to lots :) and Madison has her own space to be celebrated!  I will tell you all here when you can see updates there, right now I just have a general overview of her little life.  I will spend time this week getting it all set up and blogging some specifics about this summer since we didn't have Internet all summer.