The World Through My Eyes

As a believer in Christ, the issue of setting boundaries within relationships has often eluded me. I've always thought since God's love for us knows no bounds, neither should mine. Not to say our sin has no consequences, but simply that we cannot out-sin his mercy and grace. Knowing this, we try to be Christ -like in every way by loving all people unconditionally regardless of how difficult and unpleasant they may be. We do this because we know that God has offered us forgiveness and mercy and we want to make that available to others as well. However, the list of broken relationships within the family of God keeps getting longer. From marriages that finally dissolve after months of counselling to acquaintances that never stood a chance at real friendship, some measure of broken trust severs all hope of a lasting unity.  We become unable to maintain the relationships due to a person’s unwillingness to change certain behaviors. With this reality in mind, I’m beginning to believe...

I was raised in a bubble. Better yet, a bubble inside several other bubbles. I had the typical Christian upbringing. Mom taught Sunday school and my dad was a deacon and they both sang in the church choir. We lived “clean” lives and God blessed us. At the time I probably thought those were directly related. I never wanted for anything. I had great Godly friendships. Life was good. I had accepted Jesus as my savior at the age of seven and was a faithful Christ follower through college. But when I became an adult, I realized I was really a big mess. One by one all the bubbles I had depended on began to burst, and God was holding the pin. At about 22, I learned the cold hard facts about church. It’s made up of a lot of Godly people who sometimes do ungodly things. No church is immune. I was always taught this, even from the pulpit, but I never really got it until I experienced it. Church was broken.   I no longer had security in the body of believers. When I was 23, my dad, ...

As I lie here awake in the hospital for hopefully the last night of this stay here I have a flood of thoughts going through my mind. I'm recapping all that has transpired in our family in the last 2 months and its all pretty overwhelming to throw them all in one pot and stir them up! First Sidney's thyroid, then my car flooded (which has been an insurance nightmare; we are still in a rental), and now Paisley's surgery. Not to mention a few other odd hiccups along the way.  God has shown me a lot in the last few months. I wonder if He allows certain trials to happen in order to widen our scope to better see the truth in His word when new trials arise.  God has definitely protected us and been very merciful through the last several months with all that has happened and I praise Him for that. There's one reason I hesitate to say, "God is good" in response to Him blessing us through these circumstances. God IS good, BUT the truth is God is sovereign and even i...

As we view the all too common scenario on a local news network of a high speed chase ending in an arrest, our eyes full of disdain for the criminal in the mug shot that flashes across the screen, I fear somehow we detach from the story as if these types of events only occur outside of our realm of being.  Mystified by the reality of the events unfolding, we neglect the fact that the people committing these often destructive and treacherous acts, as alarming and disturbing as they may be, are still merely people like you and me.  They are someone's son, grandson, nephew, or brother. They babbled in infancy, scraped their knee in adolescence, and endured the unrelenting trauma of teen angst. And quite possibly they held their mom's hand every Sunday morning on a cold wooden pew.   We forget to consider all the events that might have taken place in such a person's life that lead them to this low point. Maybe they suffered great tragedy like the loss of a par...

Goodness!  I had no idea how long it had been since I last posted.  My last post was on my 30th birthday and that was over two years ago.  I just turned 32 this past January.  Much has changed in the last two years so I thought it might be a good time to update my profile and write a new post.  I've been meaning to get back to blogging for a while now.  I have a really good friend who blogs frequently and when I read her posts it inspires me to do the same.   I really enjoy writing, but making time for it these days seems to be increasingly more difficult.  So here I am now and I will try to post more frequently.    Justin and I are now raising four children.  Our fourth child, Gavin, was born on December 12, 2011.  He's a super precious baby boy!!  Our oldest daughter Sidney will soon turn 9 a...

I'm thirty today! First I was going to make a list of 30 things I wanted to do in my thirties that I didn't do in my twenties like write a book, get out of debt, visit New York City, etc...., but then all of it seemed a little shallow and empty. Then I was going to write about my fears of being 30 and the higher level of expecations of others now that I'm no longer a baby in my twenties. But that just turned out really depressing. So, I started again. Not sure what really to write about, but I thought being that it is my thirtieth birthday I should blog something. I guess I felt like I needed to blog on this day because it seems like new chapter of my life. My twenties were great! I got married, got a degree, had three amazing children, and we bought our first house. I had lots of life altering events in one decade. I doubt the thirties can top it. But I don't think that's what getting older is about. God doesn't necessarily intend for us all to do b...

I just got back from a much needed getaway to Houston and Galveston with my sweet husband. We were celebrating our 9Th anniversary. It was a very relaxing and fun trip. Not only did Justin and I enjoy our time together, I really did some soul searching and realized some things about myself and my life. It's so easy to go through life as a busy mom and wife and put your spiritual walk on "autopilot." I know I've been coasting for quite some time now and I see how it has negatively impacted my life and those whom I love dearly. I've realized that I've been living my life in survival mode, looking forward to the end of the day when all the arguing, cleaning, cooking, explaining, working, fixing, and breaking comes to an end and the kids are in bed. I look at the day as something to get through instead of something to enjoy and look forward to. I've been living as a grouchy babysitter/maid which in turn produces grouchy non-compliant children. The vicious cycl...