Exhaustion

Exhausted. I'm simply exhausted. In fact, the word "exhaustion" doesn't even come close to how tired I am feeling right now. I could crawl into bed and sleep for days.

So what am I doing up at 11:10 p.m. when I could be dreaming the night away in my cozy, warm bed? That's really a good question. For some reason I felt motivated to balance our checkbook, print out coupons, and sort through my old coupons. It's crazy...I know.

My week has been crazy...work...one trip to Indy...soccer practices...three articles due...getting ready for Hallelujah Night. I was looking forward to a restful weekend, but I'm afraid it has been far from restful so far.

Yesterday (Friday) I got off of work early to take my kids to pick up their new glasses at the eye doctor. We had a fun-filled evening shopping at the mall, driving through massive rain, and grocery shopping (they didn't think the grocery shopping part was fun). At one point, two of my kids were singing songs....each had picked out a different annoying song...at the top of their lungs, trying to outdo each other while I was driving at night through the downpour. I looked at my daughter in the front seat and said, "Now don't you start too..." At that point, she mischievously smiled and started belting out "This is the song that never ends". This chaos went on for about 10 minutes before we finally arrived at the grocery store.

After the grocery store, my son started ranting about how this building we passed had a black cross on it. "I just don't get it. Why would the Red Cross' building have a black cross on it. What's the point of being called The Red Cross anyway?" To that my daughter answered, "That's a church...it's not the Red Cross". Oh what laughter they provide me!

Today started with a soccer tournament. Yes, it rained massive amounts last night. No, they did not think it was necessary to cancel the game. The result--my daughter covered in mud head to toe! At one point she went to kick the ball and completely slid in the mud, falling on her side. It turned out to be a giant loss for their team, but it was quite a hilarious game. I've never seen so many kids covered in mud before!

Then my afternoon was spent preparing for worship and getting our girls ready with their costumes for Hallelujah night. Hallelujah night at our church was a huge success, evidenced by the crowds of kids and the bags breaking from the weight of all the candy they received!

Yes, it was a busy weekend so far...and it looks like tomorrow will be the same. But...it was a wonderful weekend so far.

I expect tomorrow at church will be a wonderful, refreshing, and rejuvenating time in the presence of God. That's exactly what I need...spiritual rejuvenation.

A Slow Fade

How is it that we are so on fire for God at certain points in our life, but then we loose that passion over time? I can pinpoint certain times in my life where my passion for God burned bright. Then just weeks or months later, I found myself back in a spiritual valley.

The words of Casting Crowns' song "Slow Fade" come to my mind when I think about how easy it is to lose our fire for God.

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade

Often when things happen little at a time, we don't even realize a change has taken place in our life. After I got married, the years following I gained about 40-50 pounds. It happened slowly. It was a gradual change. I honestly didn't even notice until I was about 20 pounds heavier. My lifestyle had changed just enough to cause myself to gain just a little bit of weight here and there over time.

In the same way, our spiritual lives change over time. Sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of sudden changes that drastically change our relationship with God. Those are noticeable times where we realize the change taking place. However, most of the time the changes are gradual and often unnoticed. They are slow fades.

When we do fade off in our relationship with God, it takes time to come back to the point where we once were. I am experiencing the same thing trying to get the weight off in our Biggest Loser contest. These changes took place over time...and they will take time to get back to where I was.

I am striving to keep the weight off....AND I am striving to never let my relationship with God fade off into the darkeness. Instead of a slow fade, I am looking to see my walk with God INCREASE each and every day!

Why Wouldn't You Worship?

I am consumed with worship for my Jesus...my Savior. I really do wish that I could just spend all day soaking in His presence. But the things of this world always interrupt and I find myself taking care of kids, dogs, laundry...you name it!

So when I do get a chance to worship, I jump on it. Anytime I am driving alone, you can find me belting out my favorite worship songs as I struggle to keep concentration on the road. Worship is just so overpowering! Anytime I am working at home or just simply relaxing, I normally have a CD playing. I just have to worship. It consumes me.

With that mindset, naturally it is hard for me to understand why Christians don't worship...especially when given the opportunity. As a worship leader, it is my job to create the atmosphere...God gives me the music...we practice it...I make sure to be prayed up...and then we worship as we are leading our congregation. But why does it often feel like I am pulling teeth to get people to worship their Savior? Granted, our church has come a LONG way in our level of worship....people have made tons of progress and deepened their worship. But still, how could someone just stand there unaffected? Why is it that my 10 year old daughter worships more than some adults? Why is it that people talk, giggle, and run to the bathroom instead of devoting this time to God?

These are simple things that I just don't understand. An opportunity for worship should never be passed up. Christians shouldn't have to be "talked into" worshipping. It should radiate from their life.

My Black Sweater

This week has been a crazy week. Actually the past two have been....hence the lack of blogs lately. This week instead of just working in our Linton Office, I spent 2 days traveling up to Indy to train in our new staff member. At first I really dreaded going, but I spent some wonderful hours with God, worshipping to some completely awesome new songs! (get ready, worship team!)

Then to further complicate the week, I have a women's dinner at our house tomorrow night and I am preaching on Sunday. It's been crazy...but wonderful!

Today at the Indy office, I brought my very favorite black cardigan. Sometimes the office gets really cold, so I like to be prepared. This cardigan is really the only black sweater that I have, so I tend to wear it quite often. It's soft and it matches basically any dress outfit I have. So you can imagine that my heart went into panic mode when, after I was out of Indy on my way home, I realized that my sweater was not with me.

My poor sweater. Where did it go? I truly remember picking it up off my chair in an attempt to not forget it. I even remember holding it on my way out the door. But thenI do remember placing my sweater over my laptop bag. My heart sunk as I realized that it probably fell somewhere on my hurry to leave.

I quickly called my coworker and found out she had left the building a few minutes earlier. Bless her heart...she turned around in the thick Indy traffic and went back to the office to check on my poor sweater. Several minutes later she called to say that she had rescued my now rain-soaked sweater from the middle of our parking lot!

My heart was overjoyed. My lost sweater was now found. I could once again breathe a sigh of relief that I would have my favorite sweater to wear all winter.

Is that sad that I'm so attached to a sweater?

Worship...how could I ever survive without it?

This week has been the most tiring week ever for me...but yet, it has been the most awesome week ever! Our church is in the midst of our "Iron Sharpens Iron" conference, which is the first conference of this kind that our church has done. It has been a completely awesome time in the presence of God so far, and I expect tomorrow will be even better!!!

Tonight as I stood on the stage leading worship, I just felt utterly absorbed by God's presence. It was almost like I was not even in my own body. Instead of me leading the worship...it was GOD leading the worship. I love those times in God's presence where you totally feel consumed and you just know that God is leading every aspect of the service.

At one point, I looked up and scanned the crowd that was worshipping at the altar. Something caught my eye. Something completely unexpected. I noticed my youngest...my 10 year old daughter had both hands stretched out, worshipping God with all her might! Then a few people down from her, my son was also worshipping!

There's nothing better than seeing your children worship God. I've seen my son worship before, and it just warms my heart to see the passion come over him. He's getting bolder...I know it's hard to step out. But I am just so encouraged seeing teens and kids of any age be an example of worship to the adults.

But tonight was just so encouraging because I have never seen my youngest daughter worship. Normally on any given Sunday morning service, she can be found sitting on the front pew playing with her shoe...or looking around trying to find a clock to see what time it is. But tonight was different. Tonight she sensed the power of God. Tonight she took a step of faith and let herself become lost in worship.

As I tucked her into bed, I told her how proud I was of her. She immediately responded with, "What did I do?" I told her how it was so encouraging to me to see her worshipping God with everything in her. Without skipping a beat, she said, "Well, if you had paid attention, I was worshipping last night too!"

Ah the innocence of a child... We as adults have a lot to learn from children. She let God get a hold of her heart. She let herself become absorbed in worship. She didn't care what the people around her thought. She was consumed. She felt the power of God.

I just love worshipping God! I never tire of being in His presence and worshipping at His feet. I use to dread leading worship because I just never felt like I had the ability or the talent to fulfill this role. But you know, that's not what it is about. It is simply about worshipping our Maker and Creator. As long as we are an empty and willing vessel, God will fill us with the ability and He will lead us!

Faith...

Faith.

I just love that word. Faith takes effort. Faith is not simply believing something you already know or see. Instead, faith is believing something that you don't see. Faith is belief without proof...it is the ultimate trust. I love faith because it is not easy. Having faith in God means that I have to put my trust in God. And I love to do that because He never has never ever let me down.

I have faith that God is God.

I have faith that God will help me become a better wife, mother, pastor's wife, and worship leader.

I have faith that God has an awesome plan for my kids' lives.

I have faith that God will always be there for me.

I have faith that God's plan for my life IS the perfect plan.

I have faith that my dreams will come true...in God's perfect timing.

I have faith that God is going to do something radical in my life...and my family...and our church.

I have faith that God will take care of everything.

No matter what, I have faith.

The Runaway

This is Day #2 of Scooby's "Great Escape" plan. Day #1 found Scooby running out the front door yesterday when my youngest was walking through. She had her arms full of soccer gear and didn't quite get the door shut on time. So there we were, running the neighborhood trying to rescue all the innocent neighboring dogs from the attack of the psychotic, maniac dog. After about 10 minutes of running, the escape convict was caught and returned to our property.

Then today was Day #2. One would think that we would be more careful about walking out our front door after yesterday's incident. As Kirk and and 2 of my kids were leaving for football practice, I noticed Scooby out of the corner of my eye. He was lying in wait, right next to the front door. As soon as they went outside, Scooby bolted past them in a moment of passionate freedom. You could almost see the look of thrill over his whole face as he glanced from house to house, trying to determine which little dog would be his next victim to terrorize. He hasn't hurt any of these innocent dogs yet....but I believe they have been emotionally scarred by his threatening manner.

After about 20 minutes of circling our neighbor's house, the escapee was finally caught...once again.

So this leads me to wonder....since he is a psychotic maniac, why do we keep going to find him? I mean, think of how much more calm our household would be without his daily bouts of rebellion.

But despite all that...despite the problems he causes...despite the furniture he has chewed...despite the hole he bit in our other dog's ear...despite the fact that every blanket we own has a hole in it from Scooby...despite the hard plastic I keep stepping on from the water bottle he shreds...despite it all, we love him. Yes, I said that. I almost can't believe it myself.

He really is a good dog. He's an awesome watch dog and he makes me feel safe when Kirk is gone. He protects our kids with everything in him. And he's just plain cute.

That reminds me of the love that God has for us. No matter what we've done...no matter how far we've wandered off the path...no matter what, He loves us. We are His children. We are His precious creation. And just like Scooby, after our times of rebellion, we are welcomed back into His loving arms and can start over fresh after His forgiveness.

It's never too late to make things right.

Lessons from Laundry

Five people in our household, including two girls who have to change their clothes at least twice a day....what does that equal? OUT OF CONTROL LAUNDRY!!!

You know you have too much laundry when you can do one complete load of just GREEN clothes. And another of pink. And another of blue.

Yes, this is the story of my weekend. I forgot to keep up on laundry for one day this past week and WHAM! I now have an avalanche coming out of our laundry room. It is threatening to take over our dining room as we speak. So my weekend has consisted of endless loads of laundry. And this time, I've color-coded laundry with one load of each color. Right now my pinks are in the dryer, the blues are in the washer, and the whites are on deck waiting for their turn.

What makes it even more interesting is that my youngest child has the "fold laundry" chore this week. We do a chore rotation at our house that includes all five of us. It's been very effective in getting the chores done as our kids see us modeling a good attitude while doing our own chores. So this week my youngest has fold laundry. This is not a good week for that. Try as she might, she just struggles with this chore. She is suppose to make a pile of clothes for each member of the family...and that she can do. The hard part is figuring out who each item belongs to. I usually lose some of my clothes for a few days when she is on this chore, as she normally gives them to someone else. Last time she had this chore she gave some of her OWN jeans to her brother and her OWN tank top to me. That's just beyond explanation....

So now as the laundry is coming out of the laundry room faster than she can tame it, this should make for an interesting week.

Like I've said before, our household thrives on chaos. We live and breathe chaos. But you know, I wouldn't have it any other way. For over eight years, we prayed and prayed to be able to have children. Our household was so quiet then. We yearned for kids.

Now that God has blessed us with children, we are very careful to never take this for granted. These are the fun years of our lives. Each day is chaotic. Each day is unexpected. Each day is....WONDERFUL!

Meet the Monster Dog...

I recently came across an old picture of our dogs and thought you'd all like to get a mental picture of our "monster dog"...aka T-Rex. Scooby is our black lab, seen in the following pictures. Notice the bullying nature as he often sits right on top of Sammy!!!