I realized I have a blog-phobia... If I don't have pictures to go along with my blog I don't want to write anything. A blog full of words and no pictures makes me nervous and wonder if anyone will ever really read it. I know this is silly because the majority of blogs written by other people have no pictures! In other words, its perfectly normal to have a pictureless blog. So today I am taking a big step and blogging with no pictures!
For the past couple months I have been rolling the fruit of the spirit verse over and over in my head.
"But the fruit of the spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,Goodness,
Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control...."
Brookelyn recieved an adorable book for Christmas explaining the Fruit of the Spirit to children. (In my thought process I thought, I should go take a picture of the book and put it up) It is her favorite book and it gets read every night giving me even more time to think about this verse, how to practically apply it to my life and be an example to my family. This is some of what the Lord has taught me...
LOVE-
It is easy to have an unrealistic fairy tale idea in our head of what love is. Society tells us that to be in love is Sex, beauty, words, convinient and disposable. Marriage is based on this so called love so divorce is an easy option when there is no more love. For better, for worse, rich or poor, til death are no longer taken seriously. So with this unrealistic example of love, how am I supposed to love my husband? How do I love when it is at the worst? It is easy to be in love when life is going perfect and there is no stress. It is almost as if the Lord has held up a mirror to my heart. In those moments of not wanting to love Aaron because I am angry at him , or he isn't acting as perfect as my un-realistic brain (influenced by society tellling me how a husband should be acting) the Lord has shown me its not about Aaron, its about ME. How am showing my love even when I am crabby, sick, annoyed, stressed or unhappy? Alone, there is no way I can unconditionally love my husband but the Lord has given my the Holy Spirit to help me love. As I sat and reflected, the times I had a hard time loving Aaron it wasn't directly his actions, it was my attitude and my lack of loving Christ. I would sit there and selfishly think if I am not getting what I want, I am not going to love. What a wrong attitude! The Lord calls us to Love with no expectations! When I am persuing my relationship with the Lord and loving Him, loving my husband comes easily. The little annoyances can overtake and overwhelm me, taking away my desire to love. But, " if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am NOTHING"
JOY-
My motto lately has been , The JOY of the Lord is my strength! When I am happy, I have a peace in my heart and feel like I can conquer anything. These past couple months have been extremely hard for various reason and I lost my joy. Its still a constant battle to stay joyful in every situation but the but I want that peace so I strive to be joyful :)
PEACE-
These two sure do go hand in hand..... These past couple months I have had to get on my knees before the Lord begging for peace in situations that wrenched my heart and as always, the peace came along with a confidence in the Lord. The song "when peace like a river attendeth my way" has been stuck in my head for weeks! Amidst everything, it is well with my soul!
PATIENCE-
-big sigh- this is my biggest struggle right now!!!!!!!!!!! I thought I was doing pretty well being patient with the kids. Then I got a sinus infection and my dear hubby had to be in class for two days straight.... I didn't realize how grinchy I had become until I heard Brooke yelling at Brayden to "SHHUUU UUPP BUBBA". She started yelling her responses to me and growling when she disagreed. I cringe to think she learned this from me but like I said, the Lord has been holding a mirror to my life and showing me what needs to change. and being patinet is a BIG one! It is easy to be nice to them when I am feeling good and have everything done I need to get done. But heaven forbid you want to sit and cuddle when I have the house to clean! or want to sing twinkle twinkle twenty times when my heads is exploding with pain.. Aaron has had to kindly remind me to not talk in a certain way to the kids but I end up snapping at him becasue how dare he tell me what to do. Oi. I wonder how he doesn't yell "shut up" to me. I am glad the Lord is showing me that when I respond unkindly with no patience, my kids see that and respond accordinly. That humbles me and makes me strive to change.
KINDNESS-
I have learned that kindness is a very hard fruit for me to eat.... If I am kind to someone I want kindness or recongnition returned. I need to be a selfless sevant to my family, doing things out of love and not a selfish motive. I have also had to learn to be kind to people even when they treat you with complete disrespect. That was a hard one but the Lord really flooded my heart and helped me show kindness even when it was unapreciated, unaccepted and taken for granted.
GOODNESS-
I always say, "BROOKE YOU BE GOOD" I have learned that she learns her behavior from me. If I am yelling, she is going to yell. If I am ignoring her, she will ignore me. etc... If I want her to be good, I need to model that good behavior and show her how I expect her to behave. So in other words.. "MOMMY BE GOOD"
FAITHFULNESS-
Even when I am not faithful, GOD IS FAITHFUL! What an amazing example of faithfulness! In these last months, when I was faithful to turn to the Lord, He delivered me. Even when I wasn't turning to Him, he was still faithful, gently prodded my heart to turn to Him. " Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest"
GENTLENESS-
This is the action of patience.. When I am patient, I act kindly and treat them kindly. When I treat Brooke unkindly I break her spirit and it breaks my heart. Her little face just melt in sadness because of my lack of SELF-CONTROL . It takes alot of self-control to be patient and act kindly and I have been working hard at all! My children are gifts from God and they deserve to be treated as such.
Writing these all out makes me realize how intertwined each of of these fruits are!! It has been hard learning these lessons but the Lord is molding me into the wife and mother He desires me to be. I am thankful that I am not left alone to figure this all out. What an amazing heavenly Father that is holding my hand the whole way. I am also so thankful for such a wonderful husband. I can say with all my heart that we will be together through better or worse, rich or poor, til death do us part. By God's grace He brings our hearts closer together, love each other and helps us get through the hard times. A cord of three cannot be easily broken and this cord isn't getting broken any time soon.
Wow. For my first pictureless blog, this is pretty long!! I have some cute pictures of the kids so a blog with pictures will soon come :)
LOVE-
It is easy to have an unrealistic fairy tale idea in our head of what love is. Society tells us that to be in love is Sex, beauty, words, convinient and disposable. Marriage is based on this so called love so divorce is an easy option when there is no more love. For better, for worse, rich or poor, til death are no longer taken seriously. So with this unrealistic example of love, how am I supposed to love my husband? How do I love when it is at the worst? It is easy to be in love when life is going perfect and there is no stress. It is almost as if the Lord has held up a mirror to my heart. In those moments of not wanting to love Aaron because I am angry at him , or he isn't acting as perfect as my un-realistic brain (influenced by society tellling me how a husband should be acting) the Lord has shown me its not about Aaron, its about ME. How am showing my love even when I am crabby, sick, annoyed, stressed or unhappy? Alone, there is no way I can unconditionally love my husband but the Lord has given my the Holy Spirit to help me love. As I sat and reflected, the times I had a hard time loving Aaron it wasn't directly his actions, it was my attitude and my lack of loving Christ. I would sit there and selfishly think if I am not getting what I want, I am not going to love. What a wrong attitude! The Lord calls us to Love with no expectations! When I am persuing my relationship with the Lord and loving Him, loving my husband comes easily. The little annoyances can overtake and overwhelm me, taking away my desire to love. But, " if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am NOTHING"
JOY-
My motto lately has been , The JOY of the Lord is my strength! When I am happy, I have a peace in my heart and feel like I can conquer anything. These past couple months have been extremely hard for various reason and I lost my joy. Its still a constant battle to stay joyful in every situation but the but I want that peace so I strive to be joyful :)
PEACE-
These two sure do go hand in hand..... These past couple months I have had to get on my knees before the Lord begging for peace in situations that wrenched my heart and as always, the peace came along with a confidence in the Lord. The song "when peace like a river attendeth my way" has been stuck in my head for weeks! Amidst everything, it is well with my soul!
PATIENCE-
-big sigh- this is my biggest struggle right now!!!!!!!!!!! I thought I was doing pretty well being patient with the kids. Then I got a sinus infection and my dear hubby had to be in class for two days straight.... I didn't realize how grinchy I had become until I heard Brooke yelling at Brayden to "SHHUUU UUPP BUBBA". She started yelling her responses to me and growling when she disagreed. I cringe to think she learned this from me but like I said, the Lord has been holding a mirror to my life and showing me what needs to change. and being patinet is a BIG one! It is easy to be nice to them when I am feeling good and have everything done I need to get done. But heaven forbid you want to sit and cuddle when I have the house to clean! or want to sing twinkle twinkle twenty times when my heads is exploding with pain.. Aaron has had to kindly remind me to not talk in a certain way to the kids but I end up snapping at him becasue how dare he tell me what to do. Oi. I wonder how he doesn't yell "shut up" to me. I am glad the Lord is showing me that when I respond unkindly with no patience, my kids see that and respond accordinly. That humbles me and makes me strive to change.
KINDNESS-
I have learned that kindness is a very hard fruit for me to eat.... If I am kind to someone I want kindness or recongnition returned. I need to be a selfless sevant to my family, doing things out of love and not a selfish motive. I have also had to learn to be kind to people even when they treat you with complete disrespect. That was a hard one but the Lord really flooded my heart and helped me show kindness even when it was unapreciated, unaccepted and taken for granted.
GOODNESS-
I always say, "BROOKE YOU BE GOOD" I have learned that she learns her behavior from me. If I am yelling, she is going to yell. If I am ignoring her, she will ignore me. etc... If I want her to be good, I need to model that good behavior and show her how I expect her to behave. So in other words.. "MOMMY BE GOOD"
FAITHFULNESS-
Even when I am not faithful, GOD IS FAITHFUL! What an amazing example of faithfulness! In these last months, when I was faithful to turn to the Lord, He delivered me. Even when I wasn't turning to Him, he was still faithful, gently prodded my heart to turn to Him. " Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest"
GENTLENESS-
This is the action of patience.. When I am patient, I act kindly and treat them kindly. When I treat Brooke unkindly I break her spirit and it breaks my heart. Her little face just melt in sadness because of my lack of SELF-CONTROL . It takes alot of self-control to be patient and act kindly and I have been working hard at all! My children are gifts from God and they deserve to be treated as such.
Writing these all out makes me realize how intertwined each of of these fruits are!! It has been hard learning these lessons but the Lord is molding me into the wife and mother He desires me to be. I am thankful that I am not left alone to figure this all out. What an amazing heavenly Father that is holding my hand the whole way. I am also so thankful for such a wonderful husband. I can say with all my heart that we will be together through better or worse, rich or poor, til death do us part. By God's grace He brings our hearts closer together, love each other and helps us get through the hard times. A cord of three cannot be easily broken and this cord isn't getting broken any time soon.
Wow. For my first pictureless blog, this is pretty long!! I have some cute pictures of the kids so a blog with pictures will soon come :)
4 comments:
What a beautiful blog!
Thanks for taking the step without pictures. :)
I totally hear you on this. Life with little kids can be especially hard and the fruits of the Spirit can be convicting. I sure need the challenge it gives me.
you my dear, are an AMAAAZING gal! :]
that is such a wonderful blog, jana! i love the end where you say 'til death do us part' how great that you have that. i'm so proud of you! love you :)
This is so beautiful, honey. I love your transparency in showing what the Lord is working in your life. I love to see you turning to Him more and more, making Him the center in all these things.
You are learning what Daddy and I are still learning. That's why if we ever wrote a book on parenting, it would be called Raising Parents. It's not really just helping our kids grow up, it's us growing up in the Lord as we parent them. I love you so much!
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