Heartache

Each day, each hour wondering if we will bring the three children home. Trying to guard our hearts yet trying to prepare to double our family. Dreams of meeting them for the first time, holding them, telling them we love them, crying tears of joy. Praying, praying, praying. Waiting for news, any news. Getting false hopes that crash down around us. Fighting for joy, when sadness threatens to overtake us. Fighting our flesh as we want to give in to doubt, trying so desperately to trust God with our weak faith. Praying, praying, praying. Anger, frustration, desperation, WILL ANYONE HELP US!! God has His perfect timing for everything and we are trying so hard to find the joy in that. You are our confidence Lord, you will keep us to the end. We leave our fears behind us now!!

Friendship part three

So as I read over my other posts on friendship I make it sound like I am looking for the perfect friends and that I have been hurt so badly. That is really not true. I have been beyond blessed by my friends, it has just always been hard to keep friendships up when you move all the time. I am just on a journey to think on friendship. To help myself be a better friend and to take care of the friendships I have. To be real and break down the walls I have built. So much easier said then done. I want to take care of my beautiful flowers, to water them and prune them often. I don't want my flowers to die because I do not water them!

Friendship part two

I believe that I am hard person to be really close with. I love to make friends and I love to be there for other people but it is very hard for me to show my pain to anyone. It is even hard for me to show my pain to Jake. If I show someone the real me, will they care enough. I always want to appear tough, which is so not true. When I feel pain I like to just say, run it out girl or rub some dirt on it and never really deal with it. With that said, I have been pondering a lot what it means to be a true friend.

I have always said that your closest friends say a lot about you as a person. So I often take a step back and look at my friendships and I try to really water the ones that I want to keep up. Because with me moving all over the place, like I said, it takes a lot of work to keep friendships up. I love people hard which makes it very easy to get hurt. I love Jake hard and I love my friends hard and that has made me vulnerable to hurt in these relationships. What I mean by loving hard is, loving aggressively and strong. I don't just kind of love them, I love them hard, does that make sense? I guess I am just kind of an aggressive person, trying to be more gentle.

My goal is to love people without expectations. To love freely even if they do not love back. To show my pain and be real and to continue to water my friendships so they do not die. The bible says, a friend loves at all times, that is heavy stuff.

Friendship is such a gift, it teaches us so much about ourselves, good and bad. I am beyond thankful for the friends in my life, new and old. I just get so emotional about it. I just want to run through a field of wild flowers with my friends and we will all be wearing hippy dresses with flowers around our heads and we will lay in the tall grass and hold hands and laugh and cry together.

the webster definition of friend

friend-one attached to another by affection or esteem

Friendship part one

I love friendship, I love being with people!!! Before I graduated high school I went to four different schools. After high school I have moved nine times. With that being said, I love to make new friends. I have friends all over the USA and I love that. BUT I so often wish I just lived in one place and that I had friends so close that they knew everything about me and I knew everything about them and yet we still would love each other. With all this moving I not only get to meet new friends but I have to constantly leave friends. I often feel forgotten by friends. It is hard to keep up a good friendship at a distance, you have to really work at it. When you move to a place where you do not know anyone it is humbling. Humbling how much people don't care about you and humbling how quickly people forget about you. This is not a pitty party, it is just how it goes. Through all of this I have been on a journey to truly learn what it means to walk so closely with JEsus that I never feel alone. I will tell you that the only way to learn this is to be alone a lot. I am getting glimpses of it in my life, glimpses of such sweet fellowship with Jesus that I do not feel lonely. IT is so precious and such a gift. I will probably be writing a few posts on friendship, I have been thinking about it a lot.

Soup Recipe

This is for you Jess!!

RANCH BEAN CHILI

1 lb lean ground beef

3/4 cup chopped onion

1 tsp. minces garlic

1 medium green pepper, chopped

1 each small sweet orange, red and yellow pepper, chopped

2 cans light red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 can chili beans, undrained

1 can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can tomato juice

1 1/3 cups fresh or frozen corn

1 cup water

1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix

I like to cook the beef with taco seasoning to spice it up a bit

*In a pot oven, cook the beef, onion and galic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Add peppers; cook and stir for 3 minutes. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

*I like to eat it with a little cheese and tortilla chips, it is very pretty to look at with all the peppers in there.

We love any kind of chili at our house, we eat it all the time.

The Love of a mother.

As I am cleaning the house and picking up after the kids, my daughter is disobeying me behind my back. It makes me want to scream at her and say, WHY DO I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU, YOU ARE NOT THANKFUL, YOU JUST TAKE AND TAKE AND TAKE!!!! I did not say that. There are many times a day that I want to scream that. Just as I think this, God reminds me of unconditional love. It is so hard to love with nothing in return, it is hard to love if they do not show love. Yes, of course there are times where we just hug and love on each other but there are many times that I feel very used and I am. This is exactly what I did to my mother. I often find myself wanting to act like a child. when they are mean, I want to be mean back. Being a mother has and will take everything I have to give. Every bit of patience, love, organization, creativity, perseverance, endurance, energy, it will take it all. As I struggle with my flesh God is bringing forth sin and selfishness and it has been so sanctifying. I can only imagine what is ahead. Those of you mothers that have raised kids are thinking, Jen, you have only just started, you better get ready.

I feel beyond blessed to be a mother, it has opened my eyes to so much and I cannot hide from my sin. IT stares me in the face every day. MOTHERHOOD, a life of sacrifice! Yes, that is what it is and I am so thankful for the opportunity. Go MOMS!!!!! Love with nothing in return and expect nothing, NOTHING!! Our mercies are new every morning. The word is the only thing that will satisfy our very hungry and thirsty souls. Go MOMS!!!! Pray like never before. The only hope we have for our children is that God would save them!! God please save my children, change their hearts and turn them toward you. You are my only hope, You are the treasure. Go MOMS!!!

Why Run?

I was sweating, my lungs were burning, my legs were heavy and I thought, why do I run? When did I first run just to run. I used to run because a coach told me to. As I thought back on this I remembered, it all happened after God saved me. There was so much joy in this time and so much pain. Pain of my sin, pain of relationships ending, pain of earthly loneliness. First it was pain that drove me to run and after some time it was joy. Joy of my salvation, joy of new relationships, joy of His presence (I am never lonely). That was when I was 17 years old. Now I am 28 and why do I run today. I run today because of Pain of my sin, pain of earthly loneliness, frustration with life, AND, joy of my salvation, joy of His presence, and to glorify and worship Him. As a stay at home mom, it is the place that I clear my mind, it is a very special time. As long as I am able I want to run. I will never be a great runner but i am so thankful for it. To all my fellow runners, keep it up. I know it is hard to find time, but it is worth the time!! Pain of this world drives me to run, but joy unseen keeps me going.