True Love

One of my new favorite blogs is over here...Marriage Life

I loved a section from a post that was wrote...
"We think…
Love is easy.
Love is gushy.
Love is exciting.
Love is uncontrollable.
Love is a feeling. It comes and goes.
Love is something I give to someone based on how they make me feel.
The problem with this is we have a skewed human view of what love is. It doesn’t even come close to God’s version.
Love is hard.
Love is sacrificial.
Love is an action.
Love is a choice.
Love involves commitment and cost.
Love is unconditional.

God is Love
Wow! Could it be more true? As Lent season is very quickly approaching, I was thinking on this and back to a sermon my father-in-law once preached  in the Easter Season. I know it was not long after I had Will. I know that because it focused on how much God loved us. He loved us SO much he gave his son. I looked down at my sweet, blue eyed perfect boy. He GAVE his son.

If you are most like most mamas (or daddies or aunties, uncles, grandmas, paps) I know, no one hurts our babies. Their tears are like knives to the heart and we would do anything to make everything ok. So give you my son? Never. I would say I would die for someone I love. But hand over my son for them? Hand you my heart. Never. I remember tears falling over my face, sliding down my cheek, and falling into his hair. Not my son. God your son? Trust me...I am not worth it.

And yet, He said I was. And you are. That is love.

We are to love like him. Pastor Paul (AKA Dad-in-law) did a sermon on should we love only the lovable? Nope. Why? (I knew the answer.) Cause we certainly are not always lovable.

I guess this is where V-day and Lent intersect this time. Loving someone, ESPECIALLY the person you have pledged your life to is not easy. It is not about feelings or as Marriage Life put it the way they make me feel. True love and lasting love is an action and a daily choice. God's love, true love, is the only things that lasts. that will endure. Our human ideas? Our expectations? Ours wants, needs, and love? It will fail you. Because it has no sustainability. Who can truly love someone like that all of the time?

Today I choose you. I choose to love you no matter the cost to me. I choose to stand next to you even when you don't ask or deserve it. I will not make decisions based on feelings that are fleeting and sometimes deceitful depending on mood, hormones, or phases of the moon. Feelings can lie about what is true. When (not if, but when)  it gets hard, draw me to you God. Help me again.

Today I will be God's hands and feet. Love you not with my ability but through the eyes of a Father who loved you so much he was willing to give the most precious thing imaginable.

It all begins and ends with the socks

I am a working out of the house mom. I have four-soon to be five- children ages 7 and under. Yes, I am busy. Yes, I have my hands full. Please don't ask me how I do it cause I don't have an answer for you. I went to the Dr the other day and she asked me if this was my first baby. "No, my fifth." "Fifth? do you work?: "Yes, I am a teacher."  Her medical advice? "You should sleep. A lot. Like right now...you should be sleeping."


Now, no misunderstanding. I adore being a mom to all of my kids. I chose this life and believe I am blessed beyond what I deserve for sure. I also choose to work. I love my job (on most occasions) and I love how full, busy, and crazy life is. I would not change a thing.


With that disclaimer up front-I wish I had more time. To do what? Fold socks. Every mom has her thing. And mine seems to always begin and end with the socks. In a large family, we generate a lot of dirty socks. 6 people times two feet = 12 socks a day. On most weeks I try really hard to do laundry twice a week. Honestly, by the time my first "work day" is over and I am getting the kids or coming home to the husband and kids, I can't sort socks. Food is priority and so I cook and clean up. I do homework. Lots of homework. We talk a little. Play a little. Do baths and bedtime. I go to my room and check papers.  Pass out. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes that leave only Saturday to wash the socks (and everything else). 12 socks times 7 days =84 socks.


Don't even get me started on matching and putting away. Really I need to find more time. Nothing and I mean NOTHING makes my mornings more manageable that each child having matching socks. Mommy not digging through the sock basket. Oh, the glorious moment when the sock drawers are all full!!


Why blog about my socks? Cause it sometimes it is the little things in a full full life. Like clean socks, cereal I like in the cupboard, or hot water in the shower. Or sometimes it is the big things like hearing "everything is perfect" at the baby doctor, hearing "mommy, u make me so happy" when I walk in the door, or my school kids shouting "Mrs. Demi! Thank goodness you are back!" after only being gone a day and a half.

You know what else is a good day? When I say forget it, and go to walmart and buy each kid a pack of new socks! Matched and clean for at least 6-10 days (depending on the pack.) oh, yes. Living the dream.

I hope so

summer sick

I am sitting at my table and my son is moaning. Of course he is doing homework so he is normally moaning.
Then he states that "I am sooooo summer sick." "What is summer sick?" "Just like home sick only sick for summer."

I agree. I was looking through my photo albums and seeing the shorts and the beach! This morning as I was digging for matching socks I declared that I cannot WAIT for flip flops and sandals. When I was digging in the attic the other afternoon, I ran across our summer box. Filled with items I so heartbrokenly packed up months ago.

But this warmer weather and birds chirping give me hope. During a team meeting at school, where we were talking about March and April things, I smiled. Soon, my friend soon,

Sooner than we think we will feel the sun hitting our skin. Grass tickling our feet and pool water splashing. Breathing in the warm, fresh air and just enjoying life.

Summer sick indeed.

Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.
------- Prayer of Saint Francis


In a world so dark and dying, Lord may we light a candle. When it is most inconvenient or trying. When we have to make sacrifices and strength. Spirit come and be our guide and our helper. May we being peace.

100 days

100 days of school...More than half way there! Aunt Patty helped the kids make these awesome shirts for school. Will was so excited he said that he could hardly sleep. He couldn't wait to show off his new shirt. And Rachel had to make sure that her shirt matched her project. 

Here is her 100 day project. It says I am having a "blast" on the 100th day of school. Pinrest it is not, but she was happy. 100 stars for her rocket. 

This was pre-pig tails pick. But I love it. 

Thanks Aunt Patty! Loved it!