My mother, God bless her!

My mother is someone who keeps her opinions to herself.

When she does crack open her big book of advice, you can be guaranteed it will be opened gently and the advice given is given with love and respect.

Today my mom gave me some advice...and I didn't like it. LOL.
But, she's totally right. TOTALLY.

I prayed about it and I realized that I have not made this particular thing a priority in my life. Its sort of on a shelf...waiting for another day and another time for me to deal with. But after my mother outright saying to me, "You need to-" and in that firm motherly tone. It's stuck.

God uses things like that. I know it takes a lot for my mom to come out and tell me something about myself that isn't that obvious. It's not something anyone else had recognized in me. God bless my mother!

On a funny side note. I told my sister about what I had told Momma and what our exchange had been and she texted me and said: "Mom told me she felt a need to talk to her kids about some things, but she was torn on doing it or not. I told her she had every right to love us and tell us what she thought she should be telling us."

Next text: "Sorry, I didn't know she was going to start with you. LMAO."

I hope I will always love, respect and advise my children like my mother does for me.

God bless my sister and my momma!!!

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She's Got a Serrated Edge

For those of you wondering...I still haven't cleaned my closet out.

I am a horrible procrastinator.

However, I have organized my books a bit. (haha, shows you that I care more about my books than my clothes.)

I wanted to organize them better...such as not having my Richard Dawkins books sitting next to my Mark Driscoll books? If they got into a debate I would root for Mark FYI. :) But, alas I am fortunate that I even got them up on the shelf at all!

I have been keeping my eye out for two pieces of furniture, one of those being a big bookshelf. I have about 9 boxes of books waiting for shelves! This is just the small one that I got for my 15th birthday from my dad. It's a start. I love looking at this wall as I'm writing or journaling at night. It's inspiring in some way. Books are like that I think!

Inspiration is something I am starting to look around for as I plan on participating in NaNoWrimo this year! This will be my third year...and hopefully second successful attempt! I am not sure what will happen if I find a new job in the mean time. Work usually crowds out anything fun like National Novel Writing Month...or movies...or baking zucchini bread! ^_^

Authoring a book, or even a successful blog is still on my list of goals. So even if I never become famous or published...gotta keep trying? Keep writing!

Take care out there today.

Candles, kittens and a good book,

SarahLynn

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Desperate Housewives?

Do you ever feel 'desperate'?

Often I'm lonely.

Broke.

Stressed.

DESPERATE.

I watched parts of the first season of the show "Desperate Housewives." It had a pretty good pilot and the few episodes following were thrilling and absorbing. But, it showed me a huge hole in my life. I realized really quick that I identified with the women this show portrayed.

I-am-desperate.

HAHA.

Not in the good way! I long for stability. I want to be rich. I beg for a little less on my plate.

I run around looking for 'things' that will satisfy my soul.

Lemme tell you.

Things don't.

Too often I pick up the phone to call my friends when I'm lonely. I need someone to talk to, hash things over with. Too often I go shopping when I'm bored. I buy things I don't need. Spending money I don't have. I eat because there is nothing else to do. It doesn't taste good, and I am not hungry.

Desperate. Always wanting something or someone to fill that void in me.

It's pointless.

A quote from Randy Alcorn:

"We're not going to be satisfied with any person less than Jesus, and we're not going to be satisfied with any place less than heaven."

The answer isn't here. If it's a person, a thing or the mall. The answer isn't there. It's in Christ and your relationship with Him.

Psalms 25:16-20 says

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
18 Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

19 Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
20 Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

Can't get any more desperate than that...can you? Being desperate isn't so bad...but what are you desperate for? And if you're desperate for people, places and things...rethink it. If you're in Christ...you're never going to find peace outside of him.

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On a mission!

My closet is a wreck.
Actually my whole bedroom is a wreck. It looks like a train ran through after a tornado blew it over during a fire that was put out after a flood. Yes. It's bad.

...and something smells wonky.

That is never good.

I don't know why but since the divorce, I put myself LAST in every aspect. I seldom buy things for me first, or do what I need in any order, but absolutely dead freakin last.

My attitude towards my bedroom needs to change. I need to make the time to clean and organize something for me. Now. Oh please now. lol

As a teenager I LOVED my bedroom. It was my sanctuary. It held all my treasures, books and posters. It was a sacred place for me.

Now it's just a big pile of laundry and unfinished craft projects...and where is my bed? haha

So, it's my plan to organize and clean out my WHOLE bedroom in it's entirety. I don't think I will do photos before and after because frankly...it's gross and kinda embarrassing. It's like when someone calls you at midnight and you're chugging down oreos and milk. That feeling of shame because you know...eating oreos alone at midnight means you have a problem.

My bedroom is a problem.

I need to stop reading blogs, and websites that are going to show me how to magically clean and organize my bedroom as well. Because I can read about it all the live long day and not do a thing...(like now because I'm blogging about my messy room. haha)

Ok. Off to clean!

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Things of infinite value...

I have been making quiet time each morning. YAY!

During this time I ponder over my heart. I make every attempt to wait on God and ask Him to show me what He wants me to learn from this time I have with Him.

It's ROUGH.

Mostly because my mind runs a million miles an hour. lol

But the moments I let communion happen...well, YAY! It's such a peaceful, happy time with my Father. Love it like nothing else.

After that I usually spend time writing in my journal and making lists of things I want to do around my house, with my life and my kiddos.

I usually wrap it up with a session of praise and singing with my ukulele.

Even if everything else in my life is screwed up right now...I can at least say that this time makes everything else seem senseless and crazy.

Leaving you with Philippians 3:7-11

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

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It's Habakkuk, with a K

When I get the chance, I think about the things I really want in my life and I realize that I truly want very little. The things I want are of high value and generally are hard to score, but they seem somewhat insignificant.

I have so much less in my life now than I ever have. My apartment is tiny, I have no significant other, I work a low-income job, and often times don't have money for anything extra...YET. YET, I find some sort of peace with it.

It freaks me out personally. Because I have such a princess complex. I believed for a long time that I was entitled to good things, and definitely acted in that manner. God totally took down my haughty spirit and showed me a way of humility (He still does because frankly I'm slow) that has me rejoicing in every trial as of late.

An opportunity to reflect back the glory of God simply because I have not...or maybe I have lots. lol

Referring to the Bible, there was a man named Habakkuk that had a lot of stuff going on in his country. He did without a lot of things too. God was certainly mad at Habakkuk's country when he wrote:

17 Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.
-Habakkuk 3:17-19

So life was pretty crappy for Habakkuk and his country. God still granted him the grace to rejoice.

How can God do any less for me?
I'm asking God not for any 'thing'. But Peace. Happiness. Love. And coffee....:)

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New Faith, New Mercies, and rest!

21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; [2]
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord. -Lamentations 3

Reading all of Lamentations is a good idea...but this particular passage yells volumes at me. I need to be yelled at. I am hard of hearing...and often my heart is harder than I like to let on.

In all of my frustrating trials lately I have not sought the Lord as I should have. Instead I rush from thing to event, from errand to chore. I wrestle with myself and my worries. I'm worse than a small child with a splinter they don't want their momma to touch.

I love the quiet moments in my soul. When I put it all in His hands and I just REST. There is nothing sweeter, or more comforting. I really need comforting right now...

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a little hello

I always mean to write. But I usually forget. Or I get busy. Very busy.

It's usually when I am out running errands, or my job gets really stressful...or perhaps when I lay down to sleep at night that I remember this blog. It's my oldest blog that I haven't deleted yet.

I am not doing so well.

Physically.

Mentally.

Or Emotionally.

God is always the only answer right?

Yet somehow, I run around trying every other answer first...because I'm a silly human.

< 3

I mean to write here more. I do.

Promise.

Sarah

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little tufts of clouded thoughts

I haven't done much posting of any kind to my internet 'diaries'. I am a faithful, avid user of Twitter, Facebook and Blogger...but lately.

Lately.

I met "someone". There is nothing more distracting than finding a kindred spirit. It's also to be noted that it's very distracting when that spirit is a guy. When I got divorced, my heart didn't stop loving my ex. In fact I still love him in many ways, but for the first year after divorcing him I admit that I was 'in love' with my ex. My heart ached a lot of the time. I felt some sort of crazy longing and crazy aching all the time because I could not be with the man I loved. I felt like part of me was grieving and mourning for my loss to the point I never even thought to look at another man.

It was not always meant to be so. I don't know if I stopped loving my ex with that crazy aching because I know I cannot be with an invididual who's goals in life are so different than mine...and logically I know that. Or if what was needed was time to heal and come to some sort of reckoning...I don't know yet.

But it's happened.

I met 'someone'.
He's wonderful.
We talk and discuss life, mysteries and ideas. He's somewhat my new Twitter. My new Blog. My new diary. lol.

I can only hope that I'll get my happily ever after.

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