Trust, you say?

The definition of trust is a Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.

Seems like trust should be so easy. For this disrespectful wife it seems to be the central issue.  The question I have been asking myself for a while is; Do I trust that God gave me my spouse? Really it is a series of questions. The next question quickly follows, If I trust that God has chosen my husband for me, why am I not trusting in him? I have found honor, respect and submission are all a result of trust. Meaning, if I trust my husband, it is easy to esteem and respect him. When I have trust and respect for him it is much easier to submit than if I do not.
In the past, I have focused on submission. I have read a number of books about biblical submission. They have run the gamete. While I do believe that God gave me the set of skills I have and he wants me to use them, I  can’t do use them to usurp my man! So if I am to take the word trust and break down the definition, maybe I can find good reason to trust. This might seem like an odd exercise but follow me. Does Dan have integrity, ability and character that should lead me to have a firm reliance on him?

Let us start with his integrity. Although, I know he has lied about things in the past, It is very rare. He is a pretty open book.  He is honest in his dealings. He is polite to most people. He has a good heart. He trusts in God. He leans on God. He doesn’t steal, he abhors porn, hasn’t cheated, puts God first and thinks of his family as he makes decisions. While there are a few things like sarcasm as a mask for pain, and joking as a way to get out his feeling in a ha ha not so funny way. The great preponderance of the evidence shows that his integrity is GOOD and I should be able to have a firm reliance on his integrity.

So what about his ability? I think he has it is spades. He is well liked and respected at work. Not just at his office but across the state. People ask to work with him on complex problems. You may be asking how does this apply to the house? He has great problem solving abilities. When he runs up to a problem at work he works until it is solved. This sometimes means he has to be creative, which to be fair is needed when you have a wife like he has.  He makes enough money for me to stay home with the children. This makes him a great provider. He pays our bills on time. The children mostly like him but always love him. He is a GREAT dad. He took on being a parent when Abby was already 7. Which by all accounts is a strange place to start. Honestly, I can’t find anything lacking in his abilities. He is constantly amazing me with the things he can do!

So what about his character? Well aside from his sometimes hurtful humor, he has exceptional character. Although, I wish he apologized more, there isn’t a lacking in his character. I can depend on him 99 times out of 1oo. He calls when he says he will call. He shows up when he says he will. He is honest, and forthcoming. He is loyal to friends and family. He always speaks well of me to others. So overall his character seems to lead me to believe that I can have a firm reliance on him.

One of the things that I learned while in a group for my anxiety, was that you have to dissect a thought. When something makes you anxious, you have to break the thought down. What you do is you say this is my thought, it makes me feel a certain way, is this a reasonable thought? So as I am looking at the thought that I can’t trust Dan, I need to dissect the thought. Is it reasonable to believe that Dan is untrustworthy? Well as you can see….Dan is trustworthy. I can have a firm reliance on his integrity, ability and character. If I can have a firm reliance on his attributes I can have a firm reliance on him.

So while this doesn’t guarantee that Dan will be 100% reliable. It does mean that I am doing more harm to our relationship worrying about the tiny amount of times he will let me down.  The fact is that most days, I feel loved and understood by Dan. Why am I treating him with such distrust? This disrespectful wife really needs to take a leap of faith and trust that God did indeed plan to have Dan and I together. I need to believe that Dan is deserving of my trust! Maybe I will just start with a very granola, Washingtonian thing and make it my daily affirmation. I might just start off each day saying, I will trust Dan. I will trust Dan.

The New Normal

The new schedule in our house is going to take some getting used to.  I have been getting up with Dan in the morning. I make his coffee. Get to have a short conversation and both of us take 10 to 20 minutes a day to read our Bible.  Dan goes off for the day and I am home for the next 12 hours with the kids.  We are so happy about the promotion but I miss having the time we use to have together.  It also is hard to prep the house for selling with two kids underfoot.  FYI Guin the two year old is not helpful when it comes to painting. Although she believes she is.

On top of getting a fresh coat of paint on a few of the rooms, my Ex has contacted me that he would like to have Abby for the weekend at the very last minute. So while I would like to spend time mowing the yard and working on the house, I will be driving to drop her off for the weekend. I will certainly miss her. I am also happy she will have time with her dad. She hasn’t seen him in a while. So this weekend, we will have a 2 year old trying to help me paint and do the yard work. We still need to finish the downstairs and prep the reclaimed wood for the floor.  It seems like it will take forever to get this place ready to list.

I really hope we have time this summer for fun.  I am hoping that we will be able to have family time together. I am also thinking that it may be nice to make some cookies or cake for his new employees.  Well here is what I know, God will provide.  I know that doors will open where necessary and that God will get us the right price and get the right new home for us. This weekend we are going to  a church in the community we plan to live in. This is clearly a season of change. We will make it through and will be stronger in the end!

Saying Please Must be Harmful to Your Health

Being two must be hard. There are naps that are thrust upon you when you are screaming from being tired. People are trying to take away the sacred art of pooing in your diaper. Now that you can talk people even start trying to teach you manners. I am certain by watching my Guin that saying please might indeed be lethal. Most days being the mother of a two year old is fun. Mine is especially funny. She laughs often and is we just plain silly.

Any mother of a toddler may tell you that you have to choose your battles. One of the battles I have chosen is basic manners. Saying please and thank you are important. For Guin saying thank you is fine, bless you is easy, as is excuse me. However, the word please must bring a bitter taste to her mouth.

Most parent know that you never know when you will have to go to battle with a toddler, they are erratic and chaotic little people. It could be the cup of milk they want, the mismatched shoes they are trying to wear or putting up their hair. It always comes on suddenly and is completely unexpected. Yesterday we went to battle over please.

I think I may have mentioned that Guin tries to rule the roost here. Right now often comes after she has barked an order at someone. The order for more milk was barked at me last night followed promptly with the words right now. So as she has her cup in hand she walks up to me and says, “I want some more milk, RIGHT NOW!” So I informed her that she needed to ask nicely.  I even gave her a choice of I want some more milk, please or Can I have some more milk, Please. Apparently neither was a good option.  She nicely barked at me, “I want some more milk!” I said, “you want some more milk please?  Can you ask nicely?”

This is the part I was unaware of. By her response, I was certain that saying please may indeed be deadly. She would certainly come to some form of serious harm if the words please came out of her mouth. She flung herself to the ground and screamed….”I WANT MY MILK RIGHT NOW!!!”  After the screaming came a full on fit with arms flinging and legs kicking the floor. She was at it for a good ten minutes. I made sure nothing was in the way that would cause harm and let her have at it. When she was done, she came to the kitchen, cup in hand. “I want some milk….pleeaase!” The please came out as if the word tasted sour.

To my sweet daughter please is the worst word in the world. It clearly has a horrible taste to it. I was just happy to have won the battle for the day.  What I love the most about battles with my two year old is that she forgives and forgets so easily. I was getting hugs and kisses in no time.  We played and read books and had a pretty good rest of the day.  To top it all off, it appears that saying please will not actually kill her.

What’s that you say? Don’t blame others?

Isaiah 58:9-10

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

If you are the parent of a tweener, you have heard all of the blame you can stomach for a life time. Mom I used the word because the kids tease me at school is I don’t use curse words. I didn’t take my lunch because you didn’t wake me up on time. I hear it all and the one thing I have come to know that it is never Abby’s fault! My tween isn’t the only one that I hear the blame game from. She provoked me, is one I have used. My husband has blamed his share of things on me or his boss or you know someone. The only one who doesn’t blame yet is the two-year old. She has the truth on her side I guess.  She wields it often. It seems like the blame game is learned!

It isn’t just my family though. Society has gone to a whole new level of the blame game. I killed because my parents abused me. I am rude because my parents never taught me better. All of which can be true but the other part of that sentence is missing.  People may have never been taught to be anything but rude and they haven’t cared to find out how. Your parents may have abused you but you chose to kill. Sure there are many contributing factors and we can justify anything.

We live in a world where people are suing fast food companies for providing them food. We choose not to use self-control and we are fat because McDonald’s fed us the food. When I was getting a divorce I certainly wanted to point the finger at him.  If I am honest there were many things that led up to the marriage failure. When I talk to other people who have divorced I see a lot of finger pointing. Trust me there is plenty of blame to go around. You won’t grow as a person if you are busy pointing finger instead of looking at how you can improve! The Bible says as long as we are blaming others, out light won’t shine for the world to see.

Oh what a crazy thought, as long as we put ourselves as the victim and center on ourselves then we won’t be able to share God’s light fully!  I am not saying that God can’t use us. He can use the most broken but we won’t shine his love when we are the victim! So where do we begin?  When you start to blame others, we can start with finishing our sentences. Yes they provoked me and I chose to lash out in anger. Yes you didn’t wake me on time but I have chosen not to use an alarm.  When we only use half the truth we often find ourselves pointing the finger.

 

 

More from the disrespectful wife

Oh it never seems to fail for me.I post about speaking the truth in love and what happens?  You can guess, we get into an argument and I loose that self-control of my temper and the truth was not said in love! Nope it was the truth but it was the ugly truth.  It is so easy to speak with love to a stranger.  So much easier when you are trying to look good to the world.  How often we forget that we should be show the same care and concern for those in our home. Not only that what example am I setting for my daughters. Am I showing them that it is okay to disrespect their husband as well?  Oi what a mess  can make.  It is so much harder to say things in a loving manner when you get to see all of the junk that a person has.  We always feel like others have it so much more together than we do.Well I know what I will be doing today. I will  be apologizing and working on not being the disrespectful wife!

Permission to comfort

Yesterday and today, I have been faced with a clingy and sick two year old.  She has whatever virus that is going around and has a temperature and has thrown up some.  After traveling all weekend, I have piles of laundry and things to get put away.  I, however, have been cuddling and comforting my sweet two-year-old. she is whiny and just needs her mom. She wants to be held all of the time. 

I am giving myself permission to let the rest wait. I am giving myself permission to let my life become about her and her misery.  I am giving myself permission to comfort her. I am going to take this time and realize that pretty soon she won’t need me the way she does today. I am going to enjoy cuddling and even watching some Dora and Super Why!

I find that sometimes all the other pressures of the world won’t let us slow down when we need to.  I find that sometimes I am asking for silence when I should be stopping to listen.  I am so concerned about being perfect and doing it all right that I get it all wrong.  So next time your little one is sick, just stop and comfort them.  Enjoy the time and don’t worry about that laundry for today anyway.

Lies I’ve believed Part II

Yesterday, I did a quick blurb about believing the lie that men aren’t needed.  Men are so important in our lives and it seems like we have forgotten. The next lie I bought into was that being a mother isn’t a “REAL” job. I know that I have talked about quitting my good paying, benefits rich government job. For me it had come down to family or career. I believed another lie, that I will get into later in part three, that I could do it all and well. I was so stressed by the commute and the job that I couldn’t be a decent mom or wife for the few hours I got to spend with my family each day.

The discussion in my mind went like this, I could just leave my husband and move close to work. I have been a single mother before. It can’t be much harder with two.  I don’t have any debt. between child support and my job It would be so easy if I lived right close to work. It would be so much better without him in my way all the time. I don’t need him to complain about my house keeping,  When we bought this house, he knew how long my commute would be. He doesn’t care about me anyway. Then the angel came to the other shoulder. It said Angela, you have be divorced once. Do you really want to fail again? Look at how much the kids love Dan. The would have a hard time adjusting to life without him.  You know that you love Dan and you made this commitment for life.

That is when I heard God say to me, “You can’t be good at anything else until you are good at the job I have given you first!”  I argued with God a bit and realized, God meant me to be a good wife and good mother above all else. Problem was….I didn’t see being a wife and a mother as a job. I had even looked down at women who stayed at home. I actually had said, “So you don’t have a REAL job?” Although I do some bookkeeping and crafts on the side, my main job is being a mother and a wife. I am not as good at it as I like but I am getting better.

Since I have left my “REAL” job for this domestication, I have found I do more than I ever did at “WORK.” I drive my oldest to school and pick her up. I watch Dora and learn Spanish with the young one. I read books and clean the house. I have learned how to crochet and sew and am working on knitting. I am teaching Guin colors and letters. I dance and I sing. I go to parks and walk the dog. I have steam cleaned carpets and watched track meets. I have joined the PTSO and researched home schooling. I have filed tax returns and done some serious bookkeeping. I have planted a garden and mowed the lawn. I have been spending time with God. I have been praying and reading God’s word. In the end my family is happier, healthier and I am a lot less stressed.

Being a wife and a mom takes work if  you want to do it right. I worry about my mistakes. I worry about how they will be when they grow up. I also know that they feel loved. I know that my husband has a wife that loves God and loves him. He has a wife that will give up the REAL job and be looked down upon to make a better family and wife for him! I will do all I can to make his world better. It is hard work and is time consuming and you never get a moment off. I am learning to love this work though. Being a wife and a mother is the most important job that God gives us. We have come to believe it is not and our families get the left-overs. I want to give God and my family my best.

The lies I’ve believed part1

In life we are fed lies. Some came from a marketing wizard, others. From friends and some from even your parents. I have noticed a theme in what I have been writing lately, it became clear in church service this morning. I have been itching to get to a keyboard since. All of the things I am working through are lies that I have bought into. The enemy has used every person he can to help me buy these lies. The lie I am going to start with is that I don’t need my husband.

I find myself thinking from time to time that I can do it all myself. I don’t need Dan. I believed this lie when it came from my mom. e told me never to rely on a man. That everything I needed in life I could do for myself. Yes technically I could almost get through life without the need for a man….oh wait….I couldn’t have a life without the sperm from my father. Turns out men are NEEDED!!!

The fact is that God wanted me to rely on the man he gave me. God wants me to need and want Him. Dan is important to my life. He is there for me when I am sick or for mental support. He is also needed for my daughter’s. Study after study is showing the importance of a father in children’s lives. It has become apparent that a two parent household delivers the best child rearing results. We have as a society man a joke of fatherhood. We make dads look like fools in commercial after commercial and show after shoe. We have demeaned or men and put. Mothers on a high pedestal.
We have made it appear that men are useless and not needed. When in fact they are needed today more than ever. We need good Godly men in our lives. Our children need them in their lives. It turns out my mom was wrong I do need a man to live my life. It also turns out that I WANT the rest of my life to have MY man in itinerary need myDan!

Lack of cleanliness.

Confession, I am a horrible housekeeper! I pile things put things in drawers and leave things out. I forget to put the wash into the dryer and have to wash the load more than once. Often I am happy to live so far out of town because I don’t have drop in guests. I have plenty of time to clean before the guests arrive. While I would call CPS because my house is so dirty it isn’t healthy it would be embarrassing if I did have drop in guests. I am one of those people who takes a picture then won’t post it on facebook out of fear of the criticism. Yep that is me. I am the lady who leaves the dishes in the sink overnight. The mom that has a pile of laundry on the couch or a chair. I am not proud of my housekeeping skills and honestly, when I just slept here, it didn’t bother me. I could say I work all the time; I don’t want to spend the rest of the time cleaning the house. Now that I am home I find the mess plain stressful.
What I am finding is that we have too much stuff and it has overrun the house. My husband works in the tech field. We have multiple computers in different states of disrepair waiting for his time. We have a good deal of clothing never worn. My oldest prefers to keep everything so she can give it to her sister. It wouldn’t be an issue but they are nine years apart. My two-year old has no use for a size 10 shirt at this time. Also, I can’t see her reading Anne of Green Gables in the next few years. I have files for clients, too many shoes and a good deal of clothes that don’t fit. Plus we have two of almost everything, as we got married later in life and both brought a life time full of stuff. The biggest problem I have is that I don’t know where to start. I know they say you eat an elephant on bite at a time but where do you place the first bite. How do I go from being a messy to a clean freak?
I have heard that cleanliness is next to Godliness. If that is true, I have a lot of work! I know that sometimes, God puts us in a place to come to terms with ourselves. Let us be honest there is an entire book of the Bible that speaks a lot of cleanliness. It was imperative for the Jewish people. There were animals that were clean and unclean. There were set ways to wash before preparing meals. There were rules for women on their menstrual cycle and rules for dealing with the dead. If you read the book of Leviticus, there is a lot of mention of the word clean. My point is that the Bible seems to take the stance that being clean is a good thing. Even if we aren’t required to follow those laws now, I can’t imagine that it is unimportant now.
So I am going to start working on getting this house in order. I have come up with some basic daily, weekly and monthly tasks. I am going to sweep and pick up the floors , counters and tables in the living and dining room every day. Then I am then I am going to have a daily organizational task like, that chair with all the clothes or the drawer that has all the junk, or that bookshelf with all the piles! Hopefully soon I will have a house that I won’t be embarrassed if I have drop in company!

The mom I never wanted to be

It had been seven and a half long months filled with misery. The first three months I vomited three or more times a day and had always felt like I was going to vomit at any moment. I thought it was all better when I felt good and could eat for a mere month. That is when the swelling and high blood pressure kicked in and the weight came on and just kept coming. So I laid in the hospital bed unable to walk yet because of the meds the doctors had given me, holding what I should have thought was the most precious gift, thinking you didn’t even have the decency to weigh 5lbs or look a thing like me. I felt like I was holding a stranger, I didn’t like her and I resented the fact that I was miserable for so long and she didn’t look a thing like me.
My 4lb 11oz baby girl Abby looked at me from a face that looked everything like her dad. I didn’t even want to get pregnant. I had planned on going back on birth control the month my period didn’t show up. We were young and still newly married and I had thought about leaving. She was a chain that was making me stay. I came home to clothes that didn’t fit, a body I wasn’t use to and a baby I didn’t want to an empty house as my husband had 24 hour duty that same night. I cried myself to sleep and was thankful that thing that wouldn’t latch on would sleep for hours at a time. I could normally pump before she was awake and feed her and put her down. She was happy to just be alone, to this day she is happy in her room alone.
I had thought that as soon as this child came into my life it would all change, apparently so did her dad. I was still not a great housekeeper and I was aware of how embarrassed of me her dad was by how fat I had gotten. They told me it would come off with breastfeeding but it didn’t. I was in Hawaii and I was miserable. I thought for certain I would never love this child I hadn’t even wanted.
As the years have passed and I have grown up, I love her fondly. I don’t even mind that she only has my eye color. She has her dad’s body type, metabolism and features. She is in no doubt by the looks of her his. When we divorced, I remember saying to a friend, he can have it all as long as I have her. I am a fierce protector. Although I am not a fan of her father, I always talk good about him to her. She will never hear the reason for the split from me. Although the divorce was painful for all involved, I won’t talk bad of him. I still like him and miss him as a friend.
As she has grown I have come to a place where I want to savor every small moment. I want her all to myself, which I get for the most part as her dad is still in the service and not generally around. I found that after the divorce having a day without her is heart breaking. I find once I fear the day he is closer and I have to share her again. My house is quiet and feels incomplete without her in it. Just like my life would be incomplete without her.
Abby has been an easy child for the most part. She has a heart for the underdog, I am sure she got that from me. She is smart and fun. She is a loving big sister despite the large gap. She makes for interesting conversation. The fact has come to be that I love everything about her! I love the ways she reminds me of her dad. I love the way she reminds me of me. I love the way she is all of her own person. When I was younger I said I was never going to be a mom. I never wanted to chance being a bad one. What I have learned is that all moms don’t have that love from day one. Some moms have a building love. My love builds greater each day. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. She is my wonderful, smart, kind and loving daughter. I am happy to have her even if I wasn’t the day she came into my world.