Rejoice Always - HOW?

^{1 Thessalonians 5:16-18}

¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

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What a way to live your life! But how do you do that? Rejoice means to celebrate, express joy, delight, be glad, and cheer. Always means at all times, constantly, continuously, or all the time. So how do you celebrate constantly? How do you delight all the time? Sometimes (if not most of the time) life just doesn’t seem to be that good at first glance.

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How many times have you seen on TV where they go around the Thanksgiving dinner table and everybody is asked to say what they are thankful for? It seems like a difficult task. Maybe your family has this tradition too. Is it easy to think of something to be thankful for? Find a pen and paper. Quick, list 5 things you are thankful for… Did it take you awhile? Did you feel like you were reaching? Now quick, list 5 things you could complain about… was that a little easier?

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Think harder about the good stuff. Do you have a job? Do you have a home? Do you get enough to eat each day? Are there flowers outside? Do you have someone who loves you? Do you have health insurance? Did Jesus die for your sins? Even when it seems like there is nothing to celebrate there is always something. In fact usually there are always several things!

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Rejoice Always. So how do you delight in these good things? How do you look at the fact that the grass is green and you have a home, and cheer about it; without comparing it to the heartbreak of health problems, a fight with your husband, or your child misbehaving? Pray without ceasing. Rely on Jesus, “our refuge, our strength, and a very present help in time of trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Can the sun still shine even when it is raining? Yes, that’s what makes rainbows! He can help you see the rainbows through the storm. So even though you have problems, the bad stuff doesn’t cancel out the good stuff.

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This isn’t to say that you never have complaints. It is unrealistic to expect us flawed human beings to live our lives always skipping don the road without a care. Instead take your cares to Jesus, and try to always remember to think of something good after you complain about something.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Challenge yourself to try to live this way for a few weeks and see how you like it!

Photo a Day April - How You Feel Today

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Photo a Day April

Day 14

How You Feel Today

I saw this unique flower at Walmart today, and since I was keeping my eyes open for something to define how I felt, I had to jump on it. I feel wonderful!! I feel beautiful, flowery, colorful and weird. Lately this is how I feel every day, and I thank God that He has blessed me with such good spirits! Even when things were rocky at work this week I kept my mood up. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to weather the storm without crying, but with God’s help I handled it wonderfully. I also found out that I was not pregnant this week, but I’ve been asking for prayers that I could handle the letdown if I wasn’t pregnant, and it didn’t even bring me down. This has been a terrific week.

Somebody asked me a question a couple of weeks ago that really opened my eyes. He quoted Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Then he asked me if I was diligently seeking Him. I could not answer that question honestly and be satisfied with my answer. That one question turned my life around in an instant. I realized that I was not diligently seeking God. I wasn’t even reading my bible regularly. How can you know somebody if you don’t try? How can somebody comfort you if you don’t let them talk to you? God has given us the bible so that we can know Him, so that we can read His words. I can’t believe I have had this comfort tool sitting around my house (even staring at me from my phone) and I have been ignoring it.

I realized I have been separating my infertility from my faith, because I don’t know how to reconcile a loving God with the unending pain of infertility. I still don’t know how to do that, but I realize that compartmentalizing like that was not healthy for my relationship with God. Instead of dealing with my infertility outside of my faith I should be always looking for encouragement in the scriptures. Jesus says: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” –Matthew 5:4. The bible is full of comforting passages like this one. It is also filled with uplifting, inspirational verses: Matthew 21:21 ‘So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive"’ Sometimes it feels like the bible was written just for me! 

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Christmas

My Christmas decorating is done! I love Christmas so much; it is my favorite time of the year. I love everything about Christmas, the Christmas music, the lights, the general merriment and the gift giving. I love receiving gifts, but I am the kind that just loves to give gifts, and I would do so much more than I should if I had any money. When I was a teenager I used to wrap the gifts I was giving my friends over and over again so that when they got through with one layer (after fighting with the massive amounts of tape I put on it) there would be another layer to go through. And another, and another. I still do that sometimes. And with my darling husband being such a snoop and liking to shake presents and feel them and try to guess what they are by their shape I have taken to disguising them by putting them all in boxes or other containers. One year I wrapped a few things separately and then put them into a popcorn container and wrapped that. So when he unwrapped it he thinks its popcorn, then he opened it up and has more unwrapping to do.

I put up a tree, garland around the doors, mistletoe, a wreath, and best of all, my Christmas Village. This village has been passed down from my grandma to my mom, and then I received it from my mom. When I was a kid I loved the village and I always helped put it up, and later on my mom would let me put it up on my own. There are so many buildings in this village it would cost quite a bit to replicate. It also has a skating pond that plugs in and has moving magnets moving skaters around the lake. Unfortunately I don’t quit have the room to set it all up. Last year I had to spread it around the living room, putting most in the main spot next to the tree and then putting down snow blankets on the end tables next to the couch and putting some there. This year I am short some snow blankets (must have tossed them last year) so I put them all in the main spot and just skipped the skating pond.Of course the instant I put up the village the cats invaded, and when I booted my Romeo off the sewing table so that I could set up the village he decided he was a Christmas gift and placed himself under the tree.

As much as I love Christmas if I think about it too much I get a little sad. While seeing my beautiful tree lit up and my village all beautifully arranged brings a smile to my face, sometimes it’s a sad smile when I think of how there are no kids around to share my love of Christmas with. No kids around to enjoy the magic and mystery of the moving skating pond, or the twinkling tree, or the angel topper whose wings fluidly change color minute by minute. No Christmas stories to tell, stockings to fill, or waking early Christmas morning in anticipation of the gifts and the fun and love the day will hold. 

Enjoying Life Before/Without Children

I make it a point to enjoy my life no matter the circumstances. I choose to have as much fun as possible and I choose to love my life. As I stated in my last post when I talked about my miscarriage, my husband and I have such an awesome relationship and so much fun together that we can accept having to live childfree if it is necessary. Now remember I do have a 13 year old stepson so we are not completely childfree, but he does not live with us so most of the year we are childfree and there is little we can do about it.

I like to remember the things in my life that I can enjoy, especially things that I can only enjoy until or if ever I can get pregnant and have a baby. Things like sleeping in late on the weekends, or getting tipsy one night if I feel like it. One time at Mother’s Day I even ran off with my mom to Florida on a whim. When I think about living childfree I think of the vacations we will be able to take, the romantic places we will go. Until now those have all been farfetched dreams, because as much as I would like to go to Hawaii with my awesome husband I have been working in minimum wage jobs with no room for advancement and not even getting 40 hours a week. However, I just got a state secretary job and he just got a promotion so things are going to change. Of course until that money piles up enough to fund these great vacations we have to have our fun in other cheap/free ways. So we have taken to going to the creek every once in awhile and swimming.

This past weekend we went to this creek with some of my husband’s brothers and sisters who were visiting for the weekend. My husband’s cousin and his son who live next door to us also went. One day there were some men jumping off the bridge, and they showed Danny and Nate the right place to jump from where you won’t hit bottom. This time Nate and Danny went back up on the bridge and Nate jumped in the right place and loved it. It took Danny several false starts and a lot of time thinking about it, and his 15 yr old jumping for the second time that day before he decided to go for it.

The next time we went back my husband and I got there later than everybody else, and as we were walking down from the road Nate was walking back up to jump again (after having done it a couple times that day already) and asks my husband if he was jumping. My husband says “no way, I jumped off a bridge once I don’t ever have to do it again.” So I told Nate, “wait, I’m coming”. I gave my husband my camera and told him exactly what time to take the picture, and went on back up to the street with Nate to jump. Nate jumped first and then I climbed over the railing and looked down, and made the jump from 30 feet above the water with very little hesitation. I had done all my debating with myself and deciding long before I went up on the bridge so there was little to think about once I was up there. However, once I was in the air I was TERRIFIED. I was scared to death once I was in midair and I couldn’t bring myself to move my legs into the straight up and down position so that my feet would go straight into the water, and I hit the water in kind of a sitting position smacking the back of my legs hard on the water. Even so I think I would do it again. I would try to be more conscious of the way I went down so maybe I don’t get any more giant bruises on the back of my legs, but I am glad I did it and I think I would do it again.

That's me! My husband got a great shot!

And that’s what life is about. You have to take chances and do things that are fun. This certainly isn’t something I would have been able to do while pregnant, and I probably wouldn’t have even been able to be at the creek that day if I had a young baby. It’s not something I could have done if I had a young child, because what if that child wanted to do it because mommy did it? I wouldn’t allow a young child to make that jump, though while we were there that day after I jumped there was a family with a 4 year old boy wearing a life vest that jumped. I just wouldn’t let one of my children make that jump, and its hard to tell a kid they can’t jump because it’s not safe, but mommy can jump, its safe for her. So basically this is something I could only do because I am childless, and I plan to continue to do fun things like this. I plan ongoing skydiving one day, I have always wanted to do that. I love my life because I choose to, and I try to spend as little time as possible wallowing in the pain and depression that is caused by my infertility. There are times when it bubbles up and consumes me, but I try as hard as I can to push it away and get rid of it. I will not let my infertility control me or make my decisions for me.