Leaving a legacy

When the Lord calls us home, what will we leave behind? How will anyone know our story? How will anyone know how the Lord refined us? How we grew? How a once hardened heart became a heart of compassion? How will they be encouraged in their times of being in the valley if they are not able to see us walk successfully through ours and reach the mountaintop?

Leaving a legacy is such a precious gift to those left behind... generations after you will be inspired because truth is truth regardless of time.

Journal your life!

Simple, deep, serious, fun ... just write!

I am a committed journal keeper and I will put pen to paper as long as I have breath. I want others to see God's dealings with me so they might be encouraged in His dealings with them.

And I want my children to know the heart of their mother. My joys, my struggles, my weaknesses, my successes and my fears. They will each have to walk their own way, even before they leave my home, and I want my life to be a source of encouragement and a source of wisdom for them as they seek the life God has purposed for them. Should the Lord take me home long before they are mature adults, I pray He will use my thoughts, words and emotions to show them that the Christian life is more than going to church and saying the right thing. It is a daily choice to love God. It is a daily choice to be obedient. To love others. To be faithful. To be patient. It is a choice to love God ... and it is a choice to surrender self.

I want them to see this lived out in the life of someone they love and respect. I want them to see it in mine.

May all those who come behind us find us faithful ~ because they have seen the imprint of the Lord's hand on our lives as we tell our story.

phases of life

It hit me today that with the joy of our newest son sleeping through the night there is also a sense of mourning because it means the newborn stage has ended.

Now he is an infant. Soon he will be a baby. A toddler. A kid.

Each stage is so sweet and holds many charms and precious moments and before you blink, the moments are gone. Replaced by new ones, of course. But you can never go back. You cannot put them back in the womb to be delivered again to relive the joys of those first minutes together.

You cannot turn them back into a 2-year-old to hear their first word.

You cannot make them 5 again, watching them learn to ride their shiny new bike.

Everything ends ... every child grows ... and it is exciting and fun to watch them change and learn and experience new things - no doubt!

But stopping every once in a while to realize that you cannot go back makes your heart ache for a moment and causes you to pause and grab those little people, squeeze them hard and pray for the Lord to remind you that each day IS a gift, each day holds it's own treasures and we must remain ever aware that tomorrow is not guaranteed and TODAY is where our focus and energy needs to be.

Even as a mother of 6 boys I will be very sad when I have my last. When I am wiping spit up off the floor, putting tooth money under the pillow, potty training, teaching reading, changing a diaper ~ for the last time ~ I will mourn the loss of those tender first years. Ones I will not enjoy again until I am a grandmother.

But as always - the Lord will have something new and exciting and unknown in store for our us to enjoy with our quiver of young men. I am excited to see who they will become, who they will marry, how they will change the world and influence it for the Lord.

But for now, I will try to fully embrace and enjoy the noise, the banging, the wrestling, the noise, the dirt, the endless questions, the smells, the noise :o) and know it is but for a season.

It truly is a JOY and a PRIVILEGE to have children. Whether it be one day or a million days, I know am blessed.

Life lessons

There have been times in my life when I have felt totally alone and friendless.

People would profess their undying love to me and yet they did not know my hurts, my struggles, my loneliness .... and I felt abandoned.

What was I doing wrong? Was I not as appealing as I envisioned myself to be? Did I offend them? Were they using me? Was I not a good friend after all?
All of these questions would float through my mind and sink me further into the depths of despair.

And then, finally, I turned to the Lord. "Why, Lord? Why cannot I have one good friend to walk beside me in life? I do not want to be alone. Please send me a friend!"

And He answered. And it was hard to hear.

"Michelle, until I AM ENOUGH. Until you seek ME with all your heart. Until you turn to ME with all of your worries and cares. Until I AM ENOUGH, I will not fill your life with things that will distract you from Me."

I was stunned. Did I really do that? Did I really fill my life with people and neglect the Lord?

And the answer was a resounding Yes! I put so much time and energy and emotion into my relationships that I could easily go for a week (or more) without praying or reading Scripture. I was busy counseling and encouraging and meeting the needs of others. After all, that is what friends do, right? How could I be wrong to serve others, especially when I found such joy in it?

The Lord was not enough. I needed people. Tangible results of my efforts. Hugs. Thank you's. Smiles. Praise. Love. Acceptance.

I was broken. I was convicted. And I was changed.

It was a loooong road to learn how to seek the Lord first and let others fill in afterwards. And I still struggle. It is so easy to pick up the phone to call a friend when crisis happens. It is easy to blog about an exciting event. But the Lord is patiently and eagerly waiting for me to come to HIM with all of these things. He wants me to share everything with Him ~ the big and the small. He has to be enough!

Scripture speaks of the Lord's character ~ His longsuffering. Seriously, I think he has suffered more than need be with my personal weaknesses and sin. And yet, He waits for me. He pursues me. He never turns His face from me. No matter how long I take to pull it together and run into His arms, they are always there, waiting for me.

Thank you, Lord, for this precious and undeserved gift ~ may I learn to delight in You more!