Something new for Lent

I've been miserable inside for a long time.  I mean, the misery seems to come and go, but the reality is that I've had this underlying sense of desperation in my inner life that has nagged me for  years.  The source of that misery is this thought:

You are not a good person.

That thought leads to many other simliar thoughts:

You aren't a good example to your kids.
You don't give enough.
You are cranky and unkind. 
You are undisciplined.
You don't read your Bible and pray enough. 

Therefore:

Your life doesn't matter.
You will never do anything worthy for God.
You'll never be the kind of mother or wife you want to be.  

So:

Why bother?  
Why try?
Who will even notice if you just disappear?

Believe me, these are the kind of thoughts that make for a desperate, worn out, unhappy person.  Now, before you get worried, I'm not depressed.  I've been there before and that is not where I am right now. In fact, I didn't even know that I was feeling this way until recently.  These feelings slowly kept coming to the surface and I wondered why.

Finally, I took a long hard look at myself.  And I thought:

I AM selfish, often self-indulgent, unkind.  I'm trapped in my own sin.  What on earth am I supposed to DO about this?  I just want to transform myself into someone better!

And then the thought came to me:

But only God has the power to transform!

I sat there in stunned silence.  It had crept in.  Somehow, even though I knew the truth, I had still believed the lie.

You don't need God's help.  You can be a good person if you just discipline yourself, if you try harder, love better, do it a little bit at a time- afterall, you can't change yourself overnight.  You don't need God.
 
Funny how you can know something, and yet not know it, ya know?

I had a long conversation with God that day.  In that conversation I realized I need to give up.  The truth is, if I HAD the power to transform myself, I would still be less than perfect. Why? Because I am, at my core, an imperfect, hopelessly flawed human being; and my mind simply cannot even conceive perfection.

I would say that is a pretty good reason to let a perfect God handle the transformation of my heart rather than me.

So, for the season of Lent, I've decided to meditate on the Good News of Jesus in my life everyday.  Instead of focusing on my own will power to change or forcing myself to suffer for my own shame's sake, I will rest in the power of the Cross.

I pray you have blessed Lenten season, and may the Good News of Jesus lighten your load!

Eva

Birthday Girl!

Halloween is a always a fun day for us, particularly because it is our oldest child's birthday. We had to reinvent our traditions a little because we moved to a new state and all...  Fortunately for us we are always involved with a church who does a big Halloween outreach event, so we have built in entertainment. : )
And this year was no different!  So the staff at Bridges decided that all the pastors should be superheroes this year.  Harry was chosen to be the Incredible Hulk, which basically meant that I had to magically transform him into a green monster on a very slim budget.  And I am happy to report, I DID IT!!!!  And here are the results of my efforts:

The Incredible Hulk-
1 long sleeve green t-shirt turned inside out to hide the graphics- $9.88 at Walmart
1 tube of green body paint- $2.49 at the Spirit of Halloween
1 halloween make up palette- $2.97 at Walmart
1 old t-shirt- FREE
Grand total- $15.34

Incredible Hulk!

Beautiful Mermaid-

1 costume gift from a friend- Free

Mama's make-up donations- Free

Butterfly Fairy-

1 shirt from the closet- Free

1 skirt- $4 at St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store

Mama's make-up donations- Free

Butterfly Fairy and Beautiful Mermaid

Sweet Little Pumpkin-

Pumpkin Costume- $2 purchased 2 years ago at a consignment sale

Sweet Little Pumpkin

Alas, there was little time left for me!  So I went as a Mexican girl.  Pretty much like going as myself!  I bought this dress for my tenth birthday in Venezuela.  And it still fits!  

Mexican Girl

Not bad for $21.34!

Happy Halloween!!!  

Harry's epic day of adventure

So, a few days ago, Harry told us all that he had an epic surprise planned for us this Saturday.  He dutifully kept it a secret until today at 11:40 (after he got back from Impact Day at church).  Then he told us we'd be going for a drive.  We packed some sandwiches and water bottles for lunch in the car and away we went.

First stop Marianne's Ice Cream Shop in Santa Cruz.  Marianne's is a cash-only, 55 year old, hole-in-the-wall ice cream place that just so happens to be FANTASTIC.  Harry had a double scoop of butter pecan, I had a single of blueberry cheesecake, the girls had bubblegum ice cream on cake cones, and Q had good old-fashioned vanilla bean.  : )

After ice cream, we hopped on over to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.  Now that was an experience!  I have never seen a carnival at the beach- because that is what it looked like to me!  The Boardwalk comes complete with roller coaster, funnel cakes, sno-cones, roll-a-rama, annual chili cook-off, lots and lots of sandy beach, and ocean for miles.  We walked around for an hour or so and took some photos.

THEN, we took a drive up the gorgeous, gorgeous coast.  And who knew that on the coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean is miles and miles of farmland?  So we stopped at a farm and bought some seriously good strawberries-- which we ate immediately. : )  Actually, Q ate most of them...


From the coast, we cut over on hwy 84 through a winding, twisting wooded area full of redwoods.  These things are huge!  It was pretty neat to see so many redwoods.  Now, these are not the famous redwoods found north of here, but they are still really tall!

And since we live across the San Francisco Bay just off of hwy 84, we took the Dumbarton Bridge over the Bay and back home.


It really was pretty epic.  : )

                  Santa Cruz Boardwalk                                      Marianne's Ice Cream (and one happy boy)

Beautiful ache

A beautiful ache.

That's my life right now.

I spent the weekend with my daughter who had a stomach virus...for the second time this month.

I got to talk to my best friend for the first time in six weeks.  That was beautiful.   But I cried like a baby afterwards because I miss her and her family so much!  My sick little daughter lay weakly on the bed next to me, wiped away the tears that were streaming down my face, and stroked my hair.

Beautiful ache.  

The Cardinals lost and it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest.  Not because I'm that attached to the Cards.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I love 'em.  But the thing is, when the Giants clobbered us it felt like my life in St. Louis was being clobbered to death.

Ache.

But God has been so generous to us!  In just weeks, not only did He provide us with a place to live, but He also filled it up with furniture.  The people of Bridges Community Church have reached out to us-they've brought us meals, cleaning supplies, and presents for the kids.  Harry has really enjoyed his new  job and has discovered that he's been waiting and preparing for this his whole life.

Beautiful.

And me?  Well, I'm just trying to hold on.  It's been a wild ride.  I'm learning to walk in trust.  To lean heavily on a God who loves me; to love and to smile even when it hurts.  

And I'm so grateful to those who are walking with me.


May the Lord bless you and keep you tonight.

Eva

Leave It to the Cards...

So as I think of the many California-ish things I could blog about, tonight I'm just thinking about St. Louis.  : (

I've spent the last month incredibly focused on settling our things in our rental house, acquiring furniture (as most of you know we sold all of our furniture before we left), and getting school started for our lovely children.  I've been too busy to notice how much I miss the life we left!  But leave it to the Cardinals to remind me!

Coming from a girl who never watched (or cared about) sports, let me just say that marrying a man who lives and breathes sports has kind of sort of changed me... a little bit.  : )  I now know when the Superbowl is, how various professional sports leagues are divided, and how play offs work.  I too now hate the BCS and look forward to post-season baseball.  I'm not a die-hard fan, but I know a thing or two about a sport or two.   And call me crazy, but I actually just sat and watched an ENTIRE baseball game all by myself tonight.

The Cards lost, and I was sad.  And I missed living in Shaw.  I recalled the electricity in the air when we won the World Series last year.  I could almost feel the cold, crisp air, and smell the fall leaves.  And I wished desperately for something familiar.  Everything here is new, and the Cardinals nostalgia was to strong to deny.

Leave it to the Cards....

Starting Over

Hello from California!

I haven't blogged in about six months, and I actually have a pretty good excuse!  Not a great reason, but it's pretty good for an excuse...as excuses go!  : )  But first let me give my excuse a good back story...

On June 7, 2011 as I was driving across Texas with my kiddos, I had a little prayer time with the Lord.  The kids were asleep, and I was stuck in traffic with nothing to do but think and pray.  I felt the Lord tell me very clearly, "You're moving out of St. Louis next summer.  It's going to be far away- out of state.  It's going to happen very fast, so you are going to need to be ready."

I was incredulous.  "There is no way I'm hearing this right!" I thought to myself.  I just knew I had to be hearing voices.  Of course, the Lord reminded me that He knows the future, and that He is perfectly able to give me a heads up if He wants too.

"But still, God, You have got to be kidding me! My family is ROOTED in St. Louis. Harry JUST started in a new job.  I have found the PERFECT school for the girls.  My closest friends in the world are in St. Louis!"

I went on and on.  But somewhere, deep down in my heart I just knew.  I knew that God had spoken to me.  And I knew that as crazy as it all sounded, I needed to trust Him.

Well, this was kind of a big deal.  It was so much of a big deal that I didn't tell Harry about it for a month!  When I did finally get up the nerve to tell him, he took it quietly and said that we should be patient and wait to see what the Lord did.

So, for the next thirteen months we waited to see where the Lord would direct us.  While we waited, we prepared ourselves for the move.  I donated truckloads of items to Goodwill, painted and scrubbed, replaced all our appliances and packed all of our things that weren't in daily use.  It took every ounce of courage I had to step out in faith and pack my things when I had no earthly reason to believe that I would be moving.  There were so many countless times that I thought I must be crazy to walk so blindly in the direction I felt God was pointing me.

And this brings me to my point.  At the end of February of this year, I felt the Lord really urging me to finish getting our things packed and our home ready to sell.  I felt so foolish, but I was DRIVEN to continue.  I didn't know a thing, and yet I just knew.   But I wasn't confident enough to declare over the Internet that I was packing up my house because my family would be moving very far away to an undisclosed location in the not too distant future.  And I really and truly couldn't think of anything else to write about. Really and truly.

And then, the Lord started to work on Harry.  He shared with me that the Lord had told him that he didn't get the luxury of waiting anymore.  It was time to move in the direction the Lord was pointing.  But let me tell you one tiny detail.  We still didn't know where the Lord was calling us.  So Harry resigned from his position at The Word at Shaw in May of this year effective July 15th.  

And THEN (deep breath), right around the beginning of July things really got cooking.  Harry had sent out a bunch of resumes around the country, and had only received negative replies.  ONE church in
California responded that they were interested.  That was THE church.  Bridges Community Church in Fremont, Ca. The rest is history.

Harry had his first of many interviews on July 26th.  They offered him the job on September 2nd.  Harry flew out to California on Sept 12th and the kids I followed on the 14th.  We moved into our rental house on September 21st--the LAST day of summer.

And now we're starting over. And it's hard at times.  But I can say with conviction:

God is so good!  And I'm happy because I'm in His will.  I've got a smile on my face because I'm where He wants me to be.  Even if that means starting over...

This photo was taken Sept 22nd, the day after we moved.

Habit Training

I had a minor epiphany this week. My family doesn't help around the house... and it's all my fault.

If I don't ask, it simply doesn't get done. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. When I realized that I was the only one who cares about this house, it was about all I could do to keep from yelling at them all and giving them a piece of my mind. I contemplated quitting. Seriously. What would everyone do if I just stopped cleaning up after everyone, and cooking their meals? Would this change anything?

Regretfully, I decided I better not make any rash decisions in my frazzled state. I was a little disappointed because I was kind of looking forward to state of chaos that would soon ensue. : )

But as I mulled things over, something else occurred to me.

They don't help because I haven't trained them to help. I've trained them to do whatever they want while I do all the work. That has got to change. Today.

While doing some research I came across this quote:

"Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny." ~Tryon Edwards

So this is what I've decided to do. Instead of trying to make a major overhaul of our family life in one afternoon, I'm going to choose two habits that require our daily attention. (This all pretty much coincides with my "start small" mantra too.) Here they are.

1. Put your clothes, shoes, coats, hats, etc. away. If you are not wearing it, it should be put away. This includes the bedroom!!!

This habit addresses a major issue in our home. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE has the very bad habit of leaving various articles of clothing laying around the house. So we are replacing a bad habit with a good one. Plus, once we get this one down, the girls' room will be 50% cleaner, and mine will pretty much stay clean all the time! Works for me.

So, this next habit isn't really about our messy house, but I figure while I'm on the habit train I might as well throw in some good healthful habits for good measure!

2. Drink a glass of water when you wake up in the morning, one at each meal, and one before bed.

I'm pretty sure we aren't drinking enough water. Simple as that.

Once these become habits, I'll add more. I'll keep you posted on how this works.

Well friend, thanks for reading my plan. Please send any suggestions my way!