Holy Spirit

Hoofbeats, Heartbeats

I am not fun to hang around anymore.  Just read my last post for my attitude overview.  But what I mean by that statement is really something I have come to understand as my reality.  Because I decided to become vegan a few years ago, the dinner invites have drastically reduced.  And when I say drastically I mean we've only ever been asked by a handful of people to hang out and now noone asks.  At first I just chalked it up to the fact that it's totally overwhelming for people not to cook with meat and cheese.  It just sends them into a panic.  But then it's become more apparent that my attitude just sucks mostly and who wants to deal with that anyway?  I mean people have their own lives to deal with they don't need my meaningless drama oozing out of my pie-hole.  


I must exercise.  I just have to do it.  I know that my radical attitude adjustment and outlook on life will be much more positive as I beat the pavement with my Izumis.  The thought of listening to the side to side rhythms of my shoes hitting the ground makes me a bit giddy.  But then my day sets in and it doesn't happen and I throw myself on the bed like a 2 year old diva with the backside of my hand against my brow writhing in moans about how I have once again skipped my exercising.  I know.  I know without a doubt that exercising everyday or even every other day makes my overall demeanor pleasant.  


So, yesterday I downloaded the C25K app for my phone which actually syncs to my podrunner music as I go.  Whew, it was hard work downloading that app.  I think I burned .5 calories then probably ate something horrendous to offset what I just burned.  


Today, I set my alarm for 6.  I was going to get up.  I swear.  But my alarm went off and I massaged the snooze button til 7:05 which gave me 15 minutes to get ready for babies to darken my door.  I cannot do it during the day.  Not going to happen.  Why?  Well, here's the deal.  I am not bragging about this I promise you, but there isn't anyone I can call that can watch a set of one year old twins and an 18 month old and not look as though they've just been through a wind tunnel when I return.  It takes 2 or more people to make sure said toddlers don't try to take over the world while I'm gone.  The only other person that I know can do it already has a set of twins and two other kids of her own and when she's around I cannot stop staring at her amazingness!  Anyway, it's hard for me to coordinate a team of folks to come to my house just so I can get my lazy butt off the couch.  I really need to stop giving my phone alarm so much love in the morning.


It will happen, most likely tomorrow, but not promising that either.  Aren't you glad you're reading this very anti-motivational blog post about inadequacies and boredom?  See what your life has come to?  Reading my posts to make yourself feel better about your accomplishments!  I assure you, I will prevail!  It will happen and I will feel better about life.  Then, and only then will my social calendar possibly start looking up for those who actually want to put up with my presence.  LOL!!


So, here is the verse I am studying on today.  Interesting to think that the more I stay in this bad attitude place the more my life is that of a miscarriage or a stillbirth.  I must stop this nonsense.

Romans 7:4-6

The Message (MSG)

 So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

Forget about it.

I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan. I'm a vegan.  I say these words to myself everyday.  I have lived this way now for almost 2 years.  I find myself repeating these same words to others very often and then having to define what it means over and over.  I get that.  I am not complaining.  I am not trying to force anyone to do the same.  I am just trying to survive here people.  Everyday I wake up to the same freaking voice in my head that talks me out of exercising and talks me out of my early morning devotionals and talks me out of NOT eating those peanut butter m&m's that are from the devil's kitchen!!!!  They are not vegan, by the way.  I hate that little voice.  It is taking over my life and my body once again.  I had divorced that voice 2 years ago and said I would never ask it out again.  But here I am.  Failing miserably at being healthy.  But how, you ask, can a vegan be unhealthy.  Well, let's just say sugar and flour are vegan and I can bake and make some awesome crap to eat that has no animal parts and pieces and sit my #$$ on the couch all day and not burn it off.  I do this day in and day out.  I.  Am.  Tired.  Of.  Failing.  I am tired of turning right back into the same me I said I would never be again.  Why do I do this?  Why do I fall back into this sea of pitch black sludge and find myself perfectly comfortable there for a long period of time?  I don't even realize when I have stopped breathing and that the sludge is slowly filling my positive attitude until it chokes to death. I've tried being one with the man upstairs.  It does help.  But I find myself failing miserably at wanting to spend time with Him everyday.  I heard someone quote that if you read the bible out of obligation then it was for the wrong reasons.  I want to learn more and be deep within His presence on a daily basis, but that's it.  A desire.  Nothing more.  I can't seem to jump start that engine and get my spiritual good mood back in its place.  I am human.  I tend to suck at follow through on anything.  Except this vegan thing.  I am and have been meat free for two years and animal protein free for two years unless someone sneaks in a bit of cheese in my order.  But I have gained back a portion, and only a small portion of my weight.  But enough for me to chalk it up to one more thing I suck at.  Yes, I realize I just ended my sentence with a preposition.  I apparently forgot everything I learned in school.  Hmmm.... there is a pattern here.  So, my pity party is over, well its over in front of you.  I had no party favors to hand out with this one.  Maybe next time.  There will be a next time I'm sure. Ugh.
Pray for me.  Please.  I don't know how to kick myself in the butt anymore.

Prayer

Dear Lord,
Help me to find the time to read your word, pray with you, spend time with you alone, love, live, laugh, blog, run, smile, etc.
AMEN!!
love,
me

Who are you on the inside?

My life is in a constant state of movement.  Which is the way I roll, til recently.  I have just wanted to do nothing but sit on my rear and watch things go by.  I don't want to leave the confines of my home, yet I don't want to be here and I definitely don't want to do anything, i.e. housework.  Part of my day is busy with baby squeezins on the cutest little 6 month old that isn't from my gene pool.  She's a cutey patootie!  Then when she's sleeping, like now, I just want to check out.  Don't want to think about all that is going on around me, even those things that need my attention, like my housework, my online class, my follow ups on different things, etc.  All of which are important, but for some reason I just don't care much about any of it.  I want to be laying on the beach today.  Yesterday it was the mountain cabin in Colorado which is nice, but the beach is closer and most likely more attainable to actually do.  But yet again an unrequited dream for today.


Then the butterflies in my stomach start to flutter incessantly and I want to find something to change my focus before I curl up in the corner and start to cry.  A few tears will fall and my stomach ends up in my throat and I can't deal with that right now, so I try to stuff it all back down and just swallow really hard.  And, there, back to normal, or whatever normal is for now.  But then the nausea sets in and I wish I were crying again, but not really.


My children are wonderful.  For two of them, they are not my life's work anymore and I'm not sure how to appropriately train my brain and my heart to realize that letting go and letting God is exactly what I need to get used to doing for them now.  My role has changed from a teacher to a nurturing mentor.  Which basically means knowing when to keep your mouth shut.

The above Italicized piece of my post was written months ago, but is exactly what I am still feeling today.  It's ludicrous, my attitude.  I have no reason what-so-ever to be so negative and in such a bad mood all of the time.  Want to know why?  Community.  My life of people around me.  Those whom God has placed in my midst at the perfect time for me to glean from, listen to, be encouraged by.  But what do I do?  I continue to stay in my poor pitiful me mood and believe the lies that are whispering in my ear and trying to force them to be my reality when I know its totally untrue.

I have:

-A husband who tells me all the time, "I love you."  "You're beautiful."  And who constantly wants to be with me.

-A friend who reminds me every time a see her when I ask how she's doing, "I am choosing to be good" that it is my choice to decide what kind of crappy attitude I am going to have or if I am going to choose to be different today.

-Friends and family who constantly make me feel comfortable having them over, when my house is a complete mess, they just turn their eyes and enjoy the fellowship of each other.

-Friends who are always complimenting my cooking.

-Besties that I can text my crappy attitude woes and they offer me Starbucks!!!

-Brothers and a sister who always say they love me.

-A mother who always wants to hang out with me and help me with my housework and I make her sit and talk, instead (why do I do that?)

-A dad who would literally drop EVERYTHING for me if I asked him to do so.

-A job that allows me to smile at a baby everyday and she smiles at me regardless of my crankiness.  

-A set of friends who bring their baby to me everyday because they trust me to care for her and love her like they do and they constantly tell me they appreciate me.

-Children who love me, laugh with me, put up with me, call me and call me mom, momma, mother.

-A God who loves me enough to orchestrate all of the above just for me, each and every day of my life.

I am ungrateful and so unworthy of all my blessings through the people in my life.  But God is aware of that too and He sends them anyway.  I pray that I will continue to add to this list daily and come to appreciate and reciprocate what God has done for me by doing for others.  I am blessed to be within the warmth of the blanket God has woven for me.  The blanket weaved from those souls, believers and unbelievers, that God believes to be useful in my life if I would just stop listening to my own selfish lies and start hearing the music around me in these people.  I intend to turn up the volume today and lend an ear to the truth.

 “‘I saw the Lord always before me. 

   Because he is at my right hand, 

   I will not be shaken. 

²⁶ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; 

   my body also will live in hope, 

²⁷ because you will not abandon me to the grave, 

   nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 

²⁸ You have made known to me the paths of life; 

   you will fill me with joy in your presence.

-Acts 2:25-28

Escaping and panic attacks

If it were up to me, today, right this minute, my reality would consist of sitting in a cabin, a small one, in the woods of Colorado watching the Aspen trees ready themselves for autumn.  Yep, when I close my eyes to have my Calgon moment it is that scene playing in my head.  So what's wrong with that?  Nothing really, except that it just seems cruel to be there every time my eyes close.  Those stupid desires and dreams we have in our lives taunting us.  Why does God let me have these desires knowing we cannot fulfill them.  I want to sit on the front porch with the chill of the air lingering til mid-morning.  Stay curled up in a Woolrich blanket and sip my fourth cup of coffee.  Homeschool my children using every book from The Lamplighter reading into the night by candlelight and the warmth of the woodstove roaring in the corner.  Sounds pretty dang awesome, right?  Ok, some of you might not think so, but it sounds like nothing short of heaven for me and I'm pretty sure that my husband would be right there with me on this one.  But, really, back to the original question, "what's wrong with that?"  Nothing really.  Most people live their lives the way that they want to without thought or regard to much else.  I'm for the "what about me" attitude right now, cause I'm in that mood so brace yo-self.  Here's my 12 month plan.  Yea, life's too short for the 3 year version.

Plan:

Save money

Buy property for cheap in Colorado

Build log cabin, open floor plan, minimalistic furnishings

Move into above cabin

Plant garden

Watch children and garden and marriage grow into something amazing

Can every fruit and vegetable under the sun

Hunkerdown for winter

Light fire in woodstove

Buy more Woolrich accessories

Crochet entire wardrobe

Start learning how to use a loom

Shovel snow off of roof

Get ready for spring

Start over again for the next 12 month plan

A great list, of course a little too much about tactics and less about concepts......  I struggle so hard with wondering why I can't have this life.  No, really, it's quite sad.  Will I be on my death bed with regrets in this area?  IDK.  Here's why.  I believe in a God, a wonderful, omnipotent one.  One that has laid out for me a plan for my life to follow His will in my life.  While God is definitely everywhere I go, like the mountains of Colorado, my heart just feels suffocated sometimes by the life I lead.  One of doing the "right" thing, living my life honoring God and walking the road he wants me to travel.  I know that He will provide for my families' every need, I know that, He has proven it time and time again.  There are times that my hubby and I discuss how amazing it would be to be missionaries, anywhere.  Or to travel from disaster relief to disaster relief and sharing the hope of Christ to those in need.  But then through fear or laziness or lack of knowledge I cower in the corner of my mind and click my heels together wanting to just be in the solace of that cabin.  That stupid, adorable, rustic, amazing cabin.  I want to pray, but don't want to hear.  Or maybe I will get the answer I desire.  Or maybe my desire will morph to meet the will of the Almighty and when I open my eyes there before me will lie my desire.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

-Galatians 2:20