The Choice Belongs to YOU!

Writing today with the Tuesday at Ten group on the prompt word... CHOICE

Are there any other parents out there who feel like they said this a thousand times to their children... "LIFE IS NOT FAIR!" When one child complained that it wasn't fair that the other got to attend a special concert that they couldn't... we tried to explain that things in life can't seem "EVEN" and often don't seem "FAIR". When one child got on a team or into a group that the other didn't... we had to try to help them see that sometimes things happen in a way that we totally do not expect.  We told both, "We must take what happens in our life and make the best of our life."  We don't always get

PAIRINGS: A Mother's Secret Hope

Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother's secret hope outlives them all. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

When I see a quote that strikes a chord with me, I jot it down and save it somewhere. I've had that habit for years.. many years! Being the blessed generation that we are, keeping those quotes has gotten much easier as we've embraced what's offered to us through technology. True confessions...

A Mother's Heart

I've written this before... and I say it again today... if we truly LOVE those we claim we LOVE, we must let them own and share their own stories... on their own time and in their own way. It's especially hard when the other person's story, their choices, their actions so greatly affected our lives.

But, I continue to believe that a person's story is their own to share when they feel ready. I still have secrets from the past that I've not written about... some I've not even spoken of. It's sobering to realize that every one - even those resting high up on pedestals towering above us - have parts of their past that they choose to leave in the past.

Heart Strings, Hormones & Honesty

I've said this SO many times to friends... There's just NOT enough hours in the day to do all the great things we want to do.

I love to WRITE. My head and heart seem to be constantly "writing" posts to share with the world. I seldom see a thing or hear a song or ... that I my mind and heart don't want to write about it. As I'm walking, I write in my mind. As I quietly lie awake beside a peacefully sleeping LOML, I write in my mind. When I'm traveling in a car... when I'm waiting for a doctor's appointment... when I'm washing dishes... when I'm pulling weeds... when I'm taking a shower... when I'm watching a play or listening to a concert... I WRITE IN MY MIND!

A Living Legacy

A great-grandmother holds a baby.
And, the memory of her -
her works & deeds
will live on...

My mind is full as I write this in the wee hours of the night. I can't sleep. And, I'm perfectly fine with that. My heart is full & overflowing. Certain things happen in life and, they just feel right... and you're filled with joy. 

Last week a young woman gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby. She desired a life for her child that she could not provide - security, provision and love. She made the decision to relinquish her child to the care of parents who would give her baby what she could not. By what I believe is & was God's provision, that infant was placed into the loving home of some of our dearest friends. The world has become a better place as this family has grown & welcomed this child. And, lives will never be the same - but be greatly enriched - for anyone touched by this story.

Making Daily Deposits

As a young woman, I was convinced that I should not have children - as I would NOT make a good mother. I was insecure, not that smart (merely an overachiever), and ill-equipped to shepherd a young life through this crazy world. I was convinced that the world was getting worse & worse as the years went by. "Who would want to bring a child into this world?" was what I thought. And then I fell in love with a man who had different ideas about being a parent...

Am I being prejudiced by saying that men seem to be a little more confident about their endeavors & their capabilities? Well, my man was confident that we would make great parents. So, with his loving encouragement & support... we headed down the road of becoming "Mommy" and "Daddy".

We didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a big house. We started out by living in an apartment owned by an aunt & uncle that was available for several months. Then we rented a small 2-bedroom apartment. With the help of the LOML's parents, we were able to buy a small house with 2-bedrooms after the birth of our first child. The house also had a fully furnished 3-bedroom basement apartment ready to rent out to local college students. Even with that extra rental income, we barely brought in enough to make ends meet. But, we were rich in "LOVE"... for each other & for our children.

I was determined to create memories with our two children regardless of the amount of available financial resources. We started with the simple things... 

• vacations & holidays staying with family members in their homes
• homemade costumes for Halloween
• birthday celebrations at home with family & friends 
• picnics on a blanket on the floor in front of a kids movie
• hand-me-down clothes or clothes from a local GoodWill Store
• rides in the car to check out the farmers harvesting in the fields surrounding our town or to see holiday lights
• walks in the neighborhood or through the local state park year-round
• wrapping up items we needed for our gifts at Christmas & birthdays

We didn't have money to do things as I'd once hoped I would as a parent. We gave what we had... our time & our love. We did the best we could to give our children some fun, loving memories to remember as they grew up. Most of the time, our gifts to them were the simplest of things. We pray that our deposits into the lives of our children will help them as they walk forward into their adult lives.

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children." ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Linked with the Nesting Place community through the write31days challenge, October 2014 - post No 14.

Buried Alive + Grocery Lists + Blogging

At the moment, I feel stuck. And, it's not a horrible "stuck" though. I'm trapped under a napping baby girl who seems to be in a pattern of detecting when her DeeDee (my g'mommy name) moves her to her bed for nap time. I'm entering this post with one hand on my smart phone :)

I have a million little things that need to be done -- most of which I cannot do while buried here. And, many of those tasks are nearly impossible to accomplish in her waking hours!

I'm a lefty and "working" on my phone with that hand. I've made a grocery list & am writing now. Even though my left hand is free, it's falling asleep from the lack of blood flow. And, come to think of it, my shirt collar feels very warm and perhaps a little wet. Could someone be drooling on me? I'm getting a little drowsy myself. Here's comes the question I battle almost every time I'm stuck in this way... "To sleep or not to sleep?"

It's not easy to accomplish things with a little one knocked out on your chest or following behind you on your heels... or digging in the kitchen trash when you look away for 30 seconds. Note to self: Don't loose sight of the toddler for a moment in their waking hours. 

All of a sudden an image pops in my head of her "FINGER PAINTING" the wall & window with some unknown substance the other day when she appeared to be playing with dolls, books and puzzles in her Pack N Play. 

I guess being buried alive under a drooling toddler at this moment isn't bad at all :)

Linked with the Nesting Place community through the write31days challenge, October 2014 - post No 12.

The Clutter of Life

If you could see this full picture,
you would see that she's
covered with black beans
from below her chin to
the top of her fuzzy little head!

The house is partially decorated for fall with the summer things sitting alongside until they get put away. The floors are littered with cardboard books, dolls & stuffed animals. A Pack N Play sits in the great room & serves as a huge toy box. It can no longer HOLD our little climber! The kitchen sink is full - as is the counter beside it. The laundry room has 2 loads of clean clothes waiting on the top of the dryer to be folded. The dryer holds one more load which will come out when there's a place for it. There are NO LESS THAN 150 oil & acrylic paintings leaning against walls in practically EVERY room of the house. (That's another story there!) And, let's not even talk about the Christmas tree topper

HOPE, Leading Horses To Water 10-25-13

Just a thought that's been rumbling through my mind, especially in the past years...

You've heard the saying, "You can lead a horse to water. But, you can't make it drink." 

Well, that saying preoccupied my thoughts often in the past few years -- as we faced some of the normal challenges of parenthood (and a few of the not-so-normal challenges). Let's just say that I'm putting my children in the place of the "horses." We tried to lead to water -- in our case, water would be the Living Water - the Lord. Recent bumps in the road of life caused me to question...

• Did we help them obtain the skills and values to prepare them for adulthood?
• Did we model the values & beliefs we talk about - through actions - in public and at home? 
• Did they see those same values & beliefs echoed in the activities we choose for leisure, celebration, etc.? 
• Did they see similar values & beliefs in the friends with whom we chose to spend our time?

I went through a long time of asking myself many questions. I guess the bottom line was that I felt I needed to know I was the best parent I could be. After reflection, prayer and a lot of soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that we had done our best to bring up our children to understand what & why we had chosen our beliefs & values. Bottom line, I think we did pretty well at communicating those beliefs & values.

Now, it's their turn. I would like to think that they saw what we did, saw that it was good and will choose to live with the same beliefs & values. However, God gave us free will in our choices. We have set our hope on God & His Word for guidance as we journey along life. We can only choose for ourselves. And, we did choose - although not as quickly as our parents would have hoped. 

Even if you can't make the horse drink the water... I firmly believe that you should lead them to it.

My hope is in the Lord for my today & my tomorrow... for my children's today & tomorrow.

So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands. Psalm 78:7

Linking October 2013 with The Nesting Place

 for the 31-day Challenge 

HOPE, Childhood Hopes 10-05-13

My childhood was -- let's just say -- complicated. Without going into details, I grew up KNOWING that I should never be a mom. I remembering not wanting to play "family" because I was afraid to be the mommy. I went into my teens knowing that I should not be a mom. I went into my twenties knowing it. There was no doubt in my mind that I should not have children. I did NOT have what I needed to be a good mom!

Only in my mid-twenties, when I held a friend's newborn baby (just hours old), did I wonder... is there any hope that I could do this? It was the first time I'd even considered it seriously. I began praying & asking God... could I??

When the talk of marriage began between me & my best friend, who became the LOML, that time of praying & seeking became more intense. He was definitely interested in having a family. Why couldn't he just take me as I was... a hard-working business woman without kids. But, he not only wanted me just as I was but, for what he felt I could be... a good mommy :)

I cup her tiny head within the palm of
my hand & think of how God holds
me safe & secure every day!

I will never regret that I became the mom of my two children. It's been one of the biggest blessings of my life. And, I did have all that I needed to be a good mom... because I was totally dependent upon the Lord. Step by step & day by day, I sought God to help me. And, God delivered.

Holding a sleeping newborn brought me a joy like I'd never known. All those years ago, I'd been scared to play "mommy" for fear that I would be a bad mom. Time & God changed those fears to the freedom to trust God in each & every moment.

That realization so many years ago gave me the hope & courage to trust God in other times when I was feeling inadequate or ill-equipped.

His promises... 

That's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10

Linking this month with The Nesting Place

 for the 31-day Challenge

My Sincere Apology to All My Blog Followers

MY SINCERE APOLOGY TO ALL OF MY BLOG FOLLOWERS...

I, stuckinindiana, do hereby sincerely apologize to all my followers -- all 14 of them, wait... that would be 13 - 'cause I follow myself from another email address :)

The reason for the apology:

On my morning walkabout today, I had a million blog-inspiring thoughts. Well, maybe not a million but, possibly more than I can remember now that I'm home.  At some point those posts will possibly clog your email Inboxes.  My mind just would NOT stop with all the 140-200 character thoughts that came - and each with a story attached in my mind, to be written down later.

Some of those thoughts from my early morning walkabout:

• a soccer "parent support" shirt with the words "Ayla's Mom" scrolled across the back in big, bold letters... someday
• the time I was flashed when I was a student at Anderson University
• what a "DeeDee" would say to a flasher today
• "Love might not always condone. But, Love never condemns!" #LoveDoes
• I'm telling you, if any of my Anderson area friends are holding out on their access to a bucket truck, they are going to feel really badly when the LOML and/or I get impaled by that big pointy dead branch precariously hanging over our driveway 
• I only have room in my life for ONE OF THOSE & mine's at home now
• castanets at my funeral
• some of the hilarious effects of exercising way too infrequently
• fleeing the county on foot
• just because someone's hard to love doesn't mean you shouldn't love them! 
• God waiting on a bench for me to stop & talk
• if my husband dies, I will need to find a man who will help take care of me & not want any fringe benefits
• Dear God, I sincerely hope we are about DONE with the lesson we needed by having TWO houses (complete with 2 mortgages, 2 property taxes, 2 homeowner insurance policies, 2 sets of utility bills, 2 properties to maintain, etc.) 'cause I am SO READY for someone to buy that other house
• before I die, I need to find someone who is 100%, head over heels, crazy IN LOVE WITH THE LORD to write lyrics that bring honor & praise to God for Elton's John's tune "Funeral for a Friend" ... I will have Tyler arrange the song for my memorial service... I would like Brenton Pollock to play the castanets :)
• I've lived most of my life with one foot in the grave... knowing that death brings eternal life for those who love the Lord; there've been times when my focus was on escaping life through death; but, the real focus should always be about how only through death can we share in eternal life

And seriously, there were a lot more that will hopefully come back to me throughout the day.  I'll add them later :)

So for now, this little note will have to do. Beware, there are a lot more to come... someday soon... maybe... hopefully :)

Sometimes life gets in the way of LIFE :)

May your day be filled with wonderful reminders of how much God loves you... right where you are, just how you are... today & everyday.

Crazy Mom Love! - 31 DAYS OF CRAZY - 02 October 2012

One of my pet peeves has always been those parents who can't stop talking about their wonderful, talented, gorgeous, smart, out-standing children. I guess it started during my college days when I was working with our local church's youth group.  It seemed like some people could NOT see beyond their crazy love for their kids to what they kids were actually doing -- getting away with, more accurately stated. It continued as I began substitute teaching in the local school system.

I've TRIED NOT to be THAT parent...

• My child will be a famous artist... a famous musician/composer.
• My child could have gone on to play professional soccer.
• My child should have been placed in the TOP group - not the second one!
• I'm pretty sure my child is a genius.
• My child misbehaved in class because that teacher doesn't know how to "challenge" gifted students.

It's no secret, I love my two children & am very, very proud of their accomplishments.  But, I really don't want to be Miss Braggart Mom!

Today, however, the MOM LOVE kicked in like CRAZY when an inspirational website chose my picture to share on their website...

Watching my daughter paint
as she uses her God-given talent :)
Serenity & thanksgiving!!

The blessing of being a mom, truly opened my eyes to the meaning of laying down one's live for another.  The other day, I told that very daughter I'd catch a grenade for her (lyrics of the Bruno Mars song) if I thought her life would be saved :)  She just laughed!

Seriously... CRAZY MOM LOVE!

Go check out over 1200 topics
in the 31 days {of change} with...

Another's Treasure

5:47am seems like a good time to begin a blog post after having spent 20 minutes out in the cold rain BEHIND the porch swing on the patio rescuing plants... not my own plants... but someone else's plants... someone who's not around to help. 

What's that scripture?  "Greater love has no MOM than to climb behind a porch swing in the 40 degree rain to rescue potted plants of a loved one nowhere to be found..." 

I admit, I really love plants.  However, I'm not a fan of giving them extra-special care.  I don't DO "high maintenance potted plants."  I do the kind that can either survive outside pretty much on their own or the kind that you can water once or twice a week & throw some extra fertilizer in twice a year. I love fresh garden vegetables but, I loathe gardening. When God provided me with 3 "volunteer" tomato plants (coming up on their own each summer) at our country home, I was thrilled.  That's about the extent of my "gardening". 

I tried to ignore the little voice inside me that in the darkness of the early morning said: "That cold soft rain is going to wash those new plants right out of their new homes."  I tried to forget the words of the one who planted them: "Those pieces of pottery don't have holes in the bottom. So we'll have to spray them with water - not pour water in them."  But alas, at 5:15am my heart couldn't stop hearing the words of the one I love.  And, at 5:16am, I donned a pair of sweats & a rain jacket to climb behind the porch swing in the far corner of the patio and crouch down to rescue another's treasure...

What kind of sacrifice was it really... in light of the words spoken by Jesus in John 15:12 (NKJV)  - those were words of TRUE love... "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." That is REAL love - much more than just getting wet in a cool rain & to return to the comfort of a a warm home and write about the harrowing experience.

He told us how to love... "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." 

And, He let us know what we would experience when we unselfishly gave love... "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."   

I'm cold, I'm wet... but, I am full of joy.  

Mean Parent Award?

As I've said TONS of times, parenting is NOT for the faint of heart!  Sometimes we have to make choices, set boundaries, say "NO", and other things that are not at all well-received by our children. 

How many times have you heard this... 

• the King James Version of Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 
• the New Living Translation of Proverbs 22:6, "Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it." 

I must honestly admit that my prayer has often been, “Dear God, Please let my children GET old.” Today I claim that verse & vow to continue to make the right choices for them - even when those choices are difficult to make & not well-received!

(written 10/08/11)

Parenting is NOT for the Faint of Heart!

In our adult Sunday School class a few years back, one of the couples (parents of 3 children) were beginning the summer after their oldest child's first year in college. She was coming in late, being noisy, not reporting where she was, requesting QUIET in the morning hours, and more! I remember my husband & I "giving them advice". While doing that, I was silently wondering what will we actually "do" if we faced that!!

I guess we learned that when our oldest came home after freshman year of college. When we began experiencing the same things our friends had told us about all those years ago, the LOML and I recounted the "advice" we'd given to our friends. We'd said something like this...