New adventure, take one!

Hey friends! If you haven't yet heard, I have begun a new writing adventure over at Good Morning Girls! Click here to read my beautiful friend Angela's story of how God brought our families together so many years ago, and how He is still orchestrating all of the details today. Very humbled at what God has done, and excited about what He is going to do!

Today I'm contributing at GMG, introducing Week 3 of our Ephesians study! Head on over to see what date nights and the gospel just might have in common. Hmm.... :)

Getting to know you...

The Internet is a crazy thing. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I need to manage it better. Sometimes it overwhelms me (even in good ways!) with it's information and possibilities. A lot of days I'm mostly in awe of all that we have access to technologically as human beings, considering that when I was in college no one had cell phones and I borrowed my roommate's word processor to type my lab reports.

True story. Hey, I'm really not that old, so watch yourselves.

My freshman roommate and I also had an "I love cats." poster stuck up with poster putty on our cement dorm room wall. And one time our funny next-door-dorm neighbor used her hand-held audio recorder (that she bought to record lectures) to record me belting out depressing Whitney Houston love songs after my most recent break-up. Some things clearly just need to be forgotten.

Technology certainly has come a long way, baby. Three and a half years ago, Tyler heard about something called a blog, and he thought that we should start one. You know, to post pictures of our kids for their out-of-town grandparents. We had a six week old. I thought he was crazy. He promised he'd post while I nursed my life away. Who reads this stuff anyway?

Well, I started to write, and I found that when I super-failed as a scrapbooker for the fourth time, our blog helped record some of the things that I should've written in the baby books that I'll never finish. I could write out a story of a hard parenting day, and find the good in it in the end. I started noticing my failures and flaws, and how God was growing and refining me as His child through the challenging days of mothering small children.

And I found out that I wasn't crazy. Or alone. And that blog writing is way cheaper than therapy. Just kidding. Sort of...

Sometimes I would write often, and other times weeks would go by without a free blog moment to spare, it seemed. Every once in a while I would go back and read an old post, and get tears in my eyes from noticing how fast time has gone with these little ones, or how much God has done, or how often I need reminding of the same lesson over and over. God and grace were always the resounding themes.

So between Pinterest (great invention by the way, but I refuse, for now, to start one more bad habit. Someone keep reminding me of this, please...) and Good Morning Girls, I've welcomed a few new friends here over the last few weeks. Welcome! You will not get fancy or even consistent writing here. And I'm pretty sure I start way too many sentences with an article (I will break many more grammatical rules, to be sure, so brace yourselves...).

But I pray that miraculously, somehow, you will get done reading here and think much of God, and much less of me.

Ah, I like how that sounds.

One great thing about technology? The ability to get to know someone a little bit more without having to fit in a Starbucks date or a phone conversation. Not that I would ever suggest that technology replace real life relationships. Goodness, no. But sometimes we moms have to be practical in our unavailability. So three cheers for technology just in case your kids are sick, or it's nap time, or they're awake and hyper, or because you have kid events every night this week, or your best friend just moved out of town (...or you fill in the blank...).

If you're new here, today I'm sharing some of my favorite posts of all time. They aren't life-shattering or deep in content, but they're us. Here's to hoping you'll be able to relate a little to the mishaps and chaos, and walk away encouraged, like me, that God is way bigger than us, and all of life's craziness that comes our way...

1. Loving God and Loving People

2. The Christmas Tree Hunt Strikes Again

3. Haiti

4. The Home Depot Trip that got a makeover... (P.S. Tyler's inventive, slightly psychotic LEGO storage solution that somehow landed us on Pinterest. Too hilarious!)

5. I thought I already learned this once...

6. The End of an Era

7. Two Are Better

Now it's your turn! If you haven't yet, would you leave a comment introducing yourself? So glad you're here!

"I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better." Ephesians 1:16-17

"Do you know how much I love you?"

We are spending our days lately laughing at a certain chatty little three year old. I am confident that God makes three year olds extremely hilarious for at least fifty percent of time so that we moms survive this crazy stage of staunch independence.

And oh, do I have an independent one.

She's not the first three year old in the history of the world to behave this way. But she sure does give this momma a run for her money. The determined, passionate characteristics she possesses will one day serve her quite well, I'm just sure of it. Until then, she has several opportunities a day to learn how to channel all of those passions into something productive for society.

And we do a lot of praying. :)

But oh, those moments of hilarity. This girl is funny. She reminds me a lot of her Aunt Stephanie. My sister... the funny one... who performed magic shows when she was just a little older than Tess, with her shy older sister (me!) as her assistant. Haha. Being funny did not come as naturally to me as it did to Steph. So I would hand her the magic wand while she stole the show with her one liners and crater-like dimples.

Adorable.

Some of Tess's funniest moments come through listening to her chat the day away. As her vocabulary expands to more complex words, she gets a kick out of hearing herself talk. Nonstop. What a storyteller! My favorite phrases lately have to do with her misuse of the word "soaking". She has heard us say over and over things like, "Your hair is soaking wet." Because "soaking" translates in her mind to mean "very" or "really", we hear her use the word like this:

"I am soaking hungry, Mom...", or

"He is soaking bothering me."

Obviously said with much girl drama.

She also walks around and makes you stop whatever you're doing so she can crawl up onto you, grab your cheeks with both of her chubby hands and say, "Do you know how much I love you?"

Talk about stopping a busy momma in her tracks.

She knows this phrase well, because she gets disciplined a lot. And after she's cried and tries to feel remorse and has served her consequence, I bend down, put my hands on her sweet chipmunk cheeks and say,

"Do you know how much I love you?"

And she shakes her head "yes" through her tears.

As I was reading in Ephesians this morning, I could almost hear God saying those same words to me. To say that I was stopped in my tracks would be pretty accurate. This book of the Bible starts out with powerful phrases like:

He has "blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ..."

"...He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world..."

"He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ..."

What powerful words. The Creator of the universe blesses me with every spiritual blessing. He chose me, even in my independence much worse than that of a three year old. He has adopted me as His child, through no good merit of my own. He loves me in spite of myself.

What overwhelming thoughts that make me fall on my knees in gratitude.

Are you struggling with feeling worth today? Stop for a moment and let the words of Ephesians soak deep into your heart, and hear God say to you,

"Do you know how much I love you?"

A little help here (and introducing Good Morning Girls!)...

I'm a groupie, I'll admit it.

Dictionary definition of Groupie - "An enthusiastic follower of some group or activity."

And time has proven that if I have trouble with the enthusiastic bit when it comes to a certain activity, then being a follower in a group will get me way more motivated than if I tackled the activity on my own. Anybody with me?

Take exercising, for example. I have a sad, sad track record with that evil word. Ha. It took my first pregnancy (and that crazy 60 pound weight gain!) to get me just a tiny bit motivated to do something to keep my body in shape, and still I never seemed to be able to fit it into my schedule (remember the days before kids when we thought we were really, really busy?! Haha.). I tried, but failed at any consistency in my workouts. It wasn't until two girlfriends and I schemed to meet at the crack of dawn several mornings a week to chat - uh, I mean walk - for an hour before work that I actually followed through with anything. If I wasn't at the end of my driveway by 5:30am, someone was going to knock on my door. You'd better believe that I would have snoozed my alarm and rolled back over a hundred times if I didn't have that accountability on my doorstep. That year, I may not have gotten in the best shape of my life, but I learned the very important skill of not getting completely out of breath while walking and talking simultaneously, both at a non-stop pace. :)

And I also learned the art of self discipline.

Bible reading is the same for me. I need accountability. I need consistency to make a difference in my spiritual walk. I need someone "showing up" to make sure that I'm going to show up too. I wish it wasn't true. I wish it could all come from me. But the reality is I need others to spur me on.

God knew that would be the case:

"Let us not give up meeting together..."

"Let us encourage one another...."

"Let us consider how we may spur one another on ...."

"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up..."

"But exhort one another every day..."

After crying out to God to give me a renewed passion for and renewed commitment to His Word, it's time to take action. I can make all of the goals that I want, and definitely need to pray for God to help me (please do!!), but if I don't actually do it, I never did my part to show up on the driveway, you know?

My action starts here, at one of my favorite blogs ever:

Starting January 16, I am going to be accountable to a small group of women who share the same passion as me to daily be in the Word. We're studying Ephesians together, and a schedule is already all laid out for us, thanks to my friend Angela at Good Morning Girls (GMG).

According to their blog...

“Good Morning Girls” are groups of Christian women who email, facebook, twitter or text message to keep each other accountable for their quiet times."

Accountability? Yes, please.

It's tech accountability, so I don't have to fit one more "outing" into my schedule. I simply read the short Bible text assigned for the day (seriously, just a handful of verses - totally attainable!), spend time with God by journaling some thoughts with the plan provided, and send a quick message to my GMG girls about the passage of the day.

A group of women to encourage you, pray for you, and keep you on track in your commitment.

I love it.

There's still time to form a group and sign up. Grab one, two, or five friends, and start 2012 in God's Word daily...

... with a little help from your friends.

For study details, hop on over to Good Morning Girls here.