:: Sisters' Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind! ::

Sue's blogchalk:
United States, Tennessee, Humboldt, English, Susan, Female, 36-40, Christianity, Bible Study, church, music, trumpet, CD's.

Katie's blogchalk:
United States, Tennessee, Humboldt, English, Katie, Female, 30-35, Christianity, Bible Study, church, mom with two kids, full-time student.

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:: Saturday, January 18, 2003 ::

Signs

The framily watched Signs today. *yawn* I wasn't impressed. I was bored. Nothing new here. I've heard people say it makes you think about what you believe in. I'm not thinking about what I believe in. I know what I believe. I am thinking about everything else I could have been doing during the time I was watching Signs.

:: Susan 1/18/2003 02:12:03 PM ** ** [+] ::
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The "Pig"

One day I was eating breakfast. I had the family guinea pig nibbling on some parsley next to me, on the table. Before I new it the pig had his head in my bowl and stole my corn pops! The pig!


:: Susan 1/18/2003 10:21:45 AM ** ** [+] ::
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Not the momma!

I am not the momma! I do not claim to be the momma! It's nights like these that I wish the momma were home! Katie is off at praise team rehearsal while I am hear trying to be a good "not the momma". Poor Tif. She is in a new school and her school from last year was not the greatest. She is a very bright "A" student, but math is giving her some trouble as she is playing a bit of "catch-up" in learning division this year. The other kids got some instruction last year and she is having some trouble. She is home tonight with an assignment from a student teacher. I student taught once and I know that it's tough. This teacher of Tif's is coming across very "hardnosed and strict". She is determined that the kids are going to learn...which is great. However, I may be disagreeing with Tif's assignment. She had a timed test today. She has missed 3 days of school due to a toothache which will need to have a root canal. (It was a loooooooooooooong weekend!) Anyway, Tiffany missed 44 problems on the timed division test. (Many she simply didn't even get to.) The student teacher, I'm sure with good intentions, is requiring each student to rewrite the missed problems 10 times each. In theory that is great! In reality, when you miss 44 problems...it's not great at all! Like I said before, Tiffany is a bright kid and will learn this stuff but give the kid a break! She missed a few days (her only this year) because of a toothache that kept her up all night for 4-5 nights, she has church on Wednesday nights which limits time spent on homework and is in her room bawling as she attempts to get this hefty assignment done.

I am sitting out here surfing the Web and listening to her cry. I hear her say things like "I HATE student teachers!" and "I WILL NEVER GET 400 PROBLEMS DONE!" "I DON'T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL TOMORROW" (she may get her wish too...winter storm warning. 2-5 inches of snow possible. The city will close down if we get that!) I try to be encouraging. I try to tell her to just work on the next problem and not think about all of them at once. She will learn it as she does it so it is not in vain. I do think it is a great amount of work to expect from a 10 year old, but at the same time if it's assigned, I think she should do it. I'm so glad at the moment "I'm not the momma!" It's too hard to be the momma. This is why God made me a "not the momma"...oh Katie...where are you? Please come home!

I hate when kids are so miserable that they cry.

:: Susan 1/15/2003 08:56:40 PM ** ** [+] ::
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HTML

Made some improvements to this blog. None can really be seen. I compressed some of the banners and fixed some html problems. I still have more to do, but I have to learn more about what I'm doing first. So far, at least for me, the page comes up and looks decent. I want to cut the length of time it takes to come up, but, in the meantime I will just try to make it worth the wait! LOL

:: Susan 1/15/2003 05:16:16 PM ** ** [+] ::
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Bouncing Back

You know, I'm really thankful that I had the opportunity to undergo some persecution the other day. I undergo persecution a lot but this time was a bit different. The person I blogged about.....Clueless.......has really caused me to reflect on how I was much like him at one point in my life and what happened to cause that to change.

Today in church I spent some time in deep reflection. It's amazing how easy it is to forget who my first Love is when distracted by persecution and well.....life. During the awesome service, I went back to revisit the cross. I'm sad to say, it's been a while. We had communion also and that took up a good portion of the service. The music played and I understood the lyrics of some songs like never before. I'm not going into specific examples because that's not what this blog is about. What I will say though is that in the time of communion and worship, I found, in those words, and in the intimacy of the moment, where my focus should be. I realized that it hasn't been there.

After church I kept pondering things that happened and I kept thinking about Clueless. I remember a time in my life when I was clueless. It took tragedy for me to wake up. My life was in a mess to the point that I saw no hope of it ever getting better. I found myself not wanting to go on. I wanted to die and I would even think of ways to kill myself that would be the easiest. But, I had a baby to consider and I didn't think it was fair to mess up his life just because I wanted to escape. I praise God for my son. God used him to save my life that day. There were other days after that as well that my children were the only ones keeping me together. But, on that particular day, I remember praying.."God, If it wasn't for my son, I would take my life today. You have to help me. I can't go on like this. I can't do it!" I cried so long and so hard.

I'm going to take a step backward to say that prior to my son's birth, I was a pretty rebellious person. I had a filthy mouth and life was about parties! I remember hanging out with people who were doing cocaine, shooting up, smoking pot, drinking.....you name it. Personally, I was afraid to do anything stronger than alcohol, speed or marijuana. I guess that's a good thing. Anyhow, I was one of those people who mocked Christians. I said and did things that I would never admit to in public or anywhere else for that matter. I have a very shameful past. Anyhow, I thought I could make it without God. I thought I knew better.

My husband and I both agreed that the partying had to stop when children came into the picture. We wanted to be 'responsible' parents (hint: there's more than quitting the party scene that makes a parent responsible). So, although we stopped partying, there was still so much more to do in order to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, my husband and I had different theories on what a responsible person behaved like, which brings me up to where I left off earlier......

I cried so hard......so long. I never felt so alone and so hopeless in my life. I wanted things to change but I felt helpless. I had no clue what to do. I tried everything I knew.......apart from God. I cried out to God that day. I told Him that if He didn't do something, that I had no other choice but to handle it my way, the cowards way, the selfish way. I even thought about taking my son with me because I thought it would be better than leaving him behind with the mess of a life I had birthed him into. Boy am I glad God woke me up that day. The next morning was a Sunday and I decided to go to church again for the first time in many years.

That brief moment of crying out was when it changed. I didn't know it at the time. But slowly my life began to change from that moment on. I was still in a bad marriage for many years after that but I found my sanity in church and with church people. I found strength in my faith and I found my faith growing through every difficult time in my life. I truly believe that the reason for this is because from that moment on, I put my life in God's hands. Being human, I have had periods when I have tried to do things myself, when I have had doubts in the Truth presented in the Bible, when I have doubted God..........many times. I still do (as you can see by reading previous blogs). But, I know God is real and He is there and He hears and knows and meets my every need. Every time I got to the point that I didn't think I could handle life anymore, I prayed for Him to help me out of it and just because of that moment of prayer.......I found a source of strength to endure.

Each time I prayed, there was an answer. Each time I got an answer, my faith grew. Each time my faith grew, I became closer to God and realized how much I was messing my life up. I learned that the Truths I learned from studying the Bible and prayer were the true roadmaps to follow in life. It is a very difficult road to follow, but the life without it was much more difficult. I truly know with everything in me that I would not be blogging about this today if I hadn't given my life over to God's hands.

As I go back and read over the blog from a couple days ago, I have to laugh. To think that I still get distracted about the why's and what if's even now just blows my mind. Will I ever learn? So, God doesn't heal a toothache, or a headache, or even a disease when and how I want Him to. Big deal. The things He does do is where I need to keep my focus and these things are far greater and longer lasting. Man, I am such a human sometimes.

Wow! For two years I have been trying to come up with my testimony for our website and I haven't been able to think about how to present it! I have it! I know what to write now! It's all thanks to Clueless. I just hope that he gets a clue someday. I prayed for him today. I will continue to. I will never forget him. God used his persecution towards my friend and myself to give me yet another major turning point in my life. That makes him unforgetable. He may never change his attitude and he may never stop persecuting Christians. But that doesn't mean that God can't work through it. I hope that someday Clueless will see things from a different perspective and take a chance on God. And you know what? It really can be compared to the effects of pot smoking in some ways. I do get high on the Spirit but it's the Spirit of God and not marijuana. The effects are better, longer lasting, they save money, and have only good consequences. I've had both and from now on, I choose the latter. (The comment used by Clueless when he spoke on 'walking funny' is great! You definately do walk different when you stop going to church.....although it's not always so funny.)

I am walking straight because I am high on the Spirit of Christ!

"For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:3-7)

:: Katie 1/12/2003 02:25:58 PM ** ** [+] ::
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