Another Year Older… Another Year Wiser…

My birthday was shared with Jesus’ resurrection day this year.  Awesome!  Another year of my life has come to an end, but I certainly do feel wiser in the health department after my 45th year. I have figured out a few things (that’s the wiser part) that should contribute to living another 46 years (at least!)  Hey, I obeyed my parents and the Bible promises a long life for obedience.  :o)  That’s what I keep telling my kids anyway!  Six small meals a day really does keep the doctor away.  I know I switched that up a bit from the original prose, but it works for me. 

Allow me to share the joy in a photo essay…. then and now.  This coming Sunday I will have been eating six small meals per day for A YEAR!  A whole stinkin’ year!  I can’t hardly believe it either!  Here is my 45th birthday picture….. please refrain from snorting coffee through your nose when you behold my loveliness seventy-seven pounds ago. At least I was sporting a cool jacket and coordinating jewelry.

Here is this year’s birthday picture…. and “the difference?” you ask.  I ate the cake last year… I didn’t this year.  My mom made a darling peeps cake that was reported to be delicious.  I didn’t feel deprived.  It was a major victory in the weight-loss journey I’m traveling.  Next year, I’ll taste the cake, but for right now I didn’t need to.  My new mantra is “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”  So true.

So as my next year begins, my plans include finishing writing a book of our adoption journey, getting into a regular fitness routine and daily praying diligently and intentionally for each of my children.  Not that I haven’t prayed for them up until now, but I got the book The Power of a Praying Parent and realized that I needed to up the ante.  Fighting in the heavenlies is where the action is.  I’m all over it!  Feel free to join me!

A Crazy Lady

A close friend of mine has six kids.  I have thought many times about how crazy I would be if I had six kids.  Then I realized that one of hers is away at college…. so there are only five at home.  (See, my math skills from kindergarten are still functioning!)  Five kids still seems like a lot in my mind.  That’s a lot of mouths to feed.  She also homeschools… and that is a lot of kids to school.  Then it dawned on me that I have four kids.  That is only one less than five kids.  I’m so close to being crazy in my own mind… it’s a little scary. 

That was just one of my brilliant realizations as I was away from my four kids at a scrapbooking retreat this past weekend.  See how relaxed and focused I can be if uninterrupted? 

God has been showing up in all the details again… yes, again.  Remember a few years back when I had the word/topic of “honor” brought before my blinkin’ eyes six times before I realized the God moment???  Well, praise be to Baby Jesus and the angels who watch over us, this time it only took THREE times for me to catch on to “Praying for my Children.”  Our pastor spoke on intentional prayer last weekend… especially about parents praying.  Then my Dad showed up on my doorstep with another book in hand called The Blessing of Obedience, an amazing autobiography of a man and wife who prayed and heard from the living God.  THEN… I had already caught onto the subject, but simply to confirm my new direction of focus, I spotted only one workbook of interest at a second-hand store this weekend…. The Power of a Praying Parent.  And I bought it for $1.49. 

The six childrened-friend was also away with me and I mentioned this pattern of focussed prayer for my children.  She acknowledged that it may be what is needed NOW in my life to fend off what might have happened had I not listened in church, read my dad’s book and found the used workbook … all on prayer for my kids.

Amen.  That’s it.  Amen.