Lowering the bar

I have been getting frustrated quite easily these days. It's easy to sit around and point fingers and say well if they only did this different and if they only did that then I would be happy.

Let me give you an example.

My daughter. I love her to death, but she doesn't like to sleep. She has never been a sleeper. She doesn't require a lot of sleep and that's just who she is. Every night I have put that child to bed ;since she's been in a bed; she gets up or calls us at least twice. She could lay in her bed for 2 hours and then all of a sudden out of nowhere she comes walking out of her room to tell me her teeth are sharp. lol.

Can I just say this annoys the heck out of me.

But then a few weeks ago it just dawned on me. This is who she is. In some ways she needs discipline but in other ways there are things that aren't going to be changed. This is one of them. She is not hurting anybody so really its not that big of a deal. To me it was. Until something said "you know she does this every night. She's done this for the past 5 years. Get used to it."
And so I started to adjust. The first night we put her to bed I thought to myself now remember in about 5 mins she is going to call you and tell you she can't go to sleep. Then she'll get up to pee, then she'll get up to tell you something insignificant that happened that day.
Sure enough, she pretty much acted on queue. The difference...instead of my yelling and getting frustrated and upset I just let her be her.
The payoff, she went to bed in peace (when she finally decided she was going to sleep) and I wasn't all flustered at how bad she was.

That one incident has and is showing me that perhaps I need to do that with others in my lives. To the people who say stupid stuff to me. Instead of stewing over it realizing that they do this all the time and it's probably just how they are. Whether it be right on their part or not. Am I really that perfect that I should judge them on what their so called "sin" is? No.

I find that other times I get frustrated and mad at people because I'm just jealous. For those who have mom's involved in their lives. A mom/daughter pair said something to me and really it was stupid, it shouldn't have been a big deal but I was mad at them. I was talking to God about it when He spoke every so gently and said " your not upset at what they said, your upset because your jealous. You wish your mom were like that."

Phil has been working like crazy lately and he said when it's all over with he'd like to go with a guy from work for a weekend to go fishing somewhere. He has a free plane ticket left from his old job and he has to use it by August 4th. He wanted to go to Yellowstone, or something like that with his friend and fish and forget work. I shouldn't have a problem with that but I immediately felt myself getting mad at it and getting my feelings hurt because he wanted to go. It didn't make any sense. Afterall I am going away for a weekend in a couple of weeks why can't he go for a weekend somewhere. And then it dawned on me...I'm jealous. I'm jealous that we have been here for 8 months and he is such good friends with this guy already. That they click. I should be happy for him and I wasn't because he has a friend here and I don't. How lame.

I never thought of myself as being a jealous person but I guess that I am. Thankfully God is working it out in me. But isn't that just like humans. We automatically think the other person is to blame when if we look at it deeper it's just possible that we have to work on ourselves. Maybe these people are in our lives to work out the areas we struggle with. Maybe, just maybe I should stop see what's really going on and extend the same grace to a person that God has shown me.

It's no fun being the person that is wrong. It stinks to think that yes, even I, have flaws. I would like to walk around thinking the whole world adores me (as God does) and I am perfect the way I am and everyone else has to change. But that's not reality. That's one way to loose a lot of people in a hurry. I hate it when I'm wrong.

Today is there someone in your life who you can extend grace and mercy to? Maybe there is something deeper in you that is causing you to be hurt or unhappy. Check yourself next time your put in that position, you may not like what you find but you will be better for it.

Schedule

I am just posting this mostly for myself to see if this baby follow true to what she is doing in my belly.


****UPDATE******

So I got distracted yesterday and never got back on here.

She was up and awake at 9:00 am. It's the same today btw. It is 8:45 and she's kicking like crazy.

Then she was quiet for a good portion of the day until about 2pm. She was kicking a punching like a mad women.

Then again at 7 pm.

Then again around 11 pm.

It seems like she is awake every 5 hours except for at night where she is active at 7 and 11. I like and would hope she would keep the 5 hr schedule...probably not but you never know. The 7 and 11 thing concerns me. I hope she doesn't have her days and nights confused. I am tired just thinking about 3 kids one of which like to party all night. God help me.

***********

Right now it is 9:00 a.m. she has been kicking away for the last 20 minutes at least. She's definitely awake right now. I wish I could say the same for me.

I remember this feeling all to well. Phil has been working like a mad man lately. The plant went down on Thursday and since then he has worked everyday non-stop (well stopping to sleep) for a total of 86 hours. Yowza! Last night he didn't get home until midnight and left for work at 6:00 am that morning. He is exhausted, and strangely it's making me exhausted. He is on edge and cranky and I don't blame him one bit. He hasn't seen Ethan for 3 days. Emma snuck into our bed last night to sleep next to him because she misses him so much. I like the overtime, we need the overtime, it's a blessing but at this point he is getting burnt out. He needs a day off. He is supposed to be taking Friday off because my parents are coming to visit but we are going to the zoo etc. I really hope he can get home at a halfway normal hour to get some sleep tonight and tomorrow. If not he's not going to be fun to be around.

I'll be updating through out the day whenever she's awake. Thanks for all those praying for us. We appreciate it. God is coming through. I just keep praying for the last bit I believe He has in store.

God is Faithful

This is a follow up email about us needing to come up with $500 somehow before this weekend because we thought we would be moving.

A few days before I spoke this need and asked for prayer I read this in my devotional:

2 Kings 4:1-7

1 The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves."

2 Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil." 3 Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. 4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side." 5 She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing.

7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."

We had one hour of overtime to this point. I told God that I didn't have much, but I would list on ebay what I had if He would provide buyers. I told Him that I had nothing, just like the widow but asked that He use what I did have and multiply it. I think I had 4 things to sell total. I listed them all and tried to forget about it. After the 3 day auctions ended Friday morning I walked away with a total of $204.61. Praise God! That was almost half the money I needed and every item sold. I continued to pray that I didn't know how the money would be provided but I asked that it would be.

Well wouldn't you know it that on Thursday afternoon one of the plants Phil travels to went down. It's about an hour from here and this was his week on call. He stayed late that night to see what the problem was and if they could get it fixed. Now I don't know what all these things do but I know the general jist of what they have to do. There is a big machine (not sure what it does exactly) that has 10,000 glass tubes in it. The glass tubes got covered in anti-freeze (this is the real problem, why is it leaking). These tubes will shatter if there is any foreign substance on it including finger prints. They had to remove all 10,000 tubes, remove the components inside, clean all the glass tubes, re-assemble them, and re-install them. They have been working 12-13 hr days since Thursday and so far they have all the tubes out and only about 1/4 of them cleaned and re-assembled. This is with guys working 24/7. Everyone in Phil's main plant is chipping in. Every single guy is there working (probably about 15 guys) round the clock.
Can I just say how amazing God is. We had one hour of overtime on Thursday. Week (pay period) ends today at midnight. We will close out this pay period with 40 hours of overtime. The most we have ever had. Not only will all the bills get paid but we can also pay for the move and be able to pay for some fun next weekend when my parents come. I feel bad for Phil and we miss him so much. He is a little crabby from the lack of sleep etc and I don't blame him. The job is pretty tedious and boring. Who would want to do that for 4 days? They probably won't be finished with all this until Wednesday which means we should fulfill our overtime needs for the next pay period all in these next few days.

We have some tough choices to make in the next couple of weeks and I am praying for $5,000. Crazy I know, but I want Phil to see that God can provide and will keep providing. This won't be "fun money" it's strictly for bills. My goal is to get us to a point where we are living on just his base pay by the time Caroline arrives. This is a big feat. I know we will have so many more bills once she is born diapers etc. and we aren't in a good place right now wishing and praying for overtime. We have already cleared up $300 a month in a loan we had out, we sold his Jeep because it was a gas hog which is saving us $200 a month and we also had a rates drop for insurance since we no longer have the jeep. That saved us about $60 a month. That's a grand total of $560 per month and we need to clear up $700 more per month. (Can I just say that this wasn't extra money we now have to apply towards other things. This was money he needed to make somehow in overtime.)I know its crazy! But when you go from your husband making $98,000 a year plus a car allowance of $700 a month to making $48,000 you have to make some major cut backs. Does it seem possible? NO! But did it seems possible that God would provide us with this other money in such a short amount of time. NO! But He did. He came through in a BIG way! So boldly I am coming before Him and asking him for the balance so we can live on base pay alone before Caroline comes. Please keep that request in your prayers if you think of it. We have at the most 17 weeks to make this happen and when I think about it I start to panic and freak out. There is nothing that I can do to bring in more money except to sell the things I have. That's ok with me if God will bless it, let it sell and provide the funds. At this point it's not worth having the "things" if we are riddled with worry about making the bills.

God of the Impossible. I think this is the theme to my life this year. It seems when things look grim God is really showing up and showing off. I always hate the timing of things (in my opinion he waits far to long to show off ; )but He knows what's best. He is God. His timing is perfect.

And if He can make this happen, He can make the $5,000 come through as well.

Oh yah, and most importantly I've learned something through all of this. No matter how much money you make....never, ever spend all of it per month. You never know how long that will last, or how long that job will last. You could be in a position where you are making less then half your pay and your left with lots of stress and worry. NEVER AGAIN!

If you have time take a look at this Bible study. http://bible.org/seriespage/widows-oil-when-bad-things-happen-good-people

Though the woman with the oil is a story about a widow and her sons, I still feel like it applies. God promises to fulfill our needs. Sometimes it's hard to trust that it will all work out. We've all been there. This touches on a lot of those points. And I find that everything I go through makes me more aware of others that may have greater needs then I. My miscarriages helped me to really understand what that experience is like. The new children are a testimony to God's faithfulness and mercy. He has used that experience to allow me to help others who have gone through this and I really have a heart now to help in anyway that I can.
Also, this whole money thing is putting into perspective how much I really have. How much I can still give to help others who have much greater needs then myself.
Perhaps this is the reason for all of this. If someone else is able to see how awesome God is through all of this then it's worth it.