What I wanna do when I grow up :)

So, this past Monday, the 26th, Justin and I attended a lecture about vitamin deficiencies and how the food we eat in America is contributing to these insane epidemics. (By the way, it was an awesome lecture and hopefully Liberation Chiropractic will have the link up on their Facebook page soon.) Anyway, I've really been into healthy eating and more of a holistic approach to medicine this past year or so and I get so fired up every time I talk about it. After that lecture, I was going on and on about Monsanto and GMOs (look it up!) and Justin told me I just need to open my own health food store and do Christian counseling in the building as well. At first I thought that was just a dumb idea because it didn't make any sense...counseling and health food??

Fast-forward to Wednesday the 28th, we had our first Bizzy Moms meeting of the year. Our group got to listen to a financial advisor who talked about some pretty basic things that everybody needs to know. Women especially, since we tend to let our husbands handle all the money and then what happens if we, God forbid, find ourselves suddenly on our own?! One of the advisor's supporting statements was how financial stress can actually affect our health. People actually suffer from heart attacks, panic attacks, even stomach ulcers from money troubles.

Here are just a few of the things that affect a person's health:
1. if you're financially stressed,
2. if you don't know how to communicate with others and your relationships suffer because of it,
3. you don't eat well or supplement your diet with the RIGHT supplements and your immunity suffers because of it,
4. you supplement with all the WRONG supplements,
5. your back (aka spine or nervous system) is out of whack due to stress or physical trauma,
6. your spiritual life is off course or non-existent,
7. you have grief, fear, anxiety, etc. that you haven't dealt with.

You can have a massage every day of the week but you will still have knots in your muscles and ulcers in your stomach if you do not take care of yourself as a WHOLE person: spiritually, physically, socially and mentally. How many people have you heard about that are well-off financially and then commit suicide because they are so lonely? Or how many people do you know that have absolutely everything together, a lovely family, a relationship with Christ, a wonderful career, but their health is failing from some chronic disease or illness because they just don't know how to go about eating the right foods or maybe they simply need a good chiropractic adjustment with some physical therapy?

(On a side note, I found out that the spinal curve in your neck should be somewhere around +40 degrees and mine is negative degrees...I forget exactly what the doctor told me, maybe something like -6 or -15 but that's what has been causing my excruciating, makes me cry, no pain pills help kind of pain. One adjustment so far and pain is a tiny fraction of what it was before!)

Anyway, maybe Justin was on the right track with his health food/counseling idea. The past year or so I really began to KNOW that counseling is what I want to do; it's how I want to help people and it's how I want to serve and bring glory to God. But I still didn't know what kind of setting I wanted to work in although I had thought about some areas like youth detention centers, prisons, schools (kind of like a prison, right? LOL!), or private counseling. And then I started having this insane passion for food and health/wellness this past year and I've been wondering how that fit in to my plans. Yesterday, it all became clear.

Here's my vision: I want to open a huge facility, a true place of WHOLE PERSON wellness. It will be a health food store. It will be a Chiropractor's office. It will be a Christian counseling center. There will be financial advising available and consults will be free. We'll do yoga classes, communication workshops, and cooking classes. And of course, there will be childcare.

This is a big dream but if God calls you, He will equip you! I have never felt so sure about anything in my life. Right now, I have to focus on finishing graduate school and then I'll have a ton of hours of practicum and internship to complete. But now I know exactly what I am working toward!

Speaking of school, I have to get back to homework...but I said I would share so now you all know. :)

Sami

Break our hearts....

This is a new year and I've been reading my Bible every day and hopefully will have read through the Bible by the end of the year. Today, Psalm 9 was part of my reading and the following verses really stood out to me:

16 The Lord is known by the judgment He executes; The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Selah. 17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. 18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten; The expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. 19 Arise, O Lord, Do not let man prevail; Let the nations be judged in Your sight. 20 Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.

So, you can see why this stood out to me. We may not have individually forgotten about God, but this nation has. We've taken Him out of courts, out of schools, even grocery store workers aren't allowed to say Merry Christmas. And it's because our nation has forgotten that we are all nothing but human beings. We've been such a world power for so long that we've forgotten how fragile we really are.

But I'm actually not going into politics with this. Verse 17 says that all wicked and nations who forget about God will be thrown into Hell. Now, the last year especially, I've prayed for God to break my heart for the things that break His and obviously His heart breaks for those that are lost and so does mine. I mean, I literally cry when I think about how many people are lost and are completely missing out on that rest and comfort that Jesus offers SO freely. People don't want to "give up" their lives but the freedom that you can have Jesus is over and abundantly worth it!

One thing that bugs me is when people say things like they're just waiting on Jesus to come back and that they hope He comes back soon and things like that. And I've said that myself and I cannot wait for that eternity with Him BUT we have work to do here!! The more terrible the world becomes, the harder we should be working to win hearts for Christ. We should all be in the trenches, not just biding our time until He comes back.

So, here's what I suggest, and I've seen other people putting this out there lately: Pray for God to break your heart for what breaks His. If you feel your heart breaking for something, you're going to get out there and do what it takes to help out. People can talk and put all the facebook posts out there they want about different things but if you don't DO anything about it, then what's the point? Even little things can make a difference. What if every Christian did one small thing today to help someone else out....I bet it would make a big difference.

Some Christmas Thoughts..

Well, it's a good thing I don't get paid to write a blog because I'd be poor. :) My last post was about a year ago!

It's almost Christmas again and it's the first Christmas since my mother passed away. I know several other ladies whose mother's passed away this year and I know they are missing their mommas so bad. But for me, it's a little different. Justin and I have known each other for ten years and have had ten Christmases together. Out of my 27 years, I probably only spent 10 Christmases with my mom, and five of those years were the first five years of my life so I really don't remember those.

That's pretty sad, right?

Well, it would be pretty despairing if I had no hope in Christ. I mean, it's still sad. BUT, even though my mom had her troubles (a lot of them), I know that she loved God. She spent so much time trying to cover her sins up so I know she felt the conviction. Unfortunately, she never learned to give those sins over to God to carry.

But this Christmas....

I wish I could see her this Christmas where she is now. A new body, a new heart, a new mind. Not only is she healthy this year but I know that she has a peace that is completely incomprehensible.

The other day, I was having a moment of grieving, thinking about the day my mother passed away. She was alone in her nursing home room and fell to the floor. And I couldn't help but wonder what that was like for her, to die alone on a cold floor. And then a voice spoke directly to my heart like electricity. "My child, I am with you." But it wasn't directed to me, it was directed to her. She wasn't alone! The moments she was alone on that floor, He was there!

And He let me know that.

Because He loves me.

Selah's birthday

Here are some pictures from Selah's birthday party yesterday. Still can't believe she's 3. She had 5 other kids plus Saige at her party which was perfect for them to not get too overwhelmed and they all had a blast.

We had her party at Pump It Up in Mobile, an inflatable party place. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, ranch dip with chips, and pepperoni pinwheels. Selah wanted an ice-cream cake so that's what she got, even though the pink icing freaked her out after she started eating! By the end of the party, Selah was going up the big slide and sliding down all by herself. Even Saige had a fun time! 

This picture was taken after we got home. The kids got giant pixie sticks for party favors and obviously Saige's was blue. The tub actually had a blue ring around it after I gave her a bath!

Fun Nights

I have a new plan to start blogging much more frequently. I really need to try to keep up with all the crazy, funny, silly, sweet, and not-so-sweet things the girls do on a daily basis. Yesterday was Selah's birthday and my sweet little booger is now three years old! I must admit I bawled my eyes out last night looking at baby pictures of her....something I never thought I would do. I took the girls to the mall with one of my best friends and we had fun just walking around and people-watching. The girls were really good for me and had fun getting out of the house. Another best friend came over for dinner and brought her little girl to play with Selah and Saige. Overall, a very good day!
Nighttime was not so good however. Selah was up at 3am with another nosebleed (she's been getting them a lot lately) and Saige was up at midnight and then again at 4am...she didn't go back to sleep until about 6am! She's been doing this every single night, waking up and staying awake anywhere from 2 to 4 hours at a time. Justin and I are exhausted. We had x-rays done last week and the ENT told me her adenoids are twice as large as they should be and could quite possibly be obstructing her breathing and keeping her awake at night. We are getting her adenoids removed this coming Wednesday which I am excited and scared about. Of course I'm worried about her going under the anesthesia but I'm also afraid of getting her adenoids removed and absolutely nothing changing. I just don't know what we will do if she keeps doing this every single night. Speaking of my night owl, she's awake now so I will go and hopefully post again tomorrow after Selah's Pump It Up birthday party!

Justin's Officer of the Month Ceremony

Justin got his pictures from his Officer of the Month ceremony yesterday so I'm posting those as well as the write up they put in the paper. I'm so proud of him and of the great work he does trying to get drugs off of our streets. Sometimes I hate how much he loves his job because it keeps him away from us so often but honestly I wouldn't want it any other way. How blessed he his to know exactly what he wants to do with his life and to love his job!!

Jonah

Last night I was thinking about the Bible study I'm in right now titled Jonah: Navigating a Life Interrupted by Priscilla Shirer. One of the lessons teaches us that when God gives us a challenge, our lives may not only become more difficult but will also look different from the lives of those around us.

Jonah was an old-testament prophet whose peers were Obadiah, Amos, and Hosea, to name a few. God gave Jonah a task and he really didn't want to do it. Part of his reasoning was that it wasn't fair, he would rather stay where he was, where his peers were. He wanted the "normal" life, the life that matched all of those around him. Because of this, he ran away from what God wanted him to do and ended up making his life much more difficult than it had to be.

What I was thinking about last night was how often we tend to compare ourselves to one another. Unfortunately, this is such a struggle for me. Sometimes I feel so different and wonder why I can't be more like the women around me. Disciplining myself is so hard for me as is patience in general. Some of the friends I have are just so softspoken and graceful in their lives and I constantly find myself comparing my personality to theirs. One amazing friend of mine has kids the age of my kids and yet finds the time to be involved in 1500 different things as well as keep her home beautiful.

What I'm working on and what God is telling me is that He has given me this life. I'm different for a reason and for a purpose. What happens next is my choice: I can accept my personality and grow it in Christ and use it to complete the tasks He gives me OR I can try to hide like Jonah and make my life so much more difficult than it needs to be. The tasks and challenges God gives me may be difficult but I know that God will always give me the tools I need to complete them. If I run...I'm on my own. And that's just no good.