My Child is a Flower

Aaahh!!!! I just love it. It speaks to me so much! How do you care for flowers? You can’t be harsh with them, you can’t force them to grow–you have to provide a favorable environment and lots of tender loving care and encouragement.

Sunlight—I take to mean the light of the Lord in their lives. Opening up heaven for them so they can bask in His love and warmth.

Water—I just think of quenching their thirst…for knowledge, acceptance, love, and whatever else. The basis for their growth.

Fertilizer—Food! This one is helpful to me as I spend hours a day between planning meals, shopping for food, making meals and cleaning up after meals. It makes me think of what kind of spiritual food am I give my daughter? Sure she may be only 8 ½ months old but she still needs to eat. I for sure wouldn’t feed her sugar & unhealthy food all the time, she wouldn’t be able to grow up healthy and beautiful. So am I giving her “natural” spiritual food as well or just packaged sugary junk to fill her superficially?

Soil—I think this is prayer. I just want to cover them (their roots, I guess) with prayer. Giving them some solid ground to be rooted to, a good, strong foundation.

As if these thoughts are cool enough, God then proceeded to give me a picture of my house as a garden to tend to. Wow…how much more pleasant a thought is that?!!! Gardens need weeding, pruning, tilling, bug plucking, etc. However, it’s not usually viewed as a great chore for those who are into gardening because it’s so worth the effort!!! That is how I am to view my home. It takes a little work but it is to be a beautiful, restful place of peace to ENJOY!

I picture myself flitting through my garden, putting away a thing here, wiping a counter there, gently caressing the petals of my sweet little flower face, pouring into them water and nourishment while dancing through my beautiful garden, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere.

I look at is as pinching off little pests that grow amongst my flowers was spiritual warfare—squashing any strongholds that try to latch onto our children. Another thought that sometimes the outside petals get a little roughed up through hard times in childhood but when they are opened up as mature flowers, those outside petals are on the very bottom and are not even visible.

And lastly, flowers are easily bruised and wilted with harsh treatment. Another thing that came to me as I was thinking about times I’ve been too harsh, or to easily frustrated or angered. I pictured myself standing over a flower and blocking its sunlight. Sometimes I just need to get out of the way so that the Lord’s sunlight can shine through.

Anyway, you can see that there are so many layers to this and I am so grateful for the picture! It was such a blessing to me and I just thought I would share it with anyone here in case it may be a benefit to you as well!

I can’t explain my joy and excitement over how much the Lord cares about our measly little lives. He is so willing to be involved and speak to us!

One Size Fits All...I WISH!

So yesterday i went shopping for some MUCH needed jeans & i was determined not to spend more than $15 lol. So I went to target & tried on 4 different sizes (because the pants I'm in right now are 10). I tried a 10, 12, 15, and 17(because I'm not sure what i am now). Anyway, the 10s fit great(for one of my legs)! The 12s were great fitting on my legs and not so much on my mother hips. The 15s also fit wonderfully well on my legs but this time were WAY to big on the mommy hips. I figured the 17s would be perfect...THEY WERE TO SMALL!?!? I was seriously ticked off...


So I decided to try jcpennys... this time I tried on 1QGREARI5ROQFIIOIQ3OIUTRH (Gabi says hello) anyways... This time i tried on a 12,14,&16. The 12s were again great on the legs and just okay on the birthing hips. The 14s were great on the waist but looked like I was packing junk in my trunk because they were so baggy. So with tears in my eyes (seriously) I reached for the 16s... They fit perfectly!?!? I bawled! I looked at the price tag & saw they were on major clearance for $8 & felt just a tiny bit better. When I came home I sat down & cried for who knows how long & then grabbed my water & spent some quality time with Jillian. Then I held my new jeans up to the old ones (that are size 10 remember) AND THEY WERE EXACTLY THE SAME!?!?!?!

Sometimes I really wish that everything came as one size fits all! :)

Lessons From the Past

So its been a while since I written anything at all. I not so many words, life has been absolutely crazy! Between church and Uriels job we haven't had much time as a family and if you know me,I was anything but happy about it.

Just a couple days ago I received a letter from my Dad asking for a copy of a story I wrote in college. Oddly enough I had completely forgotten all about this story. Now, I say oddly because the subject of this story was a life changing event for me. Maybe another day I'll post a copy of it but for now, it was all about a week I spent in Oaxaca, Mexico in the mountains with a family of Mixteco Indians. The story talks about all the new experiences I faced both good and bad and the lessons I learned for it all. I was just going to print a copy & send it to my dad but first decided to read it once more. It brought tears to my eyes when I reminisced about the shacks these people lived in and how little food they had to eat yet how thankful they were to God for everything they had.


Here was I, sitting on my wonderfully comfy couch, drinking a glass of lemonade with and obscene about of ice and chatting with friends on my lap top. I watched as my daughter was crawling around on the floor playing with her toys here and there making little screams of excitement when she found something new. I should have smiled and been happy at the thought of everything yet, instead I was looking at our banking statement online and sulking. It had never been this low before and I still have no idea how we are going to pay our bills for the coming month. But, instead of trusting God and thanking Him for everything He has blessed me with I was racking my brain for things we could do sell and what we could do to get some more money.


As I finished reading the story tears just started to fall. Who had I become? I had lost sight of the things that were most important to me. My husband, my baby girl, but most importantly my God. I had pushed him so far to the side that He was almost out of sight. I was trying to fix things on my own knowing very well that it was hopeless to do things that way. So as I folded the story and placed it in the envelope to send I said a quiet prayer asking God to once again take control of my finances.

Life may be hard at times but without God, it would be absolutely unbearable.

Far To Much Fussing

It was 7pm on Thursday night and we were at church. It was supposed to be a quick trip. Go in, practice our drama for the weekends events and get out. I was already irritated because I has so many things to do at home. We were expecting visitors at 10am on Friday morning and because of a week filled with extra clingy-ness from our 6mo old I hadn't finished a thing! When we walked in the door of church I knew this wasn't going to be a fast trip. I was already filling my head with negative thoughts and worries.

One of the people we needed for our drama practice wasn't able to make it that night, another wouldn't be there until almost an hour later, and the other was busy with another project at church. I was not a happy camper. My husband and I couldn't even practice our parts alone because the sanctuary was full. But my husband, being the kind and patient guy he is, suggested we go join the people in the sanctuary who were praying for the youth event we were hosting for the weekend. I reluctantly joined mostly because I didn't want to be left alone surrounded by little kids wanting to touch my baby.

I sat in the back pouting with my baby all the while shooting glances at my husband the whole time telling him I wanted to leave. They eventually asked that all the children be taken out of the room so that the pastors could specifically pray together over the church and the weekends events, so I passed Gabriela off to another lady and joined the other 5 pastors in front. We all began to pray in a circle and while every ones eyes were shut I quietly slipped out the back and found a quiet room to be alone, complaining to myself.

After what seemed like forever my husband found me and asked me to join them upstairs because the others wanted to pray for us. Me, being as stubborn as I am, declined. I told me husband no thank you, I don't need that right now and that I'd much rather go home. He tried to convince me but knowing I wouldn't budge he quietly gave up, handed me the keys and said, "I love you very much. I will see you at home." I quickly grabbed our daughter and rushed to the car. I thought I would feel relief knowing that I was going home and would be able to put the baby down for the night (it was almost 10pm) and finish the rest of our cleaning, but I didn't. I felt horrible.

At home, the baby was asleep and I was still getting nothing done. Then, as if I had just been smacked upside the head, I began to cry. A story in the Bible came to my mind...

LUKE 10:38-42

As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.” But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I was acting just like Martha, worrying about all the details of the coming weekend. I was fussing about with details of a clean house and food to eat while my husband was only worrying about asking Gods blessing and approval for our event. How silly everything seemed at that point. All of a sudden dusting and vacuuming seemed such a minor detail. There really was only one thing that I should have been preparing, and that was my heart to minister and love the teens that would be coming to our event and asking for Gods blessing and guidance. "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice."
Deuteronomy 4:29-30

Mommy Me Time, I Think Not...

So, I started out with this (see pic.) as my plan for the afternoon. Insert that into a nice, comfy, leather recliner and a wonderful book and I was in relaxation heaven! My feet were up, book in one hand & coffee in the other and best of all, baby down for a nap! Who really cares about the dirty dishes in the sink, the floors that need to be vacuumed or the laundry to be done for the weekend anyway?

This was MY time!

And just as I started getting into relaxation mode, I was brought back down to reality by my beautiful baby girl and her famous 5 minute naps. I tried to let her cry for a while thinking she would go back to sleep, but that just was not the case today.

With that said, I quickly downed my aromatic cup of hazelnut coffee, stuffed a couple grapes in my mouth and dashed for the nursery. Dirty dishes - floors - laundry... we meet again.

Goodbye relaxation, Hello motherhood!

*sigh*

I do have to say though, life is GOOD!

Little Lesson From a Bird

A couple Sundays ago as we were driving to church I began to worry. In my mind were many doubts...How are we going to pay our bills? The baby needs diapers, how will we pay for them? Our savings are going down more and more every month, goodbye Mexico trip. The fridge is empty, how will we buy food? And believe me, theses were just a couple of the doubts going through my brain. I began to feel more and more depressed.

Then as we turned onto the street where our church is, my husband swerved the car and hit the brakes. My doubts instantly left my mind. There was a tiny little bird that had fallen from its nest and landed in the road right in front of us. Me being the animal lover I am, made my husband get out of the car and pick it up. He drove us the rest of the way to church with the little bird in hand. The poor little guy was shaking so hard and couple hardly lift his head.



We put the bird down in the shade of some trees and began to feed it little drops of water by hand. Bit by bit our little friend came back to life again. In those few seconds he trusted us more and more to take care of him. He hopped from hand to hand chirping and singing, as the water slowly started to replentish his strength. Then, with a flutter of his wings and a little "thank you" chirp, he was off.

It wasn't until after the service as we were driving home that I realized the little lesson God had sent us from this tiny creature. Sometimes we as humans find ourselves stuck in the middle of the road without any strength to go on. We are sure the end is near and right as the car of life is about to run us over God stops it with his loving hand saying, "No, this is my son/daughter who I love. They are so important to me." And he carefully picks us up and brings us to safety, all the while never letting us go from his loving hands. He gives us water, speaks loving words of encouragement, and never leaves our side as we regain strength. And when we are finally ready to spread our wings and fly again, he never takes his eyes off of us and really, we never leave his arms of love.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. - Matthew 10:29-31

Finally Giving In

Okay, you've got me! I have finally given in to blogging, we'll see how it goes. :) As a new mommy life comes full of surprises and busy schedules but I figured I'd just start writing and see where it takes me.
After the death of my mother we took the decision to movie to IL. We've been living in Aurora, IL for 2 1/2 years now and life has been anything but easy. But, as the wife of a pastor "in training" and the mommy of a very energetic 6 month old girl, I can at least say that it is never boring. Trusting in God's guidance has become a daily activity an I quite like where it's taking us.
Since this is my first blog I think I'll result to less is more and leave it at that (plus little Gabi needs her moring nap).

'Till then world...