Been Given Grace

          There is not a feeling in the world that is better then grace that you can actually feel like it has been given to you. I had that happen to me at my job and it felt good after years of being blamed for things I couldn't help doing. I thought it was kind of funny that it also happened the week before Easter. I felt like God did that for a reason because everything was in His Timing up to this time. The Grace was shown to me through one of my children. Here is how the grace was given to me.
             The day started out great! I was talking to my children and they were somewhat behaving. I was talking to a certain one that didn't talk a lot. I finally found something he was interested in so we talked about that and that lead to finding out more about him so that was good. I found out that he is really into fossils and rocks of any kind. We almost had a prefect day and then BAM! Something happened that turned the whole day and week around.
            We went outside for a second time on this day and after we got outside the next thing I know the janitor is trying to get my attention. One of my little boys threw a rock at a door and broke a window. This was a shock to me! Why? Because it was a first of many that had happened to me. Being a preschool teacher, I never had a child break a window. Well, there is a first for everything. I didn't know what to do and I just wanted to cry. I walkie my supervisor for her to come out and see the damage. She did. We talked about what to do and what really happened. Mind you, this is a boy we have told over the days to stop throwing rocks at the building.
            I tried not to cry but it was a big shock to me so my supervisor took my kids for a bit and I went to the office. As I was sitting in there, my mind went back to my other jobs and my other co workers were coming in and out and telling me it was okay and it happens and that they are children. They have no idea what that meant to me after my past jobs. It was during their encouragement that I felt the grace being given to me. They knew my work ethic and they know kids. They didn't blame me at all. They would have even let me go home if I needed to and be okay with that but of course I didn't.
            It seemed so easy to give grace like that but how about when we get God's Grace. We get it but do we really deserve it? No, we mess up so many times but yet it takes someone special and loving to give us that kind of Grace. Notice I am writing this on Good Friday and before Easter too. Do you think God did that for a reason? When my co workers encouraged me like that, it made me feel stronger and like it was really okay and not my fault. They trusted me enough to know I wouldn't just let that happen.
            It is like God with His Grace. That broken window was like us. We are broken and need to be fixed. We can only be that way with God's Grace on us. People might blame us for things but God doesn't blame us for anything. I might write a poem about broken glass because it is a good metaphor for Grace so look for that in the next week, maybe even on Easter.

Psalms 78-Teaching the Children

         As parents and grown ups, we need to read all of this chapter but I am going to just put a few verses up so you all will get the idea. I think all of this chapter is great because it reminds of what God has done in the past and will do in the future for us so it is good to read in context every so often. The verses I will put on here is the verses that would be good to remember if you want to try to do that with them. It is about how we should tell children about God and what He has done in our lives. It is strange that God is letting me see this now because I am thinking about taking my mission pictures to my job so the kids can see different kinds of children and worlds but yet I don't have to say anything about God I can let Him do the work if He wants to.  Here are the verses 4-8:

4 We will not hide them from their descendants;
    we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
    his power, and the wonders he has done.
5 He decreed statutes for Jacob
    and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
    to teach their children,
6 so the next generation would know them,
    even the children yet to be born,
    and they in turn would tell their children.
7 Then they would put their trust in God
    and would not forget his deeds
    but would keep his commands.
8 They would not be like their ancestors—
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God,
    whose spirits were not faithful to him.

Jesus and His Major Adjustment

          It is Easter this coming weekend so I am going to write an entery for Easter. I have had this entery planned for about a month but I thought it was a good idea to come back to it before Easter so I am. This idea came from the "Experiencing God" Bible study will be finishing up next week. It was a new perspective for me and I am hoping it is for you too. It really got to me when I was studying that certain week. I couldn't get the thought out of my mind.
              It is a good thought to have because it can dinfantly help us love and be more like Jesus. I don't remember the exact quote right now but this is what it came down too: "Jesus dieing on the cross was His major adjustment in His Life". Now let's think on that a moment before I start explaining what it means to me. Maybe even pray that God will show you and keep that idea on your mind for this Easter weekend. I gave it a 2 min. Break from typing to give you time to think. 
            Jesus and His Major Adjustment. It really got me thinking about the little adjustments that I think are so big in my life. Compared to the cross, they are really, really small. There is a list right before this entery to give you some ideas of what adjustments can be. When you look at that list, you just feel silly but really grateful or should feel that way. Just think how many little adjustments Jesus had to make to stay on that's path for us. For people, He didn't even know and mean people he did know. He knew what God had planned for Him because He was God. He could have said "no" but He loved us enough not to say that.
             It just goes to show that we are weak and need His Help. He has gone through the things we are going through now. He really does understand us. We get so worked up about the little and big adjustments in our lives. It could be us changing clothes because we spilled something on them to changing our career. It could also be trying to put positive thoughts in our mind to changing how we eat. One more thing it could be like: having our friends change on us to losing a family member. Yes, for me, these are all adjustments I've had made or am making right now or at least trying to.
            You could even look at the list before this entery and put mine and yours in one of the groups. I think it is amazing that there are only 4 groups for our whole lives. Just thinking about the week before His death on the cross, He had to go through a lot of adjustments as well as most people. Jesus had to be okay with doing what God wanted Him to do. He even asked to take the Act away if possible but God didn't want to because He loved is that much. Jesus had to have a meal knowing it would be his last so it probably didn't go as usual so that might have been an adjustment. They went back to the place where they all met each other and that was an adjustment for everyone not just Jesus because it would be a place of sorrow now and not of joy. Jesus and the others even lost a friend through all of this and that friend was Judah. 

              Just in one day He had his clothes torn off and had to carry the cross up the hill by himself. His clothes were given away and He was given over to the Jews to be beaten. Don't forget about Him having to go to another city to do all of these things on a donkey at that. Just think of all the hard adjustments He had to go through in that one week. Don't you feel blessed even with the adjustments in our lives? Sometimes and most of the time it is just the little adjustments throughout the week so we think it would and is easy. If we really want to follow God, though, we have to think about adjusting the hard things to just like He did for us. Adjusting things also says a lot about Loving people but that could be for a whole other entry so I am not going there right now. 

                For me, it just puts things in a little bit of a different outlook for this Easter. I think that is what God is trying to teach me. He is trying to say that it is okay if things have to adjust in your life and they will have to if you want and are willing to follow me but I will be right beside you every step of the way if you will let me. I can say that, me personally, I am seeing things about my personal self that I need to change but it is hard because I have been that way since I can remember but I never knew what or how to get rid of it but now I do. I see that it is holding me back and because of that it needs to get out of my life. Things with past jobs and relationships are still bothering me to this day but I am seeing why and asking God to help me change for the better. 

Challenge this Easter: "Think about the adjustments you had to make in your life so far or even just this past or present week. Does it compare to what Jesus did for us on the cross at all?"

Kinds of Adjustments

           Adjustments may be required in one or more of the following areas:


-In your circumstances- job, home, finances, and others

-In your relationships- family, friends, business associates, and others

-In your thinking-prejudices, methods, your potential, about your past, and others

-In your commitments- to family, friends, job, plans, traditions, and others

-In your actions- how you pray, give, serve, and others

-In your beliefs- about God, His purposes, His ways, you relationship with Him, and others

Trying to Change a Lifestyle

           Having to change things and commit myself to change is hard for me especially if I don't have anyone to hold me accountable for it. I need to change my lifestyle in all different ways like eating and excising. I need to eat less and excise more. I could also eat more healthy then I do now. I need to do these things because my body is slowing down and I am getting old.
           I feel like I have to change something in my life every 6 months it seems and it could be in any area of my life. I can agree, though, that I have slowed down a lot since college. I have to go to the older children instead of the babies and preschoolers I used to do. I need to firugre out how to get more energy if I want to help them ever again. I also have to either deal with or cover up my axienty with meds or in a healthier way.
            I want to get back down to the weight I was in high school or close to it. I am going to try and stick with my yoga at least once a week. I would like to do it a couple times a week. We'll see. I'm planning to start walking around my apartment complex this week. I'm going to try and mix smoothies in Mason jars. Get 5 of them ready on Sunday for the week. More salads and meats and veggies for lunch and supper. More fruits for snacks.
            I am also going to try and cut out bad carbs. That will be really hard for me since I was a runner in high school. I love my pasta and noodles and sandwich with bread is an easy lunch to make fast. The good thing is I have the time to cook now so I need to take that time and cook for real. I am also cutting out potatoes which isn't as hard for me but still pretty hard. It also takes a lot of time to plan for a healthy week or months of meal. Living a healthy lifestyle is hard if you don't know how to do it right off the bat. I thought I did. I mean I didn't pig out as a child. My parents had rules about when to eat certain unhealthy food like ice cream and pop but now with all this stress I feel like I am pushing those rules aside. Wouldn't be bad if I can back on those rules and made some new ones for myself.

              I am going to even start keeping another journal where I put what I eat and how and if I excise everyday because that is another good way to keep track of things. It is so funny because if you truly now me, you know I have a journal for everything. My Healthy Journal as it is going to be called will be my 4th or 5th journal I have laying around my apartment. I am also going to try to get my anxiety under control with doing all these healthy foods and excise and see if I can't get off the meds alone. I think the meds are part of my weight gaining problem, not just my age. They might be changing my hormones so I have to eat and excise right to balance them out. To get to where I have no my anxiety will have to be a mind and spiritual thing and change too. It is like I am changing all of who I am just because I want and need to be healthy.

              I can't remember when I fell into this trap of unhealthiness. It was probably in college but we had to walk everywhere so the walking helped a lot and we had a cafe, which didn't have that great of food but it was better for you then Reman Noodles. I need to get back into the health lifestyle because I think part of my anxiety and depression now is low self esteem because I have gained a lot of weight and I don't like how I look at all right now. I feel like no guy would want my right now and being almost 30 that is not a good feeling to have when you want a guy in your life. It is just hard to commit to something like a different lifestyle. I don't know it seems like it would be easy but to actually do it is so hard. Thinking that way takes me onto marriage. If I can't change my lifestyle for the good and health for just me, how can I for another person even when I love them a lot?

                I guess it goes to show that you do need to love your body as the temple of God and once you get that down, you can love someone else. Take care of yourself first and then take care of other people second. I just hope that all I have to do is a diet change and nothing more is seriously wrong with me. I don't feel bad and nothing hurts but I didn't feel sleepy and low self esteem at times. I use to smile and brag about how I didn't need to go on any diets or certain lifestyles but now I am regretting that because I do need to do that now. This is another thing that I can keep updating on here. I can keep writing about how I am doing and what I found that works for me and so on if you all are interested. I keep thinking that I need to pray about treating my body like the temple of God that it is but I haven't yet. It is funny because you always think about mistreating it with drug usage and other bad things but yet a certain diet or way you are eating could be mistreating it too. 

                God gave us all wonderful temple of God and He trusts us enough to take care of them on this earth as best as we can. If we just stuffed it with junk food and other things then we are not treating God like we should. That is what I am learning from this hard moment from my life. Strange I know but in a way it is still needed, if not today, then tomorrow or in the future for some reason. God wouldn't put me through it if it wouldn't turn out for His good. 

A Deep Prayer of Praise

       Dear Daddy,

               As I was laying in bed last night, I was thinking about my life right now. It is perfect! After last Thursday and this past weekend, things make total sense. More then they ever have in my life. I didn't know I was under so much pain for almost a year next month. I never knew how much things could hurt me. Those things was a lot of small rejections that brought hurt but at the some time it was a learning process too. I didn't even know I had pain until last Thursday. Now I know and trying/ am understanding it I feel lot freer. It is almost like You knew what I needed at that moment and longer. I feel like You saved me from something then and still are. You have shown me what deep love is with You. You have taught me to rely on You more and not people. I know I have done things in situations.  I can tell things more are in Your Hands where they should be. I am finally leaving things there like I should have before. I pray it is a new start of something beautiful for me. This prayer is probably the most deep and serious one, good one, I have written in a long time. I have probably learned the most important thing yet in my life. That is to seek You 1st because everything will make sense afterwards. To have an deep, inmate Love with You, not only for You.


In Christ's name,

Amen

A Morning Worth Crying Over

            This morning was kind of a sad one for me at work. I got to know the children more and some of them have sad stories. There was one story that really got me. It was about one of the boys. I also had a sad little girl this morning. The little girl was crying because she was mad and either mom or dad. It sounded like she didn't get breakfast either yet. She was so sad that she had to get her little suggy to hug this morning. It made her stop crying too.

            There was this little boy that I watched too and he lives with his grandma. His Grandma shared a little bit about what was going on in his life because he had some issues at school this past week that she thinks might have something to do with what is going on. Let's just say that the grandparents just got custody of this little boy not too long ago so everything is new to him. The grandma even said today that the mom said to the little boy (her own boy) "you can't come with me. I have to work on myself for a little bit."

             That right there just wanted to make me start to cry and then we had other children come in from the broken homes and going in between homes that weren't just having it today for some reason. Everyone was having a hard Friday. The thing the little boy did was he took something out of his grandpa's wallet without his grandpa knowing and was going to give (aka trade) it with another little boy at school for something else. The more I stay around this job the more I notice it is exactly where I need to be for now. My mission has always been the public schools because I was raised in them as a student and a teacher's kid. I know how the staff can be but I also know what kind of children there can be too. With the way teachers are going now and really it is the government's fault, we look pass the child's home life and focuses on what needs to get done for the dumb testing at the end of the year. 

             Where I graduated high school from was not an easy place or school. There were a lot of poor children and needy children. I see that more now since I have been around more. Sometimes I wish I could go back and help my friends even and some of the younger ones but I also feel like now with my jobs I am making up that lost time. There are a few I helped back home and I still sty in connection with them through Facebook some but other I don't and that is sad. I was such a high schooler back then but now that I look back I wish I have been a little more grown up so I could have seen what was right in front of me. I could have helped my friends instead of just pushing them off to the side. I could have looked more into their lives then just assuming things. I could have done a lot more then I did back then. I will admit I was so me focused though. 

             Maybe that is something I will teach my children if I ever have some of mine own someday. Don't assume and don't judge and push people away. They need you just as much as you need them. I know my parents tried to teach me that too and they did a good job but now that I look back I just wish I knew more and were more outgoing too to ask hard questions and just talk to them deeply, you know?