Rest, Read & Rejuvinate

For all of you loyal readers out there I have to apologize for my lack of posts. I am learning as the kids get older the busier my summers get. Keep them entertained is a full time job for sure!!!

All that being said, I am going to take about a month break from the blog to focus on them, to rest, and to do more studying. I feel the need to really focus on 2 relationships right now. One being my relationship with God and learning His plan for me and being obedient to that plan. The other relationship being that with my husband. As y'all know I have been attending a Bible study on marriage and I am most definitely feeling the need to really focus on being the best wife God intended me to be.

So, I hope y'all are all having a great summer and I'll see you back hopefully sooner than later!

RESPECT

Okay, so I am back to my marriage study notes. Tuesday night we talked about respecting our husbands. This marriage study is showing me how truly different men and women and are more specifically how different me and my husband are. It is no wonder that we are all messed up at time. There are a few points that were made that I think are worth sharing.

Here is one example of how I say we are completely different: "A wife needs love like she needs air to breath." "A man needs respect like he needs air to breath." When we first started talking about these two statements I kind of thought it was silly and that really wasn't true. But then it all kind of made sense to me. Think about when you are in an argument with your husband. At some point in the argument what do YOU end up saying to him? Something to the effect of "Well, you don't act like you love me." Right? You need love right? I do! I don't know if I have ever heard my husband say "You don't respect me" but when I think back to some of our arguments, that is essentially the bottom line.

There was a diagram in our workbook that is a circle with words written all around it, so show how behaviors can feed off each other. There is a healthy circle and an unhealthy circle. I am sure you can figure out which one is which:

Without love she reacts without respect.
Without respect he reacts without love.

Her respect motivates his love.
His love motivates her respect.

Is there really much to comment on that? It's a fantastic reminder of how we feed off each other and it is really easy to get trap in a circle. Hopefully we get trapped in the healthy circle and not the unhealthy one!

Melody (the woman who wrote this study) gave a great every day example of how to respect your husband. So, your husband is changing the baby's diaper and when he is done you see your kid walking down the hallway with the diaper halfway falling off. A disrespectful response would be something like, "Honey, don't you know how to put on a diaper. Do I have to do everything around here to get it done right.? A respect answer would be, "Jonnie (little kid), we need to march right back in here to daddy so he can fix your diaper. Those things can be so tricky some time."

I know that is silly, but it makes complete sense. Yesterday morning Jayme came down the stairs with mismatched pajamas and I thought to myself, "Alan, your killing me." But I had to change that thought to be grateful that he put the kids to bed last night so I could stay at church to lead a small youth group.

My challenge for you this weekend is to speak all words of respect to your husband. I will have a hard time with this I know, but I think it'll be rewarding for me and hopefully you too!

Teaching your children

So, I have finally gotten a chance to read another chapter in Plan A Mom in a Plan B World.

This chapter really showed the importance of teaching your kids daily about God and His love for us. In our house we sing Bible songs (Bible Book Bop is one of our favs right now) and say our prayers and Jayme asks about God and Jesus some times, but there is not a time to sit down and read a Bible story together and really learn. I think I may change that.

Do you sit down with your kids daily and teach them? If you do, PLEASE share with us what you do with your kids. I would love to know!

High Impact Parent

Okay, so I feel like every single Monday I tell you about our sermon on Sunday. I feel like I am totally cheating, but some of the stuff that was said was so powerful that I have to share it with you.

This week our pastor's dad spoke about being a "high impact player" in parenting. He talk about Joshua from the Bible and how he was a high impact #2 player for 38 years and then when he finally went to the #1 spot, he continued to be a high impact player.

He talked about 2 ways to be a high impact player in parenting.
1. What our families see us do has an affect on them.
2. How we live with our families have an affect on them.

I knew these 2 things before listening to Mr. Thomas speak today, but he really drove the point home.

I wrote some bullet points down in my notes that I want to share with you (and I may go off on a tangent on some of them.)

*Very important what our children see in our lives - AMEN! I need daily reminders of this. When I see a behavior that I don't like from our kids I immediately try to figure out where they learned that behavior. I look at how I act around them and also am observant of how other kids they are around act. I want to make sure my kids see the best in our lives.

*Joshua consistently pursued a relationship with God - I try to do my Bible quite time in the mornings before the kids get up but that never seems to work out. Jayme just seems to get up earlier and earlier each morning. But when she asks me what I am doing I tell her that I am having quite time with God and learning more about Him. She may not really understand that, but one days she will.

*What you do impacts your family - This one scared me a bit because it is so true that e.v.e.r.y s.i.n.g.l.e a.c.t.i.on affects your family good or bad.

*The power of your life is a very influential thing.

*The most influential people in a child's life is mom & dad - no pressure, huh?

*The most critical need for your children is a strong sense of connection - Our children thrive off of emotional connections. I totally see that in my kids. When they can show you how they did sometime and you pay attention to that and tell them how proud you are, they beam like they have a light blub inside of them.

*Interacting is the most important thing in your kids lives - amen & note to self.

I wrote all these bullet points down not to share with you, but as a reminder for me. I want to be the highest impact player parent to my kids and I need daily reminders of how to do that.

Have a great week!

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Have a great weekend!