A Fresh Page.....

Ahhhhh... another new year.

I love how it feels like a clean slate. An empty calendar.
Newly sharpened pencils at the ready.

A fresh new page to write on...

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But what to write...

How am I going to fill this year?
With busyness and a hectic schedule that leaves no quiet time to rest and reflect? Being more Martha than Mary? No doubt that will get old fast.

Throw the pencil out and play it by ear? There's something to be said for spontaneity. A stretching I've never been comfortable with.

Plan out every day and hope there's still time for me? Judging from past years of experience, and as hard as I try, that seldom works in my favor.

There must be a balance to all we do.
A centering.
There's a reason it's called a well balanced life.

We humans are not whole unless we are balanced. The spirit, the soul and the body. Anything out of alignment and we feel wonky. We act wonky.

But how do we find that balance? Where is that fine line between too much and just right?

I've never been good at seeing that line. At balancing.

But I want to be better. I choose to be better.

There is, indeed, a time for every single thing under heaven as wise Solomon once observed. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Not my time for it. Not when I decide it fits into the schedule best.

The Creator's time. The Orchestrator of the universe. The One who has always had it all planned from before the beginning.

If I want to have a balanced life I have to ask Him what His timing is. The only way to hear it is to draw near. The only way to draw near is to spend time -- quiet, listening time -- with Him. Often.

Seeking His opinion. Asking.
What does He want me to do? Not what do I think is a good thing to do.

What do I know? I cannot see the whole tapestry He is weaving. Only a glimpse of the thread now and again... and sometimes the needle. (Proverbs 27:1)

When my canvas seems blank to me, I tend to fill it up with all the things I think are right.
Sometimes, the real beauty in the painting lies in the empty spaces between things.
You have to step back to see it. To understand it. Up close, you lose yourself in the details.

But the details aren't the whole picture.

God, help me step back and look for the beauty in the empty spaces this year.
The hollows and the shadows that bring out the brightness of the picture. That give depth and focus.

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Let's choose to leave a few blank spaces in our story this year. 

Let the light illuminate some of our shadows. 

Drawing us closer. Deeper. Further up and further in. 

Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should. (Psalm 90:12)

Happy New Year.  

Guest Post: Book Review of Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You in Your Mess {expanded edition}

Hello strangers! :)  
 Bet you're all wondering where I've been lately since I haven't posted here in quite a while. 

Well, life, as we all know, has a way of running away from us and I've been trying my best to keep up with it. As a busy mother of 4 blessings (3 of which are teenagers), I find my schedule filled to overflowing with driving kids to sports practice or games, youth group activities, babysitting gigs, and various appointments on a pretty regular basis. 

My house is nearly always filled with the noise and laughter of at least one or two extra kids. Since I have yet to locate reliable house fairies who are willing to come and clean for me I am often found hastily doing a "10 minute tidy" in the most highly trafficked areas of the house a mere few minutes before company arrives or before we are rushing out the door to another somewhere we need to be. Add to that meal prep time, grocery shopping, errands for my husband and since I'm a homeschooling mom, lesson planning.............I'm a weary woman at the end of the day. 

Today, I want to introduce my friend, Cresenda from The Gehrke Acre Hobby Farm blog and a new book called Hope for the Weary Mom. Sounds like it's right up my alley right now so I'm headed over to Amazon to snag my own copy.  I hope you check it out too.

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Hooray! Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin have joined together to expand their book, Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You in Your Mess! It is available on Amazon.com! AND...it's FREE for your Kindle on October 23 & 24!

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Did you miss getting a FREE copy for the Kindle? Don't worry. You will have a chance to win a pdf copy through this post. All you have to do is leave a comment. This giveaway will end November 9, 2012.

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Except for writing book reports for school back in the day, I've never written a book review before. There, that's out in the open! Now hopefully the jitters will go to sleep and I can share with you a few of my favorite parts. :)

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FAVORITE QUOTES:
"'...I’m going to explode within the next ten minutes if you don’t COME HOME AND BRING ME BEER AND CIGARETTES RIGHT NOW!' He brought me a Coke and dark chocolate." 

(Quite possibly my most favorite quote from the whole book! Why? I know that feeling - when everything that can go wrong seems to happen...ALL WITHIN 3 Minutes! But Jesus, in all His goodness, puts his arms around me and says, "I love you. Lean on me.")

When we decide to lay aside the shame, open up and be truthful about what's really going on in our lives, it's incredible how many lives we encourage. I love that I am not alone. And that it's all right that I'm not perfect. :)

"The point of Hope for the Weary Mom is to help mamas point their eyes and hearts to Christ. Because as much as we sometimes want God to remove us from our messes, more often He just gets in it with us—lifting our heads, giving us strength, helping us put one foot in front of the other as we slosh our way through it (see the intro!).

But it is nice to have some practical tools in our back pockets for those days that just seem out of control. What’s a weary mom to do to find some rest in the midst of the crazy?"

Amen! There are some great tools and resources at the end of the book.

FAVORITE REVISIONS:
Study questions are now at the end of each chapter. I personally just read each question and answered out loud...to my little Chiweenie. :) She doesn't critique me or make fun of my answers. And it helped me to be honest with where I'm at in the moment.

FAVORITE TOPICS:
Weariness
Grief
Weakness
Healing
Shame
Grace
I Am Not Alone
Hope

I appreciate how the authors have shared intimate portions of their lives with us. They are real women with real struggles and weariness. They know what life is like. They know where their Hope comes from. And that makes this collaboration all the more precious to me.

The section on grief has helped me grieve the death of my own mom a year and a half ago. You know, it's going to take time. The emotions are going to flood over me at unsuspecting moments. And that's all right.

I could have used this book ten and a half years ago when my oldest was born four and a half weeks before his due date. The struggles of trying to get him to feed (and thrive) after ten days in NICU were taking a toll on me. Not to mention lack of sleep from feedings every 2-3 hours 24/7 - even with my husband getting up to help with the bottles. I felt like I was all alone. But I wasn't then and I'm not alone now. Back then the book was still a "Twinkle in God's eye" as I say to my boys when they ask about something that happened before they were born. :)

Sometimes books can travel back through time to help heal old weariness. His timing is always perfect. And so today I hope you will go and get your copy of this reborn book, and be blessed and encouraged by the Hope that you are not alone!

I pray that you are blessed abundantly by Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You in Your Mess. :)

~ Cresenda

*I am also Guest Posting this entry over at friend Melody's blog - Stirrings!

*Please join in the Facebook Party tonight and enter to win some amazing prizes!

*One more thing - would you please leave a review on Amazon.com when you buy your copy (or get it free in the first 48 hours!). Thanks! Here's the review I left:

"On those days when I am especially weary as a mama, Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You in Your Mess has encouraged me! What a relief to know that I'm not alone in my experiences with boys chasing each other with light sabers down the hall, yelling at the top of their lungs, or wrestling in the house! :) This expanded edition brought tears to my eyes and laughter to my mouth - the LOL kind! :) It's like medicine. :) I have a copy of the first edition on my Kindles and read both copies side by side. The authors, Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin, have gone more in depth, sharing from the depths of their experiences when they could have hidden away and pretended to be perfect. That vulnerability is refreshing and encouraging - gives me strength to keep moving forward in the most amazing role I've played yet - Mom. They've also given us examples of women from the Bible who could have hidden, but instead embraced their weaknesses. I encourage every mom (no matter what age) to read this book, be encouraged and strengthened by the words inside, and share with other moms. You don't have to be weary to enjoy it! :) And if you are weary, don't be discouraged - you are not alone! :)"

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Cresenda Gehrke is Andy's wife and friend, mother to two exuberant boys, an encourager, rescues animals, and loves life in the country. You can find her blogging over at Gehrke Acre Hobby Farm.

New Year....Fresh Start........

We are almost two weeks into a brand new fresh year and I am formulating a plan.

For the last several years (probably at least 7 or 8 of them anyway) I've talked over and over about how much I need to sort through my house and get rid of all of the excess items that are cluttering our home. It is a source of frustration for both my husband and myself. Clutter is visually, mentally, emotionally and even at times physically draining. It affects the peace of our home. Causes us to feel less rested. It causes me to feel a little like a failure as keeper of my home. I've complained about it. Tried to reorganize it. Tried to hide it. Ignored it.............

Not anymore.

I have determined that 2012 will be the year that I will be free of clutter. But first I need a plan. Not just any plan because I've made clutter-be-gone plans before and they didn't work. I need a plan that I can actually make happen. A plan that I can follow through with. Something with a lot of built in flexibility to fit around my fairly unpredictable schedule (hello being a mother of 4 kiddos...and all their friends...and wife to the king of spontaneous dinner plans) so that I will be able to accomplish the task without being overwhelmed. I suspect once I get started I will be able to accomplish some of these spaces in far less than a month, but knowing how I've operated in the past, I am purposely giving myself the month long window of opportunity so I am less likely to get behind and feel like I can't do it. My unfortunate Achilles heel.

Ugh. I know what some of you are thinking.....an ENTIRE HOUSE worth of decluttering? Acckkk! Where would I begin?

I started by writing down a list of each room and storage space in my house. Then under each one I wrote all the needs for that particular room. I had to ask myself what I want out of the space, what it's used for, if anything needed to be fixed about it and what I wanted it to look like when I was finished.

Then comes the hard part. I will ruthlessly purge the room of unused items, remove items that belong elsewhere in the house, fix issues in the room, paint if necessary and then reorganize the items that are staying in the room. So with there only being part of a month left I am starting with the least cluttered area in my house...my kitchen.

When I finish each space I will post before and after pics here and add a link to the "Clutter Free 2012" section in the sidebar. I'm actually excited to see that list fill out.

How about you? Are you ready to declutter your life this year? Join me! Let's do this together.

I'd love to read about your choices to go clutter free in 2012! Please share your thoughts, progress, struggles, encouragement, tips and ideas in the comments below.

Here's to a clutter-free new year!