Finding the Balance

So, as I've told you in my last few post, I'm exploring my faith more and more. I'm so excited about this "new chapter" in my life. It's opening up alot of avenues to go up and also forcing me to take a look at some areas of my life that may have been questionable.

One of the biggest challenges I've come across is I really feel out of balance these days with some of the hats I wear. I have to take a line from one of my favorite movies "The Women"... "Who are you, what do you want?" I am woman hear me roar, but I am also, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, etc. etc. How do we combine all of these roles to come up with our best self that we can be? Questions, questions, questions...

Now, you may notice that I stopped posting about my Love Dare Challenge. It was due to the fact that I had a dirty little secret I was keeping from my husband. I've no doubt in my mind that God put a shiny little mirror in front of my face a few Saturday mornings ago and said "How can you do this, if you are not sharing your whole self with him?" I spent the day very quiet, avoiding my husband and crying several times. Now, just so no one gets the wrong idea.. the secret was that we really needed to tighten up on our finances. I felt like telling him would make me a failure somehow because we have to drastically change our spending habits. ( I took a major paycut last fall!!! but tried not to change our lifestyle any)It finally came bubbling out of me later that evening in big gulping sobs. I was so scared that my husband would be disapointed in me and yet, when it all came out he was the exact opposite. He made me promise that I would not bear that burden again alone.

So, here I am, ready to start all over. I've spent the last 2 weeks, examing myself and the roles that play in life. I am now confident that I have gained some of the tools necessary to work towards finding more of that balance.

To Wine or not to Wine

In the past few weeks, I seem to have gotten more excited about re-discovering my religion. I've made more consciouses efforts to pray daily, had talks with God on my way home from work, joined a Women's group at my church, and a few other things. I did it because it felt good. I felt like it was where God wanted me to be, and the more I discovered, the more I saw every day little miracles happening all around me that I knew was God at work.

With all the excitement and new discovery, there is always some questioning of oneself. Was there anything that I was doing that wasn't Christian like? Was there anything that I was doing that might cause some of the women in my group to frown down on me? I feel like I always put my best foot forward for the most part in being a good wife, mother, and worker. I keep a clean house, take my grandma shopping every Friday, and tuck my babies in at night. Over the weekend, it hit me when we went to my cousins 40th birthday. I very gladly took the frozen fruity drink that was handed to me when we walked through the door Saturday night, in fact in the course of 4 hours, I took 2 more. I wasn't drunk, did not act immoral, did not do anything to embarrass myself,most certainly did not drive my family home, etc, etc. All that being said, it gnawed at me when I got in bed. Was it right? Was God frowning upon me for doing it? The longer I laid there, the more items that crossed my mind. I had dropped the "a" word earlier at the party, and possibly the "b" word, joking around. I had cleaned my house spotless earlier in the day, however I had simply shut the door to our bedroom, assuring myself that no one would be in there but myself and my husband, and while I had made the bed that morning, there was a towering pile of laundry to be put away in the floor and the dust bunnies under the bed had baby bunnies. My mind was racing at this point, almost to the point that had my husband not been snoring next to me, I would have jumped up and started cleaning like crazy.

Sunday morning in church I still pondered my questions. Now seriously, just who the heck was I going to ask? The sweet little old lady who sits behind us in church or my pastors wife who sits in front of us? So, I decided that I would put the question out there to you all. Is it morally right for a Woman of Faith to have an adult beverage socially? What do you think crosses the line when it comes to the behavior of Christian women? Do you ever have questions regarding your faith that you feel you can't ask anyone for fear of ridicule?

Have a beautiful week. I am anxious to see your answers!

Winner!!! Baby it's hot in here!

Ladies, I apologize for running a few hours late on announcing the winner of the hot contest. DH has been in and out of the ER for the last 2 weeks, and it looks like we are headed to back surgery. Anyhoo.. back to the contest! Our winner is ...... Miss. Kim! Kim's keep it cool tip was " POPSICLES & a nice fan right in front of me!!"

Kim, you have won a basket of keeping you cool items, including a hardback copy of "Return to Sullivans Island", some Lime and Coconut body wash and lotion, a cute hair acessory, a koozie, and a few other surprise goodies, as well as a recipe for a cool summer shrimp salad.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I will try to compile all of your tips and do a post in the next few days. As for the Love Dare... we are still doing it, however, I've taken on a whole new list of to do's with helping out DH.

30 Days to being a better Wife- Day 4

Day 4: Love is thoughtful

How precious also are Your thoughts to me. . . .How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

—Psalm 139:17–18

TODAY’S DARE

Contact your spouse sometime during the business of the day. Have no agenda other than asking how he or she is doing and if there is anything you could do for them.

SO this is probably the easiest one of all for me, as DH and I chat randomly throughout the day... a quick phone call here, an I love you text... that sort of thing. I think what I'm going to do is wait until I eat lunch and then text him that I love him and I prayed for him before I started to eat. What better prayer can I pray than for God to watch over the man I love throughout the day? One thing I really considered is asking God to take some of his pain away today. DH has 3 herniated disk in his back and 1 in his neck. We have an appointment with a neurosurgeon next week, but until then, he endures the pain during the day, as he can't take anything stronger than Tylenol or while working. I'm saving my "pennies" to put towards one of those Sleep Number beds for him as a surprise, but until then we will have to deal with a board under his side of the mattress.

Well my dear ladies, I'm gonna run. I have Statistics Reports to work on, payroll to do, and Cake Class tonight! Have a Terrific Tuesday!

**Thank you to everyone who participated in the Giveaway! I will announce the winner next Monday with a follow up post of everyone's Keep Cool ideas.***

30 Days to being a better Wife- Day 3

Day 3: Love is not selfish
TODAY’S DARE
Whatever you put your time, energy, and money into will become more important to you. It’s hard to care for something you are not investing in. Along with restraining from negative comments, buy your spouse something that says, “I love you!"

More to follow... slammed on the workfront this am.

30 Days to being a better Wife- Day 2

Day 2: Love is kind- "Love makes you kind. And kindness makes you likeable.
Day 2 Dare: In addition to saying nothing negative to your spouse again today, do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.

More to follow, but wanted to get this back out there. For some reason, my post did not save yesterday! So I'm re-writting yesterday and today. I can already feel my neck starting to get hot.

30 Days to Being a Better Wife... Day 1

So, I told you on date night we were going to watch a movie. And we did... "Fireproof" This was without a doubt one of the most wonderful, inspiring, funny, sweet, romantic movies I think I have seen in a really long time. If you and your sweetie have not seen it, please take the time to watch it together. It follows a plan called the Love Dare, which is based off of taking 40 days to become a better spouse. It was so fitting for me to watch this on the eve of me starting my own challenge. I will use some of the dares from the Love Dare, as I certainly feel like I need all the help I can get.
Day 1: Love is patient

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

—Ephesians 4:2 NIV

TODAY’S DARE

The first part of this dare is fairly simple. Although love is communicated in a number of ways, our words often reflect the condition of our heart. For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say nothing negative to your spouse at all. If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything. It’s better to hold your tongue than to say something you’ll regret.

I succeeded so far today. A friend of mine is having a party tonight. I know that dh does not want to go, however, I have really pushed the issue. Well, this morning over coffee, he finally just came out and said, he really did not want to attend. There had been a much younger crowd(early 20's) that had also been invited, it had grown to over 150 people, and he just really did not feel like it was something he would enjoy. I could feel the vein in my temple start to pulse and my blood pressure start to rise. I could also see DH shift his weight and knew he was waiting for me to blow. I sat for a few seconds and considered my options... I could blow up right now, pout, get angry, and ruin an otherwise lovely morning with DH going off to fish with his buddies and me cleaning house and bleaching anything that would stand still.... or I could just nicely say that was fine, I would go for a bit, then come home and we would have a nice dinner together if he would pick up something while he was out. Tic tock tick tock.... I chose the high road. I smiled sweetly, said my piece and DH agreed to pick up something yummy for dinner.

I must admit, I'm not happy with his decision, however, in thinking it over, I took what could have turned into a childish argument and difused it. I can't promise that I will act the same the next time something happens, but I will try. I will end this post by saying a small prayer quoted from the book "One Minute Prayers for Wives" by Hope Lyda"

"A man's wisdom gives him patience, it is his glory to overlook an offense"
Proverbs 19:11
Calm my heart and my mind when they are raging towards accusation and frustration. Allow me a bridge of compassion so that I can step above and over the hurdle before me. On the other side I will find the beauty of forgiveness and mercy. I will experience the freedom of overlooking flaws and the human ways of another.

Have a wonderful rest of the day! I'm off to go get dressed for the party.