Deadly Venom

The Bible tells us that one of the best lessons we can learn is to control our tongue and it also teaches us that is is uncontrollable by our own strenghth. This has been the hardest lesson for me to learn and am still working on this area of my life.

I was born with a silver tongue I guess to make up for the fact I didn't have a silver spoon. At times it comes in handy for quick witted comebacks, but most of the time I want to have my mouth ducktaped shut. I'm sure there have been many occasions when my husband would have gladly helped me with this task.

There are times when words are coming out of my mouth before I ever knew I was thinking them, times I was thinking them and knew I shouldn't say them and yet this uncontrollable force releases them anyway.

What is the worst, is that I don't aim my venomous spray toward complete strangers that tell me I'm number one when I'm driving, or who criticize my kids in public. It is the people I love the most. My precious hubby and innocent children.

I have grown tremendously in this area of the last 5 years as I have learned how to tell myself to shut up and pray. Learned how to walk away to someplace quiet to beg for help in controling my words. So now when I do use hurtful words, it is a choice, it has always been a sin, but now it is a sin that I willingly choose at times, knowing full well the hurt that will be inflict with my bite.

My oldest daughter got in trouble last night for not controlling her temper or her tongue and saying some really hateful things to me. As we stood talking in the bathroom she cried, all of 6 years old saying, "I don't know what's wrong with me. I pray everynight that God will make me a better person to be around and I really try to be good and then I don't know what happens, I just get so mad." It broke my heart to hear and see standing before me my own sin being passed down. While it is hard to discipline her in this area when I still make mistakes, I pray that we can help her gain a better self control and let the Holy Spirit tame her tongue while she is young rather than being a victim to her tongue as long as I was.

"Set a watch O Lord before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips."

God's ideal of family is togetherness.

I felt especially convicted this morning as I was reading through His Word. He says that we are to work together as a family for profit and not as individuals. I have gotten really mobby the last couple of weeks feeling sorry for myself that I don't have something to call my own like my husband has his own business. He is out everyday. Not that his job is easy or even safe, but at least he gets to socialize with people over 4 foot tall that can carry on a conversation about more than what they want to eat, who's picking on them or asking for their bottom, face or nose to be wiped.

I love my children dearly and have to remind myself often in the midst of the 3rd load of laundry that day that I am living my dream. Well, at least my dream of getting to stay home. I pictured it a little differently than what it actually is, but I'm thankful for the opportunity all the same.

I sometimes find myself feeling alone on my own little island of dishes and housework and it is drained. Wishing I too had something more I could be doing to contribute to life.

Then as I was studying I realized that I already do have that opportunity. I often look at Allen's business as HIS business. But as a family it is ours. It is my chance to shine as his secretary, his bookkeeper, his encourager. I have really slacked the last couple of months even attempting to help out with all the paperwork feeling like this was his dream and that he should be the one to take care of it or hire someone to do so.

It is another of my goals to help him become more organized with all the paperwork, keep up with it so as to have one less burden and for me to be able to share with him the blessing God has before us in his business and for us as a family. I want our kids to grow up feeling just as much a part of this business as if they helped build it themselves. I wonder how this applies to 2 income families that do not own their own business? I know not everyone in the Bible was a business owner, but it seems that even if a husband worked for another man, that his sons and wife went along and did also. This will be something for future study.

Lacking in Talent

The sticker chart for charts had started to lose it's luster. There are plenty of little things on the chart to earn stickers daily. Once they earn 15 stickers they could choose something out of the prize box. I also noticed lately that I am not spending one on one time with them like I want. So I told them yesterday morning when I posted the new colorful chart that once they earned their 15 stickers on top of the prize box, that I would also put aside 30 minutes to spend time with just them. Wow. You would have thought I was a celebrity. Chores were done quicker with much better attitudes. I even had to put the stickers up high as I caught Brian sneaking in a couple extra to get to his goal.

Last night Makensie and I got out her Easy Bake Oven and made a little cake with chocolate frosting. There really isn't much in those little packets. The cake was enough for her. But it was sweet and fun and she enjoyed it.

And this morning Gabby and I had private art lessons. With her teaching me of course.

Gabby age 5, is very creative and spent the majority of her Christmas money on art supplies. So this morning she said for her one on one time she wanted to make some birds. I started getting out the construction paper and crayons. She informed me otherwise. She got out her bag of feathers and glue. These are the fluffy boa feathers in bright pink, yellow, turquoise. They are so much fun. She proceeds to show me how to bend the feathers around and glue them together to make a head, we had to have a different color for the beak and eyes and the body had to be bigger then add the tail, legs and wings. It was quite a process. I wasn't doing quite as good as she had hoped I would and shook her head at me then said, "I'm just much more talented than you uh?" I said, "Yes, Gabby you really are." And I meant it. After about 20 minutes in we had a bird. She then told me that I could do whatever I wanted to do then. I asked if I could color. She got a couple of pictures that are color by number with colored pencils. That is more up my alley, no guess work what looks best. She thought that would be ok. But first we needed to pick up our mess. Some of the feathers had to be trimmed down because they were just too fluffy, so by the end there was little pieces of fuzz everywhere on the table, until the heater kicked on and started blowing them everywhere, not the feathers themselves just all the extra tiny scraps. I tried to compact with the dust buster as quickly as possible but I'm sure I'll be finding joyful reminders of our morning together for the next couple of days. Even as I blew my nose there was even some little reminders there.

Hubby is #1 Suspect

I went to bed at 9 last night....wow! Hubby was home by 8:30, I got his supper, he tucked in the kids and I was out. Then at 11:30 I woke up choking and threw up. I told Allen after I had calmed down that it felt like someone was choking me, that I couldn't breathe. I'm guessing I just quit breathing for a little bit and paniced.

And what did Allen say?

He raises both hands in the air and looked startled and says, "I swear, it wasn't me, I was watching TV." I think he was feeling a little defensive.

My Self Esteem

As I was getting ready this afternoon...yes this afternoon and if I didn't have to take Makensie to Girl Scouts and also to get another gallon of paint, it wouldn't have happened at all...so as I was putting on my clothes, Brian came in to chat. I had my lovely maternity panties on, the ones that come to just under your bra and he patted my tummy and said, "fat!". I told him let's just call it baby. Well, he wanted to make sure I heard him so he continued to pat and continued to tell me I was getting fat, fat, fat from the baby.

Makensie once again to the rescue tells him, "get out of mamma's room if you are just going to be mean. How would you like it if you were big and fat and someone was calling you fat?!"

When I picked Makensie up from Girl Scouts tonight she had made a drawing of our family. I was the size of all three of the kids combined.

So now thanks to my little angel I now know that not only do I have long boobs, but I'm also huge!

Kids. They are good for the self esteem.