Praying with My Son

I am teaching my oldest son
How God wants us each to pray
And that it’s not a simple act
For the closing of each day
“God really wants to help us
When we feel scared or even sad
And he also wants to rejoice
When we are happy or quite glad.”

He struggles with the nightmares
And often wakes up in the night
I tell him he should pray
God will make things be all right
I know it must be hard
To believe what he can’t see
Faith is a tricky concept
For believers just like me
But he prays the way we talk
Though his one eye might still peek out
Maybe he’ll catch a glimpse
Of this God his Mommy talks about

Last night he came running in
Scared of monsters in his room
Yet not like the other nights
When he was sure he’d met his doom
I asked him if he’d prayed
For God to calm him of his fears
He nodded that he did
But then he whispered in my ear,
“I know that God has saved me
‘Cause the monsters are all gone
But I’m still a little scared
And would like someone with skin on!”

I AM FROM...

I am from construction paper, from Big Chief Notebooks, and Grandma’s lemon drops.

I am from the big corner lot house with decorative paint, secret dirt alley trails, and old, metal play ground swings

I am from the spirea bushes mom transplanted five times, and the sawdust from dad’s work shop

I am from water skiing on choppy waters and campfires, from Jeff and Marcia and pet cats.

I am from the stubborn, and patient.

From “I worry you’re dead in a ditch somewhere.” and “Always remember to thank others”

I am from Bible reading, teaching, and memorizing.

I'm from the Great Plains and the small towns of the mid-west, Grandma's chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes

From the only girl with divorced parents in town, the boy who had the right family name in town, and the grandparents who were pillars of the community in town.

I am from St. John and Stafford Kansas where wheat fields dance in the wind. From Lake Wilson where the waters were as rough as the rock cliffs surrounding it, from family-friendly campsites with souvenir shops around the country

This "I am From..." poem is being sponsered by e-mom at Chrysalis. To read e-mom's "I am From..." poem and others click here.

WEIGH DOWN DIET week 4

I have good news to report again – I am down another 3 pounds! Now this may not sound like much and compared to the last two weeks it is not, but it is still progress! I also have to admit to you without going into many details that this was an emotionally charged week. Instead of eating my way through the pain, I prayed. When worried about a doctor’s appointment for my little boy, and me I prayed. When concerned about issues at home, I prayed. Food has never made worry or problems go away. In fact, not only are the problems still there, but if you handle the issue with food you can just about bet you are also adding a couple more dimples to your thighs that weren’t there before. Who wants that?! Not me!

I have to share with you how praying paid off for me. One, I didn’t add to any pounds I had lost by binging. Two, both doctor’s appointments went fine – doctor’s didn’t find anything wrong with me or my son. Finally, my God blessed me with friends in a way I would have never expected.

Along with teaching me how to eat again, God is also teaching me how to wait on him. He is a God who hears us and answers our prayers….but in his time, not ours. Here are some verses that got me through this last week. I hope they will encourage you too!

Psalms 27:14
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Luke 18:1
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

And, then of course my favorite…

1 Peter 5:8-9
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering.

Is there anyone else in cyber-space who is also struggling with his or her weight? Would you want to join me in this journey? It’s free of charge and all you have to do is focus on your God-given bodily cues. If you want to learn more about The Weigh Down Diet click here. I would love to hear from anyone who might have a weight issue. We could encourage each other along! God bless you all! Stay tuned for next week’s totals!

13 POUNDS LOST 128 DAYS TO GO

Bedtime Stories

It's the same routine every night
Bubble bath, brush teeth
Tuck 'em in tight
Read a book, say our prayers
Give 'em each a kiss
Same request every night
Gives my big boy such bliss
"Tell me a story about me as a baby"
"....a story about when I was born"
"Tell me a story about funny things I did"
As he sits back like a kid with his popcorn
He takes in my stories as if at the movies
Excited by what I might say
Though sometimes I tell the same stories again
It seems that he likes it that way
How I would love to freeze this moment in time
And never let him grow old
But its out of my hands - he's gonna grow up
And if I believe the things I've been told
That precious little boy will become a young man
And not think that my stories are fun
But I pray he'll remember our bedtime moments together
When it's his turn to tell his little one.

Perfection is my Enemy

I want to be perfect
But it's out of my reach
My effort is hopeless
Energy is sucked like a leech
I want the perfect body
Hip clothes and hairstyle
Clean house, obedient kids
And white teeth when I smile
But my life is messy
And no matter how I try
I make BIG mistakes
That forever make me cry
I yell at my kids
And let my husband down
My past is littered with baggage
I can't seem to get around
I want to be perfect -
Perfect mother, friend, and wife
But the only one who sees me flawless
Is Jesus - God of life

WEIGH DOWN DIET week 3

I have great news to report, once again! I am down five more pounds! God is great for helping me through this!

I must tell you that I am re-learning just how wonderful God made the human body. Moreover, that he created our bodies to be at their appropriate weight. I am simply following my hunger and fullness feelings and am losing weight. I also believe that since my body wants to get rid of this excess weight, it is coming off quite rapidly…thus far, anyway.

This is not to say that I haven’t desired to eat more – heck no! I have had plenty of moments when I WANTED something, but was not hungry for it. Gwen refers to this feeling as “desire eating,” and aptly named. There are times when I desire chocolate or chips, but my body is not hungry for it. The most practical thing I have done is walk away from the kitchen or food when I have felt this urge. However, there have been times that even though I am out of the room, I still want it. At that point, I send up a prayer that God will help by distracting me or taking my mind off the chocolate so that I can quit obsessing over something I do not need. And thus far, people – it’s working! God is faithful when we are obedient!

I am still fixated on this passage – it is what has been keeping me going!

1 Peter 5:8-9
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

10 POUNDS LOST 135 DAYS TO GO

Marshmallow Gun

I wish everyone had a marshmallow gun
The bullets are soft and edible when done

If you get hit it's really quite fun
The marshmallow tickles and it's never a stun

When the marshmallow battle is over and done
There's always a party, 'cause both sides have won

We then eat our ammo and talk about the fun
We all had shooting our marshmallow gun!

(I even think you might get a nun
To join in a play with a marshmallow gun!)

This is another poem for Project Open Book. For Christmas my grandparents got all the great-grand kids a marshmallow gun. I'd highly recommend one for your own kids (both big and small!) Click here for instructions to make one for your own family! Have fun!

Super hero

I’m a super hero
I don’t think anybody knows
I’ve got super hero hats
And super hero clothes
You might look at me and think
Ah, he’s just a little kid
But what nobody can see is that
I’m keeping something hid
Butch the cat’s my trusty side kick
And we often go to battle
We climb trees and sneak through grass
To defeat our neighbor’s cattle
My super hero power
Is supposed to be a secret
But I’ll tell you what it is
If you promise you will keep it
I can run so fast I fly
And no one can ever catch me
(Except for Butch who runs fast too
He has to, so he can save me)
But just like Superman
I have my own kind of kryptonite
Inside my house my powers fail
But since it’s home - I’ll be alright
Plus, I cannot blow my cover
So when Mommy calls me in
I come back very happy
Though in secret I do grin
Yes, I’m a super hero
But as everybody knows
We don’t get the credit we deserve
I guess, it’s just the way it goes!

I wrote this for a community-written children's poetry book. If you would like to join and are a poet, artist, or writer, you might check them out at Project Open Book.

My Mother's Voice

Though my mother may not believe it
Her voice is always in my head
From the time that I get up
Until I fall back into bed
“Did you finish with the laundry?”
“Why are there dishes in the sink?”
“I see rings in all your toilets”
“If I were here what would I think?”
All these questions keep me going
To make a productive mom and wife
I wonder if her voice will leave me
Or if I’ll hear it all my life
“Did you get your thank yous written?”
“Are you not grateful for what you got?”
“What kind of daughter did I raise?”
“Don’t you tell me that you forgot!”
Her voice can make me go quite crazy
But it keeps me straight in line
I hope she knows I’m always listening
And that I’m going to turn out fine
(Even though I’m in my thirties
Most would consider me completely grown
I know she worries I’ll screw up
And that it’s her fault, not my own)
It’s an annoying little feature
Every mom puts in her child
That tiny voice you can’t ignore
That some days drives you completely wild
But I take comfort in the fact
That I still hear her voice today
And that I’ll drive my OWN kids batty
When it’s MY voice they hear some day!

WEIGH DOWN DIET week 2

This week started out VERY hard for me. I have to admit that this diet it is helping me fight off the many un-truths in my life, which lie outside the area of weight loss. On Monday (the day before I posted my week 1 log) I struggled all day long – I mean bad. We’re talking tears, depressive thoughts, the whole works.

In my attempt to fight off these awful thoughts, I opened my Bible. It fell opened to Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in spirit.” God loves me and will bring me through this rough time, just as he has brought me through all the other rough times before. Then again, that night before I went to bed, I continued reading in my Weigh Down Diet book. However, when I opened it, it fell open to a chapter I wasn’t even close to reading, but the title caught my eye – STAY AWAKE. Gwen described how each day is a battle and one in which we must be “self-controlled and alert” just as Peter wrote about in 1 Peter 5:8. She reminded us that we must constantly train our minds to stay focused on Christ and to put to death earthly or evil thoughts.

We are never out of the battlefield. We are constantly fighting - fighting our wills, fighting our thoughts, fighting our desires, and fighting off Satan’s lies. Many of the things that had made me miserable most of the day were thoughts that were based on feelings and not grounded in the word and in truth.

I do not want to live by feelings.
I want my life grounded in truth.

(If you are interested in reading a great blog post about this issue, check out Tami Boesiger at The Next Step and read her post about feelings and truth by clicking here.)

Beware to all of us, whether trying to lose weight or just dealing with your own set of life’s struggles. Live by faith! Be self-controlled and alert!

5 POUNDS LOST 142 DAYS TO GO

MY BRAIN

My brain isn’t working
It’s screwed up inside
Had this problem before
It can’t be denied
It’s like there is fog
And it’s trapped in my head
I’m groggy, confused
But mostly brain-dead
It’s quite hard to function
When feeling like this
I go through the motions
But there’s so much I miss
Of course now that I think
And look back on my life
This problem began
As a mother and wife
Maybe my family is draining my brain
A sick twisted joke
Stealing the knowledge contained
You know, it wasn’t like
I was any Einstein
My thoughts were few
And few thoughts were mine
So whatever their reason
For draining my head
The joke is on them
I was already brain-dead

Junior's Dilemma

I do not want to go to sleep
I do not want to count the sheep
I do not think bedtime is fun
I want to play and jump and run
I do not want to close my eyes
What if I miss a big surprise?
But, my bed does feel quite good
So, I wonder if I should
Close my eyes for just a sec…
Did you hear that?! I’d better check
It was not much – just the TV
If I’m awake, maybe I’d see
But, my eyes did feel good shut
And as my Mommy pats my butt
My eyes roll back into my head
And I enjoy my warm, soft bed
Maybe I want to go to sleep
But, I’m gonna skip the counting sheep

Junior Strikes Again!

My Little Junior struck again today
Though not in his normal and destructive way
No melted toys or Houdini tricks
No broken wood blinds for me to fix
Today I was scratching my uncombed, groggy head
Wond’ring who was unmaking my little boy’s bed?
This has never been a problem before
I make all the beds as my mid-morning chore
And then all day long the beds are just fine
(It’s the rest of the house that gets out of line)
But then I saw Junior and his chubby little hands
Unmaking the bed as I began to understand
He wanted his new Thomas the Train sheets to show
Because under a comforter no one would know
That he has fun trains all over his sheets
He must be quite proud and wants others to peak
Which made me consider that maybe some day
When he is toilet trained we might stay away
From fun little undies with cartoons or trains
‘Cause just like those sheets he might not refrain
From pulling his pants down to possibly show off
The cool new underwear his Mommy just bought!

WEIGH DOWN DIET week 1

As I stated on New Year’s Day, I will be logging my struggles and hopefully my accomplishments with weight loss once a week. So, here we go….week one.

On New Year’s Day my husband’s family scheduled their Christmas. As I’m sure it is with most families in the United States, family Christmas’s are code for ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT-ALL-DAY-LONG celebrations. So, the very day I start my Weigh Down Diet, I was hit with food temptation alamode. We started out at a buffet restaurant which literally had every type of food you could even imagine. Then after dinner, we went back to my mother-in-laws where she laid out her schmorgusborg of tasty little treasures. Now, I’m sure all your mothers and mother-in-laws are wonderful cooks, however, until you have tasted the delectable morsels that my mother-in-law can create you have no idea what the word temptation truly means. I did more praying than I did anything that entire night. My husband even commented on the fact that I didn’t eat that much – SCORE! Day one down……150 to go.

I finished the night off reading in Gwen Shamblin’s book, The Weigh Down Diet, chapter one. She likened our struggles with any temptation we might face whether it is food, alcohol, drugs, sexual lust, money, etc. to the struggles the Israelites faced while spending their forty years in the desert of testing. She stated on page 10…

“But before God would let His children inherit the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, He took them on a journey through the Desert of Testing. Deuteronomy 8:2, 3 says, ‘Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.’”

In order for us to learn anything, we must first be humble and bow to God, not to food (or anything else for that matter!) I’m just hoping I can learn these lessons and it doesn’t take forty years! I must say food isn’t a huge temptation until the evening. I get my food-temps on come supper time and when the boys in the house start their munching rituals. I failed miserably on several evenings. I’d eat passed full and then afterwards, the guilt. But as in anything, there is always tomorrow. I woke up and started again. Changing of heart is never going to be an easy thing – nor is it going to be fast. More praying, less eating.

Something that Gwen preaches more than anything is filling up on God, not food. When you are tempted to eat AND ARE NOT HUNGRY the first thing you need to do is either get on your knees and pray or open the Bible up. The passage I have turned to to help me when I am struggling to not eat that left-over cookie, sneak that last bite of steak, or inhale a bag of potato chips is 1 Peter 5:8-9

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

If you are going through anything like I am right now, I hope my struggles can give you comfort – you have another sister out there in the world undergoing the same kind of suffering! Give thanks for that! Though the scales haven’t shown a loss, I do feel like I’m better than I was December 31st. Maybe I'll be able to report a more encouraging post next week. We'll see!

0 POUNDS LOST 146 DAYS TO GO

TEMPTATIONS

Have you ever noticed?
Am I the only one?
When wanting to avoid
That's when temptations seem to come?

I'm working on my weight
And keeping my mouth shut
But sharp words keep on escaping
And too much food makes fat my butt

If I try to start the day
With a goal to stay up-beat
Broken cars and leaky toilets
Make me soon admit defeat

I think that I should try
Avoidance in a way that's clever
But as I sit here thinking
It's an impossible endeavor

What if I avoided
Certain money-making tasks?
Would I then become quite tempted
With heavy buckets full of cash?

I guess it's food for thought
Something for me to think about
I won't avoid the use of brain
It's one thing I can't do without!

The Problem with Snow

The problem with snow
though it may be pretty
it can cause problems in the country and city

The problem with snow
though you may want to play
temps can be too cold - so inside you must stay

The problem with snow
though it's fun when it's falling
you soon will be shoveling, blowing, or hauling

The problem with snow
when it all melts away
you want it right back the very next day!

Following God's Nudges...

Ever felt God’s nudging to do something, but being scared spit-less to take the leap of faith? That’s where I am right now….well, the scared spit-less part anyway, because the fact that I am writing these words shows I have taken the leap of faith.

For the past few weeks, I have been praying for many things. 1) More ministry 2)A more loving, gentle and quiet spirit and 3) what every woman wants, (except for maybe Kate Moss and Uma Thurman…) to be much thinner in the coming year. Check that - life ever after!

I am slowly learning if we would let our will be broken and truly love others (the way the Bible teaches, not the world), life would be much simpler. These two simple truths can be applied to anything one might be struggling with, in any aspect of their life with amazing results. I’ve seen it happen.

Therefore, in an attempt to break my will and serve others better and hopefully increase my ministry for God, I am going to add to my silly poetry posts a weekly post about an area in my life that I continually struggle with…my weight. I am not what you would call overly overweight, but I’ve got plenty of insulation. In my posts, I’m going to lay it all out – I’m Ditchin’ the Kitchen yet again only this time to avoid the magnetic pull of the refrigerator. I will be using Biblical (and scientific) truths presented the book called The Weigh Down Diet by Gwen Shamblin. It is really a wonderful book, by a hilarious Christian woman who used to struggle with being overweight herself. I read this book in college and dropped 20 pounds, but a crazy life-style post college got me all greedy and self indulgent and I put all the weight back on. Plus, having two kids didn’t do anything to improve my already large posterior.

In the back of my mind, I would like to lose about 40 pounds by May 31st as that is the date scheduled for my high school reunion. However, the bigger issue here isn’t so much the weight, but how I allow God to break my will and use my struggles to minister to others.

As Paul stated in the book of Romans,

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

And then again in 2 Corinthians 12:10

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

So here I go Ditchin’ The Kitchen once again!

0 Pounds lost (151 Days to reunion)