Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Braxton, Moral Purity and Random News

It is never boring at my house.

Two things you should know about Braxton. 1. His pants are always falling down as you can see.

2. He likes to hide from me. I love the look on his face! He was like "You caught me!" ha ha. The door does not shut with him in it BTW and he managed to spill OJ all over my fridge. It was worth the pic.
He did this a couple of weeks ago but I was looking through my pictures trying to find some of Lexie's Varsity cheerleading photos and I saw these. What a hoot my boy is. As a funny side note I ran into my Varsity cheerleading photos from back in the day and what a difference between my cheerleading uniform and Lexie's!!! Now I'll acknowledge the fact that I attended a private Christian school so you know we didn't have any trampy uniforms but lol, our skirts went almost to the top of the knee. Lexie's uniform looks like they forgot the skirt practically. Oh well, times they change.
I had a great time at church tonight. Our sermon was on moral purity. Someone named Jennifer may have felt a bit convicted tonight. AND Sunday, and the previous Wednesday. I actually caught and chastised myself for thinking "I wish he'd hurry up and get off this topic." Shame on me. But, why lie. Then I thought to myself, I sure hope the Holy Spirit didn't give him this series just for me. Good grief.
I still struggle with that "little thing" I wrote about awhile back. I almost had the dern thing conquered and then an event happened and I said poo on this and I re indulged myself. Which is really weird for me, being the queen of self control that I am. I don't think I have ever in my life had a problem saying no to anything or quitting something once my mind was made up. It's really not that big of a deal even but I felt particularly convicted when Pastor said "We will tell ourselves that the sin in our life is no big deal. We will reason it out into something acceptable." If you could have heard inside my head at that moment you would have heard a very loud "DANG IT!"
So then of course I was like sheesh God, come on! Give me a bone here, I've always been such a good girl. I really need this!!!! a.k.a. I want it and don't want to be obedient and give it up. Sunday when he was preaching on sin in our life I was seated just in front of the altar. I kept looking at it and I was thinking that I really need to be at it and calling on Jesus to help me overcome my "little thing". Then I had to admit to the Lord that I didn't want to overcome it. Yep, I did. It's the truth. I can hardly believe it. I think when I turned 40 some horrible hormonal rebellion took place and I just feel like I shouldn't have to put up with certain things anymore and that's that. I say I deserve this and that's that. Um, that is so not me. Who is this crazy lady?
I feel squeezed. I know what I should do but I don't want to do it. This thing is nothing physical and I am not cheating on my husband or anything. I would never do that. It's a mental thing, it's all taking place in the mind. So of course I reason it out. But I know it's not helping me to walk blamelessly before the Lord as in Genesis when God speaks to Abraham. "Walk before me and be blameless.", God says. That really struck me last summer when I read that. I think I did a blog post on it? Huh, I'm sure I did. Anyhoo, I've never forgotten it.
I've always prided myself on being little miss goody pants. Well, that's shot to poo now. It may be a good thing in a way. I've never understood addiction and not that I am addicted to my little sinful habit (or am I?) but it will be good for me to walk through this so I can understand why people can't let go of things. I'm sure there must be a reason for this stupid thorn in my flesh. I say that because it is just so not me to let something get a hold of me. Little Miss. Self Control has lost her crown for a bit perhaps? It's not something that would keep me from teaching or anything lest anyone worry but yeah, I definitely struggle with something for the first time. Me thinks this sucks.
I look forward to the day when I take my "walk of shame" to the altar and lay this thing down. I jokingly call it my walk of shame, only because I should have been walking down to that altar last Sunday but made a clear choice not too. Hence, shame on me. But I will take that walk eventually and not now. Why not now? Because I want my need filled. But, I will say that God has been working in this thing and I can see that very clearly in the last couple of weeks. I said before my need is rooted in someone else, which of course I cannot control. So, happily I can see God moving and most hopefully the need will no longer be there and Jenn can put an end to this madness. The point also, is that I have not stopped communicating with God about this thing and praying about it. I talk to Him about it, I pray about it. He is right there in the dirty mud with me, which is right where He needs to be. Shining His light on my darkness. I won't let myself feel ashamed to talk to God or pray. That's important I think. I won't let the enemy, who I am quite confident is right in the middle of this, get me into a place where I feel rotten about myself that I pull away from God.

I think that is HUGE. I know who I am in Christ. I know I usually live by the Spirit and not by my flesh and that no matter how "fleshy" I am right now the very last thing God wants is for me to pull away from Him. I find comfort but not permission in that. I think I hold myself to very high standards too so this little fall for me is huge but I can also reason out that this is certainly nothing to feel condemned over and leave my happy place in God or church. I will beat it and I am super excited to see God moving in this thing. He is helping me. I like that. Our God is an active helping God, isn't that awesome? I like it that I can feel comfortable enough with the Lord to chat with Him about this and be honest with Him. He is responding to that, He is so good to us. Amen to that.
In other news of the day....I had my first real scare today. Some dork of a man came up behind me at his house and blocked the stairs so I could not leave the porch unless I jumped over the railing. He snuck up behind me too, and I jumped a mile. I told him "You scared me to death!" and he laughed. Um, not funny dorkwad. He's lucky I didn't have mace. Then he doesn't unblock me for a bit and as soon as he stepped off the stairs and moved his hands away from the handrails I quickly got off the porch and into the grass. Scary. I can't imagine a 5'3" woman was anything for him to be highly concerned about. Me in my flip flops and all, hardly a cat burglar I would say. I hope he enjoyed scaring the Census lady. Big doodie head.
My husband's back is feeling better, not good but better. It's an improvement so we will take it! We didn't end up going out at all for our 12th anniversary so he said he wanted to take me out this weekend (yay!). I tell ya what would make me happy. One night in a hotel. Need I say more?
Lexie is graduating May 29. This should make for some exciting family drama. Hee hee, I am kind of excited to see what will happen. All of us together.....my husband's parents who are divorced and don't get along with each other or their spouses. My ex in laws who hate me. That's always good fun when I get to see them once every 5 years or so. (When they met my parents the first time the very first thing my EX-FIL said was "We just don't understand why he has to marry her. Can't he just f@ck her and leave it at that?" yep, always good fun there.) Then there is my ex husband who I can't stand but I am always nice to because my daughter deserves that but my husband HATES my ex and will not speak to him. Like, EVER. Can you say awkward? We have the new wife (wife number 3) who is all peppy and wants everyone to feel the love, she is great. I love his wife, can't stand him. Can't I just talk to her? She is totally cool. Lexie thinks it is a great trial run for how her wedding will go. She is highly curious as to how everyone will behave. I am too! I will have to take lots of pictures. Maybe I will catch something good? You never know.....
Jenn

1 comment:

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