Jenn rambles on

Ever since I told you in my last review post that I was having trouble feeling God’s grace I haven’t been able to get that off my mind. So, the other day I sat down for a few minutes with my Bible and looked at the reference section at the back to see what verses I could find on grace.

A couple verses caught my attention so I thought I would share them with you because sometimes just reading it isn’t enough. I have to have a thought process and that only happens when I write things down

First of all, Psalm 84:11 - …He gives us grace and glory. No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who do what is right. (emphasis mine) This made me wonder if that’s why I can’t feel God’s grace because I am not doing what is right? Because there is too much sin in my life? I’m not sure if I should take that literally or not. I suppose I should, eh?

Next one. Hebrews 4:6 - So let us come boldly to the thrown of our gracious God. There we will receive His mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it.

So maybe I’m not coming to God boldly. I suppose that is true since most of the time when I do pray it’s full of shame and guilt for not praying as much as I know I should. Maybe I should practice coming boldly to the thrown of God. Any thoughts on that, people?

Ok and lastly for now: Daniel 9:18 - we do not ask because we deserve help but because You are so merciful.

Well that’s good to know and so very obvious to me anyway…I never feel like I deserve anything from God because I don’t. But I guess maybe I’m not trusting that He loves me anyway and wants to help me out. I want to believe that. I really do.

Ok, there’s my mini review on some random passages about God’s grace. More for me than you but feel free to chime in with whatever you like. Except don’t yell at me, that wouldn’t be very nice

Well as we all know, I’m not so great at the reviews lately. And as at least I know, I’m not even so good at the reading either. I did read though Romans 1-6 one time. I usually don’t feel qualified to write a review at all but especially when I’ve only read the material once. But when I was reading chapter 6 I remember thinking that I should write something down because this was good stuff. So, this is me trying to write something down. I technically don’t want to call it a review but if I don’t link it, Shannon will yell at me

Romans chapter 6: 1-4:

1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

Hello! Talk about meaty! I think this first passage was the main reason I wanted to write something down. I mean, what a convicting piece of scripture. It’s a no excuses kinda shout out from Paul that is relevant to every Christian new and old. No more sinning! God does not accept it! He has a higher standard for us now. Am I following the higher standard? Nope. Ya know, it’s easy to say oh hey, I’m good, I don’t drink, smoke, or swear anymore so I’m not a sinner. A good look at my heart would tell a different tale. Sin does not have to be all those things that the world would recognize but I think often the worse sins are the ones that us Christians struggle with that no one sees. Like for me my defiance against God and my unwillingness and inability to surrender my life to God. The way I treat my husband and how I talk to my daughter when no one is around. I should be able to over come these things but most times I choose not to. How upsetting I must be to the Lord. Dang.

How slow and easy it has been for me to slip back into old ways. I remember the few years that followed after I got saved. How exciting life was, how much closer I wanted to be to Jesus, how I worked at it every day. Then little by little I slipped back, each step back equalling MANY more than I thought. Getting out is harder. Way harder.

So yeah, I’m still struggling. Daily. And I often want to be complacent here…but I never will be. It’s easy for me sometimes to forget and focus on life but I always come back to what I know is wrong with my life…being far away from God. It stinks.

The next few verses talk even more about being dead to sin and how sin should lose it’s power in our lives. Oh sin, why do I give you power? Grrrrrrr….

12 Do not let sin control the way you live;^[a] do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

God’s grace. I was saying to my friend Julia the other day that I don’t really remember what it’s like to feel God’s grace. I don’t know if I forget or if I just won’t let myself feel it. I don’t really know how to explain that one.

But I like how that section I have highlighted above gives the flat out instructions. This is what not to do and this what to do. Seems simple, eh? Shya.

verse 16: Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

And there’s an “ah-ha” moment. I’ve become a slave to sin. Isn’t it easier to be a slave? Sometimes it is. No responsibility, no decision making. Hmmm, maybe that’s my problem.

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.

Well, there ya have it. Just a few random and jumbled thoughts on some very important scripture.

Happy Easter everyone

Well, maybe I spoke too soon with the whole potty training thing. I knew it seemed too easy. Gosh.

Things were going well and then a great fear of um, ya know, going #2 on the toilet surfaced. Which has resulted in some going in the pants. This is not good. The thing is, it doesn’t feel like she is being defiant, she seems really afraid and devestated when she is telling me she has to go and gets really upset when she “has an accident”.

So, I know this isn’t the most pleasant of topics to discuss but has anyone else had a kid who was scared to…well, you know…? How do you fix it?

Ok, I’ll really try to find something better to post about in the future

So, I thought I would update you on the toilet training because I know you are just dying to hear a little more about how C trained herself. Yes, yes you are.

She’s doing really well. She’s not accident free but there are very few and she certainly DOES NOT want to wear diapers. She is wearing a pull up to bed at night and if we have to go on a long-ish car ride but even then she is mostly dry.

She’s been having fun telling pretty much everyone that she “pees on the toilet now like a big girl!” Pretty soon we’ll have to have a talk about announcing such things in public.

So, needless to say, I’m happy about this. My friend Shala hit it on the nose last night when she said, “Well, it’s nice that at least one thing about C has been easy.” It’s true, not much about her has been easy but this she just kind of took care of herself.

Oops, just realized I forgot to call Shala back. Sorry ’bout that, Shay. I’ll call later

In other news, I posted about my stinky kitchen sink last week and I’m happy to report that some baking soda and vinegar did the job and my sink is stink free! Thanks to all the WFMW peeps who helped me out.

Well, after many suggestions and tactics and treats I just assumed that C would be very stubborn when I actually decided it was time to toilet train. And I know I said just last week that there wouldn’t be any training until I felt a little better.

Little did I know C was going to call the shots on this one. She just seemed so comfortable in diapers that I thought she would never volunteer to train so I was preparing for battle.

Well, about mid-morning she came out of her room with a pair of princess p*nties (don’t want any wierdos here) and informed me that she wanted to wear them today.

“What? Really? Ok, well if you do, this is what happens, little girls that wear p*nties have to use the potty when they pee.”

“OK”, she said.

We went through about 5 pairs this morning but each time she told me when she was peeing and started running for the bathroom and often finished on the toilet!! I thought this was huge! But she wouldn’t go when I suggested that she should try BEFORE she had an accident.

By suppertime, I suggested trying before she ate and she said ok and peed on the toilet! Oh the celebration!

Tonight I had to go to Awana and I wasn’t sure how it would go with Mike here but she didn’t even wet herself once and told her daddy when she needed to go!

Needless to say I’m impressed

Hopefully tomorrow is even better!

Well, I’m sure we’re all familiar with Works for me Wednesday…but this is the edition where I ask you a question and you do your best to help me out.

Here’s my problem. My kitchen sink stinks. Yup, you heard me, I have a stinky sink and I am admitting it to people I know and don’t know. It smells like dirt or moldy or grossness got in my drain and it bugs me every single day and I can’t figure out a way to kill whatever smell got down there. ew.

So, if you have any suggestions on how to make a sink NOT stink, I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you.

Stop judging me.

That seems like a lofty thing for me to write since I can’t even seem to get out of bed for any length of time these days. Will someone please tell me that this extreme fatigue will go away soon? I can’t even function and I’m not handling it very well. For instance, after a particularly horrible sleep last night I was not too fun this morning. I’m not sure if Mike was joking or not when he asked me to “please stop acting like you’re on your death bed”. And since I felt like I was on my death bed this remark sent me flying back to bed bawling my eyes out.

I know, not so mature.

C followed me into bed asking why I was so sad and all I can tell her is that I don’t feel good. She of course can’t understand how much energy this tiny baby is zapping from me and I don’t want her to think her little brother or sister in there is hurting mommy.

Anyway, so my point is this. I’ve set some goals recently, mostly regarding C, but those goals seems a bit too much for me at the moment. I’ve decided that setting goals like getting out of bed and trying to be cheerful are much more attainable than potty training. I’m hoping that this first trimester is the hardest and that things look up soon because we are SO potty training before this new baby arrives.

I am happy to report that we have C sleeping through the night again which is a great relief. Once we found out about new baby, we knew the sooner we got her back to her own bed the better. It took about two weeks for her to completly quit waking up in the night and crying for us. We had to gate her door which I sort of felt was mean at first but it keeps her out of our room which is necessary since I don’t have the sense at night to take her to back to bed once she comes in with us. Yeah, so that’s good news.

Anyway, I wish I could tell you that I read the first six chapters of Nehemiah more than once but I’d be lying if I said that. I know I’m missing out though because it really is good stuff. Honestly, the whole ‘mind to work’ thing has been playing in my head. Mostly since I don’t have a mind to do anything. But I think if I was really trusting God and really surrendering even my weakest moments to Him that I would be able to accomplish more in a day. I’m not looking to rebuild any walls at the moment but I would like to at least get my laundry done.

Alright, I think that’s all I can say. I seriously hope I can sleep tonight or magically become one of those people who can actually function on small amounts of sleep