Honey I Shrunk the Kids!

People often ask me "How do I do it?". What they mean is, how do I manage a household of 6 children, home school, keep up with the household chores and not lose my mind. The thing is, without God's grace I really don't. Often God likes to remind me of this. Sometimes I forget I have limitations, I try to do things in my own strength and then it seems that God will withhold his grace from me. I will then end up in tears and completely overwhelmed until I realize how weak I really am, that I need him for everything I do and surrender myself again at his feet.

It also is never a good idea to compare ourselves with others. We must remember that we do not always see the full picture of other people's lives. What works in one family might not work in another. If we compare ourselves with others we are always going to feel inadequate, but is that what the Lord is saying to us?

2 Cor. 7:10 says that "Godly sorrow leads to repentance, without leaving regret, leading to salvation but a worldly sorrow leads to death." If it is the Holy Spirit convicting us of sin then there is hope and the Holy Spirit will give us the grace to change but if we get down on ourselves because we do not feel we are measuring up to the standards of the world then that can lead to despair which is not good for our soul.

Sometimes we may have a hard time discerning the Lord's voice from the voice of the world. An important thing to remember is the Lord likes to encourage. About a year ago I was at a homeschool support group meeting. Some women were sharing with us how they do scripture verse memorization everyday with their children that stresses different positive character traits. Initially I felt a heaviness in my chest because this isn't something I was doing with my kids. The thought then came to me that what I was doing with my kids was just as if not more important. Every morning before we we start school, we pray a decade of the rosary. This is teaching my children the stories about Jesus and hopefully helping them to fall in love with him. If they fall in love with him then the law will be written on their hearts and we won't have to go through every positive character trait there is. (Disclaimer: If the Lord hasn't yet put this on  your heart to do, don't fret, I didn't do this with my older girls and they turned out well and love the Lord very much!)

My main prayer has always been that God will make up for where I am lacking. Amazingly he always has answered that prayer. My older two girls who are teenagers, love God with their whole heart and desire to serve him. This amazes me because there have been days where I lost my cool, had no patience, failed to spend quality time with them and failed to give them Jesus. I can only credit God's grace.

In case it hasn't been apparent yet, I am a very visual person. I often like to envision myself leaning back into the outstretched arms of Christ and relying on his strength which I need so desperately! I also like to do visual type prayers for my children. I like to visualize the Sacred Heart of Jesus and then in my mind, visualize each of my children, one at a time and place them into his Sacred Heart. Then I leave them there, trust God with them and not worry about them.

I once told my older girls about my vision of placing them in Jesus' Sacred Heart. They got a kick out of that and visualized themselves being shrunk and  being picked up by the back of the shirt with their little legs flailing. It may seem silly but I think it has worked for me!

As parents, we are often hard on ourselves concerning our parenting ability. Instead let us trust that we are clay in the Potter's hands and the Potter knows what he is doing. Let us not question the Potter's ability or how long we think it is taking him to mold us. Instead let us lean back into his chest, rest in him and learn what his heartbeat sounds like. Only then will we be able to be the parent we dream of being.

Let's go fly a kite!

Have you ever tried to fly a kite when there was very little wind? I have and it takes a lot of effort and bears very little fruit. You can run really fast and the kite will go up a little but as soon as you stop running, it comes down again. When the wind comes however, the kite will literally go up in the air on it's own and stay up with very little effort on our part. 

I believe the latter is like the season we are coming into in the Church. When the wind of the Holy Spirit shows up, his graces for healing, miracles, prophecy, etc. will easily be available and more prevalent (1Cor.12). It may not happen as suddenly as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and other Protestant movements but it will be longer lasting and have more depth (see my last post about pick up sticks). I believe it is something that has just begun and will happen gradually until that "kite" is all the way up in the air and these signs will be common place among believers (Mark 16:15-18). The cross will be the central focus and therefore Jesus will be lifted high and glorified (notice the cross providing the frame for the kite)! Come Holy Spirit!!!

Holy Pick Up Sticks!

Our son, Isaac is now 5 months old. We are adjusting to being a family of 8 and I am ready to start blogging again. It really helps that Isaac is a very happy and pleasant baby! I am so blessed!

One thing we have been really striving to do as a family is make our home into a Monastery. One way we have been accomplishing this is by doing Night Prayer every night as a family. For the hymn we sing a few worship songs.

Surprisingly the kids have really been enjoying it! Of course they still act like kids and sometimes they are jumping on the couch while we are trying to pray, but the Lord has really been showing up. Especially lately, it has been really easy to enter into contemplation almost immediately when we begin. I suspect that the Lord is going to be bringing the Church as a whole into a new season where his tangible presence is more readily available too. In fact, I had a vision a couple of nights ago while we were doing Night Prayer. In the vision I saw Pick Up Sticks. I remember playing this game as a kid and it required a lot of strategy. I was kind of at a loss as to what the Lord was showing me at first but then I saw a camp fire. I am married to an Eagle Scout and I have observed him making a camp fire. He can be very meticulous in order to create a fire that will burn big and be long lasting. I felt like the Lord was saying to me that right now we may not see a lot of visible manifestations of the Holy Spirit but he is being real strategic. He is working in the hearts of people; humbling, transforming and calling people to lay down their lives. People laying their lives down in humble surrender are like the sticks that are going to cultivate the right atmosphere for the fire of his Spirit to burn bright and long. I felt like he told me this movement of his Spirit is going to burn brighter and longer than any other movement in the past.

Patiently Enduring for God's Promises

Christians often like to say that God will not give you more than you can handle. They are well meaning people who usually like to say this to someone who is going through a tough time. Personally, I do not find these words encouraging. I think this idea comes from the scripture about God not testing us beyond our strength (1Cor.10:13). However, I see these as two different things. In my own life, I know that God has often given me more than I could handle. The reason however is so that I will learn to lean back in him and rely on his grace. I think if we limit ourselves to the things we think we can handle, we could really be missing out in life and limiting God.

One area I have personally been stretched is in the area of bearing children. I have very difficult and complicated pregnancies with gestational diabetes and usually preterm labor that results in bedrest. With my second pregnancy I was on bed rest for 5 months. After I have a baby, it also sends me into a flareup with a couple health conditions that results in extreme muscle and joint pain for 12 months. If I would have gone off of what I thought I could handle and what seemed logical, I would only have two children right now. However, God had other plans.

Twenty years ago this past Thanksgiving, I was engaged to be married. I was in prayer and a very clear image came to my mind. I saw myself in a hospital room. I could see the bright lights and the doctor and nurses in their scrubs. I then saw myself giving birth to a baby. The next thing I saw were two giant hands coming down from heaven and handing me a baby boy.

Tom and I got married 6 months later and conceived on our honeymoon. I assumed the baby I was carrying was going to be the boy I saw in my vision but we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. Almost two years later I conceived again and again we were blessed with another beautiful baby girl.

I had made the mistake at the time of telling a few friends about my vision. In their attempts to encourage me they told me maybe it was just symbolic or maybe we were supposed to adopt a boy. I knew in my heart however that this was supposed to be a biological child that we would have.

Eight years later we got up the courage to put aside the NFP charts that we were using to avoid a pregnancy and try to conceive again, thinking surely this time it would be the boy that God had promised us. Instead we were again blessed with another beautiful baby girl.

By now I was considered advanced maternal age and I knew the clock was ticking for us to have the baby that God had promised us. Surely this would be it and I wouldn't be expected to endure another rough pregnancy. I ended up have two more beautiful little girls and then a miscarriage.

I must say, I never felt like I "needed" a boy. I was perfectly content with my girls and felt very blessed. We just wanted to do God's will and see his promise fulfilled. In June of 2012 we got up the courage to try one more time and conceived right away. I had my 20 week ultrasound scheduled. I was a nervous wreck beforehand. I knew I needed to surrender to whatever was God's will and have peace with whatever the gender of this baby would be. By God's grace, I was able to do that and the day of the ultrasound I had peace. Our perseverance ended up paying  off! I was told we were having a boy! We were ecstatic and excited that we were finally seeing the fulfillment of  God's promise to us. We decided through prayer that our son's name would be Isaac because he was the son of God's promise to us. On January 21, 2013, little Isaac Francis was born! The Lord is faithful to his promises! What is even more important sometimes than seeing the fulfillment of the Lord's promises is that we learn patient endurance and perseverance which leads to the perfecting of our faith which is more precious than gold. The lessons I was taught through the waiting and persevering were invaluable!


James 1:2-4, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Romans 5:3-5, "...we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 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."

A Grace-filled Life

As I have dealt with health problems over the years and difficult, complicated pregnancies, one thing the Lord has had to keep reminding me is that his grace is sufficient for me. He even told me once that the only difference between me and someone without these issues is I just need to rely on more of his grace.

This has made me wonder how to best do that. Often I have felt inadequate and like I must be doing something wrong because I often have not felt I had the strength and ability to do all the things I believed I needed to do. In my mind grace equaled strength.

I have come to realize however that grace does not always look the way I think it should look. Sometimes grace comes in the form of my children getting along and playing nicely with each other so I can lie down and rest. Sometimes grace comes in the form of a friend helping me with something I am not able to do by myself.

There have been times when I have been down on myself, feeling like I should be doing more with my children and I haven't done enough to teach them about the Faith. Grace in that situation is that my children are still passionate about following Christ even though I was often lacking. I am actually getting teary-eyed as I am writing this, thinking about how blessed I am. My oldest daughter is in college and I am so proud of her! Not only is she doing well academically and being responsible living on her own, but she has gotten involved in the Catholic campus ministry at UCF and plans to attend the March for Life in January. My 16 year old daughter, who still lives at home is experiencing a call to become a religious sister and desires to join a certain order when she turns 21. The only credit I can take for any of this is that I have always surrendered them over to the heart of Jesus. When they were little, there were often days I was too weak to get off the couch. I could barely take care of their basic needs and I let them watch cartoons to keep them out of trouble. Since I didn't have the strength at the time to do the things I thought needed to be done, I didn't think I was tapping into God's grace but now I realize his grace is that he has always made up for my own weaknesses and where I have been lacking.

God's grace truly is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Cor.12:9).

God's Judgement or His Mercy?

I once had a professor in college that would say God's judgement wasn't usually in the form of natural disasters and such. Sometimes God's judgement is when he steps back and lets us have what we want. I am wondering however if we ever really receive God's wrath. Everything he does and everything he allows stems from his great love and mercy. I think of the song by the David Crowder Band, "How He Loves". God has a jealous love for his people and will do whatever it takes to help us follow him more closely. It seems to be a fact that people do have a tendency to cling more closely to the Lord during times of turmoil. Whatever happens in life however, we can know that God is still in control and he will ultimately use tribulations for his glory and to bring about good.

One reason I am wondering if we are coming into hard times is because several months back I had a vision of a big, black dragon swooping down and crushing grapes with it's talons. I believe the grapes represent the Body of Christ, the Church. I had the sense that God was going to allow persecution so we can be poured out like wine for the salvation of others.

On a more uplifting note, around the same time I also had a word come to me:  "It is coming! It is coming! It is coming! A great harvest of souls is coming! Now is the time to get ready! I am raising up a Royal priesthood, a Holy and chosen generation! Now is the time to get ready!" When this word came to me, I had the sense that people were going to be flocking to the Church like we have never seen before. He is preparing us for this now. Now is the time to get ready!!!

The Storms of Life

I get the impression that some Christians judge whether they are in God's will or not based on how happy they are. If they are happy with a certain number of children, then that must mean they are not supposed to have more. If they are not happy in their marriage, it must mean they are supposed to get out. I do not think it is a good idea to use happiness as a barometer for discerning the will of God in one's life. I also think this type of attitude is a direct result of the "health, wealth, and prosperity gospel" being proclaimed in many churches today. In order to increase attendance and offerings in churches, it is widely preached, "come to Jesus and he will fulfill all your needs." This is really tragic and really not biblical.

Recently a Facebook friend of mine posted that she was starting to doubt the existence of God because of all the bad things that were happening in her life. I believe this is a direct result of buying into this type of gospel. If this is the type of "gospel" people are fed then as soon as the storms of life come, their faith will crumble. It is like building your house on sand instead of solid ground (Matt. 7:24-27).

In my last blog entry, I also talked about "cheap grace". Some people do not think obedience is all that important to the Lord because no matter what they do, God will still love them. It is true that God will still love them but obedience is very important to the Lord and the bible is full of examples of that. There are many who want the promises of Christ but without the cross. What they do not realize is that it is only through the cross of Christ that we can have true joy. Joy is different than happiness (I will save that one for a different blog).

The truth is, God does not promise us happiness in this life. I do not even know if it is possible to be completely happy in this life because we were made for heaven. He also does not promise us that we will not become broken. A few years back I had an image come to me of duct tape on a window. Some people put duct tape on their windows when a hurricane is coming so when the window breaks, it will not shatter. I felt like the Lord was telling me that he does not promise that in this life we will not become broken. What he does promise us however is that if we put our trust in him, then when the storms of life come, he will hold us together and our lives will not shatter. Non-believers do not have this promise. When they encounter the storms of life, often their lives fall apart.

Let us put our trust in Christ and trust that no matter what trials come our way, he will see us through.