Life Around Here

I feel like I haven't written anything in ages.  I keep having these inspirational moments so I jot something down and that is as far as it goes.  I enjoy writing and just knew that this blog would be something my husband would have to tear away from me.  However, my focus has actually not been on me, so I haven't had time to write.  Because we should try to do something that fulfills us daily, I decided that I would aim for 5 minutes of writing even if nothing gets posted.  Well I had that goal set days ago and I haven't done it until now. As I began to write this I realized that I have been fulfilled with meeting the needs of my family or at least trying.

Life is slowing down around here.  The home school group that we are a part of is done for the school year. In addition to that the bible study classes at our church that I am in charge of organizing are ending as well.  In a couple of weeks I will be free from all outside obligations other than working part time.  I am really looking forward to this.  You don't realize how fast you have been going until you begin to slow down. Over the past two years I have felt like I was on a roller coaster.  Busyness is the name of the roller coaster and I don't even know why I agreed to ride it.  I am sure that I didn't think it would be as bad as it was.  However, I feel as if I am quickly moving and then slowing down just enough to round the next curve.  Busyness has caused me to lose sight of what really mattered and that is my ministry in my home.

Being a wife and a mom not to mention homeschooling is a huge responsibility and I wasn't looking at it that way.  I figured I could get by just doing the basics but pretty soon you minimize even that.  Well that is about to change.  I have realized that the years I am blessed to be home with my boys are crucial and I need to limit how much I do outside my home so that I can be fully present when I am at home.  You see, everything we agree to do takes time away from other things.  It doesn't matter how big or how small, it takes time. What I am starting to do is decide what is truly worth my time.  I need to decide how what I say yes to will affect my ability to fulfill my responsibilities to my husband, kids and our home.  These are my first areas of ministry.  These are the first places God called me to and if being somewhere else causes disruption with those areas then I need to decide what is more important, for me.

Some of the steps I am taking to help me learn to slow down and just "be" has been by reading a book titled, "Sacred Rhythms".  I am being mentored while going through this book and being taught what it means to be silent before God and to listen for Him to speak.  These silent moments have also taught me how to manage the daily stressful moments of being a mom.  But it all starts with time with God before I start my day.  Now by nature I am a talker so being silent isn't easy because my brain keeps going.  But I set a timer for 5min (my goal is to build up to more time) and then I just sit there in slience.  Sometimes I say things like, "Here I am Lord" or "Speak to me Lord".  Sometime He does and sometimes He doesn't but the point is to be available and to be open to hearing Him speak.  I will post more, later, about my journey through these spiritual practices or disciplines as they are called.  

Another thing I am doing is listening to an audio book called "Getting Things Done" by David Allen.  I chose to do an audio book so that I wouldn't have another book to read.  I listen to it during my drive to work.  This book is teaching me how to get control of the chaos that I have been feeling around me.  It shows you how to get a better handle on your "stuff" as he calls it which includes both mental stuff and physical stuff.  Through this "GTD" process things around me are being simplified.  I will be talking about this more later as well.  The book is giving me the motivation I need to deal with all the clutter I produce.  Once mommy has her things in place I can train the troops.  Hopefully they will grow up with a practice of keeping things in order but not being anal.  You gotta have a little flexibility or else you get overwhelmed.

The last thing I have been doing is trying be practice Sabbath which is setting aside a day to rest.  This is a challenge for me so I am starting by trying to have a slower more restful day once a week.  I work weekends so the day I chose is Monday.  We take the day off from school and I do minimal chores.  I plan to talk about this more in a later post.

I am trying to model these things instead of saying, "do as I say and not as I do"; but this is hard.  Well I think that's about it for now. You are caught up with what been going on around here.

TTYL,

    Sheryll

Postpartum Depression: You Are Not Alone

I am the mom of three awesome boys ages 5, 7 and 8 ½.  My husband and I have been married for almost 10yrs now and the first 6yrs of our marriage we were either expecting a baby or being the proud parents of one.  We always waited until delivery to discover whether God had blessed us with a boy or a girl.  Mainly because my husband liked the idea of surprise and had I known it would have shown all over my face. I am sure it would have also been evident the items that I would have purchased and placed in the closet.  Although I love being a mom I do have my challenges as do all moms.  Not many of us become moms knowing how to do this.  For some there is a lot of anxiety once they discover that they are pregnant whether planned or not.  This was the case with our third child.

I was very happy to be expecting him and then reality set in that I would seriously have my hands full.  I started to doubt my ability to care for three children and was often nervous about it.  After he was born I was put on bed rest for 2 weeks due to a slightly difficult recovery from giving birth.  I am not the type of person to just rest so this was a challenge for me.  However, with my husband, my mom and my mother-in-law helping I was able to do so.  After a few months I thought I had a pretty good handle on things.  At times I would feel overwhelmed but was still doing ok, or so I thought.

I recall one day just needing space and wanting a break.  I don’t think many moms realize that they are bordering burnout until it really hits you.  I didn’t tell my husband that I was struggling because I didn't think I was doing so badly.  This was my first mistake.  In addition to that, I was a mom and I was supposed to be able to handle three kids on little sleep, right? Anyway, I called my mother-in-law and asked her if she could take the kids.  I can’t remember if I tried my mom or not first and didn’t call my husband because I didn’t want to be a bother.  This was my second mistake.  I can’t say this strongly enough, our husbands can’t meet needs that they are not aware we have.

So my mother-in-law said that she would take my boys and I immediately got their things together and got them into the car.  On the drive there I began crying and I felt that something was really wrong with me so I called my best friend who is a physician and she suggested that I make an appointment with my doctor and talk to my husband.  I made the appointment and planned to talk to my husband once I returned home.  We talked and he expressed that I need to communicate with him when something was wrong and I agreed.  It was just hard to do that at first because I felt that admitting I was having trouble meant that I was a failure as a mom.

Let me pause and say this: MOMS, we are not failures when we struggle, we are human! There is only so much you can do.  If you are a single mom find someone you can confide in that won’t judge you but will help you when you need it.  You can’t care for your kids when you aren't caring for yourself.

After meeting with my doctor she diagnosed me with Postpartum Depression and gave me a prescription for meds.  She told me that while my body adjusted to them, things may get worse before they get better.  This was not encouraging to me at all.  We consulted my Pastor's wife who was a retired pharmacist and she said that that she felt taking the medicine would not be a good idea for me.  My husband and I agreed and decided that this was not the right choice of treatment for me.  We chose to handle this on our own by me doing what I should have done initially which was to rely on him more.  I also knew that I needed to rely on God more.  Sometimes in the midst of dealing with life we forget how powerful and able God is.

Side note: I do believe that every woman has to make that decision for themselves.  And I have spoken with women who said that the medicine was a life saver.  So please be sure to consult your physician and people you trust when making your decision.

My husband and I worked out a plan for the next couple of months.  When I felt overwhelmed I told him and he would relieve my stress by coming home from work or talking me through it.  I thank God for him daily and for the blessing he is in my life.  Slowly but surely the worst had passed.  I would still feel down occasionally until my son was about 2yrs old but this was due to the high level of expectations that I placed on myself.  I am still learning to lower them to this day.

I wanted to share this with you because it is my desire that more women will know that they are not crazy; that the feelings they have are real; and that they need to be addressed if they want to experience the fullness and joy that God intended for us to have as moms.  I will be sharing my joys and my current struggles with you as well but I figured that if you knew my biggest struggle as a mom up front it would help you to know my heart.  Can I pray for you?

Dear Lord, being a mom is one of the best things that have ever happened to us but it is also one of the toughest jobs we will ever have.  It is our desire to love our kids unconditionally and give them our best, but there are often times that we struggle with this.  Lord help us to order our days so that we are not so busy and rushed that we don’t simply take time to breathe.  Help us to see the true joy that our children are even in the tuff times.  I pray God that you will impress on their hearts to give mommy a hug when she needs it the most and that You would whisper to us that the hug is from You, our Father who loves us the most.  I thank You Lord for bringing our children into our lives.  I pray that You would shape us into the moms that you have called us to be.  For those of us that are wives help us to remember that our husbands love our kids just as much as we do.  Help us to trust them more as fathers and believe that they are trying their best.  Place it upon our hearts to pray for our husbands as much as we pray for our kids remembering that we are wives first.  I love you Lord and I pray that you will continue to watch over the moms reading this.  I also pray that if they don’t have a relationship with you that they will repent from their sins and believe in Your son Jesus Christ and that He died on the cross for their sins.  I pray that they will ask Him to be the Lord (authority) of their life and that they will walk every day from now on after Him seeking to glorify Him in all they do and say.  I love You and I thank You for blessing me with a chance to share my life as a mom and my love for You with them.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen

Love,
   Sheryll

Marriage: Then and Now

As I mentioned on my "About Me" page, I am married to a very patient man. Most of the women I know who consider themselves loud and high energy (basically crazy), call their husbands patient. We figure that they have got to be in order to deal with us. LOL

Our first year of marriage, my husband and I often sat down and talked about how things were going. We still talk about our marriage now of course, but the conversation is different because we have grown. Back then, I was struggling with this whole wife and soon to be mom thing. He would try to help me figure out what was wrong but I didn't know. What I did know was that I was now married and pregnant. Have you ever woken up and thought, "when did this happen?" When did I become grown up enough to handle marriage and a baby?  When asked in high school about my career choice I said that I wanted to be a wife and a mom. Second to that was nursing. So don't get me wrong, I didn't have any regrets about where I now was in life. But what I was feeling was insecurity.

I eventually gained confidence in being a wife and a mom. I remembered all the things that I learned from my mom. I would also talk to my Pastor's wife about my new roll and ask my best friend's mom for advice. I read books on marriage, parenting and organization as well. I wanted to make sure I knew how to do this. In addition to all of those things I of course prayed daily. Fast forward to today and I am still not fully aware of how to do this marriage thing. What I do know is that I learn something new almost every day.

One thing that I have learned is how to handle our disagreements. First of all, I learned to pick my battles. Secondly, I learned to consult God when my husband and I didn't agree about something. I asked God to show me, me. I asked him to show me what I did or said that could have contributed to the disagreement. I needed God to change me and help me to see things through my husband's eyes. I needed to know what to do and where I went wrong. I needed to know what to say and what not to say. At times, I needed to know whether to say anything at all. I believe that sometimes God wants me to just be silent so that He can handle the situation. I have also learned that many of our disagreements are due to a misunderstanding. As you know, women and men speak two different languages and I had no idea what my husband was saying most of the time. I am sure he felt the same way. Actually, we still have a hard time understanding each other sometimes but now we can laugh about it.

The bottom line is that marriage is work and we decided that working at it is worth it. We learn more and more about each other every day. I have talked to people who have been married for over 30years and they say that you never stop learning. So here's to a life long education in marriage.

Mrs. Belonga

Something Pretty to Look At

"3 So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working with clay at the wheel. 4 He was making a pot from clay. But there was something wrong with the pot. So the potter used that clay to make another pot. With his hands he shaped the pot the way he wanted it to be. 5 Then this message from the LORD came to me: 6 “Family of Israel, you know that I can do the same thing with you. You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.” This message is from the LORD."

Jeremiah 18:3-6

(Easy-to-Read-Version, Biblegateway.com)

A friend of mine gave me a plant one year for Valentine's Day as a thank you for leading a class at our homeschool group. It was a very cute little rose plant. Beautiful bright red mini roses graced the leaves. Now I do not have a green thumb. As a matter of fact, I was nervous when she gave it to me but I told her that I would do my best. I bought a pot for it and decorated the pot so that it could have a nice home. I consulted my neighbor who is wonderful at gardening and she gave me a few tips. I sat it on the end table where I spend time in prayer. There it could receive sun from the window. My plan was to lovingly care for it everyday.

Each day I opened the shades to give it a little sun and every few days as instructed I would water it. I even fed it, as instructed, so that it would be healthy. It was my desire to give this little plant all the love and care that it needed.

Pretty soon the roses had all dried up and fallen off but I saw some signs of life. I wasn't sure if this was part of the normal process or not so I continued my routines. After almost two months I didn't notice any new roses forming and became discouraged. I thought to myself that I wanted something pretty to look at. I then heard God say, "I am working". He spoke to my spirit and said that although it appears as if nothing good is coming out of this, it will.

Jeremiah 18:4 tells us that there was something wrong with the pot that the potter was making. So he made another pot from the same clay the way "He" wanted it to be. He transformed it from what it was into something better. How often do we grow impatient with God's process? How often do we feel that there has to be an easier, faster way? Jesus may have thought that very same thing as He endured all He did before dying on the cross. But it was worth it. The end justified the means.

I want to encourage you to hold on to God's unchanging hand. Look to Christ for strength. Wait on Him to finish His great work in you.

Prayer: Lord I often grow weary. At times I feel overwhelmed with where I am especially when it seems as if life is going on without me. Give me peace Father and help me to be patient as I wait on You. In Jesus name I pray. Amen

Sheryll