Hearing vs. Listening Part 2

I don't usually do a follow up to a blogpost, but in this case my last post warrants a follow up...

I WISH greatly that my follow up was about the lessons I learned from the not-so-fun incidents I posted about.

However, it's not.

Instead it's a continuance of the week...

Do you get where I'm going?


We all have bad weeks.  Sometimes emotional weeks based on difficult circumstances and sometimes weeks filled with everything and then some going wrong and having to figure out how to fix it ASAP.

I left off with the dryer dying.  I spent the week without it, and only washed diapers and towels, the two things I love to hang outside to dry (and that the sun bleaching them isn't a problem).  Bryan investigated the dryer to see what happened and how to fix it, and inside he found one of the towels with burns on it.  yes... BURNS.  Once again, we realized God's hedge of protection around us.  Here was this super dry towel, in the midst of several other super dry towels, catching on fire, but never actually starting a fire... perhaps because that was the time the dryer killed itself.

Obviously that was the time HE chose to kill the dryer.

The dryer wasn't fixable.  Well, it was, for almost the cost of a new one... neither we had money for.  But in our minds, we were NOT going to fix it... we just didn't trust it anymore... {{can you blame us?}}

Thursday came, and it was the day I needed to bake Ruby's birthday cake for her birthday on Friday.  I turned on the oven, was getting the cake mix ready, and all I could smell was propane gas.  I opened the oven, and saw the pilot light was lighting, but the oven was ice cold.  Yep, the oven died.

I think I just laughed at that point...  I don't quite remember.  I more or less have blocked it from my memory...

I just couldn't do one more thing...


Noah's graduation was that afternoon, and my in-laws came over.  We don't usually share our distresses with them, but my husband mentioned the oven to them and my mother-in-law gave us the money we needed for the repair (we needed to replace a part that cost $60).  We were VERY grateful and even more so that my hubby was able to fix it by that evening.  Her cake turned into a cupcake cake {because they bake faster} and I was okay with that.  Wasn't what I wanted or had planned, but she loved it. :)  {a good reminder that I don't have to be so over the top with everything}.


Friday morning was going to be busy finishing up everything for her party that evening, so bright and early my husband went out to the van to run some quick errands, only to find a flat tire on our van...  and NOT a flat on one of the 2 new tires we bought last month (due to a flat), which would have been repaired/replaced for free.  It was a flat on an old tire...  He put the spare on, investigated the tire to see if we could repair it {{guess what, nope}}, and finally, a bit behind schedule, continued with the day.

The party went well...  The house and the yard weren't completely clean (and some of the house not even close), but everyone seemed to have a good time and the kids had a blast simply playing in the yard together. Ruby was happy, and therefore it was a success. :)

Saturday, Bryan went to work, and I was taking my mom, sis/bil/nephew and kids to the zoo.  We went out to the van and guess what... the spare was flat.

I refused to even think about it and we reloaded into my mom's expedition and spent the day at the zoo.

Sunday, Bryan fixed the spare and went to work.  I took my sis/bil/nephew and kids to cosi for the day, then home to a relaxing evening of grilling, a fire, and making smores.

So far today has been uneventful....  as far as anything breaking down that is...  praying it stays that way as we have to spend the day trying to figure out and fix all of the events of last week.

And since this whole post has basically been a dumping out of a blah week, I will have to follow this up sometime with the lessons we will learn through these things.

We know God is in control, we know His ways are higher, and we know He has a purpose in these hardships.  I'm hoping I just hang in there long enough to listen and learn!

Hearing vs. Listening

I'm having one of those frustrating times in life right now.

Things aren't bad.  In the greater scheme of life, things could be much worse.

It's more or less the point of 'seriously, what ELSE could go wrong!?!'


This past Saturday, I slipped a disc in my lower back.  If you've never done this, then you can't understand the pain.  I have an extremely high pain tolerance, and yet back pain is one of those things that actually get me!  The last time I experienced this level of pain was 6 years ago when I tore my ACL and MCL in my knee.  And I've had 3 kids since then!!

Today is the first day I've found any relief, and that would be thanks to the many drugs my doctor prescribed yesterday. ;) It's still there, but for the first time in 3 days I can actually function (which includes actually sitting at the computer!).

That is where this blog post starts...

My husband finished school on Saturday, and I've yet to see him for more than five minutes.  He worked all weekend (15+ hours per day), then got called into work both yesterday and today.  I am very thankful for his second job, and these extra hours are much needed right now (see previous post), but we had many home projects planned for this week.  We have family coming today, and many others coming on Friday for Ruby's birthday.

Forget house projects... the house isn't even CLEAN, because the kids have been running crazy the last 3 days.  Now that I'm feeling better, they will become my pick up slaves today! hehehe :)

It frustrates me to have my house a mess when someone comes, including family.

Let's keep moving... yesterday we received several bills in the mail... two of which are 'disconnect notices' as well as one 'repo' notice.  Now, we aren't that far behind, but when you've been consistently late, they tend to send those notices out a lot faster than to someone who is only late once or twice...

Did I mention we have no money to pay them at the moment?

Money was spent on my chiropractor visit, as well as my doctor visit and medications.  Normally, I rarely go to the doctor for injuries for myself, but I had to be able to function!

Then last night, my oldest child tripped on our back porch (which was on my list of projects to clean this past weekend and now makes me feel even WORSE because it didn't get done) and tore open his chin.  Off to urgent care for four stitches.  I didn't have the money for the copay, but I wasn't worried about it at the moment because they usually don't ask for it and just bill us.  Of course, last night she asked if we had a copay... I honestly wanted to LIE because I knew I couldn't pay it at that moment.  I hesitated (while she looked at me awkwardly) and then said yes, but they usually bill me.  Her response?  'oh, okay, no problem!'.  Whew...

I made it home by 11 in time to see my hubby for those 5 minutes before I loaded myself on drugs and went to bed.  Before lying down, I transfered a load from the washer to the dryer (that had sat in the washer all day) and turned it on...

Usually I'm up a lot at night, either with a kid, or just the insomnia I suffer from.  However, thanks to my meds, I was OUT.

I got up in time to kiss my hubby off to work, and he said something happened to the dryer last night.  It overheated to the point where it melted several plastic bottles sitting on and near it, and thankfully at some point had shut itself off.  It had gotten so hot, that the casing was still too hot this morning to touch without getting burnt!

My first thought was thankfulness for God's protection.  I used to worry about the dryer, and wouldn't run it at night (back when it was first new... 11 years ago), but as time went on and laundry piled up, I worried less.  Which makes me laugh since we've repaired it twice ourselves in the past 2 years... I should've been worried MORE!!

My second thought was, ARE YOU FLIPPING KIDDING ME?!?  I'm obviously behind on laundry since I haven't done anything around here for 3 days, and now that I'm finally feeling better, I can't even DO the laundry.... ARRRGGGG!!!

After my hubby left, I went back to my bed with my coffee, and started talking to God... I mean, I don't get it?!  Before Saturday I was in the Word almost every morning, or at least some point of every day.  My prayer life is wonderful... I LOVE being able to talk with my Father at anytime about anything.

You know... I thought things were good between us!

So why all the trials suddenly?  Why all the discouragement and pain and frustrations?

I almost wanted to say those dreaded three words I hate so much: "It's Not Fair!"


Here I am, doing what is 'right', and I feel like I'm being punished...

Oh, how human my heart still is...

How many times have I been at this point, and I know (well, the first few times I had to learn) that God is in these difficult times and loves me and is teaching me something through all the frustration and discouragement.

This morning, He also revealed to me something else...  Although I had a working relationship with Him before this, I was only hearing Him and not listening to Him...

My oldest child is a sweetheart and incredibly smart, but he also inherited that manly feature of hearing and not listening.  He can hear words coming out of my mouth, but he isn't paying attention to what I'm saying, which means he isn't listening.  The past year or so I've made him repeat instructions to me (which has yet to happen after saying it only once).  I want him to repeat it so I know he was listening and can now respond with the correct action or behavior.

That's where I was at with God this morning.  I've been hearing Him, but not listening to Him.  My response to Him has not been what it should be, because I wasn't paying attention to what He was saying and what He wanted from me.  I was living 'textbook' style... doing what I thought was right and would please Him, without stopping to listen to what He was actually wanting from me.

Trials come, frustrations come, but it isn't always because we're in sin and in need of correcting.  It may 'simply' mean we have only been hearing Him and yet not listening. He uses good and bad things to teach us.  He uses the easy and the difficult to help us on our journey with Him.

I prayed this morning that He would help me both listen and then follow through...

and before you think I'm too holy, I did ask that nothing else goes wrong this week... ;)

oh money, where art thou?

I don't usually touch on the subject of finances on my blog.

Simply for the reason that I'm HORRIBLE at it.  I can't give great advice, encouragement, etc in this area, considering we're drowning in debt with no sign of a life raft...

I got on here today to blog about the misery that is money, and before I write I always check on my buddy blog links to catch up on the world.  What do you know, one of my favorite bloggers posted about this exact same thing.  I could pretty much take her post word for word and paste it here because she's so much better with words than I am. :)

I already warned her that I was linking to her blog, so here it is: Kathy is an amazing blogger and her honesty mixed with her gift of writing makes for some posts that speak right to the heart of many.  I'm thinking I may just override her blog and secretly claim it as mine. ;)  We're oddly very similar, and she writes so much better. ;)

The 'guilt' of money blogging came from a date night with my hubby last night.  We rarely go on dates.  like, rarely.  We always go out on our anniversary, and that's it.  Every other year or so we may get a second date in there... maybe.

Yesterday was possibly a special day for my hubby.  Yes, possibly.  It was his last day of school (which makes it a DEFINITELY special day), but even more than that, it might be his last day at this school forever.

Last night was a celebration of all he's done at this school the past 7 years.  and it's been a rough 7 years.  mentally, physically, and financially, this job has seemed to be a curse more than a blessing for him.  We know God has His reasons and we're thankful for a job for him.

We've felt God leading him away from this job for a few years now, but we haven't had the courage to step out and pursue His leading.

Let's face it...  getting ANY job in this economy is difficult, but for his specifications, it's even harder.  Sometimes an entire school district only has ONE p.e. teacher, unlike the 4 or 5 grade/subject level teachers for EACH school in the district.  Walking away from a job is not easy.

However, we're 99% sure he is done at this school.  (That 1% comes from our lack of desire for change).

We aren't sure what the next step is.

We are sure that we are still in tons of debt (though we've chipped some of it away the past 2 years.. okay, a bit), we are behind on bills again, we had FINALLY made it to step 2 of Dave Ramsey's baby steps (first is to have all bills current, second is to put $1,000 in savings) but have now almost depleted that savings in order to catch back up... and it isn't enough to catch us back up...

Going out last night, even though it was a 'frugal' date (I did what I could to save money on the movie tickets, as well as used gift cards for dinner), I spent the entire night floating back and forth between Jack Sparrow and the feeling guilty about the money we spent going out.

Really?  We were blessed with free babysitting, free dinner, and a few dollars for a movie my hubby loves, and I felt GUILTY.  I finally got my hubby alone for a few hours, for the first time in almost 6 months and I spent most of that time worrying and feeling guilty...  That's just not fair.

YES, we made bad choices in the past, which led to tons and tons of debt.  Neither of us were blessed with parents who taught us anything about money.  We were clueless, young, and dumb, and that led to much,  much debt, with no clue how to get out of it.

It got to a point where we met with one of our pastors 2 years ago for help.  We went in feeling lost and guilty, expecting a harsh tongue lashing from a pastor who is financially smart, but instead, we found compassion, help, encouragement, and hope.  We met with him for a few months, got many things underway, then the last year we've been doing it on our own.

WHICH hasn't been going as well.

No surprise, there.

Accountability is always an amazing motivator. ;)

It doesn't help that the past two years has brought in a salary reduction at my hubby's job.  So much so, the money from the second job, which used to at least keep our bills current, can't even do that.

He got his preliminary contract from the school this week, stating there would be no raise unless they met a certain number of students, and right now they were not at that number.  Even if they meet that number, and do give a raise, it's a very minimal raise that would be negated as the cost of insurance will be going up again in the fall.

We're thinking it's the last push in God's leading to leave the school.  We don't know where He wants us, we don't know anything else.  We have no idea what will be happening in the fall, and whether or not we'll have a main income at all.

But we know He is in control and He is taking care of us.

We celebrated that last night.

We celebrated us.

We celebrated life together.

It was well worth the few dollars and the guilt....

A Proverbs 31 Personal Revelation

I wonder how many of you saw the title and decided against reading my post. :)

Come on, if you're honest, the Proverbs 31 Woman is more of a daunting challenge that brings more failure and embarrassment than hope and encouragement...

Not that I don't want to be a Proverbs 31 Woman.  ...although it isn't at the top of my list of wants...

Not that those I know who are very close to a Proverbs 31 Woman don't inspire me.  ...and sometimes make me feel mentally, spiritually and even physically ill... if I allowed comparison...  


Not that I don't think I might could possibly someday be somewhat of a Proverbs 31 Woman... if God lets me live long enough...




Well, you get it.

I have enough failures in my life caused by my own sin that placing myself purposefully in a place where I will definitely fail is not something I really want to do.

The past few months I set a few personal goals for no other reason than changing a few things that aren't right.

Okay, and for my own sanity.

One of those things is getting up earlier in the morning.  By earlier I mean I now set an alarm for the first time in 5 years and it is set at the bright early hour of... 7:15.

Those of you who arise at 4 or 5 a.m. are scoffing at me.  I don't care.  You're in bed by 9 while I'm still cleaning at 1 a.m. ;)

My goal was set in order to help me get up at least an hour before my early bird daughter (who gives me til 8ish), so I can get some chores done as well as morning devotions and prayer time.

and coffee.

If I don't get at least one cup of coffee before my kids are up, the morning doesn't go so well... ha.

I've been doing very well.  At least at the getting up part.  The chores and morning devos worked well for a while then the past two weeks they've been hit or miss.

Like I mentioned before, I work best at night.  I'd prefer to sweep, mop, dishes, fold laundry, clean glass, after 9 p.m. The later the hour, the more energy I have, the more I get accomplished.

It helps that it actually stays cleaner longer than 10 minutes too... since all the little mess makers are in bed. ;)  speaking of, here is one of them... :)

Last week, I was lamenting (ok, whining) over a few non-significant, selfish issues, and somehow that led to me thinking of how I'm a 'late sleeper', which makes me lazy according to some others (which shows you I haven't completely stopped comparing myself), and somehow Proverbs 31 entered into my head.

I hadn't read it recently.  I try not to focus on it.  Like I said, I tend to avoid things that I know I will fail at.

But these verses popped into my head:

 ¹⁵ She gets up while it is still night; 
   she provides food for her family 
   and portions for her female servants. 

¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable, 
   and her lamp does not go out at night.

The part that stuck in my head was the 'lamp doesn't go out at night' and the 'getting up while it's still night' part.

God then gave me a personal revelation:  We are all different.

Okay, okay, that's not an astounding revelation, and that's not the exact wording, but it is the main idea.

I realized that staying up after my family has gone to bed, and getting up before they are awake is what these verses are really saying.

It's not about the TIME itself.  So you sleep from 9pm-4am and I sleep from 1am-7am... We still accomplish things after and before our families (and technically you get an hour extra sleep!). ;)

I realized too, the 'lamp not going out at night', means mama is there at all hours, up with crying babies, sick kids, nightmares, unexplainable child sleeplessness, etc.  I never know when I go to sleep if I will get up 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. times that night.  But when I'm needed, I'm up (though not always fully in the right mind).  My husband can't do this.  He can't even hear a crying baby sleeping in the same bed as us.  Not kidding.  I can hear the smallest whimpers from the other end of the house.  It's a blessing to know this.

Just because I don't function like someone else, doesn't mean I'm lazy.  

Don't get me wrong.  I am lazy.  But only when it comes to my housework.  Notice I said MY housework.  I can clean someone else's house amazing and love almost every second of it...  I have an aversion to my personal clutter... :P

I'm not anywhere close to even being a shadow of a Proverbs 31 Woman, but this week I did find hope!  Hope that it IS possible!  I'm not perfect, and there will be days I sleep past 715, but I've made some incredible progress the past few months and THAT is something to celebrate! :)

May 10 on 10

The challenge is to take one photo an hour for ten hours and then post the photos on your blog - capture a snapshot of the ordinary beauty of a simple day in your life!

(interested in Tastefully Simple?? Check out my Tastefully Simple Website!)

Want to see some other May 10 on 10's??   

Go here and look around!  

Have your camera ready for June 10th! :)