Baby Steps

This may replace the recipe this week since I have to work with my husband tomorrow and that schedule wrecks havoc with almost everything . . .

This year the Lord has given me a verse as a theme in my personal life. Isaiah 26:3 ~ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. My thoughts on this are that if I stay focused on Him even if bad days happen or circumstances aren't what I had planned, I can still have perfect peace and be happy in the midst of it.

Last week, my husband had offered to take all three kids to Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday! Half kidding I told him he could take my grocery list and do the shopping too! He said, "No problem!" As you can imagine, this would make any wife/mother's day!! Long story short, I had to go along. Still thought things would work out as he would go to Chuck E. Cheese, and I would do the grocery shopping. We ended up leaving way later than planned due to circumstances out of our control. We decided to eat out with a gift card we received for Christmas. The wait was 45 minutes so we ran a couple errands and arrived back at the restaurant 15 minutes before our wait should have been up. We ended up waiting 30 minutes extra for a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes -- way past our usual eating time. This further delayed our schedule. The hubby's contact acted up. He wasn't able to see out of that eye and had a headache from that and lack of eating. I ended up grabbing a couple things I needed from the store and drove us home -- sans Chuck E. Cheese. The kids were good sports and were fairly understanding. Later before bed, I could tell my oldest was a little down. I asked her what was bothering her. She said she was disappointed they didn't get to go to Chuck E. Cheese. I told her what my plans were supposed to be for the day and asked how she thought I would feel. Because I kept my cool and didn't have a bad attitude (which wouldn't be my usual response), I was able to teach her the right way to deal with that situation. I was so thankful and praised the Lord!

Another instance where God helped me . . . Sunday mornings are hectic to say the least. My husband has started driving separately to set up his Sunday School class. Sometimes that isn't the best scenario for me, and I end up yelling and frustrated. So here I was clench-jawed, murmuring, driving to church! A couple miles into my drive, I remembered reading about someone that had woken up a couple days ago to find their 20-month old child had died in the night. The Lord immeditely began to melt my hardened heart, and I began thanking Him for my children and almost every other blessing in my life. Right there in the van, I began apologizing to my kids and to my husband. I felt so much better, lighter and happy!

Baby steps are how I'm going to have to do this. I've never been one to do anything cold turkey. Take for instance this:

These are cookies I made, let the girls ice and served to company! For those of you that know the perfectionist in me, you know this is a big deal. Can't say I didn't encourage the girls to let everyone know they had part by icing them though! I'm learning to let go and give my kids more experiences. It does take more time, effort and clean up! It's exciting and sad at the same time to see how proud the kids are when the do something. My oldest had earned herself a couple days of total supervision last week and was to stay with me at all times. I had her help with dinner. All the poor girl did was cut the kielbasa into slices and set the table, but you should have heard her telling everyone, "Guess who cut the kielbasa?" "I cut the kielbasa!" Wish I would have learned this lesson a long time ago for my kids sake. Makes me pretty happy and proud too!

I'm still a work in progress. Praying daily I can live by this verse! Hope this gives encouragement to you as you read this!