5 Minutes 11/7/12

Dear Jesus,

I think my 5 minutes have been a little short lately, and somewhat unfocused. I need to do better. I just listened to Joyce today and she was saying, "Don't work God into your schedule, work your schedule around God." That is very sound advice. It's so sad how the everyday distractions, from family to technology, are so easy to follow/fall into. You are the Center of my life. You are the reason I am here, the reason I have use of all my senses, the Reason for every good thing in my life. I'm sorry that I haven't been better.
I am so thankful for another day. I am thankful to live in America. I am thankful that I have a voice! We don't know what will happen from day to day - politics, even if we will wake up to see another day on this earth. I have to make sure that I live accordingly. I will not take my days/hours/minutes/seconds for granted! I am grateful/thankful/joyful to have You, Jesus Christ in my life. I also pray for the people who don't know You, especially people who do things like "honor" killings. Lord, I pray that people willing to kill their daughters will instead find You. I pray that I can help people come to You. I want to be an example.
Thank You for all you have done and are still doing for me. I Love You. In Your name, amen.

5 Minutes with Jesus 10/25/12

Dear Jesus,

I am really enjoying spending this time with You in writing and, also, posting it so that others may be able to gain something from it, or be inspired to spend at least 5 minutes a day with you. Thank You for the idea and for always being available. Thank You also for my life and all the blessings contained within it. I am so grateful for true, long-lasting friendships and for my wonderful family relationships. I don't believe I could have asked for a better family. I am so thankful that we all get along and, for the most part, don't hold onto bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness. Lord, please help me to do a good job of passing those traits onto my children.
You know I am having some struggles right now when it comes to school and I am wondering exactly what path I should take. I will keep holding onto Phillipians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.). I know I can succeed. I wanted to give up, but I think it's just out of fear of failure/fear of losing financial aid and not being able to pay the difference. My husband just recently reminded me of a pastor he didn't even know prophesying to him to never make decisions based on finances. We also recently received a prophecy saying that God will take care of our financial needs even for five generations. Therefore, I must quit worrying, quit fretting about money. I will step out on faith and accomplish what You want me to accomplish and continue to believe You to meet my needs. Thank YOU. In Your Name, Amen.

5 Minutes With Jesus 10/24/12

Dear Jesus,

     Thank You again, for another beautiful day. I love being able to see the fall colors and I love the fact that You usually give us a little burst of summer right before it turns cold for the next 6 months. Thank You for the gift of sight. It truly is a gift. There are many people and animals who are unable to see the splendor of the Earth, but I am thankful that I can. I am thankful for my husband and my children. Today I am thinking about the many things that I have been blessed with that so many others don't have. One of my Facebook friends posted about being lonely and how that was out of character for them. I felt so bad because that is out of character for that particular person and many people seem to think that person is okay with being alone because they seem to always be so positive. However, it is a reminder that it is hard to be alone sometimes. You created us to want to fellowship with You and with others so it is actually unnatural for humans to live completely alone. This explains why the punishment of solitary confinement is so hard on prisoners. Imagine, in such a gray, dreary, walled in place, full of hatred - even self-hatred, it is not a relief to be away from people in this situation. It is a punishment. We all need somebody. Not just for sex, but just to sit next to sometimes. Somebody to hear moving around in the other room, reminding us that we are not in this big house, or this little apartment, by ourselves. We need to know that we are not forgotten.
     Lord, please bless my friend and help them to know that You are always present. You will be their comfort. I pray that they will seek You first and that You, in turn, will send them the physical presence that they are longing for. (Mk 10:28-31) In Your Name, amen.

Five Minutes With Jesus

Dear Jesus,

     Thank you for the blessing of another day. I think of the young people, my age, who have died recently and imagine the thought of not spending one more day here on Earth. I know that one day in your courts is better than 1000 elsewhere, but I also feel there is much unfinished work for me to do here. I feel that if today was my last day, I would have let You down. Therefore, I am thankful that I get another chance to honor you. Lord, sometimes it is hard for me to honor You everyday. Not that I don’t reverence You, but I believe that honoring You would consist of some outward act. Something that shows someone else a little bit of Your love. Maybe I’m actually thinking of a different word if I need to have an outward showing. Anyway, even if I touch somebody in person, or through the Internet, I want to be sure that I’m leaving a little piece of You behind. I think that is mandatory for me to do each day, so I will be working on that.

     As far as finishing my work here, I don’t feel that I am 100% sure about my actual purpose in life – the purpose You have for me, but I think I have some clues as to the direction I should be going in. I think that You put a teaching spirit in me and I've realized that since I was a child so I believe that whatever my ultimate goal in life is, You would definitely have me be a teacher of some sort. I’m not absolutely sure if that means a school teacher, a Sunday School teacher, just continuing to teach bible studies, or something entirely different. I guess the next step is to work toward that end and see what develops.

Thank You for this time, thank You for listening, thank You for allowing me to speak to you. I love You.

In Your Name, amen. J

Bumps along the road

Judges 7:2 – The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel boast themselves against Me, saying, My own hand has delivered me.”


My Christian Journey has hit some bumpy roads these last few days. I believe the primary defining characteristic of being a Christian is to love God and if you love God, you must love His children. It’s so easy to love someone who is good to you, someone who shows you love. For me, it’s even easy to love a stranger, especially one who has a need, or a sad story. The most searingly difficult part is loving the way Jesus loved. Jesus prayed for His enemies. Jesus asked God to forgive the ones hammering nails into his hands, the ones pushing thorns into his head. I and my family are coming up against a person who is totally unreasonable and selfish. This person does not care anything about my children, they don’t even care about their own child’s feelings/relationships/wishes. This person cares only about their own feelings and about enacting revenge on someone who they feel hurt them more than a decade ago.

I am a Christian, I know I am supposed to love everyone, but 2 days ago, if I would have seen the aforementioned person there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would have …. (edited out due to legal reasons) I will say that it would not have been good for that particular person. At that moment, I had so much hatred, I was asking God to curse them and another person involved in this issue. Eventually I calmed down and asked for forgiveness. All I could think about was Jesus. I thought about how his pain, hurt, betrayal had to have been 1000 times greater than mine yet, he still forgave them, he still loved them.

Have you been brokenhearted before? I mean truly brokenhearted where you couldn’t imagine the next day, you couldn’t fathom your body being able to rise back up if you went to sleep that night, a pain so deep you thought your body would shut down on its own. I’ve felt that way a couple times, mostly as a teenager, and I never would have thought this particular situation would bring me back there – yet here I am.

So, as I attempted to cope with the knife twisting through my heart over and over, I thought about how much more Jesus didn’t deserve to suffer the way he did and how much harder it was for him. I just kept asking Him to help me. I finally reached the point where I was able to pray for the salvation of the hateful person I’ve been dealing with. I wrote out my pain and finally felt some peace. I came to the realization that God still has me – he still is holding me in His hand and still cares for me and loves me more than I could imagine. He is not letting me and my family go through this for nothing.

This brings me back to my chosen verse, Judges 7:2. We actually recently studied this chapter in Sunday school so it obviously came at the right time. In Judges 6 & 7, God is giving the Israelites a huge victory over their enemies, but He is doing it in such a way that will show everyone that the victory was only possible because of God. I believe we have suffered a setback now, but that in the end, everyone who knows of our situation will be able to look at it and realize that we won in the end ONLY because God was on our side. Either He will cause this other person to completely change, or they will receive a crushing defeat.

I am on my way to loving them. I am praying for them. I haven’t completely arrived yet, but I am on the way and I do believe I will get there. It’s funny because my husband is staying positive and he is not showing much pain even though I know he is probably more deeply hurt than I am, but he told me that if he didn’t get anything else out of this setback, he realized how much I am truly on his side. Of course he knew that I loved him, but going through this has brought us closer and shown him another level of my love for him and that’s something you can’t put a price on. I almost want to thank that person who put us through all of this for that reason alone. :-) I’m sure they were hoping that this situation would put us through financial stress, causing us to argue and be resentful, but it’s done the opposite. We have grown closer and look out for each other even more. Thank You, Lord, for using my enemies to strengthen my marriage! LOL (The sound of that LOL was the sound of me getting the last laugh! LOL again!)

Isaiah 55:12 "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." (NIV)

There is a large creek right near my office building and when the weather is nice, I love walking along the trail and admiring nature. Trees have always amazed me and today I looked up and saw the scene below and felt compelled to share it:

How, then could anyone possibly doubt the existence of God? These beautiful trees were not some accident of science or evolution, they were created by the hand of God. I’m so excited that soon I’ll be able to share these things with my son on a nice sunny day. I won’t be stuck in a cold office wishing my kids could take a nice walk by a creek, I will be taking them for walks by creeks! I give all honor and glory to God for making this dream become a reality. (There are some other thoughts that I wanted to share, but I can't think of them right now so I'll have to share when they come back to me.)

Malachi 3:10 - Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!

As I was driving home yesterday evening, I looked up and thought it might rain later because the sky was slightly gloomy.  Then, I looked the other way and noticed a bright spot.  As I was staring at the colors, it occurred to me that the bright spot was almost like an opening in the clouds.  I turned to my husband and said, “Look at how beautiful that is.  It’s like God is opening the window to Heaven!”  We were driving at the time so I didn’t think I would be able to get a good picture with my phone, but I decided to try it anyway.  When I finally got ready to take the picture, I realized that the vapor trails of two airplanes had actually formed a cross right in the middle of the window!  Amazing!  Now I’m sharing it with you so you may be blessed.



God showing me a window to Heaven



I'm on a roll today!

I just had to come back b/c my spirit is so excited!! 

You must be true to your own heart or you will never truly be happy.
We’re too afraid of making mistakes & often don’t follow our hearts unless other people say it’s the right thing to do.
You should not have to go around giving unreasonable amount of explanation for why you feel led to do what you do.

I want to cry right now! Tears of joy! God has truly spoken to me through this sermon from Joyce Meyer.

God told me last October that if I stay, He will bless me. This was a time when I was contemplating going to my old manager to beg her to ask my current manager to let me go back to my old department before my year was up. (The only way you can transfer in my company is either to work for a year in your current position, or your manager has to make a special exception.) I knew it would be running away, but I hated my new job so much (I had started in August) and I felt like I couldn’t survive for a whole year. I went on an interview at another company and constantly sent my resume out, but as I was praying one day, I clearly heard God tell me, “If you stay, I will bless you.” At that point I said, “Okay, Lord, I’ll stay.” I stopped actively seeking new employment. Now I am 2.5 months away from my 1 year anniversary! After my year is up and right around the time school starts, I will be resigning from this position and working from home full time! I will have multiple streams of income and will be even better off than I am now! I am being rewarded for my “suffering”! Now, I realize that I wasn’t on a cross or being beaten, which is why I used quotation marks, but I have truly overcome a big obstacle. All of my adult life, as soon as something got hard, (except marriage or childbirth LOL) I told myself and everyone else that I couldn’t take it and I ran away as fast as I could. The last couple of years, I’ve gotten better and better at staying through the hard times. I believe this is the final hurdle to living out my dreams.

I have dreamed of working from home since my first son was born in 1999. I knew it made sense b/c of the internet, but the timing never seemed quite right, or when the timing was okay, I couldn’t find legitimate work or I couldn’t get insurance, or the pay wasn’t right. All of these things are now in place and it’s now up to me to put the work in & get the wheels moving. I have started by setting small goals for myself. Each time I reach one of my goals, I can go to the next step in this process. This has really helped me b/c another thing I’ve been challenged with in the past was not following through on so many things. I believe God has instilled in me enough discipline that I can live a fulfilled life!

Sources

Twice a month, every month for the last year, I am stricken by something. I feel like I’ve caught some sort of recurring virus. My breaths get shorter, I sometimes feel like I must put my head down, I start sweating, sometimes my hands shake, and my stomach feels upset. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. TWICE. A. MONTH. It’s enough to drive many people to the brink of insanity; in fact, I’ve almost been driven there more than once. I almost looked up my symptoms in WebMD, but then realized I didn’t need to. What is it, you ask? Have I figured it out? Have I gotten treatment? The affliction I am speaking of is actually quite common – or at least what leads to it is. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.


Twice a month, every month, I receive my paycheck. If I am paid on a week day, I pay my bills that very same day, or the next. No big deal, right? It shouldn’t be, however, after I pay the bills and get gas (of course I pay my tithes, but I will never skip that because the 1st 10th belongs to God – I still get to keep the remaining 90%), I have so little (if any) money left that I wonder, “How will I survive until my next check?” That is the phrase that starts all of the above symptoms. Now, do you see how it could drive a person insane? I’ve had to get a loan to pay $13.00 on one bill that I was short, otherwise the service would have been turned off. Thirteen dollars! Pitiful!

This is the day after Memorial Day & also happens to be a pay day b/c it is the last day of the month. However, because of the holiday weekend, our pay was direct deposited 12:00 a.m. Saturday. This meant that I was not sitting in front of a computer so I did not go to all of my biller websites until I got back to work today. Not a very good decision. First, I thought, since I had worked overtime & one of my bills was lower than I expected, I had a decent amount left over, maybe close to $100! It was at that point that I realized I had forgotten a bill and, once again, I will be left with nothing, or worse yet, owing money for something. Immediately my symptoms started: upset stomach, extreme tiredness, but this time something clicked.

This time, something said, “Enough! Why are you doing this to yourself again? Your bank account may say that you have no money, but who is your Father? Remember Him? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He is able to do exceeding, abundantly more than you could ever ask or think! You know your Father, right?”

It was at that point that I decided I would snap out of this, once and for all! I refuse to be stressed out every time I get paid, thinking about how my money leaves my account faster than it goes in. No more of that! This silly little job is not my source. God is my source. As long as I am dependent on this job to provide for me, I will never have enough. So here is my prayer:

Father God, I praise You and magnify You. I am so thankful for ALL You have done for me. I am thankful that you have blessed me to see yet another day and that I am able to speak and write and praise You for being You. Lord, I know it is Your will that I prosper and be in health even as my soul prospers. I know that You are my source and that I should have life more abundantly on earth as well as in heaven. So, Lord, I am asking You, in the name of Your son, Jesus the Christ, show me how I can use my mind and my hands to do work that is pleasing to You and that will increase my blessings so that I may bless others. Lord, please give me the strength to resist temptation and resist negative thinking and continue to hold me in Your hands as I walk the ways You would have me go. I thank You for Your love, Your power, and Your authority. I love You, Father God. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Leaving

At this time, I am in the process of figuring out how to leave my job in order to work from home. I’ve had this idea for years, since my 11 ½ year old was a baby and I wanted to be able to spend more time with him. The problem is, I needed health insurance, plus, it’s been so hard to find legitimate work that actually pays decent. Now, in 2011, all of that has changed. I’ve been diligently researching and thanks to sites like Rat Race Rebellion and Workplacelikehome.com, I am confident that I will finally be able to lift off and soar towards my dreams! It is incredibly exciting to be on the brink of a life change. I’ve been praying a lot and I believe God has been giving me small signs everyday that show I am on the right path.

My ultimate goal is to be a blessing to the world – mostly through my writing, but also in whatever way God chooses to use me. I believe once I am in more control of my time & able to spend more of it with my family, I will be more able to truly start reaching people. Part of my income will be from writing which will help me as well as my audience. I’m so excited!

The job I’m at right now has been a blessing in that it has enabled me to pay my bills and I was able to obtain health insurance so that my children could get their vaccinations up to date. I suppose there have been some other benefits, but I am hard pressed to come up with them now. :-/ That’s odd. I really thought there were more good reasons that I was keeping this job, but other than the health insurance, I am no – oops I take that back, I have been able to save some money in a 401(k) and learn a little bit more about investing. So, other than those things, I am no better off than when I was receiving unemployment checks.

Now, I am not saying that I want to go back to receiving unemployment. I definitely do NOT want to take advantage of that system because I know there are millions of people out there who need those checks and I would hate for my abuse of the system to cause someone else to not get what they need. Needless to say, I will not take government assistance unless I truly need it.

Back to the excitement! I believe God has been giving me signs everywhere I look showing me that I will be fine if I just take a leap of faith, and work hard, and do this for my family and for me! Hallelujah! I can’t wait to get started!

I'm back & will do better updating! :-)

Today is a blessed day.  I followed Joyce’s advice from listening to "Getting Your Day Started Right" yesterday (parts 1 &2) & I woke up praying then I read my Bible for a little bit.  I still got to work late.  L  However, I didn’t get overly angry at my kids, I didn’t cuss at anyone, and I didn’t give up on my whole day simply because I had a bad morning! J  Even when traffic was backed up making me 15 minutes later than I already was, I was still thankful.  I did call another driver a jerk b/c she almost ran into me even though she saw I was getting over, but I repented for that and I will continually renew my mind in that aspect.  Praise God!

Still Journeying

I have not given up being a Christian, but I have not posted on this site in a very long time because I have been battling so many things; mostly depression.  The bright side is that I have continued to keep the faith and pray to God when things seem too much to handle.  If not for the Lord, I would not still be here.  Sometimes things just get too rough and I can do nothing else but cry out, but the 2 Samuel 22:7 says, "But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I cried to my God for help.  He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry reached His ears."  I truly believe my God hears me and that is why I continue to turn to Him and continue to receive blessings from Him.
Hallelujah!

Today's Verse: "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:12-13



I haven't updated in awhile b/c I've been so busy with my new job working from home! Yay! Plus, I'm still working my other p/t job outside of home until I make some more $$.
Anyway, I borrowed the above verse from Bible.com. (I don't normally just copy another site's verse of the day and use it as my own.) It was so appropiate for me, I had to use it. If there is one commandment I break on a regular basis, it is this one. I can love someone I have never met nor talked to more than I love some people who have been in my life for years. That's pretty sad. I have to find a way to look for, and love, the good parts of everyone. Everyone has some good in them, right?

Well, I haven't come up with a verse yet so I will add one when I do.
I'm just feeling a little unloved right now and it seems like certain people will never be satisfied with anything I do. I have been feeling so sick the last couple of days, but I still went ahead and did things b/c other people wanted me to do them and I didn't want to disappoint them. However, they treat me like I'm a hypochondriac or something. All I did was state that I need some rest. Especially since I am trying to work 2 jobs right now until I have steady income with my WAHJ. *sigh* I guess I am just having a bit of a pity party. I feel like I am constantly repeating myself, but people still don't understand that they are being cold and mean. How many people enjoy being made fun of and disrespected constantly by someone who claims to love them? Why should you even have to ask a person more than once not to do that? I know I'm not perfect and I don't always do the things you want me to do, but I still deserve to be treated with a little bit of dignity and respect.

Changing the Title (again)

Todays Verse -- Isaiah 35:8 -- And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. [ Or / the simple will not stray from it ]

I decided to change the title of this blog back to "My Christian Journey." Hopefully I will keep it this time. :-)

Today's verse -- Nehemiah 9:21: For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell!

Hallelujah! We are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We've been talking about it and praying about it and now things are finally looking up. We are getting our other car fixed, we're getting checks in the mail, people are just giving us money just to be nice. Thank You, Lord! I do realize money isn't everything, but I also believe it is not right for us to be poor. I also know that the Bible says to "seek ye first the Kingdom..." so we are definitely working on the areas that need improvement when it comes to the will of God.
I was listening to the Bible on a CD the other day and it got to the part where Jesus talked about the Ten Commandments. I knew that there were some I had never broken such as "Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not covet thy neigbor's wife," and some others, but I started thinking about the ones I haven't been following. I believe I have never followed "Love thy neighbor..." I think ever since I was little, there has always been someone who I have felt hate toward. Thinking about that now, I really feel terrible. I know every person has some good in them, but why can't I see that when they make me angry? This is something I must work on. I want to love everyone. I believe when I get to that point, I will be on a higher spiritual level. I know I will get there someday, I just hope it's before I'm 85. :-)

I think through my frustration about this money situation, God was showing me that even though I have been following some of what the Bible says, I need to realize there is much, much more I should be doing. Matt. 7:11 says evil people take care of their children, how much more will the Lord take care of us, His children... I have been saying, "God, I am your child..." please take care of me and not understanding why things didn't happen right away. If one of my children needed something, I would give it to them if I had it and God has control of all the money in the world. Now, I realize, if one of my children needed money or something and I asked them to do something first, I would expect them to try their best to do what I told them. God has given me an instructional manual and I haven't been reading and following it the way I should. Once I got a clue and started trying harder to follow the instructions, I believe God is more open to releasing the things I have been asking for.

Thank You, Lord for the wake up call. That's just what I needed.

Today's Verse: Phillipians 4:19(Amp.) -- And my God will liberally supply ([a]fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

I have to keep reminding myself of this during these hard times. I know they will get better. I know my family will always have food and shelter. I also know that I need to continue to work on my organizational and time management skills and that I need to manage my money better. I can't keep saying that I wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for my husband. It's not completely his fault just like it's not completely my fault. I believe the enemy is messing with us, but he is not going to win. I must keep the Faith. I must keep the Faith. The Bible says that we are God's children. I know how my parents took care of me as a child so I believe the Lord will take care of me even more so.
I and my family will not be in lack. We will not live in poverty. We will live better than we did before we got Saved. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Today's Verse: James 5:16(HCSB) -- Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful.

Due to the blizzard, our church was closed so we had a little family service in the house. It was pretty nice, we sang some songs and read some verses, then watched TD Jakes online. Schools are closed tomorrow so my step-daughter is staying another night. I'm sure I'll stay sane if the kids don't whine too much. :-)
In other news, I was almost at the breaking point on Friday. I was going to try to get some heating assistance. I really hate doing these types of things. I feel like I'm begging. I know the government sets aside the money and we do fall into that income bracket since I only work part time, but it still feels funny. What truly is funny is if both DH and I were working full time and paying for fulltime daycare for the babies and latchkey for ODS, we would have even less b/c of the daycare costs, but we wouldn't be eligible for any assistance. Anyway, the application I filled out beforehand, and the website, both said you could use your W-2's to show your income. After driving all the way there in the snow and waiting even though the only other person in front of me had left, they finally got my information and informed me that they had to actually have each and every paystub for the last 3 months and the W-2's were basically worthless. I got in the car to leave and I just had to sit and cry for a little while. I talked to God and asked how bad things had to get before we could have a breakthrough. When we were doing all kinds of things wrong, we still were okay, financially. We went on dates and out to dinners with the kids, ordered pizza's, bought new shoes when someone needed them, were able to pay the bills. We were doing just fine, but emotionally, and spiritually, we were poor. I don't believe God meant for us to just trade in one form of poverty for another. I know this is just temporary, but it's been going on for awhile and I just couldn't take it anymore. I just kept praying and crying the whole way home. I finally decided that there would be some good financial news at home. I said, "In the name of Jesus, there IS some good news at home."
Finally, when I got home, DH knew exactly what was wrong with me and he encouraged me. He told me things would be fine even though his first check from his new job (which already wasn't going to be a full check) hadn't yet been deposited in his account. About an hour later, the mail came and with it came his check and something else that meant we'll be getting some more money in a couple of weeks! I was so happy! I knew my prayers had worked. I believe we are coming out of this...whatever it is. I know things are going to be better from now on and I'm not going to stop praying!

I really wish I could escape this world for a few hours right about now. I am extremely stressed. My husband is changing jobs and things are not going exactly the way I thought they would be. I don't know what I'm going to do about my job. I will soon start working from home, but I am still trying to get the money for the initial investment of the phone equipment, etc. I had to change my work schedule this week so I will work a couple of day shifts instead of nights, but when my supervisor emailed me my new schedule, she has me down to work 6.5 hours which 1) will overlap with DH's time to pick up his client and, 2) I usually only work 4 hour shifts and I'm breastfeeding DS2 so that will make things a little more difficult b/c I will have to make sure he has enough milk for all that time.
Speaking of breastfeeding, DS2 normally only takes a total of 4 oz. when I am at work so I usually just pump when I get off and leave that for him for the next day. I used to have a backup bottle, but we used it and I keep forgetting to replenish it. Today, rushing around, I go to get his bottle ready since DH is taking him to MIL's house while he works. When DH pulls the bottle (which is still connected to the pump and had almost 5 ounces in it) out of the fridge, there is only about 2 ounces in there! Thank God, we still have some of the sample formula they give you in the hospital so I pulled that can out of the cupboard. Now I'm at work and I'm worrying about whether or not I put the formula in the diaper bag! I want to call DH, but I'm afraid he'll be mad at me if I did forget it. I am just going to keep praying and hope that no news is good news.
I really have to get rid of this anxiety. I am working on it.
*Update* I did not forget the formula, Thank God! However, the baby doesn't want to drink it. :-/ Oh well. I'll be home soon so he'll be fine. I also ate so I feel a lot better. I need to stop stressing over everything! Geesh!

Christians are still human, unfortunately.

I think many people expect Christians to do no wrong. I'm not sure exactly why this is. I think one factor is that it seems so many Christians are quick to judge others. I know when someone judges me, I am extremely shocked if they end up doing something wrong. Even if it's unrelated. You're being a hypocrite. Just like in Matthew 7:3(NIV) where Jesus tells us not to look at a speck of sawdust in someone else's eye while ignoring the plank in our own eye.
I have to remind my husband of this all the time. He is getting better about it, but he seems to think he is on a higher level than me. We all, as individuals, have areas where we excel and we all have areas where we are inferior. We need to remember this. Especially before we point out someone else's failings.
Prime example in my life: I am a HORRIBLE housekeeper. I am unorganized, I see clutter and get overwhelmed and frustrated so I just walk away from it instead of cleaning it up. Because of this, many people perceive me as being lazy. Maybe I am, I'm not sure, but there could be other things I do wrong. Some people come in my house and can't get over how lazy I am because my house looks so much worse than theirs. Their houses may be clean, but they are hiding dead bodies in the basement. Or, they may be the most selfish, self-centered person in the world. Now, I'm not saying those things are any worse than my disorganization/laziness, what I'm saying is, don't look at my faults and think you are so much better than me. Before you start to think that, take a moment to reflect on your own faults and figure out how you can improve yourself.
Okay, it seems I'm experiencing a bit of writer's block. It may be because I have limited myself by the title, "My Christian Journey." I think I am going to change this so I don't feel forced to write about things pertaining to Christianity or religion.