Perspective & Forgiveness - 8/30/11

Wow! What a few months of chaos and transition! I wish I could tell you all how well I have handled it all but as you probably have read on my Facebook or Twitter I have not been so graceful. Lack of sleep and an abundance of children has made me see the worst in myself. I am so grateful to now see my house not exactly the way I want it but it is closer everyday to a more organized and settled place to live. Just so I have made myself clear to all who are reading this, my house is not perfectly clean. I'm sure it never will be. However, most boxes are unpacked and I am de-cluttering daily. Its a marathon not a sprint right?

My children have really been teaching me the importance of patience lately. Its a daily struggle sometimes learning how to effectively juggle three different lives that all require as much love and attention I can give them while at the same time trying to figure out how to maintain a household. Like any Mother I'm exhausted trying to fulfill all the duties my life requires me to manage. So, upon an exhausted physical and mental state I often fail at being able to discern wise and appropriate disciplines upon my children. I am learning everyday how I may better accomplish boundary setting and creating improved routine structures. It helps also to have a better perspective of the "BIG" picture rather than getting overwhelmed at the little things. If my progress were to be detailed on a pie chart. Lets say when I started my attempt at developing more patience I didn't have any colored in areas. Now, I'm barely at a sliver. Its a process of unlimited proportions but such a necessity of life to be a more patient person. God has taught me the last few weeks at church that I truly have left Him out of certain areas of my life. With all the demands I have had on my life in the last 5 years I have reduced His presence and influence more and more with the increased responsibility. What a recipe for failure huh?

I now see how imperfect my attempts at being a better wife and mother have been because I have been missing the most important aspect of who "I am". I am first and foremost a child of God and a follower of his Son Jesus. Having the Holy Spirit live within me is the most vital and powerful tool I could ever have asked Him for to help me with everyday trials and tribulations. Instead, I have tried on my own to do it each day and I wondered why I was so miserable and frustrated at times.

The best times of my life have always been when I was walking closest with God. Coincidence? I think not. I am so grateful to God for all the blessings He has bestowed upon me. He has somehow found me worthy of amazing riches and gifts. I have a husband who is committed to me and loves me unconditionally. He has provided for us both financially and physically. Our three children are healthy and happy. And most important than anything we have Jesus in our lives.

I was reading the most touching blog this afternoon while putting my daughter down for a nap. A person I met at Central Christian Church in Vegas posted it on her Facebook. It was of a mother who recently gave birth to her second child who was stillborn. Any of us mothers reading something how devastating as this are all so touched and moved by hearing of such a great loss as losing a child. (I will post a link to this blog below my own so you are all able to read.) She was sharing of her great pain and enormous grief that she has been experiencing since the delivery. Detailing how they both said goodbye to their little angel had me shedding tears over my own baby. I wasn't just crying because I was thinking "what if this was me?" I was crying because I could only imagine how this woman's heart was breaking. She had shared that she had lost another baby girl three months prior to becoming pregnant with this second child and I just was so impacted by this woman's strength. As I read her words I was so humbled to know that there is someone like her out there that is enduring not just one traumatic experience as a mother but now two it completely broke me. After reading something like this I just really start to beat on myself mentally. How can you complain? How can you ever lose your patience on your child?? But then I realize that no matter how much I wish I could at this very moment be a "perfect" Mother to my three children at all times, I know its unrealistic. I'm a sinner saved by grace and kept by grace. I'm not going to be able to maintain any type of perfection because the only perfection that I possess is that of Jesus Christ's perfect sacrifice for me. I can however, strive each day to learn more about Him, spend more time with Him, and hope to become more like Him in this process. Being successful and being more like Jesus is going to result in me becoming a better wife to my husband and mother to my children. I hope day by day and week by week I see more light in my life and in my children's eyes. Praise God for my family and praise God for working in my life so vigorously and unfailingly. I'm so blessed. Praise God for the mother I referred to above. For her faith in God and for her willingness to share a painful and tragic part of her life with so many. God is using her horrible tragedy to touch so many lives. What faithfulness!

The forgiveness aspect of what I wanted to share today was more specific to an experience in my own life that I have been struggling with now for a little over a year. Without exposing too many specifics it really boils down to this. Obedience. God's desire for us to follow Him has nothing to do with control. It has everything to do with protection. Had I been obedient to God I could of spared myself so much pain and discouragement. Below I explain.

Sometimes I have a problem with forgiveness. There are so many reasons why I struggle with it that this blog wouldn't allow me to type all the details of why I struggle with it. I'm learning more as I get older the vital importance of forgiveness. It not only benefits my relationships but even more beneficial it impacts my soul. Holding a grudge although at times feels powerful it also weighs you down. It brings a darkness in your life. A negativity that pulls you away from the optimism we all should have as Christians. I was carrying that around for far too long. Sort of like I had a dead fish in my house and I kept smelling it but couldn't figure out where it was. I finally found it this past Sunday. It was in my heart. So, last night I finally made a phone call and was able to throw that fish out of my house and today I can't smell it anymore. I'm so thankful to God for giving me the strength and the courage to overcome my pride and fear. To push forward to His calling on my life and stop running away from it. I've been a Christian since I was 7. You think that the very foundation of Christianity would not be lost on me as a 35 year old woman but unfortunately, it had been. God forgave us, we need to forgive others. So simple in principle so difficult in application to our lives.

Grateful I am for having the freedom and the peace from God above for the burden that has been lifted from my soul.

There is so much that I disregard because I keep it a "head" knowledge. I "know" it but I don't apply it to everyday situations. I am realizing that I need to transfer more often and more consistently that mental knowledge into my "heart" knowledge so that I may see the impacts of that in my life more effectively.

Starting today.....

God, thank you for my children. Thank you so much for my children. I dreamed many days and years of being a Mother and you have been so good to me for granting this very precious and priceless dream to me. Thank you so much. Thank you also for giving me an opportunity to release myself from such an ugly grudge. Thank you for helping me to give it to you and allow forgiveness to cover all the hurt and pain that was caused so long ago. Please also forgive me God for all the wrongs that I do daily. Thank you for loving me in spite of all my shortcomings and failures. Thank you for this life you have given me. Help me to do the best I can to live the life worthy of your calling.

Amen.

God Bless you all on this day and if you have children try to squeeze them a little tighter tonight when you tuck them into their beds. :)

Tough Road - 6/9/11

Its been a long tough road these past few weeks. Moving from Nevada to South Carolina has been a lot more challenging than I ever imagined. From the stress of having two small dogs to worry about along with having three children to run after made the journey from Nevada a pretty difficult one. The last time I moved was when we just had one child. Clayton was just a year old and so there wasn't the baby issues that come with traveling with an infant. Now, I have 3 children one of which is an infant. So there was a lot of screaming moments while driving the three days from Nebraska to South Carolina. Thank goodness for my ear phones and loud music on my ipod. :) When we got here we were very discouraged about the rental market here. There are tons of houses for sale here just like any place in the United States right now with the economy the way it is there are a lot of foreclosures, short sales, or just people trying to move or get out of a high mortgage payment. I had been doing a lot of research in this area before we moved here and all the realtors that I talked to had mentioned that a large group of Army families were moving here which made it difficult to rent. They were coming here months before we got here so many of the houses that I wanted were gone by the time we got here. Some families were so desperate for the right house here that they rented it for months before arriving. Which was expensive but worth it in the long run. We had very little to choose from and after much prayer and petition we finally found a house that would work. Its not perfect but its a good fit for now. We know this is a temporary home so all our complaints or "non-ideals" we are trying to overlook because we know that someday we won't have to deal with these frustrating details. Once we found our house we set up the delivery of our household goods. They decided to move us in on Memorial Day which turned out to be super duper hot and the people who came to move us in had terrible attitudes. Which I think is not only unprofessional but irritating because I know if I were to have complained to any of my customers (no matter my job) that I would have gotten reprimanded for it. We endured the long day of our kids trying to run in the street, knock on the neighbors front doors and climb the fences of our neighbors who have a pool. Clayton at one point came running inside to tell me that he had to go "talk to his ladies". (The neighbors with the pool had two girls ages 10 and 13.) After an exhausting day starting at 8:00am (for which I woke up at 6am to be here by 7am just in case they got here early I didn't want them to wait for us because the Air Force base we were living at temporarily is about 30/40 minutes to where we live.) and ending around 7pm. When they got done unloading the truck there was some important stuff missing. Like our kitchen table, they brought pieces of our table in but no top and no sides. They brought 3/4 of our bed but were missing the top mattress? There was a lot of other stuff missing from our kitchen, garage and other places of the house but nothing as necessary as a mattress for our bed. Thank God that we had a table we could use temporarily and chairs we had brought just in case. Also, we had a guest bed set that did make the delivery that Sean and I could use. They did bring the boys' beds so we weren't completely down and out. However, it was seriously discouraging having waited weeks to sleep in my own bed that was missing when we finally got moved into our house. Its been almost two weeks since they moved us in here and we still have no idea when they are going to deliver our missing stuff. The worst part is that they said they found the actually missing stuff but don't know when they can get it here. That was last week and here we are almost the end of this week and still no idea when its going to get here. Can you say frustrating??

Anyway, now we are living in a house full of boxes and complete chaos. When the movers came to deliver our stuff Sean mentioned it is their job to unpack everything. So, when they got done unloading the truck Sean told them that we wanted them to unpack it all. Well, with the "professionals" they were they decided to unpack everything and dump it everywhere. No rhyme no reason, just chaos. I was extremely upset after seeing how they were handling everything and immediately asked them to stop. They of course happy that their apathetic attempt at unpacking us was over they left immediately and then started to be nice to us as they made there way out saying how 'sorry' they were that our stuff wasn't here. I knew they were trying to cover there back ends as to prevent a bad report from us. There still going to get it. The worst part of this whole thing is that these companies are contracted to help military families. These companies make tons of money from the government contracting them to help us and they failed miserably. The company who packed us up did a horrible job. Things were broken, beat up, misplaced and poorly packed. Then the company who unloaded us did a bad job as well. There was no notion of patriotism knowing that there jobs their livelihood was literally mostly possible because of what Sean and others serving in the military are doing. Ridiculous!

Since living here we have felt misplaced as well. There is no backyard fence that we came to know and love in Vegas. So, every time we let our dogs out we have to have at least one of them (the puppy) on a leash or she will run off no matter how loudly you call her back. Our doors before this morning had dead bolts that were at my two year olds eye level that he was able to conveniently let himself out each of the three doors. This morning I had a locksmith install three deadbolts high on each of the doors so that I don't wake up listening to my two year old son playing outside by himself while my dogs bark and are running in the street. The level of stress it was giving me the past week has been worthy of a million gray hairs. Thankfully, I don't have those million but I definitely have a lot of years taken off my life by the amount of stress I underwent dealing with the boys letting themselves and the dogs out whenever they wanted.

Very little unpacking has been getting done but today I made a promise to myself. That each day I'm going to give myself attainable goals so it doesn't seem so hopeless that I just freeze and do nothing. Making it seem more reasonable allows me to feel less anxious and more hopeful. So today I said, the laundry needs to get folded put away in the respectful areas. Which is done and its only 3:30 in the afternoon! Yeah! I got a lot more done than that but the good news is that I feel accomplished and positive because I got one thing off my list that I planned on wanting to do. I also told myself from today on out my goal is to unpack one box a day. Doing this makes less mess and more optimum organizational planning. So, I'm back on the horse again after my breakdown yesterday. I had a very meaningful prayer time this morning. Something, I unfortunately haven't done enough in the past few months. Having 3 children has made my personal time alone with God scarce. This is a very bad and unhealthy thing and I plan on rectifying that soon. I know I need Him more in my life and so do my kids. My kids deserve a better Mom and a better Mom they are going to get. My poor husband is going to be also deserving a better wife and I couldn't be more thankful to God for him. He loves me so well and unconditionally that I am humbled to know no matter how ugly I get he still thinks me worthy of his love. No one is perfect in a marriage but Sean definitely is the right man for me. God did a good job of picking him out for me. :)

In the meantime, if any of you out there are moving soon especially with the military please send me a note or consider contacting me so I can give you some of the pointers I wish someone would have given me. These moving companies will take advantage of you if you don't know how they like to cut corners and cut corners they definitely will do. :)

Thank you everyone who sent me an encouraging note or a prayerful message. I love you all for thinking of me during this crazy time in my life and soon, I hope to return the favor. :)

Have a wonderful rest of your week and I hope that your weekend is spent soaking up these sunny summer days!

Lots of love and hugs,

Natasha

4/4/11 - Surviving a PCS

So, my blog title has you thinking that I may have some sort of disease or potential health condition right? Ok, so you're smarter than that. A P-C-S is one of millions of military acronyms that they use to say, "Permanent Change of Station". It means in short "you're moving".

It is my second move with Sean and I must tell you there are some good and bad points. The good news is that the military does pay to move you. The bad news is its always disruptive and it takes many, many weeks of "inconvenient, frustrating and uncomfortable conditions" until you find your normal again. I'm from the school of "stay somewhere you're whole life". So marrying Sean was a big decision of my will. "Can I be a military wife?" And the answer was obviously yes. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of times I wish we could just live a normal life of a 9 to 5 job and "one" house for the rest of our lives. I was raised in the same house from the time I was brought home from Korea to the time I moved out for college. I went to the same school and I have to tell you there is some comfort in having that foundation in a child's life. The wonderful aspect of children I have come to appreciate is there unfailing resilience. Children transition and experience change better than us old boring adults who complain and whine over the ups and downs of a life full of changes.

It being my second move I know what to expect a little better. I understand that these strangers are going to come into my home in a few weeks and completely pack up our lives. They are going to be very invasive and at times I'm going to want to just scream, "leave my stuff alone!" I'm hoping this time I have a better organizational plan that allows me to feel prepared on what I need to keep out and what is ready to get packed away for weeks.

I keep laying in my bed thinking, "bed, I'm going to miss you", same with my couch. I'm going to miss a lot of my everyday normalities that help keep my head sane when I think I'm going to lose it. God played a really funny joke on me by marrying Sean. He said, "I'm going to send this man into your life that is going to be the best compliment to who I made you." "He will stretch you and challenge you in all the areas where you are weakest and you're job is to help to do the same in his life." "Oh, and by the way, all the stuff that makes you feel safe, comfortable and in control all that is going to go away." After realizing this is what God's will for me was I guess I didn't truly grasp how tough it was going to be. I love Sean and I love the fact that he has chosen a life of honor, integrity, sacrifice and patronage. Its just hard at times when it means that all of us have to sacrifice and go through the challenging aspects of being a military family.

I'm very excited and optimistic about moving out of Las Vegas. Many of you know what a challenge it has been for me living out here. I'm looking forward to finding a more "conservative" culture and more "family-based" environment to raise our children for the next 3 years.

There is so much to be done in these next few weeks it makes me exhausted just "thinking" about it all. However, I have to say how thankful I am that at the end of it all we are moving on to bigger and better things. I prayed for a family friendly place to live for the next few years and for what feedback I've been given about South Carolina and the area there we'll be living it sounds pretty good.

We came here with just Clayton. He had just turned a year old. Now we're leaving with 2 more children than when we came and with so much more stuff. Funny how much can happen in 3 years. It hasn't been an easy 3 years but it has taught me a lot and will continue to teach me. Life is such a classroom. You're always coming to the realization that you learn from the good and the bad that comes your way. I'm glad that I came here with Sean and that we were able to do all that we did and experience all that we did out here. It caused me to grow up a lot. You wouldn't think a woman in her 3o's would need to grow up but I certainly did. I was too much into the "comfort-zone" living and loving living there. Now, I'm understanding that living in a comfort zone isn't God's ideal for me. He wants me stretched, pulled and prodded so that I never get complacent or apathetic about the most important thing in life. Loving Him, Living for Him and Leading others to Him.

Sean has mentioned so often how he wanted us to take a picture by the Welcome to Las Vegas sign that is at the end of the strip when we leave. Kind of a memento of our experience here and a badge of pride that we survived it! I'm looking forward to taking that picture. I don't even care if everyone looks at the camera or not. Its having everyone "in" the picture that matters to me. :) We came as three we leave as five!

I know I will survive this PCS but I have to say that once we get officially moved into our new house and get mostly the way unpacked I'm going to feel really relieved. Until then, I'll be carrying the burden of my kids trying to figure out when or how to nap. Driving 3 days to get to Nebraska with 3 kids and 2 dogs. Staying a few days. Then driving 3 more days getting to South Carolina. Trying to figure out where we'll be staying until we find our new house. Then, getting our new house, scheduling the movers, unpacking, and then finding our "new normal".

My husband is such a military guy that when I bring up all the details that I'm worried about, he just shrugs his shoulders and says, "its going to be alright." He definitely is my ying to my yang.

ha ha ha!

Hope you guys are all enjoying the spring!

Natasha

Preparing for the Exit 2/25/10

So, we finally have our confirmation we are "for sure" leaving Las Vegas. It has been a "hot" and "emotional" stay here in Vegas these past 3 years. It was my first time moving away from my "home" in Nebraska. I have learned a lot in these past few years away from everything "familiar" and "comfortable". However, I have also grown a lot through all these new challenges.

It was a serious culture shock moving out here. From all the "sinful" attractions here in Vegas being promoted on billboards and traveling advertising trucks to going into a grocery store to see a guy in front of me carrying a gun nonchalantly. I even had a lady while I was 9 months pregnant ask me to walk her and her full-grown handicapped so to their van at the nicest mall here in Vegas. She said she was scared because she was a "target". She looked at me and said, "you're a target too, you should be scared too." Funny, because I wasn't scared until she said that. Let's just say I walked to my car a lot more quickly than I had planned on. Its a big city. Its full of crazy things and crazy people. However, it was a great place for me to learn a lot that I never would of imagined understanding had I not lived here. I have some pretty extravagant stories of shock that if ever you get a chance to hang with me I'll be more than happy to share with you. Omaha although the largest city in Nebraska fails in comparison to the "night life" out here. I like that. And I'll never want to come back here again. Its just not a great place (for me) to live and I look forward to returning to a more "normal", "laid back", "family oriented" place like Sumter, SC. Its a little less than 40,000 people compared to the 2 million here in Vegas. A lot of people out here are natives believe it or not. And they find it a great place to live and raise a family. To those people I have a lot of admiration because this "small town" girl just felt a little overwhelmed the entire time I lived here. I enjoyed the fabulous shopping (a little too much unfortunately) and enjoying the nearby California attractions. For these experiences I will always be grateful. I will never regret living here. I met some really "quality" people and those people I will miss dearly. Funny how some of the most important people I met here besides a few good friends are my hair stylist and my nail manicurist.

It is more than overwhelming to look around this big house to think that in a few weeks all this has to be packed up and moved somewhere else. We don't have a house lined up yet and there are many loose ends we have to tie up here in Vegas before leaving.

If you have a few extra minutes in your week consider praying for us as we have a large amount on our plates to digest. Especially having 3 kids now instead of the 1 we came here with. Thankfully, God knew when to get us pregnant last year as I had hoped to deliver our 3rd baby in the spring rather than the winter. He knew that would not be a good idea considering his plant to relocate us.

My husband's family have offered graciously to help us and for that we could not be more grateful. Had that not offered we would be hiring a Nanny so that I would be able to work on getting our house prepared for the move. Juggling 3 children and 2 dogs would not allow me to get much done.

I consider all that has happened to my husband and I in the short 5 years we have been married I truly understand why God matched us together. We are wonderfully matched and compatible. Even though we both at times don't see eye to eye. No one is perfect right?

I hope you are all enjoying your 2011 thus far and have seen God work wonderfully in the lives of you and your family!

God Bless,

Natasha