Thursday, February 26, 2015

I was blind, but now I see!

So, today was the BIG day! I finally picked up my glasses! Please remember I worked all day before I took this picture and be kind! :)
 
 


While I was at the eye doctor the person helping me brought me my glasses and warned me before I put them, it would be a big difference! As I put them on, a world I never even knew was fuzzy came in to focus! The doctor went on to say, my brain was so used to working to compensate for my vision, it would take up to a week to adjust to my glasses while my brain learned it didn't need to work so hard. I will likely experience headaches throughout the week and should be aware of that.

The first thing I did was look at my phone and realize that there are dots in the background of my phone I never saw before! I giggled as I drove back to work realizing how different everything looked, and yet it was all the same.

On my way home, I actually stopped the car for a moment when I realized that God was speaking to me in SUCH  a profound way suddenly! How like our relationship with God, was my experience today?

Things I never knew were fuzzy came into focus. How often do we go through life without realizing the effect our choices and actions have. Suddenly, when a magnifying glass is shined on us, we see the things we thought were insignificant as having a huge impact on our lives! How often do we wander aimlessly unaware of the plan for us, until God brings it into focus and we suddenly have clarity!

My brain is learning it doesn't need to work so hard. First of all, God made us so wonderfully! My brain is so advanced and intricate, it has been working twice as hard to compensate for my struggling to see. It worked that much overtime to get me through to where I didn't even realize how much it was working! HOW much does God do for us that we don't realize?!?!? Need an example? I have one! I completed my internship, and continued working at a residential facility. I believed (and still do!) God put me there to learn some pretty big lessons about life. I worked SO hard there and drifted a lot in my relationship and focus of God. Yet, through all of it, God protected me! I was injured several times while there, applied for supervisor positions several times and never got them. All of those times, I thought I was working hard, but God was working even harder to prepare me for the next step in my life! Here I am now, a social worker, in a fantastic job! I didn't need to worry, stress, and overwork myself, I just needed to allow God to do His thing!

I will likely experience headaches (pain) while my brain learns to work less (let go). Have you ever let go of something in your life that wasn't a painful process? I haven't! A part of the process of letting go, is pain. Pain for what we should have done, pain for the loss of what is gone, pain for a different way. That doesn't mean that pain is a bad thing. People in general need to learn to handle a little more pain in their lives. When a cut heals, its painful. Its a part of the process. There is a lot that has changed in my life lately. Along with the changes is pain. Its a sad thing to change things. That doesn't mean I wont experience joy and clarity (just as my eyesight will be more clear!), it just means it will be that much more sweeter!

God speaks to us in many different ways. Sometimes its a clear cut moment. It may be something you look at later and go, "well duh!" but sometimes, He reminds of those moments for many different reasons. I am sitting here looking at my three beautiful kiddos, one is sick on the couch whining, one is crying about a dramatic part of the movie, and the other is trashing my kitchen with noodles (yay for spaghetti night!) in an attempt to "clean the dishes". In this moment, I don't see the mess, the tears, or the whining. I see the love and joy I have for my kids and the confidence they will one day be world changers for Jesus! In this moment, like my eyesight, I have clarity.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Whats new?

Does anyone else feel like starting a blog is kinda like speed dating? You have to get all the important stuff in really fast or you lose the attention and you have to start over with the next one. So I am going to just tell you about me and family. If that's not interesting enough, then you don't know crazy when you see it :)


This is me! Im a 32 year old wife, mom, and recently a social worker! I have a background in working with kids with special needs, I have a lot of experience and knowledge with sensory processing disorder, knowledge of all sorts of mental health needs, and recently began working as a social worker doing special needs adoptions! I am adopted myself and have recently begun searching for my biological mother. My husband and I were foster parents, and down the road when our own kids are older we hope to adopt someday!



This is my husband. I know, its a pretty hot picture :) Don't ever tell him I posted this!! In 5 days we will celebrate 9 years of being married! We have had our share of ups and downs and we have been through more heartache in both our lives than anyone should have. We are here though! We have survived, and we will continue to survive. I consider him my best friend and don't know what I would do without him! Aaron is currently a recreation therapist at a residential facility were we both worked before I got a job as a social worker.




 These are my darlings!! The photo on the left is from Disney World this past year and the one on the right is this past Christmas. Emma is my beautiful, imaginative, creative 9 year old. She has such a brave outspoken love for God she challenges me to grow! Grace is my fanciful, unpredictable 6 year old. She has been diagnosed with autism in the past and presents a lot of challenges for us but I wouldn't trade her for anything! Hopie is my heart :) she is the joy of our family! She is almost 3 and spoiled by everyone in the house!

So here we are! If your reading this, chances are you already know us, but hopefully you will share this with someone who doesn't! I look forward to sharing the amazing things in our life and also some of the not so amazing too :)


Remember me?

Have you ever started something with the best of intentions and just utterly failed? I love to read blogs. I follow a ton of them! I love how eloquently mothers like me share the wonderful, horrible, honest, and helpful day to day aspects of their lives with people like me who feel just a little less crazy after reading them! There is so much I also want to share with others. I just don't do it well in a blog! I want to though. So here I am 1 1/2 years after my last post :) My life has had SO many ups and downs and lessons. Lessons I know I went through so I could share them with others. So I will work on that and this :) Maybe I'll do it and maybe I wont :) Today at least, I feel like I will! I think its definitely at least time to update some info on here!