"If Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you busy"

Did you hear that?  Really what is that noise?  Oh wait, that's just my brain EXPLODING from overload.

I accepted a new nanny job last week, and while I don't start until mid April, I have been working a couple days to get to know the kids.  I'll be caring for an adorable, independent, very smart almost 4 year old little girl and her smiley, emotional, binky loving 2 year old brother.  That's in addition to my silly, whiny, bacon eating baby A.  Whom, I really feel like I can't call baby anymore.  I think we'll have to change that to toddling A.

There's that.

Then, Maw Maw B and Auntie are coming to visit this weekend.  And niece and nephew are blessing us with their presence all next week while Auntie goes out of town for work.   Have you ever tried to get anything done in the presence of a 7, 4 and 2 year old?  I thought so.  It doesn't happen. We're going to have a blast, but I assure you nothing productive will take place.  Unless you consider the house not burning down productive.

Soooooo, I've crammed everything that I need to get done over the next two weeks into this one.  Or should I say, into the first 4 days of this week about 8 hours because I can only actually work during toddling A's naps.  I'm lucky if I get 2 hours a day.  We just got new flooring in our living room so I need to paint the baseboards, and I've been trying to overhaul our house decor, including building furniture from Ikea.   Did I mention we're still not unpacked, and only able to park one car in the garage?

Help.

Mr. Satan, you've been doing a good job making me busy, but I won't let you win.  I see what you're doing, and I don't care.  I'll stand still in the middle of this tornado of boxes, laundry, dishes, house decor, diapers, dinner, new flooring and paint and worship and praise the One who created it all.  

New Floors, and toddling A cleaning them, wahoo!

"Write them on the doorframes of your houses" This is really close to my doorframe :)

His, Hers, Our, idea credited to a good friend who did the same.

Also an idea snagged from a friend on facebook, so glad I can make Rob's bad days good :)

Finally a place for my willow tree things, now I just have to find where I packed them!

New Rug for the new floors!

Decal above front door

Ikea furniture, built all by myself. BAM!

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Mid-week pick me up

Don't know about you, but this is much needed in my household today!

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What are we waiting for?

I've been hugging baby A a little bit more and a little bit tighter these days.

It seems, lately, like I have been consumed with stories of tiny lives that are ending too soon. (like Anna's story here)  And more importantly, stories of mothers, like Anna, who go beyond what seems possible, of mothers who find faith where they didn't know faith existed.  A strength they didn't know was possible. Like they have this tiny seed of supernatural power tucked away in their littlest bone and somehow manage to grab hold of it and make it grow until it invades all of them and they can use that power to live again.  And I think to myself, how could anyone get through that, how can they go on, but they do.

And I would too.  As hard as that is to admit.

I know baby A belongs to God and he has so graciously allowed me to borrow her and while I get down on my KNEES and pray I never have to experience pain like that, I know where she would go should God decide to take her back.  I would see her again.

Can you say the same, if the person you love the most was taken away?

My church is currently teaching a series called "Sent."  You can listen to the most recent talk here and I highly highly recommend you do.   My pastor, this past Sunday said

"You're gonna give an account one day for what you did with the people God has put in your life, who don't know him."

Wowza. and double wowza.

I started listing off people in my head.   People who have impacted me, who have affected my life's course in some way. People I so deeply deeply care about. I started listing you.  Then I started to make another list using those same people, a list of who I know for sure, if they died, would go to heaven.  And then, those who wouldn't.

Ouch.

The people on the last list...I call those people my friends, my family.  I would do anything for them. Or would I?

I value their friendship so I'm afraid if I go all religious on them, I will lose them.  I'll be seen as that "Jesus freak" and they won't talk to me anymore.

But what really does that matter?  So they won't like me here on this earth, but maybe, just maybe I'll get to see them in heaven.  And you see, that's worth it to me. 

It's not about religion, or church or doing the "right thing," it's about the only thing in our lives that's going to 100% happen to 100% of us.

We're going to die.

Just like these tiny lives that I've been reading about.  It happens.  Sometimes we feel like it happens to soon.  You can blink and its over.  But it doesn't have to be over OVER.  We just have to open our scaredy cat mouths and buck up and talk to the people we claim to love so much. 

Try this on for size.

You're taking a walk down the street with the person you care for the most in the entire world. And as you're walking, you see a car speeding, swerving violently in your direction.  It's heading for you, straight on.  Your person doesn't see it, lost in conversation. Do you step aside and let the car hit them, knowing the outcome won't be good? No, HECK NO. You scream, you yell, you push them out of the way.  You do everything in your humanly possible power to save them from being hit, even if it means throwing yourself in front of that car.


If your person doesn't believe in God, that speeding car IS heading straight for them. And if you aren't screaming, yelling and doing everything in your power to save them, then what are you doing?  Standing back and watching it hit them.

Look I know this is hard to stomach, I've been tossing and turning over the people on my "don't know God" list.  And I know I have to reach out to them.  And I will.

I'm not talking about knocking on doors of complete strangers. I'm talking about knocking on hearts of sisters, brothers, parents and friends.

You see, we can sit around and stress and worry about all the evil and horrible things that can take us or our beloved ones away too soon, or we can stand up and share all the great and wonderful truths that will ensure we stay together forever.

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We are children of a jealous God...really.

While living in MA, I met a wonderful Christian woman whom I am so thankful for and thrilled that God led our paths to cross.  She lent me a book about women and their theology and how important it is for women specifically to take theology seriously.  My first thought, even at hearing the word theology, was "UGH." And it may have taken me some time the entire 8 months I was living there, to read through it, but it encouraged me to be more purposeful about studying God's word, not just reading a verse here and a line there, but actually learning. I had successfully developed a routine that included time daily spent with God, whether reading the bible, listening to a radio series, or reading faith based material online.  I lost that routine when we moved home.

I'm frustrated.

And ashamed. To admit that my life in MA was less chaotic.  I didn't know as many people and even though we moved North, life was actually slower, partly due to the small town we were living in.  But, whether chaotic or not, my time spent with God shouldn't fluctuate.  And it has.  Last week, Mon-Sun, literally, I was at a different person's house each day.  And if I wasn't out visiting our wonderful friends (truly I'm blessed to have each of you), I was stressing over unpacking, or home decor (thank you pinterest.)  

Kay.

So midway through the week, I needed a jolt. A shot of God filled espresso.  Something that just kicked me and my priorities in the rear.   Driving to one of our play dates, I turned on the radio.  Music has always been a powerful form of worship for me and in MA there was no Christian radio.  Here we have K-Love, which is an earful of awesomeness.  Baby A really likes when I turn this station on because it causes mommy to sing at the top of her lungs.  Baby A usually replies with "Mommy Coo-Coo" (cuckoo is the correct spelling I believe, don't judge her spelling skills, she's not even 2)

Minutes after flipping to the right station, one of my all time favorite songs began to play, you can listen to it here: How He Loves.  The very first line is "He is jealous for me."  I've heard it a hundred times, but this time, I really thought about that. God, the one and only God, is jealous for me?  And isn't jealousy a bad thing, aren't we taught, by the Bible, not to be jealous?  But God can be jealous for me?

I needed to unpack this. What does God being jealous for me mean?  There is a lot of material online if you google "jealous God."  You can look for yourself if you'd like, it's an interesting thing to study, but I'm not going to go into all of it here, I will just explain to you what I've explained to myself in my own mind, which needs things broken down very simply in order to process.

The first thing I concluded, while tossing it around in my head, while I should have been sleeping, was that when we are jealous, we are jealous OF things.  I'm jealous of your shoes, I'm jealous of your house, I'm jealous of your corn rows.  You get the point.  God is jealous FOR me.  You change that one word and it means something different.  But still, what does it mean?

Exodus 34:14 says, "Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."  Whoa.  Not only is he a jealous God, but His name is Jealous.

As in, "hi, I'm Jealous, nice to meet you."

In that verse, God is speaking to the nation of Israel, when Moses was leading them to the promise land, and they put up false idols to worship, forgetting all God had done for them.  God was jealous.  But not jealous of the false idols,  He was jealous for his people.  The word, as it's used here, from what I can concur, is closer to the meaning of the word zealous, not envy, as our human term jealous means.   And that is where we find another difference, and the easiest way to explain a jealous God. 

God is not envious. 

He is zealous. 

According to dictionary.com, zeal is defined as "fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor."  

God has fervor for his people, an eager desire and an enthusiastic diligence to pursue them.  I don't know about you, but to me, that is just flat out ahmazing.  That the God who is way too big for our pea sized brains to ever fully understand, is fervently and eagerly seeking after us.

He is jealous for me.  And you.

And in return, we should be jealous for him, we should pursue him with an eager desire, an enthusiastic diligence.  

And that is just what I intend to do.  Won't you join me?

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