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When I came home this evening to my toppled greenhouse, my heart immediately sank. At this point of the season, my dreams of wheelbarrows of veggies and rows of jars are all wrapped up in those little plastic cups inside that plastic greenhouse. I wanted to cry.

We immediately went to work in attempt to save whatever we could.  The plants that could be righted may not survive, but I will try.  As I was silently fretting, #3 was not-so-silently fretting.

“What are we going to do for food?”

“What about the marigolds you plant around the garden? You had 72 in just this ONE tray! The bunnies are going to eat everything!”

“We are going to have to eat tomatoes from the store! Can we afford tomatoes from the store? They don’t taste the same.”

“How can we make salsa? or spaghetti sauce? or….

“These were ORGANIC!”

She went on and on…

I finally grew weary of her verbal expression of my own thoughts and told her to hush, but every few minutes her lamentations would break free from her lips.

Of our children, she is the most like me, and I sometimes sit in shock at her reaction to things.  It is like looking in a fun house mirror.  Same person, different body.  Tonight, she was voicing all the things I was thinking.

I started to tell her the Biblical classics like, “Be anxious for nothing” or the Bible says that worry is a sin,but I could not quite bring myself to spout the hypocrisy.  At least she was not hiding her worry! How could I hide my worry, and give her verses on why her’s was wrong?

I know that in the grand scheme of things my green house debacle is truly not that big of a crisis.  I am not fighting cancer, reeling from the death of a loved one, or losing my house. I am blessed beyond words.  It still makes me sad.  I do mourn the loss of my tiny little white cups of gardening dreams.   I also know that I can not sit and worry about it.

As our daughter was annoying me with her obsession over the demise of the plants, I could not help but think about how much I much frustrate my Father.  I know in my heart that the plant thing will work out.  It is a bump in the road.  My Father knows EVERYTHING is going to work out.  He has is all planned out. And yet, there is Tancy, wandering around worrying about it all – obsessing over anything that I think is out of my control.

So often I can picture Him just shaking His head at my folly.  I wonder if God sighs? If He does, I am sure I cause Him to do it often.  I am so thankful that His mercy is new every morning. That concept has been on my mind lately. How grateful I am for that. His mercies are never ending!  Great is Thy faithfulness!

He has mercy on me in my lack of faith and my constant worry, and He will have mercy on me tomorrow when I mess up again.

I am blessed.

I have been fighting a new battle for me.  I have often fought feelings of depression, anxiety, defeat, inadequacy, or even lethargy, but rarely have I fought feelings of anger.  Sure, I get mad about things, but I can usually get over them fairly quickly, and move on.  Lately, I have been dealing with lingering feelings of anger.

I find myself angry at times, and I  can not even pinpoint the exact reason that I am angry.  I am just mad about a lot of things.  I know that most of the time the anger surrounds our ministry and my husband.  I know, I know.  I can just hear the gasps, but I am a real person, and I won’t lie about it.  Can the pastor’s wife just admit that she is mad about the ministry?  Oh my.

I  hate how intrusive our ministry can be at times. I hate how demanding our ministry can be at times. I hate that my husband is pulled in every direction and used up and I get what little, if anything is left at the end of the day.   That hate leads to resentment.  That resentment breeds anger, and Tancy is walking about mad at the world.

Yes, I know you nerds in the crowd are all quoting Yoda, and trying to figure out how I could have put those exact words into that line…even I thought about it. 

When I am walking around mad at the world I am not walking in the Spirit. I am not listening for His prompting.  I am not open to the opportunities that He is setting before me.  I am not being obedient.  My focus is wrong.

When we started down this journey, we said we were unwilling to sacrifice our family on the altar of ministry because we had witnessed that ourselves.  But saying that we don’t want to do that, and knowing how to do that is so difficult!  How does my husband tell a dying man that he can not go sit with him again because he needs to be home with his family some time this week?  How do I say that I don’t have time to help you right now because I have things to at my own home? How do you train people that they don’t need to call you for every little thing?  Where is the line?  How do you know?

This is the place we find ourselves in.  Defining our boundaries.  This battle causes conflict  This battle causes division. This battle causes anger.

I know that the anger is wrong.  Even if there IS a problem with the balance, anger isn’t the answer.  I keep begging God to deal with it.   I know the resentment and anger comes when I take my focus off of what is important, and that is Christ.  However, that doesn’t mean that the need for balance in our life isn’t real.

I keep begging for wisdom for both of us.  We need it.  We both need to find that balance and be wise about our time.  We both have to find a way to minister while preserving the first ministry God has given us within our own family.  I have keep my focus on Christ, and what He is accomplishing. The second my focus shifts to my own pity party, I am wrong.

God keep my focus on you, and please help us define the lines.  We can not do it alone.

 

 

Yesterday, we celebrated fifteen years of marriage.  It is crazy how fast it has flown, and yet how it seems to be all I can remember at the same time.

As I scrolled down Facebook yesterday, I saw the mushy post he left for me, and it made me smile, cry and snort all at the same time.  I can’t help but think that it really a composite for our marriage.

I look back and I think about how people were do adamant that we were nuts getting married. “You’re on the rebound, and shouldn’t be in a relationship so soon.”  “He was previously engaged to what’s her name.”  “It’s too fast.”  “He’s a dork.” “You fight too much.” “You’re too young.”   “Are you settling?” and the list could go on and on….I realize that people just thought that they were helping, but they were wrong.

No, we haven’t arrived, but at least we are still on the train!

I think about fifteen years, and we have had our struggles.  We have had years we almost did not make it.  We have both been selfish, rude, mean, idiotic, and wrong.  People look at us and shake their heads sometimes, but GOD IS GOOD.

HE has pulled us through!  Even through the years that we weren’t exactly His best disciples.  HE stuck by us.  He has brought people across our path to encourage us when we needed us, and smack us when we needed that too.  He has given determination and strength and wisdom when we had none. He is good.  Tancy and JP would have never made it fifteen years.  The pundits would have been right, we would have killed each other years ago.

                    Well.. I am pretty sure I would have won…

 

God did a pretty amazing thing.  He gave us this great gift.  Fifteen year together and we pray that it is many more.  I am not a mushy,gushy person, but I love that man with everything I got. We have been blessed with an amazing family and pretty amazing life that we get to lead.  

I want to say thanks be to God for this indescribable gift, but I think Paul stole that line in Corinthians when talking about grace.   My marriage is a gift, and I am pretty sure it is indescribable…

Thank you God.

Yesterday I was sitting with friends Jenny, Cheri, and Stef at home school group and we got on the subject of Fernando Ortega and this song came up.  It has been on my mind ever since.  I woke up thinking about it.  My entire bike ride, the phrases kept running through my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rbKumMtnuA

(If I could make it show up, I would)

This GOOD day! It is a GIFT from GOD!

So many times, I wake up dreading another morning.  I slap my alarm off and mumble something about morning coming too early yet again. I drag my rear end out of bed grumbling about my list of work that I will not accomplish and I set off for another day of not accomplishing what I think I should get done.

I am so guilty of putting my nose to the ground and plowing ahead and forgetting to enjoy the GOOD day. Yes, I have fun, but do I truly treat it like a GIFT from GOD!  Each day I get to enjoy with my husband and children, my family, my friends?  Each day is a GIFT.

Yes, I have things I need to accomplish, and no I can not quit doing them, but I am going to strive to enjoy them a little more. Enjoy the smiles on our kids faces. Watch the butterflies. Marvel at God’s creation.  Squish my toes in the garden dirt. They are GIFTS from GOD!

For me, I think the coming spring is one of renewal for so many reasons.  I started the year feeling pretty decent, and planning for a fantastic year.  Then the middle of January hit, and my health went down the toilet.  I have spent the last six weeks trying to just get by most days.  I had bad days, and the good days were spent trying to dig out from the strings of bad days.

Now, I am on the path to feeling a whole lot better. God had given us the answers we need. He is so good.  One week ago today, we found the root of the problem – intestinal parasites.  Completely disgusting thought over which I have lost MUCH sleep.  At least we know the cause and are killing those little suckers!  One week later, I am ALREADY feeling so much better.  I have not been really sick in over a week.  I am so thrilled to be on the mend.

So, I am setting myself some goals.  We leave for our exciting vacation in just 37 days. I am so excited.  I am feeling better. I am down nearly 20 pounds (thank you disgusting little parasites) and my appetite has totally changed.  I have all these little projects around the house.  I have a house to recover from me feeling so punk for so long.

Spring Cleaning Goals:

1.    37 boxes or bags of clutter out of this house in the next 37 days

2.   20 more pounds off this body in the next 37 days

3.    Leave my house clean and neat for this trip.

4.   Survive tax season  🙂