Wild Goose Chase

I'm currently reading Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson. I think Mark captures so well why I feel that Christians today fall so short of God's plan for our lives. Mark outlines 6 cages that keep us from living the life I think God has called us to live. They are the Cage of Responsibility, the Cage of Routine, the Cage of Assumptions, the Cage of Guilt, the Cage of Failure and the Cage of Fear. He starts by talking about how bored Christians have become. We are looking to fit God into our lives rather than molding our lives around Him and His purposes. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something more. What an incredible God we serve. I think we would find unimaginable joy if we'd only come out of our cages. Do we really think he has called us to be safe and comfortable? I'm ready for the chase!

Wedding Bells

Popsy married Barbara Freels today. We wish them a wonderful life together! It was a beautiful wedding. The girls had a blast at their first wedding and did a great job as flower girls.

Let the Madness Begin!

I grew up in a family of college basketball fanatics and can't remember a time when I did not watch the NCAA March Madness selection show. No matter where we were, even on a layover between flights, we'd find a tv. I love the excitement and the fact that unheard of teams get a chance to win it all. After all, any team can win on any given day. So congrats to all the teams who made the Big Dance and I'll be tracking it all from my computer! Go Jayhawks!

Pictures from the Aquarium

We were ready to move on from the very first exhibit, but this boy could not take his eyes off the tank filled with "Dory" fish.


My camera battery died after the first 15 minutes. Go figure.

Good Mother or Godly Mother?

I read this the other day on a blog and found it so true. This is an excerpt from "She's Gonna Blow" by Julie Ann Barnhill.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make the term “good mother” disappear forever. Not because it’s wrong for us to want to be the very best we can be, but because I believe we as mothers have allowed ourselves to be sidetracked by an impossible standard of “good”.

We keep a checklist of mothering perfections, yet overlook one ironic fact - which is that God doesn’t ever really call us to be “good mothers,” at least not as we tend to define it. Instead, He calls us to love Him, to become more like Him - that is, to be “godly” mothers.

God doesn’t want us to be “good mothers”; He simply wants us! He wants us to be His children, to draw on His strength, to learn from Him what it means to be a successful human being.

Isn't it so true how easily we believe the lies of the Deceiver? That we are never good enough? I have to fight daily to not fall into self-pity of not eating healthy enough, not reading my bible enough, not loving my family enough and on and on. But isn't that the best way to keep me from living in victory? I will never be good enough and that is why I need a savior. And Jesus Christ in his loving mercy, erased my sins and will give me the power through the Holy Spirit to do all he asks of me if only I will receive it. May we not believe the lies of Satan but only "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."

What A Weekend!

Well, my husband had a grand idea on Friday to head to Chattanooga this weekend and visit the aquarium. I knew our kids would enjoy it and I needed to catch up on reading and thought it would be good time to practice all the communication we learned last week at the marriage conference (which was amazing by the way). So we threw a few clothes into a bag and headed out around 6pm. We spent the night in Murfreesboro and headed to the aquarium the next day. The light drizzle wasn't enough to dampen our fun. We hit the Ocean Journey building first and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Then we headed to a little Mexican restaurant nearby to grab a bite. It didn't quite live up to our expectations, but I was happy to be eating something other than Lean Cuisine so I wasn't complaining. Next we hit the River Journey building and were thoroughly exhausted afterwards. We decided to just head home Sat afternoon and try out the Children's museum on our next visit. We tried to stop at Cheesecake Factory in Nashville, but of course it was an hour wait at 4:30. Crazy! So we settled for Panera and then got back on the road expecting to be home around 8:30pm. Well, just north of Jackson it started to snow. By the time we got to Jackson, so many cars were stuck trying to get up the exit ramps that it didn't seem like an option to stop. We had no idea snow was even in the forecast! It was 60 degrees on Friday. We trekked on but the highway stopped about halfway between Jackson & Memphis. We were in the same spot on the packed highway for 11 1/2 hours!!! Luckily the kids seemed to not mind and all slept relatively well from 11-6. Shane and I however didn't fare as well. We maybe got 2 hours. The highway finally started to move this morning around 7:45 am. There were SOOO many cars stuck and actually buried in the snow! Where we were I'm sure it was more than a foot of snow! I was thankful that we weren't one of the ones off the road, thankful that we had enough gas, and thankful that my kids fell asleep! Going to the bathroom was another story that I won't go into now, but we all made it safely home around 10:30 this morning! And now I need a nap!