Getting back to blogging

Yes, I didn't think it would take me this long to get back to blogging, but it has!
Lots of things have changed obviously since my last blog entry almost one year ago. When summer break began I decided I would be getting back to being true to my convictions and I would stay home with our children. In addition, I was going to be homeschooling. In addition to that I prayed and asked God to bring something into my life that I would love to do, that would not take all of my time, but would contribute financially to our household. Well, I did not have to wait long. God brought me to Tastefully Simple! I had never heard of Tastefully Simple before, but I have to say becoming a Tastefully Simple Independent Consultant was one of the best choices for employment I have ever made!! I love being a consultant and conducting parties!! God is helping me work out logistics yet and this business has allowed me to dream again!! I am very excited where God is going to take my family in the next year because of this business! There are several other ventures we are involved in that I will not go into here, but we have been very blessed!
Both of my daughters are growing amazingly fast and are extremely smart in their own special way. They could not be more different in their personalities, but then that is not surprising because God makes each one of us unique! There is only one us!
I hope you will join me again as I start to post at this time weekly blogs. God has been stirring my heart to get back to writing and I am very excited! Writing is something I love to do!! It is therapy for me...it helps sometimes get things out that need to come out...it helps sometimes put things in perspective that don't seem to want to get there in thought alone.
So God bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you...may you know the love of the Father so deep and true and far-reaching you cannot contain it! I pray for healing for your hearts, your souls, your bodies!! May you be all you were created to be and may you find peace and contentment being "YOU"!
Blessings, Barbara

It's Been A While

Wow! It is amazing what a difference a year can make! So many changes that have taken place in my life. My husband lost his job in February, 2009 and it has been a rollercoaster ever since. He has some health problems that prevent him from doing just any job so it took a while to find a job. He is now working as a school bus driver which he is not particularly fond of. I received my Nurse Aide license last summer and I worked at the Veteran's Home for several months until I went back to school. Then the schedule and my school schedule didn't want to mesh! So I was unemployed for several months. I finally got a job with Amy's school as a Content Mastery teacher and their school bus driver. Now as far as the bus driver I had to go through the steps of getting my CDL and I had to put together the bus route and everything before I started driving as they had never had a bus route up to this point in time. So now I work 11 hours a day, I go to school part time and I do my best to still be a good wife and Mommy. OK, so much for the update.

I am excited and looking forward to this summer getting here! The nice thing about working at a school is having your summers off. My goal is to finish my cookbook and my other book and I have the found an amazingly sweet lady to help me get it published. I am so excited I cannot contain myself! In addition I hope to continue my blogging and eventually my blog will become my second book!

My babies keep growing more amazing every day and my prayer is I will be able to teach them well and to teach the love and acceptance that comes from the throne of God, my Father!

Life, It sweeps you off your feet

Wow! Life sure has a way of sweeping you off your feet from time to time.
One of the things I have been contemplating a lot lately is family. Are you one of the people who is blessed with a loving, caring, supportive family? If you are I hope you thank God for them multiple times a day and don't ever take them for granted.
Are you one of those people who comes from a very dysfunctional family and you have no idea what love looks like or have any idea that you are capable of achieving great things because no one has ever loved you unconditionally, encouraged you to be the best you can be at whatever you love to do, or cared about your feelings, your thoughts, your life.

My story is no different than many stories and I have a feeling many of you will relate. Growing up there was not a whole lot of encouragement or affection. No respect and definitely no unconditional love. See in the Amish for some reason affection stops about the time you turn 5 or 6 years old just when you are about to enter school and need to have the love, encouragement and affection of your parents as you enter this sometimes very scary phase of your life. My parents' religious beliefs were very strict and we lived a very sheltered life. One of the things my family believes is you can never leave the church or walk away from their beliefs because if you do you will definitely spend eternity in hell. Well, when I was 23 years old I walked away from the church and their faith knowing full well what the consequences would be. It would shunning from my family and friends for the rest of my life as long as I did not return to the church and surrender to their teachings. As a parent myself I cannot imagine doing that to your child. I may not like the choices my child makes and while there will be consequences for choices I would never cut them off from my love or my life. If they choose that it is one thing, but me choosing that will never be an option. But this is exactly what happened to me. When I chose to leave home and leave the church they are taught they have to shun. I believe in the Word of God and I believe we are too shun sin, but never the sinner. If they think I am sinning then the Bible teaches them to love me in hopes of winning me over and causing me to abandon the sin. They have done the exact opposite. They have cut me out of their life. In recent years I am able to take my children to go visit, but the relationship is not there. As long as the conversation remains about the children or day to day life everything is fine, but if you try to talk about heart issues or your beliefs or why you made the choice you made things get ugly very quickly.

All of this would be fine except as my children get older the hole that is left by not having any grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins in their life is really difficult some days. They have friends who are like grandparents and uncles and aunts but it is still not the same. These are people who love them and will love them when we take them to visit, but other than that they don't make any effort to be involved in their lives or our lives for that matter. I don't expect anything different. We are not blood related to any of these people so whenever that is the case the investment of time and relationship is never the same as when it is your own flesh and blood.

My point in all of this is if you find yourself in this situation you have to find somewhere to belong, where people will love you with an unconditional love and will treat you like family. One thing I have learned is you cannot look for this in people, because people will always let you down whether intentionally or not. You have to find a place of inner peace where you can find comfort.

One quote comes from Psalm 27:10 which states "Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me." This is a place where I find peace and where I have found acceptance. I have a heavenly Father who will always receive me and will never stop loving me and promises to never leave me or forsake me. I have found you cannot look for that peace anywhere but from God's Word and from God himself. You will not find that unconditional love and acceptance anywhere else not even in church.

So if you find yourself alone in the world let me encourage you to get into the Word of God and you will find you are not so alone after all. God is a loving Father who is just waiting to be in a relationship with you! So don't let life whatever the circumstance you find yourself in sweep you off your feet and land you on your back. Get up, get in the game, and God your Father will be there with you every step of the way. He may take your breath away, but He will always keep your feet planted on the Rock!!

A Book Called "The Shack"

I have been determined to read at least one book a month. My most recent book I am reading is a book that was recommended by several different people. After my best friend told me, Barbara, you need to read this book. You will never be the same after reading it. I decided it was time to get the book and read it. She was right. I will never be the same and furthermore I will never look at God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit the same as I have in the past. It will be a book that I will have to reread several times to get the fullness of the message, but if you are able to have an open mind and an open heart I definitely recommend this book.

I am wondering how many of us as Christians think we have left legalism and religiosity behind and repeatedly find ourselves entwined in its grip. I have so many questions right now about true Christianity. What does that look like in the eyes of God? I have no doubt I could go ask 10 people who believe they are definitely a true Christian and I would get 10 definitions for the phrase 'a true Christian'.

My heart breaks at how callous and selfish we have become. Love and compassion are no longer at the forefront of the church. God is love so therefore anything outside of love is not of God. Think about it!
All God requires of us is just to be............Do you realize there is nothing you can do to win God's approval or to win his love? Think about it!

People That Surround Us

The older I get the more I realize the people we surround ourselves with have a significant impact on our lives and beliefs. I want to take a moment and share with you some recent happenings and reflections my husband and I have experienced and are contemplating. We live in Texas. Texas is an awesome place to live. From having grown up in the midwest it is a different culture here in Texas. We love it here. It has always been my husband's dream to live in Texas. After being here for 3 years we realize that after you have children having a network of people around you for support is very important. Although we have made several great friends we do not have a support system that will allow us to make the kind of changes our family needs to make in order to provide for our daughters the life we want to be able to provide for them. We are having to make some very difficult decisions, but one thing I have made one of my mottos when it comes to raising children is it is not about me. Once I bring children into this world my obligation is to do what is right for them and not what I want to do. I will be held accountable to God for the decisions I make that affect my children for the rest of their life. So no matter what I want to do or what my husband wants to do we have to make our decisions based on what is best for our daughters. We have come to the conclusion that the people who surround us it what is going to make all the difference in their lives as well as ours.

Fall Memories

Fall always brings many memories for me. Being raised Amish I only went through 8th grade before graduation and then I was at home for 2 years. At the age of 16 I became a schoolteacher in the Amish school system. This was something I had always wanted to be as I was growing up. The Amish schools only had 2 rooms with 2 teachers so my first 4 years I taught 5th - 8th grade. The last 3 years of teaching my 4 grades were made up of different grades, but always included 7th & 8th grade. I absolutely loved teaching and I still miss it very much. So that is the first thing fall reminds me of when I see children heading back to school.

The second thing I think about is leaving home. September 29, 2008 marks 13 years since I left my parents' home and life as I had known life for the first 23 years of my life. It is always a bitter sweet time.

I really miss the closeness of family and community that we had, especially since I live in Texas now and when I moved here 3 years ago I did not know anyone. I now have 2 little girls who are growing up without grandparents or aunts and uncles and cousins in their lives. Especially around the holidays it always is difficult.

Sweet because I have truly found freedom in knowing I have been forgiven. That Jesus my Lord paid the ultimate sacrifice on the cross and He died in my place. It is quite amazing when you think about it. I had no chance of ever seeing heaven until God paid a price for my soul with the shed blood of His Son Jesus on the Cross of Calvary. I still remember the day when that revelation hit me. God loves His creation so much He would pay such a high price for us who are such great sinners. So although some days it is a very lonely time being so far away from friends and family, I am working on making new friends and I realize now I am a part of a very large family, the family of God. It is quite amazing!

All in all I love fall especially in Texas because it is when the heat actually becomes tolerable. 70s in the daytime and 50s at night. Wonderful!!

Fondest Memories

I am reflecting tonight on what I would call some of my fondest memories growing up Amish. I would have to say seeing my Mom come home with my one and only baby sister has to be one of the top memories. I was 10 years old when my sister was born and so far I only had brothers who loved to torture their sister. Today I am very proud of my sister. She is a great Mom getting prepared for baby #4.

When I was 7 & 8 years old one of my fondest memories is spending time in the sugar shack in way back in the woods watching as my great uncle cooked the sap that eventually became maple syrup. For a treat my great aunt taught us how to make maple cream, which is a very rich, creamy maple candy.

From the time I was about 10 or 11 years old we would go to Sea World in Aurora, OH once a year on a Saturday. We would do the chores before we left in the morning and then have some of the neighbors do the chores in the evening and we would stay until the last skiing event happened with fireworks. We always stayed for the fireworks!

Christmas was always a special time and there were things that became tradition at our house. My Mom would always buy us a book of Lifesavers and she would put together a cup of all kinds of different candies and put them at our place at the table along with our book of Lifesavers. We would always get something fun, but the one thing we always got for Christmas was new underwear and usually I would get a new dress or two and my brothers would get new pants and shirts. Something I really miss and remember especially was getting together with all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins at my grandparents home for Christmas Dinner. My grandparents had 69 grandchildren and 8 children with their spouses. My great aunt and uncle always came as well. They never had any children so they were like a second set of grandparents to all the children. We did the traditional turkey dinner and there would be multiple turkeys, hams, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, cole slaw, dinner rolls and lots and lots of desserts and candies.

My Mom is an amazing cake decorator and the first time I really remember her making a huge cake was for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. She made a multiple layer cake and decorated it with gold. It was beautiful! She made all of our birthday cakes and cakes for many special occasions. Today she still makes wedding cakes for the Amish weddings in her area. Something that I will always cherish is that even though my Mom disagrees with the life decisions I have made she still agreed to make my wedding cake and she even brought it to the church which was an hour and a half away from where they lived and set it up in the reception area. That will always be a very special memory. Thanks, Mom.

I will share more memories next time.