My Meandering Mind

This is an old post dated Jan. 17, 2008 from a blog I’m fazing out. It’s a good reminder for me. Excuse the photo, but it’s all I had on hand, and probably older than this post.

For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good. Psalm 107:9

Are you hungry or thirsty? Do you feel like you need something more; something better? Do you fill your days with ‘busyness’ and your home with ’stuff’?

You won’t find satisfaction; deep, soul filling fullness of spirit apart from God. You can try and you may feel ‘happy’ for the moment, but a lasting peace and contentment cannot happen without God quenching your thirst and satiating your hunger.

Many times we enter a ‘drive by’ prayer situation and we all know that fast food fills you for the moment, but leaves you wanting more before long.

There is nothing wrong with a quick prayer, but when it becomes a substitute for drinking Him in; for sitting at His banquet table until you’re full – you will hunger and thirst. A dry spirit of longing sets in. You will feel parched and empty.

But we have the answer. His living waters are always flowing and His banquet table is always ready. Come, eat and drink and let Him satisfy your thirsty soul and fill your hungry soul with what is good.

This is an old post from Six Short of a Dozen (January 15, 2008) but I found the ultimate tissue, and think it’s worth sharing…

I woke up feeling pretty miserable this morning, but I was determined to have our school day before the scheduled field trip in the afternoon. I got through the spelling test with Koala Bear easily and moved on to her older two sisters. Halfway through, the flood gates in my nostrils opened and I motioned for someone to “run grab a tissue quick”.

I should mention I have sensitive skin and almost always end up with an embarrassing and UGLY sore under my nose when I get a cold. I’ve been on a life-long quest for super soft tissues. Some search for gold, I just want a soft puff.

Artistic Flare came to my rescue and I quickly wiped my nose with the most incredibly SOFT tissue EVER! WOW. I’d struck it rich. My nose would never suffer again. I looked at this tissue of tissues with the cute little designs which look strangely like the ones on our baby wipes; you know those soft-for-the-sensitive-baby-bum baby wipes.

I arched an eyebrow and asked where she got it fearing the answer. It looked clean. Sniff. Smells clean. Gotta be clean, right?

Apparently, Little Miss Princess thought it would be fun to stuff her clean baby wipes in the tissue box. My thoughts? Let’s stuff some more in there, so I have a supply on hand. I’ve finally found my soft tissues.

I know – you’re stunned. I’m actually posting. Life has been … crazy, painful, precious, challenging …

I’ve missed blogging on my blogs, and it’s so good to be back. I can’t wait to catch up on your lives and catch you up on mine. Look for more family funnies, hard life lessons, and whatever else my meandering mind comes up with.

I will be updating this blog with some old posts from one of my other blogs. One I’ll be closing once I have what I want here. I turned off my Twitter update tool, and hopefully this won’t annoy my one or two subscribers.

Day 2.
My poor guy is really feeling bad. He stayed home from work Tuesday, and rested on the couch. Which is a good thing, because I had some business to take care of thanks to The Love Dare.

Tuesday morning, I read the pages for day 1 (the book goes much deeper than the simple email challenge) with a humble heart. But that nagging comment from Monday night wouldn’t leave me alone. I set the book down, and said, “Okay, Lord, if I’m supposed to apologize to him, let him be awake when I go upstairs. But if I’m to simply learn from this and move on, let him be asleep. Because really, I don’t think he even heard the comment. And I’d much rather he be asleep.”

Jesus must have been laughing ’cause my guy was wide awake and checking emails on his cell or something. So I told him what I’d said (he hadn’t heard it), and apologized. Humble pie anyone?

I got back to my reading for day 2 and before I was halfway through, I had to go apologize to him AGAIN. Talk about God working things out in me through this dare. Phew. This time, I needed to apologize for ignoring his desire to cancel the bible study Monday night. You know, the bible study where I opened my big mouth and failed dare 1?

Had I really looked at him and not my own selfish desire to have friends over, I would have seen how sick he was and how much he really needed to rest. I giggled when I came up and said I had another apology for him. He laughed when I told him why, but I know he appreciated it. I usually like to go back for seconds when it comes to pie. Humble pie? Not so much.

Finally, I finished day 2 and pondered the dare. Since I started feeling yucky, I kept it simple. I rubbed some pain stuff on his shoulder (twice) taking the time to massage it a little. I also checked on him a couple of times and made sure that HE decided our plans for Tuesday night, NOT me.

I’m almost afraid to see what day 3 will bring. Nah – not really. This is like a fun adventure because my hubby has no idea I’m doing The Love Dare. I wonder if he will catch on before the 40 days are up.

A little while ago, I took my hubby to see the movie Fireproof. It was awesome. The acting was decent, but the message was incredible. It hit my heart like The Notebook and P.S. I Love You did, stirring up a longing to go even deeper with and draw still closer to my man.

About a week ago, a friend mentioned doing The Love Dare Challenge from Family Life. I signed up for the emails (they started on the 5th), but I knew it wasn’t enough. I wanted the whole Love Dare experience. Off I went to my local Walmart where I can usually find NOT MUCH on my list. Seriously, it’s become a joke whenever I go shopping – Walmart – the can’t find it store.

I prayed on my way to the book section, “Please, Lord, let them have it here. I really want to do this challenge. Now.”

I walked up to the inspirational section and…NADDA. No The Love Dare in sight. Undaunted, I scanned the Best Sellers section as I headed off to other shopping and there, a glimpse of brown behind an audio book rack, down on a low shelf (good thing I’m short, we shorties scan low hehe). I squealed as I snatched up the ONE LONE copy. YES! I thanked the Lord and headed off to finish shopping with my prize.

I’d read the email for day 1 (great stuff by the way) and had purposed to take up the dare for the day. No problem, I thought, I pretty much do this anyway. Would you like some pride to go with that challenge? Anyone happen to know what the Bible says about pride? Yup, I fell a short time later.

We had two other couples over for a bible study and were chit chatting about houses. My man mentioned the possibility of buying land and building. I made a sly comment about not surviving procrastination on a whole house. Our group tends to give each other a hard time and laugh together a lot, so this was par for the course.

Later that night, that comment came back to nag at me, and I realized I’d bombed the first dare. Ouch. My honey does procrastinate on projects (he’s actually a hard worker and his job keeps him hopping), and at times, this really bugs me. So there was some ‘truth’ in the comment. A comment best kept to myself.

I’m determined to do better at this whole dare thing.

By the way, Fireproof comes out this month on DVD. Check it out and if you can handle it, take on The Love Dare. I’d love to hear about your journey with it.

We’ve waged war on the goat heads in our backyard for years. If you don’t know what a goat head is, please click here. You have to see them in order to appreciate the damage done. Seriously, I’ll wait.

Glad to have you back. Anyway, the battle has been fierce. We eradicate the invaders only to have them conquer more land. They have defeated us time and time again, but never did they draw blood. Until now. This isn’t for the squeamish. (You’ll want to click on the pictures to see better.)

The trail of blood begins here…

You can see a couple of the goat heads laying on the ground, too.

Leads up the front step…

And ends at the door…

Most of the blood was on Koala Bear’s hand as well as Artistic Flare’s hand which she had cupped underneath.

LadyBug held Koala as Artistic plucked the enemy from her hands and knee. Then they helped her inside where I was scrubbing dirt from my hands (I was moving plants to new pots), so my hands were clean enough to help her.

We ran warm water over her hands and then I squirted a little bit of hand soap and told her to rub her hands together under the water as fast as she could. She was more than happy to comply. Ahem.

I then dumped peroxide over her hands. LadyBug helped Koala out of her jeans into some shorts and then Artistic dumped peroxide over her knee. Meanwhile, I turned to google to make sure there wasn’t anything else needing to be done. The main thing is to make sure they don’t get infected.

Then I grabbed the camera to uh assess the damage through the zoom lens.

Notice the thorn still buried in there? She wants her daddy to get it out when he gets home. Should I warn him about the blood drops that will greet him? Nah.

Her hands are a pretty shade of blotchy red and white with a dash of puffy holiness added in.

But her recovery smile is wonderful! Take that goat heads! You can’t keep a great warrior down.