MyMontessoriMoments.com :: New Year’s Day Mug Shots
Life is about much more than money and riches. It’s about family and love. It’s about making sacrifices for much more ‘bigger’ things, like spending time together and being silly. Enjoy your life to the fullest and don’t let what you don’t have block you from enjoying what you DO have.
Photo courtesy of Lady Fi – December Roses
The second mental turn-on – Challenges.
I love a challenge.
I came to this startling realization just recenlty.
We had no money, I mean nothing, zero zilch.
We needed groceries, baby supplies.
For $1.50 I got the following:
3 cans evaporated milk
Diapers
Sanitary Napkins
Baby Formula & Bread
Yeah I said $1.50
I got such a rush from being against the wall. I was so excited to see what I can do with such little money. It was amazing and fun. It was rewarding to be successful. It was a thrill to make it out alive. With this new found understanding of myself I can embrace myself for what I am. Rather than being stuck and confused as to why I set myself for “failure”. Because I never really fail. So I don’t beat myself up anymore. I look forward to the challenge and therefore my success and enjoy the pleasure of the challange.
Life is not about being easy. I was raised to be simple, to take things slowly, to walk the path with least resistance. But I can not learn from a path already walked on. I choose to make my own path. I choose to climb, crawl, dig, scratch, my way to whatever goal I want. Why? Because it makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like I accomplished something. I give all glory to God, but is it wrong to want to be in the trenches with him? To see what he sees. Rather than seeing one set of footsteps I want to see two. I will submit myself to his mercy when needed but if I am able bodied and mind I want to walk alongside him and endure the adversities that come up. I want to see the mayhem and encourage it with a gentle nudge that I am here to welcome it and push it out of my way.
I am not speaking of drama. Or of creating some delusions of problems that don’t exist. I want to embrace life as I move forward in it. Change with the tide. Welcome the troubles so that I can seek the refuge after it.
So let me go back to that “mental turn-on list” I made and go into detail about the first one I listed, there is no paticular order.
1. Getting paid for being myself.
There is nothing greater for me than knowing someone appreciates what I do. There once was a speaker I saw in highschool that said “get a job that makes you happy, a job that you want to wake up and do everyday”. Above all things that make me the happiest and what I look forward to every day is taking care of kids and being the “house manager”. Technically I don’t get paid for this, unless you consider my husband working 40 hours a week payment. Which in a sense I would consider it.
I also have my own business and do accounting on the side. I wear many hats. But I like all the hats I have. And love it more because I am happy to do it all.
I am not a person that chases money. In my heart I know that God will always provide everything I need. (that’s also in the bible – not sure which scripture – but bug me if you really want to see it). So I have a business and do accounting not for financial purposes but out of pleasure and to get paid for that is a bonus.
One might think that this is easier said than done. And I wouldn’t blame you, everyone always says I’m very “lucky” when it comes to money and jobs. But I say I’m blessed.
I’m blessed because I haven’t done anything but align myself with Him. And acknowledge that His will will be done weather I approve or not – so might as well get with it than fight it.
Do you think that I can control if someone buys my shoes or not? No. I might be able to advertise, do promotions, have sales, but at the end of the day the choice is solely out of my hands. I control nothing. And knowing that truth sets me free.
Free from the bondage of thinking I need to have $100 pair of jeans to feel good about myself.
Free from thinking I need a minivan just because I have a kid and I need the “room” – I’m surviving 2 kids and a two-door coupe just fine – it sucks – but we get around.
Free from thinking that we only need to eat organic food to be healthy.
Free from feeling like I need to go out every Friday night and drop $60 on a dinner.
My life might be simple but it is full.
Full of love, passion, integrity, freedom, peace and joy.
I look at the cross and know that the most serious of sacrifices was done for me so that I can have this freedom.
So if I’m “lucky” so are you!
I just read a post from one of my favorite bloggers HolyChick – How Do you Know When You’ve Met The One. And it really inspired me to talk on the subject a little more.
My response to her post was basically – don’t worry about how much faith a man has at the time that you meet him but rather how much love he has to offer.
But I think I have a better way to put it into perspective.
Don’t worry about how much faith the man has but rather how much faith YOU have in God and that he will deliever.
Me and my husband were not at all the people you would meet today. If you had a glimpse into my life right now and a peek at who I was 10 years ago – you would say that can’t be the same person. But what both of us had before we met was a relationship with God. We may have ignored him most the time, did very little praying, consumed too many drugs to focus on His desires for our life, but we believed in Him. And in our hearts we wanted to be good people, in our hearts we wanted a happy family. I think we did everything we could to go against what we have today. But we were God’s children and he refused to let us fail. He did let us stray as hard as we tried.
True love is incredibly awesome. Our relationship never fails to amaze me. And we owe it all to God. I can go on and on and on about this subject and our relationship. I have a testimony for every day of our marriage, but I won’t bore you with the details. Because God will shine where ever you call him to be. Everyday has not been perfect – no relationship ever will be. I almost single handily destroyed our marriage in the beginning (the enemy will get to you when you least expect it). But through prayer we survived! We survived and live to talk about it.
Love is great!
Let me know if you have any questions or need some advice and please share your own testimony…
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