Prayers For Granny Smith Green

I am writing this post with such a heavy heart this morning.

Our dear friend Granny Smith Green lost her precious Father yesterday morning.

Suddenly.

Five days before Christmas.

Sweet Jesus.

What a tremendous loss...

I know that he is in the arms of our loving heavenly Father right now......

But my heart aches for my real life friend and for what she is having to walk through right now along with the rest of her family.

I know this blogger personally.  She is a precious soul.  And her heart is just like His.

Please pray for GSG and her entire family right now sweet friends.  I know it would mean the world to her.


Gran,

May the Comforter come upon you in a new way this morning. May He pour out from the heavenly places the oil of joy for your mourning, and give you a garment of praise for your spirit of heaviness. May He minister to your broken heart in the deep places with His love, His peace, His grace and His power in the most beautiful and supernatural ways. May He send people to you during this difficult time who would be His mouthpiece, His hands and His feet to minister and demonstrate His very words of hope and encouragement to you during your time of loss and may you feel His love for you in a very tangible way in the days and weeks to come precious friend.


My love and prayers to you.......

Merry Christmas Sugarplums

Photo Credit: Martha Stewart

Merry Christmas! Hope that you all have enjoyed the start of a glorious season!

We spent a few days away as a family and I can't tell you what a trip to the beach does for my soul..... It is an amazing healing balm. We were so blessed to receive this short, little trip as a special gift and it blessed our family immensely! We prayed for the weather to be beautiful and warm and could not believe how warm it was while we were there. Grateful me.

I did not care a thing about food or a meal or shopping or anything like that. I just wanted to sit on the beach and watch my four precious ones soak up the sun, play in the sand and splash around in the water and thank Him for allowing us this time together as a family. I have grown to cherish every precious second of it since our family time has been shortened to only the weekends over the last 18 months.

I also took a few pictures.

Hundreds of pictures I mean....... of their tiny hands and feet. Of them playing and dancing and splashing around together. Oh my gracious, how I love to be behind the camera......

I love it so much I think I could almost.....almost take a leap of faith and make a small career out of it.

But family first and we will see what the Lord has in store.

I have serious e-mail debt. If you have written me an e-mail and have not heard back it is not because I chose not to respond. It is because I desire to write you back in a special response and even enclose a prayer as I usually do. I do not like a short, quick response. I want to write and respond with whatever the Lord prompts me with and that takes time......and so my apologies. I still respond to every, single e-mail.

And it makes my heart sing that you would take the time to write to me. To share your heart, your struggles and your stories. It is a tremendous blessing and I thank you for trusting me.

Let's see. I know what the baby is!!

And I'm having a fit to share it with all of you and have some special pictures that go with, but have no way to upload any pictures on my sweet friends' computer. But soon!

We are overjoyed with excitement!!! Squuueeeeeeeeeeeeal!

I have tons of pictures to share!! You may remember that we lost our computers due to some serious electrical issues here. I am thankful that we had all of our pictures backed up!! But we still haven't purchased a new computer yet. Soon hopefully.

We are also in the middle of moving. We finally found a place and thank Him every day for blessing us with a new place to call home. Thankfully our new place has an office so Big Daddy can work from home now! The plan is to work one week here and one week there. Which means he will be home for about 10 days at a time.

I may hear the angels singing. Glory!!!!!

18 months of doing everything solo!!!! I think it's over. I have no concept of how I survived it all.

By His Grace Alone.

My sweet Bella Grace auditioned for the City Ballet Nutcracker back in the early fall and made it! I am so proud of her!! This was a huge leap of faith for her. She is incredibly shy and introverted but has such a love for ballet and for music. We wanted to give her the opportunity to at least try out and knew if she could get past her fears she would love every second of it! She was hesitant. She shed a few tears. She didn't know anyone. She needed encouragement , love and support and we poured it out! I am so proud of her for overcoming her fears! Opening night is next weekend and I will be sitting in the audience with a huge arrangement of fluffy pink roses tied up with pink tulle and sprinkled with glitter! Cannot wait to watch her do what she loves to do.......

Our December is filled with many Nutcracker performaces, school Christmas programs, a major move, Christmas, a birthday and a 21st birthday in January as well as the arrival of this precious newborn baby!

I am in full nesting mode and we are moving in starting this weekend. I have been busy gathering things for our new little one as well as going through everything and editing ,sorting and organizing!!

I even purchased those itty, bitty newborn diapers over the weekend. Big Sigh.....I can hardly wait.......

We are so thankful during this special time of year and I am so thankful for each of you who stop in and visit. I recently celebrated three years of P and G and cannot believe it has been that long! I love writing here as well as following along with as many of you as I can. The blog world has been a tremendous blessing for me personally. So thank you again to each one of you for sharing your heart with me, for leaving such beautiful and encouraging comments, for your continued prayers and for allowing me the privilege to pray for and encourage you. I consider it a tremendous gift.

Many blessings to you and your family during this joyful month!



Thanksgiving Is A Place

Hello sweet readers! Hope that all is well and that you are all enjoying this incredibly special week!

I wanted to just stop in and leave a little update and wish everyone a beautiful Thanksgiving....

Mr. P and G is home and we are doing something a little different this year. Last year I spent at least 8 hours cooking and probably at least that long cleaning up afterwards and it took our children about 10 minutes to enjoy every bite.

Mama wasn't up for that this year.

Can anyone else relate?

So we are going on a little road trip and taking a break from our normal routine and will be spending a few days reading lots of fairytales and bible stories to our children, sipping hot cocoa with fluffy marshmallows and going for lots of walks and enjoying these precious ones more than ever.  I'm also hoping to take at least a thousand pictures of their precious faces. I've been busy capturing them more than usual. Documenting their childhood in letters and photographs. Two of my favorite things to do.....

In addition after the year we have had I've found myself this November filled with gratitude on a new level.

And it doesn't have anything to do with turkey and cornbread dressing.

It doesn't have anything to do with Black Friday . And really nothing at all to do with rushing the next holiday and attempting to get the tree up and decorated.

For me this year, Thanksgiving is a place.

It's a spiritual posture that I can walk in every, single day. Or not.

I don't need a big meal this year, where folks eat too much and then pass out for the rest of the day to prove how thankful I am.

I want to be as thankful on a regular Monday as I am on actual Thanksgiving.

I love the Holidays. I mean I absolutely adore them.  But this year it's so different for me.

I've arrived at my destination and it's called Thanksgiving.

Where gratitude and attitude are the state and capital.

It's a place. And I'm resting in it this year. Knowing that the Father doesn't need me to host, cook or create a  huge meal. Knowing that He is interested in the condition of my heart and what's going on inside it more than how pretty the table is set or how good the pumpkin pie is.

It isn't a day for me this year. It's a place and I never want to leave.

No matter what happens in life. This is where I am taking up my permanent residence.

I want to rest in this place whether God provides simple daily "manna" or whether it's a year flowing with milk and honey. I have to. I've had to walk through many valleys so that I can teach my children about what Thanksgiving really means out of a true and deep heart knowledge.

Not just head knowledge.

And I've always been thankful. But this year, it's an entirely different level.

It's a place inside that even though everything is not okay. It's okay. And even though things are really difficult and really hard. It's okay. And even though God has allowed certain circumstances and situations that are pressing and crushing...it's okay. I will praise Him and thank Him and trust Him in the midst of it all.

Because my heart has a new address this year......

2010 Thanksgiving Circle

A Good Thing

Photo Credit : Martha Stewart

This year has been a special year for us in the way of monumental milestones for several reasons. My oldest daughter turned twenty this year. Twenty beautiful years. One incredible milestone for her and one monumental moment for me.

In May I celebrated my twentieth Mother's Day. Twenty years of parenting.

And then in May another milestone. We celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.

Ten years of marriage. It was a huge milestone for us.

I don't think either one of us could believe we had made it that long!

We have loved one another and we have survived tremendous adversity and overcome hurdles that almost seemed unfair. All without any mentoring or role models or any help from natural or spiritual parents.

And it has been incredibly difficult and immensly rewarding all at the same time.

I wish I knew then what I know now.....

 

I wish Martha would have told me. While my eyes were glazed over the glossy pictures of her beautiful wedding issues that marriage in and of itself has absolutely nothing to do with the cake, the dress and the ring.

And by the way, it's not for the faint of heart.

I wish she would have had offered articles on how to stand when every rug has been pulled out from underneath you. Or how to survive the corporate cutbacks, the paycuts, the miscarriages, allienation from "family" and worst of all how to stand when you have to walk through the unthinkable things in life like .......

cancer for example.

I'm married to an amazing, incredible, beautiful cancer survivor.

Praise His precious name.

But I've had to learn how to be a wife and not just any wife but his wife. I had to learn over time how to love again and how to trust again and how on earth to tear down the gigantic walls called my defenses that had taken up residence around my heart over the years.

I had to learn almost immediately that the wasted time I had spent pouring over those magazines, in my attempt to create my own little dream wedding, had absolutely nothing to do with our life as a future married couple.

After the cake, the dress, the ceremony, the pictures, the time and the careful attention to detail.

I arrived in our marriage with my precious ten year old baby girl and twenty eight years worth of baggage.

I wouldn't recommend that.

And basically with all of that tucked inside my newly monogrammed "Mrs. bag" I stepped into what I can now refer to as a complete war zone and without any armor on.

Rude awakening 101.

Thank the good Lord for His mercy and grace.....

God created marriage and He tells us in His word that a man who finds a wife finds "a good thing!"

 God coined that phrase long before Martha.

~Proverbs 18:22~

And the enemy hates marriage. He despises unity and family and attempts to kill, steal and destroy almost the second we say "I do"

I had no idea what it was like to be loved unconditionally or to be happily married.

I did not have Godly parents who modeled a healthy and happy marriage for me. My husband didn't either.

Neither one of us had a clue. We just knew we loved one another and we loved Macey Girl and we wanted a great, big family!

Almost immediately after our wedding the attacks started. One after another. I could barely get my breath and something else would happen. I constantly felt like the bottom was dropping out...literally.

We were married. We moved to a new place. Then a couple of months later another new place. My husband started a new job and we lost our first pregnancy- the first of three.  I was completely overwhelmed not knowing a soul and putting my daughter in a new school where she did not know anyone as well.

And my husband did what most men do. He went into provider - career- success driven mode.

He immersed himself in his job.

He left the house on the 5:09 a.m. train and he got home by 8:00 p.m. on a good night.

I can remember feeling abandoned and overlooked and ignored to some degree and very much like I was still a single mother.

Those days were incredibly difficult for us. 

We had to learn how to have a realtionship with the Father most of all and we had to seek Him to learn how to minister to one another. To meet each others needs. To outserve the other. To speak the truth in love. To prefer one another ...

To speak the others love language.

I am so thankful that we were both willing to do so.

That we were willing to do the work and to keep trying.

There have been many times where I have expected him to leave...especially during the years where I walked through the pain of my past and some deep inner healing.

But the Father knew.

He knew that it would take an oak of righteousness who could not be moved to "become one" with me.

And during these ten years of marriage, there have been seasons where my Husband spoke my love language, he pursued me still, he met my needs, filled my love tank and made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

And there have been seasons when he hasn't.

It all seemed to go right out the window during our "winter seasons" just like it has for so many others.

We are not marriage experts, professionals or any such thing. But are seekers of His truth and desire to do things God's way and not the way the world says to do things.

That has never changed.

So when the Lord prompted me to write this post back in May right around our ten year anniversary I just pushed it away. (That sweet prompting of the Holy Spirit whom I love so much.)

Clearly He had the wrong girl. We don't give parenting advice or marital advice- just lots of encouragement and what has worked or not worked for us. We have walked through seasons of both. 

But He wouldn't let up.

He kept prompting me to write about the one scripture and the one thing that has significantly helped our marriage when my husband has applied it and ultimately helped me to grow as a wife and better meet his needs ~ to have an earthly demonstration of the Father's love.

To see, feel and expereince the scriptures come to life. There isn't anything like it.

That scripture is "Husbands dwell with your wives according to knowledge" ~ 1 Peter 3:7

It means to study her. Become a student of your wife.

Beautiful.

There isn't a woman on the planet who will not respond to a man studying her.

We love it.

Pay attention to her. Notice her. Prefer her. Surprise her. Minister to her.

To "dwell with her according to knowledge" you have to study her in order to gain the knowledge...

Many times I have listened to a broken heart describe how she feels invisible in her own marriage. How she feels lonely . How she feels used or forgotten or overlooked. Many times. And I have been there too.

He stopped studying. Life got in the way.

God created women with a deep desire to be studied. To be known. To desire intimacy. To be discovered.

If men knew the power that they hand within applying this one scripture.

It is life changing.

Years ago when I would share on occasion something incredibly sweet my husband did for me with another girlfriend, the very first thing they would ask was this.

"How did he know?" Did you tell him to do that? Did you tell him you wanted that?

No way.

The man is an amazing student.

He has dreamed up, created and executed some unbelievably thoughtful special gifts and moments.

And it has ministered to this hopeless romantic like no tomorrow.....

The world says:

"Give your husband a list of what you want."

"He's not a mind reader"

"How is he supposed to know if you don't tell him?"

"He will never think of something like that on his own!"

God's way says:

Study her.

    Pay attention to her. 

  Notice her.

Listen to her.

Notice the details.

Prefer her.

Love her .

Spend time with her.

I do not ever give my husband a list.

God's way trumps the worlds way every, single time.

You have never seen intimacy in your marriage like what will come when you begin to study your wife.

Trust.

As the Lord said long before Martha....."It's a good thing."

So for those of you who are waiting and hoping and longing and for those of you who have decided that "he is never going to change," I want to offer you a little encouragement today. And a little hope that if you can trust the Father for a new season for your marriage and if you can pray for your husband ~ even though your needs may not be met. If you can go a little deeper with the Father...the One who is the author of your marriage....

He can and he will change. He can and he will begin to minister to your needs. He can and he will begin to study you and begin to know you on a deeper level. He can and He will bring the romance back into your marriage. He can and he will rise up and become the spiritual head of your household. He can and he will begin to see the damage that has been done. He can and he will begin to repair and restore by the grace and the goodness and the prompting of the Father.

It is not over.

God is mighty to save..... 

I want to encourage you today to begin to trust God for your marriage and begin to pray for your husband and your marriage like never before sweet friends.

And watch what He is about to do.....

 

*Disclaimer* This blog post was written out of obedience and a heart of humility that has walked through ten years and every season of marriage. The good, the difficult and the beautiful........