The Land of Chewandswallow....

In the land of Chewandswallow, where the food fell from the sky...Most of us are familiar with the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, well, we choose this as our focus book for the letter C. We read it a few times and then had messy spaghetti for dinner. While my husband and oldest were at soccer practice, my youngest Bryce and I prepared a lovely dinner of spaghetti, meatballs, and flying bread!

We had a lot of fun with the preparation as the spaghetti began to fall from the sky. Bryce could hardly contain his laughter and would raise his hands high ready to catch the spaghetti I was tossing at him. The grin on his face was worth a million dollars.

Then when daddy and Judah arrived him we promptly escorted them to their seat and prepared for our adventure in the land of chewandswallow. The spaghetti flew, the cheese rained down, and the the bread flew from across the room. Two little boys laughing and trying to catch their food and then eating with their hands...priceless memories that got a mommy thinking.

What if we received God's blessing with that much joy? Would we lift our hands and try and catch them as they fell from the sky? And what about the raining down, just like the cheese, God is sprinkling his blessings on us each day sometimes we just can't or won't see it. But rest assured like parmasen cheese it is sitting upon our heads...

I am not grateful enough for the small blessings, I do not realize that we already live in the land of chewandswallow....

Positive Life vs. Negative mind

"For as he thinks in his heart, so is he" Proverbs 23:7

The realization for me of just how true this statement is in has been brought to great light in my life. I have been dealing greatly with the things inside of me that I did not even know exist but have had deep rooted effects in my mind and their for my life.

My husband and I have always tried to be conscious of how we conducting ourselves as a couple and parents. Neither one of us come from foundations that we want repeated and therefore we do our best to better ourselves from what we were, what we are, and what we are to be. However, when things do not go exactly how we had hoped or planned, we find ourselves slipping back into those habits of self doubt

As one who hates starting over, this time instead evaluating the situation and "what" can change, I looked at the "who" has to change. In this process I sought counsel, and since no one has the answers to life was encouraged to read. So I have. I am in the midst of reading Battlefield of the mind by Joyce Meyer. In Chapter 2 I was a statement that is now on a large piece of paper to remind me daily...."You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind."

Light bulb! I want and have been striving for a positive life BUT, I have a negative mind. I do not share this lightly because quit frankly it is a hurtful realization. But I believe I am not the only one. Regardless of others I know that I want more in this life for my family than our present circumstances and I WILL not live in the reality that "that's all we are capable of" = negative mind. There may be things that have created this deep rooted problem BUT it does not mean it will always be. It will only remain if I am unwilling to work at changing it.

As I begin this journey to turning that negative mind into a positive one I am reminded that the Lord did not create us to be negative. He created us to smile. To laugh. To have positive fellowship with Him and others as we help others to see Christ in us. I can say all the right things I want but if I do not get to the core of what is causing the ugliness in my life, it will not change. The reality is most of the time when things are not going as we hoped or planned, if we don't think that we are capable of having more, if it "is and will always be this way" then it is us that need to change.

As I travel this mind changing journey, I can only BELIEVE that in the end the wall of resistance will be removed and God will be free to bless us in the glorious ways of his plan. The positive attitude and out look for our children really does depend on our willingness to be changed and that deep root dirt removed in our minds and hearts.