Day Five: What do you do?

When I Don't Think I Can

I breathe, and when I don’t think I can, He gives me strength.

I love, and when I don’t think I can, He fills me.

I serve, and when I don’t think I can, He reminds me why.

I dream, and when I don’t think I can, He lends me his lens.

I hope, and when I don’t think I can, He sends me his promise.

I support, and when I don’t think I can, He upholds me.

I speak, and when I don’t think I can, He gives me words.

I pray, and when I don’t think I can, He groans for me.

I live, and when I don’t think I can, He gives me strength.

Day Four: Favorite Quote(s)

I can’t quite bring myself to choose just one favorite quote. I enjoy an appropriate quote quite frequently, so I have lots of favorites. I used to do a quote to a specific group of coworkers every Thursday when I was working. I called it my Happy Thursday.

One of my all time favorite quotes from a book has to be from Emily Climbs, by L.M. Montgomery. Emily is an aspiring writer and she writes in her diary:

“Everything is so lovely – ‘the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing.’ Sometimes I think it really isn’t worth while to try to write anything when everything is already so well expressed in the Bible. That verse I’ve just quoted for instance – it makes me feel like a pigmy in the presence of a giant. Only twelve simple words – yet a dozen pages couldn’t have better expressed the feeling one has in spring.”

If you know me even a little bit, you know that I am a huge Jane Austen fan. The quotable Austen! I would be remiss if I didn’t include a quote from my favorite book, Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

I can’t even type the words without a smile. Teehee.

There are so many great movie quotes that I could share, but the movie quote that I most often post on my sister’s facebook wall is probably this one from When Harry Met Sally:

“Harry, you’re going to have to stop expressing every emotion that you have every moment that you have them.”

(Can you not just RELATE to that? Oh, man!)

My dear friend recently wrote this to me in regards to motherhood, and I copied it down because it resounded with me:

“It is humbling, and it doesn’t look like the wonderful things we’d wish... It looks bloody and poopy and exhausting and messy. It looks like the cross, and that’s why it is so glorious.”
- Sarah Stefanic

Oh, my. Reading those words brought tears to my eyes. It is so real. Being a mom is the hardest and best thing possible.  I can laugh (and I do!) about the irony of a baby filling a freshly-changed diaper right before we are trying to leave the house, or the inevitability of dirt being tracked on my freshly-cleaned floor, but in the daily grind it can be exhausting and discouraging. I constantly have to remind myself not to get lost in the days of the mundane, repetitive tasks and exhaustion. I constantly have to remind myself that those mundane, repetitive tasks can actually bring glory to God. My friend gets it. Oh, how she gets it!

Okay, one more and then I promise I’ll stop! This is a new one from a devotional my mom gave me:

“We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.”

        -  St. Francis de Sales

When I read this particular quote, I was challenged to ask myself, “To what (or whom!) are you conforming yourself?” When I’m struggling to be Christ-like, it probably means that my affections are not entirely Christ-ward.  It’s certainly some food for thought…

Day Three: Things that make me uncomfortable

I think the point of this topic is to talk about social situations that make me uncomfortable.  I was having a hard time thinking of anything, so I started listing articles of clothing that are uncomfortable. Can anyone say, BORING POST? Yeah. So I thought about it some more and came to the conclusion that I used to be made uncomfortable by a lot of things that don’t bother me any longer.

I used to feel awkward when people would cry or tear up in front of me. For some reason, I associated crying with emotions that should only be expressed in private. That has really changed a lot. At this point of my life, I’m more likely to start crying WITH you if you cry in front of me.  I don’t like crying, of course, but I think it helps me to be more relatable when I’m not the only dry eye in the room.

It used to make me really uncomfortable when people around me would use foul language. It certainly doesn’t bother me like it used to. Let me just say, I think cussing is a waste of breath. (I could easily get up on my soap box about WHY and maybe I will someday!) I do NOT like it when people cuss around me. I don’t think it is acceptable behavior. However, it doesn't cause me embarrassment any longer. When I think about that, I don’t like the fact that cussing doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as it did in the past. I think that shows a desensitization of which I am not proud. On the other hand, part of loving people as they are and having relationships based on more than just agreement in all areas of life is accepting people as they are - “warts and all” as my mom always says.  

Something that STILL makes me uncomfortable is any statement of racial prejudice. This “uncomfortable” isn’t the same as the “awkward” feeling I used to have in the above instances. It’s more like it lights an angry spark that involuntarily opens my mouth and pushes out words of defense for the offended party (despite the fact that the offended party is never actually present). This doesn’t seem like a good thing, but I’m only stating fact here! 

So now you know two things that used to make me feel uncomfortable but don't any longer and one thing that still makes me really uncomfortable!

Day Two: Educate the Readership

The assignment says to educate my readers on how to do something at which I excel. Hmm. I have a hard time thinking of any interesting strengths. I’m really good at reading.  Does that count? I often say that if I could get paid to read things, I could quickly make millions. I retain what I read and can read really quickly.

I became a good reader because I love to read and I always have. This translated into reading a LOT. The more you read, the faster you get. Also, I believe that the more you read, the better writer you become. I didn’t learn grammar skills from a text book as much as I learned them from seeing correct grammar in books over and over and over again.

So, Amy’s Steps to Becoming a Fast Reader are:

  1.     Read

  2.     Read some more

  3.     Read even more

  4.     Don’t stop reading until you get fast.

There. How’s that?

Blog every day for a month...

Okay, so I said I was going to blog every day for a month. I wrote several posts and... didn't post a thing yesterday. So much for "starting right away!" On the plus side, I won't let a little thing like missing the very first day stop me.

I'm doing "my own thing" here, as in I'll be using the general guidelines posted by Story of My Life here, but I'm not starting on the first of the month and there will be days I don't post because... my friends, life happens and I have two little boys and a slew of other stuff going on in my life right now!

So read on, gentle readers!

Day One: Story of my life in 250 words or less...

I was born Amy Elizabeth. My parents chose the name Amy because they liked it and Elizabeth after my maternal grandmother. I was home schooled from K-12, and while there was a time when I wished I could go to school, I truly loved being home educated and feel that I got a wonderful education. My family moved from Florida to Kansas when I was 16 and it was one of the hardest things that happened in my life, but also one of the best. There was never a time that I didn’t know that I wanted to go to college and I graduated with a degree in English from Wichita State University in 2004. I got married in December of 2004 to a wild man. He grins when I call him that. He doesn’t think it’s true, but sometimes I list off the reasons why he is wild and then he can’t argue. Since I’m not wild at all, it’s good for both of us. We had a beautiful man-child in 2009. I call him Big Brother. We had another beautiful man-child in 2012 who was born 13 weeks premature. (I call him Little Brother.) His journey in the NICU was one of the other hardest things I ever experienced, but I wouldn’t trade him for anything! I used to work outside the home (at a financial institution), and now I have joined the ranks of the stay-at-home-moms (SAHMs).