Being Gleeful - the first real week

It's been 9 days since I wrote my first post in the #BeGleeful series. Let just tell you. It has been harder than I thought it would be. I published my post on Saturday January 3rd. That evening my daughter got sick. She started throwing up late that night. She seemed mostly fine on Sunday, but we had to miss church and that always makes me sad. Then Monday, she puked multiple times an hour all day long. We had to get her meds so that she could stop puking and get rest. Poor thing had bloodshot eyes from barfing so much. That lasted through Wednesday. We had planned on starting our homeschool week back on Wednesday, so needless to say that didn't happen. 

So Thursday we are in the clear, right? Nope. Not at all. My mom fell down the stairs and it was super scary. Thankfully, she is okay. Just some bruises. It could have been really bad.

Friday I overslept and didn't take Sam to preschool. For those of you who don't know, Sam is a little cling-on with me. He pretty much has to be touching me in some way. It is really hard to school the big ones with him being like that, so we send him to preschool 3 days a week. It really helps. 

I work part-time 3 days a week. Work was insane. 

I suffered from my night time anxiety issues which kept me up all night almost every night  this past week and therefore felt like a zombie. 

But guess what? I'm going to #BeGleeful that my daughter is back to her normal self and feeling healthy again. I'm super thankful that she never got dehydrated.  My mom could have been badly injured, but she wasn't. God was there. No doubt about it. Oversleeping helped me catch up on rest Friday morning. Work won't be nearly as insane this week. I'm praying the anxiety won't be an issue this week 

Here's what I'm clinging to this week. 

1 Thessalonians 5: 16 

Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 

Romans 12: 12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. 

Psalms 46: 1 God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. 

Romans 8: 31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 

Zephaniah 3:17 (one of my favorites)

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in your with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. 

Psalms 29: 11 The Lord gives his people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace. 

Psalms: 13: 5 But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. 

I'm pretty sure God is telling me to be in constant communion with Him. It will keep me joyful and help me be thankful for all things. If I'm having a hard time, I should be patient and keep on praying. No matter how tough things are, He's going to be right there with me. He is always for there for me. He calms me and loves to see me when I'm happy. He give me strength and peace. He has rescued me. I'm pretty sure I have many things to be gleeful about.

I've been trying to capture some of the gleeful moments of my week. Here ya go! 

 

My first ever granny square. I'm making an afghan this year. It's a little wonky looking, but I still need to block it.

A stashbuster/scrappy afghan I'm also making.

My sweet little girl with her new glasses.

Be Gleeful

glee·ful

ˈɡlēfəl/

adjective

adjective: gleeful

exuberantly or triumphantly joyful.

"she gave a gleeful chuckle"

synonyms: delighted, pleased, joyful, happy, glad, overjoyed, elated, euphoric, amused, mirthful, merry, exuberant, jubilant

A dear friend and I were hanging out on New Year's Day and she showed me pictures of a person she knew who was truly living life to the fullest. We started looking at these albums of photos of this person who was truly gleeful. She is traveling the world and spending time with her loved one. I immediately exclaim to Chris that I want to be those people when we get old. 

I thought about it a lot. Why do I need to wait to be old to be that person? I mean, sure I may not be able to travel the world just yet, but I sure as heck can be gleeful in my every day life.

I'm not even gonna lie to you. I don't really know how to be that person. But I'm gonna try. I want you to try with me. I'm giving you a challenge. I've tried a few of these challenges before, but I don't always follow through, or I don't get enough people to participate. But I really want you guys to do this with me. I want to do this.

So start out by asking, what makes me gleeful? What makes you gleeful? Traveling? Crafting? Reading? Your child's laugh? Running? Music? Accomplishing goals? Oh, there's so much. Really. If we take the time to think about all of the things we do or see on a weekly basis, I bet we can actually find way more than one thing.

I'm not going to ask you to do this daily.  I'm going to be realistic. Life happens and sometimes it is too hard to keep up daily challenges. I'd like to do a 52 week challenge of being gleeful. I've tried several of the popular challenges and I don't last very long. Mainly because I cannot commit to daily challenges. But here's another thing. Not every day is a happy day. I'm a firm believer that in order to experience the euphoria of the good things, we have to experience pain and sorrow from the bad things. The good things just don't mean as much without the darkness to remind us of just how wonderful they truly are.

Will you join me? I've created a Facebook group for this community. Here's the nifty little button that will take you there. In this group you can share about the things that make you gleeful and have the support of others to help you find the silver lining.

I've obviously had a bit of a head start on this challenge. We took an impromptu trip to Gatlinburg yesterday. It's kind of our thing. We had a great time, even though about a million and one things that happened prior to, or on the way, that could have kept us from doing so. We got a super late start and then had some puke to slow us down. Chris wanted to fish and the poor guy probably only got to fish for 30 minutes. It was cold and rainy, but he had fun. We grabbed a quick dinner at Five Guys and walked the strip a bit. We checked out the huge outdoor store (NOC) for the first time and we had a blast in there. We walked on that skinny little swinging bridge and crawled around in a kid sized cave. We decided to drive to Pigeon Forge to let the kids do something fun. We went to Magi Quest at nearly 10 pm and stayed until 11:30. It was so much fun! The kids have raved all day about what a great time we had. They were a little trollish today, because heaven forbid should they actually sleep late after staying up way past bed time. But oh well, it was a great day. It was a great start for the #BeGleeful challenge. 

Crawling around in a kid sized cave in NOC Gatlinburg

Ober Tramway - proof I was there with my family

Ober Tramway model of the Swiss Alps

In awe of the Space Needle while sipping cheap-o hot chocolate

We made it quite a merry little Friday because starting Monday, our life returns to the normal. The normal for us lately is busy and not much fun. But I'm certainly going to do everything in my power to change that. So my peeps, are you with me? Are you ready to #BeGleeful? 

~Peace out my homies. I've left you with a Jimmy Needham song that I can't listen to without smiling and being happy. Enjoy!

A New Year Full of Awesome Things

I absolutely love a new year. A new year holds so much promise. I get another year older, another year wiser, and married a little bit longer to my main man. My children continue to grow and discover the world around them and it is just all a really awesome thing. As do many, I love to organize things and declutter my life as well as work on priorities. Just like most others, I probably don't keep a lot of these new habits, but I'm a dreamer. That's just the life of a dreamer like myself. I love to dream of new possibilities and what might be. I love to think of better ways to do things and how I can make myself become a better version of me. I would love to be more of a doer. Hmmmm....maybe that should be a goal for 2015. But I have digressed.....

I was studying my last devotion of the year and one of the scriptures to read was Romans 15:13.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." 

Then I read in another devotion, John 14: 26-28 It is Jesus speaking. The words gave me chills. I'm pretty sure I've read this passage often, but for some reason it really hit me.

"But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative - that is, the Holy Spirit - he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. I am leaving you with a gift - peace of mind and heart. And that peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid."

So these two passages stayed in my heart over the course of the day. We have a gift. A very important gift. We have peace of mind and heart. It is a kind of peace that nothing else in the world can give. Sometimes my anxiety is over the top, but then I read this. He gives ME peace. A peace that is different. Our God of Hope fills us with JOY and PEACE as we trust HIM. We can OVERFLOW with HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit. Did you read that? It said overflow. Overflow with hope. Wow.

I don't know about you, but those promises are comforting. So as we go into our new year filled with new adventures, new life, new jobs, moving,  possibilities,  major life changes, or whatever it may be for you - remember, He's got this. HE has GOT this. He has you. He gives you peace. Be brave. Take risks. You might fail. In fact, you probably will fail at some things. It is okay. I promise. You'll keep going. You'll make it. Do some hard stuff. Do some fun stuff. Do some silly stuff. Allow yourself to love and experience joy like never before. He doesn't promise a perfect life, but he promises us something that the world cannot offer - a peace like no other - and I'm clinging to that promise. 

~ Peace out homies. May your 2015 be peaceful, full of hope, lots of joy, and rockin' all at the same time.