Enjoying Life.....

So, for as long as I can remember, I have had this struggle about letting myself fully enjoy certain things in life. Lately, I have really been thinking about this alot. I think it is because of the season of life we are in. Brandon and I will be married 9 years this coming August. We have lived as a middle class couple, at one point even a little above middle class, and we have also lived below poverty level. (Seriously, people say things like this alot but there was a time when we added up our income for a year or so and it was below what is considered poverty. It blows me away, even now thinking about those memories of trying to decide how to spend $25 on some groceries and still leaving room for toilet paper because that was all we had to last until something else came along! And none of this is for a "pitty party" because we have countless pages of a journal to remind us of how God is truly Our Provider, which would be for a whole other post in itself one day.).
Where I'm going with this is, now we are coming around full circle. My husband got a job when we moved to Kansas City with not much to our name, and we have slowly been able to keep up with our bills and just live. Now we actually have some savings and are even able to enjoy some nice things again. But just to keep us in check, Brandon's job had a shift within the past month and we went from a salary plus commission job to now strictly commission. Which is fine because we do have some money set aside now.

But back to the struggle of enjoying things. I have heard many times in church or wherever about not getting caught up in this world because it is not our "home". Jesus told people to sell all their possessions and follow him. But with that said, there have been times when we were dead broke or even had money in the bank and God would allow something special to happen. For example, I still remember this from years ago before I was married. I had seen a girl wearing this cool sweater coat and never asked her where she got it from. It may sound a bit weird but the next day I was still thinking about the sweater and had an idea in my head to go to some department store in the mall I never shopped at. So, I went there and literally found the same style sweater coat, and it was on sale for like $15 (which was totally doable for a single girls budget). And the story doesn't stop there. That weekend I was helping lead worship at a church I was going to at the time and at the end of the service there was this guy getting prayer and minstry. I then felt like I was supposed to share this story of God leading me to the store to find this cool sweater just to give me a gift. I then shared with him that if God loved me so much to show me where I could find something that I would really enjoy, just to give me a gift, how much more would He care about the dealings of our heart. God knew that I was admiring another girls sweater, but never said anything to anyone about it. And yet it was like He was saying..."You really like that sweater? You can have one. I'll show you where to get it, and that place is having a sale so you can totally afford it." God knows everything about us and that guy got healing that morning from the Lord, because God was speaking to us all there that we are not overlooked...even down to our desires.

And there are numerous stories like this is my life specifically when God has just done something special for me or our family, and yet in the back of my mind I sometimes feel torn. Like, "No, Stephanie. You are not of this world. You are not supposed to enjoy these things. Don't store up treasures here, but in heaven instead." So, now coming back to a place of some financial stability again it creeps in as if God would be more pleased with us if we were poor. Or even as if other believers would consider us to be closer to the Lord if we were poor. I think what I am beginning to understand now is that there can truly be a balance. There are different seasons of life and if we are now in another season of gain, we definitely see things differently this time around. Not to say that we were so awfully selfish before, but God has given us experiences to see other's perspectives that we would not have understood if we had not gone through it first hand.

I also had this thought lately of rewards. If you think of a child that would go through life without ever being rewarded, everything would be so off balance. When someone is encouraged or rewarded for learning, working, or just being, there is so much good that is put into that person's spirit. It drives them to keep going, to keep living, to keep trying. If it is something tangible, that doesn't mean it can't be a reward or gift from God. I have heard many talk about money being evil or things being evil....almost sounding like pleasure is wrong. But some of these same people have a spouse. Are they not receiving pleasure from a mate? Are they not receiving great joy and pleasure from the children they have? I'm not so sure I believe that God picks and chooses certain things for pleasure or reward such as friendship, family, spirituality, but not something like a nice home or something pretty that we like to look at. It all goes back to that story about the sweater coat. God knows our every thought and detail. The bible says He knows every hair on our head. So, of course He knows our make up. For me, God has given a desire to create, especially with clothes. I so enjoy putting together colors, textures of fabric, and things like this. It gives me great joy actually. For the longest time I was afraid to let myself go there. Afraid to really enjoy clothes and things like that, in front of other believers especially, because I thought I would appear too worldly. I have even found myself embarrassed by the gifts or blessings God has given at times. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's ok to let these things become who we are or what defines us, but I think there is freedom to be what God has made you to be. Freedom to enjoy gifts and pleasures God has given, because there may come a season when they are gone. So, if there is a musician who absolutely enjoys music, or a designer who enjoys clothes, or even an entrepreneur who God has blessed with the ability to make money we should all cheer them on to be creative people. We should cheer them on to pursue a life with Christ as God being the sole force of their creativity.

Our family is on a journey to pursue Christ daily, and learning to enjoy every day of life God gives us in the good, the bad, and even the ugly. And on that note this hymn is in my heart to end on:


"Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen."

recent sewing

My most recent sewing .....a new boppy cover for Sophie's pillow.

And Sterling and Elle wanted to do a craft, so we made kitty pillows. They picked their fabric and buttons, I sewed them together, and they helped stuff them.




The gray one is Sterling's and the pink one is Elle's.

Antiques and Thrifting

One thing I must say is we are having so much fun going to antique shops and thrift stores since we have moved to Kansas City. They have so much more cool stuff than we were used to in South Carolina. Even if we don't buy anything, it is so much fun to look at old furniture and stuff!
This is what we end up doing alot of times on the weekends.

Bowling

So, we extended the birthday fun for Brandon by taking the family bowling over the weekend. I think the girls were more excited than he was, as this was their first time at a bowling alley!








And they looked so cute in their little shoes!



We had fun!

Sophie

Time is passing so quickly! It's hard to believe in just a few more months she will be one whole year. She is  the earliest crawler (and the earliest to get teeth).






Here's Sophie in the previous months....(somehow i missed month 5 because we were busy moving)
http://www.waldenbutterfly.blogspot.com/2012/01/sophie.html

Happy Birthday!

Brandon turned 34 today. And we got to spend the whole day together as a family.


To celebrate we gave him 34 gifts for 34 years.



I think we really surprised him this year! We got him all kinds of his favorite things, like a chai tea from Starbucks, twizzlers, clothes from one of his favorite stores (H & M), hugs, kisses, a song from each of his girls, and so on. It was really special to celebrate him today!

Good Morning

Our life has had so many ups and downs the past few years. You could say we have seen some good, bad and the ugly. And now our life has almost gone full circle...when it comes to living space and finances. At one point in our marriage we were living in an awesome house in a beautiful golf course gated community. God had clearly brought us there for a time. As time went on we faced a few years of financial stress, loss of job, and at one point selling our possessions (literally. like our bed, couch, pretty much all of our big furniture) to pay bills. We then ended up in a one bedroom basement apartment (roughly 400 sq ft), which we thought would be temporary, but turned out to be our home for 13 months and the birth place for our 2nd child Elle. Then being pregnant with our 3rd child we ended up at one point (6 months pregnant) without a "home" and job, house sitting for a family  until God showed us where to go. Now here we are 10 months later, and God has placed us in a wonderful house, full of space and nice things once again. It is here that we have seen our lives come full circle and we hold all these things loosely but taking everyday to enjoy these moments.