Finally...

Here are pictures of Asher's 1st birthday party (almost 2 months late).


Bob the Tomato cake


Larry the Cucumber cake.


Blowing his candle out


Asher Eating cake


Asher eating some more cake



Megan (sister) and Ashley


Megan, Sarah (sister), and Me


Josh (my BIL) and Brenna (my niece)

My mom and Alison (niece)


Jerry (my BIL) and Alison

A Great Day For Up

I'm not feeling all that well today and I was throwing a pity party for myself. I was doing great while attending my selfish, sinful gathering.

Then Derek came home to tell me he got his first sale! He was so excited and I for him/us. I praised God (not like I should have though because I was busy attending my party).

Later, Derek and I were at lunch and I hear "Mom, I pooped in the toilet!" (We've been potty training this weekend) I reluctantly left my lunch not expecting much because let's face sometimes 3 year olds don't always tell the whole truth.

But he had indeed pooped in the toilet! He was playing and had to go. So he left what he was doing and sat on the toilet! I was so proud.

God is the best party crasher. And I'm glad!

I Don't Like It When...

When I get the giggles at the most inappropriate times. Like say during worship at Ladies' Bible Study.

I couldn't control myself and Sarah wasn't helping. Every time I looked at her I was sent into another round of laughter. You know the kind, you try to be quiet, but it's impossible. Your shoulders shake uncontrollably and you cry.

It took a while for me to regain control, but I felt really bad about it after.

(note to self: next time I mess up on a song, don't look at Sarah)

Wal*Mart Is Good For Interesting Encounters

Interesting conversation at Wal*Mart yesterday. Well, it was kinda funny in a rude way I guess. I was coming out of an aisle and a lady was going up the aisle:

Lady: Are all these kids yours?

Me: Yes, they are 1, 2, and 3.

(She then said something about a granddaughter I couldn't understand)

Lady: Guess you forgot about birth control, ha ha ha. (she actually laughed)

I just walked away, I didn't know what to say. People always pity me and tell me how hard my life must be. I reassure them that I LOVE how close my kids are and we have a blast. I wouldn't trade my kids' ages for anything.

Overhaul

I'm doing an overhaul of the current way I do things at home. My kids are misbehaving and I'm not happy. The joy of being a stay at home mother and wife is gone from my heart. This all has to do with me. My kids are feeding off of my behavior, in order for change to happen in my children's lives it has to first happen in my life. I got some Godly council and I'm really excited about where these changes will take us. I made a house rules chart and taped it low on my fridge. My kids can't read yet, but I read the rules to them and I'm hoping that seeing the chart will remind them of the rules I set. There are only 4 on there, but they are big ones. The rest of the rules pretty much fall into the 4 categories. I'm praying that the Lord restores the joy of being a wife and mother. Here is the list I taped on my fridge:

Anderson House Rules

1. No hitting, biting, pushing, punching etc…

“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:18

2. Listen and Obey with a joyful heart

“Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” Colossians 3:20

3. No jumping, standing, or crawling on the furniture

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” James 1:17

4. Put God First!

“And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Beauty

What is beauty? Is it merely defined as something that is aesthetically pleasing to the eye? I think this is probably the easiest and quickest definition. There is also the saying ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’.

What about a newborn baby? Or an elderly couple who still have eyes only for each other after 50 years of marriage? The person who stops to serve a complete stranger? Or a Savior willingly giving His life for His creation? These are all demonstrations of true beauty in action. Not the aesthetically pleasing kind, but the innocent, selfless, and truly magnificent kind.

Some people strive their entire lives to become beautiful. It can even be paid for. This beauty, however, is temporary.

True beauty can only be attained when we allow the grace of God to work itself in our lives. When we surrender all control we think we have and give it all to God, we truly become a beautiful masterpiece. A masterpiece created and someday finished by the One who started it all, the one and only Creator of the universe.

“And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.” (Psalm 90:17)

Despair

What happens when despair threatens to overtake every fiber of our being? When desperation mars our feelings and decisions, it infiltrates and spreads like a disease. It’s the disease of hopelessness.

One of the definitions of disease is listed as:

Any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society.

You can guess how this fits in. Despair, hopelessness, desperation and all feelings like it are a morbid condition for us Christians. They prompt us to make bad and rash decisions. Decisions we wouldn’t have otherwise made if we had prayed, read our Bibles, and spent some quiet non-verbal time with God.

19but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, 20who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. 21By Him ye believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. (1 Peter 1:19-21)

That our faith and hope might be in God! There is never cause to feel desperate or hopeless if our faith and hope is rooted in our never changing, all powerful, loving God.

It is hard, I must admit, when the circumstances staring us down are grim. That’s when our minds need to immediately focus on God. We need to condition ourselves as Christians to have God be our foremost thought when anything good or bad happens.

How do we condition ourselves? It is like any other conditioning method. If we want to run a marathon we don’t simply enter ourselves and go there on race day with some Gatorade and expect to finish. It takes months and months of hard work and training to prepare for something that big.

In our walk with God, we need to condition and train by being in constant communication with Him. Praying, reading, and meditation are all essential. I find myself thinking I have everything under control. I run ahead of Him only to find I am out of shape and have to stop for a moment to catch my breath. That stop I took cost me precious time, time I could have spent in communion with Him. Instead I end up playing catch up, pouring my remorseful, sinful heart out to Him. It’s a setback that should have never happened. I took my eyes off the prize and had a false sense of confidence that I could do it on my own. We all know what happens when we attempt things on our own. I’ll leave you with this.

24Know ye not that those who run in a race all run, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain it. 25And every man that striveth for mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.26I therefore so run, but not with uncertainty; I so fight, but not as one that beateth the air. (1 Corinthians 9:24-26)

An Inspirational Thought

Life, at times, is a strange thing. It confounds us. It’s a mystery, a woman leading a man on a merry chase. The man enjoys the chase enough, but what’s driving him is the prize at the end. The thought that he will attain the goal, get the prize. In the man’s case the beautiful woman is something he thinks will satisfy him. Life does this to us. It leads us on many merry chases, chases for fame, fortune, and freedom. Fast cars and pretty houses are things that if we could just grasp even for a fleeting moment will fill us up and leave us…satisfied. Not true though as so many of us know, because behind it all is an ugliness that we’d rather forget exists; the ugliness of our human nature, the drive to get what we want, when we want, and how we want it.

The aforementioned freedom is an elusive thing. It can mean many things to many people. It depends on your position in life. To the inmate it simply means no set schedule, eating when and what you want, and being in a space larger than 8x8x12. To the abused woman it means being free of the daily fear for your life or the life of your children. Being away from the prison her mate has created and that she has felt compelled to remain in. For others who aren’t in as extreme situations it might be freedom from being broke; the prison of pennilessness. It might be freedom from the bondage of pornography, adultery, gluttony, anger, mental illness, depression. Well you get the picture. There are a million things that conflict any one of us at any time and it changes moment to moment. It changes so often it’s hard to keep up with ourselves let alone those we love and care for.

Self-centeredness is a terrible thing. It lies to us. Not only does it make us the center of our own worlds, but it makes us believe that we deserve to be there. Everything important slowly fades from view. It’s a gradual thing of course, as most things are that we wish we could change in hindsight. We never realize it’s happening until we are so deep in we look up and can’t see the light above. When we take a breath it is tainted with the truth, the truth that we have allowed ourselves to be consumed. Consumed by this world we were commanded not to love.

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15)

As Christians this balance is difficult to achieve. We are in fact in this world. We are here to minister and witness to God’s never ending glory, mercy, and grace. We also have to go to work every day and participate in the mundane trappings of life. I call them trappings because they become a trap.

“¹Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, ²Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1&2)

This race we are running does in fact take patience. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. With the fast food mentality of our society today we expect instant gratification. Not only for the things which we desire, but for the results we desire. We desire instant triumph at the things we venture to try. Our relationship with Christ is obviously the most important. Despite the fact that we don’t have to be good, we try to. We try to succeed at it when we indeed already achieved the ultimate accomplishment. We succeeded the day we decided to accept Jesus Christ as our savior. The day we realized we were beyond redemption without the shedding of His blood made us victors over sin, this world, and our life. I’ll leave you with this:

“⁵⁵O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. ⁵⁷But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁵⁸Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:55-58)