So far, it appears as though this house selling thing is really going to happen. Plans are that this coming Tuesday, as in 5 days, we will be passing our current home to another family. As I sit here now and walk around in our home… my feelings vary. I am partly dreading the packing and unpacking, partly excited to be moving into our new home, and partly feeling very sad about the moments, memories, and milestones that will be left behind as we say goodbye.

The horsey swing. It has been with us since for at least ten years. I cannot count the children that I love that have swung on this swing. Every child of mine, every niece and nephew, and every guest under 100 lbs that has ever been to our home. It will stay to be swung on by another little boy and I am sure more little boys and girls to come. May it be as good to them as it was to us.

The trampoline. Shelby and Bekah saved their own money to make this purchase. They were so proud of themselves for saying no to all the little spending’s in order to save their money to make this big purchase. We were very proud of them as well. Our new home will not have the yard room for a trampoline, so they have sold it with the house and will be purchasing water park summer passes with the profit.

The swing-set. My dad built this for the girls. I have enjoyed the many moments I have watched them outside swinging on it. I laugh at the countless fights I refereed over who got what color seat.  I sigh as I recall the moments that I, myself, sat in one of those swings and enjoyed a still, quiet, afternoon in the breeze…

The clothesline. My husband built this for me. I have loved it. I will miss the smell of the sun dried sheets and towels and I will miss watching them dance on the line during the strong spring winds. I always looked forward to that first spring day that was warm enough to put the towels on the line but not yet warm enough to begin the pollen season. I also will never forget our neighbor who walked over with a news article about the tradition of hanging clothes on the line when she saw my girls out helping me. She has her own clothes line and was tickled pink to see me teaching this to our girls. Who needs a dryer on a warm sunny day?

The rosemary bush. I killed at least three of these things trying to keep them in the house. Finally out of frustration I dug a hole and stuck this bush in it. It has thrived. I cannot tell you the meals that this rosemary bush has made absolutely delicious. It will be missed… an herb garden will be one of the first things planted in our new backyard. There is no yard too small for an herb garden. Fresh herbs simply are a must for any great meal.

The tree. This is one of two maple trees that I planted. I hope they continue to grow and one day offer the beautiful shade and contrast that I hoped they would as they stood in the midst of the pines.

The crepe myrtle. My Shelby gave this to me. It was one lone sprig when I planted it… one day I hope it will mature and be a beautiful tree with gorgeous blooms… I have the same hope for the one who gave it to me. God blessed me with my Shelby and I pray that she matures and becomes a beautiful tree of life with gorgeous gospel declaring blooms.

The rose bush. It’s small, but it faithfully blooms every year. This was a gift from my church for Mother’s Day. My girls were so excited to present it to me. I have looked forward to it peaking up through the mulch every spring. It would remind me that life is there, even when sometimes we can’t see it. It has given me hope when I have struggled with whether or not a loved one really new the LORD. When I struggled with whether or not they had eternal life… because to my eyes all I saw was left over dead sprigs… but underneath life was there… and when God called it to spring forth and break through the mulch and reach up to the glorious sun and soak in heaven’s rain… it would. My girls have prayed to receive Christ. They have admitted their sin, believed in Him and His Word, and have confessed Him as their Lord and Savior… but life has taught me that many times a young believer gets lost for a while in life and looks as dead as any son of Adam. So if this one day happens to them (though I pray desperately that they remain faithful to their God and His Word) the memory of this Mother’s Day’s rose will be there to give this mother hope.

My sacred spot. This is where I have had my quiet times with my God. Here is where I have leaned on Him and the truth in His Word. Here is where He would meet with me and I with Him. Jesus went up on the mountain to pray… I came here. This is where I sit now as I type out these words. Here is where God birthed Devotions From Genesis and Devotions From Exodus. Here is where God birthed just about every Bible study lesson I have taught in the last five years. Here is where I would pour out my hurts and anger and frustrations and doubts. Here is where I would break out into songs and tears of joy as I experienced Him and His presence. Here is where I would say “yes” and “amen” to my King.

Into this sky I would look as I hashed out my hurts and shared my joys with my God. Into this sky I would look with hopeful expectation for the return of my Savior.  Into this sky I would look and I could almost feel the eyes of my God upon me as I searched for Him. I would watch the wind in the tops of the trees and remember Elijah on the mountain and John 3… and how the Lord was in the quiet wind. Other times I would come out and watch the storms and I would remember Job and Psalm 18 and Revelation and how thunder and lightning surround His throne and how the LORD speaks through the whirlwind…

These tangible things will be left behind as we move to a different place… but the memories will go with me. I look forward to finding my sacred spot in our new home. I look forward to planting new trees and new plants and herbs. I look forward to making more memories. I pray that God will use our family in this new home to be a light of the gospel of Christ. I pray that He will go before us and place those in our path that need the seed of life sowed in their hearts, or watered, or tended, or even harvested. May our move not be in vain, nor simply for our own pleasure… but may He be able to use us for His divine purpose.

In the same breath… all these tangible things, and the neighbors that surround them, makes the chance of the “not sold” for whatever unforeseen reason not so disappointing or devastating. We are actually at a place that if we stay it is good and if we go it is good. I like this place of peace. This place of remembering that He is in control. I hope I stay here wherever we go…

We have had what I have decided to deem a bi-polar spring. In the first of March everything seemed to be going smooth… God was opening doors for speaking engagements, my husband was in line for a promotion at work, our youngest that had struggled with illness since birth due to an immune deficiency had not been sick for over a year, a lady drove up in our driveway to pay us cash for the house we had taken off the market because in a year we never even received a second time looker, we had found our “dream house”, put in an offer and it was accepted, and I was allowed the honor of becoming the Children’s Ministry Director at our church, an area of ministry that I am very passionate about (well I am not sure if there is an area of ministry that I am not passionate about, lol, I just think serving God and His people is just flat out a passionate thing).

So here in the Vaughn household we were having what I decided to call a “Facing the Giants” moment with God. Life on this earth was good.

Now it’s the end of May.

As far as I know I haven’t even been considered for a speaking engagement, the promotion didn’t happen, we were at the hospital with our youngest this week about to be rushed into surgery for an appendix, that ended up not being her appendix, but her white blood cell count has bottomed out and we are now back on the blood test roller-coaster (this breaks my heart), the lady that was going to write us a check for our house has no money, so our dream house is slipping away as also did the money we were going to use to make some changes in our current home before she drove up in the driveway, and well so far I haven’t been fired as Children’s Ministry Director… so that’s the only bright side thus far.

As I have walked… no, moped around, this past couple of months I have doubted my ability to hear God, to follow God, to experience God… how crazy.

I realized the depth of my doubt when I had a little, what is it called… a “Freudian slip”. I was about to send our realtor a text that was supposed to say, “Well we will have to wait and see if **** will come through” but what I began to text was, “Well we will have to wait and see if God will come through”… cold chills went down my back at the moment I realized what I had done…

Me?

Did I just almost text that?

How could I even think such a thing?

I couldn’t deny that I had… there it was staring at me in the face… talk about an about face with the Heavenly Father… after all that He has done from me… and here I am saying such “Israelites and the rabble out in the wilderness” kind of stuff.

I realize that God is constantly in a process of adjusting my attitude… how thankful I am that He only lets me get so far before He jerks a knot in me.

Now I sit out here in my sacred spot… that I had forsaken for the spring… knowing now it was my pouting against my God and I read Revelation 5 and I think who in the world do I think I am to play this silly game with the One who is worthy to hold the scroll?

Who am I to treat the One that that every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea cries,

To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb,

be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.

Revelation 5:13

Who in the world am I to sit here and complain while the myriads of angels, the twenty-four elders, and the four living creatures fall down and worship Him…

I think I shall join them

and fall down on my face before Him

and worship…

Of course, this side of heaven we will not do perfectly. Harsh words will be spoken, patience will wear thin. Frazzled mothers will act frazzled. And when this happens, our own sinfulness does not detract from the power of the gospel, it illustrates why we need it. Do not use your own mistakes as an excuse to wallow about what a bad mother you are. Repent, seek forgiveness, get it right, and move on. Believe. Be forgiven. Extend that forgiveness, that belief, that joy, to your children.

As you go about your daily transformations, set your heart on the truth. Mimic the gospel in what you do. Bring peace, bring order, bring joy, bring laughter. Bring it because it was brought to you. Give, because it was given to you. The gospel is not too big to fit into little situations. It is too big not to.

~ Rachel Jankovic

Yesterday… or well probably the last many days I have had to fight the thoughts that driving into a concrete wall head first at 140 miles per hour would make a wonderful solution to having to deal with getting so consumed and irritated and frustrated with the things of life. I mean after all I wouldn’t have to worry about my husband and children feeling the failure of my attempts to be a wife and mother and I wouldn’t have to deal with the thoughts of all the opportunities I missed to be a friend… the phone calls I forgot to make, the cards I forgot to mail, the emails I forgot to send. I could just go home…

But sadly isn’t those thoughts my greatest moments of rebellion toward my God.

“Yeh God, so You won’t fix me? You won’t fix this feelings of failure, and You keep refusing to either remove them or remove me from this earth and just bring me home to You… well I will show You who is boss… I will come home on my terms… watch this!”

Then the utter feeling of despair in my sinful flesh and mind come crashing down around me and I just want to ball up in a corner somewhere and cry until it all goes away… loving is hard. It so very hard. Especially when no amount of love ever seems to be enough and one moment can seem to destroy years of investment…

How easily I can allow the wait to discourage my hope and destroy my joy.

I think of how grateful I am that God is love. I think of how grateful I am that although I so many times doubt His love, His will, His ways… He still faithfully loves me. He doesn’t forsake me. He also will not allow me to forsake my purpose. He refuses to allow me to throw my hands up in the air and say that I am done with life.

Please know that I have no doubt that if I had not my Christ… I would have been dead long ago. The torments that my mind can play on me are just to much for me to bare apart from Him. My mind is my enemy. That is why I must renew it constantly with the Word of God. I must fill it with truth to counteract and fight against the lies that the enemy of soul bombs me with almost constantly.

That is why I love my quiet time, my study time, my worship time so… the enemy can’t touch me here. I am only HIS when I am here. It’s when I have to walk away… step out in life… the part of life that I find absolutely silly and repulsive and a waste of time. I watch us on tv. America, with all our excess… shoving food in our face, whoring our bodies, and then acting as though we care for the least of these so we can give a chunk of change to an organization and not have to change our lifestyle… and this is what we pat ourselves on the back for.

There are moments that I want to throw all caution to the wind and just go out and spend my day fighting to save eternal lives… because I feel the time is so short and I get so frustrated because my life is not mine to do that. I belong to everyone else… I don’t belong to me. I don’t know if I ever will again.

The choices I make, the places I go, the things I do, are always to make someone else happy to meet someone else’s needs, to not hurt someone’s feelings… yet every effort I make to be all things to all people never is enough. I feel as though I am so very often condemned for just being me.

You need to take what you believe and apply it to these difficult moments. Does the Bible teach us that God is disgusted by our frailty? That he doesn’t want to carry our burdens? That he doesn’t have the energy to deal with us?

~ Rachel Jankovic 

I pour this out in this post, all the craziness that is bouncing around in the Christ-loving brain of mine. I so often look for His return. For His rescue. For His explanation…

How often I self condemn myself for these thoughts… really expecting God to explain His wait to me. To explain His patience, purpose, plan, and position. Asking one more sign of proof that He even really loves me… When really I am just a spoiled child who likes my moments of confirmation and conviction much more than my moments of simply walking by faith in what I already know of Him and His love and purpose for me and my life.

How thankful I am that God is not disgusted with my frailty. He likes me, really likes me. He loves me. He doesn’t get irritated or frustrated with the things that make me, me. He created me to be me. He doesn’t condemn me for being me. He takes me and weeds out what sin and Satan are attempting to contaminate and He conforms me more and more into the image of His Son… my Jesus.

I am a work in progress. Always a work in progress. I have not obtained perfection… yet still I seek it. I press on. I fight the good fight. I refuse to allow any hurt, any pain, to be in vain. God will use it to mold me, shape me, prepare me…

Well I have spent this morning wallowing in my self… and now it is time to get up and shake off this muck of fleshliness, because some how in the midst of this confession… He has restored my soul and I am ready for today.

Let my soul live that it may praise You,

And let Your ordinances help me.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant,

For I do not forget Your commandments.

Psalm 119:175-176

This morning I awoke and crawled out of bed, grabbed the laundry basket full of dirty clothes that I had waiting on me at the foot of the bed, and headed to the laundry room to start a load. I then started my coffee and while it was brewing took the dog out. I got distracted with the weeds in the flower bed and began pulling them out and then looked up to realize that our dog had run off… again.

All this and I haven’t even had my first cup of coffee yet…

So I pour my cup of coffee, unwrap my poptart, grab my Bible and notebook and head outside for my prayer and study time… trying to ignore the fact that the dog is no where to be seen. Which doesn’t go to well…

I go back inside get the car keys and drive around the neighborhood in my pj’s searching out this dog that aggravates the snot out of me because if I turn my back on him for a split second he is off somewhere in the unknown. I cruise through once and see him no where.

I go back in the house, fix a fresh cup of coffee, and come back outside to hopefully be still and spend some time with my God and Father… ugh… nope.

I begin my prayer, “Oh Father, how close I can feel with You at times and others how far away. How easily I can become caught up in this world and the next be so ready to leave it all behind. I just want to forever pursue You…” this is as far as I get and I cannot shake my need to get up and go find that dog.

I call him “Dog” everyone else calls him “Amos”

After another slow cruise through the ‘hood I find the distracted sucker coming out of the woods behind a house at the curve end of our road. Guilt all over the dog’s face. So once again I am there in the middle of the road, in my pj’s, yelling at “Dog” to get home. This time at least he comes when I call. I get in the car, roll the window down, and he runs beside the car all the way home, even ignoring the other dogs that usually also distract him and cause him to ignore my “Dog! Get in the house!”

So he goes in his kennel time-out. I fix another cup of coffee, and now I sit still finally… by this time kids are outside waiting on the bus for school and they are loud of course. I begin to get aggravated that the dog has caused me to lose my quiet, still, time. I start to get up, pack up, and head in the house, but instead this time I stop, I choose to pray for the voices I hear. I choose to pray salvation over loud souls and I realize that this was God’s plan all along.

Now as I type this out… my God reminds me how that “Dog” is kind of like me (shhhh don’t tell my husband, he knows how mad this dog makes me most of the time). I head out to take care of the business at hand and so easily get distracted by the things of the world… not necessarily sinful things… just things. House payments, house sales, mortgage loans, gas prices, other people’s lack of responsibility, ball practice, pre-teen drama, internet disconnection, weeds in the garden, dirty dishes, pretty projects… just worldly distractions.

I wonder how many times my God has had to chase me down after I have wandered off somewhere in the unknown and has shook His head in holy aggravation at me and instead of calling me Nicole… calls out “Woman! Get back in focus!”

How thankful I am that although I pray and speak my desire to forever pursue my God… the truth of the matter is that I am safe only because He chooses to get up and go out and forever pursue me.

So He told them this parable, saying, 

“ What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them,

does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture

and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 

When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

Luke 15:3-5

A couple of months ago Eternal Encouragement had a “Facebook Party”. In case you don’t know what a “Facebook Party” is (cause I shore didn’t), it is pretty much an open forum with Eternal Encouragements founder and editor.

Spend this Mother’s Day with your family and then Monday, May 14th between 3pm and 5pm click on over to Eternal Encouragements Facebook page and join in on the party.

I can guarantee that you will receive encouragement. It will be a time of enlightenment and fellowship with other like-minded mom’s that are trying to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Click on over!

Trust me, it will be well worth the time and a perfect way to end your Monday  🙂