Day 8: It Looks Pretty Clean to Me!

I despise cleaning, and not because I don't want to put in the work.  Well, I don't love that, but I don't mind working to get a desired result.  The reason I dislike cleaning is that I'm no good at it.  I put in the work and don't get my desired result, so most time I don't put in the work.  I'll wipe anything and everything down with a Clorox wipe and think, 'that looks pretty clean to me.'  Just don't look too close at anything or anywhere you're not supposed to be looking anyway, like baseboards or the microwave or the oven. Ha!  Who cleans their oven anyway?  I keep meaning to use the self-clean button on the oven.  I'll add that onto next week's to-do list.

Even though I hate to clean, I feel even worse when I don't do it because I know I'm supposed to.  The task of cleaning hangs over my head as a constant reminder, and each day, I ignore it, I feel worse about myself as a human being.  Now, why do we as women do that?  I didn't clean for a week, and now somehow I'm unworthy of love.  Don't listen to that voice.  That's just THAT DEVIL (for real) attacking your thought life.  But anyway, I digress.  As I was gearing up myself for a morning of cleaning, I thought about the many times I have put off other things in my life that I should be doing.  I've done the quick fix thing and hoped nobody noticed.  But if you looked real close and in the places I tried to let nobody see, you would have seen the hurt and the insecurities and the sin.  But because I looked pretty clean, not many people did notice, and because my flaws weren't outwardly visible, I didn't work on them.  When I finally did get to the point of facing those things, it wasn't just a weekly touch-up they needed, it was a deep clean.

I clean my house, even though I would rather be reliving the 3 years of law school, because I don't want it to get to the point where it is an unhealthy and unsafe place to live.  The same principle holds true in other areas of my life.  Although it is sometimes painful to go in and clean those parts of your life nobody sees, it is worth it, and isn't it a good feeling when you know you have done the work and not just tried to make it look like you have?   I have decided that I'd like to really be clean, instead of just look pretty clean!

Day 7: Rest

And on the seventh day, God rested and so will I.  But I will share with you a wonderful blog post written by a dear friend of mine.  Enjoy!

Day 6: 10 Years

It's crazy that Josh and I started dating 10 years ago today!  We met at a christian sports camp at Campbellsville University where he was the camp pastor and I was a chaperone.  I was 19 and he was 21.  He said he knew the day he met me that he was going to marry me and that it took him 2 years to convince me.  After meeting and getting to know each other that week of camp, we exchanged numbers and talked on the phone almost everyday that summer.  He had plans to go to Southwestern seminary after camp but changed his course to move to Birmingham, AL, where I was attending college and got a part-time job as a middle school minister.  We dated until I finished college and got married 3 weeks after I graduated. We began our marriage in Savannah, GA, then moved to Lexington, KY, and have finally settled in Tampa, FL.  In the 10 years we've been together, we've known better or worse, richer or poorer, and in sickness and health.  He is my other half, and I can't imagine spending life with anybody else.

Day 5: Momma's Boy

My mother posted this on Facebook the other day for me, and I love it.  I'll have to say that these last few days though I have been a little sad because as of now, my little boy is not a momma's boy.  He loves his daddy and cries when he leaves and flaps his arms when he sees him and reaches for him when he's in my arms.  Of course, I want him to love his daddy and do all those things for him. I just want him to do that for me too.  But before I could throw my little pity party and be jealous of my husband, I was reminded tonight that yes, I am Landry's momma and I did give him his first kiss and he is my whole world.  While I was rocking him and giving him his bedtime bottle, he grabbed my hand and held on to it tightly.  In that moment, I realized how silly it was for me to be upset.  He's 10 months old, and so what that he favors his daddy right now, he knows who his momma is and loves me too.

Day 4: That Devil

Well, this is Day 2 of my juice cleanse, and it started out really rough.  I woke up with a major headache that lasted a good part of the day.  It was one of those headaches that almost debilitates you.  I somehow managed to get through a meeting and a 5 hr. tutoring session and host bible study at our house.  Don't ask me how.  It's like when you don't remember driving some place, but you know you did because you are there.  Anyway, while I was in the middle of this incredibly painful headache, I started feeling sorry for myself and questioning why I was doing this cleanse in the first place.  I started going back and forth between all the reasons I should give up the cleanse and all the reasons I should march on.  I felt like I was experiencing spiritual warfare over my three-day juice cleanse.  And that got me thinking about a sermon I heard at CLASH camp last week.  The speaker was saying how we like to blame the devil for everything, even things that just happen.  For instance, being stuck in traffic or failing a test we didn't study for or having a child misbehave.  We just say, it's the devil when something doesn't go our way or we don't want to take responsibility for it.  I was feeling a little that way this afternoon when my monster-sized headache was obviously depleting my judgment.  I was looking for someone or something to blame my headache on, and I was looking for Josh to feel sorry for me.  When I asked him why he wasn't more concerned about me, he just shrugged and told me I had brought it on myself by choosing to do the juice cleanse.  Hello! How many times do we look for someone to feel sorry for us for the things we have brought on ourselves? Ouch.  Today, it might have been something as silly as a headache from a juice cleanse, but there have been times in my life where the consequences have been much greater and instead of owning up to them and correcting them, I have thrown my own little pity party and done my own share of blaming the devil.  Well, today I shut down my little pity party and thankfully, my headache subsided, and as of now, the juice cleanse is still underway.  One more day...

Day 3: The Juice Cleanse

I don't know what possessed me to do a juice cleanse, but here I am at the end of Day 1.  I did a 3 day cleanse two years ago, and I remember it being a good experience, so I thought I would try it again.  However, two years ago, I didn't have a walking 10 month old to chase around.  Several times today I have seriously considered caving, but now it's more of a pride thing that I finish.  I primarily decided to do the cleanse because I was feeling sluggish and needed a jump start to eating better, and if I lose a few pounds along the way, I'll take that too.  Today, while I was scrolling through Facebook, I came across a new weight loss product, which is, of course, supposed to make you lose 25 lbs. in a month or something ridiculous like that.  I even clicked on the ad to find out more about it.  I was thinking how great it would be to just take a pill and lose 5 lbs., instead of doing all the work of eating healthy and exercising.  As I contemplated signing up for a free trial, I thought about how tempting it is in life to take the easy way out.  We are always looking for ways to cut corners and get the same results in less steps.  And then I thought about how often those gimmicky things fail and how skipping steps often makes things harder further down the line.  I don't think there is never a time to take the short cut, but for me, I have to ask whether I'm always taking the easy way out and what that says about my character.  Does that mean I'm impatient? no follow through? lazy?  Just some food for thought. Sorry if this post is a tad disoriented. Lack of concentration is just one of the side effects of the juice cleanse.

Day 2: Spheres of Influence

I had 3 different meetings today, all church-related.  Being a pastor's wife, church-related things are synonymous with life, it just goes with the territory.  I have come to love that about it.  I love being connected to the church and being involved with what's going on.  I'm not one who can just sit back and say well that's Josh's job, not mine.  I may not receive a paycheck for it, but it's as much a calling on my life as it is his.  Although I am fairly involved, I envy Josh for having all the influence.  People know his name and what he does and he has a position.  People often don't recognize me unless I'm standing beside him or holding Landry.  But as I stepped back and reflected on my day, I realized the 3 meetings I had today encompassed 3 different ministries at Grace that I am involved with, and that's not even all of what I do.  There's also the college small group that I lead and the mom's ministry I attend.  All in all, I have my hand in quite a bit of what is happening at the church.  And even though I may feel like I do not have influence or at least not the influence of my husband, people still look at me, to lead and guide and listen and walk along side of.  Where I think I have little influence, my sphere of influence is actually quite large.  And that's intimidating.  I don't know what's worse- not having any influence or having the responsibility of having so much.  When I look back on my life up to now, I am so grateful for the many, many people who have had a positive influence on my life, and realize now, that many of them may not even know it.  I can only hope that the way I live out my life is a positive influence on others. I will strive to look at my sphere of influence, not as an intimidating burden, but as a privilege and an opportunity.