Just Trying to find My Way

I am REALLY good at self pity!!!! I found out just how good I am at it this weekend.....which is actually really hard for me to admit. It continues to amaze me how one thought in my head can snowball into flat out self pity. I'm in a weird place in my life. I'm not in the little kid phase anymore where my kids need me for everything. They are 15 and 10 and can do most everything for themselves so I find that a lot of times I'm just hanging out waiting for the times they need rides, things at the store, or to go cheer them on at an event, which is what happened this weekend. Actually there were two things this weekend which is where the beginning of the pity party came in---there was this big women's event at church and for the first time in a long, long time I wasn't asked to help with anything. That was really hard for me because like most people I want to feel needed. But instead of enjoying the break and going to enjoy myself at the event I found myself on the ...

It was Sunday afternoon and I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor having myself a good cry. There was a day when I would have felt guilty about that. I'm the kind of girl who used to think that I had to carry the world on my shoulders. I had to, in the world's eyes, keep it all together. It had been a week of people just needing a part of me. Seemed like everyday someone "needed" help with something and normally it isn't a problem, but this particular day I had come to the end of myself.  It's the little things that seem to chip away at you and slowly tire you out. So, there I sat. I found myself remembering the verse in Psalms "Be still and know that I am God!" and next came remembering that one of the names of Jesus is Wonderful Counselor. That struck me that day because I needed to call out to Him and tell Him I was done struggling to keep all the plates spinning. I needed to let go, but letting go of control is not my strong point!! To a...

There are moments in our lives that can cut so deep we start to think it's who we are. That somehow that one moment defines who we are. But if we know Jesus and the price that was paid for our healing and freedom we can know "it" (whatever "it" might be for you) does not define who we are. That is why this is my favorite part of this story....I believe satan is at his best when he is able to keep us wrapped up in our pain and focused on the bad that has been done to us. He had me believing that just because I had remembered this horrible thing that had been done to me I didn't really have to deal with the consequences of it. I could just pick up and go on like normal. I remember when I was little and I would fall and skin a knee or an elbow the worst part of it was when my mom had to wipe it off before the band aid went on otherwise the wound would soon get infected and not heal. Emotional wounds are the same. I soon came to realize that I had a lot of unw...

This is a part of my story that I don't get to talk about much anymore. Maybe because I've worked all the way through it to a place of healing or maybe because I've been saving it for writing it out here where there just may be more healing, It's a hard story to tell, but one that may help someone else out there going through something similar. That's what I believe Jesus does with stories like mine...He uses it for good...nothing is wasted in His view! I pray you might be blessed...... It happened when I was 5 years old. My mom had taken my sister and I to the same babysitters house that we had been to for a long time. Everything was normal except that the babysitter's father in law was there to visit....he would be the man I would soon refer to as "the old man" for the rest of my life. To this day I don't remember his face, just that he sat by the big picture window in a big recliner and that he changed me for the rest of my life. No one knew, ...

It's not my anniversary. It's not a special occasion. It's just an ordinary day. So why am I writing about marriage? My husband has been gone on a trip for work for only two days and I'm realizing how much he does for me on a daily basis and how much I take him for granted. This man of mine had no idea what he was getting into when he married me 18+ years ago. We really didn't do so well the first 3 years and we both take responsibility for it. We ended the whole marriage and then God stepped in....I'll maybe write more about that someday....for now I can tell you this--I've learned that marriage is much less about me and more about what I can do for my sweet husband. I used to fight him every chance I got and yes, I still sometimes do because old habits die hard, but for the most part I try to back him up in all he does. Not gonna lie, sometimes it's really hard, but that's when I have to go back to what Jesus says...          " you must clot...

College...I loved it. It's where I finally started to find out who Shelly was. Interesting how that happens when you leave home. It was 4 years of also finding out who God really was too. He became alive, real, and my best friend!!! I found myself growing like I never had in my whole short life. I knew, at the time, that I would never doubt...never turn away...and never ever walk away from what I believed!!!! The last week of my senior year the Dean of Students gathered up all of us seniors and gave a talk that at the time really rubbed me the wrong way. He talked about how we had been blessed being able to attend a christian college, but he was very blunt about how it was a stark difference to "the real world". He said that a percentage of us (that I now can't remember, but know it was high) would, in fact, walk away from Jesus because of what this world could throw at you. He talked about the importance of making sure your roots went down really deep so that this wo...

My last post was about how well I don't do with change and today fits right into that category. My oldest boy turns 15 and my mom heart is having trouble letting go. I have actually been struggling with this for the past few months since school started. For some reason it started to really sink in as I sat in the high school orientation night and listened to the teachers talk about 9th grade being the first stepping stone to college and figuring out how to get all his classes in before he graduates.....I remember looking around at the group of kids that my son was sitting with (because he wasn't sitting with me) and thinking to myself, they were all just starting kindergarten! It felt like a dream that I was watching in slow motion. Soon after that I found myself getting teary every time he came down the steps from his room.....it seemed he grew every night that he slept. He bypassed me in height in about October and then came the change in attitude!! My sweet, compliant, e...