Day of Defeat Ended in Thankfulness! What?!?!

   What a day filled with defeat!  So many things went wrong today starting with my alarm going off and rather than joyfully getting out of bed to start the day right I reset the alarm for later and got more sleep.  As a result, no morning work out or critical time in the Word.  Already a bad start.  I raced to get myself and two of my boys ready to go to the Dr's and my three year old daughter ready for school.  Went to make myself my dietary smoothie for breakfast and remembered I was out of frozen fruit.  My daughter was on the bus at 7:22 and we were on our way to the Dr.'s at 7:25 with the other two staying home with a Dad/Nana tag team.  I was the first to arrive as a walk-in patient but the door said the opening hours began at 8 and it was 7:45 so we stood outside and waited.  at 7:55 another mom arrived and walked up to where we were at the door.  She asked if it was open to which I told her I didn't know, I was just waiting until 8 like the sign said.  She checked the door and went in to which I held the door and asked the receptionist if we could come in.  We were allowed and the lady who had gone in ahead of me went up the desk and signed her name FIRST on the sign in sheet!  I couldn't believe it!  She knew I had been standing out there first and still signed her name in on the top line.  So she and her daughter were called in first while I stayed in my chair in the waiting room and fumed!  Circumstances like this or worse continued on the rest of the day for me.  It is now 8:00 at night, feels like midnight though, I am exhausted and feeling absolutely defeated by the day.
    Defeated in my own flesh.  Incapable of self-discipline to get up and get in the Word and workout, frustrated I didn't make time yesterday to go to the grocery store to buy the fruit I knew I would need for my smoothies, frustrated I had way too many carbs for my breakfast as a result, angered by a woman who felt entitled to see the Dr. first, lacked patience, quick to anger, and no self-control with my son Jonah, forgetful of my five year old child who wound up sitting in timeout for a minor offense for over an hour, overwhelmed by homeschool curriculum choices and the window of time I once viewed as vast I now see is quickly closing with each, crazy-fast, passing year; and the list goes on.  My flesh is weak.  Far beyond cure.  I am self centered and selfish just like every other human being on the planet.  Sin exists, therefore sin exists in me.  How freeing it is to know that I am not held accountable for my sin.  In those moments when I recognize my flesh welling up squelching the Holy Spirit and strangling His ability to do His work in me, I become overwhelming grateful.  For at first a momentary feeling of defeat rushes in but then the gentleness of the Father reminds me that His love, forgiveness, and patience is unconditional because His Son Jesus the Christ has covered up ALL my transgressions, all of my sin, all of my flesh by paying my price of my deserved death!  Suddenly each moment I recount throughout the day doesn't seem like defeat to me but rather VICTORY!  Did I fail a lot?  Absolutely!  Yet in that, I have experienced God's forgiveness, His unending forgiveness!  I have felt God's love, His overwhelming love for me!  And I have realized His patience, His abounding patience with me!  I am weak, I am a sinner, He is strong, He is holy and capable of all things.  "So I am grateful, that I'm incapable of doing any good on my own!"  I'm thankful that I need Him!  I'm thankful that I am nothing without Him!  He created me, He saved me, He redeemed me, He made me holy in Him, He teaches me and He reminds me of all of this, and I am thankful.

 Although, I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight God's law; but i see another law at work in me, waging a war against the law of my mind and making me a  prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man am I!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! 

Romans 7:21-25

And I Come Alive

We were miraculously blessed with a plot of land two months ago now.  We've been spending our free weekends clearing out the cedar, cactus, and thorns, renting a chipper to mulch it all up, and soon we'll rent a cat to spread the mulch out and uproot the cedar trunks.  It's a gorgeous 2 acre lot full of beautiful oak trees on a cul-de-sac street in a gated community.  It's a short walk from the neighborhood's private access to the San Gabriel River and has views from the front and back of the lot of the Texas hill country.  I am overwhelmed at what an incredibly amazing gift this is!  I never thought this moment would ever happen.  Living on land has been a dream of mine since I was twelve years old and still can scarcely believe it!  

On our second venture out to work on the land one weekend, my brother, Eric and my Mom had also come with us to help us cut down and haul cedar trees into a massive pile.  As we pulled up, unloaded the van, and began walking down the worn out tire track make-shift driveway I could not stop smiling on my face from the joy that swelled up from the depths of my soul.  I put my arm around my Mom and I said to her, "Mom, I come alive here!"  I come alive here.  That is the best way I can describe it.  Everything I feel I was designed to be comes to LIFE on this property!  A wife who works alongside her husband outside on our future, a mother of several little ones who thrive in playing and also working alongside their parents in the canopy of the large old oaks as we're all touched by the cool breeze and serenaded by the birds of song.    Surrounded by the glory of His in the beauty of His creation.  And I come alive.  

 In order to honor the size and age of this tree, we named it "Treebeard" after the tree in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

 Caleb and Matt working and Jonah playing in "Spider"

 Treebeard's canopy's shade.

Mulching up cedar.

On our most recent visit there.  The kids were in the van and Kayli had not said anything the whole drive there.  We pulled into the neighborhood and went through the gate and as we were driving down the neighborhood's roads to our street, out of know where Kayli says, "Happy."  I asked her, "Are you happy , Kayli?"  "Yes," she replied.  "Do you like going to the property, Kayli?" I asked her.  "Yes," she answered again.  This was the first time ever she's expressed an emotion she was feeling!  I am thrilled that it had to do with our land and the time we've been spending together there as a family!  It's been wonderful!

We have plans for our future; but they are just that, our plans.  They may never come to be as we desire the Lord's will above our own.  (Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you...declares the Lord....")  After all, our lives are His first always.  We want to be in His will because that will be better than anything we decide and make for ourselves.  So we're planning to begin building in 10 months, but we're planning with an open hand metaphorically.  We're not clenching this dream in our hearts with a "closed fist" but rather placing that plan in an open hand knowing that at, any moment, God may desire to take that plan away for something else He has planned.  This causes tension within me to think about in the present- that our plan might not happen, but I know that if/when He calls us to whatever He has planned, He will prepare our hearts for it at the right time.  But for now we have dreams of a tire swing, a tree house or two, a zip line, a chicken coop, a bench swing, and many, many, many, family memories to come!  And my I come alive!

Norcross Family on our property April 2013

Lord, thank you for this incredible blessing you've allowed to happen.  I'm not sure what the future holds; but I know You know.  And I know Your plans are far better than what I could dream of.  May we live according to Your will and Your plans for us.  May our hearts not become hardened to whatever task you call us to.  If it is Your will, may we be able to build in a year.  May our children have thousands of memories and a great life's foundation from living on this land.  May we have a home on this lot that will be a haven and get-away for all who visit it.  May people draw closer to You just from visiting this home and land.  And may it always be for Your glory!  But if for some reason You don't want us to build here, may we enjoy the time that we do have as we're working on it, and may You prepare our hearts to let it go when the time comes.  Thank you, Dad.  Amen."