Just when I think I am a sweet smelling Fragrance to God…

So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. (Hebrews 12:4) TM

As those of you know who read this blog, The last 2 years my struggle has been finances as my husband started his own business. In every struggle you think “if I can just get through this, if God could just bring me victory in this area I will be happy”… Then you get the victory, and for about a day you feel like a spiritual giant. Yep! You passed the test. You believed and trusted and because you did it right you have passed and God has blessed you for it. (yes you have forgotten about all the mornings in the shower crying for God to do something, anything, and all the doubtful moments you had every day!)

God allowed me to feel good on my spiritual high, caught a breather and then He decided to remove another layer of the onion. Just when I think I am a sweet smelling Fragrance God I am reminded how much I still stink, I am still an onion. 🙂 )

There are hard times in our lives that the enemy is attacking, and then there are times we go through that is simply because of our own sin nature.There is no way around it, an onion is an onion. But God in His mercy is peeling the onion layer by layer to get to the part that is usable. He is training me, and teaching me, showing me yet another layer that I can deal with that will ultimately pay off with a disciplined life.

But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. (Hebrews 12:11)

There are days when I feel like I stink so bad that I do not even want to be around my own self. I need some type of fragrance to help get the stink that dial won’t wash away. And then God lovingly reminds me that it is not up to me to deal with the stench, I simply have to let him wash over me. As I lovingly bathe my children who can not do it for themselves, so He does with his children….

In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. 2 Cor. 2:13

If you feel like you stink today, here is my advice… Go take a bubble bath! Soak in it, and let whatever it is you feel makes you stink
wash away down the drain.

Something To Make You Smile

WHERE WOULD YOU BE:

IF – YOU HAD ALL THE MONEY YOUR HEART DESIRES?

IF – YOU HAD NO WORRIES?

IF – YOU CAME HOME AND THE FINEST MEAL IS AWAITING YOU

IF – YOUR BATH WATER HAD BEEN RUN?

IF – YOU HAD THE PERFECT KIDS?

IF – YOUR HUSBAND WAS AWAITING YOU, WITH OPEN ARMS AND KISSES?

SO, WHERE WOULD YOU BE? Well…… HELLOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

YOU’D BE IN THE WRONG HOUSE!!

From HeartandSoulConnection.com

Planning a Stress Free Vacation with Kids

It is quickly coming to that time of year; Summer vacation. It is amazing how by the end of the school year (we are 4 weeks away) I am looking forward to not having to wake my children up every morning, and by the beginning of the school year I am so ready to get back to the routine I am starting two weeks before school starts. 🙂

While summer is about a break from the routine, remember that routine is simply about looking ahead at the day and preparing yourself and your kids in order to avoid as many complications as possible. (Ex. I know my children will be up late because we are going out, so they need to take a nap around 1pm, be up around 4, ready to go by 5.) So with that in mind, let’s look at our summer vacation planning. With kids there will always be the unexpected, but with a little planning you can make it a much smoother and enjoyable trip. Here are a few tips I have found make my trip easier:

1) Plan your trip to be kid friendly:

Be sure to pick a place that will have kid activities; a swimming pool is a must. When you call the hotel, be sure to ask for a room close to the pool. While you may not always get it, you might and it will make life much easier. (Unless of course you make the mistake my sister and I did at Spring break. We were right at the pool, and though it was not warm enough to swim yet our kids nagged us the entire weekend to go swimming. So in the summer a room by the pool is great, otherwise request to be out of sight of the thing. 🙂 )

2) Don’t try to plan a lot of activities:

Kids just want to be by the pool. I know they have one at home, but they do not care. Keep in mind that the idea of the trip is to relax. Plan to have one activity (or two small ones) a day, and then plan to relax whether it be by the pool or the beach, just chill. Too much activity will wear them out, and stress you out.

3) When planning your travel time pad it by at least an hour!

If you have a 6 hour drive with no stops you need to plan time for a meal or two, and then add an extra hour. This helps allow you to not be stressing out over the extra stops, and you would actually be a very smart mom to just plan to stop at a rest stop periodically, drain them, and then run them for awhile. Maybe keep a soccer ball handy and go wear them out for about 20 minutes.

4) Plan travel time around their sleep time:

One trip we went on with another couple, we left about 10pm, and made our 6 hour trip in about 5 hours. Why? 1- no traffic whatsoever and 2- the kids slept the whole way. We got their about 3 am slept until about 7 and then had the entire day with a stress free drive. The adults actually got some conversation in! Nap times are also a great thing to plan around. If nap time is around 1pm. You pack up with them fed and leave around 1pm. Chances are they are going to dose off for a couple of hours out of the trip.

5) Plan your trip to come back one day earlier than when everyone else expects you.

If you have a nice relaxing trip only to have to rush back,and jump into the daily grind the next day, not able to catch up laundry or unpack bags, you are simply wiping away all of your rest in the week of your return. So if you have to return to work on Monday come home on Saturday afternoon. I know you feel like you should have one more day, but trust me. If you get home Saturday afternoon or evening, sleep in on Sunday and unpack, catch up the laundry, etc. You will be ready for Monday and not flying into the next week unprepared. You will be so thankful to me if you only take this one tip. Even if you are a stay at home mom, having the hubby there while you are trying to do all the catching up, and having him there to help with the kids, etc. will still make a huge difference on you and him. (Him having a day before he goes back to work to not have to drive, or fly, will help him be more prepared for Monday as well.)

Hope these tips help you to enjoy your summer vacation. Let some of the routine go and enjoy the break, but don’t throw the baby out with the beach water! 🙂

Graham Cracker Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

    Plain or chocolate Graham Crackers
    Cool Whip

Directions:
Break Crackers in half put Cool Whip on the cracker and make a sandwich.
Put in freezer until Cool whip is frozen.

Note: Especially the Chocolate crackers make them taste like ice cream sandwiches. Get the light cool whip and they are about 50 calories, and a great low sugar treat. My girls love them!

Contentment to Be Yourself In A World Who Wants Anything But…

…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1

What I’m saying is, If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face. But if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
Luke 14:11-14TM

Do you fear being yourself? To be content with your gifts, talents, personality, financial status? Do you find yourself doing nothing because of fear of being rejected, or not getting what you want? Do you live with a feeling of “If I don’t get mine, no one will get it for me”? Do you look at others success, faith stories, and feel as though you have been given the short end of the stick? Do you fear failure, whether it be in relationships, business, or personal goals you have, more than you desire success?

A recent post I read labeled this fear, and pointed out the extreme hindrance it can have on our lives…

“Kiasu” is a mentality that has a literary meaning “the fear of losing”. “Kiasu-ism” has made lots of people focus on the fear of  losing, rather than the passion to succeed. Its an insistence on being competitive rather than making it without pulling others down. Its obvious that this is the reason why lots of people commit suicide even when they havent failed and they are only seeing signs of failing… Wikipedia has this to say “Examples of kiasu behaviour includes accumulating too much food on one’s plate during a buffet lunch in case there is no more later…

Imagine a church where you have bunch of kiasu people, unity there, will never have its course because there will be no brotherly love amongst its brethren; think of a family/home filled with kiasu-ism, independence will reign in place of family bond because competition will persist; If it then exist too much in a man’s life, his weaknesses will kill him before he discovers his strengths – perhaps thats why there are too many treasures unexploited before they were buried in graves.

How then can we deal with this mentality, take out competition from your dictionary and focus on your own race. How can you make it without pulling others down. Stop thinking about the consequences of failing before embarking on anything you want to do. Think positively; focus on your strengths and let you weaknesses die of negligence (hunger of the fact that you dont care about it). “Dont let the fear of losing kill your passion for winning” – Le dynamique professeur. Remember; Its your strengths that matters and not your weaknesses.

While men are competitive at Business, and golf scores, women have an entirely different motivational “Kiasu”. We fear our relationships, whether it be not having any or someone “better” taking them from us. We fear only being seen for what we do around the house, so we struggle to fit into molds we do not fit into. We fear our children not being as successful or not having as much as the other kid, so we dig into debt for that trip to Disney.

We fear rejection so instead of putting ourselves out there we judge, and condemn those who do. Instead of being ourselves, we attempt to be the person we think others want us to be and ultimately not finding fulfillment in ourselves, and not filling our God- given purpose to this world and the body of Christ. (Imagine, if Joyce Meyers had not been willing to be herself, but fit into the mold that others told her to fit into, “women aren’t allowed to minister” they told her. Imagine if Joseph had not been willing to be himself, he would have saved some rejection, but he and his family may have starved to death.) The challenge is to run your own race, and not look at the race others have been called to run. You know, you may very well be trying to run the race your neighbor is running, only to find out that they were running the wrong race too.

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. Phillipians 4:6-8, 13-14 TM

Making Known God’s Goodness.. Faithful or Foolish?

“For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;” 1Corinthians 1:26-27

You know how they say once you hit bottom there is only one way to go…
while we did not hit all the way to the bottom, it was only because many miracles kept us from being there.

I would say the biggest miracle was when we nearly lost our home. Ben says we have been in a financial crisis for the last two years. I suppose that is true. Building your own business definitely has its downs before its ups. But when our money was non-existent it left us with only one place to turn. A friend of mine said once “you will not need to depend on God until you have no security in the bank account”. Our Bishop said “everyone wants a miracle in their lives, but they don’t realize that means you have to be in an impossible situation and need a miracle to receive one.” And boy did we ever stand there.

We lived the last two years completely in faith. Not knowing from one month to the next if we were going to pay our bills, lose our home, or even whether we would have groceries or not. I remember at Thanksgiving watching on the news how The food pantries were low, economic crisis being what they were people were donating less, and more than ever were in need. I saw the lines of people standing outside the shelters and food pantries hoping there would be enough to feed them and their families and crying my eyes out. Some of them looked as middle class as me, and I was truly thankful just that I was not down there in line with them. (Mostly because I knew how close I was to being there.)
But God….

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Dream Board

Last Spring (March ’07) we heard a message encouraging us to create a “dream board” Like writing the vision out and making it plain what we were believing God for. When we would look at it we would be reminded of what God was going to do for us. This is a picture of it. (It is blurred because it is like reading someone’s diary.) We even wrote out a tithe check to our church for the amount we wanted to make a month. At the time this was an impossible number to believe we would ever be able to make. But with God All Things Are Possible!

Then Last summer was a real breaking point for us. We had been behind on our house payments but not quite as close to foreclosure as we were this time. It seems just as you find the strength to believe him to a certain point, he stretches you even further. We were down, three months behind on our house payments, and NO CLUE where it was going to come from. Every deal we thought was going to save us fell through one way or the other. (That is another thing we learned, He usually will not do it through the avenue you expect because he intends for you to know HE did it.) Though some offered to loan us money we knew if God was God and He really told us to walk this way He would provide, like a Ram in the bush. Finally the DAY before Foreclosure procedures were to start, and we were still praying and believing for God to come through for us, then someone came to our door. A client of Ben’s. They told us that God had put it on their heart to give us a financial gift, $3000 . The exact amount to save our home!

I want you to know we never stopped tithing or giving to God in spite of our circumstances, and the little bit that we were giving at that time would not have saved us anyway. So we gave, and He gave back to us more than we had at that time. That may not seem like a significant amount to some, but it was our HOME! He continued to stretch us, and I can not say that we have not had financial struggles since then. (I just told you about Thanksgiving, and you can imagine Christmas was a fun faith walk.) But we have had what we NEEDED every time. The children of Israel received Manna from heaven every morning, but only as much as they needed.

But it does not stop there!….

For the remainder of the year it was still believing God every month for a miracle.

Then this January Our Bishop challenged us to give more. Stretching everyone to grow. “If you have never tithed just give $20, start there and as God blesses you, increase it until you reach the Full tithe. If you are already tithing give $20 as seed.” (He calls it The 20/20 vision.) Well we have done that since The last week in January. Every month since then we have seen our income increase more and more every month. Last month (March) we made double and triple what we have made in any month in 2007. We reached the number we had written on that Dream Board a year before without even breaking a sweat. God has been faithful to bless us, give us creative ideas to bring in the passive income, and we know He is blessing us that we might be a blessing to others. God is good, and God is real! There is a God, and I am not Him.

 In the midst of everything God began to shape my purpose, and show me what I am called to do. This website was a part of that, and the first step I took. I now have a job as a Writer and Producer’s Assistant on an Online Talk Show which I love !!! (It is soon to launch, but you can preview it a TheDrBethShow.com ) and I am working with the same Production Company as the Producer’s Assistant for a movie! I am able to work part time from home, be in the studio for recordings once a week. I am meeting new people from all over the place all the time, and hearing their stories of faith. I could not have asked for a more suited job for me. I am able to write, talk, and build relationships, and I am able to be a full time mom, have my website and other mom ministries, and be the wife I want to be. Ben is prospering in his online business and meeting and talking with others he never thought possible. Literally ministering to men everyday through his work.

It has not always been easy, I have cried on the shoulder of several friends questioning them and God whether I was being Faithful or Foolish. (I mean when you are taking your trash in the trunk of your car to dump it because you couldn’t afford to pay the trash man this month, you have to just go God, what’s up?) But God uses the foolish things to confound the wise. While I may not be King Solomon I can tell you I am still dumbfounded by where he is placing me. ( I have no more than a High School Education, while as a teenager I saw myself possibly in front of the screen I never imagined doing what I am doing now. The opportunities He is bringing me, and the people He is connecting me to astounds me just to think about it.)

Financial prosperity was not HIS goal. The things He has burned out of me, taught me, and strengthened me in is unbelievable. The financial blessing is a tool, simply a testament to others of God’s faithfulness. The phrase you can not have a testimony without the test, a message without a mess, is no longer a cliche’ to me. He has brought me through many things, and I know this is not the last of the tests and messes I will walk through in my life, but I also know this is just the beginning of our breakthrough. God is good all the time, even when you are trying to beat the cut off day for your electricity. All the TIME! Even when you face your ruined credit, or your failed marriage, or your sickness and disease. Whatever it is, He said….

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life”And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you… But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-34

A Smart Mom Cleaning Tip

I can be very clutsy when it comes to spilling things, especially food… Greasy Food. I ruin many a shirt with grease, and it frustrates me. I recently washed a brand new shirt, only worn once, and when it dryed it had grease stains all over it. I was so frustrated until my sister told me a cleaning tip which saved my new shirt, and will probably save many to come. 🙂

If you have an old grease stain on your shirt (one that has sat in the laundry, or been washed) that won’t come out, spray the stain with WD-40. This renews the grease in the shirt and brings it back to the surface. Then put Dawn Dish liquid on it (which duh! Cuts grease!) and wash in the washing machine. It saved my shirt.

Thanks Jo for that tip!

Connect

When my first daughter was about 2 years old, this is what a typical week day at home looked like for us:

7 am – Rise and Shine Emily is ready to eat Breakfast

7:30 am – we ate and watched tv in our jammies

8 – 12 We played with Emily’s toys, cleaned up, maybe went for a walk around the neighborhood, came back to color, paint etc.

12:30 Daddy came home for lunch (Hallelujah)

1pm – Daddy went back to work, Emily went for a nap.

3pm Emily awake watch tv, play with Emily’s toys,

5pm – Cook dinner, and anticipate daddy’s return

This was great for the first few weeks, and then I began to go stir crazy doing the same thing everyday. My husband thought I had split personalities because one day I was saying “that’s it I am going to get a real job” and the next day (once he said “yeah I think that might be good for you”) I was crying at the thought of putting her in daycare.

Then when my second daughter came along and my first daughter went to Preschool, I was suddenly a lot busier and yet still bored to tears some days. Since then I began to ask myself “Do other moms who choose to stay home feel the same way?” I don’t really want a full time job, but I definitely need a bit more entertainment than Barney. Then I would feel guilty that changing poop and cleaning paint off the walls (and occasionally poop off the walls) for our children is not fulfilling us. After all, shouldn’t we be happy, we have everything we imagined having. Is this a high maintenance problem that many working moms would like to have? Well????…..

God did create us to care for our family, He also created us for more relationship than just our children and husbands. After my second daughter came along I knew I had to do something, or get a job outside of the home… Something had to give.

After listening (and talking to) a lot of moms I discovered something about our crazy gender…. Other moms have the same problem. We all struggle with being disconnected, but do not know how to get connected and staying connected. Mom’s had the same complaints I had, “If I have to watch Barney one more time I am going to puke purple”; and “I just wish I had someone that could talk with more than one word syllables”.

Everyone has these thoughts and are afraid to express it right? (I hope so. Otherwise I am a little red-faced 🙂 ) Let’s get real and be honest, it is what we really need after all. We need each other. We need to know what the other moms are going through, have been through, and have survived. When I walk away from my mom-friends, and my mom groups, I realize my children are not possessed, this too shall pass, and we all have to walk out our parenting with faith and trembling and pray for grace.

We have the double-edged sword of our “routine” that so often keeps us from reaching out to other moms. We have our comfort zone, and though we long to relate to each other we don’t dare to step out of the comfort zone. So I want to challenge you today to step out of that comfort zone, call that friend, or acquaintance that you want to get to know better, and go have lunch. (Without children if possible. Go in together and hire a babysitter, or as I have said on other occasions “Mommy’s Morning Out” is very Cost effective, and many allow you to do “drop-in’s”) You will feel refreshed, a better mom and wife. Remind yourself that she too is probably as hungry for relationship as you are.

The Power of Completion

by Aby Garvey

If you’re a fan of to-do lists, you’re probably familiar with that boost of energy that comes from checking something off your list. It’s a tiny little endorphin rush. One so strong that many a list maker has actually added a recently completed item to her to-do list, just so she could check it off. This, my friends, is what I call the power of completion. It’s that oh-so-good feeling that comes from getting something done.

If the power of completion is strong and positive…then what does incompletion feel like? It’s an equal but opposite feeling…just as strong, but instead of feeling good it feels, well, icky. Unfinished projects and to-dos drain us, tug at our energy, and pull us down. And yet, sometimes, in spite of the blissful feeling that accompanies the check mark of completion, it’s so hard to finish what we’ve started!

If you’ve faced this before…wild enthusiasm for the start of a project, followed by project drudgery, here are seven ideas to help you tap into and create the power of completion.

Set limits.
One of the strategies I suggested in “the happy scrapper” is to limit the number of active projects you have going at a time. (This works for scrapbooking projects, as well as any other type of project you do.) Choose a number that works for you (I’d suggest between three and six) and then, set up your space to reflect your limits. Have a bin for each active project, and when every bin is full, finish one project before starting a new one. Aside from encouraging completion, this strategy has additional benefits. It limits the accumulation of new, project-specific items. Plus, cleaning up and putting away supplies when you’re finished with a project becomes a natural part of the process…you’re quite literally creating space for your next project.

Take breaks when needed.
One of the benefits of having a set number of projects is that you can bounce between them and take breaks when you want or need. This time away from a project can be the perfect cure for the mid-project doldrums. By making breaks a seamless part of the process, your projects seem less like obligations and more like options. Which fun project will you choose from today?

Capture new ideas.
Ideas have a funny way of sneaking up on us at the least convenient times. We get all fired up about a new project…right when the project we’ve been working on needs our attention. An idea notebook or binder is terrific solution. It allows you to keep your creative spigot flowing without feeling the need to act on an idea the instant it comes your way. By keeping the ideas flowing and capturing them in a notebook or binder, you will collect a whole bunch of project ideas. When you’re ready to start a new project, you simply flip through your idea book and select your next project–that one idea that excites you the most!

Set up a distraction pad.
It’s hard to get into the flow of a project when other things are vying for your attention. If you’re bombarded with other to-dos (call Mom, get orange juice, sign Susie’s permission slip) you need a distractions pad, a simple note pad to jot down all those obligations and to-dos that pop up at just the wrong moment. You’ll avoid the mental tug of war between your project and everything else you need to do…and take a step in the direction of project completion.

Schedule completion days.
Whether we’re talking about self imposed creative projects, or projects that come about due to life itself (mail, email correspondence, laundry, meal planning, etc.) our creative energy and motivation gets stifled when we feel overwhelmed. If this happens to you, schedule a completion day, where your sole focus is to tie up loose ends or finish an incomplete project or two. Checking a bunch of small nagging projects off your list…or one big project will create a burst of energy that will fuel all your open projects.

Decide on the next action.
Sometimes projects come to a screeching halt because we get stuck. Quite simply, we’ve gotten the project so far, and now we don’t know what to do next. If you’re stuck, take a step away from the project, and decide on a single next action that will get the project going again. Often this next step is to gather information or seek the advice of a friend…as opposed to physically doing something on the project itself. Just pick one step to take that will help you get unstuck and your project will start flowing easily again.

Decide to let it go.
A final, perfectly acceptable option is to give yourself permission to not to finish the project at all. I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to finish everything you start; the key is to decide. When you give yourself permission to not finish, one of two things will happen. The first scenario is that you feel a huge sense of relief because you know this project is no longer important to you. If that’s the case, let go of it, literally and figuratively. Donate the unused supplies, or put them back in your stash for another project. Just wrap up the remnants of the project so it is no longer lingering on your mental to-do list.

The second scenario you may face when you decide not to finish a project is regret. By giving yourself permission to let it go, you may find that you reattach to the project and come up with all sorts of compelling reasons why you really want to finish it. Your creative juices will begin flowing again and instead of an obligation your project becomes a reaffirmed choice.

Whichever strategy you choose, one from this list or one of your own, remember to tap into the power of completion, and enjoy that little endorphin rush that comes from getting things done

Aby Garvey is a professional organizer and the founder of simplify 101, inc. Her mission is to help you create time and space for what matters most in your home and life. Aby is the author of the e-book “the happy scrapper – simple solutions to get organized and get scrapping!” Visit the simplify 101 website for organizing ideas and to subscribe to Aby’s organizing email newsletter.

Are You Wearing The Wrong Shoes?

My husband and I have been having a somewhat humorous argument for the last few months. He believes my feet are bigger than his. Contrary to his belief, my feet are smaller than his; He of course does not think this is true. One day his bedroom slippers were in the living room and my feet were cold, so I slipped them on. When he saw that I had them on he was upset and wanted me to take them off. “Why?” I asked he responded with “Because I just don’t like people wearing my shoes” I was confused because my husband is not this weird about things like that. “Emily was running around in them earlier and you didn’t care…” “Well, Emily’s feet is smaller than mine, and yours are not” he responded. ” “Whaaaaaaatttt? No you didn’t… I know I am usually bigger when it comes to everything else, but my feet are the only actual small and cute thing on my body, I KNOW you did not just say that my size 9 foot was bigger than your size men’s 10?” ( oh Yes that was what he said.) So fast forward to a couple of nights ago, and my new bedroom slippers are on the floor of the living room, and he slides them on his men’s size 10 foot, and I said “Get out my shoes before you stretch ’em” It was on then! I told him to go get me a pair of my shoes and put them on his feet and let’s see who’s is wider and bigger, of course he did not want to do that. I said “the best thing you can do is keep your opinion about my feet, and your shoes to yourself.” We agreed to stay out of each other’s shoes…

That same night as we were talking about some issues I was upset about, God used that silly little “discussion” ( 😉 )to show me something. We have all heard that we need to walk a mile in a man’s shoes to understand what he is going through. I was crying about “so-n-so’s” issue to not get married, or “Whatcha-ma-call-it’s ” issues with their spouse, how bad I felt for “doom-a-flochie’s” life circumstances.

I was genuinely hurting and concerned for each and everyone of their circumstances. He knows that my heart will break for someone as if it were my own situation. My husband looked at me and said “You know what I think your problem is?” (Yes, I actually asked “what?”) He said “I think your problem is that you are wearing the wrong shoes.”

See, it is good to walk in another man’s shoes so that you do not judge them, but when you wear them too long they begin to irritate your feet more than they do theirs. They have broken those shoes in to fit their feet, not yours. Their relationship with their husband is their’s, their past or current circumstances in life are their’s to walk out. You did not buy those shoes (Or marry that husband, or stay single, or make that decision in life) for a reason. The best thing you can do is realize their shoes hurt and appreciate that fact when they are crying about their shoes hurting. But instead of trying to wear her shoes for her, (taking her rejection, her offense, or trying to solve her problem) then you should go get your own comfy bedroom slippers on, thank God for them, and pray that somehow she break those shoes in herself and find the right comfort in them.