What does it say about me that blogging has become a vital part of my mental health? It seems that with the quiet of January I was allowed just a little too much time inside my own head... and it really wasn't pretty.

I can't say that blogging is like prayer, exactly, but I find the openness in my writing allows God a different way to speak to me. That He is so good to show up as the thoughts are processing and my fingers are typing away.

Rarely do I sit down with a post already mapped out. Generally I just sit with my thoughts and it allows me to sort through the giant pile.

I do my best to be open, to be transparent, here. I am a very real girl with some very human flaws, but still I want to show the real and authentic me. The me that tries to grow a little everyday.

So here I go again... one month straight of reflection as I continue my pilgrimage here on this earth.

And I am very excited.

I have spent the last three days sitting at the feet of my Abba and, once again, schucking off the shell of what once was and getting new clothes and a new me. I am not yet sure what this means, but I have taken a solid and sure step forward and I refuse to step back. Not by an act of will, but an act of surrender.

I hope to look back with a very clear understanding of some of my recent and current trials. But even if I don't walk away with answers, I know I walk away grown and that will be enough.

I am submitting a larger part of who I am and what I desire to Him.

So feel free to walk with me, or watch me walk. It probably wont be the most beautiful journey but I am hoping the new creation reflects more of her father's image in the end.

And I can't access my pictures or anything fun...

I have been sitting on the floor looking through my CVS add and playing with all my coupons putting together deals for tomorrow and it frightens me how excited I get thinking about the fun and exciting freebies that I am hoping to get this week.

My husband just laughs at my little game and chooses to be glad that it doesn't cost us anything extra.

Even still I have to keep myself in check, not allowing the thrill of the deal to become a distraction in my life. I know I have done that before, gotten sidetracked with all of my planning and stopped asking God to lead, when it comes to finances.

So, as silly as it seems, I sometimes have to take a chance to make sure I am submitting even this, to God. That I am not relying on a deal or getting greedy.

I am grateful that God would think enough of my everything to care about even this area of my life.

At the end of a long, yet nice day, I really enjoy sitting at my desk and clearing my mind, waiting for God to speak while I blog. I love the ritual of it. My life doesn't have a lot of ritual, but this is one of my favorites...

So now here I am and it's hard to connect to it as I lay on my couch with my laptop. It's just not the same. But, change can be good even if you never learn to like it so I am going to dive in again today and wait for God to meet me again.

Sometimes I feel like refinement just hurts, or can't God give it a rest already, and then days like today happen. I look at days like today in comparison to where my heart was only a month ago and I can actually see Him changing me. I can myself reflecting more of who He wants me to be and I beam. Like a child who see's the mark on a growth chart that is just a bit above where it once was.

Where I had a chance to be hurt I chose to hurt for someone else and to continue to see my value to God. Where I stand a little straighter and the pride is not human but in knowing my inherent value, even if God and I are the only ones who see it...it's an amazing place to be.

I have spent so many years second guessing and wondering if I had any value, constantly pricked and bleeding when I was told of it was hinted that my value was less...so to finally see evidence of myself standing in tis place was wonderful.

One of the best parts about being home with my kids is that we find these rare stolen moments that we might have missed between school and seat belts, car seats and snacks.

This morning, sitting bleary eyed at my desk, it was a typical slow Monday...I was heating up something for breakfast waiting for my mind to realize that my body was awake. Sitting curled up in my blanket, the edges fall to the floor to make a quite attractive tent for a three year old. Soon I was distracted by giggles from beneath my chair.

So I got down on the ground and curled up on the floor with my youngest, under the blanket "tent". We just laughed and smiled and talked. I think we spent a full half hour under there and by the time the excitement had finally passed the grin on my face nearly matched his.

I love those moments, even when we spend all day together they can still, sometimes get missed.

So when the tent had lost it's spark, and my blanket had been stolen for another adventure I sat and watched my three amazing kids and thanked God for every blessing He has given me.

And then I realized what that smell was...and got up to change a diaper.

I read a lot of blogs every day. Funny, poignant, random. Some are chronicles of the day to day living, some are a plea to God. Most are about finding a good deal...but everyone carries a bit of the author.

I never thought I'd be a blogger. I never imagined I'd have much to say. Yet here I am, nearly a year and a half after I sat in front of my monitor and poured my very soul out onto the keyboard and hit "publish post".

My blogs have been instrumental in shaping who I am today. Not in that they have been imbued with some great power from God, but that as I pour out my words and more of me I am forced to see myself. It has been a giant mirror on parts of my soul I have too long been able to hide.

I have had to deal with ugliness in my own heart, lest it spill onto the page. I have swelled with love so overflowing I couldn't help but share... I have struggled and been blessed.

My great hope, in all the world is that someday, just living my life in an honest and vulnerable way I will impact the kingdom of God. That someone will see something honest in me that helps them see that God is busy at work in even the least of these.

As I plunge headfirst into two new biblestudies I hope that I am stretched, challenged, and changed...and that even my very blog reflects it.

Please Jesus, just let me be used.

Hmmm... I feel like I need to write. Like I want to write...and yet nothing comes.

The fish tank's water is low so the gentle trickle is more like a giant river rushing. It makes for an atmosphere that is, at the same time, really relaxing and stressful and loud.

I've been joking a lot lately about my "mid-life crisis" which isn't so much a mid-life crisis as an "after the storm settles and I adjust to my new reality" thing. It's not even a crisis. It just really looks similar.

I feel like God wants to take me somewhere, but I don't know where so I keep sticking my hand, or heart, into a new desire or idea. I decide to run marathons, play the drums, dye my hair, plant a garden... a whole lot of non-sequiters, just bouncing around in my head.

And I am torn between hating them and being excited by them. Torn between fearing falling into a cycle where I busy myself to avoid feeling things or establish some feeling of self-worth, or just jumping in and expecting God to catch me.

I honestly don't know which is more honest or more accurate.

I'm trying to remind myself to enter into the stillness. To sit and listen and feel. To truly allow God to envelope me and love me. I know I have been keeping Him a bit distant, and I really don't know why. Except that, maybe, I'm just a little tired of feeling so much.

Would I be crazy if I said I wanted to run a marathon...or more truthfully finish, even if I'm crawling, a marathon?

I don't enjoy running. I have often said you should really only run if someone is chasing you. I still believe that.

But I have this strange desire to do something really big, and really outside of myself. Something I would need to train for and endure.

I have felt this for a while, but tonight it was an object lesson during bible study...and again the spark.

A quick google just revealed a marathon in a nearby city, the day before Eden's birthday...

Hmmmm?

I'm sitting here, looking at the blank screen, my thoughts all muddled.

Ok, here's the deal. Tomorrow I will get out of bed and make it. I will do my dishes and enjoy my kids and my friend. I will do my biblestudy homework...and I will be kind and gentle with myself.

I will not sit in my dark thoughts, set up camp, and stay. I will not allow brokenness to destroy me.

I think I've been dangling my feet in the pit too long and if I keep sitting here I might just fall in.

So here's to simple steps...

I didn't blog yesterday. :(

It wasn't so much that I didn't want to or couldn't, but my typical blogging moments come when the house is quiet, so I generally put the kids in bed and wax philosophical...

Yesterday was my hubby's birthday and we spent the whole day, as a family, outside. In the 90* weather, swimming and hanging out.

This is probably my favorite way to spend a day, and always results in the best sleep ever.

So after a day in the sun and a yummy summer dinner of hot dogs and chips, Steven and I settled in for some time relaxing and watching tv...and then I fell asleep on the couch.

When I woke up I had a fleeting though about my blog but the cool bedsheets won. So I failed. At the very end...I failed.

This is hard for me. I have not been in a place to speak gently to myself and been far too aware of my shortcomings this week.

I often don't finish things. I hate not finishing things. It brings to mind a lot of things that were said over me in judgment. A lot of hurtful things I took in and allowed to grow and define me.

So I decided I'd still write today. To not just throw in the towel, defeated. I am going to accept my failing but not allow it to make me a failure.

I'm tired tonight...but I'm really excited to report that a few good decisions and a little self control and I have lost four pounds.

It's not that four pounds is all the weight I need to loose, or even ten percent, but it's a small reward for doing stuff that isn't easy, but is right.

So maybe when it gets hard to do the right thing elsewhere, or when it's a sacrifice to do it, I'll look at those four little pounds and remember that there is a reason, and eventual pay off.

I have decided it's time to buckle down and really lose the extra weight I have been carrying. It's a little harder now to decide this because I so don't want to be one of those women chained to the ever self hating cycle of weight loss and gain.

I don't want to be on a diet, obsessed with how many point are in a quarter cup of M&M's (4 by the way. Just one point shy of a slice of yummy pizza). I just want to be someone who is happy with whatever shape my body is in. Someone more concerned with my inner core than the outer package and how it weighs me down. I just want to make good food choices and let my body take it's natural shape...

But I haven't been making good choices and so much of that *is* a reflection of my inner core. Of rebellion. Of grief. Of busyness. Of bad planning. Of time not well spent... so I am going to try and use the outer tools to help me gain perspective on the inner me.

And I don't want to. I really am thinking I would like a break from all the refinement...until I get alone with my Jesus and realize I see him clearer everyday. That when I am refined I am more accurately able to reflect his image to others. So I am going to welcome the process and allow God to pick me up when I fall down instead of just lying there in the dirt.

I'm going to take care of this person God loves so very much as an offering to Him. I'm going to let Him show me true beauty. I am going to shed the pounds of baggage I know I still carry.