Where is your heart?

I have been sitting here at the computer getting our next Financial Peace University class registered online. Then I was putting an announcement in the bulletin for it and it got me thinking. We've been having a hard time getting people from our congregation to want to come to the classes and I have been wondering why. Have you noticed how people don't like to talk about money? Even more so in the church. It's like it's this big no no to talk about it. Seriously though. How often do we here preachers talk about money? When they do talk about it, it is always about giving. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about giving to the church. It just seems to me that we need to start teaching more about money in general. How to be better stewards of it so we can give more. God has blessed all of us so richly and I believe that it is our responsibility to manage what God has given us. Did you know that money is one of the most talked about subjects in the Bible. Why do you think that is? Over 800 scriptures in the Bible talk about money. God must think it is really important if it is in there so often. Scriptures about giving, getting out of debt, investing, saving, spending. The list goes on. Why is it that the only scripture that we can think of is "Money is the root of all evil." Oh wait, is that not how it goes. Because I think that is what we have been taught. That money is EVIL. So we Christians are suppose to just stay poor and let all the bad people of the world have all the money. I see something really wrong with that picture. No where in scripture does it say that money is evil. No where does it say that we can't have a lot of it. I believe what the scripture says in I Tim. 6:10 "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." Did you here that? The LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil. Not money. It's your heart! Money itself is not good or bad. It is the persons heart that determines what the money will do. You can choose to use it for evil or you can choose to use it for good. So we need to start learning more about how to manage what God has given us and give more in return. In our FPU classes we talk about how managing money is 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior. It is one thing knowing what to do with money. It's a whole different ball game actually doing it. If your heart is not in the right place, then your money wont be either.

The Nothingness

I have not been here in a very long time. I keep forgetting that I have a blog. I am going to try to do this more often. Those of you who know me well know that I always have something to say. At least most of the time. Lately though I haven't really had much to say. I have been taking care of my family that just seems to keep getting sick. Of course when I get sick, who takes care of me? Over the past two weeks Matt has been sick with something. Joshua and Sean both came home from school with really high fevers and very lethargic. Joshua's actually got up to 103.4. They got better and then last week I got sick. This week Matt went away on business. He is coming home today. Yeah!!! Sean stayed home again today with a sick stomach and I am still a little sick. Mine is really bad allergy stuff. I think. I am feeling better now that Matt is coming home. I hate it when he is gone. Sean just told me that he is afraid to eat something cause he might puke. How's that for a lovely picture. Just what I need. To have to clean up puke. He usually makes it to the toilet though. So that is good. I think today I am going to spend the day going around the house and disinfecting everything I can find. Time to germ purge. Gotta go. I will write again later with something a little more interesting.

Childless at home

It finally happened. The day that I had been dreading for the past six months came and went. Joshua went to kindergarten. It was different with Sean. I had time to adjust to the idea because he did half day preschool and pre-k. Plus his kindergarten was only half day as well. It was still hard though. But with Joshua it was straight to full day kindergarten. Not to mention he's my baby. It didn't make anything easier when my grandpa passed away the Friday before. So then I had to decide whether to go to his funeral and miss my kids fist week of school or the other way around. I decided to go to the funeral. I did get to be here for the first day of school. They were both so excited about school. Joshua pretty much ran all the way. Then just as we got to the school he fell down and skinned his hand and his knee. His first day of school he went to the nurses office. Matt stayed home on monday with me. That was nice. Then I flew out for the funeral on Tuesday and came back on Thursday. Friday was my first quiet day at home without any children. I got all my work done that morning and slept the afternoon away. I had been getting over being sick and just completely exhausted physically and emotionally. Well that was the first week of school in a nutshell.

Knock on wood

Just last Wednesday in Ladies bible class we were talking about how it feels when we have to take a child to the ER. Of course, I had to say that I have not yet had to take one of my children to the ER. Well, last night all that changed. As I was coming home from my visit to curves, Joshua was coming out of his room with his pillow case over his head to play an April fools prank on daddy. As he rounded the corner he tripped over Lily who was laying across the hallway. Anyhow, as I arrived home around 8:05pm I stopped outside to look at the new flowers that our landlord is graciously getting put in our very boring flower beds. As I was looking and admiring the beauty of the flowers, Matt sticks his head out of the front door and says in a very serious tone, "I need you inside right now". I look through the window and all I see is our precious little curly headed boy laying flat on the living room floor with blood all over his chest,arms and legs. Let's just say that a panic went through me that I had not felt since the time Sean chocked on that pretzel on a plane. Needless to say I quickly calmed myself and went inside to see what the damage was. Matt filled me in on what happened and that he had cut his chin. Matt had put a cloth on his chin to stop the bleeding. As I took it away to look, at first it didn't look so bad. Then I got a closer look and could see the flesh underneath. It was actually coming out from under the skin. It was really gross to say the least. I said in a very matter of fact voice, "yep, that's going to need stitches". The bleeding had stopped so we cleaned him up, got him dressed, gave him some Tylenol and I took him to the closest ER in San Marcos. You would think ER's would be quick, but no. We sat there for about an hour. Luckily they had Veggie Tales playing. Finally, we went in to see the triage nurse and then filled out paper work. Then it was back to waiting and watching more Veggie Tales. It didn't take to much longer and we were back to see the doctor. They were really great and had Joshua giggling in no time. The doctor took a look at it, pocked it, squeezed it and the whole time Joshua just giggled. The doctor said that he could use glue, but since he was such an active little fellow it would be better to sew him up. First he had to numb it. This is where it got ugly. He took this long very skinny needle and stuck it in the open wound and started to squeeze the medicine into it. That's when Joshua started crying and he moved a little and the end of the needle poked through his skin. He just kept moving that needle around in that wound putting medicine in until Joshua couldn't feel anything anymore. I could not help but remember the time I had to have stitches in my hand. Not a fun time. Well, Joshua stopped crying and I pocked his chin a few times and asked him if he could feel that and he said it was asleep and started giggling again. The doctor proceeded to clean it and covered Joshua up with a sterile cloth and started stitching. Of course Joshua giggled the whole time. It took five stitches to close up that wound. We finally got home last night a little before 12:00am. What a night. I hope not to have to do that ever again, but knowing Joshua I'm sure it won't be the last. He is doing fine this morning. Acts like nothing ever happened. I hope you all enjoyed my detailed report of our first trip to the ER.

My little giant turned five today.

It's official. Joshua is now 5 years old. It's amazing how fast they grow. Some faster than others it seems. Joshua is such an amazing kid. He is so loving, kind and lots of fun. Right now I am just trying to enjoy what time I have left before he goes off to school. I can not believe he is going to be in Kindergarten next year. How time flies. It seems like just yesterday that I was looking at this cute little guy for the first time. He was so cute with his perfectly round head and strawberry peach fuzz. Sean was so proud to have a little brother. I remember watching him feed Joshua his first bottle. That was the sweetest things I've ever seen. Children are such a blessing. They teach us so much about who we are and what God wants us to be. It's easy to think of our kids as ours, but they are not. They are a beautiful gift from God for the short time that we have them. We are to love them and train them to serve Him. They are his and one day we will have no control or say in what they do. We must make the best of the short time that we have been given. Teach them what they need to know and help them to find their own faith. Then let them go and pray that they will make the right choices. They will not always. But hopefully they will learn from their mistakes and become better people because of them.
But for now, I am going to cherish every moment that I have with them as if it was my last.