Sacrifice

My day has not been the best of days. But sometimes on those hard days you learn something, and they can also cause you to grow. 

I woke up this morning with an aching back and sore legs(must be from carrying baby's up and down stairs). I didn't feel like getting out of bed. But didn't really have a choice since Judah was yelling at me to get him from his crib. Daniel knew I wasn't feeling so great so he helped me with the getting the boys up and changed and breakfast. But Judah was pushing buttons all day and it seems there is always a new huge mess somewhere and cranky babies and dogs to go outside(in particular the puppy). By the time dinner was made and we had eaten and Judah was testing boundaries again I was cranky and about to take it out on someone, so Daniel told me to go take a bath or something and not worry about the boys for a bit(I think he was afraid he was about to get the brunt of my crankiness).

So I took a bit of time for myself and decided I needed to talk to God and work on my attitude. In my time in prayer I was reminded that I really need to carve out sometime for God in the day. God is where I need to by drawing my strength from and if I'm not taking time to do that I'm turning into a crazy person. (Ok maybe not to crazy but I feel like it sometimes. lol) Such a simple concept but so hard to get into the habit of doing. I don't feel like getting up in the morning before the boys, I'm tired and don't want to focus at night, and time always seems to just get eaten up in the day. I realized I really needed to sit down and figure out where I can sacrifice time to do it. And that got me thinking about all the things that seem such like simple concepts in our Christian faith that are really hard to do or to just get in the habit of doing. It seems to change the way you look at them when you reach each phase in life, and I have a whole new set of excuses. In particular I have been pondering what it really means to sacrifice and surrender to God on a daily basis. It is so hard to sacrifice that extra sleep I would like to get, so hard to surrender money even though its a blessing form the Lord, so hard to surrender my attitude so that I can bless those around me, so hard to surrender my boys to the Lord and what His plan is for them. (They are with me all the time now but someday they will grow up and I know that what the Lords plans for them might not be easy for me. I see that in Daniel and my life now, and how the Lord has led us here away from family. But I'm thankful that we aren't to far away for now.)

I'm sure the list could go on. But these are some of things that you don't just get to surrender once and your good, its constant, and not always easy. Even after you have established it as habit you still have to make it a conscious decision to keep on. Oh boy do I have so much to grow in. So maybe I will just have to start drinking coffee when I get up. And tomorrow I'm sure won't be perfect either but I'm going to try and start on the right foot, and give it to God at the beginning of the day and not the end. :)
 

I am so thankful to have a loving God that I can turn to when I'm having a bad day... or a great one.