Just an ordinary day.

Today is just an ordinary day around these parts. The baby is napping in the swing that he is rapidly outgrowing, (I promise he gained 5 pounds and grew 2 inches over the weekend!) and Miss Sassy is playing with her doll house. I'm pretty sure there is a pig, Pluto (the dog), a lion and a stuffed deer currently having a party on the 3rd floor. There was some sort of construction going on earlier because I saw a backhoe on the balcony. "Rio" just ended, and she announced, "The End!" I didn't even think she was really watching it. Anyway...just a typical day at our house. I am blessed. I'm not sure what most people think homemakers do, but let me tell you I have yet to spend a day on the couch eating chocolate and watching "my stories." (That would be soap operas for you non-Southerners.) We don't even get those channels on the tv I don't think.

Sometimes in these seemingly mundane moments I think about my kids' future, and I ponder how our society got to where it is today. I know in the early years of the country choices of what to do and where to work were somewhat limited. People grew their food or hunted or they didn't eat. People cooked the food they hunted and gathered because there were no restaurants. Travel was limited so people were more confined to their homesteads. Now, we can go almost anywhere relatively quickly, pay to have enormous amounts of food prepared and served to us, and can pretty much pay someone else to do any job we "just don't have time" to do. I wonder...does that make our society better off or does that make us too busy to find the good in the "mundane?"

Lately, I feel that satan is attacking me by trying to hurt my pride. I've had conversations where people seem to belittle what I do everyday, how I think, how my husband and I raise our kids, etc. Their reasoning? Basically what Jeremy and I are doing just isn't big enough to amount to anything in this world. We don't earn enough money, have enough toys, own enough land, and my "job" really doesn't have value. We aren't getting anywhere in life.

I'm going to be honest. There is a time when that would have upset me royally, and made me so mad I'd have seen red. I would have lashed out and really tried to set them straight to prove my worth. I'm not going to say it doesn't sting at all now, but the overwhelming emotion I feel these days when people say those things is sadness. I'm so sad they can't see what a wonderful thing Jeremy and I have. We have discovered that we really don't need much. We need God. Everything else He gives us is a bonus, and we are very appreciative. We truly enjoy raising our own kids, working with our hands, and serving God in the ways He allows us to every day. We aren't perfect and never will be. We fall short and get frustrated. We get mad. We fail. The thing is, we get back up and run to God again. He helps us to see the good in everything. I was just telling my mom earlier that I had checked our storage to see what clothing I had socked away for the kids to wear this summer so I'd know what I needed to buy. Would you believe that over the past year I have found enough clothing on clearance and been given nice hand me down clothing to last Sassy all summer? I'm sorry, but if you can't see God in that and praise Him for it, you need a wake up call. GOD IS GOOD. ALL...THE...TIME.

I challenge you to find God in the ordinary, everyday, boring things. Just take the time and slow down. Find one thing today that He has given you, and thank Him for it. Today in Tennessee it may be cold, but the sun is shining. My kids are happy and healthy. They make me smile and laugh even on tough days. We have a warm place to live. Jeremy has a job outside of the home

. We have a docile herd of cattle that is well loved. We have chickens laying eggs. Life may not be perfect. We may not have alot, but let me tell you...we are rich. :)

-Kadie