On My Mind Monday

Only 2.5 days left this week before Christmas break!  We are ready for it in our household!

Today, I want to do a brain “dump” and share what’s on my mind.

• Lately, I’m having a love/hate relationship with social media.  I love staying connected to friends and family, but I hate the feeling of being left out or compared to others.  My girls especially have been having some hurt feelings from IG.  I think over Christmas break I am going to make them delete their IG for a while.
• At school we had a contest for decorating our doors for Christmas.  Our 8th hour students were in charge of helping us with it.  I left my door COMPLETELY up to my students and this is what they ended up doing.  I thought they did a great job and everything was made completely by them!  Are there any Fortnite lovers out there?

Here was Mr. Bolin’s.  They did a good job also!

• At my graduation ceremony the other day, there was this lady sitting three seats down from me and she kept talking on her cell phone during the ceremony and took 100 different selfies of herself!  I got a kick out of it!
• Happy does this cute new thing where she will get in our big basket of blankets by the couch and will curl up into a little ball and sleep there.  She’s the sweetest dog ever!

• I can’t say that about Max…He is a HANDFUL right now!  He’s a puppy, but a GIANT puppy and doesn’t realize how big he is!  LOL
• I hate cancer and everything that comes with it.  I wish someone would find a cure!
• While we were at Silver Dollar City the other weekend my sister and I were talking to the kids about the rapture and God coming back for us.  There was a sunbeam in the sky that started this conversation.  The day after when we were going somewhere else, the sun was really bright and there was another sunbeam. Emily said, “Look, someone is going to heaven right now.”  It was hilarious!  The lady in front of us turned around and gave us a strange look!  She misunderstood the rapture a little bit.  HA! I think it’s something that needs to be talked about more and more in Sunday Schools.
• We have a huge surprise for Liz planned this week for her diaversary and I can’t wait to see her reaction!
• On Christmas break I plan to have a MAJOR house cleaning party to get rid of JUNK!  We have accumulated so much stuff over the last year we’ve lived there and some of it needs to go!
• We were called twice last week for fostering.  I had to say no, because both cases were for siblings and they were all under 2.  We told them we can’t take siblings and we want a child over 3.  I know they are desperate and just trying to find a good home, so they call us.  But it makes me feel awful when they ask us to take kids in and I have to say no.  I know mentally I just can’t handle two small children at once.  I wish more people would foster so there were more loving homes these kids could go to!
• One of my great friends just had her baby and I can’t wait to get over and meet him!  She teaches with me and school has been lonely without her!
• Leaving you with this devotion/story that one of my friends shared on FB the other day.  It touched my heart so much!  In my life, I have had many “breaks” and know I am stronger because of it:

“I was in Dollar Tree last night, and there was a lady and two kids behind me in the LONG line. One was a big kid, and the other one was a toddler. The bigger one had a pack of glow sticks, and the toddler was screaming for them. The Mom opened the pack and gave him one which stopped his tears. He walked around with it smiling; but then the bigger boy took it, and the toddler started screaming again. Just as the Mom was about to fuss, the older child bent the glow stick and handed it back to the toddler. As we walked outside at the same time, the toddler noticed that the stick was now glowing; and his brother said, “I had to break it so that you could get the full effect from it.”

I almost ran, because l could hear God saying to me, “I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so you could fulfill your purpose.”

That precious child was happy just swinging that “unbroken” glow stick around in the air, because he didn’t understand what it was created to do – which was “glow”.

There are some people who will be content just “being,” but some of us that God has chosen… we have to be “broken.”

We have to get sick.

We have to lose a job.

We go through a divorce.

We have to bury our spouse, parents, best friend, or our child…

In those moments of desperation, God is breaking us. But… when the breaking is done, then we will be able to see the reason for which we were created. So when you see us glowing, just know that we have been broken but healed by His Grace and Mercy!!!”

Hope y’all have a great Monday!

Leaving you with our #selifeSunday.  I pray you have a blessed week!

~Jen