Meaning in a Name

Chara ( h are ah) The greek:  χαρά
In the Strongs lexicon it is #5479
It means joy, gladness.  The joy received from you.  The cause or occasion of joy or persons' who are ones joy. 
It the New Testament, it is found 59 times being translated:
KJV (59) - gladness, 3; greatly, 1; joy, 51; joyful, 1; joyfully + (3326), 1; joyfulness, 1; joyous, 1;
NAS (59) - greatly, 1; joy, 54; joyful, 1; joyfully, 1; joyously, 1; rejoicing, 1; 
 
JOY is something talked about, but rarely seen.  In small children, joy is authentic.  Watch them playing in the rain, running after a butterfly, gazing at the clouds.  They are fully aware of Gods creation.  They live in the moment and capture if for the value it has.  Those are the endearing qualities we admire.  That is how God formed us.  
JOY is a state of being.  It is not just a surface emotion.  It runs deep... it is there regardless of the circumstance.  At its core is TRUST...who do we trust?  Can we trust?
As we grow older, our experiences shape us. We can become fearful.  We  focus on protecting ourselves from hurt and disappointment.  We are in control~or have the appearance of it.  These are natural responses to our fallen world.  BUT, we have a choice....


Let us be like little children.  Let us see the joyful things in our lives.  Take that minute and reflect, be observant, thankful.   Consider our lives pure JOY. (God is Good~yesterday, today & tomorrow) How does joy look in your life?  Is it in full bloom or is it withering away? 

I pray that HIS joy may be overflowing from me.   The Holy Spirit IS the POWER within us  ~ John 15:5(NKJV) ⁵ “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."

Figuring Life Out - One Thousand Gifts

Joy in the Mundane

When I say the word "Laundry" what do you think?

It is one of the necessities of life.  MORE for some, LESS for others (depends on how many clothes you own and how often you need to wash before you run out!)

I am coming out of the mud pit of laundry right now.  Not because I have so much to do (a couple loads behind) but this seasonal change-over is a challenge every year.  

The warmer weather comes, but the cooler weather stays.. in limbo for a couple weeks.

Then the day arrived and I must deal with the winter clothes/summer clothing exchange...

With many children, this is a task.  Cleaning all the winter clothes, keeping out some pants, altering some into shorts(are our children the only ones who wear through the knees?), discarding some, donating some, planning for winter~will it fit and are we sick of it yet?  Assessing what will be needed for next winter so we can "thrift/garage sale" those items this summer.  Then comes the summer clothes...how well did we plan.  Do we need more

shirts, shorts, socks, sandles, swimsuits...

Yes, it is mundane.

The question is, can joy be found during this time.  Are there blessings to focus on?  

The answer?  Yes.  

It takes mindfulness, being purposeful in thought life.  Satan so easily sways us to think upon the negative aspects of our life and this world constantly bombards us with the underlying message that we are not satisfied, don't have enough, need to do something for ourselves...

God wants us to focus on the blessings..not necessarily what we WANT, but where we are at that moment in time. 

A work in progress, but after almost completing this task I can say there is JOY.

Finding time for myself (gasp)

Yes.. the "Time for yourself" issue.  As a mom of many children, it is much more difficult than I previous thought it would be to make time for myself.  Not selfishly, but for my health.

Things such as: taking my supplements/oils, eating(nutrient dense God made foods~no Doritos and oreos do not count) what MY body needs, and staying active.

I have been attempting(again) to exercise daily.  I am not sedentary at all~ but, obviously, certain areas of my body are not working hard any more... in comes: T-Tapp.  At first, I thought it was some sort of odd reflexology type stuff, but T (Theresa) Tapp put this together.

Currently~ my favorite is the T-Tapp Broom.  It really activates my muscles I forgot about (core, back/lats)  Feels good.  I only spend 15-25 minutes on this~ with a goal of daily use.

I have been spending more time in the garden, so I hope that helps boost the rear(lots of squatting down, digging) and increases my Vit D!

This really is a part of finding contentment for me... being sure that my LIFE is not out-of-balance.  That I am refueled/refreshed because as a wife and mom, my cup of living water is constantly being sucked up and without refilling from the WELL of LIFE (spiritual, emotional and physically) I will dry up and be useless. (or possibly just plain mean and hard to be around)

Thanks be to God for the ability to move and think!

Letting Go

Lots of cleaning today... mostly the weekly stuff but the youngn's had each of their bins full of papers and well...garbage.  So, with assistance from MOM, they got those sorted into three piles~ keepers for their art binders, unfinished and trash.  (teaching them early, hopefully it works) 
After hard work, they were rewarded with ice cream cones!

Time to play~ here is where I had to let go.  They youngn's decided to have their first swim of the year (we are in a northern climate) and they chose the retention "pond."  
Fully clothed, they dove in (literally) and were soaked to the undies (as the youngest said, that is why I don't wear underware in the summer to Baptist Lake..they get wet) 
My first response (blush) wanted to be "I told you not to play in the water"  
But, after reflection~decided that they were having so much fun, who cares...let go!
I went inside, got the camcorder(battery dead) reached for the itouch and digitally taped their festivities...

Yes, many of you would have instantly thought of the fun, but for me, after years of parenting and a bit of PTSD, I have to pursue to LET GO and have fun!  
A successful day, if I do say so myself.
 

Onto the next phase

Conquered the paper dragon, however, there are still loose ends.

After filling an entire 30 gallon trash bag with shredded paper documents and a bag with recycled pages of various kinds, a huge dent has been made.

The next phase is taking what has been determined as "keepers" and scanning them 

into a digital system... this is the big mountain.  It took 2 hours to finally fix the configuration of my current printer/scanner... I still have to test it to see how viable it is to use as a document scanner. With many adoption documents that are two sided, time is of the essence.

One step at a time!

As a side note:  I have been a better Mom today!  And that, my friends~ is GREAT!  No yelling, gentle facial expressions... believe it or not, that is a struggle some days.

Signing off....

Paper-less in honor of EARTH DAY!

Yes... it has been brewing for a long time.  The piles of papers, filing cabinets, binders full of documents, homeschooling (more papers/books!) cookbooks... we keep so much for the  just-in-case ~ then the just-in-case never happens and the papers stay!
I have been researching for many months, looking at scanners, reading posts and other books on how to tackle this mountain that seems overwhelming and have come to this:

The rubber-meets-the-road TODAY and I am going to begin the CALL to ACTION for this process...

1.  Shred papers that have been waiting in the "shred" pile for all these months.
2. Go through this years bills/papers that have accumulated and sort in 3 piles
SCAN  SHRED  RECYCLE
3.  Process the shred and recycled papers that have accrued.
4.  Tackle one file drawer/folder at a time.  Step #3 will be implemented often.
5.  Begin assessing how much I will actually have to scan.  I want to purchase the Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 from  Amazon (great reviews) I need to be sure it is a necessary purchase for us and will probably visit and revisit the idea another 10 times!  This scanner scans front and back at the same time and 20-40ppm(depends on color/black and white)  How awesome is that!

This sounds simple.  Once I get to the point of actually scanning the documents, I will post more details of the how-to method.  Ideally, I anticipate gaining further contentment as the visual clutter will begin to vanish and the time to manage this area should shrink!

Post Holiday Reflection

As most know, yesterday was the very famous "Valentine's Day."

A day which, in our family, may consist of  a hug and a sincere phrase, "Happy Valentine's Day, I love you!"

In keeping in line with my personal goal to reflect on each day, I now realize why I do not like holidays in general.  Yes, I seem like a scrooge.  Let me explain before you throw tomatoes (Throw lots so I can make Tomato Fennel Soup)

We have homegrown and handpicked children.  Quite a few children have been adopted.  It is a tremendous blessing to have them in our family, and certainly Gods hand has planted them with us!  But, there is some baggage that we cannot control nor completely understand.  One of these issues revolves around food.  They get 3 meals plus snacks daily.  I make homemade cookies, snacks, etc.  But on these *special* days when others feel it necessary to bring many treats in the form of food, it creates a chaotic obsessive behavior in all of them.  

Imagine being taunted, hourly, all day about a particular issue.  Maybe your boss wants that report yesterday.  Maybe your spouse wanted you to finish the landscape project you started weeks ago.  Regardless of what it is, it would be exhausting to listen to this every hour.  Well, our children are wired this way right now.  Those well intentioned treats become an obsessive, compulsive, panic and will not dissipate until the demands are met with the treats.  A "responsible" parent would give them one or two at a time, but the torture continues for however many days it takes to finish all the booty.

Think about what comes at "Easter" here in the United States...Talk about candy.

By withholding the treats, they feel like their needs are not being met, but when we let them consume them, we feel that it is detrimental to their health.  A major reason for juvenile diabetes (sugar intake)

The perfect solution is only one treat per kid.  Only, to get our friends and family to embrace this idea may be difficult.  The giver still get to give, and the receiver(the children) still get to have that experience.

Is this reasonable and will it bring CONTENTMENT? 

(It would be completely outrageous to avoid the whole thing, right?)

A Process, not a destination.

Contentment.  
What does it really mean?  Websters 1913 states: 
1. The state of being contented or satisfied; content. Contentment without external honor is humility. Grew. Godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Tim. vi. 6
2. The act or process of contenting or satisfying; as, the contentment of avarice is impossible.
3. Gratification; pleasure; satisfaction
That's great..can I even have that? 


We live in a world where we are bombarded with covert messages: This item/book/trip will make you happier, satisfied, and more complete if you buy it.  
Even in the Christian realm, we are sent messages through various media that we need more!  More power, more money(to help others of course), more people to fill the church, more time, more bibles, more workers, more prayer(not a bad idea), bigger churches.
How quickly we are washed into a life of discontentment, like a tide that is going out to sea.  It pulls you under when you least expect it.  And once there, can easily be lost in the raging waves. 


It takes passion and resolve to swim back to the shore of contentment.  
The choice to stay is a moment by moment decision.  Meditate on the Truth, be alert, for  the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.  


Be (and active verb) satisfied, happy, joyful in your circumstances, content with what you have and thankful. 


Life is a process of transformation... find contentment.