The Cross and the Resurrection

Happy Easter!

My heart and soul are filled with joy as I contemplate on the wonders of my salvation. I Love Easter...single handedly it is the holiday that I feel the most deeply in my soul. You see my friends, it's more than eggs and candy, its more than fun and family it's LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But to truly grasp that life there was Death. Painful, humiliating, wrenching death of a criminal. Yet the person dying was not a criminal, no he was perfect. PERFECT! Not self righteous, not full of pride, a perfect man, SINLESS, never committing the pettiness that plague you and I, never being unjust in anger, a Perfect, Sinless Man. Yet he died. Not because he deserved to die, not because he had done anything wrong, but for ME...and YOU. He DIED to pay the penalty for all the wrongs we do...the wrongs of bad attitudes, bad habits, driving to fast, telling lies, thinking the wrong things, for those selfish motives and all the petty things we hold on too. The Bible tells us that ALL have sinned. There is nothing good in us, NOTHING...we are wretched, sinful creatures. And we would be left wallowing in our filth and despair if it weren't for JESUS... JESUS died for my sins and for you. He suffered and was humiliated so that we can be reconciled to God, so that we can be his Children! So to grasp the Life of Easter you must accept the Death of a Savior...the Perfect Sacrifice.

Then there is LIFE..the stamp of Approval of a Holy God to say YES! The price is paid and you can be forgiven. There is HOPE in knowing that the one who gave themselves as a sacrifice paid for my redemption with his blood and is ALIVE, sitting at the Right hand of the Father, interceding for you and me. There is a Savior, he accomplished what he said, he is the fulfillment of all the Prophesy's and HE will Reign forever on HIGH! His Sacrifice was enough, nothing more is needed except to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!

So Friend, are you full of joy today because of what Jesus has done for you? Have you accepted His Sacrifice for the wrong doings you do and to you trust him for your Salvation. There is no other way, it is the Death and Resurrection of Jesus that changed the course of History and is the MOST SIGNIFICANT event Ever! It's so important! I have accepted this gift and I am filled with Joy knowing that My Savior lives and is working to Change me into who he wants me to be!

HAPPY EASTER!!!! WE HAVE HOPE BECAUSE OF THE RESURRECTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Negativity Be Gone

I've been feeling rather negative recently.

It's not huge or anything but in the background of my mind there is this little cynical voice telling me the Opposite of what I should be thinking.

It's really getting old.

So I am going to make a conscious effort to focus more on Positives than Negatives. To take that little cynic in my mind and make it eat JOY! Cynicism hates JOY. I need to find the Happy in the moment not just the sad. I need to find the Peace when I may just be feeling MAD. I need to find the Contentment in what I have and the Determination to make life better than I thought it could be.

I'm going through some changes at work, not bad changes but change is hard. I need to embrace the change...isn't that what changing my thinking is all about? I need to take the bull by the horns and embrace the new, deal with the trouble and make it all work.

And I need to get back to blogging about what I am feeling and how I am changing my thinking. I need to get the feelings out and not bottle them up. So here's to Embracing the POSITIVE

It's About Being Healthy

The more I think about this journey that I am on this year of changing my thinking I have realized that it really is more than just having a clean house. It's not just changing my thinking about my cleaning processes it's changing the way that I think about my life! I think I have been content for too long to just take life as it comes. To roll with the punches as it were but to always be REACTIVE rather than PROACTIVE.

When you are Reactive you tend to get frustrated easier. You spend your days waiting for the next thing to happen and not to create things that will make your life easier. What's funny for me is that on my working side I work hard at not being reactive but to have meaningful activities that cause me to create the learning environment that I desire for the children in my classroom. Why then can I not seem to do that at home? That's a good question and one that I have been pondering....it seems that since I am good at being Proactive at work I should easily be Proactive at home...but I am not. When I get home I am tired, I am often hungry, I am crabby from the situations that have gone on in the classroom and the last thing I often want to do is doing anything.

So today is Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. I am home from school since its a holiday and working on projects around the house. I need to make a new weekly goal but since I haven't really mastered the first two goals I should get into better habits with them. My desire is to develop GOOD habits but if I rush and take on too much I am afraid that it will be easy to slip back into my really bad habits. I have decided that this will be a Review week...when I teach we have review weeks for the children to reinforce the lessons we have learned. It's a healthy thing to be reviewing...change and learning doesn't happen overnight. It's a process by which we grow and mature...I'm still taking baby steps here...I have a long way to go in my goal and I have a whole year in which to accomplish this goal. We are only 18 days into the new year...I don't have to be perfect or even amazingly better this soon in the process.

I'm a firm believer in the process rather than the product in the classroom. A lot of the art that my students do is not something that I would hang on the walls but it is a skill that they are mastering...they are not going to be great at cuttting with scissors the first day but as time goes by and they master the process of using scissors their cutting skills improve so much. So my process is making sure that I am meeting goals 1 and 2 all this week. If I accomplish some bigger projects as I go along the way that is a benefit but not a neccessity. I will be content with being Proactive in the small things so that I no longer have to Reactive to my life. It's about being healthy in my thinking not just about killing myself for a goal that I think I need to meet quickly.

Wasting Time

I'm good at wasting my time. I'll admit it...I can find 100 things that I would rather do than clean my house or take care of things that need to be taken care. I can easily curl up with a good book under a warm blanket with a cup of hot cocoa in the winter or take the kiddos to the pool and sit on a warm towel next to a pool of sparkling water in the summer instead of gettting my responsibilities done. I have an uncanny knack of overlooking the mess, the chaos of the house and find the one thing that is done...as if to say...see there is a good spot...your good Erin, your good, go have fun.

Well that really isn't good, it's really not working. I will be honest, it's stressful. Very stressful. My marriage suffers for it, my kids suffer for it, my esteem as a wife suffers for it. I don't think that it does but in reality it's true. My husband doesn't like coming home at night after work to a messy house. My kids don't like not being able to find things. My kids also don't like a stressed out mom who is overwhelmed and frustrated all the time.

My pastor talked this morning about Time. Everyone gets the same amount of time every day. It's up to us to use it in a way that is honoring to God, honoring to each other, and fulfilling. I could waste my time and blame others for the way the house looks or is. I often do this...I say well, if Dan helped more, this wouldn't be a problem. Or I say...if I had more space the house would be neater...no, I would just be able to fill it up with more junk. I also say....well, I work at school all day I don't want to work at home too.

Where is my priority? How do I shift my thinking? How do I make Time work for me rather than just wasting my time with a whole lot of nothing that doesn't do me any good or bring me any lasting peace or joy? This is the task that I am embarking on this year. To not waste Time. To make the actions I take to make my house and life better work in a easy, time fulfilling way. So we have more time....together as a family, as a mom in helping with homework, more fun in our life. This is my challenge this year.

So I am off to fill up my time doing things that will help the greater good of the family. That isn't to say that it is the only thing I will focus on but it's on my mind and I Will be more productive with my time.