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Five Minute Friday no.5

Myriah Mae

I’m so excited to post a Five Minute Friday post today!  It is such a fun exercise for my writing brain and usually ends up being pretty meaningful!  I love how God works in mysterious ways…I have no clue what the word will be each week, but it usually ends up making me think about the Lord and what He is doing in my life!

I love this five minute writing prompt each week…every Friday there is a new word that we all write about for five minutes…then we share our posts in a linky party…then we get to read what we each thought about the same word…SO FUN!

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Today’s word is STUCK.  I had a GREAT night sleep last night, sprayed my bed down with my DIY linen spray (Young Living’s copaiba oil and frankincense), had lavender in my diffuser, and my precious girl slept like a dream (all that lavender on her little feetsies), so this mama feels awake and refreshed this morning!  I am ready to write!  I will set my timer here in a second to five minutes (cause I really don’t like to “cheat” although sometimes I do finish that last sentence or two after the buzzer sounds) and write.  When you are finished here, feel free to click on the picture above and head over to read some other Five Minute Friday posts!

Ready.

Set.

Write.

Stuck.

Have you ever felt stuck?  Have you ever really been stuck?  Like when your car gets stuck in the mud and you have to be pushed out or pulled out by another car.  I am thinking about this time that my Grampa drove into a deep mud puddle and got stuck when I was little…we were WAY UP NORTH in the middle of NOWHERE in the great state of Maine (my home land), driving around looking for moose.  It was early evening, but gradually getting darker and closer to true evening.

The roads we were on were all dirt and filled with bumps and holes and various things to avoid when driving, but my Grampa is a daring man and this puddle didn’t look “too bad” to him!  I was a real little Myriah then (maybe 7 or 8 years old) and I remember my Grampa was on crutches because he had recently had hip surgery.  My cousin was with us (15 or 16 at the time) and my mum and aunt…oh and Sweetie Pie, the tiny poodle dog!

Grampa drove right into the mud and the Izuzu Trooper was STUCK!  Like REALLY STUCK!  I think my dramatic tiny self immediately started bawling! HA!  My Grampa, on crutches, immediately started working, my cousin consoled me, and my mum and aunt went for help!

I was so scared that we would be stuck out in the middle of nowhere, without rescue, and eventually would be eaten by bears!  The drama of an 8 year old!  My daddy wasn’t with us, and folks this was before cell phones okay (not that they would have worked in that region of the woods anyway).

Grampa and Rachael calmed me down and we started to work…I can clear as day remember Grampa on his crutches assessing the situation and directing us girls to collect sticks.  I remember that I didn’t have shoes on, not because of extreme poverty, but because I was camping and in Summer mode of being barefoot!  Thinking about it now I can remember the gravel kind of hurting my feet as I ran to collect wood to throw in the mud under our stuck tires…but somehow the act of doing the job calmed me and dulled the pain…I was a girl on a mission.

Meanwhile my mum and aunt had walked off into the sunset (literally the sun was setting).  Thank God Grampa kept us collecting wood and sticks, so that my mind was taken off my mum and aunt being eaten by wolves and never coming back!

I remember Sweetie Pie yapping and barking from the truck!  This all sounds like it would be a traumatic memory, especially as I write it out now and see it in type, but you know what, it isn’t.  This memory of getting stuck in the mud with Grampa at the wheel has become a fond, fun memory, a story we end up telling when we are all together!  In case you are dying in suspense here, we worked with Grampa for what seemed like HOURS (I don’t know the real time, I was a kid okay, that part is fuzzy) and then we saw a pick up truck coming off in the distance…my mum and aunt were sitting on the tailgate of that pickup…like any good Mainer, they had a winch in their truck and helped us get unstuck!  All ended well, and the event has become a fond family memory!

Okay, at this point I’m just gonna tell you I have been writing for more than 5 minutes…but I gotta get it out!

A couple things we can all take away from this story:

  1. When we get stuck, we can’t just lay down and quit.  We gotta keep moving!  Picture my awesome Grampa hobbling around on crutches, working to get the truck unstuck.  He could have just sat in the truck and said “let’s just sit and wait girls”, but he didn’t, he kept moving and kept us moving!  I quickly went from bawling cause I was scared, to enjoying the task at hand!
  2. Pray and ask God for help, and then move forward.  My Grampa is a praying man and I am sure he prayed the whole time we were stuck…for our safety, for help, for his daughters to return safely, for his granddaughter to stop bawling…but we didn’t simply pray and just wait for a tow truck to drop from heaven….we used our resources around us!  Sometimes God has already given us answer to prayer or what we need, but we are too “busy” waiting for Him to drop it from the sky to actually look around us!  Did the sticks get us unstuck?  I’m not sure if they even helped at all, but they did occupy us and keep us sane during the wait for help!
  3. Ask others for help!  My Grampa is a proud and capable man, even on crutches, but he let my mum and aunt go look for help!  We needed help and that took seeking and asking!

 

Wow!  This has become the longest-winded Five Minute Friday post Ever!  Anyhow, to relate this to now, I felt stuck…not too long ago, I felt stuck in loneliness,  insecurities (that I didn’t even know I had), and isolation!  For awhile I laid down in it and thought about quitting, and I cried (much like the 7 or 8 old version of me) and I prayed but did nothing with what God had already given me.

God is doing something great guys!  He has hooked his winch to my truck and is pulling me out of the mud!  I totally believe God has done and is doing this work in me, but it took me making choices to get up and move, do something toward getting unstuck and asking for help!

I’m so excited about where God is going to “tow” me to as I get more and more unstuck!  Are you feeling stuck today?  Are you praying God will “tow” you out, but at the same time laying in your own pool of tears?  Get up, dry your eyes, and start moving sticks till you see that pickup truck coming off in the distance with help!  Seek the Lord with boldness, and stop acting in fear and ask others for help too (preaching to myself here), be a little vulnerable (like my Grampa on crutches and his two barefooted granddaughters) and put yourself out there!  You can’t expect that pickup truck to pull over and help tow you out, if you don’t wave them down and tell them you are stuck!!

Thanks for reading my five (hundred) minute Friday post today!  Happy weekend!

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Mamahood Series~Mama on the Missionfield

Myriah Mae

Welcome to the Mamahood Stories guest blogger series!!  I have asked several special mamas to write posts for this series and I really believe they are going to encourage you and build you up!  My wish is that as you read these posts leading up to Mother’s Day, you are encouraged and exhorted to love on other mamas, waiting mamas, and women longing to be mamas!

Today’s post comes from my friend Steph!  We know each other from the church we attended in the states before we moved to Budapest.  Steph and her husband moved onto the mission field in the Dominican Republic shortly after Tim and I left for Budapest, so we haven’t been in the same location for years!  Isn’t the body of Christ great though, we are living on different continents and serving in different ways, but still have Jesus in common and remain friends!!  Steph and her sweet little family are back in the states now, though big parts of their hearts remain in the DR with the work they were a part of there!  I just know you will enjoy reading this sweet mama’s story!

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Hola! I’m Eliana’s mami. Adults know me as Steph, our friends in the Dominican Republic call me Estefani. Our precious blessing from the Lord will turn two in July. I want to share with you the miracle of Eliana’s birth. We were missionaries in the Dominican Republic for five years and Eliana was born in Barahona, Dominican Republic. While pregnant with Eliana, I came down with symptoms indicative of the Zika Virus. I went immediately to the doctor and although they did not have the equipment necessary to test me, my doctor diagnosed me with Zika. There is no treatment, so we prayed. I was already in the second trimester so she was not at great risk of being affected. We had a trip to the States planned a month later to visit family and friends and so I went to the health department in Maryland to be tested and all the tests came back negative! Whether I was healed or whether I never had it, the Lord protected Eliana’s little life.

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Two weeks before her due date I was at my regular OB appointment and Eliana’s heart rate was low and the doctor was concerned. She did some other tests and decided she needed to do an emergency c-section that same afternoon. I started to panic a little as I wasn’t expecting that and they rushed me back to surgery before my husband could even get there with our belongings. While in surgery I was trying to remain calm, but was very nervous and a bit in shock. One of the nurses started to play Christian music on her cell phone and Océanos began to play. I’m sure you’ve heard the English version of this song, Oceans. So, I began to sing and immediately the peace of the Lord came over me.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior

The next day one of the nurses was talking about how Eliana had the smallest umbilical cord she had ever seen. That wasn’t the reason for the C-section but if I had gone into labor, it could have been a problem. The Lord directed every aspect of Eliana’s birth and He protected her. She is completely healthy with no signs of defect from the Zika Virus. She is an energetic little girl full of joy!

People have asked us if we were nervous about having our child in a third world country. The decision was easy for us. We were called to live and serve in Barahona. We were not afraid. It was not a question of where is the best health facility. We didn’t consider what the conditions were like or even where is the most comfortable place to be pregnant and give birth. We lived on a mountain with rocky bumpy unpaved dirt roads. We had no air conditioning. The climate was hot and humid. But we knew that the safest place to be is in the center of the Lord’s will.

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I’m not saying it was easy. It wasn’t easy to be far from family. It wasn’t easy to keep my body cooled down in 100% humidity. But we were in the Father’s hands and our God is so marvelous and His plans for us are good. I am so unworthy of His great love and the abundant blessings He endlessly pours out on me. I can agree with the words of Luke 17:10, “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ ” When I consider the work He has done for me on the cross and the work He is doing in me, making me more like Him each day, the little sacrifices I have made for Him can not even compare.

I want to encourage you who are reading this. What is the Lord calling you to do? Step out in faith, keep your eyes on Jesus and trust He will keep your feet above the water. He wants to use you. He wants to do miracles before your eyes. He wants you to walk on the water with Him, but you have to step out of the boat. Press forward, dear sister.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12

 

Stay tuned for more Mamahood Stories!  If you missed the first one or the second post in this series go give them a read!  I am really excited to share all these lovely stories with you! 

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Mamahood Stories~A Waiting Mama

Myriah Mae

Welcome to the Mamahood Stories guest blogger series!!  I have asked several special mamas to write posts for this series and I really believe they are going to encourage you and build you up!  My wish is that as you read these posts leading up to Mother’s Day, you are encouraged and exhorted to love on other mamas, waiting mamas, and women longing to be mamas!

Today’s post comes from Marissa Mundell!  Marissa currently lives in Budapest with her husband of 17 years and 4 wonderful kids. She has lived on 3 continents over the years and has seen God grow her heart for orphans in each new place. She homeschools, loves being outside, and enjoys running! She is passionate about helping others consider adoption. If you want to connect or talk with someone about your journey, please feel free to email her at Marissanduriah@gmail.com.  Marissa and I became connected because of our mutual heart for adoption!  I am so excited for her and her family as they are waiting for their next kiddo through adoption here in Hungary!

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Waiting is HARD, really hard…

 The last two years our family has been on a journey. A long, unexpected, emotional journey of waiting upon the Lord. Perhaps, you too have been waiting for the Lord. Waiting for Him to act, for something to start, for something to end, for something to change. It seems that our lives, especially in motherhood, are full of waiting.
Two years ago, I clearly heard what I felt was God leading us back down the road of adoption. It was a clear call, so it was easy to move in faith down the road of adoption. Our initial inclination was to adopt through the same agency and country we adopted our fourth child. It seemed logical. We knew the process, the people, the cost. We have walked this road before and we can walk it again. However, several steps down the road, we realized how complicated it was now that we were living in Hungary rather than in China. Just to get someone to come do our home study (one of the first big hurdles in the adoption process) was going to be an extra $5000. Simply because a certified social worker had to be flown in from a different country. As we began to wrestle with the extra costs, knowing that God provided for our first adoption, we also faced the reality that this was now not the same road we had traveled two years earlier and many other costs and complications began to emerge. God surprised us!
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We found ourselves pregnant! Surprise! Shocked! Confused! “Oh!” I thought to myself, “You Lord, were just readying my heart for a new addition and you decided to bless us with another biological child.” Just as we began to wrap our hearts and heads around this miracle and looking forward with joy and dreaming what this meant for our family, we miscarried. Our first ultrasound revealed a beautiful 9 week old without a heartbeat. Devastated… Even more confused and a new layer of grief. “Lord, what do you want me to do?”
Several weeks after our miscarriage, I found myself in another conversation about adoption with a friend. I felt that all the roads to another child were closed. Adoption from China, closed. A biological child, closed. Was I confused about what God wanted us to do? Did I somehow miss the message? In some ways I could really relate to Abraham and Sarah. They were given the promise of a child and faced many impossibilities. And it was years before Isaac was born. At the same time, God says to Abram go to this land I will show you. By faith, he obeyed, not knowing where he was supposed to go. During this conversation, I was challenged to consider adopting locally through Hungary.
So by faith, we started investigating the adoption process as foreigners. There is no information on the internet. It is not a clear cut path. We have been obediently completing the next step as it comes. We are the first foreigners in our county to adopt this way, after a law change 4 years ago. So in may ways, it has been a new uncharted process. We have been blessed by the process, as it has been virtually “free” and uncomplicated. Similar to our adoption process in China, but a little bit more unclear as there is no checklist, no time frame, no clear communication. So, this is when the waiting has been even more magnified. We are now waiting to be matched with the child that God has for us. This is hard. It has been long two years, full of grief, loss and confusion.
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“I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.” (Psalm 69:3)  There are days and moments when I am done, tired, and think God has called me to take steps of faith without seeing the promise fulfilled. I don’t understand the last two years or why God has called me on this journey. Yes, I can see how it has changed me, grown me closer to the Lord, and enabled me to have deeper compassion and empathy for those that have lost children. in my own understanding, I struggle with how the plan is unfolding.
That is until I turn my eyes upon Jesus. Proverbs 8:34-35 states, ” Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.”  Those are words that are a salve to my weary heart. In my waiting for Him, I find Him and I obtain favor from Him. That is the true treasure. So, as Noah waited for rain, as Job waited for restoration, as Rachel waited for a son, as Simeon waited for his Savior and my Savior waits to put His enemies under his footstool, I too shall wait. My only hope in the waiting is explained so well in the book of Jude. When it gets tough and hopeless we must, “keep [our]selves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”  We must be brought back to the truth of the cross. The truth that God is sovereign, full of love and completely merciful. I will wait upon the Lord. Yes, I will wait upon Him who is able, who knows the perfect child, the perfect time and holds the perfect plan.
Stay tuned for more Mamahood Stories!  If you missed the first one go give it a read!  I am really excited to share all these lovely stories with you! 
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Mamahood Stories~A Hopeful Mama

Myriah Mae

Welcome to the Mamahood Stories guest blogger series!!  I have asked several special mamas to write posts for this series and I really believe they are going to encourage you and build you up!  My wish is that as you read these posts leading up to Mother’s Day, you are encouraged and exhorted to love on other mamas, waiting mamas, and women longing to be mamas!

Today’s post comes from the love Melissa Forster.  She beautifully shares her journey to becoming a mama over at her blog, Borderless.  I love how she finds God’s goodness in the pains and hards of infertility and miscarriage, and how she boldly shares her faith!  I’m sure her Mamahood Story will encourage you today!  If you know someone struggling with infertility share this with them too!  Make sure to go check out her little blog space as well!!

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I have always wanted to be a Mama. For as long as I can remember, I always had favorite dolls and any pretend story always included me as the Mama. My husband, Dan, and I married in 2007. I was 21, still in college and fertility issues were the furthest thing from my mind.  I went on birth control a few months before the wedding, because as much as I wanted to be a Mama… we weren’t ready.

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In late 2009, I came off the pill because it was causing some awful side effects. At the time, we weren’t exactly ready for kids, but we knew I couldn’t stay on the pill. I will be honest, as much as I knew we weren’t ready, I thought we would be pregnant quickly. I had no clue that getting pregnant could be difficult. I thought simply having sex was all we would ever need to do.  I had no clue that there could be more to it.

In late 2011, at my yearly check-up, my OBGYN thought it was strange that we had been off the pill for two years and not gotten pregnant. I thought it was strange too. I had started “charting” a little but really had no clue what I was doing. My OBGYN ran some tests and diagnosed me with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS).

PCOS is a complicated hormonal disorder. Every woman’s story looks different. Basically, if hormones are involved – PCOS can screw it up. One of the biggest problems with PCOS is that it can cause infertility. My OBGYN gave me some pamphlets, told me to lose weight, put me on some medications and recommended I take Clomid (an “entry level” fertility drug) if we wanted to get pregnant.

I took her advice, read everything I could get my hands on related to PCOS and started my journey to a healthier lifestyle. Even though I was getting healthier by the day, I still couldn’t wrap my head around the word “infertile.” Sure, we hadn’t been preventing pregnancy for years, but I couldn’t possibly be infertile. We waited until my next annual checkup in 2012 to pursue clomid.

After several cycles on clomid, my OBGYN told us there was nothing more she could do, and she referred us to an Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). So off we went. That first appointment was terrifying. The doctor reviewed our history, discussed a million tests that we needed to consider, and then explained the options we would have based on the outcomes of our tests. It was overwhelming to say the very least.

After a month of uncomfortable testing (for both Dan and I), the RE felt it was best that I continue with clomid but add a “trigger shot” that would force my body to ovulate. The plan included going to the office for an ultrasound, taking clomid, going in for a second ultrasound, taking the trigger shot in my stomach, and timing intercourse on very specific days. Honestly, it was so little compared to what many endure, but it was a lot for us. Each “cycle” lasted about 35 days and if we were not pregnant, we started over again. There was something to do each day to ensure that we were “on track”.

 

In July 2013, after three months of this protocol, we got our first ever positive pregnancy test. I took the test on a Wednesday before work…and didn’t stop smiling all day. I spent most of the day looking for nursery décor and ways to tell our families. Our wait was over! We shared the news with our family on Thursday night, and my mother in law instantly started praying for “Trudy.” She didn’t know why, but it was just the name that kept coming to her mind.

Sadly, we learned one week later that our precious Trudy was an ectopic prengnacy. I was rushed into surgery to end my pregnancy and save my life. Thankfully, my RE was a very skilled surgeon, and he was able to save all my reproductive parts. I am told that is very rare when it comes to ectopic pregnancies. Although we lost our baby, I still believe that God worked in big ways. My life was saved, and my body was still whole after surgery.

In March 2014, we celebrated Trudy’s due date by going away for a weekend. I got my first tattoo to mark Trudy’s special life. A constant reminder of Genesis 50:20, “What you meant to harm me, God has used to change my life and the lives of many.”

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In April 2014, we went back to the RE. He told us that we would most likely never get pregnant without the help of fertility drugs. In fact, he would recommend that we skip all other “steps” and move straight into In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) due to our history. We felt moving straight to IVF was extreme and decided to do one more cycle of the protocol we had been on previously. We felt if that protocol did not work, we would then look deeper into other options.

Things didn’t go as planned. I had a terrible reaction to the medication, which forced us to take a break. I spent most of the summer in and out of the hospital due to the side effects of that one month of drugs. During that time, we spent a lot of time asking God what our next steps where when it came to being parents. Both Dan and I felt God was saying “be still”. To us, that meant we were not only going to stop pursing treatment, but we weren’t going to worry about charting or really anything related to trying to have a baby. We were simply going to live our lives in a healthy way and allow God to do the rest.

The choice to not go back to the RE was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I had gotten pregnant with fertility drugs… and I had a hard time accepting that God wouldn’t let me continue. But, I quickly learned, God wasn’t punishing me. He had so many good things in the wait. I would never say waiting is easy, but there is a lot to celebrate in waiting. We have been able to experience so much and grow so much in our wait.

Letting go of the constant need to count and chart and take medication has been so good for me. Medical science is an amazing thing. I am so thankful that God has given doctors the wisdom He has… but at the end of the day, babies are still miracles. No matter if they are conceived naturally or through medical intervention… each life is a miracle. Realizing that there is nothing I can to do (or can’t do) to make a baby has been incredibly freeing. This girl likes to control things and learning that God is bigger than what I can control has been a hard, but wonderful lesson. His way of doing things is always much better than mine!

In early 2016, after a year long struggle with PCOS systems that had gotten out of control, I found an OBGYN that specialized in hormone health. She understood our desire to “be still” when it came to trying to have a baby, but still working towards hormone health.

In March 2017, I got the surprise of my life… a positive pregnancy test. A miracle baby, we quickly started calling Lil Bit.

Dan and I were both so shocked when we got that positive test. We waited on God and believed He could do anything… but still couldn’t believe when He did! Ha, thankfully God worked even in my unbelief!

Carrying Lil Bit was a roller coaster. There were good days and bad days. Sadly, I only carried Lil Bit for 10.5 weeks. Although our story didn’t end the way we hoped, God was in every detail, taking care of us and providing for us. Lil Bit’s life defied medical odds. We got pregnant naturally. Something doctors told us would never happen.

I have always loved saying “But if not, He is still good”, but it feels different now.  I can relate so much to what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said to the king in Daniel 3:18. Dan and I have begged God to change our situations, and then seen Him be good to us even when our situations didn’t change. We have been thrown into the fire and survived to tell the story. We didn’t survive because we are awesome. We survived because God is good.

The journey to motherhood has been hard, but God has been so very good to us. In a lot of ways, getting pregnant again is scary. However, we believe that God is bigger than fear. We believe God’s promise still stands. We will have children in our home. We believe God will do it again… soon!

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Sunday Soul Food no.5

Myriah Mae

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Happy Sunday Everybody!!  I’m a little late in writing and posting this Sunday Soul Food post this week, but GRACE GRACE!!

We just had a lovely installation service for our new pastor at church today!!  It was a beautiful service and half of the worship songs had me bawling while I sang today!  After service we had a wonderful fellowship luncheon…I LOVE these lunches because I get to talk to someone new and my sweet girl gets to run her guts out around the church with her little pals!!

Now we are home and I am enjoying my Citrus Fresh in my diffuser while I write.  I’m listening to sounds of a thunder storm coming from Agnes’ bedroom while she naps away!  I’m hoping to make homemade pizzas tonight…planned to make them Friday, but my HUBBY FINISHED HIS MASTER’S DEGREE!!!!!!!  Let me take a second to BRAG ON HIM!!  I am SO PROUD of my awesome hubster, that I now affectionately call Master Tim, for his AMAZING accomplishment of getting his Master’s degree while working full time, Daddying full time, husbanding full time, and just taking care of us girls well!!  SOOOO, we went to dinner to celebrate on Friday night…then planned on making pizza last night, but was invited to a lovely team hang out at our head of school’s home after the school Spring Concert (which btw was so cute…love watching my littles that I used to teach perform their little hearts out)…so tonight I’m going to try and make home made pizzas, but am flexible for anything else fun that may come along!

Loving Spring!

Loving reading my Bible in the mornings!

Loving my oils diffusing through the house and on my person!  Seriously guys, must do a post soon on my love affair with Stress Away (don’t worry, my husband is so on board with this love…Stress Away and Jesus are making me a better wife and mama).

Loving watching my girl grow into such an awesome little girl (even though part of me is sad that she is not so little anymore) I think she gets more fun every day!!

Getting ready to hold my first facebook oils class this evening!  I’m super excited!!  If you want to go to it, all are welcome!  Leave me a comment on this post and I can invite you to the event…it will be open all week so you can go at your own pace!

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Mamahood Stories guest blogger series starts tomorrow!!  EEK!!  I’m SOOO EXCITED for you all to read these precious ladies’ stories!!

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Five Minute Friday no.4

Myriah Mae

I missed the Five Minute Friday link-up last week because I posted this, it was a dear to my heart post that I felt was worth missing Five Minute Friday to post…if you missed it, would you please go give it a read?

I love this five minute writing prompt each week…every Friday there is a new word that we all write about for five minutes…then we share our posts in a linky party…then we get to read what we each thought about the same word…SO FUN!

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Today’s word is TURN.  I’ve got my diffuser going with peppermint and lemon, and I’m feeling awake and ready to write.  I will set my timer here in a second to five minutes (cause I really don’t like to “cheat” although sometimes I do finish that last sentence or two after the buzzer sounds) and write.  When you are finished here, feel free to click on the picture above and head over to read some other Five Minute Friday posts!

Turn.

Maybe it is the first grade teacher in me…maybe it’s the mama of a toddler in me…but when I hear the word turn I think “take turns!” or “be kind and share please”…oh the many times I have found myself saying that to my littles.

We are often telling kids to take turns, or to let others have a turn, but are we giving ourselves a turn in life?  Now, before I type anymore here, please hear my heart.  I am not writing the following to boast in myself, but rather to boast in the work that the Lord is currently doing in my life, in the hopes that it will encourage you.

I feel like the Lord is gently telling me that it is my turn now.

My turn to live.

My turn to breathe.

My turn to be healthy.

My turn to dream.

My turn to walk with my head held high in confidence…confidence in who I am…confidence in my appearance, in how He created me…confidence in my faith…confidence in my abilities…I know the word isn’t confidence…but I truly feel Him telling me that it is my turn to have confidence.

As a teacher of littles, as a mama, as a wife, as a Bible study leader, it has been my job to cheer others on, and that is a job that I never want to quit…but it is okay to let the Lord work in me, and it is okay to take a turn cheering myself on!

Agnes is obsessed with this book and we read at least 5 times a day now!  It has become the ONLY BOOK we read at bedtime.  I feel like it has been speaking to me, to shine my light that God has put inside me!  I love how the Lord even uses children’s books to speak to my heart!  I’m paraphrasing here but it says “now shine like the sun! sparkle like the stars!  and wherever you go dark will stop being dark!”  I just LOVE that!

So today I am claiming the light inside me!  I am claiming my turn to shine!  And my prayer is that wherever I go “dark will stop being dark!”

Have you taken a turn for yourself lately?  What is the Lord leading you to take a turn in?

Uncategorized

Switch-N-Ditch~Windex Edition

Myriah Mae

Can I just start by saying I FREAKING LOVE MY YOUNG LIVING THIEVES CLEANER!!

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Okay, got that out of the way, ha!  But really, I have shocked myself with HOW MUCH I love Thieves!!  I had heard about Thieves and how wonderful it was, and truly believed that other people loved it…but in my heart I was a little skeptical.  I mean I heard it smells a little like Christmas, and I didn’t know how I felt about that…do I really want my house to smell like Christmas?  I heard you can clean literally EVERYTHING with it, and I wasn’t quite sure…I mean how can you clean mirrors or windows with an all natural concentrate mixed with water and not leave streaks??  I heard “you are going to love Thieves” over and over again, but truly all I kept thinking was “but I really love my Windex“…and I just wasn’t sure that this Thieves stuff was going to make anything really shiny and clean.

LISTEN!!  My fears and doubts have been put to rest and I am SOLD on Thieves for everything, FOR LIFE!  Here are just 5 (of a million so far) reasons why I am in love with Thieves and will sing it from the roof tops till all of you all have this in your homes too:

  1.  It does smell like Christmas, but in the BEST OF WAYS!!  It doesn’t have an artificial Christmas decor smell…but there are hints of spice in there that make you feel at home!  But it smells FRESH TOO, like lemony fresh!  The smell is so pleasing and it lingers after you have cleaned with it!  The smell (remember I thought “Christmas smell, I’m not sure about that”) is one of my fave things about it!
  2. It cleans my mirrors BETTER than Windex.  I can’t believe I just wrote that, but guys it is true!!  And this is coming from a person who LOVES her Windex a lot and used to (yes I said USED TO) clean everything with it!  We have mirrored closet doors that I do my make-up in front of and Agnes joins me there quite often…needless-to-say, my sweet precious girl had really done a number on these doors with lotion and snot and spit and dirt…and with my Thieves spray they came so clean, so quickly, not a streak left!!  HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY I’M IN LOVE WITH THIEVES?!?!
  3. My stove top has NEVER looked better (okay maybe that first day when we moved into the apartment and the kitchen was newly installed and the plastic wrapping had literally just been taken off the appliances).  I am not a great stove top cleaner…or should I say I WAS not a good stove top cleaner…I tried all sorts of things on my stove top, hot soapy water, bleach, my beloved Windex, toilet bowl cleaner (what was I thinking, whoa holy chemicals), degreasing cleansers….and it just never looked squeaky, shiny clean to me…so, embarrassingly true, I often just left the stove top as is cause I knew I would never get it clean anyways.  LISTEN!!  I mixed my bottles of Thieves at 30 parts water to 1 part Thieves, which is considered the normal mixture for most cleaning…I didn’t even mix it for heavy degreasing!  Guys and gals my stove needed some SUPER, HEAVY, HEAVY DEGREASING…but I tried the normal mixture I had made…sprayed it on the stove top and wiped away all the ICK!!  I was AMAZED!  I AM AMAZED!  Cleaning my stove top can be easy?  Cleaning my stove top is attainable?  YES IT IS!!  Again, IN LOVE WITH THIS STUFF!
  4. It got chocolate off my couch!  That’s right, the same cleaner that degreased my stove top and left it’s stainless steal finish shiny and streak free ALSO took a chocolate stain off of my couch!  My couch has lots of stains from the daily wear and tear of a toddler…oh how I only wish I had Thieves cleaner SOONER!!
  5. My bathroom has never smelled better, sparkled more, or been so easy to clean!  I love that my Thieves cleaner is in my spray bottle and I can use it on everything in the house…so, when I went in to clean the bathroom I literally just took my Thieves and paper towels!!  I cleaned my toilet, sink, and mirror in like 10 minutes!!  My mirror is streak free, my toiled is sparkling and the Thieves even got rid of some water stains in the toilet bowl, and my sink is soap scum free!!  GUYS AND GALS THIS IS HUGE!!  The soap scum in my sink has been persistent and my toddler chasing schedule hasn’t afforded for me to be so persistent in removing it and I have tried letting toilet bowl cleaner sit in the sink soaking it, I have to scrub really hard and it’s never all gone.  I will say that I did scrub hard but the Thieves worked like a charm!!

Like I said those are just 5 reasons that I LOVE Thieves, but really I can’t say enough good things about it…and to give you a bonus reason, MY SWEET DAUGHTER SOMETIMES LICKS THE TABLE…when you are done laughing or being grossed out, I want you to think about that…my little one sometimes puts her precious little tongue on the table (settle down guys, she is two) and I don’t have to worry one second about that hurting her anymore…this is a CLEAN and SAFE product!  I don’t feel like I’m wiping harsh chemicals all over the place when I have to wipe the table down for the 50th time of the day cause a certain little someone squished her grapes all over the place again!

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Now for a shameless plug…that’s right I said SHAMELESS, cause I am not ashamed to share oils with you, in fact I boldly share them!  When you get your Premium Starter Kit from Young Living, you get a precious little sample pack of Thieves cleaner!  Little packet?  Yes.  But oh so precious packet that will change your cleaning experience and leave you wanting more!  The great thing is this little packet will make almost 4 cups of cleaner!!  Mix it up with 900 ml of water in a spray bottle, preferably glass (Young Living has these if you need one) and then clean to your hearts content…or until you run out and then you are calling me, texting me, emailing me, and facebook messaging me to find out how to get your hands on more!  The beautiful thing is, you can get more, and Young Living has an awesome, generous monthly rewards program to help you stay stocked with all your favorite Thieves products and oils!

Now I’m going to go throw all my Windex (and by all I mean the 4 spray bottles I have dispersed around our little apartment) in the trash!  And while I’m at it I’m chucking my toilet bowl cleaner, degreasing spray (that never really did any degreasing for me anyways), and some other misc. chemical filled cleaners I have kicking around under my counters!

While I take the trash out, what are you waiting for?  Walk, no RUN, or just click here and order your Young Living Premium Starter Kit…while you are in the virtual office add a bottle of Thieves cleaner to your shopping cart, because I promise you are going to want more after you try the sample pack!  Maybe the oily kit intimidates you still, but you are so convinced about the Thieves after reading this…order the Premium Thieves Kit instead of the Premium Starter Kit and get your clean on!!

I know I started with this, but I have to say it one more time…I FREAKING LOVE MY YOUNG LIVING THIEVES CLEANER!!

Linked up over here:

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