Down Home Country Mom

Michele G

This is an all true reality of how things are for me in my life. I know everyone has a story but for me it is really hard for me to open up about things because I have been hurt. Yes by people who have told stories about me, my husband, my family. Yes people who have shared things about me that aren't true or have said things out of spite or out of context. Also, I have just been hurt by things that have just happened to me and I am scared to share. I don't want to be judged. I don't want people I guess to know the real me and walk away. People are so hard on people and I don't want the things in my life that I have lived through and going through to be even more painful because I decide to open my heart and share with someone. The thought of that pain just isn't worth it to me some days. I have already lost to many people in my life I don't want to lose anymore because of things I decide to share.

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Love Ourselves

Michele G

These days I have been thinking can what can we do or what is the best thing to love ourselves or others? If we actually love ourselves, first we would feel the need to not judge, compare, or criticize others. How often do you feel or hear of someone being mean to someone else? How often do you say " Well, it's just because they are insecure" or " They may be intimidated by you"? Well I think this or hear this from my husband all the time. Really it is hard to hear or think these things when you know that others do these things to others everyday. We give these answers to help give perspective and to try to help make us feel better or to make us feel right about a situation.

I have to ask myself everyday would a woman who is loved and who God made her to be treat others in a mean way? Probably not. I feel that just like Christ's example that we are not suppose to leave others out, make them feel bad, that there is no need to make yourself feel better than someone else. I feel that we are to love others no matter what their shape, size, color, disability, or anything. We are to love all because we were all made in Christ's image.

The sad reality to life is that we don't do this. People don't follow this and they do judge others. This really hurts people and is a huge reason that we don't have many close relationships or trust people. When we can't love ourselves and love others as Christ loved us then we are not following his word. When we don't we hurt the ones we want in our lives, the ones we have in our lives, and the ones we love.

So, I think we should do whatever work we need to do, counseling, support groups, time in prayer, to figure out how to accept and love ourselves as the beautifully unique women God has made us to be. When we put God as the center of our lives and follow his example we will start to learn to love others and ourselves.

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Beyond Ordinary Marriage

Michele G

I normally don't have time for books because I am busy with my family, life, kids, and well can usually find something else to do other than reading. I usually NEVER have quiet time to myself. I know most of my mom friends we have all talked at least once together about never having a bathroom moment alone.

For some reason I get to see some of my friends go on girls trips, weekends, or even a moment to get their toes done. I have never had that. For some reason I have even offered to cash in air miles to take a friend some place with me, offered when I knew they were not able to afford the extra money but had the time to get nails done to just pay so that I could have time with them and hang with my friend for the day. I really wish that I didn't have to make them feel bad or anything about money because it isn't about that it is about time away. Why is girl time so hard for me?

Oh well. Since I have all this time to myself and I fill it with other things and I never know or pick out a book that might interest me or that can hold my attention.

I know that the amount of recipes, things I find on pinterst, the ideas I have for redecorating, the constant to-do list. With all of these things I just don't have the time or interest to be the romantic I was.

True romance does not have a recipe it just is. It is a feeling and things just happen just because it is right.

I just well have had a hard time at times understanding and going through all of my emotions and understanding where things are in my life. I started to look for songs, blogs, poems, something to help me express how I was feeling. I knew someone had to feel like me but I just could not imagine someone else expressing it in a way that others could ever understand.

I knew my marriage was not one that was going to fit in the perfect box and that really no one was going to understand what I was feeling or going through. I knew reading some of the things and outlines that were suggestions well I was so far out of that I knew that I didn't know what to do or where to turn. I was feeling lost.

I didn't want to follow a script that someone else did and was written by someone and hope that I would come out like them. I knew that I was not in that kind of position.

After all my marriage is unique.

Listen...

One day I just didn't know what to do. I had thought for years about talking to someone, my pastor, a friend. But I just stuffed it all way. I knew that I just could not I knew that I didn't want to be judged or something worse I thought so I just moved on. I started to meet some really cool people and I started to pray. I started to have the doors to my heart open up. After trying to think, read, understand what was going on in my life and marriage alone I knew I just could not keep at this alone.

So one day I walked up to a friend and with little words just asking for prayer she dropped everything and prayed for me. That moment was the door opening in my life. She introduced me to a couple of amazing women. One had a book about her story and the other had a newer website with just a document on it.

After years of not reading anything I read these to things both late at night and the first one was the book I knew it was good but not for me. The other I went to the http://www.refineus.org/ebook/ website and read the only thing they had at the time called 8 Things that Destroyed Our Marriage. I was immediately intrigued by what I read.

I wanted to know how this woman found the strength to forgive her husband. I wanted to understand how someone digs deep enough to overcome an extramarital affair and how they ever rebuild that trust. I wanted to comprehend where this woman found the courage, the strength, to forgive the unforgivable.

After reading this over and over, having talks with my husband about this late at night, and then wanting to understand more. I started to follow both of them on Twitter and then on Facebook. I wanted a better understanding of how to accomplish this.

After a year they wrote a book called Beyond Ordinary (http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Ordinary-When-Marriage-Enough/dp/1414372272). I wanted to see if I was going to like it as much as what they put on their website a year ago so I downloaded it on my Kindle first to pre-view it. After I just got totally sucked in and when it asked to buy it of course I did and well just kept on reading. I was tagging highlighting and everything this book so much. I ordered a hard copy and well it is all marked up and looks like a collage text book.

When I started the book I was finding time between my kids activities, where ever I was I had it with me and I would just grab sections of it when I could.

I was becoming alarmed reading this but hopeful. While reading this knowing that well it isn't my life but if someone else could over come the odds well maybe it is possible. Maybe there is hope.

I know that I had done what I could to survive. I know I had protected my kids and loved them so much. I know that I have put up walls of protection but well I know that I want to love my friend again. I know there is always something going on in a family and in life but well if you just keep ignoring things or putting on a mask it will never get better.

Weeks would easily pass and we wouldn't talk or have important conversations. We could not even remember the last time we went on a date. A moment alone what is that? And well worst things is do we even want one of them? What would we have to talk about or do? Little eyes and ears are everywhere. We can't really do any talking or working things out until the kids aren't around.

I know that you must go beyond what is usual to have a great marriage. I just didn't really understand how. I know you have to really want it and be intentional and well I was at my breaking point. I really wanted this to happen and to work if it was. I was willing to put it all on the line. I had to stop putting my marriage at the bottom or somewhere on my never-ending to-do list.

The greatest thing and way I can describe this book it isn't the fact that I could relate with them in many areas, that it just made sense for once, and that it was one of the first books I had picked up in ages. This book was about teaching me how to modify my behavior.

And here it was…all of it making perfect sense, finally put into words.
I want honesty.
I want real intimacy.
I want to be fully known.
I want God to change the broken areas of my heart.
I want my marriage to be transformed to extraordinary.

“God doesn't want to improve your marriage; He wants to transform it. God doesn’t want to modify your behavior; He wants to change your heart. Extraordinary comes when you, as a husband or wife, invite God to change you.”

So yes I have been praying and asking for God to change me.

I know that this is a hard thing and that understanding troubles in life, marriage, and your family are so hard. I have just been having to learn to know that I am not alone, that there is a way, and that you just have to find your path. To go from ordinary to extraordinary also doesn't happen over night. It takes time, digging deep, and prayer.

I know my journey isn't over and that it has only just begun. I am just hoping that I can see an amazing picture in even 5 or 10 years down the road and even longer.