Well hellllooooo!

It is so great to have a minute to get back on here. I just wanted to tell you all about the most amazing book I have read to date. Its called Always True Gods 5 promises when life is hard by James MacDonald.

I highly recommend this book! I just can't tell you how great it is, you have to check it our for yourself.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Always-True/James-MacDonald/e/9780802458698/?itm=2&USRI=always+true+by+james+macdonald

Fired up!

I just wanted to share something that just gets me angry and upset at the same time. A dear friend (my adopted sister) has been thinking about becoming a foster mom. I know she would be great at it because she is an awesome mom.

She first looked into a christian organization that was promoted through our church. It turns out they get the worst of the worst, the kids who no one else will take. This would be very hard as she has a 13 year old son still at home. These kids could be violent.

Her next stop just makes me angry. She went to check out another agency and they basically told her she could have a child for 3-6 months or so until they are done with their treatment (I am guessing counseling) then they go back either to their homes or back into the system. BUT the catch is they don't have to do what she tells them! She is not allowed to parent them while they are in her home! She attends church. Therefore her son attends church. Hello, the parent makes the rules right? Nope. The child in her care, that she is feeding, providing shelter and guidance for, has freedom of religion and therefore, she could not make them go to church. They flat out told her that. So gee because these kids have all these freedoms, does this mean they don't have to go to school because they don't want to? All these different groups and organizations have given kids all these rights and have taken away the parents rights and yet they wonder why the world is the way it is! They want to know why eight year olds are killing their parents and why twelve year olds are getting pregnant. Why? Because you told them they could do what they want! I recently found out even though police officers will tell you it is illegal to run away, because the detention centers are so full they can not hold you. They will release the kids back to the parents where they will up and leave again because they want to! The detention centers are full of violent, troubled kids! A boy who was recently picking on my son just got sent there for punching the school police officer. Kids don't have any respect for authority anymore. Gone are the yes ma'am no sir days. And yet, the parents are still the ones who will be sued if their children commit a crime. Ahhh the madness!

Finding my focus

So I am trying really hard to getting my focus back. If you read my earlier post you will know I have been very scatter brained lately. So, I have heard more than once and again at a lunch on Monday about people just feeling lost and praying for God to show them something and just opening up the Bible and reading whatever it opens to. Since it is hard for me to read the Bible unless I am looking for something specific, I thought I would give this a try. Now that I am trying to blog about it I realize I did not write down what I read! Ahhh~ but the first night I asked God to show me what he wanted me to know. I was so excited and encouraged and I just went to bed feeling like I just needed to be patient a little longer.



Then last night I opened up again to Nahum 3. I read the whole chapter but did not understand a single word of it.
So if anyone can help me with that, I would appreciate it!

Signs

Happy New Year!
I hope this finds everyone well. I want to ask you all what you do when you misread signs from God. Over the last couple weeks I was dealing with a situation where I knew what I wanted to do, but I was not sure if it was what I was suppose to do. So I prayed about it. I had a lot of other people pray too. Everything was falling into place. EVERYTHING. Then, when I got down to the final leap I prayed and asked God to tell me what to do because I am not good with reading signs. He reminded me I had not read my latest word for the day. I went to read it, and it said "Where God's finger points, his hand will clear the way." Sooooo I thought that meant go for it! Well, turns out I was wrong. The thing we were praying for did not happen. The door was closed. Now I am so confused. I know this means he is trying to tell me something else but I just wonder why everything seemed to be going that way if it was not meant to be.

ODD

I read this article today looking for some advice with my son. Does anyone know anything about it?
Oppositional Defiance Disorder - Oppositional Defiant Disorder

If your adolescent child has developed a pattern of behavior marked by hostility, defiance, aggression, and resentment, he or she may have oppositional defiant disorder, ODD. Oppositional defiant disorder, ODD, can disrupt home and family life, other relationships, and school performance.
An adolescent with oppositional defiance disorder or oppositional defiant disorder often believes he or she has a perfect right to be so angry. Such teens tend to blame parents or other authority figures for the behavior, claiming teachers, friends, or parents are unreasonable and oppressive. They use such blame to justify resentful and hostile behavior, often defying parents by purposely breaking the rules and challenging any limits they are given.

Signs of oppositional defiance disorder often begin to show during early adolescence (ages 7 to 13). At first your child may only risk these defiant behaviors at home, which may confuse and frustrate parents. Parents often feel they are the cause of the defiance. Eventually, however, the teen will display these same hostile behaviors in school. Teachers will start to complain about your child's attitude in class. Possibly friends will disappear or stop calling. Your child may begin to seem isolated from his or her peers. A typical student in this stage of oppositional defiant disorder, ODD, will be disruptive in class, disrespectful of teachers and other authority figures, aggressive toward peers, and will alienate many of the people in their lives.
Intervention for oppositional defiant disorder, ODD involves behavior modification techniques. To ignore the symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder, ODD can result in an adolescent losing ground in school and in social activity, isolating them further and damaging their ability to succeed academically or in the work world after high school.

Is your Teen:
Hostile
Low frustration level
Negative
Accusatory
Defiant
Unreasonable
Oppositional
Blaming
Pessimistic
Spiteful
Aggressive
Vindictive
Argumentative
Bad temper
Angry/Foul-mouthed
Resentful

What do you do?

I read an article about being a good samaritan today and it made me think of a daily occurrence I just have to ask about. Everyday I see someone by the side of the road with a cardboard sign asking for help.

You may not be able to tell in this picture but the bottom of the man's sign says God Bless. This just makes me so sad because you hear all the bad stories in the news about people who scam people and are just doing it for money either because they are too lazy to work or they are feeding an addiction. I remember two separate instances when I was younger of my dad reaching out to people with signs. One time we were on our way in to a restaurant and we passed a man with a sign that said he was hungry. My dad told him if he came in to the restaurant he would feed him but he would not give him any money. This man accepted, came in, sat at a table alone and ate. Another time my dad said the same thing to another gentleman who told him he did not want food (even though his sign said he was hungry) he just wanted money so my dad walked off.

Now in these times I am trying hard just to make it for my kids and I. I feel so guilty when I drive by all these people. I wonder why they don't try to find a church or shelter to help them.

Paul writes, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Tim. 5:8).

Here we see that the person's own family is to take care of her/him before the church is to help. Even in the secular world the immediate family is to care for the one in need before an outside party. However Luke 10:30-37 tells us to show mercy to strangers............

Now how am I gonna do that?!

I have been asking God what is the last thing holding me back? What is the lesson I am suppose to be learning before he lets me go forward? He has been telling me but I keep dismissing it because I don't know how I am going to fix the problem. So I keep telling myself "Nah that can't be it." However, when you keep asking and the answer doesn't change you finally have to accept it. My problem is my ex. I am not bitter for anything that has happened in the past. The fact that he keeps doing the same things continuously is what gets me going! He owes me a lot of money. The problem with that is he does not seem concerned at all with getting me paid or the fact that the kids need the money. He is too wrapped up in having fun and what he wants. It dives me nuts!! It also brings out my anger. How do you practice forgiveness? If only it was as easy as putting all my anger into a balloon and letting it float up to heaven far far away......

It's Here!

It's real! I now have my own column at Take Root & Write; Single Mom and I will moderate the group that goes with it! I am so excited and now a little nervous. I have a tendency to ramble so I will be doing a lot of editing lol! From here I hope to start writing for CWOL and others, wish me luck! I am also hoping to meet a christian designer somewhere along the way so I can get my products out there! All in God's time....

http://www.takerootandwrite.com/columns_single_moms/index.html

Scriptures Needed

So here is something I have always wondered about;
So I know there are many scriptures about Jesus living with you in the moment, not worrying about the future, he will provide for all your needs, he will give you the desires of your heart, etc. These are all wonderful scriptures to give you hope. They should! What wonderful promises these are.
With all these in the back of my head, the devil tries to tempt the impatient me to purchase the desires of my heart before I actually have been blessed with the means to do so. :)
There have to be some scriptures that say something along the lines of "God is not going to dig you out of the hole you put yourself in because you went all crazy and now have tons of debt because you want everything now."
Or "It's OK to enjoy life without saving everything you make for an emergency that may or may not come."
Can you tell I have a little devil on my shoulder that likes to shop? :) I also have a little angel that wants to save everything just in case. I need to find a happy median. All advice/direction will be appreciated.

Practice what you preach

Touching on the point of teens and sex; I am interested in knowing what born again, single, dating adults have to say about not jumping in before marriage. What helps you practice what you preach?

Teens in the over sexed world

So we all know how oversexed the world is, it is everywhere we look and in everything we listen to. It's not like we can hide billboards of half naked people or turn the tv off every time a victorias secret commercial comes on. (well I guess we could but that is very unrealistic)Our kids are exposed to so many things at school and also at friends homes. We can't isolate them from the world~ so what do we do to keep our kids from doing something they might regret?

Online Dating

I just wanna know why some guys post serial killer mug shots as their profile picture and think they look dateable.... :)