A week in the life...

6/6/13   This morning I sat alone, outside, contemplating.

I asked God,  "What do you have for me?"

He responded.

These words were telegraphed across my insides:

"I have a husband who will adore you.  I have children who will rise up and call you blessed.  I have adventure and opportunity for you.  And it's all yours for the taking."

I asked,  "How do I get that?"

He said,  "By making time every day to spend with me."

6/7/13

Today I asked God the same thing.

He said, "Same as yesterday."

He is the simple and wonderful Creator.

He has the same wonderful plan today as He did yesterday, regardless of what happened overnight.

6/8/13

Today my two oldest boys come home from camp.

Today is Saturday and they have been gone since Monday.  Monday night my younger boys cried real tears because they missed their brothers so much.  They haven't cried since and have, actually, been getting along nearly perfectly!

They have little conversations at dinner, they hang out on the trampoline, talking, they build bridges and train tracks in harmony.  It has been so lovely and fun to witness.  They are 4 & 5 and I can see how I hope they are at 14 & 15, 24 & 25, 34 & 35...

I have loved it.


6/9/13

Yesterday we picked up the boys from summer camp.  I dropped Noah off with a pair of socks and a pair of shoes on his feet.

I picked him up with 2 socks on his feet and 1 shoe in his hand.

How did this child clean his bunk then walk all over camp, to breakfast, to who knows where, then get on a bus, and come home with no shoes on?  His socks were so dirty they looked like little brown shoes.

Maybe that's how.

I am sure those socks had been worn multiple times.

I checked the "lost and found" bag from their bunk and was almost knocked over by the smell.

How is it that young boys smell so bad?

But I'm glad they're home.

Despite the sudden fighting over the Wii.  :/

6/10/13

Today was a rough one at work.  Then to come home to four sweaty boys and no a/c!?

Ahhh, the joys of home ownership.

I'm not worried though. We're gonna be just fine.

6/11/13

I love the quiet mornings when the boys are all still asleep and it's just me.  They are my favorites!  I was asked by a good friend to think of some inspiring words for a memorial service.

What an honor.  I am blessed by this.

Now to begin thinking...

6/12/13

It's hot.  And there's a "boil order" from the city of Broken Arrow regarding any and all water to be consumed.  It's a run-thru-the-sprinkler kinda day for my kids...AND for me, but there's a water ban!  I guess our sweat will have to keep us cool.

My sister just invited me to spend a few days in Breckenridge with her at the end of this month!!!  Joyous vacation!  Not that I need it...but it sure sounds nice!

Is it just me, or am I particularly blessed with wonderful women around me?

6/13/13

Today was excruciating. Hot hot hot.  Thank God the A/C will be new tonight.

Do you think Corrie ten Boom was right when she wrote,

"This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see."  


I often wonder how my past is preparing my future.

Wonderful Friday!  It's always my work Monday though.

I found something TULSA related at Disneyland!!    Don't you just love that TulsaTea is gasoline in CARS land?  They serve it in the "diner".  so cute!!

Writing Sense.

This quote makes sense to me!

So, if I tweet, will I know more about little thinks I think?

We'll see!

@tarahsevertson

We are the lucky ones.

In my family camping out means renting a cabin at a park, bringing a kitchen full of food, including filters and coffee for a plug-in coffee pot, and "roughing it" in an environment a tad less comfy than a Howard Johnson.

On one such adventure I was pregnant.  It was hot. And there were around 15 of us crammed in a cabin meant to sleep 8.  It was definitely rough.

It was August and August in Oklahoma, especially August in Oklahoma next to a creek, is MUGGY.

I was due in 3 months, constantly slick with sweat and just plain miserable.

And that meant everyone around me was miserable too.

Did I mention it was hot?

We were staying there one night.  Thank God it was only one night, I don't think I could have handled a second one.

On that one night my most wonderful husband sat around a campfire with my 2 nephews, my 1 niece, and our own 2 boys.  They were all under 5.  This may qualify him for sainthood, sitting around a hot campfire on an excruciatingly hot night with 4 little hot boys and one darling girl.

They looked into the fire and began to discuss hell.  A natural turn for any conversation taking place in such heat with a fire nearby.

But Josh led the conversation, turning it from the fires of hell to the wonders of heaven.

They all, well those of them that could talk, began to paint their imaginations of heaven.  Brian said he thought it was yellow, full of sunshine all the time.  Jonathan, a lover of all things food, said he thought it was full of candy, that the walls were made of candy and you could just eat them!

Noah, as he was 2, had very little to add, he was just looking for the fun company.  Ben, who was 1, was there, I'm sure, because I had kicked him from the air-conditioned cabin, into the arms of his daddy.

I sure am glad that Josh stayed with me during those years!

It was a fun trip, despite the strange man who sat with his feet in the icy creek water for so long that they became immobile and the paramedics had to be called.  Apparently his daughter had died one year previous, and he had come to the campsite to drink his sorrows away.

The next day, after a big breakfast of bacon and eggs and many attempts at fishing with the boys, we began to pack up.

Jonathan, who was 4, began to bounce on the back of my sisters car.

"Stop that!" I yelled.

 He then wandered over to me, asking if he could eat the banana I had just peeled open for myself.

"No."  I snapped.

But I gave him a piece of it anyway.

Finally we were packed up and on our way.  Josh and I sped home, eager to get back to our home and to clean up.  The rest of my family went canoeing.

Later that evening we went swimming at my sisters house.  She had dropped the boys off with their father earlier in the day and we were enjoying the quiet evening at the pool.  I was just hoping to float my full body in a cooler body of water.

Then she got a call.

Well, not the call exactly, more like the messages left from earlier calls.  The boys grandmother was frantic, apologizing profusely to Alisha, desperate.

Our lives changed forever that day.

There had been an accident.  The boys were swimming and the pool had collapsed next to an electrical line.

Jonathan had been killed.

He was now experiencing the candy walls that he had been dreaming of not 24 hours before.

And the last thing I had said to him was not kind.  Maybe my sharing of that banana was a sort of peace offering to him, a last goodbye of generosity.

I began to realize how precious life is.  How uncertain.  How petty our complaints about it.

And now I think that we are the lucky ones, those of us who have loved and lost before the time.  We recognize the wonderful gift that is the everyday.

I was 8 when my 7 year old best friend died.  Her fight against leukemia came to a glorious end.

She was my sister.

I was 26 when I lost my aunt, her long battle with cancer finally put to rest.

I was 27 when my nephew was tragically killed.  His short life cut short.

I was 32 when my grandmother surrendered in her fight against cancer.  She transitioned early one morning, her face reflecting the peace she had.

They went on.  We stay behind.  And with us stays the assurance that death is not the final goodbye, but rather the most wonderful beginning.  That soon, and very soon, we will see them again.  And they will be overjoyed at our arrival.  And it will be the beginning again.

Do you have that faith?  That when all seems lost, it isn't?  Jesus has given it to us, we just have to believe.

1 Corinthians 15:55

New International Version (NIV)

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”^[a]

Don't change you

The devil is the ultimate 'bad guy' in our house.

One morning Sam and I were in a public restroom.  It was modestly dirty, not too bad, but someplace I would never want to eat in.  I said something along the lines of, "Make sure you pee in the toilet."

To which he responded,  "Yeah.  Bad guys pee on the seat, right mommy?"

"Yes, they don't obey and go in the water.  Why do they do that?"  I asked.

"The devil."  was his earnest response.

Another time we were waiting to eat outside of a restaurant.  The boys were 'racing' up and down the deserted sidewalk.

Sam wore his little self out!

He said, "My legs runned out."

I asked, "How did that happen?"

"The devil. They need to get fill-ded back up."

"Well, who is going to fill them back up?"

"God."

So simple.  God=good, Devil=bad

While listening to the Old Testament I was surprised to realize that Satan is hardly mentioned!  He gets very little publicity.

I was listening to Joyce Meyer.  She was talking about living a righteous life.

One thing that she said really stood out to me.  She said (and I'm paraphrasing) to NOT try and change yourself.  Instead, get to know Jesus, spend time with him, and he will just gradually change you.


Why does she make it sound so easy and I try to make it so hard?

Accentuate the Positive!  Genius!!  It eliminates the negative!!!

Just do it!

I first heard Christine Caine speak at a Joyce Meyer Convention in St. Louis last year.

She is amazing.

She is encouraging, she is energetic, she is a mother, a wife, and the leader of an organization that is actively working towards abolishing modern day slavery.

http://www.thea21campaign.org/index.php#.Ua

Her organization is not just a Christian ministry, it is a legal force in Europe, active in convicting sex traffickers.

We are so comfy here in America.  We sleep in big comfy beds, eat big comfy meals, enjoy big comfy armchairs while we feast on a cornucopia of media delights.  We are blessed.

But there is a war going on, right under our noses, and all over the world.  It involves seduction, slavery, and sex, and it's not just women who are affected.  It's children, boys and girls, and the families left behind.  There are people on the front lines fighting in this world.  And Christine Caine is one of them.

Sometimes I feel impotent, here in the center of America, in the center of my house, like all I can do is hope good things for these victims and pray. 

But there is action available for me to take.

Today I wrote a letter.  It was simple and encouraging.  And then I lifted myself out of my big comfy desk chair and walked it to the mailbox.  I prayed that it would speak life to the receiver and be a blessing to them.

And that's something I did.

http://www.thea21campaign.org/content/write-a-letter/gjj5ex

A little wisdom from Grandma Hazel

All last week we were in California!  It was a wonderful Disneyland/driving adventure.

We drove to DFW to catch a flight, then spent 2 days at Disney, then drove to San Diego to visit Josh's most amazing 98 year old Grandma Hazel, then back to Disney for another 2 days, then a congested drive up to the San Fernando Valley for some quality family time, then another drive down to the airport!  Whew...there's no place like home.

Actually, there's just no bed like your own.

While we were visiting Grandma Hazel she complimented our children, saying, "They are so well disciplined!"

Is there anything better for a mother of 4 boys to hear?  What a nice thing for her to say.

It was interesting, though, to hear them called, "well disciplined" and not "well behaved".   As if the responsibility for their behavior rested on our (the parents) shoulders!

Why do I sometimes forget my responsibility as a parent to shape our children?  Sometimes it's easier to let them do what they do and just hope they turn out okay in the end.

But loving your children is more than just hoping for the best for them!  It's a conscious decision to correct their mistakes, it requires effort and it is mostly unpleasant.

It's that unpleasant discomfort that will prod them to the right choices though.

According to Merriam-Webster.com, discipline is described as:  : training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order

I am so grateful to Grandma Hazel.  She gave me a subtle reminder of how important it is to be a parent; to shape my children into the adults they are intended to be.

The HAPPIEST place on earth!

We went to Disneyland!!


It's been a dream of mine since I've had kids...

We were very excited.

Some more than others...

We waited for trains

We watched some wacky things

We met some furry friends

But most of all we had fun with family...

And that's what makes it the "Happiest place on earth".