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I've been doing a Bible study with the ladies at my church and Beth Moore is always on the screen and we always guess what bold color she is wearing this week.  Watching the videos about Esther is like drinking water out of a fire hydrant.  There is so much coming at you that you hope the Spirit will filter out what you don't need.  This week one of our fill in the blanks had to do with the labels, the names we give ourselves.  I can't find my book; it's missing in a lot of clutter right now, (I hope it's missing in clutter otherwise I can't even guess,) but I hope I'll do the question justice here, it was an amazing writing prompt.

It had to do with labels, what names we call ourselves... One is fake and one is truth, or that's what I remember from the book I haven't seen since Monday (and today is Friday.) 

________________ the _________________
________________ the _________________

I feet like I could write so many negative ones.

Cailey the dabbler-in-doodling-but-not-even-that-anymore-because-there-is-no-time.  Cailey the Artist.
Cailey the blog pretender.  Cailey the writer just starting over.
Cailey the household slave.  Cailey the wife, raising three, stay at home mom who ministers to hearts more than to chores.

My 'take home' on this is just to be more aware of what I'm telling myself.  For example, I am feeling very disappointing at blog writing already.  I don't know how to link my blog to others, I don't have categories for you to easily browse each blog, I don't have great photos to put up yet, (or maybe not ever,) and I don't have a soundtrack to go along with you reading this, friend.  I don't even have a plan, and I don't know where this is going.  It's hard to commit to writing when I don't even want to share this on Facebook because I haven't told my family that my husband was laid off, and half my Facebook friends wouldn't understand the love I have for Jesus, and some of them even openly mock Him whom I love and I've become a timid personality on social media.  I have friends who use it for boldness and I tell myself it's because maybe their friends all believe, and it's easy to feel bold in front of people who won't argue with you, but maybe I've just become complacent.  I think now that I've got that off my chest I know just where I need to let God in to tell me the truth of what He sees.  And as I write this I hear a song on a playlist I play all the time and I wonder how I've missed the song, or what kid moved it into my precious itunes playlist, but here it is: "It's okay to believe, just open up and receive.  I want you to have confidence..."  Couldn't be more clear, and God uses even a song for the first time to get through my brain... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITc1m1p2emg if you want to listen to the whole 8 minutes... ;)

I wrote the previous post yesterday and published it this morning and I forgot that I want thankfulness to finish the blogs until I get to 1000 and that's my goal.  I'll quit or I'll continue to write, but I decide at 1000.  (I meant to write 100, but in the style of Ann Voskamp, I'll just leave this at 1000 and see what happens.)  A lofty goal indeed for a girl who just said a paragraph ago that I don't have a plan...

4: Yesterday was Thursday and that meant Bible study.  I treasure my Thursday night! 
5: Today was payday, and it might be the last for a few weeks and EI may or may not come, but it's not worth worrying about.  I'm just celebrating pay day! 
6: Loving watching Star Trek TNG on Netflix with my husband.  (It's true!  I'm a geek for Sci-fi!) 
7: I'm singing tonight at the Awaken night at House of Prayer.  It's fun, it's edifying.  I love it!
8: My daughter who is 7 won a game of Dominion yesterday beating her father and I with a score neither of us has yet attained.  How did she do this??  What a great reader and (somehow!) strategist! 
9: I have lots of food.  It's one thing I don't have to worry about for quite some time.
10: This place of peace.  I think I'm going to sell my Breakforth ticket, and I'm not worried about missing the conference.  If God wants me there, I'll win a ticket or something, but I don't need a conference to fill any missing gaps in my armor this year. 

I woke up this morning with this thought: if God is my heavenly father, I feel like I'm grounded!  I don't mean rooted and established in His Love kind or grounded, nor do I mean secure as a tree planted by streams of living water grounded, no.  I mean, "Go to your room young lady, and do not pass GO; do not collect 200$," kind of grounded.  Which is weird!  I'm a mom to 3 young children... I thought it was funny.  I'll put it in my pretend folder marked, "When I do a comedy routine."  But why was I thinking this?  Did I grieve the Holy Spirit?  Did I have a weird dream?  Because I don't mean rooted and established in His Love kind or grounded, nor do I mean secure as a tree planted by streams of living water grounded, no.  I mean, "Go to your room young lady, and do not pass GO; do not collect 200$," kind of grounded.  Which is weird!  I'm a mom to 3 young children... 

I know there are many verses about discipline, and a few about discipline in relation to my Heavenly Father, so I looked them up...

Proverbs 3:11-12 is a jem!

My son do not despise the LORD's discipline,
 and do not resent his rebuke,
because the LORD disciplines those he loves,
 as a father disciplines a son he delights in. 

And this one from Hebrews 12:11,

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

"...as a father disciplines a son he delights in." While it is hard to accept discipline, it is a joy to hear words of life this day: God delights in me!  He does not delight in my discomfort, or in my frustration or my inability to know the future, no!  His delight is that my "whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thessalonians 5:23. And my delight is to  "Love the Lord [my] God with all [my] heart and with all [my] soul and with all [my] mind." (Matthew 22:37.)  Not that I get this commandment perfect or even near the mark, but I'm working on it! 

When there is a lot to panic about

Friday.  Job shortage, husband is laid off.  He's worked one out of the last 5 weeks because of injury and illness.  It's hard to pay bills without an income.  I haven't worked in 7 years, not really.  No career, no degree, and I've made this bed for myself.  I've had odd and end jobs and I'd fit right in at Walmart, I'm sure, but I wasn't called to work; I wasn't made for retail.  I'm struggling to stay cheerful; I'm struggling not to go to my defensive corner that everyone around me would call "anger."  I'm supposed to be homeschooling my 7 year old.  I'm supposed to have it together enough to walk barefoot through the house without crumbs clinging to me like sand at the playground.  Should I sleep on the floor tonight to try to ease the pain in my lower back?  Do I apply at Starbucks and hope for the best, even though the best isn't going to 'a happy house' make?  And life right now feels exactly like this paragraph - I don't quite know where to fit a break in it. 

Sip. Tea. Repeat.  (It's cold; of course it's gotten cold but it's something.) 

I know - I see just exactly how I've made an idol of work, of my husband having a job, of his ability to provide an income and benefits and I had repented.  I thought it was enough, I thought God was pleased that I had, that my heart was leaning in and His heart bending low to me, and this was all before the news on Friday.  Now I'm leaning in harder, I'm singing louder, but he has a plan and it isn't for me to work for salvation or for provision. 

Joel 2 12-14 in the Amplified version says 

Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn and keep on coming to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning [until every hindrance is removed and the broken fellowship is restored].

Rend your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness; and He revokes His sentence of evil [when His conditions are met].

Who knows but what He will turn, revoke your sentence [of evil], and leave a blessing behind Him [giving you the means with which to serve Him], even a cereal or meal offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?

<sup>And this morning as I sat doing nothing important, I heard a drip, drip, drip and found that somehow the snow was melting through the roof right onto the furnace; the mechanical, the electrical beast in the house I don't understand, and my husband said don't worry, but I see water damage on the ceiling and I think this was the last straw, the very last straw.  Then I tell myself everyone is healthy, and I've heard too many stories of doctors saying "Who knows?" that help remind me to stop being so dramatic.  All the same, the situation feels amplified.  It IS amplified.  I know it's only been 5 days since he was laid off, but there is no income and there is no promise of a paycheck in the near future, so I don't know what to do.   

Sip.  Tea.  Repeat.  

I'm going to borrow an anger management technique and count to three.  I need to count, really count, three blessings, and give an offering of thanksgiving to Him who is able.  Ephesians 3:20

1.  I am so thankful to be encouraged to write.  I feel it in my heart, and I've been encouraged through friends.  Even if this is a cathartic form of therapy meant for me alone, I need it and it feels good to do it again.

2. I've been in similar situations before.  Once, my husband was told to lay on his back on a hard surface for 6 weeks to recover from a herniated disk.  I was angry, I was stressed, I was harried and hassled.  It was awful.  The fact that I am not in the same panic mode, the feral wild eyed fear I felt then is proof that Christ in me the hope of Glory (Colossians 1:27,) is at work and doing a good thing.  I am thankful for fruit.  

3. The Bible is true and God is trustworthy, therefore I can pray Philippians 4:19, that God will richly supply all my needs according to his own riches that are in Christ Jesus.  

One more thing I've been thinking about: Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God...

Be. Still.  Know.   

Oh, how to be still?</sup>