HUGE UPDATE!!!

I just finished reading, Confessions of an Irritable Mother and now I am changed in how I think about my struggle in motherhood. Yes, I struggle. I have since the beginning. Now, I understand that the struggle in and of itself is not bad. I have learned that it is more my attitude toward the struggle. It really sounds so simple coming out in my thoughts right now. In fact, I think people have tried to encourage me over the years to consider all trials joy, to persevere and to blah, blah, blah, was all I ever heard because it wasn't born out of the SAME struggle. This Mom had (and sometimes still has) my same struggle and therefore, I was able to hear her encouragement this time!

Very cool story about how God Loves ME:
In her book she shares a tip of something great that works for her. Instead of putting up memory verses on mirrors or in cars, she tends to keep her hands in her pocket so much that she decided to write them on something and keep them in her pockets. I was thinking of personally adopting this method and contemplating which verses I should start with. When "all of the sudden" a cold front came in causing me to pull out my coat for the first time this season. I went to a doctor's appointment when I slipped my hands in the pockets and felt something in one of them. I pull out little cards that my husband had hand-written verses for memory on. There were several of them. I smiled first of all that I am married to such a man, secondly because it so closely tied in to what I was desiring to do. As I read through them, I found the one I needed to carry with me these past few days in order to press on in my job.

John 15:5
"I am the vine. You are the branches. If a man abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from Me he can do nothing."

Right there in the bold.....I can do nothing apart from him. So, when I'm slipping in my attitude toward the whining children I recognize that I am trying to do it apart from HIM!
The funny thing about that story is that when I told my husband about it, he got all hung up on how they could have ever even gotten in the pocket of a coat he couldn't fit one arm in. I guessed it happened in the move this summer, but really it was God's little secret way of loving me!