Imperfectly Perfect

This is kinda cringe for me to write but hopefully as I do it’ll all come full circle for you..and for me! I’m laying in bed next to my sweet husband and cannot sleep because of this topic on my mind and need to “journal it out”.

(I almost titled this “5 things about me that’ll make you feel better about yourself” but it seemed a tad abrasive). So here are 5 ways I’m imperfectly perfect!

I try to be super healthy but fail every day! This one’s probably pretty common but I’ve truly had to just “do my best” and then let it go. My dearest family and friends across the globe are soo wonderful at eating well and excercizing regularly (so I naturally compare myself to them). They rarely eat sugars, and basically only eat real raw foods at every meal (aka veggies/fruits/nuts/pasture raised proteins). I have slowly “added” healthy things into our home (juicing/homemade kombucha/probiotics) but have a hard time cold turkey “taking away” certain things I know aren’t best. This one is a slow journey and I’m better today than I was yesterday so that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.

I rarely read to my kids… I gave it my all with baby #1 and baby #2 and still did an average job. Baby #3 hated being read to and that’s when it just kinda stopped being a forced priority. Is that why Av and Brek have had a hard time reading? Probably so… Do I have mom guilt about it… Yes…. At the end of the day (years) am I giving my 100% all as a mom.. absolutely! I just can’t linger there too long… I’m great at some things as a mom and this is not one of them.

I used to yell at my kids.. a lot… It’s all a blur but I remember in a matter of a year; 3 of my siblings moved to New Zealand and we uprooted to MN. In hind sight I was extremely stressed and depressed. I had zero friends and my husband was travelling a ton to provide for us…I was basically a single mom to a 1,2 and 4 year old and that’s when I remember yelling… A lot! After probably a solid year of knowing it was just wrong and finally connecting with neighbors and friends (and praying and repenting a lot) it slowly stopped! Of course I have my moments still but it’s not my norm anymore… Praise God!

All 5 of our kids were born with “financial assistance” because of our income…  This one’s touchy because my husband is a phenomenal provider! He started his own business basically the day we got pregnant with baby #1 and after 10 years and several added businesses later we finally feel stable… somewhat! I just choose to live like a child of the King and have always held my head high even when my mind has felt shameful for the “assistance”. (More later on the crazy provision and extravagance we experienced even in the midst of that).

I act super confident but I’m not… This one trails on the heals of the last one. I actually do absolutely love myself and think I’m pretty awesome; but I have to fight for that truth every single day. I know I am phenomenal because I am made in the image of the most high God and he doesn’t make mistakes. There will never be another human being called to do what I am called to do and I don’t take that lightly. Whether I am called to mother, clean toilets, or lead nations I want to do it with my head held high in honor of the one who called me to the task.

I write this all because we each get to choose how we view our own life!

I’ve had countless people tell me they think I have the perfect life… And I actually do!

I could choose to say “I don’t have enough, I parent alone, I have none of my favorite people to live this life with, and I’m a failure of a mom”.

Or

“I have always had enough and always will, I get to stay at home with my kids because my husband is sacrificing in the best ways he knows to provide for all 7 of us, I am blessed to have such a deep love for my family that my heart would ache this much to be apart from them, and my kids know that I am giving them my all”.

I choose the latter….and it makes my life become joy! I want your life to become joy too! There is always a flip side to a coin! Flip it over!

 

Love Heals

I wasn’t going to bring this up until the perfect year, month,week, day and hour…but as I put this shirt on today I kinda heard that gentle whisper “go for it… I am with you so now is as perfect a time as any”.

Jeremy said I could share whenever and wherever I want because he is an amazing and humble man.

I soo don’t want this to be long but we’ll see how we go. It’s going to be a testimony/love story/redemption journey. Hold on & buckle up or just quit reading.

Both Jeremy and I grew up with parents that taught us truth. We were raised saturated in the good things of God.

My personality just believed what I was taught with no question. I call it the gift of faith. Jeremy’s personality is a more scientific one where he needs proof and needs to experience things for himself and then he is all in! Soo he didn’t take his parents faith on as his own (and in hind sight I’m so glad).

When we met/married Jeremy was very honest about his past. Weed, alcohol, countless girls and other sad choices all stemming from some stuff his mom had no clue happened to him as a little boy (enemys #1 attempt to ruin him).

Way before I met Jeremy, me and my girl cousins were praying about each other’s future spouses; and all I remember hearing for mine was ” I think he’s smoking weed right now and he’s not a virgin like me?…and why am I 100% peaceful about this God?”

Anyways… I have loved every single minute of our marriage. Jeremy threw out his weed the day we met and broke up with 3 girls around the country that thought he was dating them! He steadily grew closer and closer to the Lord and I just felt soo much peace about being with him…red flags and all! I vividly remember asking God “am I supposed to break up with him” because of his past etc..and I heard “you have no reason to break up with him; that was in his past”.

Fast forward through what we both still describe as a wonderful 11 years of marriage. We never had the “hard first year” or the “dissatisfied with each other” phases that are soo common. Parenting just made us love and appreciate each other more and we had common goals and dreams and just basically were/are BFFs.

Soo we were on a weekend getaway celebrating our 11th anniversary… Soo giddy to be without kids for 3 whole days! We were having the best night and I have no clue when why or how but I guess I flat out asked Jeremy if he had ever cheated on me. (I don’t remember asking him this or why I would because we were soo honest with each other about if we thought someone was attractive, our struggles etc). His face went white and the world stopped. The rest of the weekend was a blur.

He spilled that he was unfaithful to me in the first few months of marriage while out drinking. Not once but 3 times. In the moment I learned about this I heard a loud and clear “YOUR KING IS HURTING, HANDLE THIS WITH DIGNITY”…and so I did. I leaned over the table and kissed his cheek and said “I’m soo sorry you have held this in soo long alone…tell me everything”.

We took turns being weak and strong that weekend. He wanted to die that weekend. He said he kept it to himself for 11 years because he knew it would ruin my life. (When we were dating I told him my worst nightmare would to be cheated on by my spouse.. worse than death to me). He said he wished he could just have a heart attach and die… We cried and talked about why and how and on and on and on. It just all led back to addiction to sex from the age of 4 when he was abused. Alcohol and insecurities led him there too. He had lived that promiscuous cheating life for soo many years before we met; was I a freaking fool for believing he would change for me in an instant… That it would all leave him alone forever?

I got flashbacks to all the people who told me not to date him/marry him because he wasn’t perfect. I felt like a fool for telling them he was a new, clean, good man that loved me Soo well!

And then I heard again, “he was and still is a new, clean, good man that loves you Soo well” and “he became that because you treated him like that for 11 years”. I felt soo privileged to have been chosen to marry him. To have been able to see him the way Christ sees him and saw him… even in the midst of his sin. I am so honored to be his wife and am Soo thankful that he finally shared this. And in hind sight I think the timing was perfect… For a moment I believed our life together was a lie because he was dishonest the whole 11 years! I had to talk that out with Jer and God for a while. We had a hearty 6 months of hashing out details and digging really deep. And then it kinda just lifted and left us! I can’t really get sad about it even when I try now because of where we are now all because of it?!?

We will celebrate 13 years of marriage this May and we are going to redeem that weekend with some of our closest friends and family who helped us heal when it all came out. We are going to stay in the same hotel room that we spent days crying in… We are going to do all the fun stuff we had planned but never did.

There are a billion details I left out obviously but just know that God is a miracle working God! He has healed us and made us whole….and I felt whole before it even came out?!?

It’s been phenomenal to me to see how Jeremy has become an even MORE amazing father and husband than he already was because he isn’t carrying shame and guilt around anymore. I’ll link a private YouTube video I recorded shortly after it all happened so you can get a better idea of how we started healing. Our dear friends told us about a man named Dan Mohler that just rocked Jeremy in all the best ways. He kinda pieced together all the questions about God that Jeremy had accumulated over 30 years of life. Jeremy can now claim his God for himself and not just belief what his parents told him.

I am proud to be Jeremy’s queen…always have been and always will be!

God is Love… Love Heals!

He will heal it…ask him

Also… This song just says it all for me…

 

 

Resolutions Shmezolutions?

Holla if you don’t love new years resolutions 🖐️🖐️✋✌️🖕👈👌!

Ok so I’ve NEVER liked them because I hate seeing people excited about things that have a high probability of NOT happening… I could expound but you know what I mean.

Mk so that being said; now that I’m 35 I’ve officially done almost everything I said I would NEVER do! (I’ll never live in MN, I’ll never want more than 3 kids, I’ll never live without my siblings, I’ll never blah blah blah… FYI never say never… EVER.

So since I’ve NEVER had a new years resolution, I’m going to go ahead and have one.

I’m a yes gal… I love to please people and have grown leaps and bounds learning healthy boundaries but this year I feel a strong resolution coming on. A word of protection and comfort maybe?

This year with every situation, job and invitation placed before me I want to ask… “Will this benefit my relationship with my family and with God”? And if it won’t,  I need to have a confident NO with no guilt or condemnation or afterthoughts.

Sounds simple enough but I already know myself and that I’ll have to ask this a lot! Sports, Bible studies, dinner dates, trips, retreats, jobs, family get togethers… These all sound like wonderful things right!?!? I clearly remember a pastor saying “if home base isn’t secure, even the good things can become distractions”.

Anyways, I may or may not let you know how this goes but thought I’d verbalize it in case that helps me secure the resolution and keep accountable! Maybe next year at this time I’ll remember to let you know if I passed or failed and it’ll give us all a good giggle.

And on a completely different note… Can we look at these pictures I took and agree that Jeremy’s resolution could be to NOT allow our 1 year old to chew on steak knives this year!?!✋