Surrender

These past two weeks have been a bit of a challenge. Addie's teacher sent home a list of sentences that the students should be able to be somewhat reading now. Addie struggled. Struggled hard. There are days where I say "I'm okay. We are okay. We are doing this. She's catching up. Slowly." And then there are days where I just have to say "Lord give me patience. Jesus give me strength. Help me to be the Mommy I need to be to this precious girl You gave to me." That's been my last two weeks. Some days my heart breaks all over again and I wonder how many pieces a heart can break into.

I ordered a necklace a few weeks ago and it came this week. I was able to engrave all 4 sides of this necklace. I'm not big on buying jewelry too often but when I saw this necklace I knew exactly what I wanted on it and that I had to have it. 

                    

First I put my girls initials a&b with a moon and a star. The moon is because we say "i love you to the moon and back". The star is because we sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every night. And it also holds a special place in our hearts because it's the first real song Addie every started to try to sing. 

                    

                      

Next I put mandi <3 glen. He is my best friend and I love him so much. He completes me in so many ways. 

                    

Another side has Jeremiah 29:11, For I know the plans I have for you, declares The Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for hope and a future. I know this is an extremely popular verse but it's been in my heart since I was 16 years old. I was going through some things during that time period and a teacher of mine (which was actually a next door neighbor/a second mom) gave me this verse. Not long after, she was hit head on by a drunk driver and passed away. It rocked my world. But I never forgot this verse she gave me. Now 15 years later I cling to this verse in so many ways. I put my faith in and I claim that The Lord has a plan for my daughter. He has a plan for hope and a future, for her to prosper. Does that mean there won't be hard times? Nope. But I know He has a plan in all this and I know one day Addie will be a living testimony to the love and goodness of our Lord. 

                   

On the side that I wear facing out I had my one word for this year engraved, "surrender". This year I'm surrendering it all to God. I'm letting go of my worry. I'm surrendering my life. I want to live my life so that when people look at me they see Jesus. Letting go of my worries and fears for the future is soooo hard for me. I am such a worrier by nature. So it's a conscious effort to put that part of me away everyday. This is going to be my daily reminder to do just that. To surrender it all. We serve a loving, wonderful, great God who is still in the miracle business. And I'm sure I will have hard days still. Days where my heart breaks a little more. She's my baby, it's hard to watch your child struggle, no matter what the situation. But I know God will never leave me or forsake me. Because He loves me. So I'm going to honor Him through it all by surrendering all of me to Him. 

I feel like He tested me on this a few days ago. I have a very hard time talking to new people. Once I get to know you, I will talk to you all day but that first initial part for me is hard. I started a new MOPS group Friday and my goal and prayer this year is to make some SAHM friends. It's really hard for me some days. Both girls are in school. My parents and sisters don't live close. Glen works far away so I can't even go have lunch with him one day. And the friends I talk to on a regular basis work or live WAY to far away to see regularly. So my goal was to make friends. This MOPS groups has small groups (my other one doesn't). We are suppose to do play dates together and all that which is awesome. Well. Apparently 2 of the 4 groups were without group leaders and they wanted volunteers. And I felt a nudge saying "volunteer". I battled with myself the entire meeting. I am not one to put myself in this type of situation. But I could feel God leading me and saying step out of your comfort zone. I surrendered. I stepped out. It still makes me a tiny bit sick to my stomach but I'm doing it. The leader of the group gets to get the group together, I get to text and call ppl on off weeks to see how they are doing, I get to find out prayer request and pray for them, I get to lead discussions and maybe my testimony and situation will help someone. Or maybe not. But here I am. And this might be a small thing to some people but to me it's a huge step! And I'm actually kinda excited to see where this goes this year!