Laid Up

Happy Monday!  Well, if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you know that I've been spending most of the last two days in the couch with a pulled muscle.  Considering that I had planned on painting walls all weekend, that's a massive bummer.

But...it has been a blessing to be forced to work on a couple of side projects.

And...I've had these guys keeping me company:

Angus the Energetic

All my Boys

So it's not all bad.  Hope your week is off to a great start!

You Teach Them How To Treat You

For the last ten weeks my life has been completely dominated by this guy.

Hi, I'm Angus.  I'm a straight-up mess.

I really only want to live with a dog if he has manners, and I'm the lucky one who gets to teach him all those manners!  He came to me at 8 weeks old, adorable and wild.  He had no idea we don't jump on people or the couch, that we can't nip the kids out of excitement, that mouthing people/clothes/furniture is not okay.  I have had to teach him all that stuff and a lot more.

It has reminded me a lot of that old saying, "You teach people how to treat you."  Have you ever heard that saying?  I'm literally teaching this puppy how to treat us. For people, I think it means that others learn really quickly how far they can go with us, what boundaries we have and how we react when they're crossed.  If you stay silent when someone talks down to you, you have taught them to talk down to you.  If you yell and scream when you are angry, you teach them that yelling and screaming is how to communicate with you.

Boundaries: they're important.

I have had some big relational disappointments in the last year or so, with the sudden disappearance of a really good friend and with some other issues with people I love.  Revisiting this principle, "you teach people how to treat you," has me asking where I lost sight of my boundaries.  Have I allowed any of them to be crossed, without consequence?  I think the answer is most definitely "yes." So often we don't want to establish boundaries, or we let them slide, out of fear of confrontation, or even (as was my case with my friend) because on the surface the relationship seems fulfilling and like nothing can go wrong.  I guess I had gotten lazy with certain boundaries, and the result is really painful.

Today maybe give a few minutes of thought to your boundaries.  Are you teaching anyone out there to disrespect you?  To be too familiar?  To jump frantically up and down when company comes over? Oh wait, that's just the puppy.  Well you get my point.  It's the same for dogs and people--we are at least partly responsible for how they treat us.  Or maybe you are all good in this area; if so, you go girl!  Good job!  In any case, gut-check accomplished.  I gotta run for now and go pick up some poop or something.

Waiting, Whining, and Joy

Hello friends!  How are my lovely peeps hanging in?  Is it too late to wish you a Happy New Year?  I started this post in early January, and I just looked up and it's almost Valentine's Day.  Life, right?

Several people have asked me why my blogging dropped off in the fall, and I wanted to share a little bit about what happened.  Both boys are at school five days a week now, which is an all-new experience for me.  I spent the fall exploring some professional options for myself, and ended up applying for a part-time job in my field.  All throughout the application and interview process my husband and I prayed that the Lord would close doors if the job wasn't right for our family.  And our prayers were answered with a big fat closed door!  Funny how you pray for it, but it still stings.  Ever since, I've been doing a lot of processing and I now totally accept that I wasn't supposed to be there.

Where am I supposed to be?  The Lord is asking me to wait on Him.  His plan, His timing.

Man, waiting is so hard.  I don't mean to sound like I am whining, but actually yes I do, a little.  Most of you reading this are probably "do-ers" more than "wait-ers" am I right?  So maybe you can relate. When God is asking me to wait it is so tempting to fill up the time with projects new and old, so easy to cast about haplessly, searching for anything to fill that emptiness of time and ambition and creative energy.

I've written here about the refining fire of pain, and that is hard too.  But waiting has its own challenges.  It doesn't insist upon itself, like pain does.  Pain focuses attention; waiting scatters my attention so far that I forget I'm waiting on Him, not the next big thing. Not the world or its many distractions, not even the worthwhile ones.  So I'm attempting to walk by faith and not sight, trusting that He has got this, and expectantly watching for His promptings.  As with most valuable pursuits, it is so much easier said than done.

In the meantime, I am spending a lot of this downtime with this guy:

Friends, meet Angus.

He's a goldendoodle, and I think he's pretty cute.

He's also really, really good at bringing joy.  Even in the times where things are hard or maybe aren't as clear as I would like, there is always joy.