Dear Anna Duggar

Dear Anna,

I am so sorry that you and Josh have to go through this extremely difficult time. The pain you must be feeling is beyond words. I am praying for you guys knowing that the both of you are going to have to go through so much to find healing and renewal. Even though the information I have gotten about your feelings is a source, I think you are being a very good wife. Keep drawing near to God and His word. I pray and hope that you have someone to help you process what you are feeling through this. It is most definitely ok to talk to someone other than your husband.
 

In my own life I have experienced some love ones who have struggled with sexual sins. It was surprising and hurtful all at once. Sometimes I blame other people or sometimes myself for the decisions that they have made. But I can't do that. Yes I have a responsibility in the relationships I have with them but their decisions were only their problems. It is only my problem because they are my love ones but they have to ultimately deal with their problems with God. I knew that I had to reevaluate my feelings towards them when I heard what they did and the hurtful things they said to me. Through time and tons of prayer and time in God's word, what was revealed to me that I was not the person I thought I was and I really struggled with my relationship with them. I really had to lean on God's grace to be there for them when I really did not want to. I have recently only discovered after much time and communication with them what I needed to do.
 

In return I guess I encourage you to not give up on Josh. Even though my source is only through a tv show and friends of mine that have actually spent sometime with your  husband's family, Josh really seems like a great guy that has chosen to indulge in the things of this world. As you know already, to be a Christian wife is a big thing! We have a huge responsibility for our husbands. The verse I always hang onto is 1 Peter 3:1-2, 

"3 Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear." 

All we can do is focus on what we have to do through Christ's strength in us. Josh needs someone to tell him that they love him even when he is not being very lovable. I know that is extremely hard right now because you are hurt and angry. I don't even know from my situations how much hurt you feel. But I do know that drawing near to God got (and still getting) me through my situation. I know Satan wants to put every thought into your head but give him 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 ("4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ"). He wants you to fail but we have the cross. I am pushing for you guys. 
 

Also there is a website that helps people like you and josh called xxxchurch

Praying always

Your sister in Christ

Kristina

God has been challenging my heart and mind and how it affects my life a lot lately. As a mom and wife, I see the importance of drawing near to God. If I don't, I am not a pleasant person to be around. I am a very self centered person, driven by what others think and how that makes me feel. Kinda discouraging ya know? But I long to be a person that my little one wants to learn from. I long to be a person that my husband can confine in. So I try. And I try. And I try. But then that gets exhausting or I consume myself in the things of this world for temporary pleasure. And all the while, God still remains faithful in working in my heart. This only works through what Jesus did on the cross.
I have been looking up the word phrase "the cross" in the Bible as my quiet time.

Here are some of the verses I have found:

1 Corinthians 1:17
 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.

Paul preaches the Gospel through what Christ did on the cross. He did not preach from his own strength by his own words because otherwise he would be saying that the cross was useless.
       How many times do I add my works or the good things I do to what Jesus did on the cross for  
       me? I am saying that what He did was not good enough for me which I know that is not true.

1 Corinthians 1:18 NKJV
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Do I believe that the cross brings power? Acknowledging what the power of the cross is a step in the right direction.

Galatians 5:11 NKJV
And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. 

In 1 Corinthians 1:18, the cross is foolishness to those who are not saved. It is foolishness because it offends. As my pastor on Sunday stated, why would anyone want to believe in something that makes you admit that you are wrong and worthless. That is what the cross does. It makes us evaluate our lives and see that we are nothing without Christ and what He did on the cross. If you read before this verse, the Jews were saying that they had to be circumcised in order to be apart of Christ. In believing that, they were rejecting the full power of the cross. It was hard for them to let go of their works and surrender to the cross. They believed something they had to do made themselves apart of Christ. It is called pride to think one is able to still follow the law. That is why Paul asked why does he suffer still if he preached circumcision was part of the cross. He would not be suffering if he agreed with them. In his weakness of suffering, he held onto the offensiveness of the cross that he was nothing without it.
       Am I offended by the cross or do I humbly accepted that I cannot keep the law and rest fully in
       the cross?

Galatians 6:12-15 NLT
Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised want to look good to others. They don’t want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save. ¹³ And even those who advocate circumcision don’t keep the whole law themselves. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast about it and claim you as their disciples.
¹⁴ As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross,^[c] my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died. ¹⁵ It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.

I liked how the NLT version made it more easier to understand. When we do good works in our own strength, it is self motivated. We want to look good especially when we encourage others to do the same. But like Paul when we boast in the cross, we loose interest in what others think and do it for God alone. The cross makes us a new creation. As Christians we need to boast in the cross to be the new creation that we are.
       Do I hold onto the things and opinions of this world or boast in what Christ has done through
       me?





 

Theme Thursday- Guarding Your Child's Heart

My mother recently gave me this amazing workbook and DVDs called "Guarding Your Child's Heart". As I think about it now, this series follows after the goal I have for my LO that I discussed in a previous blog about the theme of this blog.  I want to be able to memorize and teach scripture to her in order to transform her worldview into a godly one and to show her how it can be used as a daily weapon against this dark world. 

 

The basis of this series is four Christlike beliefs that we need to hold onto. They are 

1) Humble yourself 

2) Love God

3) Love others 

4) Rejoice in trials

 

For each belief, there are two sections of 1) explaining what the belief is and 2) how to apply it to yourself and with your children. I enjoy the applying it with your children section on the dvd the most because you get to meet Dr. Gary Smalley, the author of the series, and his older children who applies it to their own children. They give very practical ways of doing it with scripture to back it up.  

The workbook is very simple and can be easily done in my free time. There are some times I can do it for my quiet time. The DVD segments are maybe fifteen minutes at most. While watching each segment, one can see Dr. Smalley and his passion for God's word. He applies what he is teaching. 

 

Because of this series, it really has challenged me to memorize God's word. I use some of the verses he suggests and add some that I come across when I read the Bible. I have about 17 verses I am working on. I use this app I found online called verse rain. I will hopefully talk about this more on Favorite Friday. But it has been VERY helpful and enjoy using it. 

 

This series has also convicted me on how I need to apply these four beliefs to my own life. I mean it is common sense that if I want to teach my little one how to live her life memorizing and applying God word that I need to do the same. But I will confess, it does not come naturally to me to apply God outwardly to all aspects of life. It is like I have to talk out loud in order for her to learn how to apply these beliefs to her life. That would be such a mess of emotions sometimes but I guess that's what it takes to be transparent, to humble myself and share what is going on in my life with my little girl. Well 1 Peter 5:6 does say if I humble myself under the mighty hand of God that in due time He will exalt me. He is faithful and has been working on my heart and in that I want to trust in Him.

 

 

Top 5 Tuesday- LO's Favorite books

My little one loves looking at books! She has so many toys, but she always seems to wander over to the bookshelf and look at her books. I am happy about that because I am not one of those moms who wanted to be intentional about reading to her little ones. But my little one has made it very easy. And I guess you can say I love the books we have gotten for her because they can be very action oriented and I love that! So here they are!

5) Anything with nursery rhymes
I think my mother in law had a hand in this because she always enjoyed reading the nursery rhyme books that she had. I got one at the Goodwill called Hickory, Dickory, Dock and other favorite nursery rhymes which has been big and colorful pictures that she likes to look at while I cite our favorite nursery rhymes. We also got a book that has a CD where it encourages her to read along. We listen to it in the car which she just relaxes to and sits in the backseat quietly.

4) Ten Tiny Toes by Caroline Jayne Church
This book is so cute! It has a big pictures and a cute baby! She has not catch on with the motions yet or where all her body parts are. But I do get her attention when I say each part of the body and show her where everything is at on her and I both. It reminds me of the Head Shoulders Knees and Toes song. Super fun book!  I totally would love to get her the other books with the same author.

3) Any books with flaps
Peekaboo Kisses and Hello, Baby a lift-the-flap book are two books I recently got at our library bookstore at super great prices. In Peekaboo Kisses by Barney Saltzberg, she lifts up the flaps to an animal giving kisses which also give many textures for her to feel. The last page is her favorite. It is a surprise for her after all the animals. Hello, Baby has cute little babies under the flaps. She loves finding the babies under the flaps as the book asks her where the baby sleeps or what the baby eats. It gives her options on what to flip and shows her where animals sleeps or what other animals eat. Kinda cool.

2) Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
My little one loves this book! This is another one that my mother in law showed me. I don't even know why she likes this book so much, but every time she sees it, she wants to read it. Maybe it has to do with it being a big board book. I really don't know why, but this is one of her favorites.

1) The four Helen Oxenbury baby books
I cannot tell you how much my little one loves these books! There are four books with these same babies that just seem to grab her attention. Personally they look like man babies to me but when she sees them, she recognizes them. We have 3 out of the 4. The first one we got is called Clap Hands. I put actions with the book and every time I say certain words she can do the action even when we don't have the book open. I have the entire book memorized and could "read" the book anywhere.  

My Little One's love

What a day! But even now in my tired and weak state I see God being faithful. He allows crazy moments and my little one's love to teach me how much He loves me unconditionally. All day long I have had one thing after another happen to me. There is one thing you have to know about me is that I am a big people pleaser to the point of freaking out and not thinking straight. My husband wanted me to burn our trash because it was building up in our shed. For the life of me I couldn't start the fire! I felt like I was disappointing him by not getting it done. I got so frustrated to the point of not caring that my little one was tired and getting upset at standing by herself while mommy was trying to start a fire. But at that moment I felt God's presence sweep over me telling me that this was not worth anybody getting upset about. So I picked her up and felt so much better. During her nap, I drew close to God realizing that all of this was not worth ruining a day over ( by this time it was 11:30). After she woke up I had to go to my in-laws' house and let the dogs out to go to the bathroom. Since the door of their house was close to the truck, I decided to keep my little one in the truck with it running and lock the driver's door only. Well what I forgot was that my truck is not like my car where when you put it into park that all the doors unlock. So I locked my little one in the truck. I was so upset at myself because all I could think of was how bad of a mother I was. I felt so worthless while my little one was crying in the car and how calling my husband would be so hard because of how the morning went with burning the trash. I got ahold of him finally after many busy signals and had the truck open for me. All I could do was cry. We got home after a hour of craziness, and I placed her in her high chair to finish her lunch. And when I gave her her sandwich she smiled at me as if nothing had happened at all. All I could do at that moment was shake my head and wonder how she could feel that way. But I then had the thought that this is how God feels about me in a even bigger way. I mess up but He still loves me. I freak out but He still sticks around. I am not saying this is easy for me to accept but it is something I truly want to grow more to understand and accept. And I think that's what He is trying to teach me. 

Top 5 Tuesday- I am back! What God has been teaching me

I am back!

The top 5 things God has been teaching me since I was last on here

5) God is in control of the weather! 

    My husband and I have been homeowners for two months! It has been mind altering owning our 

    house, but the journey on how we got here depended on God who controlled the weather. For five 

    months we had to go through the process of buying a house with a few bumps along the way. 

    Three and half of those months, we had to live with my inlaws. Now don't get me wrong I am very 

    very appreciative of all they did for us. I am also especially appreciative of how God put peace in 

    my heart about it. But it was still hard. Everything was going good until the inspection on our 

    septic system failed where someone had to go in and fix it. In order for that to happen, the ground 

    had to be dry. It was January and we live in Pa with cold and snowy months. So we had to wait and 

    wait and wait. It kept snowing and snowing and snowing. When the snow started to melt, it would 

    rain. It was very frustrating! But then one day I was reading my devo from John piper and he was 

    talking about the cold winters in Minnesota and how God was in control of the weather as what is 

    stated in psalm 147:16-18 

       He gives snow like wool, He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts out hail like 

       morsels who can stand before His cold? He sends out His word, and melts them, 

       He causes His wind to blow and the waters flow. 

    Even that following Sunday pastor said the exact same thing! It was amazing to see how God was    

     telling me that He was in control and He wanted me right where I was at. I was able to find peace 

     in that. In the middle of April they fixed the septic system and passed the inspection. We signed 

     the papers at the end of the month and moved in within that week. What a learning experience!

4) The envelope system works wonders
     So since my husband and I are homeowners, we are looking ahead in wanting to pay off our house
     as soon as possible. My husband has been listening to Dave Ramsey and I have joined him
     recently in doing so. Against what my hubbie wanted to do, we started the envelope system in
     order to budget out money and put a name to every dollar that we spent. We did it this last month
     and realized that when we stick to something like the envelope system, we did not blow our
     money just on anything and had a lot left over. It made us be intentional about what we spent and
     how we spent it. It will be exciting to see if we can make our goal to pay our house off in 6 years.
     God willing I can talk more about this on a Favorite Friday sometime soon.

3) I need to be constantly entertained

     Recently, I have realized that I constantly have to be entertained by something or I will get 

     restless. I noticed the constant need to always check Facebook. If I am not on there, I check if my 

     mom is on skype or I watch something on Netflix. I was making it a priority over my LO and 

    chores around the house. It was controlling me. So I have made the commitment to not be on 

    Facebook for awhile. Instead, I now am listening to podcasts or listening to Christian music on 

    YouTube. I also have been trying to be more intentional on not getting bored but looking for things 

    to with my LO (she is in the in between stage of not completely depending on me but still can't 

    walk yet). I have just started this and I can't believe how much dependence I had on these things. 

    But now I am doing new things such as listening to podcasts, deep cleaning our house in certain 

    areas or even sing songs with my LO. I am curious to see what God brings my way

2) I am not as good of a 1 Peter 3 wife as I thought I was

     In the middle of December my husband and I went through a rough spot in our marriage. We just 

     had our 6 year anniversary and a lot of things had changed. We no longer worked together like we 

     use to. He worked long hours and had other friends that were not type of people I normally would
     hang out with. We also just had a baby and were adjusting to that. Sex was becoming just a 

     routine. Overall it felt like we were on totally two different pages, and he decided to tell me that he 

     no longer felt connected to me. This came out of the blue. I had no idea, and it was hard to take. I  

     became angry and resentful, but all the while wanting to fight it because I knew it was wrong to be 

     angry. Hurt but not angry and resentful. I really had to draw near to God and recommit myself to 

     being that 1 Peter 3 wife that I always took pride in. Now I have to say that, it is still a working 

     progress, but the key is drawing near to God and realizing He is still in control. The only person I 

     can change is myself and only through God. As long as I am being faithful to God, I need to give 

     the rest over to Him.

1) Guarding my LO's heart

     My mother gave me this book and DVDs called Guarding your Child's Heart by Dr. Gary Smalley. 

     It is an amazing book and dvd series. I do it when I can. The basis of it is transforming your mind 

     through God's word by meditating and memorizing scripture based off 4 basic truths that are from 

     God. I have been memorizing scripture and learning how to use them to help me live day by day. 

     The ultimate goal is to teach my LO these 4 basic truths to transform her worldview in being a 

     person who lives for God. I will tell more about it God willing on Theme Thursday.

Mommy Monday- Dairy Free

At my LO's two month appointment, her pediatrician and I discussed her fussiness. He suggested a milk protein intolerance and asked for a poopy diaper. He administered the test and it came back positive where she had tons of microscopic blood in her poop. That was the beginning of my milk free diet.

At first it was very overwhelming and I did not know where to even start. I love milk, cheese, and everything associated with milk. I started out talking to a friend of mine who I knew was dairy and soy free because of her daughter. She showed me the Deliciously Dairy Free Facebook group. I highly suggest it to anyone who has to or voluntarily become dairy free. They are very helpful and make you feel at ease. Another website that I found helpful also guided me through grocery shopping or going out to eat.

Through this process I have learned how much milk is in things. Milk is in most snacks and treats that I eat. Here is a website that was very helpful for me concerning this.
Here is also other snacks that are dairy free that I have enjoyed
Nature Valley (anything that does not have chocolate)
Anything gummies (such as Fiber One's)
Rice Cakes (Only get Apple Cinnamon or Carmel corn)

Cereals was also another shocker for me. I have kept it mostly safe by just keeping with the ones I am most sure about. My favorites are Chex of course along with Cheerios (the basic kinds though).

For milk I have used Rice Dream which is actually very good. I was surprised that it did taste so good. Soy milk is good but I was told by my friend that it messes with your hormones. That is why I picked rice milk. Of course there is almond milk or coconut milk but I have never tried those yet.

Bread was kinda hard at first because on most nutrition labels, they say there could be traces of milk or made in the same bakery as milk. So I had to find something different. One lady on the Facebook group recommended Rudi's. It is a little expensive; so I don't buy it too often maybe twice a month.

For cheese I tried two kinds. First I tried a soy based cheese called Vegan Gourmet which to be honest was very good. Now it does not melt together like real cheese which brothers some people. It did not bother me though. But I decided to not go for soy and had to find a dairy and soy free cheese. The Facebook group talked a lot about Daiya Cheese. I went out and got it and tried it on my shrimp pizza. It does melt more like normal cheese but not as much as everyone seems to be excited about. It sort has the same taste as the powder cheese that you get when you make mac and cheese. I think it was better that second time I ate it though.

For butter I chose the first thing I saw at the store which is Earth Balance. To me it just tastes like butter so that was not that big of a deal.

For the fun stuff such as chocolate, ice cream or coffee creamer I have tried various things. For chocolate, I found at the Giant store Enjoy Life Chocolate bars. They tasted like chocolate but the texture is a little harder and chalk like but most definitely fixes my chocolate cravings. For ice cream, I tried some ice cream sandwiches from So Delicious. The after taste tasted like soy. It also has a icey texture to it  but it still does taste good. I also get my creamer from them which is amazing. When I go out for coffee, I just ask for a ice coffee with a flavoring or sugar and add my own coffee creamer or rice milk to it. It takes planning ahead but well worth it.

So has it been worth it being dairy free for my LO? Yes it has. I have experienced new tastes which I have always enjoyed. But also my LO has gotten a lot less fussy which has been nice. She is more predictable for now : )