Daddy's Boy and Shoes Shoes Shoes

Joshua loves his daddy, especially lately. Saturday, I was away for a few hours. Ken picked me up and left Joshua with his parents. Well, when we came back did Joshua come over to Mommy.. nope..he went running right past me, saying Daddy, Daddy. Well, i guess i'm just chopped liver:) Ah, it's all good. I love watching my husband interacting with Joshua. I have heard that watching your husband with your kids can make you fall in love all over again. And it is so true!

So lately Joshua has had a bit of a shoe fetish. He loves walking around in his Daddy's shoes (pictured here). He'll put my shoes on too. He just likes having shoes on for some reason. Some days he'll just keep bringing me his shoes too, to put on. He'll bring one pair. I put them on. He goes and gets a different pair and now wants them on too. Then he'll get another pair that he wants to try on. He's also started bringing Ken his shoes when he leaves for work in the morning and then he tries to put them on Ken's feet for him. It's pretty funny. It's really funny watching him try to walk in Ken's shoes, although i'm impressed at how well he does, as he doesn't fall down at all.

Grace and Forgiveness

Well, still no sign of the mail. I had to call the people who used their credit cards to let them know. hopefully, everything is okay and the package just got sent to timbuktoo or something by accident. I'm feeling a little better about it all tonight. but honestly this has pretty much wrecked my week. Maybe i'm making it out to be a bigger thing than it should be, but to me it is a really big thing. I don't know why things never go smoothly for me. Just as I decide to step out and get involved in something this happens, which makes me just want to pack it all in. I know i probably shouldn't, but maybe it's a sign that i shouldn't be doing this. I just want to slip back into my boring, but comfortable life, because then i don't have to worry about this kind of stuff happening. I've also briefly considered changing churches or moving to another country. Of course, that was in my more non rational moments. After all things happen sometimes. i just hope people will have grace and forgiveness for me.

Actually speaking of grace and forgiveness, I was listening to family life today while doing dishes (it makes dishes and cleaning much more fun) this evening and the lady they were interviewing (don't ask me her name, i don't remember) was talking about how she experienced healing from having had an abortion in her early 20's and from bad sexual bonds she had formed with men in the past. Well, I realized how I need to work on that Grace and Mercy thing while I was listening to her story. I have a really hard time hearing about abortions. Something in my spirit just mourns the loss of the child's life. I hate to admit it, but it bothered me that she had recieved healing, yet her child could never ever have life again. I was thinking about why this bothered me and why i couldn't have grace for this at that moment and i think it was because i felt that she had to pay somehow for what she did to this child who would never have the chance to breathe in the spring air, to see and experience the beauty in the world, to laugh, to cry to learn...and i didn't feel she really did or not enough.

So much for grace hey. I guess it's okay for me to get grace, but not anyone else. And that is so, so, wrong. As I realized while listening that I was condeming her, I also realized that it's not my duty to condemn her. God is the one who judges. And God is the one who releases people from Judgement b/c of Christ. God can do what he wishes and he wishes that all recieve his grace, his forgiveness, his healing. When these thoughts ran through my head, something lifted in my spirit and I felt released from the feeling of anger i had that this woman got off scott free (or at least so it seemed in my eyes). I felt grateful that God deigns to reach down to us and touch our wounds and our hurts and frees us from the past mistakes that imprision us in darkness.

Worried

I'm worried..really worried actually. I'm praying and praying, but the worry is not easing. I mentioned in the last email that i spoke at my church for compassion canada, well i sent of all the sponsor forms the following monday and have found out that they still haven't got there a week and a half later. Please if you could pray. maybe it seems silly, but it has people's credit card numbers etc and i'm worried....what if it got lost...what if it got stolen. i don't know.. i'm hoping it's just taking extra long.. i can't imagine having to tell those people who were generous enough to sponsor a child that their financial info is wandering around out there somewhere. I would be so hideously embarassed and feel horribly. And part of me is thinking there goes charlene screwing something up again, what else is new. sometimes, and this is one of those times, i feel i can't do anything right. Of course i'm jumping ahead of myself, because right now it might just be late. I hope and pray i'm just being paranoid and it will show up. but prayer always helps, so would love some...thanks!!

Compassion

So, I've been extremely busy the last couple of weeks. I volunteer for Compassion Canada, in the states the organization is called Compassion International. Anyway, so they held a conference at the Granville Island hotel over the last weekend in April. It was so, so good. Good speakers. Awesome food, all paid for by compassion Canada--even better. They are such a great organization. The longer i volunteer for them and the more i learn about them, the more impressed i am with their passion for kids, their integrity, their generosity, kindness and i could go on and on. Anyway, i'm digressing a little bit. Back to the conference. you may be wondering why it was so good. or maybe you aren't. but anyway, they had a compassion employee from El Salvador speaking and seriously after one of his talks you could hear everyone sniffling away in the room. He shared so many stories of lives transformed. Where children living in poverty were able to escape because they were given a chance through sponsorship to go to school, to recieve medical treatment, proper nutrition and most of all to receive Jesus. Some of these kids are now doctors, worship pastors, social workers, and many of them have returned to the compassion projects to volunteer with the kids that are there now. It was just so inspiring to see hope amidst poverty and horrible circumstances. Even more inspiring was to hear of the love and passion these kids have for God. It was honestly just an amazing weekend.

So that weekend inspired me to ask my pastor if I could speak at church about child sponsorship through compassion. So the sunday evening after the conference was finished, i finally got up the nerve to go up to my pastor and ask him. And suprise, surprise he had had some really positive experiences with compassion, so right away said yes and then told me I could have 15 minutes the next week. Yikes! Although it was probably good that he gave me some time the following week and not in two weeks, b/c i probably would have spent the whole two weeks preparing. For sure, i spent every spare minute almost the following week preparing. And i prayed oh how i prayed, because i did not what this to be about me. i wanted it to be about giving these kids a chance at a better life. So the day came and my stomach was in knots, although i didn't really feel nervous, not like how i would feel when giving presentations at school. And i did it. I still can't believe i did it. It felt so good, just to follow something through and to do something to help for once. to do something that wasn't all about me. So 9 kids were taken home that day. praise be to God!
So that's kind of consumed my life in the last little while.

Oh, and if any of you ever want to be involved in child sponsorhip, do it through compassion they are a great organization. if you want to know more let me know and if you been thinking about sponsorship, i can get you a child, if you want.

Note to self..don't post about sleep on this blog..

I should know better than to post about how well Joshua is sleeping. Wouldn't you know it after i wrote that all i had to do to get Joshua back to sleep at 5 was pat him on the back, then, seriously, the next day he wouldn't go back to sleep after he woke at about 5. He cried and cried and when that got no response he writhed around in his crib whimpering until finally around6/ 6:30 i just got him up for the day. The best part is that this happened again the next morning and then the next and the next. Praying that tommorrow morning he'll go back to sleep right away or better yet, not wake up at all!!

Suffice to say, I am not going to comment on my son's sleep habits anymore. it only causes trouble :)

ahhh sleep

This is actually an unusual sleeping position for him.
Usually, his bum is in the air. it's actually quite cute:)

okay, well there has been a few record breaking events around here this week. First Joshua went 11 1/2 hours one night before waking up. Usually he wakes up still after nine or ten hours of sleep, which, lucky me, tends to be around 4 or 5 in the morning. Thankfully, he usually goes back to sleep, although i usually have to get up and lay him back in his crib and give him a few pats on the back first.

Then he had a 2 1/2 hour nap...not once, but twice, this week. That is the record of records. I know for most of you who have great sleepers that may not seem significant. But for my child it sure is. Usually he only makes it to an hour, if i'm really lucky, he'll sleep for an hour and a half, and then sometimes it's only 45 minutes, which is often it for naps for the whole day, as he no longer takes two naps. Now, although i was really excited about the extra long sleep, part of me actually kept hoping he would wake up soon, because i just didn't know what to do with myself, not being used to having all that free time. I almost felt like i wasn't earning my keep:)

Musings

Wow, two posts in one night. that has to be a record. I recently read a post on someone else's blog about Oprah's new spirituality. Apparently, it has a huge following, especially since Oprah has endorsed it. Now, i know next to nothing about what this is, all I've been able to gather is that it uses Jesus Christ, but isn't true to the christian faith or something like that. if anyone knows anymore about this, i would love to hear more. Anyway, more striking to me were the comments made by the many, many christians who wrote on some of the boards on her website about this spirituality.

The comments all strove to make clear what exactly christians believe. The comments were all doctrinally sound yet, i just felt like something was missing. It was like life was missing. there were all these great words on a page. All these wonderful scriptures from the bible, but it somehow seemed dead to me. I am thinking as i'm writing, so bear with me.. I just went back to read over the comments and it hit me why it all seemed so dead, lifeless to me.. for one there was no sense of the transforming power of Christ. Sure the words were there, but no testimony. I wanted just one person to write about how Christ had transformed their lives. Furthermore, So many writers went on about still being a sinner ... and i thought where is the victory in that. Is that why we come to christ so we can get a get into heaven card and then go on living the same? Shouldn't our lives be victorious? shouldn't we be able to have victory over sin, over selfishness, as Christ did??? Isn't that what people are looking for? searching for? and if Christianity doesn't supply that. If our lives don't show that? Then why would anyone want it ? I think that's it, that's what i sensed in these posts. defeat to sin.

I don't think we/I should feel defeated by sin, saying oh i'm a christian but you know i still sin! I am a sinner. i'm not sure it is good to cling to the identity of sinner. Why did Christ say over and over again, "go and sin no more," if it wasn't possible thru him, to do that. why are there so many verses in the NT that say that those in Christ do not sin like 1 john 3:9 for example (whoever is born of God does not commit sin.....he cannot sin because he is born of God)?

I myself am not living victoriously. And everything in me wants this. I have felt recently that only if i were to have a damascus road experience would this victory occur, or if the Holy Spirit were to descend on me the way it did the apostles, but now writing this I wonder if it's merely in beginnning to recast my identity as a daughter in Christ that victory will and can occur.

Well, i think i've gotten to the end of my ability to think clearly. my brain is getting foggy and i'm starting to feel confused again, just when writing all this out was helping me see things more clearly... so those are my thoughts for now.. i would love to hear your thoughts, comments on what i have written.