Tumbles: What do you mean, not a fort? Don’t wash the Tumbles!

Previous Fridays

1. I love how you make me feel strong.

2. I love how you always encourage me.

3. I love when you wipe away my tears.

4. I love that you see that I’m about to start crying when no one else can.

5. I love how you always see the positive.

I miss you so much.

Remember that old saying? If you love X, you’ll set him/her/it free. How many times has that proved true for me? How many times does God have to give me the same lesson before I learn?

“The Tao Te Ching says, When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. Have you ever struggled to find work or love, only to find them after you have given up? This is the paradox of letting go. Let go, in order to achieve.
Letting go is God’s law.”
–Mary Manin Morrissey Read More Letting Go Quotes

Learning Slowly

It’s taking a while for it to sink in, but I think what God’s trying to tell me is that he always has my best interests in mind. I know it, but it’s hard to remember when things don’t feel as if they’re going well. It’s hard to remember when pain and disappointment hit.

So far, he’s shown me that learning to be content with singleness, with waiting for his timing for marriage, led to him bringing me quickly to a point where I could get married. He showed me that learning to trust him to open up job opportunities brought me to a place where I was able to enjoy my job and be financially independent. He’s showing me that letting go of my deep-rooted desires allows him a chance to give me abundant blessings, better than what I could have chosen for myself.

Let Go and Let God…

…have his way.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
-Proverbs 3:5-10 (NIV)

God calls Christians to let go of their goals, desires, and attachments. Not because goals are bad, and not because our families and friends are unimportant – because he desires our attentions more than those things, and because he can give us better than what we dream for.

"’Teacher,’ he declared, ‘all these [commandments] I have kept since I was a boy.’
Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’”
-Mark 10:20-21 (NIV)

“…It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
-Matthew 19:24 (NIV)

“…Jesus…said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.’”
-Luke 14:25-26 (NIV)

So, Hubby will work where God puts him, and I will thank God for placing him there. So, I will wait on having children until God’s timing says it’s right, and I’ll thank him for his perfect timing. So, God will grant me the things I need when I need them and give me blessings that exceed my desires… And hopefully I’ll one day learn to give him the trust he deserves. After all, he hasn’t let me down.

“’Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?’”
-Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV)

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
-Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

I leave you with this, found on a blog called Redemption’s Heart:

Letting Go

• To “Let Go” does not mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
• To “Let Go” is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization I can’t control another. To “Let Go” is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
• To “Let Go” is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
• To “Let Go” is not to try to change or blame another, it’s to make the most of myself.
• To “Let Go” is not to care for, but to care about.
• To “Let Go” is not to fix, but to be supportive.
• To “Let Go” is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
• To “Let Go” is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
• To “Let Go” is not to be protective, it is to permit another to face reality.
• To “Let Go” is not to deny, but to accept.
• To “Let Go” is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
• To “Let Go” is not to adjust everything to my desires but to take each day as it comes, and cherish myself in it.
• To “Let Go” is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
• To “Let Go” is to fear less and love more. – Unknown.
• Letting Go – is my knowing that I cannot play God and believe in God at the same time.

I’m so thankful that I don’t have anyone’s grave to visit on Memorial Day. Being involved with the military has made me more aware of the meaning behind the federal holiday, but it doesn’t hit me on a personal level, and for that I’m grateful. One day, it probably will. One day I’ll probably know people who have given their lives for our country – people I’ll think of especially on Memorial Day. But not yet.

What is it to me? Growing up in a very military-lacking family, Memorial Day never really had any special meaning to me. I’d heard what it was about, but that was all. For the most part, it was a day for family picnics at Kidsville or someplace like that. It’s beginning to change now that I know people in the military, and now that I’m married to a soldier. Now I think about it a little more. I think about all we have to be thankful for, I think about what it would mean if Hubby did give his life…

But I find it a little funny that we don’t use the day so much for remembering those gone as much as we spend it enjoying life and loved ones. Yes, even Hubby.

Two-Thousand Nine

Last year, over the Memorial Day Weekend, we were down in the Rio Grande valley, visiting Hubby’s family.

We made sad little sand castles. We tried so hard, but we just couldn’t get that moat deep enough or the support wall high enough to protect it! 

We tried boogie boarding in the surf… Some of us succeeded more than others. (Hubby caught on. I didn’t do as well.)

We also collected shells, laid out in the sun, and ate hotdogs. It was all-around a lovely weekend. Especially for me. I love the beach. But the best part came on the last day there, up on a sand dune…

He had me looking for non-existent boats on the bay, and when I turned to tell him there were no boats, he was on one knee, covered in sand, but holding out a ring box and asking me to marry him.