Hormones

These past few weeks of going through many different hormone changes has led me to be able to understand what many women go through. See, I have never really had bad cycles or anything like that. My cycle has always been pretty much the same(when I have had one , have not had many due to all our sweet babies :) ) and no real woman issues. But since not having a cycle due to nursing, still nursing a sweet baby, body realizing it is pregnant and then trying to realize it is not anymore due to miscarriage my hormones have went haywire!! Last week was a very dark week! Between the miscarriage and my little man not sleeping well at all I was exhausted and weary. I told myself constantly that God is good no matter what, and I do believe that and I did believe it then also but sometimes your thoughts get all cloudy by those hormones that so plague many women. I believe that is why alot of women are on antidepresents. This is one of the curses from the fall I believe. But then it really caused me to draw close to the Lord. To realize that he does give and he does take away and in both those instances He is GOOD, He is always LOVE, and is always Just! The Lord has given me so much through this experience. The realization that he does provide what we need. In the midst of sadness I had several families in our church that were so sweet to our family! Also the Lord has given me a perfect peace about it all and it just makes me all the more grateful for the undeserving gifts he has given me in my life. I am taking some herbal things to make things better and they have but ultimately it is my Lord and Savior and ONLY him that can make things right in our lives. WHen I was younger I had such a void in my life, I could not understand what it was because I had a wonderful, wonderful family but finally later on after trying to fill that void with so many other things I realized what that void was and that way JESUS. He is the only thing that can fill the void in our lives. So my advice if you going through a dark period on your life or just suffering from hormone craziness just look to the Lord and rely on Him, He is the ONLY thing that can fill that void. God is good!!! Matthew 11:28 has been my anthem for the past few weeks Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Ramblings

I am not much for being clear headed this past few days. After knowing now we did experience a miscarriage the past few days have been difficult. My hormones are totally out of whack and I am so tired. I am thankful! Thankful to the Lord for the kids he has given me, thankful to the Lord for the husband he brought into my life, thankful for people who do care and for a wonderful church family who has been praying for us. Some people even people close to me that have experienced a miscarriage, especially a early one just can go on with their lives and it doesn't bother them, they do not get attached quickly. For me.... it is different. As soon as I know that I am expecting I am planning. That is just the type of person I am . And even though we have 9 children, we would be so excited to accept more. There I said it. I know many in society these days cannot understand that, and yes it is HARD but it is SO SO SO rewarding. And to think we are raising up arrows for the Lord, that is something powerful. That is the greatest job we can do here on earth. I am not really sure how my sweet husband has really felt about this as he has not done much talking with me but I think he is upset. A wife just knows these things. That is the thing between Billy and I , we do not even really have to speak to each other to know how the other one is feeling .I am so thankful for him. Thankful that he ask for prayer for me. While I am sorrowful I am also joyful, while I feel like weeping I instead try to smile and laugh. I did have a lost but I also have so much !!!! My family and I cherish life and even if that life was known about for a week it was none the less important but for some reason it was not to be here on earth. My miscarriage has caused me to look at things and realize how much I do need the Lord and realize some things in this life we worry about really does not matter. Those things are not eternal. This is just our temporary home, we should be focused on the eternal things. Not so much of what our kids have but how their hearts are. I have done ALOT of thinking these past few days. I want to leave this place knowing I taught my kids what was most important. I want to leave this place and know that my husband knew I loved him and he felt it. I am so thankful for the people the Lord has surrounded me with at the season in my life. A sweet family from our church whose daughter teaches one of our younger ones piano called today to say she would be bringing us supper when she came to teach piano today. Those are the things that let you know the Lord hears you, he understands, and we are not alone. Alot of my issue right now is hormones. They are running rampant but I can chose to give in to them and crawl in a hole or I can chose to call on the Lord and keep on fighting the fight. People all over this world are experiencing such terrible things and while this has not been easy I could not imagine going through what one of our cherised friends did a year or so ago(having a trisomny baby that passed away a day before coming into this world). The Lord is teaching me so much in every trial that I face. While my heart aches I know that the Lord is good. And I have been saying to myself the past two days Matthew 11:28!!!!

Taking Things for Granted

First I want to start this post out by saying I do not like to really be a open book contrary to what many people think. BUT I think it is important because you never know who you will be helping or who is going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. God uses people for many different reasons. God is much bigger than people give Him credit for. This post is kind of hard for me to write, not really sure why. I feel it is important to write though. The house is quite, little ones are asleep and everyone else is busy doing other things. I have so many emotions going through me right now. I will get to that. But I just first want to say we really take things for granted in our lives. At least I do. I take for granted my family. My wonderful sweet family. I take for granted sometimes I think that life will continue on even though I know things could change in a second, we are not promised the next second much less tomorrow. I think sometimes I have taken for granted the Lord choosing us to have so many kids. Thus the reason for this post. I have had a confusing,tiresome, sad week. Also in the midst of all of it have had a wonderful week with my family which included a fun time for my family at a birthday party last night. Not many knew I had so much going on in my head while I was there but God did. He knows every struggle we have. I was talking with a friend today about somethings and while speaking to her about how God sometimes allows us to feel a void in our lives or a emptyness so we will rely on him I realized that while He might of used me to help her with what she was feeling in turn it will always causing me to discover somethings. To let you in on what has went on , Tuesday I played volleyball a bit with the young people in our church and afterwards felt really bad. Could not figure it out, Wendsday I felt the same way and was nauseated,etc... I started thinking well could I be pregnant again(even though I am still nursing sweet Jericho and have not had a visit from my "friend"), so I took a test really quick before getting into the bathtub that night and to my total surprise it was positive. I was in disbelief so I took another and it took was a light but totally positive test. So... after my bath i took my oldest daughter aside and told her and told her we would have to think of a sweet way to tell her daddy the next day. That morning I took two more test that came up positive. So we already had to go to the grocery store so I bought some things to make our little man a big brother onesie and we came home. Just for security I took another test and to my disbelief it was negative. I told my daughter we would have to hold off on doing the onesie because I was not sure what was going on. I just thought that maybe I was really early on and it was not showing up. But every test since then has been negative, I started really hurting Friday morning but I needed to go to Anderson and when I came back I took another test which was negative by middle of the day I was hurting really bad and just not feeling well. We went to the birthday party and when we came home I was really nauseated. Today is Saturday and I have had a rough day, not feeling well at all and just hurting. Up until a few minutes ago I was just confused as to what was going on, I had 4 positive pregnancy test but have had many negatives. But a few minutes ago I started spotting so obviously I am having a early miscarriage and while most people it would not bother it does me. I have so many feelings that I am not even going to get into but God's grace is enough and he has blessed me beyond what I deserve. I am blessed with a wonderful husband . I just have really been thinking how we just take things for granted. I held my sweet Jericho a little closer tonight before putting him to bed! I hope you do your kids as well! But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Cor. 12:9

Book I wrote- My Journey to Grace

http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Grace-Mrs-Tiffany-Ballard/dp/146090995X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337384152&sr8-1 Here it is on Amazon. I basically wrote this book for my children to have . It is just really a long testimony. Great for anyone to read but really great for teenage girls.

Menu Planning

Menu Planning is one of the great organization tips for any family but especially a large one. I have been trying to do this post for a while not. It has been crazy busy around here, kids not feeling , and just other things going on. But I am going to post our menu from the last week and the rest of the month. I will try and post some recipes but if you are interested in any that I do not post just leave a comment. I do mostly the same things for lunches so I do not really write them down in my menu plan or breakfast either. I know usually off the top of my head(or on my list- list are also a wonderful organization thing!) here goes: Wendsday May 16- Grilled Pork Chops , Green Beans, Yeast rolls Thursday May 17th- HOt Wings and oven potatoes Friday May 18th- HOt Dogs, Chips, and baked beans This is a freezer cooking day, made 2 chicken casseroles to put in the freezer. Also have some peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches in the freezer as well as muffins. Sat. May 19th- Salmon Patties for lunch Tacos for supper Sun. - plans were changed a bit, I was up all night with baby the night before so I stayed home from church and while they were at church I pulled out one of the chicken casseroles and cooked it. Nice things about freezer meals!! :) Monday May 21st- Homemade chicken and Dumplins( found a super recipe!!!) with crackers Tuesday May 22nd- Tenderloin , homemade applesauce, homemade cheese bread, beans Made a big crock pot of applesauce so I could freeze some. Wendsday May 23rd- Grilled Hamburgers and hotdogs, twiced back potato casserole, homemade jalpeno cheese bread Made some extra bread, put one in the freezer and gave one to my mom :) Thursday May 24th-Lasanga Casserole , rolls, and core Make extra casserole to put in freezer Friday 25th- Chicken Strips , green beans and sweet potato fries Saturday 26th- lunch fried bologna sandwhices supper- Crockpot lemon chicken, sweet potato casserole Sunday- lunch at church -taking homemade applesauce, hotdogs, and tea supper- pizza Monday May 28th- Breakfast Tuesday May 29th- Pulled Pork Sandwhiches, oven fries Wendsday May 30th-Subs with sun chips Freezer cooking day- Not sure yet what all I am making. Will make more bread and applesauce. Also know will make a breakfast casserole to put in freezer. Thursday May 31st-meat from freezer

Too Busy

In our society these days we are so busy! Sometimes what was suppose to help us speed things up(ex. technology) steals most of our time. I am trying to not let that happen but sometimes it even creeps in and I realize I have spent too much time on the comp. We get so caught up in the busyness of life that things have totally changed. Even in the christian community things have changed. We have let all this stuff in our lives and have forgotten the things the Lord has instructed us to do(ex. caring for the widowed and just being there for each other). Don't get me wrong I fall into this as well. All too many times I am wrapped up in the busyness of my life to reach out to others but I am really trying to change that. WE have got to start reaching out to each other, we have got to especially start reaching out to other brothers and sisters in Christ. How will we ever know their needs or what we need to pray for them about if we are so consumed with things of this world. Because really as christians this is not our home(thank you Jesus!). IT could be just a small letter to someone who is struggling, or checking on your elderly neighbor, or just asking someone what you can pray for them about. The Lord is really opening my eyes to this and has really pressed on my heart about slowing down and while still taking care of my husband and children to also start thinking about others and while doing this teaching my kids the important lesson of putting others first and showing hospitality. We have the young people over from our church every Tuesday to play volleyball. Yes, we have busy lives and yes we could be doing something else but we feel this is important to our children. These young people that come over here we WANT around our children, they are good influences. It is good for these young people to get together and while they are playing volleyball they are also learning many things. Like how to work together and also patience(because maybe they have a little one or someone not so good on their team). They learn kindness and how to not take things so seriously. Like when you fall on your backside like I did last night(lol, realizing now i am not so young anymore lol). Sometimes we need to take time out of our busy lives to just live. To be a light to others. To show hospitality. To show just plain LOVE! Speaking of busyness I really need to end this post and start school with one of my sweet children. But in short I just want to remind myself as well as anyone who reads this to slow down. Do something for someone else. Aren't we suppose to be christ like as christians. His whole life christ only thought of others, after all he did die for our sins.

Obeying your Husband

Now I know when many women read these words it stirs up all kinds of emotions inside of them. Hey, it used to do me the same way until I really started understanding what it really means. It does not mean the women who obey their husbands biblically are doormats like many may think because it also states in the bible that husband are to love their wives as Christ loves the church. If we truly honor our husband and let them lead our households the benefits farrrrrrrrrrr outweigh any of the negative things. For instance we were suppose to go to a church picnic today, while I really wanted to go my husband decided this morning that it would be better if we stayed home because since being sick we have fallen behind on some things. While I did not want to I did not argue and you know what. He was right!!! I am so glad he decided for us to stay home. I got some much needed stuff done that I needed to and he did too. God put my husband over me for a reason and sometimes while I might not like the decision I know that my husband is wise and really thinks things out and does not do anything in haste. Obeying your husband is not always easy but it is right and it shows him honor. If you have a unsaved husband you could bring him to Christ by submitting yourself to him. 1 Peter 3:1 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, Another example while not a huge thing at the time was huge to me. A year or so ago I wanted to go get my hair cut and my husband did not want me to get it cut. I went anyway! YOu know what happened? I received the worst haircut I had ever had, I do not think the girl knew in the slightest what she was doing. I said, " Okay God, from now on I will listen." LOL! I have come to realize if I stay under the headship of my husband that the house just runs alot smoother. By this I am not saying that you can never ask for things you want, state your opinion, etc... I am just saying that things run alot better if I am under my husband and actually my husband treats me very well and I want for NOTHING! Those that know us,even his customers know that I am treated very well. So being a submissive wife in short means honoring and loving your husband. And most importantly taking the job that God gave you of wife to this beloved man and doing it to the fullest. I know there are so many times I fall short but we are all sinners. Also this all means not going behind your husband's back and talking about things that he may be struggling with or things you may be frustrated with him about. I hear even supposedly christian women these days even getting together and bashing their husbands. How sad is that!!! YOur husband is suppose to be sacred to you, it should be God, your husband, your children, extended family, and then friends, etc... Many have it so wrong and that is what is so wrong with our society,. We do not view marriage as it was intended. Uh-Oh kinda got off the subject a bit, I will get off my soapbox now lol. Anyway, in closing this as I need to go do laundry I just want to say I am speaking from total experience when I obey(submit) to my husband our household runs a lot smoother. I just want to say I am so thankful that my husband takes such good care of us that it is not too terribly hard to submit to him. ;)