Home Life...

I was inspired by a Facebook friend to take pictures of my children daily. As a result, it's been precious because it has helped me cherish my girls all the more. These daily pictures are posted on their blog, Their Big World.

Last Wednesday I celebrated my 34th birthday. It was a hard day to get through because I struggled with a hardened heart all day. To make a long story short, things didn't go the way I wanted them to. I was looking forward to a quiet and low key celebration with my family, but instead it turned out to be a very stressful day. As a result of feeling so overwhelmed and stressed out, I responded many times out of impatience and anger.

As I struggled through the day and gave in to my fleshly responses of impatience and anger, I came across this verse that really struck and convicted my heart, "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Romans 6:16, ESV). Through Jesus Christ, we have been set free from the bondage of sin and with His strength, we are now able to turn from sin and go towards righteousness. Yet, when I respond according to my sinful nature, I am presenting myself as an obedient slave to it, which I am not. I am a slave to righteousness through Christ and sin does not have dominion over me, so why do I act like it?

I am so thankful that God is a God of reconciliation and restoration and that I can seek for His forgiveness and also forgiveness from the ones I sinned against. Well, in the end, I still had a nice celebration dinner with some friends and we also went out for dessert afterwards.

Other than my hardened heart on my actual birthday, my DearHubby actually made my birthday really special. He's been working hard at work and at home lately and the girls and I have barely seen him. My only birthday wish was for us to spend some time together and that's what he gave me. He gave us time when he took us to the beach to look for Cape May Diamonds the Saturday before my birthday. Then, every day afterwards, until my birthday, he had a surprise for me. At the end of my birthday, he held his arms wide open and said he had one last surprise. He gave me the biggest hug and told me what a wonderful wife and mother I am and how much more he loves me now than when we first married. It was quite romantic.

This week, we're working on getting all of our refinancing paperwork in. We pray that we can be approved for a lowered interest rate to save ourselves some money.