Who do you serve?

Interesting question, right? I want to say that my family and I serve the Lord, first and foremost, but I can’t. Sure we tithe every payday like we are supposed to, we serve at church faithfully and we trust him in all that we do. Yet, I still can’t say that we serve him daily. I try to take the time every morning to read my bible, write in my prayer journal and do our couple devotion…however, I have kids that demand a lot of my attention so I tend to serve them before I serve him. I tell myself that I will take the time after I get everyone situated and settled, which as we all know never really happens because later turns into schoolwork, work, dinner, bath time, and by the time that bedtime rolls around we are exhausted.

I am not choosing to serve him daily. I am choosing everything else.

While sitting in our tech room, operating the main screens for our Old Time Revival that we are finishing up tonight. This question has stuck with me. This message that a visiting pastor preached during this eye opening event made me want to ask this question to all of you. If Jesus were to look at your bank account, what would he see that you are serving? Mine is bills and groceries mostly lol. He is in there too, just not always first.

I am challenging myself to be better, to serve him first. What about you?

If you got this far, Thank you for listening/reading my thoughts and opinions! I hope you have a blessed day!

http://www.ndcchurch.com/sermons/

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Positives of 2020 so far…

Howdy y’all! I hope everyone is well! My family and I are happy and healthy…which with this mess is a blessing in itself! It’s hard to stay positive when so much devastation has taken place, truth? What if you chose to see it as a blessing in disguise. What if God shook your  comfort zone to wake you up. Just think about it…that job you lost, was it taking up too much of your family time? Was it hampering your growth? Guess what, God has something so much bigger in store for you.

We came to PA to visit family for a couple of weeks. Plan was to take some couple time, buy our camper and get back to our open road lifestyle….then came Covid. It put a wrench in our plans, we ended up staying with family for a few month’s bc the Campgrounds closed so we had no where to hook our camper up, no BLM land here in PA to be able to boondock. We were shook out of our comfort zone along with my inlaws who we were blessed to be able to stay with during that time…it was hard and stressful on everyone.

We bought our camper on March 10th, got hired at the campground on March 13th but couldn’t get in and hook up until May 16th. We were grounded…was it where we wanted to be for the summer. No, we had plans to travel, maybe go to Montana, Wyoming, Idaho…places we haven’t been to yet. God had other plans. We don’t know why he kept us here for this long but we know there’s a reason. Our plan is to move on around Nov 1st…hopefully all this will be done, since it will be close to election time. Question is what is God’s plan? Only time will tell. All this happened for a reason. How has this affected you? I would love to hear about your blessings!

It’s been a while so Thanks for listening! God Bless!

The best is yet to come…

As I am sitting here, listening to Coffeehouse cafe on iheart radio and writing articles for possible publication, I am thinking of this disease and how much life has changed in the blink of an eye. Everyone is scared and worrying about tomorrow, What is coming? How long is this going to last? How long is toilet paper going to be a scarce item? I feel like I am in a thriller movie about disease outbreaks…masks, gloves, quarantine, zombie apocalypse, the basics. We are currently stuck in Pennsylvania, with travel bans in place and privately owned campgrounds closing down, we don’t have much of a choice. We have to make the best out of these circumstances and live life day by day, as tomorrow is never promised. I can’t wait until life is back to normal…well at least semi normal. I want to get back to traveling and enjoying the open road with my family. If anything, this change of pace does show us what we take for granted everyday, maybe we will appreciate it more.

What do you miss? Have you been laid off or are you blessed to be able to work from home? How are you dealing with this drastic change? I am curious to see how this has affected everyone and their daily life…we are still out and about everyday, as we Doordash. What we have seen is vast emptiness where there used to be life. Empty parking lots, Restaurants building barricades so you can not go to the counter to pick up To Go orders, Small businesses with closed signs hanging on their doors…it is so sad to see our economy this way.

Please drop a comment so we can see how this affects each other, maybe it will be eye opening and bring us back to showing kindness in this dark time. Also please pray for our country and each other. We are in this together. In God We Trust!

Thank you for reading my little tidbits! God Bless!

Psalms 62:8~ Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.

Do you love your life? Honestly?

I started reading this book by Joyce Meyers…

I enjoy my life but am I fully committed to loving it daily…no I’m not. It is very easy to see the goals that we haven’t reached yet, to feel the sense of failure when your life isn’t going in the direction you thought it would.

I will be the first to say that my life is not where I thought it would be. I never saw myself as being a mom to 5 wonderful kiddos or being able to travel like I do. I always had the 9-5 medical billing job… punch in, punch out, go home, make dinner, help with homework, bathtimes, play a little, then bedtime..repeat. everyday. I thought I enjoyed it, I told myself I did but honestly that’s all I knew. I never branched out and did anything differently until God brought my husband, Alex, into my life. I swear he knew I needed some variety, some spice, to get a little shook 🙃😜 now I know traveling and having 5 kids is not for everyone but it was what I needed and I’m happier for it. Ask yourself, What do you need? Are you enjoying where and how your life is? Have you prayed about God’s path for your life?

I do not go through everyday full of joy and love for everyone, sometimes I am cranky. I am normal lol. I, however am thankful for each day that I wake up. I am thankful that God seen what I needed and blessed me with my family and being able to live his way. I am not the best Christian but that doesn’t stop me from trying to be every single day.

I love to help others and sometimes I feel like I don’t, so that kind of feeling stops me from truly loving my life. I want to publish a book, be a missionary, travel abroad. I haven’t achieved those yet, I may never achieve those, why? because if it’s not God’s plan it will not happen and I have to be ok with that if I truly want to love my life. It doesn’t mean I will give up trying though 😉 you shouldn’t give up on your dreams either but don’t let it interfere with you loving your life. Pray, breathe, live, love and enjoy..repeat. I promise it’s worth it. Thank you for reading my life tidbits! God Bless!

Do you lead or follow?

Growing up I was always the leader, never the follower. I had my own interests, my own path to make, my own agenda. I enjoyed leading because I knew what I wanted and where I was going. Following someone would have left me feeling uneasy…with lots of unknowns.

That is until I started following the right person, the one that has all my answers to my unknown questions, the one that has my path already laid out for me, the one that walks beside me everyday, the one that loves me unconditionally, he is my Good Good Father.

I have learned that you can determine your steps but if it’s not God’s will, you will not get very far. My devotions that I have written, have described one of the scenarios in which we were determined to live in Florida…well it took us hitting rock bottom for us to realize that was not his plan for us.

We live on a prayer, each and everyday. We ask for his guidance and we have learned to listen. We are a constant work in progress. We definitely feel blessed with being able to travel as a family, having the friends and family that we do and all the beauty we get to see along our journey. Trust. In. Him. So are you a leader or a follower? Thanks for reading my thoughts for the day. God Bless!

Once upon a Strasburg day…

The day was cold, the smoke billowed with the passing of the train. We found some awesome shirts and souvenirs for the kids while we waited.

Once aboard we were able to warm up and enjoy the 45 minute ride along The Strasburg Railway. We definitely plan on taking another ride, this time with the kids!

Afterwards, we went to The Pennsylvania Train Museum…

Wow! So much history! Engines, Cabooses, Passenger cars, Wagons and more…definitely a must see!

 

Dinner time at Lancaster Brewing…The food was delicious, however there was only a few beers that we liked out of the 12 samples that we tried. Our favorite was the Peanut Butter ale.

 

Playing some catch up from our trip…more to come tomorrow. I can’t believe it is 9:35 (spring forward time) and I am sleepy lol. Thanks for reading my life tidbits! Goodnight and God Bless.

The little things in life…

Our twins have set our internal wake-up clocks to the fun, ridiculous times of 3am and 6:30am so even when we are not physically with them we are still sleep deprived with them 😂 because try as you might, you of course can’t fall back asleep…maybe tomorrow morning will be different 🙃

However, this is quite relaxing and peaceful…

I do feel blessed that we get this time to just be us without having to be mom and dad in the moment. You really do feel recharged and renewed when you allow yourself to be guilt free and kid free for at least a couple of days. We as parents tend to feel guilty about everything when it comes to our kids and “taking time away from them.” We often forget that we need to take care of ourselves first so that we can be the best parents that God intended us to be. You are doing an amazing job so take a break once in a while!

Yesterday we took a 35 minute buggy ride along the quaint streets of Lancaster. We raced another buggy which was pretty interesting/funny…gotta love that raw horsepower 😜 we also got to see and hear how the Amish live…they actually take time to help each other out when life gives them lemons. Can you imagine if everyone would be that Christ like? Wow!

Today we are gonna be exploring Strasburg and taking a lovely train ride! I am so excited! I can’t wait to share that with y’all ❤ so stay tuned and thank you for taking the time to read my little life tidbits. God Bless!

Oh those moments…

Howdy y’all! Sorry it has been a while…I have not really taken the time for myself to sit down and write, I missed it. Anyhow, we are currently in Pennsylvania visiting family and getting ready to take some time for ourselves WITHOUT KIDS lol. We definitely will miss them but it is nice to be able to have that couple time without one of the kiddos randomly screaming when you are trying to talk to each other or needing their butt wiped when you finally sit down to eat…fellow moms and dads you know what I am talking about. On our drive from Florida to Pennsylvania we had about 2-3 hours where all the kids were sleeping and we actually got in more than 5 words at a time, no joke that was #goals for us. I would look back at my blessings while they were sleeping and think to myself, how can something so little and cute, make soooo much noise? There was a time where Rayne was awake and watching Baby Bum on one of our phones and Maverick was screaming because he was overtired and fighting his sleep and we told Rayne to let Maverick watch it too and this is was one of my proud moments as she looked at him, held the phone where he could see it and said ” Here you go, Buddy.” He stopped crying, watched it for a few minutes before falling asleep. AWE! be still my heart.

Being a parent is tough, you are constantly hoping that you don’t ruin your kids and that they grow into mature, semi responsible adults. You make sure they are fed and watered, clothed, get plenty of love, rest and playtime and are well educated. You may feel exasperated, tired, happy, and stretched like Gumby. That is why vineyards and energy drinks exist, right? My oldest is going on 19 years old come April, how crazy is that? I have a grown child. The time between bringing him home from the hospital and him turning 18, happened in the blink of an eye. Take the time to appreciate those special moments, don’t let everyday life get in the way of what is most important.

Thank you for taking the time to read random tidbits of my life! Many blessings!

We made it!

Howdy y’all! So while on the road I came down with the sickness AH WAH AH AH AH 😜 no but seriously I had a bad head cold along with body aches that aren’t so fun for a three day road trip 😏 so my energy was eaten up by helping drive to our destination and taking care of our minions lol. However, we did see alot of “smart” people especially in San Antonio when the left lane was ending and they wanted to go around the big giant construction board instructing them to merge now…they insisted on waiting until they were about to fall off the highway before they got over…we even left them room and they still didn’t take it, dumb dumb dumb 🙄 I was tempted to leave them stranded but figured that wouldn’t be what Jesus would do…or would he? I mean it would be humbling right lol.

Anyhow besides me not feeling 100% and those “smart” people our trip went very smoothly and we enjoyed God’s beauty along the way. We did reach our next spot….we are in

Surprise surprise huh 😜

We did have fun on a walking trail in Texas ❤️

I am starting to feel better and am looking forward to all the fun things that my stomping ground has to offer for the next 2 maybe 3 weeks. The good ole frog leg festival and clambake are coming up so who knows maybe we’ll see y’all there! 😉

I-10 Eastbound!

On the road again! There is nothing like going to bed at midnight and waking up at 3:30am to get this party started 😜 Autumn and Maverick were the easy ones to wake up, Presley and Rayne had to have a few more minutes of beauty sleep lol.

The kiddos were able to get in some last minute cuddle time with Aunt Julie and Uncle Craig while we finished packing up the SUV…hugs, kisses and goodbyes were our 4:30 send-off.

About 20 minutes into our drive Maverick, Presley and Rayne fell back asleep so we were able to talk without getting interrupted 50 million times by Rayne yelling Mom or the babes fussing lol. Most of our travels consist of the passenger turning around every 10 min or so to fetch something for one of our minions…it’s quite a workout 😉

We are thinking 3 days of travel time this go around so should make for some interesting road tales!