Gratituesday Archives | Page 11 of 40

Gratituesday: Pruning

August 26, 2013 by Laura 11 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

For my post today, I really want to type the entire chapter of John 15 and say that those words are what I am thankful for. Instead, I’ll encourage you to open your Bible and read them, chew on them, and let them teach you whatever it is you might need to learn.

I’ve been experiencing a lot of pruning in my life recently. It hurts. But it hurts in a way that brings joy. Never can I experience true joy until I let God pull from me what is keeping me from being whole. The pruning is painful. The end result is beauty.

Every time I try to serve, love, or make a decision on my own, God reminds me (with his gentle pruning) that without Him, I am a frustrated, exhausted, confused mess. “…apart from me you can do nothing” is what Jesus tells us in John 15:5. Yes, Lord, you are right.

And so, because I continually need to learn so that I can become more fruitful, I am very thankful for the pruning I receive. Is it unfruitful, Lord? Then please chop it off, cut it out, throw it away. I know it will sting. I will likely be sore. I may have to rest while I heal. But get rid of it. I just want to be fully yours.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Soccer Girls With Paintbrushes

August 19, 2013 by Laura 4 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

I’ve always loved cooking for them. Preparing hearty and healthy meals that fill the college soccer girls in the midst of hard core pre-season training has always been a joy. Blessing them by giving them home cooked meals – especially for those who are away from home for the first time – has always been my goal.

But I have to say, this year a little extra love has been stirred into the gravy. Why? Because this year, the team is returning the blessing by helping us paint our house. Truly, I don’t need anything more from them than their “thank you so much, this food is awesome” and I don’t even need those words of affirmation since their smiles say it all. But since helping us paint worked into their pre-season schedule (team bonding with paint brushes!) – I couldn’t be more pleased.

soccer-painting_2

Here was this morning’s crew. Another eight will show up tomorrow, and then Wednesday…

For several mornings this week, the army of girls will come ready to work – after their morning workout and before their afternoon practice and wow these girls are tough, hard workers. This is why they need loads of good food. :)

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m so thankful that our family can be a part of the lives of these young women. They’re great with a soccer ball at their feet, and have proven themselves to be quite handy with a paint brush. Blessings all around!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Nineteen Years and Counting

August 12, 2013 by Laura 31 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

It’s our wedding anniversary this Gratituesday!

What I am actually most excited about this year is that while soccer season has usually already started by the time our anniversary rolls around, this year it begins the day after. Wasn’t that thoughtful of the calendar to work with us this year? (Remember our 17th anniversary? While we couldn’t be together that day since Matt was away at a pre-season soccer retreat, I think that still may be one of my favorite anniversary memories.)

This year, we get to be together! And so, we’ll spend our special day schooling the kids, working on our rental properties, painting our house, doing everything we can to get ahead so that our busiest season of the year will go more smoothly. Then come evening, we’ll steal away without the kids to use a gift card at a local restaurant, and enjoy time to eat together and have real and uninterrupted conversation.

matt_and_laura_sm

Soccer season? Bring it on. But the evening before during our special date time? It’s all about us. 19 years and looking forward to many more!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Perfectly Imperfect

August 5, 2013 by Laura 19 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

We took our traditional school shopping trip last Friday. I gave up on making them pose for a picture and just snapped one when I had the chance. Here’s a post with all of our past shopping trips through the years.

0802131233

Today was our first day of school for the year. It’s easy to have grand ambitions about what all we’ll get done, about how we’ll be so much better about XYorZ this year, and most of all, about how we’ll stick to our schedule and it will work flawlessly.

Y’all, I didn’t even make a schedule this year. (And apparently, suddenly I’m southern.)

I came to the conclusion that thoroughly praying over our school year was more important than thoroughly organizing it. This year we have an 11th grader, an 8th grader, a 6th grader, and a 3rd grader. I knew that attempting to schedule our day on paper wouldn’t have worked, and in fact, this year, I didn’t even have time to get all the books organized on the shelves. We woke up anticipating our “perfect 1st day of school” with piles of books scattered in the living room, unfolded (but clean) baskets of laundry in the unvacuumed hallway, and plenty of unsharpened pencils. None of us had found the time to upload software to computers so that Math and Spanish lessons could be started right on schedule. Oh wait – there was no schedule. Well then.

This isn’t my ideal – or at least it didn’t used to be my ideal when I first started homeschooling twelve years ago. I had preferred to begin our school year with the house perfectly clean, the school books and lists perfectly organized, the meals in the fridge ready to cook themselves, and me – perfectly put together with children who were awake and grinning at the table at precisely when the schedule said they would/should be. And then when something when wrong, because it always did, I’d feel like I’d failed.

Y’all, I’m over it. (Figured since I said it once, I should say it twice.)

There is no perfect homeschool day – except for the perfectly imperfect ones like we experienced today. Today, we got a decent start, but took too long discussing the first chapter of the book of Acts – which was not on the schedule that I didn’t write but isn’t that grand because why put down the Bible for a Math lesson? We had trouble getting Spanish to work correctly on the computer, couldn’t find the Typing CD, and forgot to thaw meat for dinner.

Not to worry, Dad got Spanish working, Justus found the Typing CD, and I made tomorrow night’s Salmon Patties for dinner tonight.

At the end of the day, all of our boys are now engrossed in a great new book they started today, they are standing taller because they accomplished so much, and they feel good about tomorrow since we worked out so many kinks today. Everyone is relaxed, unexpected interruptions didn’t ruin the day, we all had some good laughs (you can’t help it in the Coppinger household), and you’d better believe, we will all sleep well tonight.

Today was my favorite kind of day. Here’s to a perfectly imperfect school year.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Oh, I Remember Now

July 29, 2013 by Laura 12 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

This has been one great and busy summer so far. Our two younger boys went to visit grandparents for a few days, then spent lots of time here at home playing with friends. Our two older boys went on a mission trip and to camp for several weeks. As a family we went on a service trip, then later to camp for a week. In the midst of it all, we have had lots and lots of company. What great opportunities God provided for the six of us this summer!

With all of the fun and craziness, I had almost started to forget what “normal” was. How many plates do I get out for each meal? How much food should I fix? It was different every day, depending on which boy was where, how many extras we had, and truly, by the middle of July, I just gave up figuring it out and just started grabbing a big pile of plates, replacing those left unused at the end of each meal. Food portions? I gave up on that too, and found that if I had too much, leftovers were welcome. If I didn’t have enough? I’d make it stretch by slicing up extra fruit or setting out veggies with ranch.

As of Saturday, we are now back to all six of us and just the six of us. It’s quite wonderful. Stories of what happened at camp, and oh yeah remember when we were painting houses on the mission trip, and has anybody seen the book I started reading back in May conversations fill the house. I’m back to making triple batches of waffles, knowing that this will be just the right amount.

At this very moment, I hear my boys playing Sting Pong upstairs. Sting Pong, you ask? Yes. You see, Ping Pong is sooooo regular. Why not see if we can smack the ball at each other from across the table to see who gets the biggest welt? Why??? Why do boys do this stuff?? Beats me, but they are laughing and proudly showing off the circle shaped rings on their skin. “It doesn’t really hurt that bad, Mom. And we need to get used to it for when we play Paint Ball at Dads-n-Lads in September.” Uh-huh, I’ll just stay downstairs and make waffles.

I remember now what it was like to have all of my family home together at the same time. Bliss.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Ah yes, this…

July 22, 2013 by Laura 12 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Well, here we are. At church camp. With the frogs. And the locusts. And those one things with a bunch of legs.

All bugs aside (and under my chair), I can tell from just one day of being here that church camp is exactly where God wants us to be this week. I’m watching our oldest son love his life as a camper. I’m watching our three other boys jump right in with their kitchen and canteen duties. I’m seeing Matt engage in meaningful conversation with youth and young adults. I’m experiencing God’s work through me as a teacher to teenage girls. And I am beginning to form relationships that I believe will be very important this week and into the future.

All I can say, is that this – this is the joy we experience when we listen to and obey God. That is why I’m here – me, the one who doesn’t “do camp.” God called me here for so many reasons. It is rich. It is beautiful.

And shucks, I haven’t had to cook a meal or wash a dish since I arrived. It’s a vacation, service opportunity, growing experience all in one. :)

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Too Cold at Church

July 15, 2013 by Laura 39 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

It was bound to happen eventually. Indeed, a few years ago, he was finally arrested and put into a well-guarded prison. Ah, one of those kind of guys, was he?

Yes, he was one who attempted to worship God in a country that did not allow it under any circumstances. Not only was this man put into prison, he endured unspeakable torture, then watched the murder of all of his family members. By some miracle, he was able to finally escape and flee from his native country to find refuge.

That’s not a fun story to hear, but perhaps it may serve to put our possible frustrations in perspective.

Do you know how many complaints I hear about churches in our free country? I’ll admit to rolling my eyes sometimes myself. (By the way, if everyone would just get on board with my way of doing things, church life would obviously be so much better.)

We all have different preferences for song selection, sermon delivery style, order of worship, carpet color, and all of the other details we deem important for our church gatherings. Okay fine. We’re allowed to have opinions. But I believe we would (should) all be very ashamed of ourselves for caring that each of our worship preference desires aren’t met when there are many who would die to even worship at all. Literally.

Okay, then I’ll be sure to pray for those being persecuted. But would somebody please tell that visitor that he’s sitting in my favorite pew and while you’re at it, suggest that the minister lose the orange plaid tie? It’s hard to look at while he’s preaching, especially when my nerves are on edge after having to sing that hymn that was pitched way to high for my voice range.

Stop it already. Nothing is perfect about any church family, but I’ve just got to say that I am so richly blessed and thankful to be a part of one.

How grateful I am that we can (at least try to) sing our hearts out at too high a pitch or perhaps a tiny bit flat when Brother Whats-His-Name is leading singing. What a joy it is to pray with fellow believers in a building right out in the open in the middle of town, even when the one saying the prayer stumbles over his words. Was there a misprint in the church bulletin? Glory be. We are allowed to type the name of Jesus on a written document.

Do I fear for my life while I worship? It’s never even crossed my mind. (Perhaps because I’ve been too concerned that people may have noticed that I wore the same outfit two weeks in a row.) The biggest fear I have in a church assembly is that the air conditioner will once again be set too low.

From now on, I’ll take a sweater just in case. Our freedom to worship God is not something to be taken for granted. The argument over chair arrangement in our Bible classrooms? I think we can let that one go.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Everything We Need

July 8, 2013 by Laura 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

You would think that after God has proven Himself to me over and over and over, I would have complete confidence in His ability to provide for my every need. Not once has He left me hanging. Never has He asked me to do something, and then sent me on my way with a little shove saying, “Good luck with that. Let me know how it goes.”

God is at work in our lives all the time. When we listen and are open to His calling, He will direct and show us just what He needs us to do. While we are doing it, He continues to equip us with everything we need so that we can carry out His will. Every time. Always. Without fail.

I should tattoo this message on my forehead. Do I actually think that I have to do anything without His help? Who do I think I am, anyway?

Just last week, I found myself doing what God had asked me to do for the day. All was well, right? No, because part-way through the morning I began to feel that He’d called me to do too much. People were coming and going and needing my assistance constantly. I had a deadline I needed to meet by 2pm that was hanging over my head. More people came and went. I became tired and discouraged, feeling sorry for myself as I trudged through the morning trying to get through all of the many tasks at hand.

Just at the moment I thought I might cry from being so overwhelmed, my house unexpectedly and totally cleared out. By totally cleared out, I mean that all of my company and even my own kids took off with sudden plans that would keep them busy and away from the house for five or six hours. I sure hadn’t seen that coming.

In a matter of a few minutes, my household had gone from chaos to quiet. I had the entire late afternoon and evening to myself. I took a two hour nap, had some much needed prayer time, warmed up leftovers for dinner, took a walk with Matt, and read a book.

Did God call me to work hard meeting the needs of others in an out-of-the-normal way that morning? Yes. Did He then provide rest and refreshment? Yes. Would it be good for me to remember that God always gives us just what we need so that while I’m in the midst of hard work and service to others, I can smile and be gracious instead of feeling sorry for myself and becoming overwhelmed? Yes. Yes. Yes.

God calls us to serve – with Him, not on our own. When we need guidance, He gives it. When we need rest, He gives it. When we need a peanut butter milkshake, He gives it. Oh yes – apparently I thought you might appreciate knowing that part of my afternoon refreshment time included getting out the blender and making a treat. Isn’t God good?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: Company, Company, and More Company!

June 24, 2013 by Laura 10 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Shucks, I don’t even have any pictures to share of our recent events. Ah well, words will have to do…

For the past few days, we have been hosting friends from out of town. My boys have had an extra little boy playmate, I have been able to get a baby-girl fix (Ladies, there are hair bows in my house!), and we adults have been catching up on all the latest.

Today, more friends drove into town. They bring with them even more boy playmates (and another little girl with hairbows). I’m guessing I won’t see my youngest boys for the next several days, until they emerge every few hours with their friends to find a bite to eat.

There is much excitement in our house tonight. Food is abundant. Board games are scattered here and there. We are all having a great time.

We are blessed to have so many wonderful friends in our lives and grateful to be able to bless them in our home.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gratituesday: The (Less Than) Perfect Day

June 17, 2013 by Laura 16 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Our boys’ schedules have been pretty full so far this summer with mission trips and camps. Our oldest two have been gone more than they’ve been home, and their summer fun has just begun.

I’m thankful to have them home for a couple of weeks after missing them while they’ve been off having grand adventures. Today, I had a great day planned (in my ideal mind). Malachi and I had appointments in Lincoln, which is about an hour away, and all of the boys needed to do some shopping, which required their feet coming along to Lincoln with me so that they could try on shoes.

Therefore, I thought that having all four of my boys together for a special outing sounded like a perfect way to enjoy time together since we’ve been so scattered for the past few weeks.

Uh-huh. Well, parts of it were fine and fun. And of course, I always love being with my kids even when they don’t act like angels. I don’t always act like an angel either, so I can’t fault them for being less than perfect. But wow. Today was a bit of a doozy.

There were too many feet and too many shoes that needed my “here let me feel your toe” expertise all at the same time – not to mention the fact that some of them weren’t looking at price tags before trying on shoes, so even if the toe was in the right place, it didn’t matter because $59 for a pair of shoes was not going to come close to making the cut. Then while one was trying on shorts, the others didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves so they found ridiculous ways to occupy themselves within the racks of clothes.

That was all before lunch. You don’t want to know what happened after that. I’m not kidding.

I’m sharing this on Gratituesday because while it’s tough to be grateful for a day that didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, and while I’m a bit discouraged and so tired I can barely type, life could be so much worse. It’s all a matter of perspective and hey, I still got to spend the day with all my boys. I’ve learned through parenting that it’s best to let go of the “ideal” and just embrace reality and be thankful for God’s grace. Today (especially the after lunch part) was a lesson in humility. It was good for me (she says as she chokes down pride).

For the record – and I may feel differently after a good night’s rest – I’m not sure I plan to take them shopping ever again so help me…or until their feet grow another shoe size, whichever happens first. So I think I should be good for about another two weeks.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

« Previous Page