My heart is broken, but I STAND, trusting God that He is moving on my behalf and on behalf of my family. I have seen first hand what addiction does to people and it terrified me. How can people who wake up the next day and not remember most of the day before, claim that everything is fine and that there is no problem? How can you say you love your child, but put pills and other terrible things before them? That is NOT love! I have done all that I know to do to help, but help can only go so far when someone is not willing to change. Now it is in God's hands, right where this situation belongs. I release it to my Heavenly Father!

I've had a pretty emotional day. I finally made it to the tax office today to figure out our tax returns. And while I feel extremely blessed that we are actually getting money back for both federal and state, I'm really bummed that we won't get enough to pay for a Florida vacation. My parents are down there for several months and I was really looking forward to seeing them again. I had it all planned out. My husband was going to spend just a week there and I was going to stay for 3 full weeks with the kids. I guess God has something better prepared for us here. We are trying to live by Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover plan, so I know that the Lord will bless us for being good servants with his money. I'm looking forward to seeing how He will multiply what He's given us!

Memories of my Favorite Preacher

I grew up in a Pentecostal church. In fact, my grandmother was the preacher. She was truly one of the most wonderful people I have ever known. Thinking about her the other day, brought me back to her church in downtown Cincinnati. I was about 11 years old at the time. I loved to sing, so my mom and I would always get up there and sing songs together. We would always sing, "Children go where I send thee. How will I send the oh, I'm gonna send thee four by four. Four were the four who stood at the door. Three were the Hebrew children. Two were Paul and Silas. One was the little bitty baby. Born of the virgin Mary. Down, down, down in Bethlehem.". This wasn't just any church, but a spirit-filled church. And my Mamaw didn't try to hide anything. Those doors were always open. I remember people running out into the streets, filled with the Holy Spirit. They'd run back in, run up and down the aisles and even jump over the chairs.

There were points where I doubted some of the things that were going on. I thought people were just acting, trying to please God. It's funny that I thought this, because many of these things were also happening to me. But I was a kid. Wasn't running around with a joyful spirit just normal? My biggest doubt though was when people fell out in the spirit. This also happened to me, but I could've sworn someone was down there pushing on my legs. Here's what happened on the day that I discovered that me falling out in the spirit was very real and it was definitely from God.

I went to church as usual, but I was sick and tired of wondering who gets down on the floor and pushes on my knees when I'm standing up front getting prayed over. I determined that this time, I would peak! So here I am with my arms up in the air and my eyes closed. There are people all around me speaking in tongues. And then I felt it. Somebody was down there tapping on my knees. So I peaked! It scared me half to death when I realized there was no one there. And then I immediately fell out in the spirit! I praise God for that moment. I had a major increase in my faith that day and it has stuck with me for my entire life.

I thank the Lord for a grandmother such as mine. She opened so many doors for me and taught me so much about Him. This story is just one of the great memories that her memory blesses me with.

THE SCHEDULE THAT IS CHANGING MY LIFE

I'm a very busy mom of two boys with very different lives. One is a tween and I homeschool him. The other is 3 1/2 and he goes to preschool during the day. Outside of homeschool, I go to the gym, spend daily time with the Lord, manage the preschooler when he's home, clean the house and keep a close watch on our money because we are doing Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover".  I also sing at church with our frontline and our choir. We have practices one night a week and I will be singing at least every 3rd week, both on Sundays and Wednesdays. I will also be working with K-5th graders at church to teach them three songs that they'll be singing for Easter. I love to sing and I love kids!!! I also have my own business, which I absolutely love. I have 89 people on my team and I'm trying to be a better leader for them, but sometimes it's tough to balance everything. There's so much more that I do, but I don't want to bore you with anymore details.

The reason I said all of this is to help you understand that I have a LOT to balance. I've always wanted to stick to a schedule, but thought it was just a lack of discipline that was stopping me. I've recently discovered that wasn't the problem at all. I don't know how many times I wrote out a general, weekly schedule. I would block off so many hours a day for my business, homeschool, church, etc. During those blocked off hours, things just weren't getting done like I wanted them too.

Here's what I finally found that works for me and I hope that it will be of help to you.

My new schedule has my entire day planned off in half hour time slots. I only plan one day at a time, the night before. This is very important for me. My husband's work schedule changes every day, so this is a major reason that what works one day, may not work the next. Another thing that has been a tremendous help for me is being very specific on what I'm doing during each half hour. So, instead of just saying "homeschool", I would write "Spelling & Grammar" in on a 1/2 hour time slot. Instead of saying "work on business", I would say "make calls to book parties". If I'm not able to finish something during that time frame, I stop anyway. I can either finish later in one of my free spots where I've marked something like lunch break, or if something else doesn't take the full 1/2 hour I can finish then...or if all else fails, I transfer it over to tomorrow's list.

With this new system, I've had more energy because I'm intentional on getting to the gym and starting my day with it nonetheless. I also get more accomplished in one day than I would've have done in a month. No joke!

I would love to hear your experiences with schedules and how you try to keep life balanced. Feel free to leave your comments below.