Sweet Spot of God's Grace

Welcome to my new blog! I am looking forward to this new adventure! I have been thinking about this for a while, yes I am fast to think, and slow to accomplish! Enjoy!

My plans are to use this site as spiritual journal. I have never really journalled much, but have wanted to for a long time. I never really felt the urge to write things down until now. I hope someone out there in cyber space will read this and be inspired in their personal walk with the Lord. The name of this blog came from my testimony that I gave at our Ladies in Fellowship Luncheon (LIFT for short)at Pilgrim Congregational Church in October of 2008. Much has happened in our lives since then, God sure has an ultimate plan! I believe everyone's walk is different, it's good for us to hear each other's testimonies to keep ourselves on track. We all have something important to share! Read on!

I. Let me begin by introducing myself:

I have been happily married for 19 years, and have 4 beautiful boys. They are Alex age 14, Ted age 13, Ben age 11, and James age 9. We live in Titletown USA, as it is known, or Green Bay, WI, Home of the Green Bay Packers. We have been members of our church since 1993 when we moved to Green Bay from Oak Park, IL. I currently work seasonally, part-time, at the most beautiful greenhouse in the world. Check out their website to be inspired: mayflowergreenhouse.com. The majority of my time is spent home schooling our children, who in the fall will be in grades 9, 8, 6, and 4.

II. This is my journey:

I am the daughter of two teachers. My mother has her Master's degree in music, and my father has his doctorate in Educational Administration. I have one sister who is six years older than I am, 2 step-brothers and a step-sister.

I came along relatively late in my parent's married life, and by the time I was 5 years old they were divorced. I don't have many memories of their married life because I was so young at the time.

My Mother, sister and I moved to Beaver Dam, WI and I just saw my father on holidays, during the summers and occasionally on weekends.

My Mother, being a musician, took a part-time job as the choir director for a Baptist church in town. Because she was raised Methodist, she felt that we should be members of the Methodist church rather than the Baptist, and would send my sister and I to the Methodist church on our own while she went to work at the Baptist church on Sunday mornings. I found my Methodist Sunday School very dissatisfying; My teacher was an elderly woman who had a good friend in a nursing home named "Miss White". Our entire class time each week was spent doing things for her. We made cards, cookies, and necklaces out of noodles. We made turkeys, pumpkins and Christmas decorations. I know that she was doing her part to serve the Lord, but I hated it! I HATED Sunday school. I was thirsty for more about God, much more!

Somehow I knew there was more to God than I was getting in that class room. Believe it or not, I was so upset, I began to play hookey from Sunday School. My Mother was never there at church, and my sister Jennifer, being 6 years older than I was, didn't want to be seen with me. I was embarassing to be around, you know: "the Little Sister". I didn't think anyone would miss me at the church. Jenny would stay after the service and visit with her friends. I had the key to the house and was always the first one home. So, one day instead of going inside the church after Mom dropped us off, I waited for Jenny to go in, and then turned around and walked right back home.

Each week, I would just go home and do my own thing. I made palm branches out of green colored paper for Palm Sunday, and when Mom came home I would show them to her and say "Look Mom, see what we did today in Sunday school!" I worked on memorizing the Lord's Prayer, and I even looked once or twice at my Bible. So, one day, my Sunday school teacher stopped by. It had been so long since I had been there, she thought I had been ill. The cat was out of the bag. My Mom was NOT happy, and quit her choir directing job because she said she had to "stay home and watch us more carefully." We didn't go to church anymore, and I began to seek him on my own.

I attempted Bible reading with my children's Bible that the Methodist church had given me. I am a very visual learner, and I couldn't get past those red words in the text. It was so distracting to me, no one could even tell me why they were red. What was even more irritating was that I couldn't understand what I was reading. The phrase, "The meek shall inherit the earth." especially bothered me. What did that mean? Meek? Doesn't that mean lowly? The lowest thing I could think of was a bug. I imagined a cockroach, they were low to the ground. Pretty soon I had decided that cockroaches were going to inherit the earth and we were all going to die because we were taller than they were! Now, I knew this didn't make much sense, so I gave up and quit reading the Bible.