Month: January 2017

My House Might Be Messy… But The Coffee Pot Is Always On….

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I find myself so busy these days and yet I also find myself reaching out to others more and more. Maybe it is because that I see a need in others as well as my self. Many years ago I had a friend who grew up in a poor family.  She recalls that there was always a pot of soup cooking on the stove top for dinner. Her mother always made the remark….”let’s not forget to add a little extra water this time”.  She would continually ask her mom….why do we need to always add the water, and her moms reply was…” because you never know who might stop by and need to chat and we will offer them dinner too”.

What an inspiration for me!!

To think she was ready for a unannounced guest.  What would you do if someone came knocking tonight?  Would you have to run around and hide those things no one should see?  Would you have to turn off the TV for the shame of what you are watching?  Would you just not feel like talking and maybe not even answer the door? Stop and really think with me for a moment….if an guest came over unannounced what would you do?

I have family and friends that when I have knocked they greeted me on the door step and we chatted there.  I was never asked in, I never felt welcomed.  The “Pop-In” visit can make you feel like you have invaded someones territory.
Ever since I heard that soup story….I don’t have a pot of soup on but… I do tell my friends img_0330and family that ” the house might be mess but the coffee pot is always on”.  We have had so many friends pop in, visit, take a meal with us etc…. We love to hear feed back like….”when I visit you house it is a home”, “I feel welcomed”, “WOW…..it fells like a safe haven”, “I love the way your house smells”… (candles burning, coffee pot on etc….) and other wonderful remarks like this. I have told my kids that this house is not ours…the Lord gave it to us and we need to use it for Him.  I remember the night we moved into the current house we are in ….my husband made us bow our heads and thank God for it and asked Him to use it for His work.
What has happened to the gift of hospitality?  What has happened to the gift of friendship?  The Bible speaks clearly on both of these matters and since the Bible has not changed why have we changed?
  • Do you have this gift?
  • Do you enjoy having people over?
  • Do you enjoy being an encouragement?
  • Do you enjoy serving the Lord?

Did the Lord give you a gift of a home that you know you should be using for Him?

We should use our gift of hospitality and be the type of person who have the attitude of an “Open Home”….we then would make others feel welcome.  I have spent many hours sharing a cup of coffee or tea with a friend and we have had some life cimg_1571hanging moments from it.  When we have a friend who needs a hug, a smile, a simple kind word…are you one of the first people they think of?

Do they consider your home a place where they feel like kicking off their shoes, having a cup of coffee, curling up on the couch and sharing their hearts?

My mother always told me that you can never tell when an angle might knock at your door for some hospitality.  Have I entertained angles in my home.  Just think of that!!!

The gift of hospitality doesn’t mean that you need a fancy home, lots of pretty things, lots of money or fancy food.  It is an attitude that you create when people enter your home through the front door ( that means ….yes you need to let them in!).
Roman 12:14
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

I Peter 4:9 a

Show hospitality to one another without grumbling….

Luke 10:38 b

….a woman named Martha opened her home to Him.

Hebrews 13:1-2

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.  Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

Ladies, I know some of us work out of the home and also need to take care of our homes and family in addition.  I know life is crazy with the kids and schedule.  But we need to share this gift with each other.  It is time to dig out those teacups that grandma gave you, wash the coffee mugs, buy a few items to stash in the pantry to serve when someone pops in.  Sweep the dirt off timg_0328he porch and have the coffee pot ready.  You know never know….I might coming popping in on you one day soon for a chat!!!

Come join with me and start a few trend of “HOSPITALITY on the Rise”, make this gift a gift again!

Leave me a comment below and tell me how you have entertained and made people feel welcomed in your home.  Let me know if you are willing to join with me and to use this gift that we have been given.  I would love to hear from you!!!

Lynn A.C. Wilson – Resume of a Mother

Modern Day Working Mama with a homespun twist and a dash of special needs and disabilities – a life of adventure a constant new norm!

A life filled with Routine or a Life of Adventure…..

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img_0775I am a Modern Day Working Mama with a homespun twist and a dash of special needs and disabilities – a life of adventure with a constant new norm. 

 I just love to watch people and how they live their lives, I try to figure out why they do what they do and I learn about what I like and don’t like and how I want to live my life. It got to thinking today when I watched three people who are in my life…and how they are living their lives, and if I want to this that way. 

Do you ever people watch?  I have a friend who fullsizerender-2was
sharing witProcessed with MOLDIVh me that he and his wife where having a “discussion” about what to buy at the food store.  Now you might ask “what is the big deal”…but we have all been there. Discussing, fighting, arguing about which Ice Cream to buy, what brand of bread to get etc…. It sounds silly and it really is and yet we let this get to us.

I have another friend who has a very, very structured life.  She maps out her life in increments of time and activities.  She will work her 8 hours and 8 hours only.  We will plan for evening after work, to take on one task which can include baking. When she goes home….she will prep, bake, clean up and call it a night. Mind you I would be washing dishes, doing a load of wash, listening to a You-Tube channel and stirring the pot for dinner …all while baking.  Her life is so planned out and she never deviates from this.

I have another friend who as I would like to say…gets upset over a pen falling on the floor.  She is wound up so timg_1913ightly that everything in life seems to bother her.  She can bully anyone in her path for the smallest thing they have done wrong and yet if you try to talk to her about anything she will burst into tears with fits of anger.  Yikes!!!

I have two other women in my life who I admire for the way they adapt to life.  Both of them deal with a “special needs” situation in their life.  One seems to run with ease …I know she will tell you that is not the case, but to me she does.  The other friend seems to just live life and take on new adventures anytime they pop in her life.

Now getting back to a life of structure or a life full of adventure…..well, you probably guessed it, I will take the life of adventure.  Yes it can be filled with chaos at times, it can be filled with half done jobs, dishes in the sink, laundry not done and drive-through for dinner. But life is too short to worry about a pen dropping on the floor, it is too short to worry about which ice cream or bread to buy and it is too short not to taste life at its finest.

If you have read my story and the journey that I am on….my life is never normal and it is always a moving target to finding a new normal.  I am a “Modern Day Working Mama with a homespun twist and a dash of special needs and disabilities – a life of variety a constant new norm”!!!img_9065

I work full-time, I am involved in three distant ministries, I homeschool, I am a mom of a special needs son, I am a wife of an epileptic,  I am a mom of adult children, I am a women who strives to live out her dreams, I am a women who loves to blog, craft, scrapbook, be a planner nerd, try new things, travel, make homemade soups, decorate her home and much, much more.

Some people ask with delight how do I do it all….they watch me on Facebook and see how full my life is.  Some watch with judgement and question all that I do and wonder if my life should be more structured.  Some watch with wonder and they would love to live this way but are afraid to step out and try it.

Now my dishes do get washed, and my laundry gets done…..we don’t run around in dirty cloths. I do stay at home and with a task list in hand at times and “try and get more organized”. fullsizerenderYet on the other hand….life keeps calling, new places to see, new things to taste, new adventures to try with my family.  I have people to meet, lives to encourage, people to share great experiences with, people to mentor, people to learn from and a whole lot of life to LIVE.

What Journey are you on? What path have you chosen to live? This is your life and your choice to make…..what do you like “structure”, “wound up tight”, or “a little chaos”?  Tell me your story in the comment below…I would love to hear from you today.img_0921

Follow me on my blog for some fun, new and interesting topics.  Like my blog post  and share with a friend who might need to rethink how they are living their life.

 

Lynn A.C. Wilson – Resume of a Mother

Modern Day Working Mama with a homespun twist and a dash of special needs and disabilities – a life of adventure a constant new norm!

Ringing in the New Year….. How depression and FEAR had taken over … learning to adapt and changing my perspective!

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For years….and I am not sure why exactlring-in-the-new-yeary, the New Year was one of the most depressing times for me and I could not handle the midnight celebration that comes with New Year’s Eve.

When I was a kid….we would always go to my Aunt Kay’s house with lot and lots of munchies and tons of food …of course was one of the favorite parts of the evening.  As kids it was also a treat to hang out with the cousins and stay up past midnight and not get told that it is past our bedtime. Another great part of the evening was…the memories of my mom and her 5 sisters dancing together to the “oldies” music.  I absolutely loved watching them dance around as if they were young school girls again while giggling together.  Even today when that type of music is playing somewhere….I have those wonderful fond memories pop into my head.

My teen years….well we had a great night of food, games, memories, shared stories, songs and a message at church.  We were renting a local school gym and I can remember it as if it were yesterday…carrying all the chairs, tables, food and decor in and out for these events. memories as well.

Then during my college and career age ….I would hang out with my friends and have a get together at someone’s house and play games until the wee hours of the morning.tree-of-depression

When I became a mom and my hours and my husband’s hours at work changed……each year would be something different from year to year and what event we could attend.  I am not really sure where the depression for the New Year came from but I do remember it being such a rough time ….not being able to deal with it when it came on. I am not trying to make light of the depression but I am not going to dwell on it and or the details of this horrific time for me. It was a bad time but learning to move on is one thing I have had to do. I do believe FEAR and the ripple effect it can have over our lives played a big role in this for me.

My husband said one year when he saw me almost loose it…..while I was watgo-to-bedching the clock tick and turn towards midnight….”why not just go to bed”.  It was like an epiphany.  Why not just go to bed?  Why did I not just think of that. Just think I could go to bed and wake up the next day and keep going and not dwell on the fact that at 12:01 AM the new year arrived.

After doing this for several years….. (Of course he would sit up and watch the ball drop in NYC for himself), I adjusted back to “normal” or at lease my normal….. and was able to deal a little better with the whole New Year’s Eve thing.

This past year in 2016 ….was a year that I entered into feeling like it was going to a year of challenges, new beginnings, and a full year of events.  That it was!!!

God had prepped me for this in a small way by preparing my mind with these feelings noted above.  It was by far one of the toughest years for us.  It was the first year without my father-in-law on this earth. It was a full year of firsts for things at church, at my work, with my Autistic son with some of his new norms and a year full of many, many , many….seizures with my husband. It was probably the most challenging year in our almost 30 years of marriage.

As I reflect back…..I realize that when I wrote my first blog…..”Normal is a moving Target”, how true this statement is in my life. And how far in many areas of my life I have learned to adapt and have a fresh new perspective!

My families “normal” would not be normal to most.  I don’t think that I ever make plans that pan out in the way we even ever thought they would.  I am sure many of you also feel the same way.

john-15-7This year again New Year’s Eve came and went but with a different twist.  I have to say I am a BIG fan of Dave Boyer and he was in concert for New Year’s Eve where I work.  Just think of that…..I was able to work and see him in concert at the same time….oh boy did this bring back some childhood memories of the “oldies” and my mom and her sisters..  What a treat for us and then we headed home around 11 pm and you guessed it, “I went right to bed”, before midnight could set in.

The next day of course was New Year’s Day 2017.  I worked 7-3 that dafile_000-6y and when I got home my hubby said let’s go out and grab a bite to eat at the new local restaurant called the Mellow Mushroom. You might have one near you.  Well, what a great place….it is on my favorites list!!!.

Now I saved the best part of my story for last!!! That same day my hubby and had our devotions separately and both felt we were given a verse by the Lord.  Mine was John 15:7 and my husbands was I Timothy 3:15 -17.  As we were walking out of the house to head to dinner we were sharing this with each other.  As we walked towards the van the night sky was so full of stars…..so brightly lit like we have not seen in years since we were kids.  The North Star was actually twinkling and the moon seemed to shine right around it, as if it was talking to us.  We both looked up and at the same time…..spoke out loud the word “HOPE”.  Nothing mystical happened at the moment….but for us….we felt like the Lord was giving us that very moment in time of a clear chance to see HIS handiwork.  It was a little sign to us …..that this night’s evenings sky was just for us. It was a clear sign and direction for us to continue claiming our verses He gave us, and that this would be a year filled with hope.women-of-faith

We took that special moment in time, the 2 bible verses and a few other things that happened on that day and called it “the most encouraging New Year’s day that we have ever had”.

Happy New Year everyone….share your story of how you enjoyed your New Year’s Eve and or what the Lord has shown you already in this New Year of 2017.

Lynn Wilson – Resume of a Mother