I flip on the light. “Time to get up guys” I say in my soft loving voice. I then set their clothes next to them on their bed and head down stairs to start my morning. I shut off the house alarm, dodge random toys that litter the floor and head to the back door where my two crazy pooches are at eager to get outside. Five minutes later and still no boys, I holler (yes I said holler) up the stairs “Come on boys!” Then five more minutes go by, “BOYS GET OUT OF BED! BREAKFAST IS READY!” I am now screaming like a wild woman. Then a few minutes later they finally “grace” me with their presence. Is this what your morning’s sound like? Well I figured out a trick, not only to get your kiddos out of bed but have fun and praise the Lord at the same time. I am still old school and use a boom-box for my music needs you can use an Ipod or whatever you have that can play music. I turn on my favorite Christian radio station and jump into their room like a ROCK STAR! I begin singing at the top of my lungs and jumping around like a crazy lady sometime even playing my trusty air guitar. The look on their face the first morning is priceless if you have an accomplice make sure they are armed with a camera. Now my mornings are more like a worship service than like a screaming match. When they are eating breakfast and I am in the kitchen fixing lunches I have the same radio station on rockin’ out. I am known to bust a move right there in my kitchen. Starting my mornings off praising the Lord helps to keep me in His light all day!

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I am going to admit something to you that I haven’t told anyone. Okay I did tell my sister but that is it, other than her you are the only other person I have told. My two oldest sons have never been to the dentist. UGH! Okay I am a bad Mom! Who likes the dentist? It’s not fun and really I just want to hide my head in the sand and act like brushing is enough. It isn’t like they complain of pain or sensitivity, we eat healthy and brush! I woke up last week and realized that at some point I am going to have to take them so I called the insurance company hoping to find a pediatric dentist in our town. You know the cool ones that have the underwater theme, all the great art work on the ceiling and goofy assistants that make the kids feel at ease. Yeah well that didn’t happen, they couldn’t find any pediatric dentist in the entire surrounding area. Now for those of you that don’t know I live just outside the Nation’s capital, how on Earth can their not be a pediatric dentist in my area that takes my insurance. I honestly thought my insurance company had lost its mind so I tried calling a few of the dentists that have cool commercials. Sure enough they don’t take my insurance but the sure want to schedule an appointment and I can make payments. Sorry folks I am not crazy or rich! LOL! Eventually I found this dentist that was willing to see my boys so I set an appointment for Monday and decided that I would just keep my oldest home from school. After arriving at the house, I mean office we were greeted by three ladies that were jammed into a small office like sardines in a can. It was so hard for me not to laugh out loud at the site of them asking each other to pass things. As soon as I was done filling out the first visit paperwork, they called us back. I was not very impressed with the facility or the technician that was assisting us. I explained that this was their first visit and that they didn’t know what to expect. The lady just looked at me like I had spoken to her in Greek. She dawned her gloves and started in on telling my eldest what was about to happen and how she was going to clean his teeth. All the while I am thinking, I am never coming back here! He surprisingly sat very still and allowed her to do the cleaning and even was very good when the dentist came in and checked his teeth. Sadly he had one small cavity and I was told that his six year molars are in and that he needed them sealed. I said okay and we swapped out the boys. Now with the middle guy in the seat I braced myself for the inevitable, and the screaming began!!!! I stopped the crazy technician and had my guy look at me I said “If you want me to stay with you, you are going to have to stop screaming. They will make me leave if you keep screaming and crying.” With that he stopped and allowed the technician and dentist to do their thing. Afterwards the dentist informed us that he has four small cavities. He looked at me and said, “They have too much sugar and soda!” I was now fuming! Why must dentists assume that you feed your children junk! I stared straight back at him and said, “They don’t get soda or even juice, candy they get on special occasions!” At that he said to make a follow up appointment to get the cavities filled and sealer put on the molars, and not to worry there is no shots involved. That was the best news I heard all day! I went to the front desk as the boys got toys out of the treasure box. They told me that they had an opening on Wednesday afternoon and so I hesitated but took the appointment. Fast forward to today! On the way to the dentist the boys question me about my wedding or lack thereof. (We eloped secretly) The best part was when they asked, “Did you kiss?” and then hysterical laughter ensued. LOL, my boys constantly make me smile. After we arrive they whisk us in the back put both boys in separate chairs and got to work. This time the dentist and an assistant work on the middle guy and a tech and an assistant work on my big guy. Well, apparently the prayers and pep talk in the car didn’t work and the big guy bursts into tears and it takes 15 minutes to calm him down. All the while the middle guy is still and quiet. Who would have thought? After the appointment, I realized that first impressions aren’t always good and that you really need to give people and businesses second chances. When I arrived home I was looking over my receipt and realized that they didn’t charge me for all four of the middle guys fillings so I called the office and explained that I thought they had under charged me. The receptionist put me on hold and after a few minutes she came back on the line and said I checked with the doctor and he said the receipt is right and that he had filled all four of the cavities. Yippee! It cost me $90 less than I was quoted! God is good all the time!

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Lately I have been so focused on the negative I have been unable to see the positive. I woke up this morning determined to do the opposite. During my prayer time I asked God to show me the blessings in my life, WOW! Read the rest of this before you do that! First the dog threw up on my freshly shampooed carpet then when my friend was dropping off her baby she told me, “She has been cranky.” Which translates into hold on to your pants you are in for a rough ride today! God then played my favorite song on the radio, Beautiful by Need to Breathe! Both babies went down for a nap at the same time and I managed to read my weekly Psychology homework! I was on top of the world!!! Then my Sister-in-law will be staying at our house four days a week while she works in a neighboring town so she showed up to drop off her things before heading to her first day of work. Then my friend came by to see her baby on her lunch break, such a blessing to have some adult conversation in the middle of the day. I was eating my lunch, a salad, and telling the HILARIOUS story of how my 6 year old recently discovered jelly while at a friend’s house. I was doing what every good parent tells their child NOT to do, talk and eat at the same time. Looking back I am wondering why I was in such a hurry to eat, it’s not like a salad is going to get cold. Anyways, I started laughing and inhaled at the same time causing a piece of lettuce to get stuck in my throat. I then started to cough and was asked the normal, “Are you okay?” I replied through my coughing, “Yeah!” But I continued to cough, and in my embarrassment I ran to the bathroom. Then there I continued coughing, gagging and crying. I hear my friend yell through the door, “Are you okay?” I now cannot reply I can only exhale, cough, gag and cry. The door opens and my friend wraps her arms around me to do the Heimlich maneuver and I think to myself, “Oh man this is going to hurt!” I then realize I am getting tunnel vision and it sounds like I am in a cave, both which are signs that I am about to pass out. Suddenly out pops this innocent piece of lettuce and ahhhhhhhh I can breathe. I turn to look at my friend and all the blood has rushed out of her face and I catche a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I am pretty much purple, but I can BREATHE! There are two things I would like to point out. 1) I prayed to see the blessings in my life. 2) During the whole ordeal not once did I pray and ask God for help. Sometimes we are so focused on the negative we cannot see the positive. We are alive, we will have ever lasting life, we can walk, talk, stoop to pick up dog throw up and deal with cranky babies (P.S. she was not cranky today at all!) Even in the midst of the storm we need to seek God! God gave me such a great friend who knew how to do the Heimlich (though she never actually used it on me) and she knew when I didn’t answer her that I was desperately in trouble. The saying that comes to mind is: I am too blessed to be stressed! This is my new motto!

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When I was in my early teens I enjoyed writing  love stories and one name I used quite often was Levi. After I was married and my husband and I found out we were pregnant I told him if it is a boy we had to name him Levi. I never put any thought into what Levi meant or looked up who he was in the Bible. I just liked the name and that was that. (I will admit I googled his full name So when TimAyn and I were in one of our marathon converstations about the blog and what to write, I thought this would be the perfect time to find out just who our kids share names with. Unlike Naomi, Levi is scattered around in many books of the Bible, so in order to figure out who he was, one must jump around a bit. I would love to say that I have many uninterrupted hours to research what my hearts desire is, but the truth is some days I don’t even have time to shower. This is what I have found so far; Levi was the 3rd born son to Jacob and Leah. The birth order for him and his siblings is as follows : Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Dinah the only daughter. Jacob wasn’t exactly the best father, he didn’t set boundries on who his kids could hang out with. He also chose to live in close association with immoral people. Dinah was seeking friendship with “women of the land” (ungodly women) and in doing so put herself in a bad situation, she was raped by Shechem. He then wanted to marry her but Jacob said the only way that could happen is if all of the male townspeople were circumsized. Shechem talked with the townsmen and they agreed, 3 days later when they were all still in pain Simeon and Levi attacked the city with swords and killed all the men. They took Dinah, looted the city and took all the women and children. When Jacob found out what had happend he was concerned that the other tribes would find out, join forces and destroy him and his family. God told Jacob to get rid of his foreign gods, purify himself, change his clothes and go to Bethel. Jacob in turn, took his family and went to Bethel and built an altar to God.

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Has life ever gotten to you? Every time I open the mail, answer the phone, talk to a friend or even turn on the TV there is nothing but BAD news. I feel like I have no control over anything. The truth is I don’t, I am a worrier and I am a Christian. Sounds hipocritical and it is. We all sin, we all fall short we all have our points when we cry out REALLY LORD? I struggle to remember that life on Earth is temporary, we are here to glorify God. We are here to spread the word about the everlasting life. No one ever said it was going to be easy that we wouldn’t stumble and fall that we wouldn’t have points of saddness and heartbreak. That we wouldn’t worry and wonder why me?

My favorite scripture about worrying is Luke 12:22-26, NIV:

“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?’”

It doesn’t matter if you are in debt up to your eyeballs and feel like the world is crashing around you, the Lord is going to provide. Praise Him through the storm and stay faithful. These are the times that I turn on some praise music and sing at the top of my lungs. I have noticed that once you start to praise Him your mood changes you realize that all the worrying in the world isn’t going to change the circumstances. God isn’t going to call you on the phone and say “Here is my plan so stop worrying!” You must stand in faith that God is in control and will take care of you, He will provide. What is happening right now may not make sense to you today or tomorrow but one day you will wake up and see why you went through what you went through. Many moons ago I learned that we would give up today if we knew what was going to happen tomorrow. Think about that for a second, would you walk on hot coals today if you knew that tomorrow there was going to be a bridge over those coals? Of course not! But God may want you to walk over the hot coals today so that tomorrow you can place your blistered feet in the cold river and meet the fisherman that is fishing in that river.

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“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

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