I See YOUR Peanut

The other day I sat with my two girls and had a nice relaxing lunch.  Instead of eating on the go or standing up, I SAT DOWN (yes, Mommy you can sit down to eat from time to time). It was so very nice to sit and chat with my four year old and make annoying sounds to my one year old. I think I forget that Haylee is fully capable to understand me even when I don't talk to her like a little baby! As we sat and enjoyed our lunch I busted out my spicy peanuts that my dad gave me.  I really didn't want to share them because they are soooo yummy but that's when you know you've grown as s person and mommy. When you are willing to give your last bite or share something that you really really like with your children. Or husband or boyfriend or cat? Well nonetheless, as soon as the plastic crackled from my fingers starting to open the bag they KNEW I had something yummy.  Mind you at this point I'm still thinking I can "hide" the bag behind the cereal box and sneak them into my mouth without recognition. But NOPE.  Haylee starts nagging and signing for "more" and Maddy asks me to share with her. . So I share.  ONE peanut with Haylee first and Maddy looks at Haylee-looks at her peanut and then at me and says "momma, where's mine?" Mind you, I had already given her ONE peanut and it was RIGHT in front of her, but she was too busy looking at the sisters peanut and then complaining to me that I hadn't given her one to notice. WOW. What a teachable moment. For ME! 

I love when God disciplines me through me disciplining my children. It's quite hilarious. I understood him telling me that if I am caught up looking at someone else's peanut, I will never notice or enjoy my own. The act of coveting, comparison and complaint toward God are slipery slopes for me.  They trap me in a lie that I have not enough. I get stuck  in a paradigm of scarcity instead of one of plenty. When I am focusing on how God is blessing someone else and wishing I had that, I forget to look at the blessings right here in my life. I forget how BIG and loving God is and that he wants to bless me and has the capability to do so. But my attitude first needs to change. No matter what God gives me, if my attitude is one of ungratefulness and looking at the glass half empty, nothing he ever does for me will ever be enough. I want to re-wire my thinking. I want everyday to be a day of gratitude. I want to keep my eyes focused on my relationship with God and be grateful for what I already have. 

I hope you can focus on your peanuts with me! Together we can ALL eat our peanuts and enjoy that God has plenty for all of us. We serve a POWERFUL AND MIGHTY GOD! 

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Stay blessed and stay saucy!

Love, Libier

Let's Do Some Comparing Shall We!

For the better part of my life, I've been a true competitor. I love playing board games, I love being in an environment that allows my competitiveness to move me forward to new heights. Most times, I am in full competition with myself-trying to beat personal bests and all! I know that I was made this way for a reason, most days I can say that my "competitive edge" gives me a lot of benefits. However, there are times when I wish I would just be cool! I've been on a total- let's analyse the crap out of everything in my life lately so that I can become a better person-and in that, I've found that my competitiveness enables my comparison of others feature. Let me explain...

For the most part, I think I'm a pretty nice girl. I do good things and I'm "generally" good. There are sides of me that you don't even want me to tell you about that are pretty nasty. But for the most part, I'm a pretty cool cat (I think??) If I sit here in my competitiveness, comparing myself to other people, I will always be in the middle. I won't ever be as GREAT as Mother Teresa, but I'll always be "better" than someone else... I have decided that this is something I truly need help with because by comparing myself to the uttermost good weighed against the most horrible, I find myself in a mediocre middle state. Placing my judgment butt all over someones face and feeling LESS than someone else. God doesn't see us and say, "Oh Faloula is such a great person, a much better person than chippy-dip over there". He sees us Even-Stevens. We ALL have our good sides and we ALL have our dark sides. We all have a cross to bear, why is it okay for me to think your cross is more awful than mine? It's not!
No matter how we perceive it, NO one on this earth is better than anyone else in God's eyes.

I just want to stop it (tangent: you should hear my toddler saying STOP IT, it's sad but it makes me laugh inside) I want to be able to just work vertically, me and God. Trying to love on all of the people around me and not pretending that I'm either better or less than someone else. You know what I am? Me, just me. I will never measure up to anyone else because I am a unique gal that God loves as equally as the next guy. And that is okay with me.

Stay blessed and stay saucy!

-Libier