Betsy G. entry #98! (Email me to redeem your prizes.)

Happy Friday Everyone!

It’s time for our seventh I am a Storyteller link-up!

I am so excited about this month’s topic and can’t wait to hear all of your stories. I think this month’s link-up with be so fun to read because I love hearing people’s memories. And I know that as we share our Memories (get full prompt here), we will show different aspects of God’s creativity.

Whether we share our stories through writing, photography, dance, music, or art each one of us will uniquely point to God. We may have a thousand different voices, but we will be telling a single story. We will be telling the story of God. And our stories will point to a person- Jesus!

I want to encourage you to share your story. We need your voice. Only you can share it!

–Scroll to the bottom to add your link!–

My Odd Ride

The dark Egypt sky was dotted with a million stars. I had never seen lights decorate the sky like it.

At the bottom of Mount Sinai, I waited in the dark with my siblings, mom and dad. We had planned to ride camels up the mountain during the night and then watch the sun rise together. I was 19 years old and it was my first time in Israel and Egypt.  

Standing still, I waited at the bottom of the mountain until I was abruptly grabbed by the arm and jerked forward. As I sprinted behind a Bedouin man, I tried not to trip over any rocks. My hair flew back in the wind as I tried to keep up. The tight grasp on my arm wasn’t broken until I reached a camel.

As I stared at the large animal slightly shaking from my unexpected run, the man grabbed me around the waist and flung me up onto the camel.

In the next moment, I was being elevated into the sky as the camel rose from its knees. I desperately looked around for my family as I was propelled in the air, but they had disappeared behind me in the dark.

I began to tell the Bedouin man to wait. I wanted to ride with my family, but he sufficiently ignored me. My heart began to beat faster as he led the camel away from where my mom and dad were. “Wait.” I called out, but he ignored me.

Before I could stop him, he led me away on a camel.

I sat motionless.

My imagination gave way to fear as my eyes grew big. I was being kidnapped. In Egypt of all places.

“I want you to wait for my dad,” I pleaded with the robed man. “I want you to wait for my family!” By that time, the way he was ignoring me made me think he didn’t speak English. After all he hadn’t said a word the whole time.

Slouching on my camel, I looked back into the darkness. No family. It was just me and the strange man.

After five minutes of trying to figure out what to do, I gave up. I wasn’t jumping off the camel, I’d just break my leg and then he’d put me back on the camel. I wasn’t going to scream my head off because I’d spook the camel and surely my dad saw me leave and didn’t make a big deal of it.

I gave in. I sat. I prayed.

Then he spoke. The words that came out of his mouth were not at all what I had expected.

“You have very beautiful eyes… like the camel” He stated.

I threw my hand over my mouth, as I almost exploded in laughter. I wanted to say “oh thank you! I’ve always wanted to look like a camel.” But I held back and barely whispered “thank you.”

“You know…” the man continued “We Bedouin men must marry foreign women.” That was when I almost lost it.

I wanted to shout, “Not this foreign woman buddy. I will not accept any marriage proposals from men who throw me on camels and then ignore me… and who can speak perfect English… which means you knew exactly what I was saying back there.”

In reality I just stared at him with crossed eyes. My expression read, “Are you serious?”

I wanted to make up all kinds of stories about having 6 foot twin sons who would beat him up if he said anything else, but he interrupted my thoughts.

He then looked at me, not taking the hint, and said, “You like music?”

“Yeah!” I meekly answered. I was happy to talk about something other than marriage.

With the answer barely off my lips, he jerked the camel down. I plummeted toward the ground still on top of the camel. Holding on tightly I managed to keep my balance. He then adjusted the saddle and pushed a button and music started playing.

But it wasn’t the kind I was used to. It was like the creepy music that plays when everyone is about to die on a TV show.

My eyes were so big, and I started praying again.

My thoughts soon ran wild,

“Who has a radio on their camel anyway? Where is this guy taking me?” Whining inside of my mind I asked, “Why did I ever decide to travel to Egypt anyway?”

About that time my camel tripped. The rock that caused his foot to stumble fell off the side of the mountain and it seemed like a whole minute before I heard it crash at the bottom.

“I’m going to die!” I whined to myself. “If this guys doesn’t kill me, the camel will. I’ll probably splat at the bottom of the mountain only to have a camel fall right on top of me.”

As I gave way to fear, I saw a hooded man lurking behind a rock. As we drew closer to him, I could see that he was staring at us as if he had just woken up.

Whimpering inside my head I thought, “And if the camel doesn’t take me out, that hiding guy will.”

I gave up. My lot in life was to die a strange death in Egypt or maybe I would have to marry a Bedouin man and never see any of my friends or family again.

Right when I was about to despair, I heard a small glimmer of hope.

I heard my brother’s voice.

He came riding up on a camel behind me. I had never been so happy to see a familiar face in all of my life. I wanted to jump off my camel and hug him, but I refrained. I simply yelled to him, “Hi! Where have you been? I’ve been here all alone.”

I am happy to report that my brother and I made it up Mount Sinai and we were happily reunited with the rest of our group. Nobody was hurt, killed, kidnapped, or married on the way up and we were all happy about that.

I enjoyed the canvas of sparkling stars and then the most captivating sunrise. It was so beautiful that a few short years later I was doing it again, this time with my 6’3 husband by my side. Thankfully there were no marriage proposals, weird music, or tripping camels on that ride either.

***

As we are about to transition into summer mode, I want to take some time to set some fun summer goals for our family, and spend some time getting our house more organized. I think I’m going to take a little break (maybe a week or so) from writing on here so I can get things in order. Also we’ve had a lot of sickness around our house so we are all feeling a little drained. Mark and Elias have had it the worst, but they are troopers.

We will still have the I am a Storyteller link-up on the 23rd. And I hope you’ll link-up and share your story with us! And if you haven’t entered the May Group Giveaway, there are two days left. Your chances of winning are really good this month! 

Happy Tuesday!!!

Kindertype | The Marvelous Flight of Cara | Boutique Sui Numeris | Dots Pots

***Enter below using the Rafflecopter***
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Prompt:

This month I would like to hear your story about any of your “Memories” Some ideas you could share are:

• Share a story about memories from your daily life. (Ex: Childhood story, marriage story, a baby story, How God has worked in your life, etc…)
• What memories do you have about God working in your own heart? This could be anything from what you learned in Scripture to how the Lord encouraged you through a fellow believer.
• Express a memory by posting pictures.
• Tell us about an embarrassing or funny memory.
• Photograph something that reminds you of your memory. Paint your expression of it. Write a song or poem about it.
• Convey “your memory” in your own creative way.

Remember this is your voice, and your way of communicating. Feel free to write a story, share a song you’ve written, a picture you painted, a dance you performed, a photo you took, etc…We need your voice. It shows the beauty of Jesus and His creativity. And it really gives Him honor when you know and show His greatness!

p.s. If you don’t have a blog, you can still participate!!! Simply leave your story or ideas in the comment section. We would all love to interact with you there too. And if you are new to this link-up you can read my heart behind it here.

—–

“Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered”  -Psalm 105:5

Lately I’ve really been enjoying my job as a reporter. I’ve been able to interview some really fun people, and I’ve even been taking a few more risks in getting stories. Sometimes I pretend that I’m Lois Lane from the old Superman comics and that always makes writing and interviewing  such a fun adventure.

Last month here on the blog, I wrote a post about my friend Jessica whose baby was diagnosed with Non-Immune Hydrops and recounted how God miraculously healed her. I had such an overwhelming response to that post through email, and Facebook that I knew people in our local community needed to hear Evie’s story too.

So I set up a time to interview Andy and Jessica. I won’t lie I was nearly in tears several times as I heard them describe her story again. I forgot so many of the scary details and how much of a miracle she is. It made me so thankful to get to share her story with the people in our city. And it was an honor to share a testimony about what the Lord had done.  

Evie’s article came out on Mother’s Day, which I thought was so perfect. And to our surprise she was even mentioned on the front page. Andy and Jessica did such a good job in giving Jesus all the glory. And they really showed how He  sustained them, and how He came and healed their daughter. If you’d like to read her story you can here. The full story is on page A-7.

Happy Wednesday friends!

Have you heard of the “mommy wars” that go on? I had no idea they existed until I was pregnant with Elias, but sure enough they have been happening since before I was born. And sometimes it can get brutal.

Mommies have opinions on labor and delivery, cloth diapers vs. disposable, breast feeding vs. bottle feeding, crying it out vs. not, wearing baby in a sling all day vs. only sleeping in a crib. The list can go on and on. And it can be exhausting.

Here are a few thoughts I have on the “mommy wars”…

1. The Bible has a lot to say about parenting. Before we get into all of our different opinions, let’s submit ourselves under the word of God. That is the pathway to life. And the Bible should have the final say in our lives.
2. A lot of the things that are argued about in the “mommy wars” are not moral issues, so it is ok to have different opinions. If you think someone else’s method is silly, don’t stress out about it because they have to live with it. If they want to nurse every ten minutes, let them. If they want to drive their baby to sleep every night in the minivan, let them. Instead of arguing with them about how your way is better, pray for your friend. Ask God to give them wisdom and insight on how to be a best parent they can be. And then pray for your own parenting. We all have blind spots and each one of us could use insight from Jesus. And most likely if their method really is silly, they’ll figure it out or come asking for help.
3. You can be opinionated about your own family and babies. It is kind of freeing to know that you can have an opinion. The key is gearing that opinion toward your own family. I think it would be way more helpful to spend time and energy investing in our own children rather than arguing over silly little things that probably won’t matter in two years. I mean in a few years these babies won’t even be in diapers anymore so does it matter if they were cloth or disposable? I suggest that you read up on parenting. Find out what the Bible says and implement it. Find Christian friend’s that you respect and ask them questions about parenting. If you like the way their children act, ask them questions. Then have your opinion.
4. Remember unwanted advice often sounds like criticism. Believe me the last thing you want is Mommy bear attacking you. I think so often moms get defensive because our opinions and advice make it seem like they are failing at motherhood. They want to do a good job in parenting, so instead of spouting off all your opinions on unwanted ears, spend time investing in your kids. And wait for an opportune time to talk.
5. Share your opinion if asked. It isn’t bad to talk about your parenting style or what you’ve found to be helpful, there are some new moms that genuinely want and need your help. And it is such a fun thing to get to share and relate our own experience. Oftentimes the more we invest in our own kids, the more people will ask for help.

What do you think? Have you gotten involved in the mommy wars?

—–

Today I’m linking up with Kelly’s blog to share about being confident in your motherhood choices.

1. Have coffee, breakfast, or something that gets you going before you write.
2. Set a time to write. A lot of people love early mornings because the day is fresh and there are less distractions, but find whatever time works best for you and your family.
3. Don’t check social media or email before you write. Before you know it, you’ll have spent too long browsing and all of your original inspiration will have run out the back door.
4. Write. Write anything, just do it. Practice.  
5. Reward yourself when you’ve accomplished your goal. Little rewards help projects get done and keep you moving when words feel like never ending puzzle pieces.

Being a mom is one of the greatest gifts and biggest callings in the world!

Today I am living my dream by caring for, nurturing, and loving the little people God has given me. Happy Mother’s Day to all you precious mommies who are giving of yourselves daily.

And to those of you who are feeling loss, and longing today. I am praying for God’s mercy that is new every morning. May you know Jesus’ peace even in this suffering. This post is great for the Mommies who’ve lost babies, and for the women who are longing to be mommies with all of their hearts.

Also starting June 1st Held Your Whole Life will be offering free necklaces to mommas who had to say goodbye to their babies too soon! I recently received one for the baby I lost and I love it.

Happy Mother’s Day!

—–

I have never taken a yoga or pilates class, so Elias decided he would try to teach me. He is pretty much a pro, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do these moves. How are babies so flexible?

1. Try to touch your toes!
2. Grab a tooth brush and squat.
3. Find a tape measure and then try to throw your leg around your neck like a scarf.