my portion

Tonight I felt like I needed some 'me and God' time.  The house is quiet.  Everyone asleep.  I opened up Psalm 119 and began to read.  I got to verse 57: 'You are my portion, Lord.'  And instantly the statement was rearranged and turned into a question: 'Are you my portion, Lord?' 

Are you my portion, Lord?  I like to think that you are.  I love you.  I want to live my life for you and that goal is usually in the back of my mind.

My mind drifted back over the day.  I look back at this day with many regrets.  I did a garage sale today.  Business was slow.  In between customers, I filled my time with useless things.  Internet, picking up toys, counting the earnings again, thinking of and planning the next house project, talking on the phone.  Meanwhile, my kids are watching tv, or trying to play with me as I'm day-dreaming (off in la-la land), hugging me and whispering 'I love you' while I chat away on the phone.

Jordan has been working a lot lately and motherhood has been overwhelming.  I miss Jordan when he's away but when he comes home again, we don't make the best use of our time but fill it in with more useless time-suckers.

My regrets of this day make me yearn to do it all over again or to do it better tomorrow.  My family is my LIFE.  I want to be my kids' and Jordan's best friend.  I want them to think back to these days and remember how much fun we had playing together.  How much I did for them.  How I was always there for them and never preoccupied with anything else.  But somehow.... I. just. can't. get. it. right.  My priorities are always scattered.  I want to have structure AND a relaxed atmosphere at home; a neat and tidy house AND playdough stuck to the floor as evidence of our playtime.  I want to enjoy my husband and the kids and I want them to enjoy me.

And that's what priority number one always comes down to: my family.

Are you my portion, Lord?

No.

At the end of the day am I more often concerned with my family or my Lord?

I felt like God asked me, 'Lindsey, would you give me your garage sale profits?'  Yes, I would.  'Lindsey, would you give me your hobbies, would you be content with what you have?'  (Sigh, but...) Yes.  'Lindsey, would you give me Jordan, Natalie, Ruby, Charlie, the baby?'

.........Please don't ask me to, Lord. 

I know that everything has come from you and I feel like I could give you anything you ask for.  But my family?  I don't know exactly what this question means.  At first I think He's asking me to place them in His care.  But then I feel like He's actually asking me to let go of them.  To give myself to Him and my family to Him.  To take them off the pedestal and to put Him on the throne instead.  I know that the throne is His rightful place but I also feel like it's up to me and me alone to do this mother/wife job.  I feel like He shouldn't concern Himself with my duties.

But maybe that's why I'm struggling now.  And I know that it is the reason for this overwhelming feeling of regret and responsibility.  I am not allowing Him to help me.  Sure, God's a part of these relationships but He isn't at the center of them. 

What if I were to lose everything today?  How would I 'deal' with God?  Would I lean on him or be upset because He took something that was mine?  It scares me to give my family to God because I know that He gives and takes away.  And I am not worthy of this family He's granted me. 

Neither am I worthy of Him.  Yet, he gave up Himself for me.  HE gave himself up for ME.



(Big pause....  Long reflection of what I cost Him)



"Lindsey, can you give up your everything for me?  Your family and yourself?  Can you trust me?"

Yes, Lord.... when I consider what you have done for me, what you have given to me in the first place.  I need your help.  I desperately need your guidance in every area of my life.  I need you to get my priorities straight.  I need you to help me in my role as wife and mother.  Because, as you so very well know, I cannot do it alone.  And if giving you my family ever comes to mean what I fear most... may I worship you still for what you have granted me.

And may You ever be my portion.

deja vu...

We had the 20 week ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and it was confirmed to us that we're having another GIRL!!  She is healthy and beautiful weighing in at one whole pound (which makes me question my weight gain).  We had the ultrasound tech write down the sex of the baby and we brought the paper back to the kids and mom and dad Barkel who were watching them.  Natalie took the paper out and read what it was.  Jordan was hoping for a boy (just for Charlie's sake, of course) but I know he'll manage to love this little girl just as he adores Natalie and Ruby.  It's still hard for me to fully believe that this is a girl since sometimes the ultrasound techs are wrong.  But they were right with Natalie and Ruby (we didn't find out with Charlie). 

I've been feeling really great...gotta love the second trimester.  I am 6 months pregnant already.  This pregnancy is going by much faster than my other pregnancies!  I feel like I've put on more weight at this point than with the others.  And I also feel much more run-down this time around (maybe it's due to the 100 degree weather and my other 3 kiddos?!)  But the baby is more active than ever!  I know when I was pregnant with Natalie, Jordan was able to feel her move at about the 19th week.  When I had my ultrasound this time around at 20 weeks, you could already see the baby rolling around on the outside of my stomach!  That sensation never gets old and I know that it's something I will never forget!  I've been reading the baby books and scribbling down names and crossing them off after running them by Jordan.  But we are definately more in agreement with names this time around as opposed to the other times!

I can't quite seem to get a grip on the fact that come fall, I will have FOUR children.  When will it sink in that this is real?  I feel like I'm just going through the motions... I've done all this before.  When I was pregnant with Charlie, I kept thinking to myself, 'this is probably the last time we'll do an ultrasound, the last glucose test, the last time I'll flip through the baby name books, the last of the labor pains, the last epidural....'  I really believe that this is the final pregnancy, but I'm not having those thoughts.  The nostalgia is somewhat...amiss.  But the excitement about the baby herself is there.  I'm so anxious to prepare the bedroom for her arrival and go into labor, hold her and introduce her to our family.  When I hear the beating of her heart every four weeks, it still blows me away how blessed we are to recieve such an amazing gift.

five years of natalie

We had a great night celebrating Natalie!  The family came over and our babysitters, the four Cook girls, stopped by.  The kids all enjoyed using our huge slip-n-slide with Jordan at the hose spraying each of them down.  Natalie seems to have an endless supply of energy so far this summer but not enough different ways to burn it off.  So when the cousins come over, she is in all her glory.  We did a bug themed birthday party which composed of beetle juice, honey bee pee, catapiller kabobs and cupcakes, and a bucket of worms and dirt... all for our little bug-lovin' girl!



(great new things to play with)

 

(this is the look of a boy enjoying his cupcake)

(Ruby's soul-sister, Ava)

(gotta love cash!)



(the little kids lined up to get their makeup done by our babysitters)



Natalie has been such a joy to our family.  She is always quick to pick on us to get us laughing and she's always open to a big hug.  She is also our most emotional child which is both a strength and weakness.  She's very tender-hearted and the things that she cares deeply about are often times questioned or prayed for.  On the other hand, she struggles with controlling her negative emotions, something we're constantly trying to help her along with.  She's still an animal lover and continues to enjoy acting like animals!  She can also make her eyes water on command... future actress perhaps?  She has a knack for paying attention to details... nothing seems to escape her notice.  Her drawings are very detailed and she already has her own personalized signature, something she developed all on her own.  And along with these traits of being emotional and detailed comes perfectionism.  Another characteristic which is both a strength and weakness...a weakness because it gets her down when she thinks that she is not good enough.  And, Natalie has such a love for Jesus, something I've witnessed that will never leave the depths of my heart.  A sincere passion is instilled into every area of her life.  We love her dearly and I praise God for these five years He has granted us.  They have forever changed me.

15.5 miles

A first in any of my pregnancies. 

Jordan and I completed the 25k on May 12.  Let me tell you: running when you're pregnant is hard!  And I was ill prepared.  I was not disciplined and should have trained more... so I was scared!  I've never run long distance during any of my other pregnancies but I am so glad that I did this (now that it's over!).  I was 14 weeks along at the time of the race.  The longest run I completed before the race was 12 miles.  And it went really well, every long run did.  But I just felt so winded all of the time and I had to walk more than I would have liked.  Going into the race, I didn't have a time goal... I just wanted to finish.  But I was really hoping to stay under a 10 minute mile.  And I was close enough!  A 10:25 pace to be exact.  I forgot my nike watch so I wasn't able to keep track of my pace which I thought would drive me nuts.  But I chose to listen to my body and do my best.  At mile 2, my foot was killing me and I didn't know how I'd be able to run.  I was starting to feel really discouraged but I stopped at an Aid station for Tylenol and was able to keep going.  At about 13 miles, I didn't know if I'd be able to push my body anymore.  I thought of a marathoner that actually crawled to the finish line after collapsing and it actually helped me to keep going.  And strangely, the time seemed to fly by.  The last mile of the race was the hardest physical thing I've ever done.  I didn't think my body could will itself to move anymore.  But mentally, I knew I could accomplish this.  I prayed my way to the finish line and God delivered me there!!  My time was 2:39:07.

Jordan, on the other hand, and our friend Jeremy were diligent in their training and they did amazing.  Jordan's time was 2:19:41.  He said he gave it his all, as well, and was very tired!  Jordan had signed up for a marathon about a month ago so he's got a lot of training ahead of him.  But he is a running machine lately so I know he'll do great!

I'm hoping to continue running a few miles a week but it's been 10 days since the race and I haven't run anymore than 10 feet in a soccer game with Natalie!

very glad to have finished!

(Also, I've been feeling the baby move a lot lately!  And I get such a thrill out of every tiny jolt!)

play

The kids have been loving the gorgeous weather.  Ruby has been playing in her castle because she's always gotta be a drama queen princess.  This is how I found her outside the other day.  She loves this little hideout and to have her alone time.

And I caught Charlie playing with a baby outside.  He was trying to get the baby into his swing but then he had to point out the neighbor guy mowing.  Lately, he loves to play with the girls' dolls.  I hope he'll adore the new baby, too.

floats and farewells

Life at home was as busy as it was before we left for vacation as when we returned.  The day after we got home, we ran in a 5k race for Pray America that was part of the Tulip Time race.  Then we hustled back to Borculo for our beloved Dandelion Festival.  Natalie got to ride on the preschool float, which we all thought was a pretty big deal.  Our good friends, Brian and Dorothy had drove in from their home in Florida to attend the festival... among other things, I suppose.  We enjoyed lunch with our good friends and Jordan got back to work on one of his side jobs.

On Thursday, we went to Natalie's Preschool Graduation!  My little girl is growing up too fast!  Seems like she just had her first day!  She sang a few songs with the others and joined with the motions about halfway through.  It brought back memories of my own preschool graduation.  Instead of doing the motions, I chose to twirl my hair.  There are many things that I will teach my kids out of my own experiences, and many of them are 'what not to do'.  I am so proud of Natalie.  She learned so much in the last 9 months and was always eager to tell all of us about it.  Along the wall were self portraits the students had drawn of themselves.  Natalie's portrait was crying but had a huge smile as well.  Natalie is a veeerrrrrrrry sensitive girl and it doesn't take much for the tears to form in her eyes.  Luckily, these were 'tears because I'm so happy' she told us.  And, in the corner of her picture, is another happy crier... me!  And the best part of the whole night for Natalie was that her grandpa and grandma Barkel took us out for ice cream to celebrate!

road trip 2012

We decided to try out our new Honda Odyssey with a road trip.  Something we wanted to get in before baby #4.  We had some ideas in mind about where we wanted to go but we didn't make any plans.  We picked up 7 different books covering 4 different states but it wasn't until the day we left that we made our final decision to go to Kentucky.

After packing that same morning, we left at about noon on Friday, the 27th.  The kids did great with the 8 hour drive.  We arrived in Louisville that night.  We got a hotel and let the kids run wild.  This is how it went everytime we showed up at a new hotel throughout the trip.  The kids. went. wild.  And who could blame them?!

This is how we caught Ruby 'reading' the Bible, with a movie on the ipod below it!



The next morning, we headed to Henry's Ark.  A very random farm outside of Louisville.  It was recommended in our 'Really Fun Things You've Gotta Do With Your Family When You Visit Kentucky' book (or something like that!)  And it was fun!  There were ostriches, zebras, goats, very ugly ducks, camels, bison, peacocks, reindeer, warthogs.....  The kids loved it!  Charlie especially loved to chase all of the ducks around.  After that, we drove to Cave City to go to Mammoth Cave.  We got there mid-afternoon and toured the mammoth cave.  It was awesome!  The kids absolutely loved it!  We had brought camping equipment along and after checking out some very shady hotels in the area (that's all there seemed to be), we decided to camp at Jellystone Park.  Unfortunately, all of the camping lots were of rocks (not sure if that was part of the JellySTONE theme..?) and we had neglected to bring our air mattress.  The kids didn't seem to mind but Jordan and I had very sore bones the next morning.  We drove around the countryside in the morning and bought some groceries for some more picnic lunches, hobo pies, and s'mores.  We seemed to get sucked into this slow moving, relaxed culture of Kentucky a little more each day.  We meandered back to Mammoth Cave for another tour of a different cave.  We went to this Waterfall Cave, it's namesake coming from the formations of the rock looking like waterfalls - there weren't actually any waterfalls in the caves.  It was a 45 minute tour.  I think the guide said we were under 50 foot of ground in this area and there was water leaking through a crevice from above. You could almost always hear a trickle of water from somewhere unseen.  There were many places where we had to duck our heads to get through a tight space only to enter into a 300 foot high room.  And the kids loved every minute of it.  Jordan, naturally, has become obsessed with the idea of cave exploring.  We're hoping to return someday to do a 6 hour tour that is offered through another cave where you have to crawl through some tough spots to get through.  It was absolutely amazing!  We chilled out at the campground for the rest of the night.  The next morning, after discussing our sore bones, the cat that made me scream during the night while pawing through our garbage, the squaking bird that woke us up at 6am, and just the pure boredom of camping, we decided to pack up and move on!



Getting kindling from along the road for our campfires

 

  



In the caves



 

We headed to Cumberland Falls.  We got there in the early afternoon and strolled around.  Then we headed into Corbin.  We checked into a hotel, did some swimming with the kids, and went out for pizza.  The next morning, we went to Walmart!  Got more supplies and some clothes for the kids since camping had wiped us fresh out of clean clothes (and who wants to do laundry on a vacation, right?!)  Jordan found a serene park to have a picnic at.  We plugged the park into the gps:  Bee Rock.  It was in the general area.  Two hours later and five very hungry tummies later, we finally found what we thought must be the 2-track road that was finally going to lead us in the right direction.  The gps had been taking us all over creation and it  constantly recalculated the miles adding 15 miles at a time.  So we drive 2 miles on this curvy dirt road and we can finally see Bee Rock on the gps map and we're heading right for it.  And what do we come up on?  Some Christian retreat center/house with a gate blocking the road that leads up to this Bee Rock.  No one was home but the dog; otherwise I would have demanded that these people open their gate so we could get to our precious Bee Rock.  Instead, we had our picnic at that gate!  Oh well!  We headed back into Corbin and met up with Jordan's mom, grandpa and grandma, two aunts, and a cousin.  They had just gotten there (from MI) for a little road trip of their own.  We were happy that we were able to meet up with them while they were here since Jordan's grandpa grew up in Corbin.  So he took us around the town and showed us the area that he grew up in.  It was so rewarding to see him light up when showing us this piece of his past.  He and Grandma are very influential people in our lives.  Then we went on to the birthplace of KFC (grandpa actually knew Colonel Sanders!) and enjoyed some fried chicken!  We decided to stay one more night in Corbin and checked into the same hotel as the family.  We had just two more days left to our vacation and we had to make some decisions as to what we were going to do with them.  We tossed around the idea of going into the Smoky Mountains/Virginia/Tennessee but in the end, we decided to go to one of our other favorite places.... Chicago!





I dropped the lens cap... Jordan fearlessly retrieved it for me

   

 

We left the next morning and drove all day.  We got stuck in rush hour... of course, but finally made it to Schaumburg (we thought we'd get in our ikea fix as well).  We made sure the hotel had a pool again for the kiddos and we all enjoyed swimming the rest of the night.  In the morning, we first stopped at Target to buy an umbrella stroller for Charlie for when we'd get in the big city.  Then to Ikea and then downtown.  The kids all loved Chicago.  The girls had been there before and were excited to go back.  And Charlie was pointing at everything as we strolled by it.  We did some shopping and some walking.  We ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe which the kids really loved, too.  It was another full day, as was everyday.  On our way home, we watched a huge lightning storm happen for almost the entire ride and we also got stuck in a very

hard downpour.  We were tired from all the driving and it was so great to return home to good ole Borculo!

We had such a great time together.  The kids were awesome!  And Jordan and I just enjoy driving around with each other.  Our kids just made us laugh so often, as did Jordan.  It was some great, undivided family time.  And we actually went the entire vacation without a cell phone which was also a refreshing thing!  We were able to text with Jordan's ipod but only in areas with wifi.  And, I guess maybe since we were in Kentucky, wifi wasn't exactly available wherever we went!  It was a great trip.  We just enjoyed being with each other and having no schedules to answer to.  I'm already looking forward to where our next road trip might be....