Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Eternal Encouragement Magazine

I read the spring issue of Eternal Encouragement Magazine. After I finished my first thought was "Maybe I should not have read that all in one sitting." I sat on my couch stunned. Truly I did not know what to do. I felt like someone had just plowed me over, but in a good way. This was not the first time I had this experience. The week before I had almost the same experience from a book that I read ironically in the same areas, then more things have been coming my way that have hit in the same areas as the book and the EE magazine. In a way I think I needed to be overwhelmed in this way. It just appears to be the way I process things. Now I needed to start breaking it down so that I could address the areas that needed to be addressed. I got so busy doing this that I forgot to write my review. Yep, totally missed it. It is now 4 days passed the due date. As a perfectionist, type A driven person that is driving me crazy right now.

Here is what was in the magazine that had this effect on me. One of the early articles talked about the science of housework. Keeping my house clean has never been one of my strong suits. I have friends who think it is relaxing and stress relieving to clean house. Not me, no way! I relax by reading a book or watching a movie, not scrubbing my cabinets or folding laundry. One of the practical suggestions was to accept help from my children. That would be good if they had been trained how to do much of what needs done around the house. When I came home full time June 1, 2011 I had so much training that needed to be done in my children that I did not know where to begin. Then there was another article that talked about training our children in obedience. I read that article and knew that my children are not obedient as they need to be. I have been working on this one from day one of coming home, but my children are 7 and 5 so I am fighting years of time where this training should have been followed through on better. This led to another revelation about my own weaknesses. In my teen years I was a long distance runner-- I used to run 13 miles a day, but I let the self-discipline in my life go. Now I see where my own lack of self-discipline has hindered my abilities to serve my family. I need to work on my inward thought life. I have let too many negative thoughts steal away the joy that Christ wants me to have. That tends to make me grumpy and it can spill over onto my family. Then I faced the CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) I have in my home. It seems every time I get one area under control another one falls apart. I keep thinking that may be if I had grown up in a home where housekeeping was a priority that I might not have this issue. However, reality is that it is my fault for not working harder to develop skills in this area. My husband and I had decided to make hospitality a priority in our home this year so there were many things that were practical and were feel good for me in a couple of articles concerning hospitality along with practical suggestions to make things work even better. We are enjoying the extra people coming through our home. Too many things at once of both conviction and practical ideas so I put the magazine away and started to process it all. Thus forgetting to write my review.

There was one article that proved particularly helpful in the Spring issue of Eternal Encouragement Magazine to get me started. Lorrie Flem wrote an article called Chaos, CFA, CDSA (Can't Have Anyone Over, Can't Find Anything, Can Do Something About It). In the article she talked about some practical things she does when she feels overwhelmed. This helped me significantly. Lorrie will take the larger tasks and break them down into individual tasks then assign tasks until the work is done. Each task is written on a post-it note and distributed. Then as each task is accomplished things become less overwhelming and less chaotic. I decided to utilize this idea. I did not have post-it notes, but I mentally went through four rooms in our home that needed to be addressed and made a list of all the small tasks needed to be done. Then I assigned them one at a time. I worked with Caleb and Simeon and was able to begin the training process of how to do specific tasks and explain my expectations in the process. That day the house work became less overwhelming because my helpers have learned some of how to help. This gave me the boost I needed to take obedience training to the next level. Since my first son was born I have believed that as he grew up he needed to learn to obey me the first time I told him to do something. The problem is the training for he and his brother was not consistent enough to make this happen on a regular on-going basis. I have been addressing this and some other character issues I see developing in my little boys. The first two weeks were grueling and I wondered if I was wasting my time, but I continued to address these issues. Then I started to see progress. Things have improved greatly in our home the Lord used Eternal Encouragement Magazine. That is just a little snippet of the journey.

I know that Eternal Encouragement Magazine can encourage you right where you are as well. If you want to subscribe to find encouragement in your journey as a wife and mom then click here. The magazine is now available in both digital and print copy. Also along with your subscription you receive the new EE ECT. This is has full magazine articles that are available to Eternal Encouragement subscribers via a new online magazine website. If you are new to Eternal Encouragement the check out the website here.

Note: I received Eternal Encouragement Magazine as an official member of the Gabby Moms blogging program in exchange for my honest review.

5 comments:

  1. I agree that Eternal Encouragement magazine is worth getting and reading. It has been very helpful for me also. In some areas, it brings encouragement, in others it brings conviction. But, along with the conviction, it also brings hope. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. Hang in there! We are all a work in progress, and the most important thing is to KEPY TRYING to improve where we can. God will bless your efforts, I know He will.

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    1. That was supposed to be KEEP trying! LOL.

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    2. Vicky, I knew exactly what you meant. I am so glad that the Lord is not done with any of us yet. He will continue to work with us until we get the wonderful privilege of spending eternity with Him. Praise the Lord that we can rely on Philippians 1:6 "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

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  2. The knowing and doing are so different aren't they? I hope you have been able to put some of the suggestions into action to help you with your daily life.

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  3. The two are so different. We are one thing at a time adding better habits and thought patterns to our family. The atmosphere in our home continues to improve as we do this. My oldest has improved greatly about some of his issues of arguing and complaining. Then we were somewhere and there was a child acting the same way he did until a couple of weeks ago. Caleb then told me thank you for helping him stop that behavior. I figure that I better treasure the thank you since as a mom I will not likely get very many of those from my children over an issue like this one.

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