Have a good relationship with God even when you don't have one with your father

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Joanna Weaver is one of my favorite authors. She is the author of five books and the four I have read continue to change my life in such a drastic way. Before I started a bible study on her book Lazarus Awakening, I was not really sure what I believed. I was confused, but most of all I was hurt. While my life has not been as hard as others and I have not went through anything near what she has, I was still struggling with the way my life had played out and the way the people in my life affected my view of God.

I was adopted when I was really young. My Birth mother was only 16 and she had no way to support or take care of me. She put me up for adoption and signed away her rights willingly. My birth father on the other hand was 17 and had gone to jail. He refused to sign away his rights and eventually when I was almost a year old and he was still in jail, the courts terminated his parental rights. I was adopted by my family where both parents worked full time and I normally bounced back and forth from one grandparents house to another until they could come pick me up. My adoptive father took alot of convincing to ever spend time with me. He would have much rather been off with his hobbies then spend time with us. Once my sister was born, this just got worse. When I turned 19 my birth mother found me on facebook of all places. While I did my best to keep a distance from her, I could  not help but wonder what happened to my birth father. About 6 months after my birth mother finding me, he found me as well. I guess it is not that hard once you have a first name and a birth date. Well the things I began to find out about him through a quick background check just discouraged me from ever wanting a relationship with him. He had been in and out of jail for armed robberies and other felonies and misdemeanors. Not someone who I wanted around me.

About two weeks after my birth father finding me I found out I was pregnant. Now I had a choice to make, keep the baby, or choose adoption. This just lead me to wondering why and how they ever could have given me up. After many discussions with both of them I decided to keep the baby. I ended all contact with my birth father having decided that contact with him was not only wrong for me but wrong for my child as well.

After my son was born I felt very alone. I was arguing my my then boyfriend. We were living in his parents house after having been kicked out by my adoptive parents when they found out I was pregnant. I was 20, with a 3 month old and no family. None of my friends knew what I was going through as they were off living it up in college. My boyfriends mom then suggested a moms group that ran out of her church.

For the first time I began to feel like I had people around to support me. three months later I was invited to a bible study, and there I was given a copy of the book they were studying, Lazarus Awakening by Joanna Weaver. Two days later I found out that my boyfriend had been sleeping with someone else before my baby was born. I was crushed. The next week at bible study I decided that only God could fulfill me. I kept trying to create a relationship with him and just kept struggling.
I had to many questions. I could not understand how or why he would want to be my father, why he would want to spend time with me, how he could ever hurt me. The book immediately made me realize why I had been having such a hard time connecting with God.

I want to share with you what I read that day, maybe some of this will reside with you.

"Neglectful father: This dad is far to busy (or just to selfish) to be concerned with you. He's got bigger, more important business to attend to than your insignificant needs. While he may be present in your life, he's largely unaccounted for. You have to take care of yourself.
But your true father says:'Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?' (Matthew 6:26)."

You see I was taking the relationship that I had with my adoptive father and seeing that as how my relationship with my father was going to be. I was believing in my own mind that God was to busy for me. That God had more important things to do then to attend to my insignificant needs.

I was not taking my problems to God I was not getting down on my knees and asking God for support. Because he is to busy and my problems are not significant enough for him to care about right? But that is not what God says at all. He says even the problems of birds are big enough for him to take care of.

You see God wants us to be able to come to him when we are having a hard time and when we are not. He wants us to feel loved and supported and important. So now I go to God first. I am able to get through the good and the bad with him by my side.

I appreciate everything God has put in my life. He takes care of every need we have. He is the perfect shoulder to cry on and the best person to laugh with. He is the only thing I need to fulfill me. Every last one of my needs, my feeling, my wants, and my dreams are more important to him than they are to anyone else in my life.

So what view of your earthly father are you passing to your view of our real Father?

 

 

Twine wrapped sea Glass Bottles

 

 

 

 I love to re purpose anything I can get my hands on. I loved the shape of these bottles and knew I wanted to do something decorative with them so I gathered some supplies.

I first grabbed some modge podge and food coloring to stain the glass. Careful, this can get messy. I recommend wearing gloves if you have anywhere to go the next day.

First you will want to mix some modge podge and food coloring.

 

 

 I am doing one bottle teal and another blue just so you can see there is not much difference.

 

 

You want to do very thin coats of this mixture.

 This is one layer on each bottle with about 20 of dry time on the right one.

 

 Two layers on the right one.

 Three layers on both and you want to make sure your final layer is up and down. More on why later. The left one is the blue and the right is the teal.

Wrap up your paint surface and the plate with the dye to prevent it from getting on anything and toss it in the trash.

I painted two of them in a purple and did not do the final layer up and down so you can see why it has to be up and down for the final. The blue has now had a half hour to dry after its final layer.

Leave them to dry overnight.

 

These are the two blue ones again the left is the regular blue and the right is the teal. Not much difference.

 

This is how the purple two dried. With streaks all the way down the bottom. If you forget to go up and down you can sand the dye off and paint them again.

 

For the second half of the craft I gathered my supplies.

The blue bottles, glue gun and hot glue, scissors, and some twine that I got from the dollar tree. This twine is a dollar for three rolls and can be used for anything. I did not even use half of one of the rolls for both bottles.

 

You want to wrap the twine around the bottle once at the point that you want it to go the highest. Put a drop of glue and use the scissors to push where the strings meet into the glue. Careful it is hot.

 

 

 Continue wrapping the bottle and then pushing the twine up until it is close together.

 

As you get closer to the bottom it is going to be harder to wrap.

 

When you get to the bottom you will need to hot glue the last two layers of twine to the bottle by using scissors to push the twine into the glue.

You then want to do one more layer on the bottom of the bottle.

 

 The bottle will then have a layer of twine that it is resting on for the bottom.

 Make sure it is glued down good.

 

 

Push the cut off end into the glue with the scissors, then let the glue dry. 

 

 

You will be left with a very cute bottle to use as a vase for a fake flower, might get messy with water in it, or just a bottle for decoration.

It should be able to sit perfectly flat even though there is twine on the bottom.

 

Again the left is the blue and the right is the teal. This photo makes it easier to tell the difference than in real life.  You could always wrap the bottles with yarn or anything else you wish or just leave them dyed.

This craft took less than a hour of my time for painting two bottles and wrapping two bottles.

What color would you have picked for your bottles?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest blogging over at double blessing boutique

Wednesday I spent my day over at Double Blessing Boutique. If you get a chance head on over to hear something alittle personal about my life growing up.

Missing in action, give away winner,and a free blogging workshop.

So so so sorry I have been MIA this week. I have been super sick and of course being sick and having a little one running around takes up all of your energy. But I am back now and hopefully will not be missing again anytime soon.

My first giveaway has finished and a winner has been drawn. Congrats Priscilla.

I came car across this blog workshop a few weeks ago and I have already learned so much I wanted to be sure to share it with all of you.

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Come back later and I will be sharing a couple topics her workshop teaches.
I am a affiliate of blogelina.

Guest blogging over at Your Modern Family Today

You can catch me over at Your Modern Family today. Stop by and find out how I made twine wrapped sea glass bottles.

Target Gift Card Giveaway!

I finally have 30 followers on bloglovin so as a thank you to all of you wonderful people who are following me I wanted to have a little give away.

Who does not love Target.

As a mom I think I am there once a week if not more.

I always leave with atleast one thing I did not go there for.

So This gift card if for your one thing you did not go in there for.
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

DIY cute and cheap storage boxes

 

I have been doing my best to organize our apartment. However, I was not willing to spend to much money to do so. Which is why I decided to make my own storage boxes. 

 

 

I have a pretty good supply of boxes from our trips to Costco lately. You can also find boxes behind most grocery stores. I ran to target and grabbed some cute contact paper. 

 

Contact paper is used to line the inside of shelves. It is almost like wall paper. 

 

You can get a big roll for $5 at target.They also sell contact paper at dollar tree but do not have much of a selection. Home depot and Lowe's also have good supplies of contact paper. 

 

First I had to wrap my box and make sure I had enough to reach all the way around before I cut the section I planned to use. 

You want it to hang over on the top and bottom. Unpeal the backing from the wrap in small sections and smooth one section out before continuing to pull off the back and apply more. This will save the contact paper from wrinkling. If you can get a extra set of hands use them but they are not necessary.

Wrap the bottom of the box like you would a present.

 

Cut the top over hang at all four corners down to the box. Then fold the corners in.

Be sure to pull tight and smooth it out as you go.

 

 

When you are done you have a much prettier box to store things in. Come back next week to see what I used these boxes for and what else I used the contact paper to spruce up.

What do you need to organize?

Fridge full but have no food?

My fridge has been bugging me for such a long time. It is messy and not organized and I was certain that there was expired food in there. I can not get over how bad it looks and how little food there actually is in there when it looks like a ton.

The freezer is just as bad.





So I decided to do something about  it. I removed everything on the fridge door first so that I can clean up the spilled orange juice and put everything back neater.


See how gross that is? Yuck!

So now it is much better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look how nice that door looks now!!

Then I took everything out from top shelf to bottom shelf and washed each shelf.
You see those sheets to the left? Yes those are to write down what is in the fridge and when they expire. That way I will not be worried about food going to waste. I just highlight what expires that month and add new foods to the list when I get them from the store. You can get the printable I use for free from mommy-mode.

 

 

Look I have a empty shelf!

 

 Not much food in here but it is much better.


I guess it is time to go grocery shopping.
How does your fridge look? Any where else you need to clean out?