A Lot on My Mind

I've had a lot on my mind lately - so much, in fact, that my brain is feeling very "cluttered." Do you ever get that feeling? My brain feels a bit like a messy closet I've stuffed so full of stuff that I can't fit any more in and if I open it up, everything is going to come tumbling out. There have been so many times I've wanted to sit down and type out my cluttered thoughts to unclutter my mind, but for some reason, I just haven't gotten around to it until now. And now, I have so much going on in my mind that I don't even want to attempt to write a coherent, concise (ha! am I ever concise??) blog post about a specific topic. Thus, I'm going to crack open the cluttered closet of my mind and let my thoughts tumble out in a bullet list. Oh how I like bullet lists! On my mind lately....in no particular order

• Dreading Little Bittle's blood test tomorrow. Last time they had to poke her like 15 times before getting the vein. This is agony for a mother to watch. How I pray tomorrow will go well.
  
• Tomorrow I get my 24 hour heart monitor.
  
• Reflecting on our past 2 1/2 months of trials. Hope to post more on that another day.
• Changing our lifestyle to more "natural" and healthy and organic. This includes cleaning products and foods. I'm hoping Heavenly Homemakers is going to help me out with my plan to move our family toward healthier, more wholesome eating. This is with the hope that our health will improve as we try to eat more natural food and get away from chemicals as much as possible. Little Bittles has some eczema and I have had skin problems and odd rashes for years. We want to see if this will help at all, but I haven't mustered up the energy to truly start on this yet. More research needed.
  
• Finished reading the book Passionate Housewives Desperate for God. It speaks out against white-washed feminism and the self-centered "me-ology" (books that teach you to pamper rather than sanctify your flesh), which seems to run rampant in many Christian circles these days. I especially like the reminder that my job has far-reaching effects. The way I raise and train my daughter has the potential to affect generations to come. My biggest caution is that it does have some "dominion/kingdom-now theology" scattered in it. There are a couple statements that I completely disagreed with in this regard. I think the authors might hold to reformed theology, which I do not completely agree with, so if you keep that in mind, it's a pretty good read otherwise.
  
• Finished reading Mistaken Identity. Can't tell you how many times I was in tears reading this book. This is the true story of two Christian families who were impacted by a horrific car crash and a terrible mistake. One girl was wrongly identified as the survivor of a crash in which several people died. It took 5 weeks for the mistake to be realized. This book is filled with scripture, too. I was touched and amazed reading how the Lord worked in this situation to bring others to Himself. Such an encouragement to me, especially while thinking about our recent trials, which are nothing compared to what these families went through.
• I'm being bothered by my lack of organization in things such as closets, drawers, and our pantry. It's starting to drive me crazy, but I feel too overwhelmed to begin.
  
• It's driving me crazy that the million-and-one things on my mind are driving me crazy! The Lord reminds me time and time again that I need to get my priorities in order. I think I have obsessive tendencies (make that, sinful tendencies) in many things. I am frustrated by the fact that I am so often distracted by things that are really not important in light of eternity. You would think that the recent trials our family went through would remind me of this (and they do!). That is why I am so frustrated! I KNOW better! I pray God will help me in this area. I think it's a matter of daily submitting my will to His. I need to say every day, "Lord, not my will but Yours be done." Things like obsessively organizing my closets and drawers are somewhat important, but not that important. I can't take my closet, organized or not, with me when I die.
  
• We are dabbling a bit in potty-training with Little Bittles. No pressure, but I thought I'd give it a try since she's running around, talking quite a bit, and understands a lot.
• I really need to work at training Little Bittles better in certain areas, namely obedience and not throwing fits. She is a smart little cookie, and she knows it! During the past 2 1/2 months, child training was pretty much thrown out the window and we let her get away with just about everything. Now I am going to have to work at undoing a few bad habits that were developed.