#17- Patience with William

So sorry I have not been writing! Our internet was down and then we had blog problems…

Anyway, my hard thing from Friday was just having patience with my little brother William. Now William is a great kid but when it is 11:00 at night and you have just returned from a fun but exhausting day at your friends house where you play games like hide and seek tag in the dark with flashlights and do things like army crawl through wet grass to try and make your way to base without being seen, while teamed up with 6 year old William who scraped his leg and is now moaning in pain, he can try your patience. No actually William did a great job being teamed up with me. We piggybacked through the woods, army crawled through the grass, all in pitch black darkness and he was a very brave trooper. (The things some sisters do with you..:) ) But on the 45 minute drive home at 11:00 at night… well…

The Lord gives me grace to have patience with my younger siblings. It can be hard, but hey isn’t that why it is on the do hard things list?

Priscilla

#14- Hard Things of the Heart

Hard things can be actions you do, decisions you make, initiative you take or they can be hard heart things. Hard heart things is looking at your heart, going ‘no that is not right’ then changing. I had one of those hard heart moments recently. It was about contentment. I have always loved farming, the outdoors and gardening. Sometimes I wish that I could live on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, instead of on a 1/2 acre in a small town. That is not good. That is not being content. Discontentment can easily be turned into jealousy. So this weekend I looked at my heart and changed my attitude. Instead of looking at what I didn’t have I looked at what I did have. I have a 1/2 acre to live on in a small, small town neighborhood! That is much more than some people who have tiny little backyards in developments. I am a part of 4H and have many opportunities to participate with those in the agricultural community. I have good friends who live on lots of acreage and I have plenty of memories of romping in the woods, fishing, feeding their goats and chickens, helping in their big garden and more! I have lots of opportunity to farm on 1/2 an acre. We already have a pretty nice garden and we are going to get chickens soon. I am looking into starting a mini farm which is basically using your space wisely and harvesting much more in your garden, to the point of selling fruits and vegetables to others and making a profit off of it. I have so much! And I was discontent?!? God has been working a lot in my heart recently on this matter. This is where God has me now, why not make the most of it?

Priscilla

“Keep your life free from love of money and be content with whatever you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear, what can man do to me?”

Hebrews 13:5-6

#9- Weeded Garden

Ok, you may look at the list of what I have done so far and go, “Hmm, she has done an awful lot of housework.” I understand that. God has recently been teaching me to be faithful in the little things during this challenge. I’m a go getter, I have big plans and ideas and though I don’t mind doing little things, I felt like I wasn’t doing “hard enough” things. After talking to my mom, I believe the Lord was telling me that it is ok to do “small hard things” and wait for chances to do big hard things. So my hard thing (for Saturday actually) is weeding the garden. We have a pretty large garden and I have been taking care of it this year. A couple weeks back I took Drivers Ed in the mornings and was unable to weed it, so this week our bean plot was full of weeds. This Saturday, I weeded, mowed and trimmed the whole garden, in the morning, and I still had time to help with other projects. I don’t know about you but Saturday’s at the Bowers are a whole lot of work. But hard work is good for you. As my mom always says, ‘work is the best fun’. I have grown up doing household tasks, yard work and more, plus any other projects that I am doing (clubhouse, 4H projects and soon to come chicken coop and chickens!). If you want something, you work toward it. So even though weeding the garden isn’t the hardest of things to do, it speaks of hard work and doing the simple small hard things to glorify God!

Priscilla

#5- Exercised in my free time

School is done. There are lots of things to do now, but what should I really spend my time on? A garden needs weeding, a book is sitting on my shelf, there are siblings to play with… the list goes on. What should I do? Maybe, I will take a little “me” time. This doesn’t mean doing my hair, nails etc. (it is very rare to find me doing that stuff…VERY RARE) It means I will take some time to enrich my health. Whoa!!!! Am I really thinking that I will sacrifice my free time to exercise??? Great thought but no than… Why not? Why not take even just half an hour of my free time to exercise? It does say in the Bible that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. That means we take care of our bodies. Time is something that can be easily wasted but greatly used. How are you going to use your time?

Priscilla

P.S. After exercising I did read a book and play a game with my siblings. 🙂