Despite my first thought of not allowing my children to watch frozen 2 I decided to take them tonight. I heard rumors that Elsa is made out to be gay in the second movie. I had decided I would not allow my kids to see it but after a friend said she saw it and didn’t see anything of concern I thought it would be a good way to start out Thanksgiving break.

I am writing a review on the movie from a Christian momma’s perspective. I just want to give my honest opinions about what I saw and my thoughts about it.

Before I went I saw an article about it too. Definitely not written from a christian perspective but it did give me some understanding into the reason why those ideas have been floating around.

I will likely spoil most of the movie so don’t read this if you want to be in suspense on how it ends.

My Review

I really enjoyed the movie. I noticed my 4 year old kind feeling stressed by the drama. It was a lot more intense than the first one. There is a song Anna sings that is very mature. It talks about grief and being lonely and feeling darker than she has ever felt. I don’t really think those words are appropriate for a child’s song. Yet I do think they would likely go over the heads of most children and possibly if an older child is feeling those way the song could inspire them to push through those feeling like Anna did.

The songs Elsa sings are more mature and I can see how someone watching the movie can start to get the idea that the voice she hears calling is her inner voice telling her shes not in the right place… maybe that she is gay. But by the end you figure out that it is her mothers voice telling her she is the “5th spirit” in the enchanted forest and that is where she belongs.

There are no specific inclinations that Elsa is gay. She doesn’t kiss a girl or hold hands with one. The girl she has a talk with around the fire has no kind of relationship with her past telling her about the 5 spirits and encouraging her to search out the voice that keeps calling to her.

In the end the story tells how her parents met and how her mother was the one who saved her dad from the enchanted forest and that is how she got her powers.

All in all it may be a little mature for my 4 year old to get all the funny things about the movie. There were parts I thought were funny because I am an adult (no adult humor) kristof sings with reindeer as his backup singers and it reminded me of a boy band type song. HAHA. Anna and kristoff only kiss maybe 2 or 3 times and Olaf sings about how nice it will be to be mature. He does say Butt. That is the only word that I remember hearing during the movie.

I would recommend it. If your kids get scared easily it may be too intense. Most of the movie is intense. Would I want to watch it over and over? no. Will I buy it ? no. But is there any evidence that Elsa is gay? Absolutely not. She’s just not your typical boy crazy Disney princess. Shes more serious. The emphasis is on sister love and not on romantic love.

I hope this helps. I also hope it isn’t ruined for you. Don’t get mad at me if you take your kids and get a different interpretation. This is just what I came back with.

Thanks for reading

Signing off

Jenny Wren

I never thought I struggled with anxiety before. I thought I was a confident person. Even the most confident people can be anxious on the inside. I am realizing as I go through this journey that I have more anxiety than I thought I did. I think for me, anxiety stems from feeling out of control when I want to be in control. Though the ways to deal with anxiety is giving over control to God.

I remember my first anxiety attack, When I was a new mom. I am not even very sure how old my baby was but I was hyperventilating on my bed because I didn’t know what to do with his crying. I am sure I was sleep deprived (because usually that factors into my anxiety) and I didn’t know how to deal with this screaming child.

As life went on, I dealt with my father’s death. This was another time I prayed for Gods healing but He never gave it to my father and my dad went to be with Jesus anyway. Another way I couldn’t control. Then I had my husband in the hospital with seizures the same weekend. I really started to try to muster the courage to be strong and stay strong. I had to, for my little family. I then had our second son. I never dealt with the death of my dad. I didn’t have time to. I was caring for my children and my sick (on and off ) husband. Over the next 3 years I had another boy and My husband dealt with 2 more bouts of seizures. Some multiple times a day and mostly at night when I was almost asleep. He was down for 2 weeks at a time unable to help with anything. I had to do it all. I remember trying to go to sleep scared that he was going to have a seizure. They were terrifying. I had to not think about it. One night My dear husband remembers me squeezing his thumbs really hard in my sleep (it was a method for bringing someone out of a seizure faster) He asked me in the morning and we kinda laughed that I was even dreaming about tending to his seizures. Was I going to trust God or fall into more self reliance and anxiety because I couldn’t control all of this.

We were not only dealing with the seizures but the medication that altered my husband personality too. He was having outburst of anger and to me seemed out of control. Was that something I just couldn’t control myself? This caused more anxiety. I didn’t know when he would be angry for something “childish” the children would do. He was extremely sensitive to loud noises in confined places and things would get heated especially in the car. Was it HIS anger “problem” or ME not being able to talk him out of it or “lecture” him out of it. My control.

Over the next 7 more years he was seizure free but our marriage took a turn for the worse. We became more distant and there were things that happened that were lied about and trust was broken. Could I lecture him out of it or control this either? My daughter was born and nothing seemed to make him happy anymore. I had lectured his happiness away. He has his own things going on that I will not go into here this story is about me.

When our marriage got so bad that we were both at odds with each other I had to come to grips with the fact that I had to let God take control of my husbands life and I had to step back to let him do it. I think he came to expect me to control everything. I did everything. I eased everything over I smoothed things out and tried to keep the peace.

Its phenomenal when you finally let God take control of your own life. When the kids and I went to my home town and stayed at the camp. I had nothing. My mom wasn’t around , I had to allow God to take my life. Was I going to? It was a fight. I was so full of anxiety. I had no idea what the future would hold and I had 4 little children relying on me to figure it out. I had a very angry husband at home wanting badly for us to return.

I knew I was in the right place. I needed to get away and be in a peaceful place for awhile to figure all of it out. I started reading a book about being thankful for the little things each day and it really transformed my heart and life. I realized I needed to be thankful in the storm. I wrote in my journal for hours each day and read my bible after I went through about two weeks of just being angry. I was angry at my life, my situation, my bad choices, my husbands bad choices. I couldn’t control. I was angry I felt so alone when all I wanted was a rescuer. I wanted my mom very badly to come in and rescue me to take care of me. She wasn’t there. God wanted me to let him take care of me. Give him control. take my anxiety and give it to him.

So I started listening to a prayer meditation. It says God is in control of every situation and He wants us to give control to him and allow him to take our life. So I did. I gave God that control. or in my human way I did. But it is a constant process because here I sit. I still want a rescuer most days. I am tired and worn and alone. But God wants me to continue to give him the control every day. Its not just a one time deal. Its every day. So to continue to learn how to release my anxiety to God I picked up this book called, A small book for the anxious heart by Edward T Welch.

I started reading it today. It talked about how He wants to take these anxieties from us. The author asks what kinds of things you have done that has helped with anxiety in the past. and really that is the way to deal with it. If you can have an arsenal of tools to help you through the anxiety it will pass a lot quicker. But also I try to reflect on where I think the control is at. The other night I was feeling anxious and I just started writing out the things God has been doing in my family and life. Its amazing how my mourning over my poor self and my selfish thoughts that no one sees me changed into thoughts of what God is doing and who he is and how wonderful he is.

This is a song that always brings me out of my slump of feeling sorry for myself and my situation

https://youtu.be/SE_M9noEhNE

So what about you? How do you handle anxiety? I deal with anxiety most days. I want to be in control of my situation, but I can’t. God wants me to allow him to be in control over me and all of my situation. When I let him have control of my life I have confidence in him and who he is that this is part of his plan for my life and I can make it through the next minute, hour, day. But when I try to take control I am riddle with anxiety over it all.

I highly recommend the book. But if not give it to God each day. What is holding you back from letting him take it. I mean all of it. Do you think you need to be a certain way to God? He loves you even in the brokenness and the anger and all the words that go with it. Just scream it out. He is ready to listen.

Signing off

Jenny Wren

The way God is working behind the scenes is not always seen. I have been writing this blog post for about 2 weeks on and off. I had no idea how God was moving and really how long it would take me to finish this post. Yesterday I went to a woman’s gathering with my church. Guess what the topic was? Praying scripture. How cool is that? when I just was writing this blog about it. So I will be pulling resources from what I learned during the gathering yesterday and share them with you. The greatest part about all this is maybe God was having me hold off on publishing this post because he has something for one of you to learn from what I learned yesterday. I am so excited to share it with you.

Here is my original post:

The emotions are raw. The hurt runs deep. How can you heal from this pain? Again it hurts. How do you get yourself out of this heap of ashes? How do you get out of the pain and hurt? How do you move past it so you can carry on and move forward and get better? Things happen that turn you away from God. How can he allow this kind of pain in your life? How can he just sit there and allow hurt to come onto you and continue to be piled onto you? How do you move past this and onto joy?

What do you do when you don’t know what to do anymore? You know you need to pray. But how do you trust that answers will come? How do you get past the fact that for years you have prayed and God hasn’t changed your situation. But is God our pawn that we pray into the action we want from him? So how do I pray Gods will? How do I choose to humble myself and allow God to work even if its not the way I wanted?

You know you need to. It was drilled into your mind to pray without ceasing, to commit your ways to the Lord. All these things you know but your heart is broken. Your weakness is way to weak to even lift your eyes to heaven. You feel broken, alone and without any hope. Many nights I have these very same feelings. I don’t know what to say or how to pray. I don’t even want to pray for those who have hurt me. I am angry and I don’t want to give that hurt to God.

When I didn’t know how to pray for my husband I started praying from a book call the power of the praying wife. In this book there were prayers already written out. There are so many books like this one out there. If you don’t have the words to say read some from someone else. The power of prayer transformed my life. There were nights I prayed specific things and the next morning God had given a specific answer. I started writing prayers out in my journal. I still do this. I really write better than pray in my head. My mind wonders way too easy. My prayer life has never been really strong. I have struggled with this area. I feel at times I pray for things and never received an answer. So as I wrote prayers in my journal I would highlight the specific request. Then I would write a date I received an answer. I could see Gods hand.

When we pray and don’t get the answer we want. Sometimes God gives an answer. Sometimes it is yes, other times it is no, but I find most of the time it is wait. I have to live by faith and not by sight. I have to believe HE is moving, HE is working, whether I see or feel it or not. I have to trust in faith. Forward Always In Trusting Him. Do you believe He is working in the situation you have been praying about for so long? We have been studying about Abraham’s life in church. Can you imagine waiting so long for God to fulfill his promise to give Abraham a son? If you think you have been waiting a long time imagine being 100 when your wife finally bares a son. But God asked Abraham to believe in the covenant he gave him. He asked him to trust no matter what. Abraham failed miserably at trusting all the time. But hey I totally do too. If you want to read more about Abraham’s journey it is found in Gen. 12- Gen.25.

I by no means have a really great prayer life now. I still struggle to pray as much as I want to, but I do trust that underneath what I see, God is moving mountains and before long I will start seeing big answers to big prayers. And if I don’t I will continue to follow him and trust through whatever journey he walks me through.

Some other praying books:

The power of a praying parent by Stormie Omartian

The power of a praying Wife by Stormie Omartian

The power of a praying grandparent, husband, praying for adult children, teen. All of these are by Stormie Omartian. I highly recommend any of these books and I don’t even read the chapters. I just go right to what I feel the spirit is telling me the struggle is and start praying the prayer she has written out. I then follow it by reading aloud the scriptures that she has after the prayers.

Praying scripture can be a great place to start also and there are tons of books out there to help with this. Or just open up the psalms and start there.

Pray Psalm 40:9-17

Take a moment to pray these scriptures over someone today.  You may want to READ or LISTEN to the chapter before you begin.

Psalm 40:10b     May ______ speak of Your faithfulness and salvation.

Psalm 40:11     Do not withhold Your mercy from ______, O Lord. May Your love and Your truth always protect ______.

Psalm 40:13     Be pleased, O Lord, to save ______. O Lord, come quickly to help him/her.

Psalm 40:16     May ______, who seeks you, rejoice and be glad in You. May ______ love your salvation and always say, “The Lord be exalted!”

Psalm 40:17b     May You think of ______ today. Be ______’s help and deliverer. O God, do not delay.

QUESTION: How often do you speak of the Lord’s faithfulness and salvation?

SHARE: Please share today’s prayers from Psalm 40 with someone via email, text, social media, or word of mouth, &  help us create a movement of praying scripture.

Taken from www.prayscripture.org

Praying Gods Word by Beth Moore

www.ifequip.com

www.seeJesus.net

Some other scriptures given were:

Isa. 26:3

Jn. 14:27

Phil. 4:6

Rom. 5:1

Isa. 26:12

Isa. 55:12

Jn. 16:33

Ps 37:37

Isa. 57:2

Rom. 14:17-19

Ps. 119:165

Ps. 37:11

Ps. 85:8

2 Cor. 13:11

Col. 3:15

Just add a name into the scripture when the word you or them or we or us. For exacple

You will keep Daniel in perfect peace, when Daniels mind is stayed on you, because Daniel trusts in you. Isa. 26:3

Or you could pray Lord Jesus I pray that you would keep Daniel in perfect peace, throughout the day as he faces various trials I pray that Daniels mind would be stayed up you. I pray that it would be because Daniel has put his trust in you.

I hope that this is helpful to many of you as it was inspirational to me. I don’t want to give you everything they gave me because I don’t want to copy their things. But let me tell you if you just start with this scripture in psalms 40 I think you will start seeing a big difference and your prayer life will be transformed. It is incredible what speaking Gods word to God does. It will not return void!

I am so excited to hear your feedback on this and also how it starts to change your prayer life as well as I will leave updates on how my prayer life is changing as I grow in wisdom and faith and as I continue to try to pray the scriptures more often.

I will leave you with the acronym for PRAY

P- Praise- Worship God for who he is, acknowledge his gifts to us.

R- Repent- Confess your sins to Him. Acknowledge your need for Jesus.

A- Ask- Intercede for particular needs in your life and others.

Y- Yield- Surrender your life to follow Jesus.

Jenny Wren

How do you find balance in your life? Do you learn to balance by doing more yoga? Do you have an assistant following you around all day? I wish. Do you give everything you have to do to God and leave what you get done in Gods hands? Sometimes we are juggling so many balls we can’t fit in the good ones. But how do you keep the good things and fit in the best things and have room for everything else?

I saw an analogy done many times before. If you take a jar and fill it with sand then pebbles then large rocks then last of all fill it with water you won’t fit everything in. But if you fit the large rocks in then pour in the smaller pebbles then add the sand and then last add the water everything will fit. It means that we need to fit the important things in first before we fit the other things in.

Right now I am having a hard time with balance. Thanks to so many of you I have started a baking business and I am having tons of orders. But this makes it really tough to balance the important stuff and all the other stuff. Not only am I baking, I am a mom and I am taking care of the household needs. I have been getting overwhelmed this week with all my responsibilities. This week I was baking after bedtime and in between school pick up and supper. This is definitely not a bad thing per-say, but am I leaving room for the big ROCK of my life? Am I putting him into my life jar first?

Today a tech from an internet company we want to change to came over to see if they can install the internet. Well we have too many trees from the top of our house to see the tower but from the back of our shop there is a direct sight. But they would have to bury a trench for the distance from the shop to our house. So if My DH was here we would say no problem he could borrow his parents backhoe and bury it in no time. It would cost us 175 dollars to have the company bury it. So how do I make this kind of discussion? I can’t borrow a backhoe and bury a cable. That is laughable.

I find that when I loose focus of putting those big rocks first in my life. I start getting overwhelmed by the little pebble. The little things like deciding if we should bury the cable or if we should not use that company. Or worrying about things like fiances and if I made the right decision in this or that. But the truth is when I put the rocks in my life first or ROCK, then everything else falls into place.

When I start struggling I ask myself am I trying to cram the Rock in last? or am I making him the first priority in my life so everything else will fit?

So this week when I asked myself , am I putting in the rock first in my life? The answer was no and when I did that the worry and anxiety about my decisions went away. Everyday I have to ask myself am I putting God as the front and center in my life? and If I am not I need to rethink my priorities so that the most important thing fits in first.

Is it just me or when my priorities are not in the right order it seems like everything starts spiraling down hill. My attitude changes, My responses change, My selfishness takes rule into my heart. Its like a big downward spiral that can only be caught by the hand of God. By giving all those things to him and begin thankful for the things you do have. SO I stopped thinking about all I had to get done. I stopped worry about burying a line or not and I just had to rest. Rest in him and his perfect plan for my life. I had to sit back and be thankful. Thank you Lord for each one of my children. Thank you Lord for a husband willing to get help and do what he needs to do for my family. Thank you Lord for a family who cares about me and checks in on me and takes care of my needs. Thank you Lord for the rain and that we aren’t in a drought like my friends are in Texas. Thank you Lord for so many cinnamon roll orders and sustaining me through the busy week. The list could go on and on. I love how Gratefulness can take away grumbling. I love how God loves us so deeply that he cares about the smallest need we have and that we just have to ask him and he provides his answer. I love how he gently leads us back to him and brings us back to a right relationship with him each time we fall away. He is so incredible and I am thankful I can be called a child of God!

Jenny Wren

5 am, I hear my oldest come into my room. “Mommy we are going to be late for school.” They had to be there early this particular morning. At 6:50 instead of 8. “Buddy come lay with mommy we don’t have to be there for a long time and my alarm hasn’t even gone off yet.” I roll over and try to get a few more minutes of sleep. He and my other three boys were very excited to get to school. They were going on a field trip that day.

I roll out of bed when my second son comes in at 5:15 and asks mommy aren’t you getting up. Thankfully we don’t have to bring lunches this morning or worry about having homework finished. The night before I was up a little too late just trying to relax from a normal day in my life. I like the quiet after the kids go to sleep and sometimes get too caught up in it. I stay up too late too often just trying to avoid the next day with my early risers. At 5:30 my 4 year old daughter comes in and I say to her “your up to my sweetie?” I had hoped that I could just roll her out of bed at the last minute and put her in the car half asleep. There was way too much excitement that morning. The night before we had the conversation “Mommy you need to make sure we are on time tomorrow” “Oh really buddy? Who helps to make sure we are on time? It all depends on you guys doing as your told, when your told”

We get into the car and I pull out of the garage, 6:11 the clock says. “Oh good we are going to be early” I think. When our oldest was in kindergarten I started homeschooling him. He did pretty well but after 2 years of that, along with many other trials we were facing I couldn’t do it anymore so we sent them to our local public school. My second son was in kindergarten at that point. We had a pretty terrible year at the school. It seemed the bullies liked to pick on my kids and it was hard to get through each day. Many nights were spent with my kids crying before bed. During that year we decided we wanted to send them to our local Christian school, but that would mean me driving the kids to and from school every day. It was 25 minutes one way to the town the school was in. We decided to let our kids have a Christian education with a one room school house feel. We started attending their school last year and fell in love with it and the teachers. The kids learn tons of scripture, they are loved on by the teachers and they are thriving in their academics. This year my 3rd son started kindergarten. So each morning I drive 25 minutes to drop them off and 25 minutes back to pick them up. It is totally worth it for how much we love this school.

Being a single mom for a year is challenging by itself. I am so thankful that this isn’t a permanent situation. Though there may be more finality to something permanent. But I am definitely not facing life without my husband. You girls out there facing a life time of single parenting are very strong. I am so thankful that I know this won’t last forever. With children waking me up early and some nights they wake up through the nights it takes a toll on me. Sometimes I am surrounded by many people and much activity but loneliness overwhelms me. Last night was one of those nights. I had two days of kids waking up early. I thought since they had been up at 5 the day before they might take the day off of school and sleep a lot later. That was not happening. They were all up by 6:30 again.

So last night, I sit on my bed and just start missing my companion. I miss talking to another adult. I miss having someone to sleep next to me. I miss having someone to share the happenings of the day. So the tears flow, and the hurt and anger comes back. As I travel this journey, there will be many days that the hurt and anger comes back and I will have to deal with it again. So I write. I write in my journal and tell God. This sucks. While on one hand God has done and is doing a great work in my life and I totally trust him with this trial and through this trial. This trial is hard. I am surrounded by chaos most of the time. Screaming children. Children throwing there needs at me. Mommy I need a snack, mommy my head hurts, mommy my leg hurts, mommy I have this homework, mommy I need this or that. But I feel empty at times.

Satan likes to take those moments and make us feel isolated and sorry for ourselves. He thrives on us being lonely so he can attack us and make us have feelings of inadequacy, jealousy and self-pity. So what do I do in those moments? I have an arsenal of truth ready to fire at Satan. Am I still counting it Joy? Not really joyful at this moment. So where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord. I turn on my playlist, I pick up my bible and start reading the psalms. I take out my journal and start writing. I pour out my hurt and my heart. Then I climb into bed and turn on my prayer meditation. It tells me who is in control, That I don’t have to worry and I fall asleep with my greatest companion next to me, holding me close. I fall asleep with my God!

If you feel alone, lonely, isolated, inadequate, or jealous, this is exactly where Satan wants you. I want you to know you are not alone. Life can totally get you down. It can get you down and stomp on you until you can’t breath anymore and your so beat down from life you don’t feel like you can go on. You are not alone. Can you imagine the isolation Christ felt on the cross? Abandoned by his best friends, murdered by followers and turned away from by his own father. He hung there because of love, because we are worth more than his life. WOW!!! If it feels like all humans have turned their backs on you, Jesus hasn’t, he never will. And in fact I know there is someone out there that just doesn’t know how to help. I think most people just don’t know what to do to help someone in need and if we just reach out and say “Hey I need this” they will step up and totally fulfill those needs. Please if you need anything please, leave me a comment and I will help you. I never want someone to feel invisible. I have definitely had many times that I have felt that way and no one should feel that way. Please take the step to reach out to me. You are loved and you are seen by God!

Jenny Wren

I took an art class a few years ago. It was an abstract class. Those artists use all kinds of things to paint with and their work turns out to be beautiful. I imagine ashes have been used before by famous abstract artist. It was fun to express myself and not have rules or limits too it, yet there were great ways to enhance art work even abstract art. It was such an interesting and fun experience. During that time the art school had an art opening of famous abstract artists. My DH (a huge cowboy) took me, out of an act of love. He stood out among those people for sure 🙂 HAHA!

I’m guessing the picture God is painting with my life is pretty abstract to me. I don’t see the beauty beneath it. I don’t see the purpose of heaping ashes onto me to create some artwork. My DH definitely didn’t see the purpose behind a lot of those art pieces. With the untrained eye you can’t see the beauty behind the work going on. The bible says in James 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” He has a plan and purpose for your trial you are facing. It produces patience and perseverance.

How can you consider trials pure joy? Oh man that is so hard. Over the time I was away from my DH I learned to consider my trials joy. It was a work that God did on my heart. I went through a book called 1000 blessing. The author goes through and starts naming little things she is thankful for. The sun shining onto the soap suds in the sink, The giggles of my daughter. These small things. This totally transformed my mindset.

I lived in a 5th wheel camper for 2 1/2 months with 4 children ages 10-4. I could have a lot to grumble about. I did grumble to begin with. As I wrote in my last post God transformed my heart. I had an attitude of why me. I continued to question why God made this happen to me. But He worked on my heart. He told me “Jenny Wren, you are chosen. I selected you to walk through this trial for a specific reason and purpose” God doesn’t do random things. I was hand chosen, for this man, for this family, for these children, for this trial. Wow, that is a message of purpose .

He sent me to a camp I went to as a college student. They gave me a place to stay free of charge and fed me and my 4 children every day with nothing in return. He opened the door for a friends son to go there to be a counselor. Because of my trial, my heap of ashes, this boys life was changed and he found his passion and purpose for his life. Now that is definitely beauty that came from my ashes.

Not only did he transform my life, and my friends sons life, He also transformed my oldest sons life. At the beginning of the summer his grumbling was out of control. As time went on I was naming things I was grateful for and I continued to tell him the little things. like the place we have to stay and the horses running to the pasture behind our camper nightly. I told him I could look at all the bad things and complain. Like the fact that we have to walk to our food and I have to take a shower in a public bath house. But I look at the blessings like we have a place to live and food everyday. But I saw a change in his heart. He went from being angry to saying that he could see that God was answering prayers.

We are all works of art in progress. We are making imperfect progress. We all face various trials to test our faith to bring us patience and perseverance. He has chosen you specifically to walk the trial you are facing. For a specific reason we can’t see. We only see the ashes. Like my DH in the art gallery, We don’t see the beauty underneath the masterpiece. You should get that book 1000 blessings. It changed my perspective on things. I should start reading it again.

Jenny Wren

Hurt goes deep. Sometimes we don’t even know why we are hurting. Sometimes hurt comes out and hurts others. But we can’t put a finger on why we are hurting so many people and why we hurt the ones we love the most. I often hear the saying “hurting people, hurt people.” I think this is very true. My hurt from my past I thought had been healed, I thought I worked through my “issues”. But often God keeps teaching you the same things because you keep needing to learn them, again, and again.

Sometimes you have a relationship with someone that you have no idea what their hurt is or that they even have hurt. I never knew my dear husband (DH) had deep past hurts. I had hurts I didn’t know about too, they would heap mounds of hurt onto him. I am not here to talk about his hurts, but to write about how God has brought me on the journey as I deal with my own hurts.

About 5 years into our marriage these things started to come out. The hurt started to come out. The feelings of not being acceptable to my husband (though he never said it). The feelings of not being good enough. These were lies from the pit of hell. So I tried to be better, to do better. I tried to be a better wife, to respect him better, to do the good wife thing and meet all his needs. I tried to encourage him more and when he didn’t feel encouraged I thought I must not be doing a good enough job. I was also having babies. I had 3 boys at the time and I was meeting their needs too. I tried to do everything for everyone in our house. Trying to live up to these feelings of being unacceptable.

DH did plenty for me. We both did what we thought would be best. We thought life was working. But it was a very dysfunctional life that would come to head eventually. The hurts were piling up, unsaid needs not being met, hidden expectations ruled our marriage. I had many expectations on him that he definitely couldn’t meet. Only God could meet those. Through the next 7 years our hurts piled up. Feelings of despair started to come over me. I knew my marriage shouldn’t be like this, but I didn’t know how to change it. I tried to change it myself and failed miserably. Adding to the hurt I was heaping onto him and myself already. I tried to change him, tell him where he could do better. This only made those wounds grow deeper. My feelings of despair grew into depression. I was lonely in my own marriage. I felt empty and needed filled. I thought I needed filled by my DH, but I needed fill by my Savior.

Things got to be bad, I knew it was so destructive to our children I had to leave to take a time away so we could find what truly was gong to bring us joy. We were just arguing about everything and it was no longer an emotionally safe place for any of us. With a lot of prayer, I packed up the kids and took a step to set a boundary in our marriage that has been the hardest decision I ever made. I didn’t leave my DH to get a divorce. I left him in the hopes that we could both focus on making ourselves better and going to God in the pain and healing our hurt. With the hopes of reconciliation.

While I was gone I went through a journey. I went through a journey from loneliness to complete surrender to finding joy in my journey. God walked me through a time where I felt the most utter despair I have ever felt in my life. But he met me their. He walked me through it. I really thought I would go to my family and be taken care of through this hard time in my life. They all wanted to, but God did the caring (though many of them spent loads of time caring for me my physical needs). My parents are both in heaven and I know God knew that. I didn’t have my mom to swoop in and meet all my needs and that was definitely a blessing in disguise. It forced me to totally, utterly rely on God to meet my emotional needs. I never would have thought I would be blessed because my mom was in heaven, but I certainly was. I spent many nights in tears, crying out to God. I filled an entire journal with my prayers, my anger, my hurt. He was there holding me, leading me, guiding me. He eventually led me home.

During the summer away God kept reminding me of the verse, Love endures through ALL circumstance. Its not some, its not the ones that are easy or the ones that make us feel good. Its through all of them and this is still my verse that keeps me going. I could have taken the easy way out and I was tempted to do so, in many weak times, or times of great hurt. But this verse kept coming to my mind. I didn’t choose to love my DH when its easy. I didn’t say I would love him only when he doesn’t hurt me. I made a commitment to God to love him when its the hardest. I hope that love shines through to him and he can see that. I hope it shines through to others and they can see the only way I can love him in the hurt is through Jesus Christ and because of what he did for me with his love on the cross.

While our journey is far from over I just want to yell from the roof tops what God is doing for us. DH is healing from his hurts. I am healing from my hurts. And eventually when God sees fit we can come together and hopefully stop hurting and start loving. I know we will still hurt each other but my hearts desire is to come back together and put God at the center so that when hurt does come we can see each other as God sees us and love through it, and look past it.

Please if you are struggling in your marriage, don’t loose hope. Remember to cry out to God and pour your soul out to him and it may be you who does the changing even when we “know it should be the other person”. He meets us where we are at and carries us as we go through the journey. We need to cry out to him in the hardest times on the hardest days and he will meet us. Please feel free to email me or send me a message and I can just listen. sometimes that is all I needed, someone to listen to me while I worked things out in my own head while talking them through with someone else. I would also love to pray for you or encourage you in any way I can. My journey is not over and sometimes I feel like giving up, but I fall to my knees and cry out to God again and he brings peace and joy to my heart when I have feelings of fear and anxiety.

I am certainly not healed by any means. I was having a discussion with God this morning about some things I am feeling anxious about, but he brought peace right away. I knew that crying out to him and telling him “hey I am scarred about this”, would allow him to talk to me and tell me I’ve got you dear child. I imagine his hand resting on my shoulder as I face these fears and trust in him. I go to counseling weekly, I have meetings with a mentor, and I have some amazing friends who help me when I am in the worst moments but really the truth is the only way for me to get out of the low pit of despair is to cry to Jesus and rely solely on him. I read psalms daily, write in my journal every night and I listen to a prayer meditation each night before I go to bed. I hope this will be helpful to you if you are facing hardships in your life. This prayer meditation helped me refocus on who is in control of everything and brings me back to peace in my heart. Sometimes I cried it out along with the prayer saying it myself and sometimes I just listen to the voice and it puts me to sleep but I can’t sleep without it so it must be something that is helping me get through this time.

Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3O22mqcnPI

Jenny Wren

Sometimes you just don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to express the hurt you are feeling without making the people or person who hurt you out to be bad. Sometimes you say too much and you already have made that person look bad. Silence is often talked about in the bible referred too as bridling the tongue because no one can control the tongue. Its referred to as wicked. The tongue is a powerful tool. It can often tear down relationships, it tears people apart. When you’ve said something and as soon as it leaves your mouth you realize those words were destructive. So As Jenny Wren I have been silent. I didn’t know what to write, how to say it and how to season my words with grace. But let the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart be seasoned with grace. So as I meditate on grace in my heart I ask God to season my words with grace. As I speak up about my journey, my trails, my personal life, I want all the words I write to be seasoned with grace.

Often words are what destroy a relationship. But words can bring joy, grace, peace and love. Words can be what makes someone succeed or makes them come crashing down. The teacher who was overly critical in grade school can damage that child for life. The mom who is constantly critical and has a hard time finding the good in her children makes those children feel that pain for the rest of their lives. God is the transformer. So when I am overly critical of my children I go to God to ask him to teach me how to be a mom seasoned with Grace and love. To speak with respect and grace to my husband. But on the other hand, there are many teachers who make those children into thriving adults because their words were seasoned with love and grace. There are plenty of mothers (mine included) who launch their children into the world as confident adults because their words were seasoned with love and grace.

Recently I started selling cinnamon rolls. last night I was thinking and hoping the last batch I made didn’t have salt instead of sugar (It doesn’t I tried some of my end pieces). It would be a huge mistake especially since I sell them. At least i am not making them for a competition. Watching the Great British Baking show, one of the guys coated the pans for some cakes with salt instead of sugar. Paul Hollywood didn’t have words SEASONED with grace for that guy HAHA. If you are constantly putting salt onto someone who needs a little sugar to grow it will be “rubbish” As Paul Hollywood puts it. No one wants to be putting rubbish onto their family.

This is a lesson I am slowly learning. I pray for my words to be seasoned with sugar instead of salt and that they would be words of grace and not anger and nonacceptance. Pray for me with this and I will pray for you. Words are what forms you.

We can go to Gods word for words of acceptance. If you are the child who has now grown into an adult that feels unacceptable because someone spoke rubbish to you, there is hope. Hope in the Words of the Bible. He speaks truth and grace to the hurting

As moms we often rely on other people to be our barometer of how we are measuring up. But if we are talking negative self talk to ourselves how can we pour positive talk into our families. I believe our self talk is what comes out to others. what we put in comes out. Like my mom always made me do when I had very poor self esteem, look in the mirror and tell yourself ten things you like about yourself. In my preteen, hormonal sobs, I yelled I look like a rat. Now I don’t believe that, but I don’t like gloating over myself in the mirror. So maybe I need to practice that again. 5 things each morning I like about myself and then tell my kids 5 things I like about them. Between Gods word and positive self talk can you imagine how that might transform us? So there is the challenge guys. Tell yourself 5 things you like about yourself each day and then do the same for your family and lets see where it will take us. I hope that my words will start transforming and changing my kids and myself into confident people who are filled with love and peace because of Jesus but also because of words in our family being seasoned with Grace.

Lets add a little extra seasoning this week to our families and see where we will go!

Jenny Wren

Making imperfect progress is the title of this blog and over the last year I have been in the battle of my life, making imperfect progress all the way. God is fighting my battles for me (There is a song like that) But I too am fighting daily an enemy I can not see. He is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. I am his number one prey, my family, my husband, my children. Actually we are all his prey. Some he has a hold on and he turns them in the direction he desires and some are Gods children and he can influence their choices only if they let him in. The last year has been influenced by him and I have been walking a journey I never thought I would have to walk.

I choose love, I choose joy, I choose Jesus everyday. People tell me you need to choose the easy way out and I continued to choose love. I know that marriage is the hardest journey I will ever walk and my marriage has been through the hardest time of my life. God is making me stronger, He is making me realize that I can’t do this life without him. He is forming me into the masterpiece he sees the end of, but I see all the mumbled colors that just look like a big blob of brown nastiness.

He has said Jenny Wren I choose you to walk along side this man, I choose you to mother these precious children alone (but I am not actually alone) for a year, I choose you to take the responsibility of a household all on yourself. Not because he thinks I am strong but because he knows he is strong and that in my weakness He is made stronger. I can choose to rely on him and walk this road that is the hardest road I have been down, in his arms with him carrying me and other times He is walking beside me leading the way or I can choose the hard way and do it because I AM STRONG – actually I am not- and do it in my own strength. I choose to be carried. I am weary, I need you to carry me Lord.

Love endures through ALL circumstances has been my verse that I continue to go to and rely on. God didn’t ask me to love when its comfortable for me, he asks me to love through it all. I am so excited to see what God will teach me through this year. Do you want to walk this journey with me? I am going to try to use my writing again as an outlet, because lets face it being a single mom is really tough, and I would love to bring you on this journey I am going on and yell from the roof tops what God is doing for me! Come join me and follow my blog.

Jenny Wren

Wow! That week was so crazy busy I am just now picking up my head to breathe. You know the kind, your running from here to there from one gathering to another. All the kids are home and its all you can do to get 3 meals on the table each day. Last week was a doozy. Thursday November 15 started our kids Thanksgiving break. Why is it that a “Break” from school means no break for mom? Anyways, We hit the ground running.

The older boys W and D spent the night on Thursday with grandma and I was able to get a bunch of deep cleaning done. I am so thankful for the extra half day to prepare for the week ahead. My sister was coming and I was trying to get my office finished so she would have a nice quiet room to go to sleep in and take breaks in. It got mostly finished but I love the end product.

The weekend was pretty normal for a weekend. Friday night movie night, Saturday morning A goes to Bible study, Saturday night we go to small group and Sunday we attend church. Sunday afternoon we have our naps and lazy around for the rest of the day. Somewhere during the week my kids figured out we don’t have to be up at 6 and started to sleep longer. We watched tv, played tablets and played outside. (It was beautiful). We got the room ready for MW and picked her up Tuesday morning. We went directly to the exploration place (A science center in our local town) and shopping for the weekend.

Tuesday Morning J was up with a fever at 4:30 and sick most of the day. Tuesday night she had a febrile seizure and continued to have 8 through the night. The next morning we decided to take her into the doctor after she threw up twice. They diagnosed it as a virus that caused the fever which caused the seizures. We are very thankful it wasn’t anything worse and that she was starting to act normal by the time we returned home. Bossing her brothers around and everyone else in the house for that matter. My sister MW called her a baby dictator and that actually is pretty accurate. LOL

Wednesday we took the kids to a park and then tried to see the Grinch but decided to bring home the older one and watch it at home with our own popcorn and candy.

Thursday we made steak, biscuits and gravy and cinnamon rolls for breakfast with our fancy table cloth and china. We even had our friends and neighbors over and he drank his coffee from a tea cup 🙂 Thursday evening we had A’s family gathering with hamburgers for supper.

Friday we got up at 5:30 to leave the house at 6 to get to town for black Friday shopping.  I went into wake MW at 5:55 and she says to me

MW “Wasn’t it 6:30 we were going to leave?”

Me “no it was 6 and its 5:55”

MW “Are you sure it wasn’t 6:30?”

Me “Nope, it was six, I am going to turn on this lamp so you can wake up now.”

MW reluctantly gets out of bed and is greeted by a cup of coffee from her big sister.

Our shopping trip was so much fun. And really we didn’t wait in huge lines to get the things we needed. We did learn that most of the door buster prices are gone by the time Friday morning comes around. Most of the shopping starts on Thursday night which I think is the worst thing they could have ever done.  We got some awesome deals and had fun along the way.

Saturday was greeted by 65 degree weather and an absolutely perfect day. We dressed the kids up and took some family photos. (It was a disaster) I think maybe one turned out.

Sunday morning the wind and snow blew in and we decided not to attend church 45 minutes away. So we stayed home made comfort food and watched some movies my family had never seen.

Monday morning we dropped the boys at school and headed off to newton for some more shopping. We walked down main street browsing the shops and enjoying all the things to look at. We had coffee at a small coffee shop and headed back to Eldorado to pick up the boys. Then off to supper and the airport and the 6 days were over like that in a flash. We got home, did homework and then went to some much needed bed just to do it all over again this morning.

Looking back over the week I am filled with so much thankfulness. Mainly that I got that special time with my sister MW. We haven’t had a lot of time together over the years and this time was very special. We went to the exploration place, to family gatherings, made a delicious Thanksgiving breakfast to make my mom proud, and went black Friday shopping. We experienced J having febrile seizures through the night and lots of couch time with movies. We baked together and laughed together and shopped together, Oh did we ever shop together. Oh and drank a lot of coffee together.

So today and the whole week I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for my sisters. I am thankful for my husband and I am thankful for my kids. I am one very lucky woman to have all these people around me that love me so much.

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving with your families and friends. God bless all of you.

Signing off from one woman to another,

Jenny Wren.