Tag: challenge

Encouragers: The Challenger of Norms

Encouragers: The Challenger of Norms

October 6, 2022

I’m praying for her family.  I’m praying for strength, wisdom, and peace in her heart.  This woman is the Challenger of Norms.  She has encouraged me over many years.  When my daughters ask if I have a best friend, this woman comes to mind.  She has allowed me to speak openly.  We can talk honestly with each other about our respective challenges, joys, disappointments, fears, mountain highs, and valley lows without judging each other. 

She was the friend who taught me it was safe to be vulnerable to another adult (other than my husband).  She taught me I can be real about the challenges I face with the life I chose.  Often we feel trapped in the life we chose, especially if our choice is considered “unconventional” or “unrealistic” in today’s world.  This is because the world tries to isolate us into tiny corners.  Public schooled here.  Homeschooled there.Medical challenges in your children here.Healthy children there.Stay-at-home-moms here.Working moms there.Struggling business owner families here.Lower class, middle class, upper middle class, lower middle class… Etc. Society tries to put us all into tiny boxes and keep us isolated there. 

This was not how God intended!  We are intended to work together!  Younger are to learn from elders, we are to speak truth and encouragement into the lives of others, we are to build each other up and edify.  You can’t do that if you feel trapped into silence because someone’s response to you saying you feel stressed, please pray for me ends up being “you shouldn’t have done xyz” instead of just saying “yes” or praying right there.  I always heard “your troubles are just because you have too many kids” – um… no.  Our financial troubles came from poor decisions (paying off credit cards instead of house), medical unknowns (my crazy hospital issue), or issues beyond our control (losing jobs due to forced government shutdown debacle, someone using a car without permission and wrecking two others, someone rear-ending and totaling a car that is too old for us to get a replacement, etc)

The Challenger of Norms taught me to embrace the life I chose and enjoy each stage of it unapologetically.  I have taken that to heart.  She has managed to keep joy and purpose even in the face of debilitating medical issues facing her precious children.  Once I mentioned how I felt bad speaking about how I was challenged when she faces so much.  She told me only she walks her journey just as only I walk mine.  That I’ve heard in my heart for over a decade.  I have to lean on others who are choosing joy in order to encourage me to choose joy in my challenges. 

We can discuss homeschooling options and challenges without comparing our children one to another because both of us understand that each child has their own unique challenges and strengths.  We can discuss our challenges and encourage each other in mothering without judging.  We can share our challenges and strengths in our respective marriages and understand that neither of us are alone in our respective struggles.  We can boast on our men and laugh at their craziness and somehow that actually makes me feel more thankful for the blessings we both have. 

She taught me that dropping in unannounced was totally acceptable for friends.  We could show up at each others’ homes and just jump into whatever was going on – from parties to cleaning to pool parties to bonfires to just chatting about everything while our toddlers to teens entertain each other and our babies fall asleep.  My home is now always open and I don’t really care what it looks like (Louis and the girls generally keep it in “mostly acceptable” condition anyway).  We have games and fun every Sunday as that is officially our “family day” that we try to keep open.  I hope to build relationships with my children, their friends, and families of their friends so that friends and family feel comfortable just showing up at my house if they ever need it or want it.

What I really learned from my friend is to live life as I want to, as God leads me, and let everyone else think and say whatever they want without really caring.  Oh, I listen, but when it’s something that directly challenges the lifestyle God has given me – my amazing husband, our wonderful children, our happy amazing life – I smile, nod politely, and let it in one ear and out the other.  I am who I am. 

Sometimes we just need someone to affirm we are human just like everyone else and someone who will tell us the truth while allowing us to speak our emotions openly.  We know the truth.  I am loved.  I am chosen.  I am blessed!  Sometimes we need to speak our emotions out loud to get them in line with our truths – and that, it when we find out where true friends are.  Those who listen, agree they are human just like we are, and speak encouragement into our lives.

I am so thankful that God allowed me to overcome my insane fear of talking to adults just in time to make an amazing friend who, together with her awesome family, has blessed me and my family in more ways than I can possibly ever list. 

Be that friend to someone today.  Listen.  Be human.  Speak truth in love.

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

A Writer’s Character Secret

Writing is an outlet for emotional and logical discussions for me.  When no one wants to talk about what I want to work out in my mind, I write.  I write for relaxation. 

A Writer’s Character Secret

September 21, 2022

Writing is an outlet for emotional and logical discussions for me.  When no one wants to talk about what I want to work out in my mind, I write.  I write for relaxation.  It feels fun, challenging, and often makes me happy to be in my ”book worlds” I have made up. 

For me, my “book worlds” allow me to explore things I can’t in this life.  It’s like dreaming with my eyes open.  I switch from book in progress to book in progress – I am currently working on about 18 titles actively.  My mood in real life decides whom I want to step into in my brain.  I know where each of my characters are in the stories – I know where I left them.  Thus, I reread the last few paragraphs and dive in with whatever comes next. 

Like my teenage self – lots of writing done then.  I started when my father noticed I was “wasting” my school notebooks for stories, and he suggested I type them.  I had a shoebox filled with 3.5”disks containing three or four stories each! 

Imagine:

Her frustrations, emotions, dreams, adventurous spirit, and everything hidden deep within her as she worked her way through these books were laid out in her own stories tapped at a furiously increasing pace in MS Works on her father’s computer saved on a 3.5” disk.  Her first completed story was her take on a true abortion survivor story.  She became her characters.  Her characters acted out and solved the problems she was facing.  She talked and acted her characters and plotlines out while raking, mowing, or gardening in various locations.  She was Erakk.  Fighting to keep his character sound when faced with odd decisions he’d rather avoid.  She was Jordan.  Her desperate heart cry to be understood and learn how to teach bloomed from his soul in what was to become “Web of Deception.”  She was Kelly.  She was the girl struggling to lead and keep everyone together as their tiny band of outcast survivors developed a whole new world of peace and love.  She became Kelly.  The woman who mothers with an understanding she has gained from life and full dependence on Jesus.  She was Kalina.  She boiled with anger and frustration at not being allowed to do the things she desired with every fiber of her being and ended up learning that what she really wanted was only a small step in a journey back to what her elders had advised her to reach for in the first place.  She was Ethan.  An outcast in his own mind searching quietly for a sense of belonging he thinks he can make on his own despite the true reality that those close to him care deeply for him.  She was Jamie.  Facing challenges that feel too far above his age and making choices that defy the expectations of those above him; always choosing the answer of integrity and honor.  She became Philip.  Overcoming challenges in life that happened beyond his control yet bringing everyone along and pushing his family through to success in the end.  She was Jo.  Fiercely defending her sister from evils that trick the heart and destroy those close to her – blinding everyone except her.  She was Jason.  Defending his family from evils that weaseled their way into his family from years of incorrect choices by three generations behind him that build to forcing his father into being possessed into something he isn’t – now he has to choose to believe that the threads he holds onto are his father’s true self and force the evil away. 

The stories continue.  Some are finished.  Some may never be…

A writer puts himself into the shoes of his characters and wriggles his toes around.  We walk lifetimes in their shoes.  We put ourselves in each character we create. 

I always have a character in a book or series that I consider my shadow; sometimes it is the protagonist like Jordan in Web of Deception.  Sometimes it is a supporting character like Philip Duggar in Brantley Station Saga or Kelly in The Devonians. 

Oftentimes there are bits of me in each character.  Strange thoughts…

I know, crazy writer’s brain, but that’s what I feel.  That’s what it’s like to write for me. 

If you stuck through this one, thank you ever so much for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Armor of God

WOW! Just wow, personal study and crazy writer’s brain thoughts on a recent Sunday School lesson!

Armor of God

August 31, 2022 (Timewarp from August 8, 2022)

At Sunday School yesterday, the study was on the Armor of God (Ephesians 6, if you want to check it out).  When I was ten (approximate age of my class), I loved studying different cultures, their people, ways of life, weapons, costumes, you name it.  This armor of God passage clicked for me because I had just been reading of how the armor of the Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and Egyptians had invaded or defended and defeated greater numbers due to their armor – either a superior weapon, superior body armor, superior tools (like chariots), superior tactics (like phalanx). 

It was pretty easy to get the first part; our enemies aren’t other people walking around even though we’re tricked into thinking so and shove all our energy into being mad instead of focusing on the real enemy.  It was the rest about all the cool armor that glowed to life with my recent understanding:

With all your armor on, you will stand strong; only with your armor (through Jesus), will you stand. 

(The Bible repeats this for emphasis!)  Super neat!  Only with this armor (all of it requires Jesus, like He’s the master Creator who designed all this stuff in the first place, you know!) can you stand tall in victory!

Having your loins girt about with truth…

(My thoughts, again) Having is one of those multi-tense verbs in Greek, meaning have, having, and has had, aka always having or continually having.  Girt = girded, or strapped around.  In the body armor symbolism, being “girt about” or “girded” was having a belt/sash/rope tied tightly around your clothing to keep it in place and as a holder for weapons.  Most sheathes were looped or tied onto the belt.  The truth is the Word of God.  (My ten-year-old brain already got this from Sleeping Beauty as the Sword of Truth is the Word of God – the voice of Light with the power to defeat darkness.)

(Still my thoughts) This translates to: continually having the Word of God in your mind.

…and having the breastplate of righteousness…

(My Thoughts) Same sentence, so this is still in the cool multi-tense of Greek.  A breastplate was a thick piece of padded armor covering the front and back – most types connected at the top of the shoulders, and covered both the front and back, sometimes the front was more heavily padded.  The strongest of these deflected arrows!  All of them lessened the impact of bodily attacks.  The purpose is to protect vital organs, like the heart, lungs, stomach, etc. 

…and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace…

(My thoughts again – remember, same sentence, same tense) Wow!  The preparation of the gospel of peace is like when John the Baptist is preparing the way for Jesus!  It is the telling of everyone without regard to our own life and safety!  It is the understanding that the eternal is the most real and that this life is temporal; a vapor, the Bible says!  “Shod” is an old word that means “covering the feet.”  Our most common use today is when we say a horse is “shod” – his feet are protected!  My feet are being protected so I can share the gospel to prepare others to come to love Jesus as I do!

…above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked.

(thoughts…) Oh my!  This one!  Just wow!  First off: this is “above all” so primary!  Our defense is primary (of course, so we can continue to be effective, a wounded soldier isn’t effective).  Then: fiery darts can be translated to arrows, flaming arrows, projectile, etc.  “Fiery darts” in the Roman era when Paul is writing were the most devastating weapons because they were usually arrows or spears with the ends coated in a pitch/tar mixture that was lit before tossing or shooting and did its job effectively by sticking into the target, spreading, and burning.  Quench means “to put out.”  Basically, this shield can smother any fiery dart and since elsewhere the Bible warns of the devil throwing “darts” at us, it means everything the devil could throw at us is extinguished!  Translated in my brain I saw the shield of virtue (yes, I’m reverting to my ten-year-old brain again) that the evil dragon breathes fire on and not even the heat burns his hand!

…and take the helmet of salvation…

(again) Helmets were to protect the head and later, the neck, one of the most vulnerable points.  I think of the helmet protecting the brain; keeping fiery darts from our minds – the place most unseen attacks start for me.  Salvation is the only way.  Jesus is our salvation so He is the only way.  Putting on the helmet of salvation puts us under Jesus and therefore our mind is protected!

…and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

(my crazy thoughts again!) Finally!  A weapon!  The sword of the spirit is the Word of God.  That can’t be more plainly spelled out, can it?  The only weapon we wield that can do any damage is the Word of God!  Isn’t that cool?  Jesus used scripture to combat the devil when He was being tempted in the wilderness, when the Pharisees tried to trick Him, in answering His disciples, and anytime someone questioned something He did (you know, like healing on the Sabbath).  If that sword is the one Jesus chose to use, we should follow His example!  

…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching with all perseverance and supplication for the saints.

Challenge accepted! (My thoughts again)  Anyway, that translates to always having communication with Jesus and (prayer = talking, communicating) and asking everything (supplication = like begging or pleading) in the Spirit watching out with perseverance (perseverance = standing strong) and pleading or asking for every other brother (saints = followers of Jesus).  So I took this / take this as a challenge from Jesus – He just told us this armor was so we can stand strong!  Remember, “In this world, we will have trouble” but He has already overcome the world!  Putting on all of His armor, which is tried and true, tested already for us, will enable us to stand strong and exterminate the attacks of the enemy!

This passage study is a little glimpse into my crazy writer’s brain that connects everything from cartoons to real life to old culture study to word origin and entomology.  I use all of these things to analyze and interpret literature – including the Bible!  When someone sends us a letter, we read it in his voice, so when I read the Bible, I read it as a letter from Jesus.  The only way I know His voice is by reading and using the miracle of intelligence He gave us; I analyze and step into the time then and translate it to now.  Crazy, I know, but still super cool! 

Our weapons are a sweet total covering of armor for defense, a shield of ultimate defense (nothing gets through it!), and the best weapon ever made! 

Thank you for reading,

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

11 Days of Challenge

The Eleven Days of Challenge

11 Days of Challenge

December 30, 2021

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here!

My phone doesn’t like wordpress anymore and wordpress decided my computer is too old to work. I’m having to borrow access to this website through another computer, but that’s a whole other story!

Our beginning challenge of trying to find a rental for our family and facing the facts that my phone is too old to work with the app correctly and my computer is so old the app glitched out. I ended up having to spend over a week off and on the phone with the rental company’s tech support and using my work’s computer off time to get it to work where my application went through (during this time, the house in the “perfect” location was rented and we had to settle on the next in line, which is obviously where we are supposed to be for now).

Move in day was supposed to be December 13th. Yippee!

The eleven days of challnge started with December 10th when my husband’s car was rear-ended on the interstate. (He walked away, thank you, Jesus!)

December 11th, my sister was in an accident. Christina offered to be a taxi to replace two cars…

December 12th, I took Becky to her nanny job.

December 16th, I got Becky back from her nanny job.

On December 21, we took our van in and it was irreparable. The engine had corrosion on the inside that was coming out in the spark plug wells. (Appears it was in an accident two months prior to our purchasing it and this was the result of years of corrosion: in retrospect, if your husband asks you “do you like the new (used) car?” ask “was it ever in a wreck?”) Hindsight is always 20/20.

We did move between December 13th and 19th, though, thanks very much to my husband’s boss allowing us to use his van. Okay, honestly, this was the first move where I didn’t actually move anything! I packed a couple boxes before the 13th, sorted some stuff for packing, and unloaded and sorted at the destination, but did not move anything. I think I drove one load.

Christina was doing finals at Embry.

Becky was nannying.

I was working and dragging Thea, Lucas, and whatever gymnast had practice along.

That meant Louis, Kimberly, and Jaquline did most of the moving. They so impressed me. Even with our bumps, I came in to see that the girls had decorated and set up for Christmas, we enjoyed our crazy December ride.

The eleven day roller coaster was one I barely believe. God worked everything out nicely as He always does. We now have bigger hurdles to face in the year of 2022. But I’m already looking forward to the fun we will have during these challenges!

Christina moves into her second semester at Embry-Riddle, Becky returns to her nanny job, Kimberly started a job in September and will compete Xcel Gold and start college classes, Jaquline is navigating pre-teenhood and taller than most of her sisters, Jillian will compete Xcel Bronze, Lucas has discovered reading, and Thea thinks she’s Jillian’s equal in independence. We will enjoy every step and make new memories!

One of the girls called the day from losing the Prius to losing the van “eleven crazy days” – maybe so, but it was an amazing example of how God works all things out just the way he wants it.

I’m thankful for life, love, and joy!

What are you looking forward to in this new year?

Type at you later! (and there will be a slew of backdated posts once I can get my files to upload here!)

~Nancy Tart

Side Quests

September 16, 2021

Side Quests

Have you ever played those role playing video games (yes, I know they are called RPGs) where you are a character (or in the case of my personal favorite, Star Ocean, the Second Story, you are several characters)? Your job is to get from A to B solving stuff along the way so you can accomplish B successfully.

There are these fun little diversions called “Side Quests” that entice you to sidetrack. And yes, I do every side quest I can possibly do! I love these characters (I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love Dias’ tragic backstory and crazy loyalty?) and generally the side quests develop or highlight the character or relationship of one or more characters.

My mind does that to books too.

After watching “The Neverending Story”, I told my Daddy, “every story I like is neverending to me.” He laughed. But case and point: my girls and I are reading and/or listening to an engaging series by Flanagan called “The Ranger’s Apprentice.” I’m way ahead of them and dying trying to not give the story away!! We debate character, backstory, possible romantic interests, who will die, etc. In my head, I have taken bits of veiled hints and imagined child and teen escapades that Will and the other wards may have had. I dream of the life of Will’s parents. I wonder at Halt’s story. (Get to book 9 to answer part of that previous one.)

For me, “The Ranger’s Apprentice” is a neverending story.

Switch to writer brain…

Now, my uncanny love of fleshing out my characters with backstory and flashback experiences bombed when I had to cut more than 80% of “Web of Deception” during editing. While I perceived I was getting good at hinting instead of laying everything out, (aka learning to cut stuff) one of my proofreaders came up clutching the original first book in “Brantley Station Saga” and moaned, “what is the pirate baby story?“

…book one became book three because I needed to tell Ethan’s origin story in “Pirate Child” and “Little Thief.” It also gave me opportunity to build up and flesh out a secondary character in the series who becomes one of Ethan’s primary influencers.

A side quest turned into two additional books.

Now I’m constantly working on various huge books. One is codenamed “curse” and is actually an evil backstory. I have a spin-off of what may turn into actual books someday written to help me understand my characters better… All are backstory for one character in “curse.”

What side quests teach me about life is that often the character building moments in our lives come from what we perceive as inconsequential incidents. We may not understand at that moment that these side quests are really pivotal moments.

Anyway:

Enjoy life! With all of the bumps, dips, side quests, and shifts along the way.

Find your joy!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Failing to Compare

July 23, 2020

Failing to Compare

Do you know what I hope I fail in? 

Seriously.  I’m super competitive by nature.  I had to teach myself that trying to “be my best” is a different thing than being better than someone else. 

I had to fail at comparing. 

What are we at, 8 billion people on the planet?  Each one of us has a unique set of circumstances, challenges, goals, cultures, and opportunities.  How can we possibly compare ourselves to each other?

Simplify: we do it in our own heads even if people don’t for us. So we have to learn not to compare in our own heads too!

Your child is acting out. 

From people who may or may not know you comes the onslaught: “that’s because you work,” “that’s because you stay home all day,” “that’s because you are too busy,” “that’s because you never go on playdates,” “that’s because you have him around too many children,” “that’s because you have him in vpk,” “that’s because you home school,” “that’s because your mom ate Wendy’s Frosties with French fries while carrying you…”

And it goes on and on!  They give you reasons to blame yourself or your situation for the child crying in the grocery cart.

You know, mentally, it’s been a long day or he just woke up and the bright lights hurt his eyes or he’s teething or maybe he flat out doesn’t want to be in the store today but you let the judging start in you.  Now you blame yourself. 

One child is independent at 6: he wakes up before the rooster crows, does schoolwork without prodding, makes healthy food if there isn’t a ready meal, dresses himself and three younger siblings and feeds the dog before you have your coffee.  Another is 13 and you can’t trust him with the dog for three seconds, he never does anything without you doing it for him, you bought him sliders and gave up on shoelaces decades ago, and it scares you that the government thinks this kid can climb into a 2-ton vehicle in less than three years and turn himself into a human projectile at 70mph+.  (Exaggerated, I know, but still!)

You find yourself blaming you and your circumstances for how your kids are. 

Stop it!

Mommy, your kids are fine!

They have their own unique personalities and the unique way God set in them from when they were knit together in your womb!  Your job is to help them find their way.  It’s a really cool study to really research the Hebrew on that passage you know, “Train up a child…” the word way there means “the traits that are his” we might say his personality, likes, and dreams.  Dig into that one more when you have time – awesome study. 

ANYWAY!  Back to your mind yelling at you and beating you up because your children are different.  Different than you, different than your spouse, different than their siblings, friends, teammates, schoolmates – YES! They were all made different.  Each a beautiful masterpiece God is still carefully crafting with His own hands.

That independent child?  We lead and guide and pray they choose to ask for help when they face something that looks difficult – we’d rather them not make the same mistakes we did.  (Waving my hand, I was that independent child and humility was/is a challenge for me!)

The 13 year old that seems lazy and unproductive?  Watch what falling in love with a sport, subject, or animal will do for him.  You turn around and that one is buying books on said subject, devoting hours, days, whole weeks lost in it, suddenly you blink and he’s that subject’s walking encyclopedia – then if you listen you’ll discover that was always there, he studies one thing at a time and shoelaces, school deadlines, and things that didn’t interest him just didn’t get any attention.   

When you feel like your brain is beating you up because of your parenting, your situation, and your children not being “perfect,” remind your brain that no one is perfect.  There are no perfect children.  (Okay, be honest, you aren’t living in a Jewish village 2000 years ago watching Joseph and Mary parent Jesus – my brain wouldn’t have shut up watching a real perfect kid!)

You can’t say to yourself, “I did xyz” regarding a child’s personality unless you are using that as a tool to ask yourself, “how do I help him overcome this?”  Because yes, I know, going through financial instability, parents going to work or coming home, changing schools, changing neighborhoods, losing family members, that all does contribute to the development of personality and psyche in a child (or in an adult, am I right?) so understanding is good to help more forward – but the best way to help is to LISTEN.

Sit with them when you can – vehicles are normally good because they are trapped and can’t go anywhere.  And ditch the devices.  Unless you are parenting long distance, look in their eyes and listen with your whole self.  It doesn’t have to look like two adults over coffee at a Barnes & Noble, either.  Think like them.  You can be playing a video game with your kid and have deep conversation.  You can be building duplo blocks and get the scoop on everything in his little heart.

Listen to them.  Ask them prodding questions about their thoughts, their dreams, their goals, and what things have impacted them.  You will learn a lot.  Let them speak as much as you can.  You lecturing the same stuff becomes listening to a broken record.  You need to hear them as much as they need to talk to you.  Learn their hearts.  If you forget stuff sometimes like I do, WRITE DOWN important stuff and file it away somewhere.  That way when you want to know your daughter’s favorite color you don’t have to text her sister.

Fail to compare.  ALWAYS choose not to compare.  If you hear them saying “at least I’m better than so-and-so…” ask why they feel that way and then tell them how each person is unique.  If they want to be better at something, encourage it!  But don’t compare with others.  They don’t know “so-and-so’s” full heart story.  (Side note on that is let them read “To Kill A Mockingbird” or watch the Gregory Peck film version.) Don’t compare.  Especially don’t compare siblings!

Choose to change what you can (only yourself and the environment you create) and accept what you can’t (the personality of others and situations you have no control over).

Do your best in the environment you have.  That is all we can do.  Mothers for millennia have been doing just that – wars, famines, massive global flood, cultural and political changes, pestilences, and economic booms and busts notwithstanding, Mothers continue to do their best for their children.  

Fail to compare.

Instead of tearing each other down, we should build each other up.  We should provide safe environments for each other to come, talk deeply, and gather advice.  We live helping each other because we know the power is not in comparing ourselves with another but with helping each other up.  We need that type of love.  We need to build each other up instead of compare and break down.  Our children see how we treat others when they are near and when we are alone – character is what we say and do when no one is watching.  Build up.  Encourage.  Instead of judging someone else, rejoice with them or encourage them.

This is for our own children too.  Build them up, encourage them, rejoice with them, pray for them, and lead them in their own unique and special way.

If you catch yourself comparing yourself to another or your children to each other or another’s child… Stop.  Instead, choose to encourage or rejoice.  Your heart will smile more and that will show on your face and in your attitude – this causes joy in your heart!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

God’s Fireworks

June 7, 2020

God’s Fireworks

When Christina, Brian, and Becky were little, way back when Becky was going by the nickname of “Lori” and we had a big brown dog they named “Dakota” after a Disney song from a movie that went on repeat for easily two months… we lived in a house with three huge windows in the living room that opened to the huge front yard and made it easy to see the summer storm lightning shows. 

Dakota would hide under the table during the storms.  Christina and Becky had just watched the Fireworks over the Matanzas – our one family tradition that has never been interrupted for 16 years – and they comforted Dakota by saying, “it is all okay, Dakota, this is just God’s Fireworks in the sky.”

One of the first summer storms to pop up this year and we get this picture and the following video: beautiful examples of the volatility and beauty of nature.  The big girls had to tell the little ones the story of Dakota and how we came to call lightning shows “God’s Fireworks.”

We listened to the wind outside howl and thunder last night.  I’m reminded of the changes in seasons.  From drought so bad we had to carefully nurse our garden with deep watering twice daily to this rain so filling that our watermelons and tomatoes are splitting.

Rainy season and hurricane season are here.  Change.

We choose to embrace each change in life as it comes.  We adapt through changes.  Sometimes we don’t like the change: like being locked away, losing jobs, losing summer camps, losing scholarship opportunities, losing VBS, losing the potential for a house… etc.

But we overcome and rise with new goals and hopes. 

We shift our job focus from what makes money to what we love!  We stop watering the garden and now watch for the signs of splitting fruit.  We work harder.  We find other opportunities.  We chose to look for the good in each event.  We choose to see the setbacks as challenges to rise above. 

We choose not to be bitter.  This is a hard one.  We must understand two things: we only can move forward and we can only change ourselves.  We cannot control what circumstances we are thrown into but we can control our reactions to said circumstances. 

I choose love.  I choose joy.  I pray my children follow in my example and choose love and joy when life throws them circumstances that seem unfair.

The lightning reminds me today that the world is broken.  Lightning can cause damage.  Lightning can cause death.  But lighting shows are beautiful, awe inspiring dancing electrons in gorgeous flashes of bright light and colored thunderhead clouds.  I choose to see the potentially dangerous lighting show as beautiful: “God’s Fireworks”

I choose to see setbacks and losses as potential to rise with joy and allow the peace that passes all understanding to rule my heart.  Odd that lighting makes me think of contention and losses… but that’s my weirdly wired brain.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

A Family Journal

June 2, 2019

A Family Journal

I’ve been working on two projects for each of my children.  One was a crocheted blanket for each – king size, crafted from their favorites in a pattern they chose.  I’ve only completed one.  The second is about 15 rows from completion, but I haven’t worked on it since Thea was born.  It took me 17 months for the first half of Christina’s, but during one superbowl at Louis’ dad’s house, I completed the other half!  So I’m fast, but it will likely be the next week I have off – and then I’ll start on the third of seven.

The second was started in December 2016.  It looks like a simple book, right?

20190602_1751078677566901023795439.jpg

Actually, I started a journal for Christina.

20190602_1749273478154632032665742.jpg

It tells family stories, I write my Bible study notes, discuss issues, and write my prayers.  I tell “her story” from my perspective starting from the last page moving forward.  I saved the fourteen pages in between this story and my “journal” for family.  I am going to ask women in our family to write encouragement and blessing to her in their own hand in the journal before I pass it on to her.

I’ve got a central core of stories I will have in each journal – all will be slightly different because I never write the same exact words each time.

I want to write all the wisdom I’ve heard in stories from my grandmothers, mothers, fathers, and mentors in a way my children can read them when they choose.  Maybe they will be encouraged, challenged, or just smile realizing that they are not alone in a struggle they feel slightly too proud or too embarrassed to ask for help about.  I try to relay life and our journey in these bits.  I manage to write at least once a week and direct most of my writing as if I’m talking to her.  This also helps me to process my thoughts.  I also have a required study day if I forget. (Which, yes, sometimes I read without studying, but at least once a week I remember to write my study!)

Such a simple little book.  It holds our family memories, stories, and encouragement for a young woman.  (I need to get busy on Becky’s as they are growing up too quickly for me!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Savor Life

We should savor life at every stage!

February 2, 2019

Savor Life

I’m a few weeks or so from giving birth to our seventh little miracle.

Lying in the bed (because of some biological oddities to hit just as this baby started, the cold that normally would take me two or three days to fight is taking a stretched-out time; I’m on day seven) Louis says, “if the afterbirth is harder each time, maybe we should stop with this one.”

I smiled, but since I was lying toward the wall, he couldn’t see.  “I’ve always treated each time as if it may be the last.”

“Really?” I guess this shocked him a little because I love being pregnant, I love the infant stage, I love the growing independence of the toddler stage, I love each and every step so far in this journey.   Although I’m fully prepared for God to say, “this is the last one” sometime, I’m also fully prepared to continue going through this amazing cycle of mothering a miracle.

Yes.

I guess it’s complicated.

See, about the time I was pregnant with Kimberly, I grew a great deal in my understanding of how to allow God to have full control in my entire life.  I thought I trusted Him with everything but realized that I was quietly hoping to have a multitude of children and not really okay with less – or even three.  But I asked myself, “What if God’s perfect number for you is three?”

I began to realize that God’s perfection was not limited nor driven by my wants.  (DUH!)

I decided early during that pregnancy (with Kimberly) that I would savor every second, every feeling, every hiccup, stretch, movement, and challenge that came along as if this were the last time I would carry life.

I already loved being pregnant.  I shared that love with my mother and Louis’ Grandma Honey (she told me once she would have been pregnant her entire life if God had allowed her!).

At that time, I had a shift of my mental state.  Instead of trying to always project perfection, I wanted to savor life with my family.  If this meant not fully finishing with a cleaning chore before we went somewhere, then okay.  If this meant taking a break to look at a cool flower while I’m supposed to be hanging clothes, okay.  If this meant letting someone else watch the kids so Louis and I could go out, then that was okay.  I realized I was trying to follow other peoples’ ideas of what my life should look like and had unconsciously adopted those ideas as “perfection” – and yes, perfection as it was in my brain was never truly achievable!

My stress level fell so much in those few months while I grew Kimberly in my belly and started a new “temp” job.  I may have looked busier, but I felt so liberated!

Even though what followed (from 5-weeks after Kimberly’s birth) was what I honestly believe was the most grueling, difficult 18 months of Louis & my married life, I was able to find a well of thankfulness to pull from when I felt so far down.  Without my new understanding of submitting totally to God’s plan, I would have probably allowed the horrid miscarriage to drag me into the jaws of depression.  I realized even as I cried in the stupid bulk-grocery-store bathroom, by myself, hundreds of miles from home, while I “passed” the fragments of what was once a life I felt and loved, that God had even this time in His hands.  He knew all the whys and I wasn’t to understand them; just to trust Him.

So, fast forward almost 12 years and  here I am lying with this little miracle kicking up a nice sensitive bruise under my right side.  Life in its cycle, totally unexpected, another prime example of God’s timing and perfect wisdom (Click here for that crazy amazing story!).  I’m rubbing on my belly because it makes the Baby move around and react to my touch – and I LOVE that.  I’m playing with this little one before he/she is born!

God has done so much, so many unexpected things that have lifted us up despite the weird, harsh, and unexpected challenges this past year.  God has taught me to savor all life – all stages and parts, from babies and pregnancy to friendships and siblings.  Take time for and savor everything.  There are miracles everywhere.  Yes, I’m okay if this is my last pregnancy and birth.  I’d long ago given all control to God.  I mean, if I trust Him with something so awesome as my salvation and eternal life, how can I not trust His wisdom in family size?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Follow me!

Get my latest posts delivered to your email: