30 Day Challenge - Day 5

Today was a little bit of a laid back day for me. I packed away a large portion of the Halloween/Fall decorations. My son and I went for a walk out in the back portion of our yard. I took some pictures of him playing and we picked out some leaves to bring inside. We did some crafts today and we also spent a lot of time today playing with these new number puzzles that we had gotten him at Meijers on Sunday. In addition to all of that, I was able to complete my challenge tasks.

Action #1 - Be Thankful

Today's challenge was to compliment three people today. How is that showing thankfulness? It's showing other people that you notice them. It's thinking beyond yourself. Even though the task is for someone else, I have to admit that paying someone a compliment always leaves me with a reward of feeling pretty good myself. Especially if I know that my compliment made their day.

I did get to compliment three people today. Despite the fact that I only left the house for about 10-15 minutes. One of the people that I complimented today (actually several times) was my son. Since turning three, he has tried me in every way possible.

Grrrr! Friends! I mean, he pushes the button. Then he pushes the button repeatedly. Then he just lays his finger on the button. I have gotten super frustrated the last week with him and yesterday's devotion convicted me that I should be stopping to think about my responses because how I respond to my son is my witness to him. Yes, even to a three year old.

So today, I took a step back and the only time I did yell was when we went for our walk. He ran up ahead of me and ran around the corner of the house before I could catch up to him. Our road can be pretty busy so it was a pretty frightening moment thinking that maybe he turned and burned down the driveway towards the road. I will say I didn't spend a lot of time on it and the yelling really was just me frantically yelling "stop! too far! stop". When I caught up to him, I firmly told him that I did not appreciate him running away where I couldn't see him. When we got inside, I calmly told my husband what happened and he then had another conversation with our son.

Other than that, if he wasn't listening I would repeat myself. If he still did not listen than I would take him by the hand and have him look at me so we could talk. Sometimes I would have him repeat back to me what I said. I can't believe it, but it worked. We had a pretty amazing day. I was able to pay him several compliments throughout the day. I'm sure it will all be different tomorrow. lol. This kid sure does keep me on my toes.

The other two were friends that I messaged and let them know that when I am with them my heart smiles.

Action #2 - Devotions, Journaling & Prayer

In today's devotion in Embraced, Lysa talks about knowing what to do, but we pause or don't do it at all. She puts forth some very pretty solid questions we can ask ourselves when we are deliberating about important steps or moves that we want to make. 

1. Have you been reading and praying through God's Word?
2. Have you been applying God's Word to your life?
3. Have you sought godly counsel and insights from wise people who know specifics about your situations?

Great questions. I have to admit I go both ways on this. I can deliberate for so long that I end up eventually not doing something that I know could benefit us and at other times I jump in head first to something and do not weigh everything to see if it balances with the rest of my life. 

I am trying to be more intentional about reading and praying through God's Word. I won't say that I'm doing huge chunks at a time, but I am following a plan that has me thoroughly digesting one or a couple of scriptures each day this month. I want to truly step back this last part of the year and just lean in to God. That means taking my time to understand what He has already put before me in His Word.

There is one line in today's entry of Girl Be Brave.

• Don't diminish yourself to ease the insecurity of others.

Hey oh! That's a mouthful and a rather large sermon all in nine words. It isn't easy being a stay at home mom with aspirations to do something bigger with my life. You know you have the people who judge the working moms and you have the people who judge the stay at home moms. Well, stay at home moms that also work from home get both sides of that. It's super annoying. 

Everyone wants you to fit in to a specific mold. You should be doing this or you should be doing that. But I refuse to be put in a box. When we got married there was a huge difference of opinion between what I wanted for MY wedding and what my husbands family felt traditional weddings should look like. Well, I did it my way and guess what? The other day, my mother in law told me our wedding was simple, but so beautiful. Imagine if I had caved to what people had said my wedding should look like. It wouldn't have been my wedding. It would have been someone elses and I wouldn't have all the fond memories I have of it today. I would have resented it.

The same thing applies to my son. Want an opinion on how you should raise your kid? You don't even need to step outside your home for that anymore. Just open up social media and you'll have one person telling you to just go ahead and let your kid have screen time, another person telling you no screen time and another person telling you limited and monitored screen time. It's ridiculous. 

So, just be yourself. Do you feel conflicted about something? Have you asked yourself those questions that Lysa asked in today's devotional? If so, and your answers were all yeses then you have the best knowledge on what to do with your life. Go out and make it possible. Anyone that is standing in your way, when you know that you have a God ordained mission and purpose for your life just doesn't like that you have challenged them and made them uncomfortable with what they are doing with the purpose of their life.

Action 3 - Exercise

Can I tell you how proud I am of myself? I am! I can literally start every one of these sections with "I just didn't feel like exercising today, but I did it anyway". LOL. Serious! I hate it! I hate stopping what I'm doing to take the time to exercise. It doesn't even matter if I was just sitting on the couch binge watching something. I hate the idea of getting up and working out. But I've done it five days in a row now. Today was another weights day. Someone reading this remind me tomorrow when I'm pretty sure I'm having a heart attack that I worked out with weights. 

With that, I am turning in because I've already crossed over in to day six before posting this! 

​God Bless!

Note: Anything I have italicized is not my own words, but are either paraphrased or directly from a book. I try to make it clear from which book the writing is from, but if you are unsure, please ask. Also, if you click on any links that lead you to Amazon from this page and you then purchase the product that you clicked on I may or may not earn money from your purchase. ​