Amy J. Bennett

Green Pastures

March 12, 2014 by Amy 2 Comments

Last week in my post Which Redeemed of the Lord Are You, I talked about how God was pressing on me I was one of the Addicted. I’ve overcome several addictions, so I certainly identified with that profile, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what any current issue might be.

Over the next few days, he led me to Joyce Meyer’s book Battlefield of the Mind. My sister lent me a copy of it over three years ago. Three years. I kept putting it off, never feeling like I should read it. I was thinking, it’ll be nice to read for reference, but it’s not really FOR me, you know?

Well, I was wrong.

Joyce talks about the conditions of our mind and how Satan uses it to do what he always does—steal, kill and destroy us. I truly was blind to the issues I had. In general, I would have said I’m a thinker, a pretty positive person, maybe a bit worrisome in some aspects and maybe a bit negative towards myself at times. But holy cow, there are thought processes I had that were destructive and I simply had accepted them as normal.

In particular, she talked about Mind-Binding spirits. And listen, this is all charismatic-y so if that scares you off, that’s fine. Joyce talks about how God led her to look into these mind-binding spirits and sure enough, once she began praying against them for herself she felt “a tremendous deliverance.”

She says all of her deliverances have come from believing and confessing the Word of God and quotes two passages of Scripture as her testimony. John 8:31-32 is the first “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” And now wait for it. I want you to guess what chapter the second one was from…PSALM 107—the same chapter from last week’s post. Psalm 107:20 says “He sends forth His word and heals them and rescues them from the pit and destruction.”

For me, this was total confirmation that God was indeed preparing me last week and showing me this addiction, or bondage.

As I continued to read, Joyce described six different types of unhealthy conditions:

A Wandering, Wondering Mind
A Confused Mind
A Doubtful and Unbelieving Mind
An Anxious and Worried Mind
A Judgmental, Critical and Suspicious Mind
A Passive Mind

I hate to even admit how much all 6 of those resonated with me. I wish I could go into detail about how each of them was true for me in some way or another.

This weekend I spent some time in prayer. I prayed against the mind-binding spirits and confessed all the ways my thoughts had been wrong. I asked for healing.

In my mind, he gave me a picture of dark rows of cages in my mind. As I prayed, they were all removed and replaced with light and green grass. I realized that it was a green pasture and then a waterfall and river appeared. The Lord then brought Psalm 23 to my mind

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want
He maketh my lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside still waters
He restoreth my soul.

God was letting me have a picture of my mind healing and bringing to life that Scripture.

I walked away feeling lighter than ever. Since then, I of course have been hit with negative thoughts, but the book talks about the importance of capturing our thoughts and fighting back with Scripture. Certainly this is nothing new, but God gave me new eyes to see that I actually needed to do it!

Guys, as Christians, we can and should have a positive mind because no matter what we face, we have God by our side. This is not positive thinking so it turns into blessings and bad things don’t happen to us. This is even when you face bad things, we can be positive because we have God. It’s about believing what God says is true. It’s about not judging people. It’s about not reasoning yourself to death. It’s about doing the things God says to do. It’s about being actively engaged with those around us.

I see so much negativity, anxiety, judgment and cynicism particularly in Christians (including myself) and I’m seeing now how prevalent and destructive it is. You might be like me and not even realize you have a problem. Perhaps you know one of these thought patterns resonate with you. I’d highly suggest reading her book and also spending some time seeking the Lord to see how he leads you. He is our great Guide and Counselor!

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

his love endures forever.

Gymnastics Playset

March 10, 2014 by Amy 1 Comment

What do you get when you mix a request from two little girls for a balance beam, me and the girls at work and school and Scott with Lowe’s? You get this:

You also get two very, happy, very active girls.

I don’t know how he does it. He had no direction from us what to do and we come home 8 hours later and it’s basically designed and built.

Gymastics playset

If you’d like to build one, Scott says you’re going to need:

2 8’ 4x4s (for the shorter posts on the right)
4 10’ 4x4s (for the balance beams and longer vertical posts on the let)
4 4×4 metal brackets (to hold up the balance beams)
2 1 1/4” 5’ PVC pipe (for the bars)
4 1/4” 6” lag bolts (to stabilize the balance beams)

He also noted the posts were set 2’ in the ground with no concrete.

And yes, I did get up there and do a flip on the shorter one. I certainly felt my age.

Back in 5th grade we had a bar on the playground. I remember flipping over and over and over, probably 60 times in a row. I’d go home with bruises on my hips and one time flew my nose right into the ground. Did you guys ever do that?

Our backyard is turning into a small amusement park, but I love that the girls will have so many memories of their dad building them stuff like this. Good times.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman Movie Review

March 7, 2014 by Amy 2 Comments

If you want the short review, consider my kids’ responses. Lexi: Awesome! Emma: I want to see it again!

As a mom, I will tell you that I had a few reservations about the movie. In fact, I nearly walked out halfway due to some serious disrespect from one of the children towards authority figures…BUT. By the end of the movie, the storyline had fixed itself and in fact, given a strong statement to kids about how important obedience to their parents is. They were clear about why it’s important and really, the whole movie is about bad consequences when you fall to peer pressure and don’t obey.

I also appreciated so much the attention to history instead of being all fluff. Rarely can you say you learn something from an animated movie at the theater.

And I didn’t know it until I recognized his voice in the theater, but Mr. Peabody is played by Ty Burrell who plays Phil Dunphy in Modern Family. As you might know, he is HILARIOUS. His dry humor was perfection to play the genius dog. I adored the puns.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman offered many other things to love like time travel, letting kids grow up, the best things about dogs, adoption, anti-bullying and even a great Clinton joke for the grown-ups.

Check out the PluggedIn review for a more in-depth look. The Bennetts are giving this one 5 paws out of 5 for parents and kids alike.

We were given 4 tickets to the screening. All opinions are my own.

Which Redeemed of the Lord Are You?

March 5, 2014 by Amy 12 Comments

Have you seen those Cosmo-like BuzzFeed quizzes making rounds on the Internet like Which Downton Abbey character are you? If you’re not on Facebook I’m not sure you have, but if you answer a handful of questions, they tell you which character (city, dog, cereal, etc) you most closely resemble.

I’m Carson from Downton Abbey, Tyra from Friday Night Lights, Slater from Saved by the Bell. I should live in Paris, work as a Professor and am actually a Shiba Inu. Because let’s face it, Carson and Slater remind me so much of each other. But seriously, wouldn’t you just DIE if Carson ever called Mrs. Hughes “hot momma?”

Maybe all of these were on my brain when I read a chapter from Psalms the other night. It was near bedtime, the kids were actually playing nicely with one another and I was bored. I’m not in the midst of reading a book, so I felt the nudge to pick up my Bible that was still sitting on my desk from church on Sunday.

It was like a BuzzFeed quiz popped out at me as I read.

The anonymous author calls for those Redeemed of the Lord to give thanks and then proceeds to describe 4 pictures of people before they were redeemed. I know that phrase “Redeemed of the Lord” is pretty churchy, but I love it. I love that my Redeemer redeems and I am redeemed! Here are the four types of people that need redemption of some type from Psalm 107.

The Lost

The first profile of a Redeemed of the Lord is a person that wanders aimlessly in the desert, not on any path, and completely hopeless. They don’t know where they are supposed to be going and have no purpose in life. In other words, these people are lost. They don’t know God, but they also know their life isn’t working either.

The Addicted

The second profile of someone Redeemed of the Lord describes someone depressed, rebellious and addicted. They are held in chains to labor and there is no one to help them in their distress.

Don’t let the traditional drug and alcohol addictions be the only thing you think of here. Our culture has so many addictions today—TV, celebrity, food, sports, shopping, etc.

The Rebellious

The third profile is that of the reckless. They are fools in their rebellion and are suffering the consequences. These are people that know what they’re supposed to do, but they just aren’t doing it. They’re wild and free and careless, but are now watching their lives fall in ruin around them from their unwise choices.

The Worker

The fourth surprised me. These are people that are on a path with a destination, are seeing God do mighty things around them, but when a storm comes, they lose their trust in the Lord. They start worrying and flailing about and I love how it says they become at their wit’s end.

Which would a quiz say you are? Has there been other times in your life when you identify with one of these? Do you know people that fall into these types?

Much like the BuzzFeed quizzes, I thought I would be one person going in and then like the quiz revealed to me a different character, the Holy Spirit showed me something different. Even though I thought I was past some issues, he’s revealed to me several areas where I am still “suffering in iron chains.”

I’ve struggled with one type of addiction or another for much of my life. God has been faithful to chip away at those addictions so that my faith and attention are solely on him. But we still have work to do.

Others of you might struggle with being rebellious. You know what to do, but you just can’t seem to resist temptation. Maybe others are clear on your call from God, but struggle to trust him when things don’t go as planned.

Now, the purpose of this chapter is to take a look at these people who are now considered redeemed. These are descriptions of their past, not their present. So what makes the difference? What actions did they have to take to go from being lost, addicted, rebellious and worried? I don’t know about you, but I sure would like some redemption! The answer is the exact same for all of them:

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress. (v 6, 13, 19, 28)

There is action required to be redeemed. When we find ourselves in trouble, we cannot do enough to make ourselves ok. We simply ask him for help.

And then, God does something really cool. For each one, he does something very unique in response.

For the lost, it says he led them by the straight way to a city where they could settle.

For the addicted, it says he brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains.

For the rebellious, it says he sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave.

For the worker, it says he stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the seas were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.

I can just not even stand how very carefully, how uniquely, how lovingly he attends to each person. And he does it when they are at the worst times of their lives. Whether they aren’t trusting him or they’re rebelling against him or ignoring him or don’t even know him, he is so ready to answer when we call.

If you find yourselves relating, take time right now to call on him. You don’t have to figure out how to stop your addiction or worrying, you just simply have to call on God and let him know you need help.

For those that have loved ones in these spots, be encouraged that God is the one that does the work. We must pray that they come to him for help. God can do the rest.

For those of you who see yourself like one of these in your past, it says in verse 43 to consider the great love of the Lord. Verse 1 says to give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

Yes! He loves us much and is so good to redeem and rescue us!

A Return And Some Good News

March 3, 2014 by Amy 16 Comments

Well, good morning, folks! It is a happy Monday morning indeed. At least, I hope it is. In full disclosure, I’m writing this on Sunday night. I imagine it will be a happy Monday except that I will be driving first thing to work for an all-day training class and let’s be honest, that’s very Monday morning-ish, yes? Let’s just hope your Monday is happy.

I am happy to be writing again. Please excuse my 6-day absence, but I do believe I am back in the land of the living. I came down with a fever on Tuesday morning. I managed to work through the day, shivering and achy, but by Wednesday morning I was done for. In fact, I took a real, live sick day, even though I can work remote, and slept until noon. I haven’t done that in years and years. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep it off, whatever it was. As the day wore on, I was becoming more convinced it was strep throat.

By the time I woke up Thursday morning, I was sure it was strep throat and shuffled my way over to urgent care where I cried when the nurse wasn’t very nice to me and swabbed my throat THREE times because my tongue kept getting in the way or something.

The antibiotics worked it’s magic, though, and by Saturday I was nearly back to normal with a little Ibuprofen and cough drops—enough to go engagement ring and wedding dress shopping with my mom and sister, WHO IS GETTING MARRIED THIS OCTOBER.

Yep.

After a 40 day fast from Facebook, she announced they are engaged this weekend.

The happy couple

She’s been dating a guy that Scott and I have known forever from Scott’s home church for a few months now. I wish I would have written it down like I thought, but I guessed they’d be getting married within weeks of them meeting. In fact, I gave them 6 months to be engaged. They’re seriously great together.

The only picture from dress shopping I can share without getting in trouble. Wedding planning with social media in the mix is all new to me and I’m trying to learn the rules.

I wish I could write her story all down so you might know what a momentous occasion this will be. In fact, it’d probably make a great novel. My sister has been through a lot. Death, deception, disappointments, disease, diets, dating, debt. God has spent the past 3 years restoring so much of her first 3 decades. Seeing God give her a companion (that adores her) to travel this new road with is just beyond exhilarating.

Brakefield, the venue of the wedding

The view at Brakefield from the ceremony location. It should much more green in October.

For my blogging friends, I should tell you I will not be at Allume this year. The only date the venue had open is the same weekend. The good news is the money and time we had budgeted for that weekend will just be moved and believe me, I am very happy for it.

Scott and his future brother-in-law chatting in the Bride’s room at Brakefield. This picture makes me all sorts of happy. They’re so much fun together.

So, once again, I look back at my post from the first of the year where I looked expectantly to the new year, unsure of what would come. February brought more sickness, snow, and sad news but also such happy moments and the best of best news.

I look forward to bidding last week, February and indeed, the entire winter both a hearty thank you and a good riddance.

Create Your Own Punch List and Make Yourself Happy

February 24, 2014 by Amy 10 Comments

I was reminded of a strange phenomenon this weekend and I wondered if you’ve seen it too.

My sister is in the midst of selling her house here in town. She’s lived in her townhouse for, I don’t know, 10 years or something. She’s had a lot of work done to the house over those years—new carpet and new kitchen cabinets and what not. She’s been given a few punch list items from the realtor before she puts it on the market. She’s been working on them this past week to get them done—caulk the stairwell, pressure wash the porch, move a table from the hall to the living room.

One task she had to do is put some pictures in a collage frame she had in her bedroom. She’d hung the frame long ago but had never taken the time to put pictures in it. She filled it full of pictures of her dogs. She remarked to my mom, “Why didn’t I do that a long time ago, I could have enjoyed it all this time?”

She’s not the only punch-list bearing mover I’ve heard say something like that. Our friends were moving last fall and put a frame around their mirror in their bathroom. They remarked the same thing to us, “Why did we finally take the time to do that when we’re moving when we could have been enjoying it all this time?”

It’s a strange phenomenon, isn’t it? We are willing to live with the small stuff undone—for years—only to finally fix them for someone else.

I realize many times there are budget limitations. Sure, our hardwoods could probably be replaced at this point, but I don’t care to spend a few thousand dollars on it right now.

Sometimes there are time restrictions. I know mostly I’m just trying to keep up with the laundry and the blasted dust and dog hair lying on everything. Who has time for the non-urgent stuff?

Most of the time money and time stop us, but I’d bet there are things around our house we could stop and do if we’d only first think of it and second, actually do.

After thinking on this this weekend, my mom suggested I finally add some artwork to some frames in Emma’s room. They’ve been hanging in her room empty since we remodeled after the water leak last year. My plan was to create beautiful customized artwork, each frame spelling out a letter in her name. But I could never get around to it.

I batted around paying someone to paint four pieces of artwork, but I could never bring myself to pay for it. When Mom finally suggested I should put her artwork in it, I was all in.

It wasn’t exactly what I envisioned, but we sure could enjoy it in the meantime. It was so much better than IKEA’s standard insert hung neatly 4 times over. And really, I just love walking by and seeing her artwork in her room instead of mine.

Turns out it cost me zero dollars and 15 minutes.

While we’re in here, I don’t think I’ve shown you how her office space on the opposite wall evolved since finishing her crate bookcase.

She just loves her school clock (IKEA). And as you can see, I still have one more thing on my list in there—add a 4th frame. I actually bought it and primed the frame and then it rained on it outside while it was drying and I had to trash it.

You could consider acting as your own realtor even if you’re not moving. Go through each room and write down a punch list of things that need done. Here are a few of mine that I can think of off the top of my head:

Put shoe molding down in the kitchen
Finish the crown molding in the kitchen
Touch up the paint in the office
Glue down the threshold molding to the bathroom
Fix the weather stripping thingie in the shower
Put Emma’s toilet paper holder back up
Hang the picture in Emma’s bathroom
Pressure wash the front of the house
Pressure wash the picnic tables

As you can see, even these things will take very little money and very little time. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t think of these things when we have a few minutes of downtime. A written punch list would certainly help.

I guess my point in all this is we should do some of these little things for ourselves as we can instead of waiting until we move. Really, what sense does it make not to if budget and time allow? <- asking myself

Have you found this phenomenon to be true? Tell me—what are a few things off the top of your head you could do?

How Great is Your Love

February 21, 2014 by Amy 3 Comments

There’s a song we sing that goes something like “How Great is Your Love”. The more I ask God to show me how much he loves me, the more I believe I should have been singing “How Small is Your Love.” Not because it’s true, but because it’s what I believed: his love was small.

I look back and see all the fear and distrust and the walls and I wonder if I really believed he loved me at all. Because if I did, I would have leapt, I would have cried yes! If I truly believed his love was great, I’d be able to pray anything and truly want anything he’d give me. I’d know that no matter how he answered, he would prepare me, equip me, give me only what was good for me and even if it seemed bad or painful, he would work it all together for his good.

So I’m still praying, “God, show me how much you love me.” I don’t want to sing with my lips it’s great and believe in my heart it’s small. I want to sing with confidence, with conviction, “How Great is Your Love.” I want to know it because I’ve lived it.

This post is linked to Five Minute Friday: Small

How to Stick to the Envelope System {Without Cash}

February 19, 2014 by Amy 19 Comments

I’ve written a few times over the years about Dave Ramsey’s envelope system he suggests for budgeting. There is nothing more painful than handing over a wad of 20’s for your groceries. A frappuccino doesn’t seem so important when you have to hand over a $5 bill instead of swiping a a bar code on an app. It’s pretty amazing how you suddenly want to stay home so you don’t have to use that gas you emptied your envelope for. Cold hard cash will help you stick to a budget, no doubt.

I find there is nothing more burdensome than spending money you don’t have and nothing more freeing than sticking to your budget.

However, we are terrible with cash. We found it difficult to manage between two people. We often forgot our envelopes when we went somewhere and didn’t know how much to spend. Dealing with change at the end of the week was a pain. When we misplaced $100 cash, that was our breaking point.

We started managing the entire budget through a spreadsheet and monitoring spending in mint.com (post). I love mint.com, but really, it’s so easy to go right over your budget.

So, for months and months we’d figure out our budget and then watch those red lines in mint.com start showing up and then do absolutely nothing about it. I always said mint.com was really good at helping me see our budget go in the red. Red lines everywhere!

However, I think we’ve found a secret that keeps us on budget using the envelope system without cash.

I’ve mentioned since the beginning of the year that we’ve gotten back on track financially. We’ve managed to stick to our budget using the envelope system and not get a single dollar out of the ATM. Want to hear our secret?

Play money.

Seriously.

I’ve been shocked with how well this works. We’ve stayed on budget, it requires zero cash and we haven’t used our credit cards.

So here’s how it works.

1 – I create a zero-based budget using a spreadsheet. I do it a month at a time and then refine every two weeks since that’s how often we both get paid. I know where every dollar is supposed to go before we even get paid (thank you, Dave Ramsey).

2 – Then, instead of getting cash, we printed this free educational printable money and cut it out so it looked like real cash. The kids thought this was the best thing ever. We use envelopes for our variable expenses like groceries, clothing, restaurants and blow money.

3 – We use our debit card for those purchases and every day I check our account for purchases and take the money out of the envelope as we spend it.

4 – For bills that are automated, I just check off on my spreadsheet that they’ve been paid as expected.

How does this help?

Even though it’s play money and seems like a lot of double work, there is something about seeing and feeling even the fake money that registers in my brain how much I can spend. It’s a built-in accountability system that the online tool just doesn’t provide. Scott doesn’t check anything online at all so having the box of envelopes in person in front of both of us keeps it at the forefront of both our minds.

And—if a bill gets lost, it doesn’t matter!

Also, we’ve been able to get our kids involved in budgeting. We don’t share the entire budget with them, but we get them to help fill each envelope every two weeks. They even know to ask if we have money in our budget to do something.

For example, we started a special entertainment bucket so we could have family events each month and it’s actually made it more special limiting it to one event per month. It’s taken the guilt from us for spending the money, we all have a good time trying to stay on budget and for some reason it’s much easier for the kids to process that there’s no money left in the envelope than us saying, “No, you can’t have that.”

We’ve only been doing this for about 2 months, but I’ve been so excited how well it’s working.

Perhaps if the envelope system hasn’t worked for you in the past, some fun play money just might be the trick!

Update:

I’ve uploaded our personalized budget template (based off Dave Ramsey’s) for anyone that would like to see it .

I print the second tab every two weeks and keep it on my desk. I use that in conjunction with Mint and the envelopes to stay on track.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6KcRo_9sTric0VyNGpxMWRtUG8/edit?usp=sharing

The ones that are marked in yellow are the ones we have envelopes for and the ones in blue are the ones that get transferred out to a savings account for later use.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.