Bible in 90 Days - Day 90!!

I DID IT!!!!!! I finished reading through the entire Bible just before 10pm tonight!! I'm sooooooooooooo proud of myself, because of how much time it has taken and how little time I have, and how behind I have been getting this past month. I didn't think I could catch up in time, but I made it - I completed the challenge in 90 days exactly!! :D

I had 3 days' readings to cover in two days (yesterday and today), so I just took all the short letters (James to Jude) in the New Testament that I hadn't read yet, for yesterday's reading, and then Revelation in its entirety today. I find Revelation quite scary, and my name is one that is written in the book of life (how incredible to be able to write that) so I shouldn't really find it scary. But I do. I can't even get my head round it!

I got so excited as I got to chapter 20 (there are 22 chapters) and my reading slowed right down because I kept getting distracted knowing there were only TWO CHAPTERS TO GO in the whole Bible! I STILL couldn't believe I would actually read the last words in the last sentence and be DONE! Even that close, I still couldn't imagine it. When I actually did read the last words, I felt absolutely euphoric! It's been the longest and most intense challenge I've taken part in that I've actually stuck at and completed - of ANY sort in my life. I thought I would probably do something like get up and do a happy dance, hehe! But instead my heart welled up with praise to God and I just lifted my hands to Him and gave Him the glory for what I had accomplished. Because it's all His! I was determined, yes, but I still couldn't have stuck at it without God motivating me and providing moments to read in my disorganised and busy days. Also the prayers and encouraging words of others (many of whom I never knew before now!) have been another provision of God to enable me to finish the challenge on time. Thank you to those who left comments here and blessed me with encouragement and prayers!! xx

I can't believe I have read the whole Bible! It's ALL in me now. I am completely changed by these last 3 months of reading. I have learned new things - too many to even assimilate myself, let alone share with others, but I need to go back and study a LOT more in much more detail.

I feel a bit at a loss of where to start or what to do next. I am praying about it, and I know God will guide me to some inspiration. I don't want to start having days where I am not in God's Word. It's a light to my path and health to my whole body, and I NEED it.

I know I am supposed to summarise at this stage - what things I got out of the Bible in 90 Days challenge, what things inspired me, what things have changed for me, and what I will take from it and where I will go from here. But right now I don't really know the answers to those questions. I feel a bit foggy of brain at this moment, and go blank when I try to think of the answers to those kinds of questions. I want to do them justice, not just say, "What did I get out of this challenge?... Uhhmm... welllll... I guess I got closer to God..." - which, don't get me wrong, would be GREAT if that was even the only thing that I got out of it! But I mean, I got SO MUCH out of it, and I just can't think of it all right now. I will try to give it some thought over the next couple of days and then come back and write a bit more about it, to finish it off.

I am just so happy!!! Thank you Lord for helping me complete the challenge on time, and thank you for your WONDERFUL Word!!! I love you more than I knew I could.

Bible in 90 Days - Monday Update (Day 88!!!)

Well, it's Day 88!! The 90-day challenge to read all the way through the Bible is almost over! The reading plan is 88 days long, so everyone who is right on track will have finished today, but (THANKFULLY!!!) the plan includes 2 "grace days" to fill the 90 days.

Last Monday when I updated, I was 5 days behind and feeling a bit discouraged. I'm so grateful for all the supportive and encouraging messages that were left after my post, because they really gave me a boost! :) Thank you!

Over the next couple of days I read 2 days worth each day, so I am now only 3 days behind, and I am obviously using the 2 grace days, which means I am a day behind!! I am supposed to be finished on Wednesday, and if I don't catch up that extra day by then, I will have to finish on Thursday. A GREAT achievement!! BUT, not what my perfectionist self wants to finish on! ;)

Tonight I am reading Day 85 and enjoying Hebrews and James. It's late and I am not in James yet, but I will read on till I finish it. Last night I finished my reading by torchlight in bed! It was late so I knew I should just go to bed, but I tossed and turned wanting to have the satisfaction of just FINISHING my reading for that day, so I clicked the torch on and read Titus and Philemon, and felt much better! :) I have really been enjoying Paul's letters. There's so much packed into them that I feel I need to go back and study each one in much more detail.

I really hope that tomorrow I will be able to read the best part of two days' worth in one day, even if it's just a day and half of reading, and then the same again the next day to finish off. I'm SO determined (desperate?!) to finish ON TIME!

Hopefully I'll have time after my reading on Wednesday (Day 90) to update here to say whether I managed it or not, although I expect I will be up pretty late reading, so maybe the next day?! I can't believe I am almost finished. I have grown to love immersing myself in the Word of God every single day, and I feel at a loose end about once I've finished. Hopefully I'll replace it with another type of Bible study very quickly, and not lose my momentum! :)

Bible in 90 Days - Day 76! And general (bite-sized!) update.

It's THE 22ND OF MARCH!!!! The challenge to read attentively every word of the entire Bible in 90 days ends on March 31st!!! Soooo close!

BUT.

I'm FIVE days behind. Urgh. I haven't written a Bible in 90 Days update for weeks, and that is approximately how long I've been struggling with being behind on my reading. I got lazy though, it's my own fault. I was sloppy at sticking to my own rules about not switching on the laptop before finishing the day's reading. For weeks I have been at least 3 days behind - never as little as two. Right now I am five days behind, which is the furthest behind I've been, and I'm kind of struggling to keep up with being 5 days behind too. I seem to have so much else going on, either in my head, or just "to do" in the evenings (which is my only time to read the Bible anyway) that it's getting harder to fit in LARGE readings. When I'm tired I read slower too, and I've been really tired lately. I do still read as I'm settling Benjamin for his naps, but he has gone down to two naps a day now (sometimes three), so there are not nearly as many opportunities as there were at the start of this challenge in January! I think he was still wavering between 4 and 5 naps (on a bad day!) back then!

The good news is that the 90-day challenge includes 2 "grace days" (it's actually an 88-day plan)! So if I use those up then I am only 3 days behind. I am currently reading Day 76 I think, and I'm finishing today's reading with John 15. I love being in the New Testament at last! But I'm surprised at how wistful and sad I felt at leaving the Old Testament behind. One thing I've taken from this challenge is that I have really fallen in love with the Old Testament and with Israel's history, and the "Ancient of Days" aspect of God. I've nearly finished the 4 gospels and am hoping that I will get ahead with the shorter books to come. I love the letters in the New Testament! The only thing about the New Testament is that it's SO PACKED with life-changing information! I want to slow down and absorb and apply it to my daily life, but I can't because I'm on a deadline! ;) I will definitely come back and study the New Testament in more depth later this year.

I still haven't thought what to do about continuing to stay in the Word after the challenge is over. I still can't believe I will REALLY and truly have read the whole entire Bible in such a short space of time, very soon! I am desperate to finish "on time", and I know it really doesn't matter if I finish a few days late, or even a few weeks late - the point is that I will still have read the whole of the Bible in a remarkably short time, and completed it - but I doooo so want to succeed at the actual challenge! To finish it within the 90-day period would be such a sense of accomplishment, and after 3 months straight, I WANT that! ;) I love that it has been almost 3 months where I have read a significant block of God's Word every single day! How refreshing for my soul! I do not want to go back to reading none of it on any given day.

I have such an unbelievable amount of stuff to write about here, but the time pressures and such have prevented that for quite a while now. I'm really missing updating here with the usual photos, news and thoughts! I hope I'll have time to do more of that once the Bible challenge is finished in a couple of weeks.

In case I forget, a few things I want to write about, off the top of my head (to help me remember when I come back to blog about them!):

* New reading curriculum for Arthur (Rocket Phonics - thanks Kimberly for posting a review that led to me buying it for my children!). We started it last week and will include Matthew in it as far as he's able.

* Currently reading (along with Bible - hmmm, maybe that is contributing to the behind-ness of things?!) "Managers Of Their Homes" by Teri Maxwell. At the risk of sounding repetitive, thanks once again to Kimberly for posting her family's schedule recently and citing this book as the framework for the schedule. I have had my eye on it for a couple of years, and just shied away from such scariness as Serious Scheduling until now! ;) Now it's bought, and I am in the middle of the painstaking process of putting together a detailed schedule for us to try. I think it will help me a LOT, and the kids too. I'm the type who works better from lists and so on. I'm also pretty desperate for some order, so I'm motivated! ;)

* Nathan is talking sooooo much! And almost completely normally, as in, constructing his sentences like the bigger boys, and with a huge vocabulary. His voice is so so so incredibly tiny and chipmunky, and we adults (Neil and I, that is!) almost fold up into a puddle of aww-ness every time he speaks to us. *sigh* Neil wants to call him Chip, in honour of his teeny tiny little helium voice! Bless! He's such a tiny cute little boy.

* Nathan's stats - only 32.5 inches tall at his 2nd birthday (double that and according to something-or-other, he'll only be 5ft 5in when he's fully grown!!), but he grew an inch in the 6 weeks that followed, and my mum said I should double that instead, given than he was born a month early. So, 5ft 7in, like Matthew's measurement was! :) This month (2yrs, 2mos) he weighs 24.5lbs! He's at the 9th percentile for height and weight. So teeny! He's my tiny little precious, as I probably tell him at least 50,000 times a day! :)

* Benjamin had his 8-month check. Flying colours, etc :) He is 70cm long (don't know the inches) just under 50th percentile, and weighs 19lbs 13oz - catching up with Nathey!

* Benjamin's general news - crawling all over the place, pulling up to kneel on everything and everyone, and then screeching with frustration when he can't figure out how to get "down" from kneeling. He is pulling to stand on the sofa, but it is the biggest exertion I ever saw a baby make, and his chunky little legs go all quivery with it! He wants to do this all the time and gets rather frustrated about not being able to yet.

* Breastfeeding update - Benjamin nursing probably 6+ times during the day (on demand) and waking 3-6 times (yes, you read that right) over night/evening and nursing then too. Tired mama. BLISSFUL mama. Which cancels out Tired Mama easily :) Matthew still having a bedtime breastfeed (yes, he'll be 4 in June) as Arthur was still doing at his age. Considering a 3-hourly routine for breastfeeding Benjamin during the day as part of the new schedule... Hoping for a new nursling by this time next year though, God willing! :)

* School - long break after Christmas. School in bits and pieces since then, involving mucho guilt-tripping for me, and (in hindsight) surprisingly large amounts of academic learning for the two older boys! Not sure how! But there we go! :) Spent last week reviewing a lot of maths, and are back on track with the Right Start Math curriculum this week. Arthur absorbing it much faster than he did before Christmas.

* Matthew STILL not potty trained, and starting to get concerned... He is hugely anxious about doing a poo all the time, and needs much reassurance the whole time he's trying to do one. He's never constipated, so it's a mystery. It's been like this for a long time. Way back into last year I think. Still doesn't appear to be ready control-wise with the wees either. Considering asking my GP about it.

* Neil is out of work again! Mutually agreed separation from his job the first week of March, and he has 3 months of paid "garden leave" (just leaving the job but still being on contract and getting paid), and then a month of full UNTAXED pay in May! :) No anxieties at all about the future and finances. God is sovereign, mighty and good. We have no cause to be anxious about anything.

* Need to move house! Currently exploring possibilities, but job situation throws spanner in the works a bit. Neil is working on becoming self-employed, but we're not talking much about that with anyone outside the family until it looks like it will pan out. Will be sure to talk more about that here at a later point! :) We are letting God order our steps, and He is doing so! :)

* TV officially DITCHED!!! Woohoo!! I am on Cloud 9, seriously. It has now been one month since we switched the thing off (the boys have not seen any TV at all since then) after Nathan pulled the phone cable till it snapped out of the extension thingy, and we had to plug the phone in next to the TV instead. Not enough plugs for everything, so we chose to unplug the TV, and wow oh wow, what a wonderful difference it made, even just that first day! By Day 3 I was begging Neil to let us continue to have no TV, although originally we planned to buy another extension cable so we could plug the TV back in again. Obviously we CAN plug the TV in, but we are not doing so. Now we have moved it out of the living room and into the kitchen, where Neil does his "work" (the vague stuff I am not talking about yet) for several hours a day - he uses the TV as a computer monitor. The living room feels just so much nicer and cleaner without the TV, and the boys are flourishing without it. I am even more anti-TV than I ever thought I was before, now that I've seen the startling effects! Never going back. Nevvver. They'll watch educational DVDs from time to time though, I should think, when we figure that kind of thing out. We have so much more time for play, school, just character training, imaginitive things, etc. They complained a fair bit on the first day or so, but I was surprised that they have not missed it at ALL since then. TV is subtley BAD BAD BAD for children. Mine used to watch such a lot of it, and I had no idea, and now we've done this I really see it for what it is with my own eyes. NOT good for children! Glad to be rid of it for mine! :)

* Also letting God order our family size, and waiting and hoping for news of a new little blessing, perhaps soon? I had a chemical pregnancy last cycle with a couple of faint positive pregnancy tests, so I see that it's definitely a possibility! So exciting! Neil 100% on board with completely trusting God to open or close my womb as He sees fit! Yay! :D

Probably tons more, but that's the mainstay of it in a nutshell. Will hopefully be back soon to pad those subjects out a bit more, and post long-overdue photos! Thanks to those who have let me know they're missing my updates! It makes me feel special! And motivates me to hurry up and do so! ;) *hugs*

A Memory Treasure

Yes, it's 1.55am.

And I just HAD to post to record a memory so that it's never lost.

Oh how THANKFUL I am at 1.40am in a dark room, to be swaying and bouncing gently with my arms FULL of baby. Not a tiny baby any more, but a big gorgeous chubsome almost-8-month-old baby boy. Full. And extra squidgy in his baby sleeping bag. Thankful for the weight on my arms and the ache in my shoulders, his dear little head slumped heavily onto my shoulder. I was waiting for that burp, the one that was surely lurking down there after such a big luxurious feed, but he was so unconscious that nothing came. As I turned to walk to his little hammock to put him down, he gave a big sigh and lifted his head off my shoulder. Still fast asleep, he stopped with his head fully upright and his cheek plonked sideways, right onto mine.

So, I didn't put him down. In fact I could have held him like that all. night. long. Even if I had have ended up palpitating with exhaustion and with trembly limbs.

I stood there with that warm, soft little cheek pressed up against mine, his sweet fast baby breathing, all sleepy and rhythmic an inch from my ear. I stood as though I didn't know what to do next, or what on earth to do with myself. I just stood frozen. I felt overwhelmed with something and didn't know how to express it, and I also didn't want to disturb the moment with any movement. I stood and closed my eyes and focused on the squidgy heaviness of his little body in my arms. The pull of his weight on my shoulders. The soft warmth of his cheek against mine. The sound of his breath in my ear. And suddenly I was whispering out loud (it being 1.40am), apparently to God, "Oh thank you! Oh thank you! Oh THANK YOU! Oh thank you!" and I couldn't stop saying those words over and over and over, because it was all I could feel and more than I could contain. I had no other words, because I could only see those ones, and they eclipsed everything else in my head. The only thing that stopped me saying the words over and over was the point where my heart swelled up until it blocked my throat with an enormous lump and I couldn't say anything more.

And I put him down then. I watched him sleeping for a moment and then I came away, wanting to record what I had seen and felt, completely bewildered as to how I could come to be as blessed as this. I remembered the verse in 1 Samuel where David says to Saul, "Who am I, and what is my family or my father's clan in Israel, that I should become the king's son-in-law?" (1 Samuel 18:18), and just kept saying to God, "Who am I, and what is my family that you have chosen to bless me this generously?!" because I felt in such awe of God's blessings to me in my children. Who am I that God should bless me to be the mother of FOUR SONS?! I literally stand with gaping mouth, not knowing what to say or do as I think of it. I am understanding deeper and deeper as God works on my heart about this, what this verse really means:

"Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man {or woman!} whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." (Psalm 127:3-5)

"Thank" and "You" are two such small words. But right now they just sum it up perfectly.

Thank you Lord.