It's Saturday A.M. and I have a ton of things ahead of me to do! The past few days have been filled with sorting, dumping, putting things in the ever-growing monstrous garage sale pile, cleaning, taking care of the kids (Yes this NEEDS to be more of a priority - although they've all done quite well and I have stopped to spend some good time with them too) etc... We are hoping to have our house on the market by Thursday this coming week! Our realtor's wife (friends of ours) thankfully offered to come over 2 days and help clean out and make things look nice and she brought her $200 Bissell carpet cleaner that was WONDERFUL! We had ugly dirt spots all over our carpet in the living room and nursery and on our steps and it took them ALL up! It also took all the dark marks off our nice couch too - it was amazing how dirty it reallyw as! I told Leland that we should invest in one of those just so it takes the stress out of me with the kids and having them step on the carpet with dirty shoes.

So today we have some people to help watch the kids and will work on some painting while we have a larger chunk of time to work with. Hopefully all goes well with all of that! Leland also has some fix-up jobs to do that hopefully he can get done as much as possible. Of course there's still more of the endless sorting and de-junking to do, but we've made a lot of progress there at least.

I just pray that in the midst of all of this work, I can keep life in proper perspective. God is truly in control of all things and if some little job gets done or doesn't get done when I think it nees to get done, God will work his will anyways. It's so easy to get soooo busy and trying to accomplish all of this work to clean up the house, and forget about other more important things like spending time just talking and connecting with my 8 month old baby, or stopping to go examine the garden with my 6 year-old garden-enthusiast, or playing games with my dear 4yo dd, or just watching and enjoying and laughing with the 2 year-old antics and enthusiasm of my twin boys. Thankfully I feel like I've been able to take some breaks and enjoy those things and when  I do, both they and I feel refreshed emotionally even if something didn't get done during that time.

Here are some verses the Lord has spoken to me through:

Psalm 86:11

Teach me your way O Lord, that I will walk in your truth. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. I will praise you O Lord my God with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.

I pray that I will see God's way and not my own - his truth and not what I think is truth. I pray that my heart would be undivided to serve and desire him first before anything I want or want to accomplish. I pray that I would live fearing God and that I would glorify God, not myself.

Dear God give me the strength to get through these busy days with a proper focus on you and your ways and your priorities each moment. Amen!

Melanie