In previous years Tim and I always saw couples bringing their babies to conferences and we kind of day dreamed about getting to do that one day and how fun it would be. However, it didn’t end up being as ideal as we thought it would be. Hannah is a great baby and we had lots of help from our team of youth workers that came to the conference with us, but I still got stressed.

Before we had Hannah I would go to everything. With Hannah at the conference I took my time in the mornings, missing the general sessions so I wouldn’t have added stress of trying to hurry around in the morning. Of the 6 general sessions I made it to 3. Of the 5 seminar slots I had 2 by myself, which was my favorite part of the weekend. I met 2 wonderful yp wives in the girl’s ministry seminar and had a great time visiting with them. I made the mistake of not getting their contact info to keep in touch with though. Oops! Luckily Alisha found me on facebook, and Jackie, if you read this, please get in touch with me!

Getting around the conference with the stroller wasn’t a problem. The first day we stumbled across an elevator that went all the way to the international level, which I think was mainly a service/handicap elevator, but it was great, and we didn’t get in the big lines for the main elevator!  We also saved money on never taking a taxi anywhere around town because we didn’t bring Hannah’s carseat. Instead we got our exercise and walked to a couple different restaurants. The furthest one was a hair over a mile, which wasn’t bad coming from Minnesota, it was nice to get outside for a walk and enjoy the warmer weather. I didn’t enjoy having to sit in the back of seminars though, in case Hannah started really fussing and I needed to take her out. It was also harder for me to hear the speaker from the back, and Hannah loves to talk so it was hard to keep her quiet, especially since I don’t want to have to contain her all day long, she needs time to talk. I couldn’t explain to her that, yes there is someone else talking, so it would seem like it’s okay for you to talk, but you can’t.

I would love to hear how other people have handled bringing kids to youth conferences. Did it work for you? Did it not work for you? How did it go, and why? Next year we’ve already decided we’re going to try to find a baby sitter for our 2 babies. Anyone want to volunteer to baby sit an 18 month and a 5 month old on March 4-7 2011?

And Tim is in Haiti. I’m glad that Hannah and I get to spend this week with my side of the family while Tim is gone. It doesn’t make this week easy, but it makes it better. It’s nice to have lots of help with Hannah. Especially since she started teething and is not doing well with that. The day we arrived in Texas I hurt my back trying to lift our big bag into the back of my friend’s vehicle. I was thinking the bag was pretty heavy, but didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until the middle of the next day that I was in a lot of pain. My back hurt with every small breath I took and every slight move I made. I called my OB and she wasn’t in the office, so I called our family doctor’s cell and left a message for him asking what I could do. He called me back soon after and talked to me about the options. Luckily there is a great doctor in my dad’s church that he was able to call and get a prescription for a little stronger Tylenol than we had and that was still okay for me to take with being pregnant.

My back is still hurting a little. Hannah didn’t have a fever today (as far as I know), at least she wasn’t acting as miserable as she was the other day. Tim has been able to contact me in one way or another at least once a day. It really helps me to follow him and the rest of the team on twitter. I’m missing him more and more each day. I thought I’d be distracted most of the time while here at my parent’s, but I can’t even count how many times I check my computer for twitter updates and look at people’s pictures hoping to see a glimpse of my husband for the day.

I can’t wait for Tim and us to fly back to Minneapolis on Wednesday and I get to hear his stories of this week. I’m thinking it might be a quiet car ride home though at Tim will still be processing everything he is seeing and learning while in Haiti. It’ll be wonderful to get to wrap my arms around him again and hold each other. I miss Tim like crazy and I know Hannah does too. It’ll be fun to see them reunite also.

I love you Tim and am proud of you for following God’s will for you this week. Be open to all that God has to teach you and open to all the ways he wants to use you to help those in need.

A blog I follow is doing a fun online scavenger hunt, and the winner gets a southern style cookbook. If you are married to the ministry join in on the fun! Go to The Preacher’s Wife blog and follow the rules.

For those of you who don’t qualify, I hope you enjoy learning a little about me.

1.  First Name. Dana

2.  State and Country of Residence. Minnesota, USA for almost 3 years now, but born and raised Texan.

3.  Husband’s Ministry Title. Youth Pastor and blogger of Life in Student Ministry

4.  Length of time in Current Ministry Location. {IMPORTANT:  There are several of you who may not be in a current ‘official’ pastorate/ministry, etc.  That makes you no less a minister’s wife!  You play along, girlfriends, and let us pray for you!} 2 years, 9 months

5.  Children?  If yes, give gender and ages. yes! One adorable 3 month old baby girl.

6.  Number of unique homes in which you’ve lived during your marriage. 2. First was my husband’s one bedroom apartment that he lived in before we got married and we lived cramped for 7 months before moving to Minnesota where we rent an amazing 4 story lake house with the 4th floor being a tower that you can see the whole lake from. Perfect for quiet times with God.

7.  Cook Sunday lunch or eat out? Cook, unfortunately most of the time we end up eating something simple due to busy Sunday schedules, sometimes I think ahead and have something in the crock-pot.

8.  Typically on time for Sunday School or not? Surprisingly on time since we have to show up early anyways for Tim to teach Jr. High SS. Of course we do get up 2 hours before we need to leave the house since Hannah was born.

9.  Favorite TV Show. Do I have to choose one? Biggest Loser, Survivor, Amazing Race and 18 Kids And Counting

10.  Something you watch/like/do that you would never tell the church people. (Except now you just did…lol) I recently started watching the Country Music Channel, getting hooked on World’s Strictest Parents, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader and Cowboys Cheerleaders. I’ve really been missing my Southern roots since Hannah was born.

11.  Most annoying church-related pet peeve. When people say that Tim and I are the youth pastors/leaders (plural), meaning that I am it too. The church hired Tim, not me. I am Tim’s biggest fan/helper, but not one of the youth pastors.

12.  One thing you need to throw away but can’t bring yourself to do it. Old shoes. I have many from college still sitting my closet that have made many moves with me already.

13.  The one food you can not live without. Chick-fil-a. There aren’t any in MN, which is frustrating, so any time we travel I always look for the closest one to where we’re going. Looking forward to our next trip over Christmas!

14.  Parsonage or have your own home? neither, we rent

15.  Freak when the doorbell rings or always ready for a visitor? Freak! With both Tim and I despising any kind of chores, our house is usually a mess. We do enjoy having visitors over so we will clean, only if we have a heads up though!

Hannah had another doctors appointment yesterday because she wasn’t at her birth weight at 2 weeks of age. Well, yesterday at 3 weeks she still wasn’t. Turns out Hannah wasn’t getting enough to eat, so now we’re supplementing with formula. It was really hard news to get, and I had a hard time feeding her from a bottle the first time last night, even though I knew it wasn’t her first time to eat from a bottle. I’ve already noticed a difference in Hannah though, starting with her feeding at 5am this morning. The last few mornings she has been really fussy from about 5am-7:30am until her next feeding. Well, this morning after nursing and getting a formula supplement she went right back to sleep and Tim and I didn’t get up again until 8am. It was great to sleep in again with her, and now I am holding a very happy and full little girl in my lap. I’ve seen a lot more grins on her face today too with her full tummy. She is so cute! So the doctor and I figured yesterday that all her colicky tendencies were probably Hannah just being very hungry, so hopefully this week will be much better than last.

Hannah wasn’t wild about the taste of formula when she first tasted it last night even mixed with some of mom’s milk. As soon as she got a taste she looked up at me with a dirty little look, but ate some anyways. She eats pretty good from a bottle, but the flow is super fast for her, so we go through a burp rag at each feeding, but she is getting all the food she needs now, and that is great! Hannah and I went to Target today to find if there were any other bottle nipples with slower flow than the ones we have, but we’re already using the slowest they had. Hopefully with some more experience we’ll get better and have cleaner feedings. I should’ve just bought some bibs for her, but didn’t think about that ’til now.

Tim’s family was in town for a few days and just left today. It was wonderful to have the extra help around and to spend time with everyone. Hopefully I’ll start to update more often with more pictures and videos of Hannah. She hasn’t been fussy today, which would be perfect, but I’m enjoying a day of relaxing with my baby girl. We’ll put some up soon though.

Tim had the executive youth team over at our house Sunday night and one of the topics talked about was having resources handy for parents to use with their teens. When we went to Ohio for the Simply Youth Ministry Conference I went to the Partnering with Parents seminars taught by Jim Burns who is the president/founder or HomeWord. He had a lot of great information and resources to give, and I shared some with our youth team.

The leaders were talking about devotions and bible studies for parents to do with their families, so I signed up for the daily HomeWord Devotionals to see how they are, and have really been enjoying them the past 3 days. I read today’s devotional at such an appropriate time after getting some very encouraging words from a friend on facebook about these next days to come.

Today’s devotional is on Matthew 6:7-8

“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father in heaven knows what you need before you ask him.”
If you haven’t checked out HomeWord’s website before, I really encourage you to do so.

“Memories can drench one is shame, but the battle is won as we drench ourselves in the truths of God’s satisfaction with us (pg. 39 ‘Free Yourself to Love’).”

We’ve all done something we regret, and even if it’s something that has happened years and years ago, every once in a while a haunting memory can creep it’s way back into our thoughts, and it usually creeps back up in the worst time. If we’re lucky we can just shake the thought and move on with our day. If we let those thoughts meddle in our lives we’ll get worn out and torn down. Instead we need to fill our minds and hearts with God’s words, God’s truths. Any time an unwanted thought comes into my head I try to remember Philippians 4:8 “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Find verses that really stick out to you in each of those areas and meditate on them, so when something comes to mind you need to fight off, you can.

“If you find yourself overreacting to a suggestion or constructive criticism, ask the Lord to show you whether or not your reaction is based on pride or unhealthy shame (pg. 47).”

Shame can come from not only past regrets, but from holding on to something we know we shouldn’t. When I hold on to past hurts and have a hard time letting go to be free to forgive someone it causes shame inside knowing what I should do and knowing that after all this time it gets harder and harder to forgive. When I hold on to a grudge it eats at me, and I end up getting use to it, which is not healthy. When someone comes to you in love and correction do you welcome it or do you shut them out and refuse to listen? If you shut them out is it because of pride, not wanting to admit that there is a fault that needs to be worked on? Or is it because you are ashamed of something that you just want to shake away and not work through?

Here are a list of verses suggested by Jackie Kendall to help work through shame and forgiveness.

Psalm 119:42, Psalm 34:5, Isaiah 54:4, Isaiah 61:7, Ephesians 4:32, Matthew 18:7, 1 John 4:20

“I prayed to be a woman who had an unoffendable heart like Jesus and not someone with a bitter, tough exterior standing guard over her heart wounds.” (pg. 36) These are the first words I wrote down out of Jackie Kendall’s book “Free Yourself to Love.”

When I first read this sentence I thought, ‘Yes! I would love to not let others/things offend me and to be able to brush everything off!’ I use to be great at that when I was in college and something my Dad spent years trying to get me to learn, finally sunk in. The words of wisdom I think I’ll remember the most from my Dad is that “a situation is only as big as I make it.” I remember hearing that a lot when I was in high school and every small event was huge in my eyes. Then one day in college it just clicked. I don’t remember going through something drastic to realize that, I just remember that one day my Dad’s words finally made sense. But sadly, somewhere along the way I have forgotten those words of wisdom. I think about it, but the full understanding I once had isn’t there. I struggle getting back to understanding, and I think that is one of the reasons why I wanted this book, “Free Yourself to Love.”

The last words in Jackie’s sentence hit me even harder as I read back over it, and wrote her words in my journal. “…and not someone with a bitter, tough exterior standing guard over her heart wounds.” Ouch. I think I do that more than I realized. I don’t enjoy hanging on to times when I’ve felt offended or betrayed by someone, but it’s almost like I’ve felt like I have an obligation to remember these things and to not trust someone afterwards. In a way I tend to twist the situation around in my mind and kinda make myself feel better because of course I would never do something so horrible to another, and this person is below me because they did. That sounds really screwed up! Because I know that I have hurt others, we all have…but we don’t always want to admit it.

I’ve known for a while that my mind is the weakest part of me. That’s where Satan knows he can attack me the most with getting in my thoughts and really screwing things up. I have always struggled with thoughts of self esteem. The reason why I was so shy growing up, until college is because I thought that no one would be interested in listening to what I would have to say, so I might as well keep my mouth shut. And I think that’s partly why I like to write and I have journals full of my prayers to God because he loves me and always wanted/wants to hear from me and cares about what I have to say.

Are you standing guard over any heart wounds? Are you holding on to them so tightly so you can have control and prevent God from taking them away? I am finding that there are many aspects of forgiveness and many excuses that we make to hold on to hurts, and sometimes we try to get rid of a past hurt, but the memory keeps coming back…so then what? Already I have been more transparent that I expected as I write out my thoughts on what I am learning. But spending the extra time meditating on God’s word and learning about forgiveness is totally worth it. My prayer for writing out my journey of learning about forgiveness is so that someone else may benefit too.

Hebrews 12:14-15  ^“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

It looks like I have a very likely chance of working every day this week. That hasn’t happened in a long time! Sunday night Tim and I stayed up until around 2 with me playing my new video game he got me for my birthday. After staying up ’til 12 I figured I wouldn’t take a job on Monday, so it didn’t really matter how much longer I would stay up since I could sleep in the next morning. To my surprise there were a few different options to sub on Monday. I passed one up that I actually enjoy ’cause I was just so tired when I heard the notice, and someone else quickly snagged it anyways. Then later on in the morning another position came up and I laid there thinking about it, giving someone else a chance to take it. Then I figured I’d get up, take a shower, see how I was functioning so far, and if it was still available, I’d go to work on only 5.5 hours of sleep. It was still available, and I was feeling guilty about passing up a day to work, so I had a full day of subbing in a music class, seeing 10 different classes for 30 minute increments. That is actually an easier way to sub I think because if you get a rough class, you know that they’re not there for long.

Then today I had a half day of subbing in the afternoon. I was really looking forward to today because I knew I could sleep in, which was absolutely wonderful. I think I got about 10 hours of sleep last night and Tim and I got to get up and around together this morning and do our devotions together. It was very delightful. And my afternoon was great. It was for the class of a teacher I’ve been subbing for frequently and still have 2 more days lined up to sub in there, so I have gotten to know the students pretty well.

About an hour ago I got a notice of a Kindergarten teacher needing a sub. I actually haven’t subbed at this school yet this year, so hopefully I don’t go on auto-pilot and end up at a different school. I am really looking forward to getting to teach Kindergarten, I just love that age! And Thursday I don’t know what I’m doing except for subbing for different teachers while they have meetings, so that should be interesting. I don’t have anything lined up for Friday, but there is usually quite a few positions that pop up for Fridays.

Now I need to go to sleep and get some good rest for a full day tomorrow. Hopefully Baby Schmoyer will start settling down soon. He/She has been moving around (on my bladder) this whole time while typing. I had the fun of that while trying to go to sleep Sunday night. Hopefully we wont have a replay of that.

This past weekend Tim and I took 7 youth down to the cities for a weekend missions trip. Keeping with tradition, on the way down Friday we stop at Fuddruckers for a great dinner. This is the only time we eat there, and it is sooo good! Then the rest of Friday consits of settling into our rooms, and a great evening of worship music and a great speaker. This year the speaker was with International Justice Mission. This is an incredible ministry that reaches out those with such a huge need, needing someone to save their lives. We also found out what our project would be for Saturday.

The girls in our group lucked out and we got a room to ourselves, which was really nice because we didn’t have to worry too much about girls staying up late when we were wanting to sleep. The group across the hall was loud when we were all in bed, but once it was lights out for everyone it quieted down. On Saturday we went to a community center and did various jobs. They had a lot of cleaning and clearing out that needed to happen. We sorted through their good and bad chairs throwing the bad ones in a dumpster. Some people cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, and others tore some old carpet off of the stage. Everyone with our church mainly did the heavy work of dragging loads of garbage to the dump.

For lunch each youth group was given one dollar per person for lunch and the teens had to figure out what everyone would eat for lunch that day. Our kids chose bagels, strawberry cream cheese, hi-c and brownies. When we got back to the church I went in search for food after started to feel weak and a little dizzy. I went to the kitchen and was able to get the afternoon snack early, so I ate a banana, apple and 2 cups of milk. I felt much better after that.

Saturday ended with the different youth groups playing a game together and a last worship time with the same speaker. On the way home we stopped for a quick dinner at Taco Bell, Burger King and Dairy Queen. Then it was time to head all the way home. We had a great time, and I didn’t realize how worn out I got. Sunday was great with my 4th grade girls Sunday school class, and I was already tired for Sr. High youth group that night, then Tim and I got home later than usual and I subbed all day today. I’m feeling pretty exhausted today. As the afternoon went on I was feeling more and more achy. I hope I’m not coming down with anything, but just need rest. Tonight we have Sr. High C-Groups, which I always look forward to. At this point though I’m not sure I’ll take a subbing job tomorrow. I got about 7 hours of sleep last night, and could use a lot more.