Prayers – Page 24 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Remember The Reason For The Season

Published on December 25, 2016November 11, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog4 Comments

First, I just want to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and I pray that God has blessed each of you and your families today.

I know a lot of us are on social media and we are being bombarded with the pictures of the beautifully decorated trees that are surrounded by heaps and heaps of beautifully wrapped gifts waiting to be opened. You may be feeling defeated or maybe guilty because you feel as though didn’t buy enough or that you didn’t find that ‘perfect gift’. I want to let you know that it’s not the amount of gifts or the amount of money spent on gifts that is important but rather the amount of love that was put into making your Christmas special.

Continue reading “Remember The Reason For The Season” →

Attitude of Gratitude

Published on December 23, 2016December 30, 2016 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

We’ve all heard the saying, ‘If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy’. This can be so true. As a mom and the keeper of my home I know that my attitude can really set the mood for our home. I try to start my day with a little ‘quiet time’ so that I can get myself in the right state of mind before starting my day. Sometimes things get to me during the day and I have to go to my room, or my closet, and ask God for an attitude adjustment.

I keep a journal where I write down my prayer requests and prayer requests for others, I also go over this list and try to remember to thank God for the work He has already done and the blessings that He has bestowed on me, my family, and my friends. I write down the things I am thankful for, even if it was a small thing. These help me to remember how grateful I am to serve such a wonderful creator.

I have been trying my best to write a thank you to God every morning. Again, this isn’t always something big but it is something that I am truly grateful for. So when my morning or day doesn’t seem to be going just right I can go back and reflect on these things. I find that even the littlest things are a great encouragement to me because they remind me that God is looking out for me in so many ways and that He sees everything that is going on in my life.

When I start my day with a grateful heart it makes the day go so much better. It makes for a happy Momma which will help to make for happy kids. Just think about the last time you woke up grumpy, or didn’t get enough sleep. Maybe one of the kids was sick and slept in your bed kicking you all night long? Maybe you came to the kitchen, that you know was clean before you went to bed, to find it a dirty mess? Maybe your husband left his dirty and horribly stinky socks in the floor right beside the hamper, again?

There are so many ‘maybes’ that could happen and just maybe you would be ‘justified’ in feeling grumpy or agitated. If you let the grumpies or the agitation take over then you are not setting a good mood for your house. Your mood can and will rub off on those around you and before you know it there will be nothing but chaos.

So right now just take a couple of minutes to think of something that God has done for you. This can be hard to do at first because many of us are so accustomed to praying only when we need to ask for things from God. I thank Him for my family, sometimes we have our difficulties but I am so grateful that they are here. I am thankful for the home we have, it may not be the best or fanciest home around but it does its job. I thank Him that He makes sure we are provided for. I thank Him for the friends He has brought to me that have helped to encourage me on my journey. The list can go on and on but these are just examples.

Think about how wonderful it is that He looked down and saw YOU among the many millions of people on this earth and He saw your needs. Whatever it is, however big or small, just remember that He saw it and He thought about YOU and He took care of it. Sure there were probably other people with bigger or more urgent needs but He took the time to take care of YOUR needs at that very moment.

How great is that? How wonderful is the God we serve? He is great and mighty. He is so awesome that He would even look down on us and see our needs. He is so perfect and He only wants the best for each and every one of us.

So if we want to honor Him and show Him glory then we need to start at home. No matter how bad the morning is, no matter how bad the week has been, no matter how hard the year was we need to be grateful. When we choose to have the attitude of gratitude it will show in our lives, it will show in our faces, it will also start to rub off on those around us.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. – Colossians 3:15

Pray In Secret

My War Room

Love Yourself

Published on December 20, 2016December 20, 2016 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

This season of the year brings out a lot of different emotions for everyone. You may be waiting in anticipation for Christmas to get here. You may be excited to see your family and maybe a little anxious to see what gifts are waiting for you under the tree. It may be full of despair if you didn’t have the extra money to buy gifts for your loved ones. You may be feeling hopeless or distraught.

Please don’t beat yourself up over things you can’t control. This season is meant to bring us feelings of peace, joy, and love. To fully experience this you must let go of your feelings of guilt. There is not any ‘perfect’ Christmas, ‘perfect’ gift, or ‘perfect’ person at least since that very first Christmas.

Before we can truly experience the full joy and peace of the season we need to love ourselves. There are a million things that can make us feel unloved or unworthy.

Do you feel like you aren’t enough? You just can’t quite get everything pulled together to pull off the perfect holiday celebration. Maybe you don’t have the trendiest clothes? If only you had nicer clothes then you would feel better about yourself. Maybe your hair is in desperate need of a cut or color? If only you had the money to do your hair you would feel prettier. Maybe your friends or family have deserted you? If only you were a better person they wouldn’t have left you feeling so unloved and rejected.

These could all be reasons to feel down in the dumps. But let me tell you something… they are all lies. Lies that are fed to us by the one who is out only to seek and devour, to destroy us. Satan wants us to believe that we are rejects and that we are unworthy of being loved.

God sent his only begotten son to show us His love. God loves you, He loves me, and He loves everyone around us. He wants us to fully experience His love for us. We can’t do that if we refuse to accept it or let go of our guilt or misconceptions that we have.

I want you to know that God loves you unconditionally. He loves you whether you are overweight or underweight. He loves you whether you have an addiction to alcohol, drugs, or anything else. He loves you if you drive a Mercedes or a bucket of rust. He loves you even when it seems that noone else does. He loves you whether you bite your nails to the quick or have the latest manicure.

I want you to know that you can feel at peace this holiday season. You can experience a joy so full that it overflows to those around you. You can experience a love like you’ve never known. Just take it to God and ask Him to help you with your feelings of inadequacies, unworthiness, or whatever it is that you may be feeling. He can and will take your burdens away and He will show you how to let your light shine in the darkest of days.

Merry Christmas!

December 6, 2016

Published on December 7, 2016December 7, 2016 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

What you did see…

Today was St. Nicholas Day and it was the first time we have celebrated this at our home. My kids were so excited as I had let them put their stockings out last night. They have also been anxiously waiting to put up the Christmas tree which was something I had promised we would do today. I posted some pictures of our St. Nicholas day so everyone could see how much fun we had. We did have fun and we made some memories that are sure to last.

What you didn’t see though was the chaos behind the scene.

You didn’t see me trying to stay calm while dealing with several issues like a bad case of vertigo for the second or third day in a row.

You didn’t see how I spent several minutes trying to calm down a temperamental child who was upset because I had not come into the kitchen by 7:00.

You didn’t see how I dripped cool whip all over the floor while making the special Santa Pancakes for breakfast.

You didn’t see the drain that overflowed all over the carpeted bathroom floor.

You didn’t see when I spilled tea all over the freshly mopped floor and all over the fridge I had just wiped out.

You didn’t see when I dropped my lunch in the floor as well.

You didn’t see when my second attempt at lunch was a chocolate Santa.

You didn’t see when the chicken scraps got dumped before I even reached the chicken pen because the handle came off the pail I was carrying.

You didn’t see how close I came to just calling it a day, giving up, and going back to bed.

You didn’t see how DD17 and I worked hard to set up the train set under the tree only to find that the train was missing. (The kids didn’t mind as toy trucks work well on train tracks too.)

You didn’t see how frustrated and aggravated I got because of the slow internet when I had an important matter to take care of.

You didn’t see how I confided in one of my friends about how frustrated and aggravated I was feeling.

You didn’t see how I had to rush to finish dinner because I had an emergency errand to run.

You didn’t see me rush to the hardware store for some plumbing supplies 5 minutes before they closed only to find that they didn’t have what I needed.

You didn’t see me have to drive 30 minutes in the opposite direction to the next nearest hardware store.

You didn’t see how my dinner consisted of a leftover cookie and a Coca-Cola. (I hadn’t had a soda in over a month.)

You didn’t see how long it took to clean up the mess from the backed up drain, the piles of dirty towels I had from cleaning up the mess, or the overflowing sink of dirty dishes because we couldn’t wash anything until the drain was fixed.

What’s important is that my kids didn’t see me frustrated, aggravated, or upset either. They didn’t see me lose my temper over things that happened.

They did see me keep promises even though unexpected disruptions kept occurring. They did see me staying calm and taking care of said disruptions as they came along.

I am human, I make mistakes, I get upset, and things happen that I have no control over. I can’t always control what happens to me but I can control how I react to them. I am not perfect and I don’t ever want anyone to think that I am or that I try to portray my life as being perfect.

When you look at the pictures on social media and you think about how perfect things look just remind yourself that you aren’t seeing the whole picture. You are just seeing one small moment of time. Don’t compare yourself, your family, your house or anything else with what you think you see in someone else’s picture.

Enjoy each moment and make the best of every situation good or bad. Life is so much easier if you do.

St. Nicholas Day 2016

Published on December 6, 2016December 4, 2018 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

**This post does contain affiliate links.

This was our first year celebrating St. Nicholas Day here at our house. I am hoping to keep this new tradition and continue to build on it as we go through the years. Below are some of the ways that we celebrated today:

The night before, after our Advent Study, we set out our stockings. Many traditions involve setting out shoes, but we chose to use our stockings because Momma didn’t want to put the shoes on the table. The kids also made some chocolate chip cookies with DD17. Then they left a glass of milk and a plate of cookies for St. Nick to snack on.

Sometime after the kids went to bed St. Nick made a visit by our house.

They each received a book, a coloring book, a small toy, and a few candies. (Santa picked all of these up at the Dollar Tree.) The kids were eager to check their stockings first thing. He even left a few items for Grandpa, DD17, DS21, and Momma.

After everyone’s curiosity was satisfied we had a special breakfast…. Santa Pancakes!

We happened to be having some really heavy rains today so Momma cancelled school due to the internet being really slow. Good thing Momma had some other activities planned out. (You can find a list of activities HERE.)

We read the Santa Who? book. We also had some coloring sheets and activities that I had printed from my St. Nicholas board on Pinterest. We also watched a few videos about Christmas.

We also put up our Christmas tree! This was probably one of the most exciting things about the day for the kids. (We also watched a video about how the Christmas tree became to be a symbol of Christmas.)

All in all it was a really good day. I think this will help us to keep the focus that Jesus is the reason for Christmas while also answering the numerous questions that arise about Santa Claus. It also honors the work that St. Nicholas did.

Guess Who’s Coming to Santa’s for Dinner?

I would have loved to invite Santa for dinner but I didn’t know anyone who would be available on such short notice. (I do have a Santa outfit in the building that we use for our Polar Express parties.) If you decide to start this tradition in your own house then do whatever you want to make it special to your family.

Merry Christmas!