December 2011
1 post
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the...”
– These last few weeks my family has been bombarded with a string of illnesses ranging from the mundane to the mysterious. As any mom does, I have stayed awake praying and taking care of my kids-and after almost 4 weeks, I am weary. I have no strength left. I take refuge that my God is the Creator and...
October 2011
1 post
Are you running?
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God....
September 2011
2 posts
“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living...”
– Today has been ‘one of those days’. I read this today in my quiet time and have been repeating it over and over again. My hope is in the Living God.
My daughter is awesome
Tonight at dinner my daughter:
B: Mom…I know what it means to rob a bank!
Me: what does it mean to rob a bank?
B: it means you make a bad choice.
Me: well, yes. It is a bad choice…where did you learn that?
B: my teacher says always says ‘if your friend robs a bank, would you? No. Make a better choice.’
Me: bwahahaha.
B: proceeds to call each member of our family a...
August 2011
4 posts
“You have to settle with the past, engage the present and believe in the future.”
– Heard this in a movie at the gym the other day and thought it was somewhat profound.
New International Version (©1984)
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.
I am meditating on this verse today. In the last few weeks of our summer, our family has had quite the roller coaster. We’ve had soccer, family days, Russ in his master’s program, a short 3 day vacation, our...
June 2011
1 post
May 2011
4 posts
Overwhelmed
This week has left me feeling a bit overwhelmed. We have company coming in, my daughter is graduating preschool, and yesterday I sang in church for the first time in about a year. While there are about a hundred reasons why each of these overwhelm me, I started humming a song to myself tonite that my hubby and I used to do when we led worship once upon a time-the name of the song is...
Why we gave up traditional TV
Approximately 2 years ago, we cancelled our dish service and got a TV antenna and Netflix. We struggled with the decision and had many discussions over it with our biggest hang up (ok-my biggest hangup) being the access to 24/7 news. However, when our dish bill came and was almost $90/month we made the choice and cancelled. It was the best media choice we’ve ever made by far and unbeknownst...
A new day
Lamentations 3:22-23 (New International Version)
22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I’ve been thinking about this verse alot lately. This last weekend I was interviewed regarding my time at the college I attended by their online newspaper and it got me thinking about...
Like a princess
This morning my kids and I watched Tangled, the newest Disney princess movie, and my mind began to wander. I started thinking about how thankful I am that my daughter knows she is a princess. I wondered why some parents shy away from allowing their kids to explore such movies. I remembered a situation on a plane several years ago where a mom was sitting with her 2 year old daughter and was...
April 2011
5 posts
Reflection of today
This week we officially enter the ‘home stretch’ of the school year. 4 more weeks until Summer vacation-and then 9 weeks until our oldest begins kindergarten. I have been reflecting on the last year and how quickly it has gone by and am trying to (in concert with my hubs) make plans for the summer to be a memorable one for our family. I would love to think that each day will be filled...
Words.
I’ve never liked the old ‘sticks and stones’ saying. If you are like me, you have been hurt deeply by words at some point in your life. Recently, I’ve noticed fb posts and blog posts that are really sarcastic-sometimes to the extreme. This got me thinking about the words I use and more importantly how I use them. Anyone who knows me well can tell you this has been a...
A challenge today
I am understanding more each day who I need to be. Today was one of those days that I was given an opportunity to put at least some of that into practice. It was a long day of church activities and my hubby was gone til after our normal dinner time-a day I’m sure every ministry wife has lived more than once. I found myself today wanting to be frustrated with the amount of responsibility that...
March 2011
10 posts
An interesting parallel
The last few days I’ve been reading through the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy attempting to catch up on the Bible challenge our youth group is doing and I’ve noticed an interesting parallel between the Israelite nation and my 2 year old. We’ve been going through this phase with him where he is asserting his independence, and practically speaking it’s frustrating to Russ...
Vacation
Every year our family makes a priority for 2 vacations; one as a family that is usually a long weekend, and one just Russ and I which is usually one or 2 nights. Vacations are important-extreemly important-for everyone, but especially for those in any full time vocation such as ministry. For us, it is the chance to not answer the cell phone if we don’t want to, to even turn it off :). To be...
Amazed
Today we had 7 baptisms at our church. 6 were youth who have been in our group for a while now and have taken that next step-SO exciting. The other one was a man who has been in our church family for a while and has been battling cancer. The way our church does things, we video a segment of each person telling a portion of their testimony and play that before they are baptized. This is where I sat...
Tsunami
Things don’t always go as we plan. The last few days my family has been in Monterey, CA on a much needed and long anticipated 3 day vacation. As we planned, we thought spending the whole day Friday on the beach would be perfect and then we could bum around the rest of the time…then the earthquake happened in Japan, and a tsunami warning was issued. All the beaches were closed Friday,...
Reading through the Bible
Our youth group is attempting (and several are on track to succeed) to read through the Bible in 90 days. I am definitely behind the curve, but I am trying. The really cool thing about it is that we can all talk about it together-the wierd, the crazy, the cool. I was talking to a new believer today in our group about the covenants with Abraham. I have been re-discovering things that I was...
Ministry and Family
I said that I would be more open and honest about my life as a youth ministry wife, and I want to be true to that so here are a few of my thoughts and struggles of late.
If you ask any ministry wife (and I use this term with purpose-I am very aware that there are many who serve long hours in a church body without the title of pastor), one of the most difficult balancing acts in their world is...
February 2011
3 posts
Taking a step forward
The last couple days have been somewhat frustrating for me. For weeks now, our son who is 2 has been waking several times throughout the night asking for his binky (which is usually on the pillow next to him!) and needless to say we are exhausted. Yesterday out of sheer frustration we decided to take away the binky…cold turkey. I took him to Build-a-bear and he put his binkies inside his new...
Youth ministry wives...
The last few months I have been taking a break from blogging and not posting on Facebook as much I would usually. Something struck me a few months ago that I needed to take a step back and think about a few things-one of which being that I need to think before I speak and oftentimes it is best that I just not speak at all. It is okay for me to not share things with everyone, to not tell people...
September 2010
1 post
Big Deal
This week I has been eye opening to me on several levels. We have had quite the momentous week in our household and it has been filled with ups and downs. The biggest occasion for us this week was our daughters first day of preschool. I know for many parents this may not mean much, but this was the first ever school day in the Cantu home. We did our very best to make sure our daughter was...
August 2010
1 post
My baby is 2...almost
Two years ago today, I woke up at 3:45am with contractions and just KNEW that my little boy was going to join us soon…52 hours later I got to hold him in my arms. He was barely 6 lbs, so tiny and small that even premmie clothes were too big. Our family was complete at that moment. Our little girl became a big sister-and Russ and I began the biggest challenge and the biggest joy of our life....
July 2010
3 posts
When your heart is breaking
I have spent several moments in prayer over the last couple days for a couple of friends of mine whose families are going through heartbreaking struggles right now. I have been reminded lately that it is in these times, through the tears, that the body of Christ can shine. We can lift up in prayer wherever we are-but sometimes we need to be the hands and feet too.
I know that sometimes you feel...
When a dream becomes a nightmare
I was flooded today with memories. Lots of memories-mostly bad memories. I visited a friend and former student in the hospital today who has HG-something I know all too well about. For those who either don’t know or who lost touch over the course of the last several years, HG is Hyperemesis Gravidarum, and it turns the dream of pregnancy into a nightmare. As I was sitting there with this...
4th of July
I’ve never really like the 4th of July. I remember as a kids sitting inside watching fireworks on TV while everyone set the off our front. I guess its a combination of combustibles and loud noises that just make it my least favorite. Since we had kids tho, I’ve learned to encourage them to have fun-and have since learned that we can make it fun too.
This year was a bit different for...
June 2010
3 posts
Strength
I’ve been learning alot about strength lately. I started back up at the gym about 6 weeks ago after having some rough discussions with my husband about our health/lifestyle. We had already made some very conscious changes in our eating habits and we decided to make some changes in our activity level too.
I have learned that it doesn’t take alot of effort if you are persistent to...
Summertime
I am truly enjoying summer this year. It is our 6th summer in Modesto and I think it has taken me this long just to adapt to the weather. In past summers, we had a huge backyard, although it was so much work to keep up that most of the time we were outside we were doing something with the yard. This year, our yard is much smaller, but has turned out to be perfect for our family. The kids have...
Transition
I was reading over my friends’ FB posts today and noticed something…a whole lot of them are in a time of transition. Some are newlyweds, some are moving, some starting a new job, some losing a job, some losing a house, some having a new baby, etc…and it got me thinking.
When I was pregnant with Bella, Russ and I went to childbirth prep classes and in those you find out that...
May 2010
8 posts
Legacy
The last couple weeks my husband has been doing a series on legacy with our youth. It has been interesting to hear some of the responses, and I started remembering some of the youth we’ve had in the past who have left their legacy on our group-some good, some not so good. Russ and I have been married for almost 7 years now and five and a half of them we’ve been at our current church....
What are we saying?
Today I took my kids to story time at a local Christian bookstore. This was our second week going because my kids loved it last time. The lady that runs it is really nice, and very good with the kids-and is very organized with what she has planned. However, after my second week there I found myself wondering when I could try Barnes and Noble’s storytime-not because I don’t like the...
What's next?
As a youth ministry wife, every year around this time we have the graduation blitz-that is alot of graduations (both Middle School and High School which was new to me when we moved here) and grad parties, etc. We are honored by each invitation we receive and do our best to go to each one. The thing that strikes me most though around this time of year is that you see alot of students asking...
The downside of ministry
Today was a rough day. My son hasn’t been sleeping well for about a month now which means I haven’t slept well for about a month-and that wears on you. His naptime (which is my downtime) was 45 min. long, and he was very crabby when he was up. He is teething-which gives explanation, but no relief. On days like today, you really just want-and need-everything else to be ok because if it...
A new perspective
How do you balance guidance, support and honesty in your relationships? I have been thinking on this for some time now-mostly because as a parent it is my job to mold my kids and teach them right from wrong, but also encourage them to be an individual-what’s wrong with wearing clothes that don’t match anyway? I strive to balance these things with my kids and as long as they stay a...
Peace
I have a toddler and a preschooler so peace in my home takes different forms than what most people think of. Peace in my house doesn’t mean quiet, it doesn’t mean relaxation…Peace in my house is knowing that no matter what today may bring, my husband and I love each other and our kids-our kids know it and they respond by loving each other (and us) too. They aren’t always...
Mother's Day
Today was a special day for me. I woke up to a few “firsts” in my home. My daughter wrote “MOM” on the outside of my card and signed her name! My son also came up and gave me a huge hug saying Mama Mama. I know it seems small, but these were some of those moments as moms that make us proud. The rest of my day was pretty low-key with my kids and husband doing their best to...
My first post
So I figure that I should probably explain why, after so many years of Russ blogging, I am now doing my own. I have a couple of reasons…first, I wanted a place other than facebook that our family can keep track of what is going on in our lives. Second, After almost 7 years of marriage to a youth pastor I have discovered one re-occurring preconception about pastor’s wives in general...