Gracie is 10!

This little girl turned 10 yesterday! I can't even believe how fast time has flown by! 

This gift was born out of sorrow as most true gifts of grace are. She is our rainbow baby. A child of promise.  One born after losing another. She never ceases to amaze me with her endless grace towards people and her love for life. I know the plans for this one are big.  I cannot wait to see what her God will do with her life.  She has an imagination beyond any other! And... she has loved horses since she was a wee thing! 

Her love never went away and we never had a choice but to indulge her interest! 

Look at her now!

Gracie is a joy! She is tender hearted, and...and I can't forget to mention...SILLY!

Happy 10th Birthday Gracie Girl!  We love you!

Sweet 16: Grit & Grace

 This girl!  She makes us laugh with her silliness, she makes us proud with her diligence, she turns 16 today.  Our funny, rock solid, determined, hilarious, sarcastic, refuse to back down, loving Jesus, amazing daughter, loyal friend Valentine.  She came into this world with a zest for life.  Always making everyone laugh while she entertained everyone around her with her crazy hair and "crazy eyes" as she called them. When she was just a wee 18 months old, she could light up a room with conversation that most adults couldn't take on!

She has seen us walk through fire and always been steady with her love and so ready to forgive our broken parenting.  Her desire to learn about life and love and Jesus astounds me daily.  She has met the challenges of growing up thus far with a grace that we couldn't have ever imagined. She can walk into her high school government class proudly being the only conservative in a largely democratic area and proudly debate her side.  She can stand up for the issues of her heart with her friends with out backing down and be proud of what she stands for.  She is ready to face life with grit and grace.  We are so proud of you KK, and are so very excited about what this next year holds for you!

Happy 16th Kathryn! 

My Valentine

Yesterday marked the beginning of Valentines Day weekend.  We had the absolute best gift a couple could ever receive on Valentines Day, a beautiful little baby girl; so we will celebrated last night by an amazing dinner out with some friends. It was an amazing night out; fun, relaxing...lots of laughs!  Just what we needed! Through all the challenges that life has thrown at us, my husband has been a constant source of strength.  He powers through the obstacles and made a life for us when there was nothing there, rebuilding a business from scratch; keeping together our family when we were all looking around not knowing where in the world we were going to land.  He has become our hero,  slowly and surely making sure we are all safe and cared for.
They say when you get married, that very minute the one you marry begins to change.  So, by now, almost 20 years in we have probably been married to many different people! Yet somehow, by God's ever present grace, we are still together and learning to fall in love over and over.  He has loved me unconditionally and it has only brought me closer to my Savior.  I am so incredibly grateful for him and thankful that God has given me a gift in him.  It takes commitment and courage to remain faithful to that covenant and I can't wait to see what this next stage in life will bring us.  So one thing about me when we first got married was I was a hopeless romantic, but  I married a hard Irishman! Imagine that for a moment!!  Well I haven't really let myself be true to that over the years, trying to be more what I thought he needed.  That's never a good idea.  That only brings hardship.  My husband has seen me for who I am over the years, and after all this time and me trying to be who I thought he needed me to be has loved me and has changed to be the man who I need. And I can only pray that God is doing the same in my heart towards him.  He has softened, and I am learning to soften again. He really is the romantic sort, deep down! Now I have outed you, honey....let's see what you can do!  Marriage is a story of redemption.  One God meant to mirror that of Christ and His church and we can see that more clearly the longer we are married.  Of course we could probably write a book after almost 20 years, and this example is a small one in comparison to all that God has done, and still needs to do in our sinful broken lives. In 20 years, a lot can happen!  I am thankful to our Savior who holds our lives in His hands and gives us His love when we deserve none. One thing he did for me recently is check off one of my bucket list items! Something I have wanted to do since I was about 15 years old... see Garth Brooks!  Of course he sang one of my most favorite love songs ever and one when I hear of course I think of my Valentine!  I had to share for Valentines Day!

Take Heart

Since Friday's attack on Paris, as most of probably have, I have had a roller coaster of emotions.  I think to not, is to not really give full attention to what is really happening.  The biggest question facing us is the obvious one of whether or not to welcome refugees onto our soil.  This one has had me stumped.  When I first saw the pictures of the masses fleeing my heart ached.  You see, from the first time, at age 15, when I went overseas on a mission trip to Tirana, Albania shortly after they had seen war, my heart and mind were opened to the atrocities that happen in the world around us.  Up to that point, all I knew was the comfort of my American life.  Coming home and actually sitting down on a toilet seat seemed too good to be true! Since then, my compassion for the oppressed has only grown.  I remember watching the horror unfold after the tsunami and feeling my heart literally jumping out of my body and racing across open seas longing to pick up those lost people and hold them and bring them to safety.  I think that compassion runs deep in my son.  After the earthquake in Haiti, we were watching as Anderson Cooper was holding a little boy named Monley who had lost his family and was asking anyone who knew anything about him to please come forward.  My son, who at the time was in second grade, leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Mama, I want him."  He prayed for  him. He talked about him  and he worried for him.  We followed up and learned he had family in Florida and upon learning of this, his little heart was so happy that he was able to come to this country to be safe.  God will do mighty things with this, I know.  But, despite this, there is the question of whether or not to bring them here? The great debate....my first reaction to all this has been one of fear, and I have to admit that this has disturbed me.  I think I expected more from myself as a Christian.  I expected to react in a place of deeper faith, but I read an article yesterday that was a response to a Washington Post article that I also read that said it this way, "While fear - whose effects, Aquinas says, are contraction, deliberation, and trembling - can hinder our capacity for rational deliberation, it is often a motivation for seeking wise counsel and pursuing positive action.  According to Aquinas, the opposite of fear is not compassion, but boldness or daring, which inspires us to meet danger head on - with a certain hope that we shall prevail." This says it so well. It points to the fact that our fear is there to point us to seek counsel, to pray, to read God's Word.  And then we can pray for boldness that will motivate us to meet danger head on...how? Well... that is the question. The writer of this article is not for bringing refugees here right now.  I happen to lean that way, but I think we need to think in a broader sense.  When Eve ate that fruit, sin entered the world and made a complicated mess of everything.  And now we are finding ourselves in the most complicated mess this world has arguably ever faced.  I don't think there is a right answer.  I also read this article.  This writer lives among the refugees in Iraq.  He is there to comfort, and is finding so many asking about the Christian faith. This moved me.  It moved me because at another time in my life I might actually be there myself.  I think we all have a job to do.  Some of us are called to go.  I believe God has called me to stay here and instill a heart of compassion and boldness for the lost into the heart of my children.  I think wherever we fall on this debate, wherever God is calling us, we need to be reminded of this...God is a sovereign God and His ways are not our ways.  John 16:33 says, "...In this world you will have tribulation. But, take heart. I have overcome the world." Refugees will come as they come.  We need to ready to face what we will face knowing that all our days have already been written.  He has ordered our steps.  In our Bible study, we just finished studying Acts, and one thing I can't stop thinking is how similar the evil is today as it was then; and throughout the book, again and again, God would thwart the evil for the advancement of the Gospel.  Are we now faced with such a similar time? We keep hearing of missionaries who are working the front lines in refugee camps where so many are coming to saving faith in Christ.  I believe the front lines are coming to us.  I don't think this will get any less complicated of an issue, but with our eyes open and our swords of God's word in our hands, we know that wherever we are, that is where God has us and He will use us for His glory.  Until He comes again, we look heavenward and press on. This is how we meet it.  We press on.

The Messy And The Beautiful Life

(Feel free to listen as you read...this has been on repeat lately in my car!)

Lately I have been more keenly aware of the evil in the world.  Maybe I have the news on more.  There is just so much happening right now and there are so many of our brothers and sisters suffering, and I just cannot get them out of my thoughts. And it seems to be getting closer and closer to home.  More and more threats against our home with shootings and social media threats against our schools. Our kids are now living in an age where they have to keep their eyes open at all times.  It's made me stop and think so much more lately about life and who I am and who I belong to and you know what happens? Cosmic warfare happens. And it's not just fear. It's a little of that.  I think we would be remiss if we didn't all struggle with some fear at all these things going on in the world. We are human, we do know the outcome yes, but human nonetheless.  The other struggle I face is a physical one... one of chronic pain and fatigue, and now I have some  med changes and the fatigue just got to a whole other level.  My body is wrecked.  Actually about everything in this house is wrecked...let's be real here!  Really, I should be at Bible study.  But, this body doesn't want to move.  Husband's work is a bit much, the schedule is freaking out of control and life is a tailspin.  I am a tailspin.  See it's times like these that the lies from the enemy come in and try to take the space that God wants to dwell. Lies of failure and lies of who I belong to.  The enemy wants us to believe we don't belong...to anyone really.  But we do belong! As believers we have HOPE! We know the end, and we have to keep moving, keep forgiving, never giving up because it's not over yet. When we are united with Christ, we too were tortured, and spat on and crucified. And when we claim the grace of Jesus, and read His Word, we too are resurrected with Him and Satan no longer has any claim on our lives.  We belong to our Savior. This is the Gospel folks! The Gospel that we need to preach to ourselves every day.  No matter what sin we face on a daily basis, or what lie the enemy throws at us, we need to preach the Gospel to our hearts. We are united with Christ.  We belong to Him. I often have to remember to realign my heart to His.  You see our lives are not our own.  When we send our kids out to the bus stop, they walk directly into the hands of the Almighty. When we get on a train or in a car to go to work, we are being carried by the hands of God.  What a beautiful picture of grace.  Life is messy but it is so beautiful.  I am working on embracing all the messiness and instead finding the beauty.  His grace abounds endlessly in it.

His Grace Abounds: Happy Birthday Michael

This is a boy about 6 years old tattered and worn, and not just his clothes. He will most likely hate that I am writing what I am about to write, but son, this for playing paper football with your dinner plate all those years! You owe me one!  This boy! Those of you who have known us through the ups and downs of raising this child know exactly where this is going. This picture was taken without planning it. The clothes he is wearing were clothes he would never take off because he refused to wear anything else.  He was defiant, rebellious, fearful....wracked with fear and debilitatingly shy.   He was angry and often showed it.  I mean...often.  Oh he laughed and he had fun, but mostly he was difficult!  His hair was long too because he refused to cut it. He wore those clothes until the cuffs came off and pants were too short and I had to basically tear them off his body. So, while we were at a photographer getting other pictures done, he was sitting there brooding in his favorite outfit.  I asked the photographer to take his picture so we would remember.  See, I knew that God's promises were true.  I knew that one day God would grab his heart and shake him up a bit. So I wanted to remember what he looked like during this dark time.  During this period of time, we got a lot of slack for many things we were doing.  I don't say this to make anyone feel bad because in all honesty, if I were looking at this situation from the outside, I may have thought or said the same things. I still hear some things now and again about how "I don't want my kid to be how he was".  In truth, aren't we all sinners? Our hearts are wretched things. But it was partly through Mikey that God taught us what His grace really meant.  We spanked like we were taught...that backfired quickly into something we never ever wanted to happen again.  We yelled...oh man did we yell.  Poor kid.  We sat in his room and took every last thing away until he even handed us his blanky!!!! stubborn little booger! I remember one time, sitting in his room against the door while he threw everything he could get his hands on and I just prayed grace over him.  I prayed that I would understand what grace meant...truly meant.  And, really it meant letting it go! It meant not striving to fix him.  He belonged to my Father and not to me.  I could not make him obey so I let go of some things that just didn't matter.  He grew his hair out and he wore his tattered clothes and it became a picture of who we were.  Broken sinners in need of a mighty Savior, a Savior who was the ONLY one who could put the little boy and his tattered and worn parents back together.   He wore winter boots with shorts all summer and he didn't wear short sleeves until the 5th grade.  Maybe 6th! One thing we did do was preach the Gospel to ourselves and to him, reminding him that even though he would often say he could never do anything right because he was always in trouble...it didn't matter, God loved him just like that. We couldn't change his behavior, we tried and failed miserably. We simply were praying that God would change his heart. So we kept telling him over and over and over that even in his sin, Jesus died for him. While he threw punches at his father, he would tell him, "son I love you". See, he was fighting not our love, but a much bigger love that was wrestling for his little heart.  And going back to that day at the photographer and that picture and the sense that one day....

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that same boy turns 14 tomorrow and God is capturing his heart. He has grown up to be a leader among peers, learning to serve his family; faithfully and carefully knowing when his heart is wrong.  He has a mind that absorbs the Gospel and a heart that hears, and it goes down deep. Does he still have a temper?  Just ask his sisters!! We thank God for this boy and all we have learned raising him.  We wouldn't go back and change one moment with him, and we can't wait to see all that God does in and through him in the next stages of his life.  Happy 14th Michael! 

Where Is Our Emphasis?

As I was taking a walk this morning my thoughts were on Matthew 11:29.30..."Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  I was talking with someone yesterday about her daughter getting a recent "reboot" this summer and she was so excited about it and how she was now checking all the right boxes again in her spiritual walk.  Inside I was churning. I was sad for this precious girl.  I have two teenagers my self and I often worry about their walk with their Savior but have to remember that they belong to Him and not to me.  They are in my care, yes.  But, ultimately God will finish what He has started, not me. What I was sad about was the stake she was taking in the works her daughter was doing and not in the work God was doing. It has taken me a long time in my walk with the Lord to finally understand what it means to take His yoke upon me and find rest. When the emphasis of all theology, the study of God, is on what I need to do to become a better believer is on me, the burden is so heavy.  Have I read enough today? Have I prayed enough today? I have been respectful to my parents enough today? Have I? Have I? But when the emphasis shifts to what Christ has done....oh boy! Do things change. Take the emphasis off of you and place it on Him and what he did and the burden is gone. And your heart will break. And when your heart breaks, your desire grows. Because what He did was leave his heavenly throne and become on ordinary, actually less than ordinary man, with no real home as an adult, and then was bullied, tortured and murdered. When I think of what He did for me in order to not have to strive in this life to reach heaven on my own...be still my heart. Such love. How can I not desire to serve such a God.