Fun things afoot

I just can’t tell you how excited I am about all the Lord is doing in my life and heart these days.

First, pray for Justin.  There are actually a couple of AMAZING job opportunities that may or may not be on the horizon.  We have been through this enough to know not to get too crazy excited, but there certainly is encouragement in having people contact him about positions (and both of them are in Worship Ministry – which is just awesome!  We’ll do anything – but to have the Lord bring things on the horizon that are SO in line with his heart, that is just humbling and precious.)  So, pray!  And as soon as there is anything we can share – believe me when I say we will shout the word from the mountaintops if any of these start to come to fruition.

Second, in my life – there continues to be a “buzz” as freelance opportunities and unique ministry opportunities are coming my way.  When I used to be 100% freelance, I used to joke that my life was feast or famine.  Right now, I’d definitely qualify what is going on as feast.  I just am having some cool doors open to do several things right in the sweet spot of my passions.  It is super cool.  I am busy, but the Lord seems to be giving me extra time to get it all done and He is filling my heart to overflowing to give me strength.

And right along with that – my classes are going really really well.  Even as I learn about these basic things, they are aligning with what is going on in life.  I can just feel that the Lord is using all of these things, seemingly unrelated, to teach me some cohesive message, in the way that ONLY He can do.  For example, last night I was learning about the physical structure of the brain (I’m telling you – I am in basic classes) and I was reading that there are over 100 billion nerve cells in your brain, and as you use certain areas, the brain actually grows and physically changes to increase the parts of your mind you need most.  And while that is happening, there are millions and millions of physical and chemical reactions that happen just to maintain basic body functions (to type this, there are millions of actions that have to happen to move my fingers in response to the words I want to type).  Just such sweet amazing confirmation about how fearfully and wonderfully made we are – the Lord thought of everything!  And that God, THAT GOD, who set all that in motion for not only me but for every person throughout history, He totally has our current circumstance in His hand and under His control.  He is good – and His plan, and timing, is perfect.

Speaking of perfect timing, Justin and I are going to our first EVER marriage conference this weekend at Keystone Church where Justin serves!  I am thrilled.  To get to sit under the teaching of Brandon and Susan Thomas, in focused dedicated time, with the goal being that we grow closer to the Lord and each other – can there be anything better?  I submit that there cannot!  I am SUPER excited.  If you are married and need some encouragement in that area of your life (don’t we all?), I can’t encourage you enough.  Brandon and Susan, in fact Keystone Church as a whole, just has a unique ministry to young couples.   I am super pumped to see how we grow.

Meanwhile, at the church where I serve (FBC Grapevine), the Lord seems to be moving in a new fresh way.  We are doing a coordinated emphasis throughout the spring on something we are calling GROW, ending in a weekend retreat for the entire church in April.  The Lord just is using this focused time to truly GROW people, which is so great to see.  For those of you not in fulltime ministry, here’s how it works.  You sit in these meetings and plan these events, and then pray over them acknowledging that without the movement of the Holy Spirit, all of our planning is in vain.  We are fully dependent on God as a church staff – and sometimes the Lord just takes something we have planned and He blesses it – and GROW seems to be one of those events.   I am so excited to see what the Lord does to the entire church as the GROW weekend nears, and how His Spirit moves to touch and change lives during that weekend.  Although it is kind of strange and challenging for me to be living with one foot in one church where I work and one foot in a church where my husband serves, the Lord is just allowing me to have a heart for both during this season.  I didn’t know how this would work or what it would look like, but I just laid my heart before the Lord and asked Him to help me honor Him in my service to both, and I feel like He has done that.

I think it boils down to the fact that I continue to just LOVE being a part of the church of Jesus Christ as a whole.  This season of life has been SO good for Justin and I as we have seen and experienced TRUE Biblical community.  We keep having the privilege of praying for people who need it, and it means so much to know that we are prayed for.  This season is just a blessing to be so connected to so many incredible people.  If I can pray for you, or encourage you in some way, or if you have a need you don’t know how to meet, please let me know.  I’d be honored to stand alongside you and pray.  He has given us so much, how can we do anything other than give back?  And if you are not connected to the church of Jesus Christ in a meaningful way, I’d love to take you to coffee and help you find a place.  I don’t know how people go through life, especially through challenges, without it.  It is, quite simply, the center of our life and the foundation we build our life on, and we love it.  Please don’t just live your life without that connection, without that relationship with Christ and His people.  Life can be SO MUCH MORE than sometimes we make it out to be.

Anyway – I better run change the diaper I am most definitely smelling, so I’m going to run.  I know the Lord is always faithful to bring people to my blog, and I hope this one has encouraged someone today.  You are not alone – there is a God who loves you more than you can EVER imagine, and He has a great plan for you.

New Adventures

SO many things are going on around here these days…  I thought I’d share!

First of all, I have started a new adventure, one that has freaked me out for YEARS.  I mean literally I have had nightmares about this for over 6 years, and yet, I am facing my fears and taking it on.  Yes that is right, I have gone back to school.  With perseverance, prayer, and patience on the part of my husband, I am going to finally finish my degree.  I was terrible at school the first time around and quite worried about it, but so far I seem to be doing well (only 2 weeks in but ahead in each class).  I am going 100% online to Dallas Community College and my professors are amazing.   Most of the students are like me – older, busy, and (hopefully) wise.  I’ll be rather old when I finish, but I truly want to conquer this beast and begin a new chapter in my life.

Speaking of chapters, I am actually designing my first book!  I am excited about it – I was signed on to do the graphics for a book and keynote presentation for a brilliant new book coming out by a Marketing genius named Nick Mavrick.  My wonderful friends, Jim and Jan Franke, hooked me up, and it is stretching me in a new fun way.  Marketing is such a big part of what I do and Production is what I have done for years, so I kind of fit the project perfectly.  I will hopefully and prayerfully do a great job for them and get to see the Publishing world from another angle – which is amazing.  I just think it is sweet of the Lord to bring something that kind of ties all of my interests together and yet pushes me outside of my comfort zone into a realm of graphics that I have never really done before.   So I am doing fun new layouts in InDesign, watching tutorials, pulling books that are graphically interesting off my shelves and I’ll be pumped to see what comes out at the end of this project!

I just have such a sense of anticipation about 2010.  I can’t explain it, but I know that the Lord is going to do something amazing this year.  He was so faithful even in the difficulty of 2009.  So as you pray, please lift us up.  We just want to be used by the Lord to show people His goodness, to rescue the perishing, and to bring Him joy.

The best versions of ourselves…

So this morning I wasn’t able to go to church again because of sick children.  I was totally bummed about it but it honestly afforded me a little bit of time that I usually don’t have.  This morning everyone but me was still asleep at 9:30 (I love that) and I got many uninterrupted minutes in the book of Psalms.  Specifically Psalm 9 – 19.  Those are some super powerful passages.

I’ve been thinking on some things and today just confirmed them.  I LOVE my thirties.  I mean it – seriously.  I just feel like I am getting to know myself and the Lord more everyday – and getting more comfortable in my own skin.  I am mindful of the Lord most of the time these days, which is a gift. I haven’t always been there.  I know that you can’t make yourself love someone – and I have had times where I just wasn’t loving our God.  I wanted to love Him.  Wanted to have desire to know Him.  But I didn’t.  So I took the advice of a friend and prayed about it – asked the Lord to increase my love for Him.  And it worked.  I now can gratefully say that I live my days aware of His blessings, His commands, His presence more than ever.  I love Him.  I live with Him more now than ever.  I want to obey Him because I trust Him.  Not in a “He speaks to me all the time and I’m a holy rockstar way” – not at all – but just in a “God’s been good to me and I’m grateful” way.  I’ll be honest (that confession thing again) and tell you that Bible Study in the mornings has, for the past 6 years, been a hard thing for me to do.  For many many years I had this daily Bible study thing down, it was just natural and easy.  Almost everyday I read the Word and wrote prayers in a journal, basically from when I was 18 until 27 years old.  At 27 I was going through a really tough time and I was just TIRED of praying about the same heartache, tired of every verse seeming to speak to a situation that I knew wasn’t really the Lord speaking.  I knew my desperate mind was trying to make the Word fit a situation I wanted so badly, and I was heartbroken that my life wasn’t turning out the way I wanted.  So I stopped.  Totally.  After 9 years of daily Bible Study I stopped reading.  Stopped praying.  Stopped journaling.  I’ll tell you that my idea didn’t really work.  I still hurt.  I still prayed about this thing (I had to – I was heartbroken) and I still had to navigate through my mind seeing “signs” pointing towards this thing that I wanted (but was not supposed to have).   It didn’t help me at all, what it did, in fact, was hurt me to this day.  It broke the routine of daily Bible Study and journaling.  So since that time, the daily routine of Bible study and journalling has been really difficult.  I do it, but I don’t have the system or discipline down that I used to.  Now it’s hard.  There are weeks where I don’t get much done.  I used to approach the Word everyday with a plan for where to start and how to do it.  Now it is snatched moments and my Bible study is more random.  Sometimes I do my Bible Study on www.biblegateway.com and don’t journal at all.  I miss those days before – I want to get back there.  I guess, like anything else, it is a behavioral challenge.  You have to make it a habit and a routine and in my life, with a husband, a job, a business, 2 preschoolers and school I end up fitting it in my life instead of planning my life around it.  Not that ANY of that is an excuse.  I have more time in my day and I know it needs to be THE priority.  This is not the direction I thought this blog post would go, but hey, I do believe in confession and maybe in confessing this I will FINALLY get past the consequences of the decision I made 6 years ago to put my time with the Lord on the back burner.  I so regret that choice.

Girls who are younger and who are reading this – establish a habit.  Seriously.  And once you have it – stick with it.  Don’t think you can take a “break” and just pick it back up when you are ready. Sometimes life gets in the way of that.

Anyway – like I said, this isn’t the direction I thought this post would have – I wanted to share some of the jewels from Psalm 9 – 19.

Those who know Your Name will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You. (9:10)

But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to You; you are the helper of the fatherless…

You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted;  You encourage them, and You listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.  (Haiti, right?  10:14, 16-18)

But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.  I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me.  (13:5-6)

ALL of Psalm 16 is amazing.  Spend a second reading that if you have time.  Today I was reading it and especially thought of Psalm 16:4 “The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods.”  If you’ve ever read the story of the Rich Young Ruler, he just always broke my heart.  I think there is nothing more sad than people who CHOOSE to run after other gods in their life.  It isn’t little clay idols these days, instead it is idols of  relationship, money, or self.  People who run after those things blindly.  I read once that “being self aware is a choice” and it breaks my heart (and infuriates me sometimes) to see Believers who are not self-aware.  They don’t even know that they are blindly chasing things God never intended them to chase.  I get it though.  I relate. Like I wrote earlier, I have been there.  I have tried to make the truth of God fit a truth I wanted to believe.  It doesn’t work. I guess my frustration is that I want better for people.  I want people at peace with themselves.  I want people who I love to be healthy and content.  I want them to avoid the increase of sorrows that this verse talks about.  I see their sorrow increase.  They think it is increasing because of their situation – I think it is increasing because of their FOCUS.  Regardless of our situation, the Bible talks about us being at peace when we focus on the Lord.  But here’s the trick – we have to want Him more.  We have to pursue Jesus and stop pursuing false idols.  We cannot be the best version of ourself until we do.  It is impossible.  So with these friends I see living in the sorrow of chasing false idols, my job is to pray they turn and trust the Lord to draw them to Himself and overcome, and try to be as self aware and as close to Jesus as possible to keep myself from being drawn away to chase things God never intended me to chase.

I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer.  Show the wonder of your great love, You who save by Your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. (17:6-7)

And I – in righteousness I will see Your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. (17:15)

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters.  He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me.  They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.  He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me. (18:16-19)

Thank you Jesus.

Now that I see this post in its entirety, I think it went exactly the direction it was supposed to go.  I love that.  I’m telling you, some people write me and tell me I’m a good writer, I’m telling you it’s the grace of God that I have things to share.  I hope you all have a great day.

9 months and counting

When I am stressed, I clean.  When I am frustrated, I clean. Justin calls me an angry cleaner, and although I HATE it when he calls me that, it is very true.  I was in a cleaning frenzy Monday.  And truthfully, I was pretty frustrated with our situation (and by extension, with God).  I was praying (kind of venting) as I cleaned.  Here is a glimpse into my thoughts while I ran about like a mad woman: “How much longer are we going to wait, Lord?  I am over it.  You say that you won’t give us more than we can handle but I honestly don’t think I can handle much more.  Please open a door for us.  Please.  Please provide a great job for Justin.  Please bless him.  He is so talented.  So faithful.  I can feel his frustration and discouragement mounting.  Please blow him away with your provision.  Please show him your love.  Please Jesus.  Be near to my husband.  Open the right door.  I don’t know how much more we can take.  I just feel so weak and so helpless.  I know I am worrying.  I know I’m sinning.  I don’t want to feel like this anymore.  I want to be faithful but I just AM NOT.  Please help me Jesus.  Help my unbelief.  Please help us.  We need you so much.” I honestly went on and on like that for a while.  I was heading into my room and I was praying/ranting and it suddenly hit me.  The answer.  The word that came into my mind was “PREGNANT.”

I remember in therapy that there were times where my wonderful Godly therapist would say things and it was like the room shifted around me and suddenly I could look at a problem from a completely different angle.  That is what the word “pregnant” did for me on Monday.  My world shifted.  It was so comforting.  It was EXACTLY the right word for this season.

For my friends who have not experienced it, let me just tell you about one weird factor of pregnancy.  Towards the end, all of the sudden, you are just DONE.  You are massive.  You are constantly hot.  You are uncomfortable.  You can’t sleep.  You have terrible heartburn.  You can’t see your feet or move around like you want to.  Your hormones are, by definition, insane.  You have all of these things you want to be doing, you need to be doing, but you are just so tired and can’t do them.  You are irritated and frustrated and OH SO STINKING PREGNANT.  Hopefully, if you are lucky, this stage comes a week or two before delivery.  But with my first, this stage came at about 7 months and I still had forever to go.  Let me also tell you another cruel thing about pregnancy.  They SAY it is 9 months long.  But it isn’t.  Pregnancy is 40 weeks long.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize that 40/4 is 10 months.  TEN MONTHS.  They have lied to us for, what, centuries?  They just thought that once we had carried this baby for 9 months we wouldn’t notice that the sweet thing stayed in there another 4 weeks?  It is cruel and wrong.  Ladies, let me be a friend and tell you, pregnancy is 40 weeks, 10 months.  So just when you thought you were good to go and you could not possibly hold this baby in another day, you find out that you have another month.

That feeling, that oh-my-goodness-I-am-so-ready-for-this-to-be-over feeling, is exactly what I am feeling.  I remember those days of pregnancy so clearly.  I have been down this road before.  This season feels EXACTLY like being “overdue.”

This is why the word “pregnant” gave such comfort.

#1 – Pregnancy has a purpose.  My mom is totally one of THOSE women, those completely crazy women that says her pregnancies were the best 27 months of her life (30 if she’s being honest).  My response – “Yeah, right.”  Truth is, without the incredible immeasureable blessing of a sweet beautiful cuddly miraculous baby, none of us would endure pregnancy.  Pregnancy, by definition, is a temporary state with the purpose of giving birth to new life.  What great comfort to us in this season of our lives.  This season has purpose.  Something new is about to be born.  Something new is coming.  And that something is worth the discomfort and irritation of this season “carrying” the vision for what is coming.  I did enjoy having my sweet girls in my stomach and the tiny glimpse into their personalities that time afforded.  But it was NOTHING compared to the joy of holding them, seeing their little hearts and minds through their eyes.  We have a vision for what is coming.  We have dreams and hopes and goals, but I know the Lord well enough to know that the reality of life and ministry, when it is RIGHT, can blow away our dreams and visions.

#2 – Pregnancy is, by definition, temporary.  What a comfort both when you are 8 + months pregnant and when you have been praying and waiting for something as long as Justin and I have.  This season is temporary.  Praise Jesus.  That is such great comfort for us who believe.  I’ve written this before, but this is where I have to battle my mind.  This doesn’t FEEL temporary.  It FEELS like it is redefining our life.  But nobody is pregnant forever.  This is where I have to battle my heart, which is deceitful, with truth.

#3 – Pregnancy prepares you for parenting, and gives you a glimpse of what’s coming. And from what I’ve seen of adoption, it is setup to do the same thing.  God is good to give us time to catch up, time to adjust.  We don’t just BOOM have a teenager to raise with no warning and no preparation.  While we wait, we prepare.  We nest.  We read.  We learn.  We rest.  And our heart and home gets ready to receive an amazing blessing.  This season is good for our souls.  This season is preparing us for what’s next.  This season has hints and glimpses of what is to come.  And OH HOW HE LOVES US.  Oh how He has blessed us.  Christmas was such a tangible demonstration of His love and provision for us.  And if that is just a glimpse?   Wow.  I feel like dancing around like Grace in her Cinderella dress.

I was not a great pregnant person.  My family can attest to that.  But here’s what I LOVED.  I LOVED being in the hospital, having these beautiful baby girls.  I loved the times at night when all of the visitors would leave and the nurses would come in and wake me up to bring my daughters into our room.  The quiet dark time where it was just me and them, getting to know each other.  When I would look at their fingers and toes and I would completely fall in love with them and with the God who gave them to me.  I loved that the 2nd or 3rd night I would wake up when I heard them cry down the hall.  I recognized my baby’s cry!  I would sit and wait in that room while the nurses pushed my babies towards my room and I would get SO excited.  I LOVED that time.   And there is not much I wouldn’t endure to have the chance to do that again.  When we think about adoption, I don’t think about the paperwork and the waiting and the expense, I think about when they are in our home and I get the chance to get to know their hearts.  I learn if they like Macaroni, or what makes them giggle, or how to discern their cries.  Getting to know why Jesus would choose Justin and me before the beginning of time to be their parent, seeing how they change us as we become a family.  Getting to know the child the Lord has chosen for us.  That’s the fun part.

This next season, the season of fulfillment, the newborn season – I LOVE it.  - I just get excited when I see this from this perspective.  What an amazing word – “pregnant”.  Thank you Lord for giving me that word – that peace.  Thank you Lord for taking your time and crafting this in the way only You can, just as in my tummy you crafted these beautiful baby girls.  You are good.  We are excited.  We are in.  We are ready.

(One last thing – Monday, during my frenzy day, I had written some friends and asked them to pray for me.  THANK YOU GIRLS for praying.  I felt your prayers as the Lord gave me this comfort.  I believe your prayers played a part of this comfort.  I don’t know that I’ve ever felt prayer support like during this season or seen immediate results like in the past few months.  That is the definition of community and I LOVE it!   It is growing a new urgency to pray in me and I thank you for the part you are playing in that!  Love you girls so much.)

Pray for Widline

I got home yesterday and today checked the mail – I received my final letter from my Compassion Child in Haiti, Widline, in the mail while I was gone.  She graduated from the Compassion Program a couple of months ago and I have been thinking of her and praying for her.  Hoping she is alive and that she is not alone.  Wondering if I’d ever hear since she is not officially in the Compassion program anymore.  Here is the letter she sent me.

Dear Jennifer and Justin,

I feel happy to write you this letter and I take advantage of greeting you in Jesus’ name.  I take advantage of thanking you for what you do for me:  to pay my school, to buy books and uniform, special gifts.  Those things let me feel that you represent a close parent for me.  I must let you know that you’ll always stay in my spirit for all the good things that you did for me.  I pray that God always blesses you and always gives you health.  This way you’ll always lift me in your prayers.  Your sponsoring child who will always love even though we will not have the time to talk anymore.  May God bless you.  Widline

Here is the photograph enclosed in the letter.  Please join me in praying for Widline.

Jesus please protect Widline and show her your love.  Please be near to her.   Please comfort her heart and mind. Please provide food and water for her.  If she is hurt or trapped, please send rescue and help.   Jesus she is your child and you love her more than I can imagine.  Please let her know your love.  Please let her know she is not forgotten and she is prayed for.  Surround her with your presence. And if she didn’t make it through the tragedy, I am thankful that I know she is home with you.  Jesus my heart aches for her.  If there is any way I can someday know her fate, please allow me to know that.  I love you Jesus.  I am thankful that Widline is, one way or another, in your loving capable wise hands.

And after you pray with me, please give to Compassion, or select a Compassion child to sponsor. Your life will be forever changed and you can provide help to children around the world.

Between the Beauty and the Chaos

My mind is stuck in Haiti and I write to process, so be warned this is all over the place.  I think about Haiti as I go to sleep and immediately upon waking up.  And yet I am home now and holding my beautiful Bekah and playing with my beautiful Grace in our wonderful home and the stark comparison of those two things just baffles me.  My friend Aaron Ivey wrote an album entitled “Between the Beauty and the Chaos,” and he and his wife share a similar heart with Justin and me, and that sums up where I am.

Last night as I lay in bed trying to sleep I told Justin that it is hard for me to watch the father he is, to watch him dance with Grace while we watch Cinderella, without thinking that every girl deserves a daddy like him.  Here’s the beauty of the life we live.

Jamie and Aaron Ivey’s son, Amos, is still living in an orphanage in Haiti until his adoption is final and for the past two nights they have had to sleep with all 70 children outside because of the aftershocks and the insecurity of their damaged building.  Here is a photograph they posted.  This is the chaos of these precious children’s lives.

A few months ago one of my Compassion kids, Widline Floreal, graduated from the Compassion Program.  I received word that she had come to Christ during her time at the Project, and I prayed that she would know always that Jesus is with her.  Beautiful girl.  I hope she isn’t alone in the chaos.  I hope she’s alive.  I wonder if I’ll ever know.  I pray she knows Jesus loves her and is with her.

We have given to several organizations that are on the ground in Haiti, but it isn’t enough.  We are praying and reading the blogs and calling out to God, and I know in my mind that is more but it still feels like it isn’t enough.  I just want to bring these babies home.  I just want to gather our friends and get them all adopted – be this beautiful rainbow family of people who love Christ.  I just want to see my husband dancing with my daughters from around the world.   I want to be used by God to bring beauty into chaos.  That is why we give.  That is why we pray.  That is why we will adopt.

There is beauty.  I sincerely hope that everyone is giving something to this cause.  If the people who are tweeting links to give to a cause are actually giving, I am thrilled with the generosity we are seeing.   The tweets and blogs from people on the ground in Haiti are so incredibly moving and powerful (@troylivesay, Livesay Blog, the Real Hope for Haiti blog, the Howerton blog), people are helping in extraordinary ways (Fellowship Church Miami’s plane headed to Haiti with food and water 36 hours after the first shaking), people in Haiti are singing worship songs, reading their bible, praying, helping, coming together.  I love this.  This is what we are supposed to be about.

There is chaos.

I know that some people who are my friends are not Believers in Christ, and yet you still read what I write and I thank you for doing so.  I have hesitated to speak to the Pat Robertson comment because I sometimes feel so unwise to respond to such things, but let me simply say this.  He does not speak for me, for any authentic Believer in Christ, or for the Jesus that I read in the Bible.   Pat’s comments were chaos.  We as believers are called to be light and love to this world (Right before Jesus’ death in John 13 he told the disciples A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Pat’s representation of Christ is not love or light.  I am sorry he claims to speak for us as Believers.

If you care to read it, Donald Miller’s response to Pat’s comments was completely in line with what I feel about Pat Robertson.  I thought his words represented Beauty well.

I thought Keith Olbermann’s response to Pat’s comments were very interesting, and I didn’t know what he was responding to until I looked it up, and I was shocked at the political comments I found.  It is amazing how many people used this horrible tragedy and turned it into political fodder – yet another chance to bash our President.  I am incredibly frustrated with the 24 hour news cycle and with the nonsense it has inflicted on our country and I am frustrated with Fox News and what it has done to Christianity.  We are NOT to be known primarily, or really at all according to my Bible, for our political point of view.   Jesus lived in the time of the Roman Empire, and he never once said to “Rise up and fight, call everyone a fascist and circulate hate through email and picket and be known by your division.”  He said to “render unto Caesar what is Caesars and render unto God what is God’s.”  I’m fine if you vote Republican, so do I. I am fine if you vote for the life of the unborn.  So do I.  But when you politicize everything, including a horrible tragedy such as this situation in Haiti and use it to be hateful, disrespectful, and anything but submissive to the leadership that God has placed over you, you are sinning.  God ordains our leaders.  Look at China.  The church is exploding!  God does not need a Christian in the White House to be glorified.  Read the new Testament, the church was meant to be a subversive force in our culture.  If you are a Believer in Christ and watching Fox News (or MSNBC) and getting all fired up and hateful and divisive, if you are known for that and not for your love for people around you, you are known for the wrong thing.  I am not a sheep.  I am fully aware of what is going on in our country.  But I am not a citizen primarily of this country.  I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God and I will behave as such.  If you are spreading chaos into this world, and not spreading beauty, beware.  You might be about the wrong Kingdom’s business.  Again, I typically don’t speak to this, and you can now see why.  :)  But this is where I am.  That junk is chaos.  And we are not to be about it.  I’ll now stop spouting my opinions on this, in case you were nervous.

Here’s the truth of where I am today. We live in a horribly fallen world.  It is simply and terribly chaos.  We were meant for another world – for heaven.  A world of beauty.  And in the in between, we are here with a purpose to give God glory and to be a light into darkness.   To bring the beauty of the next life, of peace with God, into the chaos of a fallen world. Jesus please help us to do that.  Jesus please be near to Haiti.  Jesus please hold the fatherless in the palm of your hands, and raise up fathers here with a passion to bring their sons and daughters home.  There are 140 million orphans.  Jesus please call your church to be a forever family to these sweet babies.  Please let no Christian be satisfied to be a citizen of this country.  Please call them to be a citizen of your Kingdom first and foremost.  Jesus help us where we are weak, be great when we are not, and cover over us with your grace when we are decidedly human.   To You and You alone be the glory.

Where’s my glass slipper?

There have been many things swirling around in my head this week and I’ve thought “I should work through that in a blog” but truthfully, I’ve just been so very busy I haven’t gotten to it.  This week I leave for New York for a show.  For the past five years I have produced the annual convention for the National Retail Federation.  It is a fun deviation from my everyday job working from home to get to travel and produce a show with retail and business leaders from around the world.   I always enjoy it – this is what I used to do as a career and it always stretches me a little bit to step back into it for a week.  I try to take my vacation and produce a couple of shows a year to keep my foot in that arena and make a little extra income for our family.  All that to say if I am slow to respond to things these days – there has been a reason!

Something appropriate is happening right now that is exactly what I was going to write about today!  Right now as I type this Grace is saying “I need my glass slipper” over and over.  She has been saying it for about 10 minutes without rest.  She is watching her favorite movie, Cinderella, in her Cinderella dress.  She has 5 pairs of Princess slippers, and right now one of the glass slippers is missing and she is just devastated.  She is missing her favorite movie and driving me crazy repeating over and over her request for this slipper, while there are 4 perfectly good pairs of slippers waiting for her in her room.  She’s been doing this pretty often – I guess it is a two year-old thing.  She’ll get “stuck” on something and miss fun and joy and life while she is fixated on this one thing wrong in her world.  One night last week she was totally fixated on having a glass of milk, and we were out.  Justin had made this great dinner, and she wouldn’t eat any of it and cried through the meal because she wanted milk and was angry that we weren’t giving her milk.  Everything we tried to do or give her in lieu of milk made her cry.  It made what could have been a pleasant dinner a very frustrating experience. As I was watching her I got that uncomfortable feeling because yet again, it made me start thinking again how alike we are.

I keep getting “stuck” on worry or stress or praying for this “one thing” that we need, and sometimes it is like it is this massive wall in front of me blocking my view.  And I hate that about myself because I know I am missing joy in those moments where I am stuck.  I am not dwelling in gratitude, and I have so very much to be grateful for.  I know that God is infinitely patient and infinitely loving, and so he probably is not like me, but I get TIRED of Grace asking repeatedly for one small thing and missing all of the other wonderful things we’ve provided for her.   She has food, drink, toys, a home, love, laughter, fun.  Why on earth is a missing slipper causing so much drama?  I know He isn’t like we are, but don’t you wonder if the Lord ever gets frustrated with our constant desire for more?  If the times where I pray and ask and ask and ask and ask for the same thing doesn’t just make Him want to go “STOP and look around you and see what all I’ve given you – there is a reason why this thing that you want isn’t appearing in front of you, and it has nothing to do with a lack of love for you.”  Now as I disclaimer, I don’t think that is the way the Lord responds when we ask.  Like I said, He’s infinitely more loving than we are and I’m so thankful that He’s more patient as well.

But watching Grace does make me wonder.  Matthew 7:11 says If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So if that is true, and I believe that it is, then there is a reason even for the things missing in our lives.

There is a balance to be struck, don’t you think?  We are supposed to take our desires, our “one thing we need” requests, our concerns and requests to our God.  He wants to hear from us.  He knows these “glass slippers” are important to us and He wants us to ask Him for them.  But while we wait, while we ask, we need to trust Him to provide and take joy in our lives and live the life we’ve been given to the fullest.  There must be a way to wait and yet not “get stuck,” right?  I don’t know that I have this concept, or this balance, down.  Again I go back to what I am learning as I watch Matt Chandler go through this time in his life.  He trusts God.  He believes Jesus is all.  He knows that God is in control and that it may not be God’s will for him to stay on this earth even another day.  And yet he asks for healing.  His desire is to walk his daughter down the aisle and to grow old with his wife.   So He draws near to God, he speaks His requests, and He trusts God to work all for good, regardless of the outcome.  WOW that’s hard.  It’s hard to wrap our minds around, right?  But it’s right.

Just as parenting teaches me things about God, so does marriage.  On a micro level, marriage models the relationship of the church of Jesus Christ to God.   As a wife I STRIVE to be submissive to my husband.  Yet I am one opinionated lady.  So here’s what I do.  I draw near to Justin, I communicate with him what I think that I need, and then I rest and trust him to make the wise decisions for our family that God leads him to make.  And it is HARD!  Sometimes I have to bite my tongue.  I have to seriously reign in my nature to take control.  But because I love my husband, because I know his heart for me and our girls, I can trust him to make decisions with our best interests in mind.

If you read much of my blog, it always seems to come down to this:  I want to trust the heart of my Father.  And when I don’t trust His heart, I get into trouble.  So today I take these desires, this “one thing” that we’ve been praying for truthfully for years now, and I trust my Father to provide that in His timing and according to His will, and in the meantime, I trust him to use us as we wait for His glory.  And I dwell in gratitude for ALL we have been given.  I determine not to get stuck and throw a fit for what we don’t have – but to take joy in what we have been given.

And that dadgum glass slipper can stay lost for another 2 years and I still won’t doubt His love for us.  Because I know better.  My Father loves me, and if the glass slipper is best, He’ll give it to me when I need it most.

Christmas.

My sister took some pics of us as the girls opened the AMAZING gifts provided for us by the wonderful people at Keystone Church.  So as promised, here are some pictures so that you, who gave such thoughtful gifts to our bitty girls, can experience a bit of the joy and wonder of our Christmas morning.

I just saw these for the first time and I have big tears in my eyes remembering each item and Grace’s exclamations of joy as she opened one gift after another.  Since then, Grace and Bekah have each slept with gifts that you gave them (Grace a Cinderella doll and Bekah a Musical Seahorse), they have kept warm in the precious winter clothes you gave them, we have together read the wonderful books you’ve given us, and we have played and played and played with the wonderful toys you gave us.  We were able to get some tires for our car (a serious need we’ve had for months) with gift cards, and were able to cover our utilities and monthly bills with money off the money tree.  There are not words to express our gratitude.  Jesus has used you to bless us.  We have felt His love in your love.  Thank you.

As I look at these pictures, I remember sweet moments since Christmas.  Grace calling me in to help because Baby Jesus was stuck in her new kitchen, Bekah crawling in her homemade Tutu like a hilarious little crab, the dozens of times I have heard Away in a Manger sung loudly into the little microphone, my sister and I playing with the Strawberry Shortcake berry house while Grace napped (and the girls playing with it when they woke up), the drawers full of precious clothes that will last us for the next year or more.  Every day all day long we are blessed by the blessings you shared with us.  Although these pictures are precious, they don’t even scratch the surface of your generosity.  God is just so good.  He has been so very good to us.

Since Christmas, I have experienced a bit of a personal “revival” in my heart.   I have just felt the nearness of our God and it has been fun to spend more time aware of His love and His presence.   I am so thankful for that – His nearness is truly our good.  I am thrilled to see what happens in 2010 with Justin’s job and with our call to ministry.  Everyday I am just soaking in this season of life that has already been so valuable for my heart despite the situational difficulty.  He really does restore all and does not waste one thing in our lives.

I said it the first night – this experience has been life changing.  And everyday since has proven that to be true.

A look back at 2009

This was a powerful year.

We had a beautiful baby girl – Rebekah Taylor.  She has simply the sweetest spirit I’ve ever known.  She is a joy and such an easy wonderful happy baby.   She has these big dark green eyes and big bright smile – she is completely captivating to me.  I adore her.  I feel like I hold this amazing secret because I know this heart and I get to see others get to know her and fall in love with her too.

Our bright and beautiful Grace continues to delight us.  She is a funny, creative, energetic, joyful little girl.  She challenges me to my core because she is very similar to me (strong willed does not even begin to describe our daughter), and watching her grow and learn at an astonishing speed is priceless.  I love this child and still can’t get over that the Lord gave her to us to parent.

We moved out of Grapevine into Keller into our first real “home” as a married couple.  We love this house, love this area, and love the new opportunities a new home and neighborhood offer.

We watched our beautiful girls turn into SISTERS, completely answering my prayer of companionship for Grace.  Grace is captivated by her sister, and vice versa.  They are precious and we feel so very blessed.

The Lord also showed his faithfulness as he provided incredible friends for me in 2009.  There are some girls, and some couple friends, he has given us who are absolutely a source of joy and encouragement.  These are not all of them, but these are a few of the wonderful people he has placed in our life in 2009 to hold us up.

We were faced with our largest trial as a married couple when Justin was laid off from the church where I continue to serve because of budget cuts.  (Although this was our reality, I want you to know that Justin and I do not live in bitterness or anger about this layoff – we understood the economic reality of their decision and God has freed us from any of that and I continue to enjoy serving the Lord at FBC Grapevine with a great staff who I dearly love.)

We were privileged, however, to have an opportunity to grow in our faith and trust in the Lord’s provision during this time.  When he was laid off, I began to do the “math” of our situation, and I didn’t know how we would be able to survive.  We, in our human understanding, thought the Lord would need to provide another full-time job for him immediately, and as Justin began to look, the reality of the economic climate in 2009 was daunting and discouraging.  But the Lord, as always, is faithful.  We have not missed any payments or had to sell anything and we have seen the nearness of our God during this time.  A revival has broken out in our hearts, both because of His faithfulness, and because of the incredible encouragement of His people.

Justin has had the amazing opportunity to serve most weekends at Keystone Church in 2009, and his freelance business has exploded.   So although the Lord’s provision doesn’t look the way we expected it to look, it has been more than sufficient.  His power has been made perfect in our weakness.  The Lord has laid our family, and our situation, on the hearts of many Keystone members, and in an amazing display of love and care, Keystone provided Christmas for our family.

This year, for me, has been a year of the Lord growing bigger in my perception, and me beginning to finally grasp a small amount of the truth I have known but not understood for so long.

The glory of God is my joy.  The glory of God is my good.  Jesus is all.

I have watched my friend and hero Matt Chandler face the greatest challenge of his life with grace and faith.  I have seen and experienced community in a way I never knew existed.  I have delighted and despaired in the beauty and challenge of parenting my daughters.  I have gotten to know and love my husband’s heart more as we’ve faced these challenges together.  I have been privileged to serve the Lord and pray that my service has been used for His glory.  I have gotten a glimpse of His glory and love in our life and in our home.

2009 has been powerful.  I am excited to see what 2010 brings.

Oh How HE LOVES US SO.

I got to take the girls to church this morning, and it was HILARIOUS how many people came up to me with these “sneaky” smiles on their faces.  I love you people.  Merry Christmas to each of you precious wonderful people, and to all of the people involved in this who we don’t even know, and to all of you reading who have just heard our story.  I wanted to update everyone briefly about what has happened after Friday night and answer some of the common questions I fielded today.  First of all, let me just say, you people totally did surprise me.  I had NO idea any of this was cooking.  And I actually pride myself on my conspiracy theorist mind, so KUDOS.  You guys certainly pulled off something incredible and we were absolutely clueless.   I even saw cars outside of our house Friday night that looked suspicious and I thought Angie was acting strange and I STILL had no idea.  After we got home we just kept talking and processing.  I think I was in shock a little.  I just kept walking through our living room looking through things and just felt so humbled and loved and amazed.  I woke up early Saturday morning and spent some time thanking the Lord for each of you who helped and for His precious provision for us.  I read Psalm 103 and it just seemed to fit the blessing that we had received the night before.

Praise the Lord, O my soul.  All my inmost being, praise His holy name…

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor his anger forever;  He does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;  as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;  for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

Let me tell you what this is teaching me.  It is giving me a glimpse of the love of my Father and teaching me to rest in the love of my Father.  We truthfully immediately thought that we don’t deserve this and that there are many many people who have greater needs than we do.  All of those things are true.  So many of you have written us and told us that we are loved and some have even said we deserve this, and my answer in my mind when that is said is “But you don’t know the sin in me, the weakness, the yuck.”  And when my mind goes there, I have to go back to the fact, and I know this is true, that the Lord gave this vision to do this for us to one of our sweet friends.  He gave it to her.  And He used it in our lives to show us His great great love for us.  And not only did He use it in our lives but many of you have told me that in doing this for us, you were blessed. Oh how HE LOVES US so.  He knows us completely and loves us anyway.  We run and hide from Him and He seeks us and woos us to Himself.  None of us deserve any of the grace He gives but grace pours out of Him anyway.  Oh how HE LOVES US SO.   So that’s what I’m thinking – this past 72 hours has been heavy and precious and beautiful and meaningful and LIFECHANGING for us – I’m telling you.

Here’s one more thing you might not know about us, and I share it because when I heard it, I just KNEW the love of my Father for me.  A few weeks ago I kind of reached a breaking point with some challenging circumstances in our life.  There was a day that I just about cried all day and late late that night, actually the next morning, I wrote a blog about it called “Weary.”  Yesterday I talked to the person who had the vision to do this for us.  She tried to avoid me knowing it was her but I just KNEW.  Here’s the cool backstory to this that just makes me love my Father and know He is holding us in this time.  She told me that the Lord gave her the vision for this whole thing the day before I wrote the “Weary” post.  The day of my breaking point.  How sweet of God?  I believe that God ordains all things and allows pain in our life and that the pain in our life ALWAYS serves a purpose.  How incredible of Him to allow me to go to a really dark difficult place and before I even go there He is working out a plan to bless us in that place beyond anything we could EVER EVER EVER imagine?  Seriously, this is the God that sent His Son to earth to die for us and to save us from our sin and filth.  This is the God that LOVES every person reading this more than our minds can ever ever comprehend.

So this is where I am these days.  And I love it.  I was telling someone today that our home feels different to me.  It feels anointed which seems strange to even write but that is how it feels.  Jesus grew BIG in our house this week.  Bigger in my perception, at least, He was always bigger than my mind could ever understand.

I have video of when we walked in, video of when Grace saw everything (she walked around saying “It’s so pretty!” in this awed little voice and she has slept with one of her gifts since Saturday morning).  They played with their kitchen wearing these precious homemade tutus for hours.  We haven’t opened any of the wrapped gifts yet, so we’ll take pictures of all of that on Christmas Day and then upload everything so you who blessed us can be blessed by seeing my sweet girls enjoy the gifts you so lovingly chose for them.   Our daughter is already delighting in what you guys did.   I can’t wait to show you pictures of it all.   We are overwhelmed with your sacrifice and with the sacrifice of the One who loves us.

Here’s the bottom line.  I LOVE you people who did this, and I FEEL your love for us.  But God has taught me in this that to HIM be the glory and it is HIS love in you guys that is overwhelming me right now.  I am a visual person, and in my mind it is like you are all these wonderful extensions of His wonderful loving arms.  We now know that over 60 families gave to us this past few weeks.  SIXTY.  Isn’t that amazing?  We are all a part of something so much bigger than us, and it is awesome and humbling and so incredibly life changing to get a glimpse of that bigger plan.  That bigger God.  Oh HOW HE LOVES US SO.