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Stress, Sadness, Celebration, and Blessing

A quarter of a year has past since I sat down to write to you. That seems so weird to say, a fourth of a year has come and gone. I didn’t intend to go so long without writing about the journey of trusting the Lord that I have been on, but the writing just did not come. The end of September, October, November, and December brought about many joys and many sadnesses and now I am ready to share it with you.

Five days after my last post, Allison, the friend fighting cancer whom I asked many of you to pray for, passed on to be with the Lord. My heart broke. While I had not been close to Allison in life, I felt an intense call from the Lord at the beginning of her journey to be a prayer warrior for her, her husband, and their sweet baby Judah. God called me to pray at all hours, while I ran I prayed, while I worked I prayed, in the middle of the night I would wake up and pray, and I begged many others to pray with me. Only one other time in my life have I ever felt so desperately compelled to pray unceasingly (some may know her as a sweet little miracle named Maybre). I was sure that the Lord would save Judah and heal Allison. I believed so strongly that He had an amazing tale for Allison to tell and would draw so many to Himself with her story.

I was right in believing those things. They just didn’t unfold the way that I thought they should…the Lord calling me to trust Him more.  Judah is full of life and healthy, a sweet little baby boy. Allison is healed of all that ever ailed her on earth and now lives with her Heavenly Father. On October 17th, 2015 at Allison’s Celebration of Life, I watched in tears and in awe at what the Lord is doing with her story and how He continues to use her to draw people to Himself. I felt personally stirred by Allison’s young life to seek the Lord more deeply and to more strongly pursue the things He has placed on my heart. The Lord whispered to my heart that Allison was much more needed with Him and He would use her life to bring so much glory to Himself and to Allison. It was a gift to watch how many people were and are touched by Allison’s faithfulness, see some of it here.

Also in September, I began a journey at school that has repeatedly broken my heart and my heart continues to bleed for many of the children at my school. I had my first of several encounters with needing the police and CPS to intervene. So many of the children I serve, teach, and love everyday do not live the life you and I plan to or do give our children. My heart has not yet learned to live in the tangle of caring about my students/my children, trying to help and love them, and still giving these cares to the Lord for Him to carry. This has been an on going struggle for the past 4 months. I clearly cannot share much of their stories so please pray for my students and their families, their safety, that the Lord reveals Himself to them, how I can help them, and how my heart should respond to these situations and how my heart should respond to the Lord.

I don’t think I can think of a time where I have felt at the same time so much pain and joy at the same time, which I might add is very uncomfortable. While Allison was going to be with the Lord and school had become a very sorrowful place, the Lambert’s were adopting their beautiful baby girl, they had been awaiting her arrival for years (read more here and here). I was and am ecstatic for them. Another couple, we love dearly was also getting their bundle of joy through adoption. It was so confusing, painful, and beautiful to watch the Lord work in so many different ways.

During all of this, we were preparing for our new home and getting ready to move. We watched prayerfully and joyfully as the Lord and the construction workers built our home. It was a beautiful time, we wrote verses and prayers on the frame and foundation of our house, family came and wrote well wishes, proverbs, verses and prayers for us, as well. We visited frequently praying for the house, the people that worked on it, the ministry we would have in and through it, and we prayed above all else that it would be dedicated to the Lord and His work and that we would not forget that. The Lord planted beautiful things in mine and Luke’s hearts, the seeds of what He has next for us and what He would use our house for.

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My heart constantly was and is skipping from joy to sorrow. At times I felt and still feel overcome by the sadness and grief in my heart and then in an instant joyous over the many amazing gifts that the Lord has brought: babies (adopted and birthed) of friends, marriages, debt reduced by over $40,000, a beautiful new home, a job that gives me my husband back, friends completely giving themselves over to the Lord, engagements, pregnant friends, myself growing so much in trust and faith, and whispers of joys, ministries, and service to the Lord yet to come.

These three months have been amazingly and awfully difficult and yet amazingly beautiful and joyful. I have learned that I cannot save the world, the people and children I love, or even myself, that job is reserved only for the Lord. I feel here and now, I begin to embark on a new journey of trusting even deeper and in new ways our awesome Lord. Won’t you come too?

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Blog

Bursting with Thankfulness Part 2

Luke got a new job!!!!

Now most of you know Luke LOVES Apple and he has LOVED working for them for the last 5 1/2 years, but it is extremely difficult to never know your schedule more than 3 weeks in advance and not have nights or weekends off. I know there are tons of people that have to do just that and let’s just take a second to recognize their struggle………………………… IT IS SO HARD! We haven’t ever gotten to spend weekends together, go on trips, been in a bible study together, gone to church regularly, had a regular date night, Luke has missed so many celebrations for people we love, and the list just goes on and on. It has been hard on us as a couple, on me, our family and friends, and it has been especially hard on Luke. SO this is HUGE news for us!!!

The funny thing is, we weren’t looking… in the past Luke has looked and just not found where God was leading him and he recently went back to school and I thought okay, well I am going to have to deal with this for the next few years, but God (I love those two words!) had other plans. I saw a friend posted a job opening at his company and sent it to Luke. It was maybe a week to two week process and I didn’t realize this until a couple days ago, but I was praying a week or so before the job posting that God would find a way for us to go to church together consistently, be in a bible study, have date nights, and that Luke would be able to engage with godly men (he is often cut off from serving and such activities at church because of his schedule). And God just straight up answered that prayer!!!! Luke is now working for Kotman Technology as a Network Engineer, 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday! So if you or your business need tech support give them a call! I am so proud of Luke and so amazed at how awesome God is!

I have felt like we were in a season of waiting for so long…years…and God has just been so faithful in that waiting and now He is showing us some of what we have been waiting for!

And let me just tell you, it has been SO worth the wait!!!! In the last two weeks of Luke working at Kotman Technology, our lives have been drastically different…we have gone to church together, gone out of town together, spent evenings together, hung out with family and friends at NORMAL hours, had many date nights, and Luke has just been so ridiculously sweet to me!!! He has had time and energy to help me prepare for starting school, lovingly dealt with crazy going back-to-school BaCall, and just been sweet and nice. It has been such a blessing!!! I am just beyond thankful and every time I think about it I just get all teary, oh yeah he’s been sweetly dealing with super emotional me too!

That concludes this episode of WOW GOD WOW! Thanks for tuning in and I am sure we will be back proclaiming His faithfulness soon, whether in more exciting news or come what may He is good!

 

PS Update on my friend Allison, she had her baby 10 weeks early. His name is Judah and he is doing very well! Thank you for all your prayers! Please keep praying as she is now doing the more extreme chemo and Judah is still growing and developing.

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Blog

Praying and Helping Others

God’s faithfulness and growth in trusting Him has been the motivation for this blog, right??!?! So today I thought I would feature two families who are really trusting in God and His faithfulness! I know this post is a little departure from the normal financial, student loan stuff, which isn’t completely abnormal for me 😉 as I am trying just to write about whatever God would like me to write about. So I would like this blog to be a place where we pray for and help each other. With that in mind, I would love to invite you to pray for and help, as you feel led, these two families.

I mentioned on my last blog post, a friend that is pregnant and found out she has leukemia. Her and her husband have done an amazing job of following the Lord in this valley. They have shown their faithfulness to the Lord and their devotion in trusting what He has for them. I am encouraged and driven to follow Christ with more devotion because of their obedience to be joyful in all circumstances, to trust the Lord, to lay all of their fears and worries at His feet and I have seen the peace that has come over them as a result.  I ask you to join in prayer for this faithful little family! I am praying for complete healing, protection over their unborn child, and continued trust, joy, and peace! If you would like to follow Allison’s story click here. You can follow their emotional and wonderful video series here:

The other family I would love for you to pray for and help, is a family that is so near and dear to my heart! You may have seen me posting about them on Facebook or Instagram, Rob and Andi Lambert! They are such wonderful people, that have devoted their lives to serving the Lord and whom I have always been able to count on. To make it even closer to my heart it is their process of adopting, which Luke and I LOVE and can’t wait to be a part of ourselves! They are in the process of adopting a sweet baby and the road to becoming parents has been long and hard, but more importantly filled with faithfulness and trust in the Lord! This couple has also spurred me on to trust in the Lord and His will for Luke’s and my life. You can read about their story on their blog here. You can also help them bring  baby L home here

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with their super fun LOVEraiser (with the chance to win an awesome portrait or here on their GoFundMe page.

 

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this, pray, and respond to these two families’ stories! I really appreciate it and if you need prayer please feel free to message me or leave a comment! Let’s be a community of people that love on each other in good times and in times of need.

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Finance

Another One Bites the Dust

And by another one I most certainly mean another student loan!!!! We paid off a $9,300 student loan in like 4 months!!! WHOOHOOO!!!! Glory be to GOD!!!

We moved in last July to Luke’s parents’ house with six student loans and now we are down to two!!! That is so exciting right?!?!?! But the embarrassing and disappointing part is we paid off that student loan on June 5th and it has taken me this long to boast about the Lord’s provision and blessings! I want to be the person that shouts of His blessings off of the rooftops and I’m disappointed it took me so long to shout it from my proverbial rooftop…aka this blog.

I feel like I have had a split personality the last couple of weeks in paying off this student loan. Part of me was ridiculously ecstatic, especially since the Lord really came through in helping us make it happen (more on that in a minute). And part of me couldn’t help but think, yeah that’s great, but the two loans left are the giant ones and our time here is growing short. I really let other people’s my own doubt get to me.

I have to say I have always been quite the Doubting Thomas (John 20:24–29), a see it to believe it kind’ve person and have been very comforted in the way Jesus loved Thomas. And I’ve never been quite sure what the Lord’s promise has been with this debt. I know I distinctly heard or felt God telling me to trust Him in paying off the loans. But if I am being really honest, I believe He said He would do it this year… and let’s be real, the Lord asking me to trust Him in taking care of my debt…yeah I can get behind that, I can believe that because I know and trust that the Lord loves me and will work everything out according to His will and glory, but to believe that He is going to do it in a specific time frame sounds well…nuts, crazy, made up in my head, maybe even wishful thinking… especially when that timeframe is rapidly approaching and the thought of debt being gone is a sweet sweet dream… a deep desire of my heart. It weighs on me in a way I can’t explain and it makes me feel like a decision I made 10 years ago is slowing me down from doing what God is calling me to do today… those longings He placed on my heart to serve Him, bring Him glory, and love others the way He has loved me are dim shadows of what they could be. (Now I know that the Lord can do whatever He wants whenever He wants and have no doubt in my mind that He is absolutely using this debt for His good purpose, yet I still feel longing in my heart to move forward, to serve, and love in those specific ways.)

That split personality was rearing its ugly head this last two weeks. Some of the people I shared our newest payoff with were excited for me, but continuously made suggestions and comments that made me feel like they clearly didn’t think God was going to make this miracle happen. Which partially made me think I was crazy for even thinking it was possible, but also partially fueled the flame of my belief. More and more I felt the Lord encouraging me to seek the impossible, believe the impossible, to believe in a Sun Standing Still kind’ve miracle. The Sun Stand Still idea comes from Joshua 10:12-13, where Joshua asked the Lord to stop the sun and moon from moving until they won a battle and the Lord did it! He made the impossible happen. This has come to me now two separate times in the last few weeks and I have never heard of it before. I read a random blog on Pinterest or Facebook about buying a house from an author I had no idea was a Christian, where she talked about having a Sun Stand Still prayer to the Lord and then a couple days ago again, someone I know on Facebook wrote about a book that is called something like Sun Stand Still, and showed a quote from the book about how if we aren’t believing God for the impossible then we are wasting our faith and not truly seeing His power and might. I am also currently reading the book of Joshua and God has been calling me to be strong and courageous  over and over again (AND WOW! I am continually in awe of how God uses the writing of this blog to grow my faith! SO cool! Just writing this reminds me of how He continual speaks into my life.)

I have to say I have been so excited to trust the Lord with paying off these loans and to tell you about it, but as the days went by and I didn’t make time to write, my enthusiasm dwindled little by little and doubt began to creep in. It has been a very busy two weeks, finishing the school year, being in a friend’s wedding, and starting summer school made it a little overwhelming. But in writing my flame is rekindled and I am declaring here and now to believe the Lord for the impossible! $30,000+ more paid off by the end of this year! Who will believe God for the impossible with me?!?!? What is your SUN STAND STILL prayer? Let’s pray together for each other!

Speaking of praying for the impossible, please pray with me for a friend…Her name is Allison and she is 5 months pregnant and she just found out she has leukemia. Please pray for complete healing and safety for her and her baby and strength and guidance for her husband. Thank you!

Leave your prayers in the comments! I will be praying for you!