Lessons Along the Way

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee: and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee...for I am the LORD thy God...since thou wast precious in my sight." Isaiah 43:2-4

After sitting down many times and thinking to myself "Can anything else go wrong?" and "Lord, why all of this for us, right now?" these verses came to my mind. Comfort, reassurance and love shine clearly through these verses, but so does the truth that there will be times when you "pass through the waters and the rivers." At those times, like no other, I know that I am in a place where I can go to no one else but God! Through all the circumstances of these past few weeks and changes even months before, God knocked down all my feeble plans in order to clearly show me that there is nothing else and no one else I can depend upon but my God.

I have come to this point many times in my life before, but sadly I forget the important truths of complete dependence on God and get comfortable with my circumstances, my problem solving ability or my future plans. It is so easy even when things in life get shaken up a little to try to figure out "plan B" on my own without seeking God's plan. (I'm sure I'm not the only one to do this!) In pride I trudge forward, confident of my own way. When the trials come and my plans are knocked out from under me, the battle in my mind begins. To be honest, it is not easy for me to surrender right away and realize that even through difficult times, my God still cares about me and wants to change me. At this point, I am so thankful for the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that works to break my proud heart so that I can be taught. There is no sweeter place to be than bowed down before the Lord with a surrendered heart and will.

The other important lesson my God has been teaching me if found in James 4: 13-15

"Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that."

I am a planner and I easily set my heart on my plans. Anyone else like that? So, I am easily disappointed and frustrated when my plans fall through or are changed. How foolish I am to hold my plans over God's will, God's perfect plan and get upset when my plan doesn't work. Does this mean that I don't need to plan any more? No. But I must continually bring my plans and dreams before the Lord and surrender them to Him. I want Him to guide my plans, even the making of them. When this is my attitude, my response to any change in plans won't be that of disappointment or anger, but rather joy that my God's plan is being worked out for the best.

There are many more lessons God has been teaching me along our journey, but I will save those for other posts :-).

The Infamous St. Louis Trip

The first stop on our journey this fall was St. Louis, MO. Missouri was the state of my birth and I hadn't been back since I was a little girl. I wanted to see what it was like, so I was excited to go! On the way to St. Louis we stopped in KY to visit with family and get a good night's sleep. Before pulling out the next day, I noticed some green fluid coming out of our truck. Apparently that funny smell and the lack of cool air conditioning was due to some problem with the coolant. So the rest of our traveling team drove on to St. Louis while we stayed in KY to find out what was wrong and fix the problem. We are so thankful that we had family in KY to help us out! Jonathan's sister gave me and our little guy a place to nap while she took Jonathan around to repair shops in order to diagnose the problem. Thankfully through the help of friends the leak was fixed at no cost and we were able to get on the road the next day.

Once in St. Louis, I started feeling like I was coming down with whatever cold Ethan had had the week before. Fever, chills...you name it, I had it. By the end of the week I was getting a little concerned for the baby, so I tried to get into see an obgyn, but no one would take an "out-of-towner." So they sent me to the emergency room. I knew I was sick. I just wanted them to check the baby and make sure everything was fine there. After drawing blood, they found I had a low white blood count and high blood pressure and didn't know what was causing it. They wanted to keep me overnight in order to watch me. Oh boy! Hospitals aren't the best place in the world to recover from an illness because I knew every ten minutes they would be coming in to do something to me, so there went my idea of sleeping! Finally they did take an ultrasound of the baby and found all the be well. At this point I was about 16 weeks along. My husband and I asked if they would be so kind as to tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. So one good thing about the hospital stay was finding out we were having another BOY! Anyway, after much pleading and begging on my part to be released the following day, they finally let me go after reviewing my blood tests and telling me I had a virus. Thank you very much. I really could have told them that from the beginning. Maybe they needed some more money?? I did realize the importance of taking it easy. I am one to keep going and going whether I'm pregnant or not.

Well, the same night I entered the hospital, my husband went home to take care of our little guy. After putting him to bed, he found out someone had hit our truck while backing out of the parking lot. Upon coming inside, he realized our trailer plumbing was backed up somewhere. He gave up for the night and went to bed :-). I spent the next week recovering and my husband worked on fixing all the other problems. We had to pack up our overnight bags and camp out at the Pastor's house while our trailer was being fixed. Once the trailer was fixed, our truck went in for repairs. By the end of the week our trailer's plumbing was backed up again. At this point, the rest of the team was ready to move on, so we stayed behind once again to take care of our problems. We are so thankful for the pastor and his family who so graciously hosted us several times throughout the week. After revisiting the repair shop on Monday, our trailer was "good to go." We were just ready to pull out of town for the next week of meetings when our trailer got stuck in a ditch after a sharp turn! Thankfully, we were still in town and the Pastor was able to call someone to help us get out. Praise the Lord that our trailer came out of the ditch all in one piece. (I have to admit that I went inside while they were trying to move the trailer. I couldn't handle the suspense or the possibility of our "house-on-wheels" crashing before my eyes.)

As we pulled out of St. Louis, we have never been so thankful for the many we know were praying for our safety and grace to face every trial. After traveling about 3 hours, the work the repair shop had done on our trailer was "falling apart." Thankfully my resourceful husband took pictures of the damage and was able to salvage it before it fell off on the side of the road. And praise the Lord for the reimbursement coming our way for the poor quality of work by the repair shop.

The story does end well, don't worry! We arrived in Greeley, CO safe and sound, in one piece, plumbing working, truck fixed and a healthy family. Hopefully we won't keep up our tradition of coming into the next few weeks of meetings a day late!

My purpose for describing in detail all we went through is coming in the next post. This one's getting too long!!

The Journey Begins

This is us. This is our truck and "house on wheels." This is us right before we left sometime mid-August for a trip that will eventually take us to California and back. An adventure-packed vacation, you might ask? Well, in part, yes. But ultimately we have the privilege and opportunity to travel to different parts of the country to share the precious gospel of Jesus Christ with those who may have never heard. We started on this journey in the spring, only we didn't pull our "house on wheels" behind us. We are so thankful now to have a little piece of home and familiarity as we trek from state to state. (You will understand fully what I mean if you have children :-)

Maybe you can imagine what it might be like to pack up your belongings and family to be "out-of-town" for an extended period of time. If you are like me, that brings with it many mixed emotions. At first I am so excited to be going somewhere, seeing something new, meeting new people (not to mention the break I get from having to cook meals). But then I realize that every week everything will be different. I won't know what to expect. I will miss my family, friends and church...my grocery stores, library and house. I will miss the constancy that I am so used to. Then comes the fear of venturing out into the unknown, away from home, especially with being in my 2nd trimester of pregnancy. So, as you can see, at least in my book, it is not always that easy to pack up and leave in order to serve the Lord. (Well, it may be for my husband. Just give him a place to sleep, eat and shower and he's fine!)

I have been very hesitant to write anything about what has been going on in my life during the transition, preparation and carrying out of our new ministry. But as I have been reading about the life and ministry of Jonathan Goforth and his wife Rosalind, I realized that missionaries are normal people that struggle just as much with fleshly battles as any other Christian. Just because your occupation is "missionary" it doesn't automatically set you on a spiritual plain higher than every day battles. I long to have a desire to serve the Lord wherever He has called us with gladness and selflessness and to see the needs of the lost around me as greater than my "creature comforts." So, I would love to share with you all that the Lord has been teaching me along our journey to conform me to the image of His Son.

How exciting it is to think that God places different things in each of our lives as we journey toward Heaven to make each of us more like Jesus Christ!

Why don't I praise God more?

Throughout the summer I have been studying various Psalms. I have not taken the time to count how often the psalmists take time to praise God. It is easy to skim over that part and get to the verses that you feel like you "really need." But doing a study of Psalm 145 made me stop and think. Maybe what I really need is to praise God more. I am not just talking about making sure I add in "Praise God more" to my daily schedule. What I mean is praising God with my whole heart, being in an attitude of praise. Why is it so hard to praise the Lord sometimes. There are other times when I praise the Lord, but I do it rather skeptically. My heart of unbelief takes over and questions if God truly is Who I am praising Him for or if He will really do what He says He will do in His Word. I never realized how much faith has to do with praise. But doesn't God say

Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

Faith carries over into every part of my Christian walk, especially in my praise of God. My praise of God will be weak when my faith in Him is weak. I must confess my heart of unbelief and claim God's promises as true and then my heart will open up in praise to God. I want my children to know and praise the God I love and serve. I long for people I come in contact with everyday to be drawn to God because I can't stop speaking about Him. It all starts with faith.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare Thy mighty acts. Psalm 145:3-4

Goings on around here

I knew that while at home this summer, it would be hard to find time to spend "blogging." I've been so busy that by the time I sit down, I can't think of anything to write. But lots of things have been going on at our house during my "blogging" absence. Here a just a few.

Dixie

We have been dog sitting my sister's dog, Dixie, this summer. I thought Ethan would love having a dog around the house and since Dixie is very well trained, we welcomed her into our home over a month ago. Life has not been the same since. Not really Dixie's fault. Ethan is beside himself with excitement trying to figure out what to do with a dog. Sometimes, I think Ethan thinks Dixie is a person because I find him trying to read books to Dixie. He can't understand why she doesn't like to look at the pictures (or that Dixie's bed was meant for Dixie and not Ethan!).

I'm getting to experience first hand what kind of older brother Ethan will be as I watch how he interacts with Dixie. Ethan loves to tell Dixie to go upstairs, to eat her food and sternly scold her to get off my bed and his. He also loves to be everywhere that Dixie is...even when she is under the bed. Who knows how he managed to make it under the bed while chasing after Dixie, but he got stuck on the way out. I know Ethan will be sad to see Dixie go when summer is over. And, if I was a compliant mom, I would get my little boy a dog. But I'd rather keep my sanity! (Sorry for you pet lovers out there. My idea of a good pet would be fish in a tank.)

Trying New Things

Obviously, this is the stage for trying out anything new. It brings lots of laughs, tears, and builds sweet, sweet memories! While cooking dinner one night, Ethan came into the kitchen, singing his "mommy" chorus and looking like this...

(notice his foot) His new favorite thing is trying on mommy's shoes. He could care less about daddy's! He also tries so hard to put his clothes on, but he only gets as far as putting his arm through his short or shirt sleeve hole and ends up walking around the house with his clothes on incorrectly. He also loves trying to jump down the stairs...safe, I know. He has received many a head bump from not quite making it. (We do limit him to jumping just off the last stair. Well, at least mommy does...) He was initiated into boyhood by receiving his first black eye after falling into a toy truck and has had a swollen lower lip all week so far b/c he keeps bumping his chin and biting his lip. I guess I should say this is initiation into boyhood for me because it is hard to see my boy get hurt all the time. My idea of playing is safe and quiet and, well, girly. That's what comes from not growing up with brothers. I'm learning that boys do everything whole heartedly. If you're going to get wet, let's be completely soaked...dirty all the way down to the finger nails and toes. It's been fun :-)

Completely soaked boy and two clean cars.

New Favorite!!

photo by paul

I just tried a cookie recipe from a church friend, and it has now become my absolute favorite cookie to make! It is extremely simple and the biggest plus to me is that I generally always have all the ingredients on hand. It did not require a mixer, so obviously, not lots of clean up involved. And just like all homemade cookies, they made my house smell wonderful :-) So here's the recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies.

1 Cup Peanut Butter

3/4 Cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 12-ounce package Chocolate Chips

Stir all ingredients together. Drop by spoonful onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

That was one of my good things for tonight! Sorry no pictures. I ate them all...I mean I cleaned everything up before I thought of taking a picture.

Good Things

I have been thinking much about the verse in my blog title over the past few days. What does it mean when God says that He will not withhold from us any good thing? Does that mean that I won't ever have hard days or sleepless nights? Does that mean that I will always get the answer to prayer that I am seeking? Does that mean that I will always have what I want? No. But it does mean that God has designed each part of my day, all that He "gives" me every day, for good. That's a hard thing to reckon with when (like yesterday) my optimistic and joyful outlook on a fun day at home was greeted by a badly teething, therefore grumpy & whining little boy. Is this just something that "happened" by chance? No. This was something that God knew about and allowed as "good" for me at the time. Really?? Yes, and not because my God does things to frustrate me or make me angry. All that He has planned for me revolves around His desire to make me more like His Son. A grumpy teething boy was part of His good for me yesterday. Also a part of that "good" was realizing that He has given me all patience, joy, and strength to care for my little boy as I yield to His control. He gives good things all the time!!

(Remember the story of Joseph? He had a lot of "bad days" What did he say about it all? ... Genesis 50:20... Joseph recognized that all that "bad" situations in his life were designed by God for his, as well as thousands of others, good)

Here are some of the other "good" things God has blessed us with...

Yes, that cute little boy is one of the good things, but I was really trying to get a picture of my lilies. I love watching these flowers bloom every year, and I was afraid I wouldn't have the chance to see them this year because we were not home for a majority of spring. I was so happy to see them still in bloom when we came home. What a small thing to be thankful for, but God cares about little desires like that!

My family!! I don't get to see them very often, so it is very special when we can ALL get together.

Birthdays!! I love celebrating birthdays. My poor husband could care less, but he had to celebrate his birthday "my style" this time.

God is GOOD all the time!