It's Here

So we are semi moving at the end of this week.  We have decided that our family does not do well in between.  It is just not how I am wired and we have the option to head on to Kennedy and get this next year and half moving.  So our plan is to head out this weekend.  We will be staying with my parents for a few weeks while we knock out the house work and then we will come back and move our stuff.  Yesterday and today I have been really sad and cried alot.  I just read a quote on a friends Facebook page that has been a breath of fresh air for my heavy heart today:

"Wherever you are be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God." - Jim Elliott

I strongly believe this to be the will of God for our family.  It is the very best but it makes me very sad.  I just didn't expect it and wasn't prepared for it and I just thought we were done.  As I read this quote I decided that I have to make a decision.  So I decided to be all there and to enjoy it.  

My prayer is that I will delight greatly in the boys that God has given me - all 3 of them.  They are wild at heart and this new home will be an amazing playground with a different adventure around every corner. I want to be all there with them and experience there adventure with them rather than sitting on the sidelines sulking because I would rather be somewhere else.  This weekend we were there and Jake and Brady spent 2 ENTIRE days outside.  They were completely filthy but loving life at the end of the day.  My heart is so sad as I walk away from some long needed friendships that are really taking shape as of late.  I fear that God is not good enough to me to preserve them until I return or replace them with equal ones if these do not continue.  I stink at keeping in touch - singleminded!!!!  So I ask that if and when you think of me over the next few months that you would pray that I would choose every day to enjoy what I believe to be God's will for my life.  I want to fight for contentment and find it in my Father and not my circumstances.

Happy Anniversary to US!!!!

Today, John and I are celebrating 8 years of marriage and 14 years of life together.  The events of our life for most of the last 8 years have be quite challenging quite often but our marriage has been rock solid thanks to the Lord's faithfulness.  I love this man with all my heart.  We fuss and fight but we are so in love with each other.  There is NO ONE else I could ever imagine sharing my life with - even if it often means chasing wild hairs with him!!!!  I could not imagine a better father for my children. I am so thankful that the Lord redeemed our relationship and that he chose to not only let it survive but He made it THRIVE!!!!  I will completely give God all the glory for our relationship.  It is He who has put people in our lives that taught us how to be a couple - to fight fair, to talk openly, to play and have fun.  It is He that continues to show us our sin and to walk us through the same struggles sometimes 50 times before we see progress.  It is He who we delight in and desire to live out our days as husband and wife glorifying.  Thank you God that your plan for me was John and that you gave me my best!!!!!  

I have written our sweet story of God's redemption in several post below for those of you who care to read it!!!!!  I LOVE OUR STORY!!! It is a perfect picture of how GOD MAKES ALL THINGS NEW!!!!!

Our Story - Part 3

(if you want to read the rest start at part 1)

The night that we became Christians, Jk, left the house and did not say one word to us about our living situation.  He began meeting weekly with John and teaching him how to study the Bible.  I got hooked up in a Bible study as well.  It was a little over a month later that John and I really became convicted about our living situation.  So I found a roommate for the spring semester (quarters then) and John lived on JK's couch for about a month until he could move into the dorms.  (we later ask JK and Tammy why they never challenged us to move out and they said they knew the Holy Spirit would do it in time and that He would be a true conviction) That summer, John went to SBP and I stayed behind for OT school and meet one dear friend that taught me all I know about marriage and parenting - Emily Teague.  I wouldn't have traded that summer for a 1000's SBP's.  Late fall of 1998, John and I decided it was time to break off our engagement.  It wasn't an issue of our feelings for each other quite as much as it was about knowing if this was God's will or ours for us to be married.  It was hard because our lives were completely interconnected.  We still spent time together and kinda acted like we were together until the first week of SBP 1999.  This was the week that John decided that it was time for us to not spend any time together.  We had to really sort this out and it was so hard.  So the summer was spent completely apart doing our own thing.  I stayed after SBP to babysit and John left and spent a week at my parents river house alone.  He said he really needed to be with the Lord and decided if God's will was for us to be together or if it was just what we had known for so long.

Often when I share this story I tell people that I felt like Abraham walking up the mountain to slay Issac.  God had told me to lay this relationship on the alter.  For me it was not a question of my feeling for John - I loved him and had always loved him even in those silly teen years it was real.  So I chose to obey God because I believed His word to be true.  Jer. 29:11 became my sustenance during this time - it kept me going.  I could not see that John was not the best for me but God gave me the faith to believe that He had my very best in store and that He would give it to me if I chose to trust Him and surrender my wants and desires.  This was probably one of the hardest 3 months of my life. (Jill do you remember :))  

About a month after school started, John ask me to go to lunch with him on a Wednesday.  I had a terrible sinus infection but I was not about to pass up time with him.  (I had told the Lord that I wanted to marry John and that I would trust him to show John otherwise and close the door if it were not the best.  I knew I couldn't trust my emotions so I ask the Lord to slam it shut if it needed to be.)  So we went to lunch and talked about our summers.  After lunch we went to the park near South and sat by the lake and we continued talking about our summers for 2 hours.  It was great because, he was my best friend and I hadn't talked to him all summer.  After that talk, he told me that he felt like God had given him a solid answer about our future and he pulled out my ring and ask me to marry him again.  I was completely shocked - we had been sitting there for 2 hours!!!!  Of course I said yes and bust into tears.  God gave him back to me and I feel completely blessed!!!

Our Story - Part 2

(read part 1 below if you are interested in hearing the whole story)

We moved to Mobile in May of 1997 and I started summer classes.  Oh, and we were living in a townhouse together.  I met a few girls that summer that I started spending time with.  I really saw a difference in their lives and how they lived and what they talked about.  When fall classes started they invited us to a picnic that Campus Outreach was having to welcome the students back and meet the new ones.  John wanted to play intramural football and one of my friends had told me that a guy there was putting together a team.  So he decided to go with me.  I remember meeting JK for the first time.  He was flipping burgers and he said "My name is Jonathan King, but just call me JK."  He had that sheepish grin on his face that now is so endearing to my heart.  We met several people that day and had a blast.  Some of those people have become our life long friends (even though we stink at keeping in touch Todd Russell!!!). So John began to play football with JK and his team.  Several girls starting initiating time with me as well.  At this point, I would have told you that I was already a Christian and was ready to re-dedicate my life to Christ.  For me, now the big part was getting John - who said something drastic would have to happen for him to believe there was a God - to believe.  John came home from the first practice and said JK approached him afterwards and started talking to him about God.  He said it was ok and JK challenged him to read the book of John.  So he did - and well after a thousand conversations with JK the drastic thing had happened.  

JK came over to eat dinner with us one night (I remember he was wearing this red Alabama sweatshirt - that he was wearing at my house this last Christmas 10 years later :))  He talked with us alot about the book of John and clearly shared the gospel with us.  For me, I realized that the key thing I was missing was not the belief in God but the lordship surrender.  That night, October 27, 1997, John and I both prayed to receive Christ together.  

Our Story - Part 1

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary - 8 years of marriage and 14 years of being together. I love the story that God gave us surrounding our relationship and I thought that in honor of our special day I would share with you are beautiful story of redemption.

I went to school at a small private school in Fayette, Alabama.  John started this school our 11th grade year.  He was a football player and I was a cheerleader (really?).   We became fast buds - really just friends to start with.  We really had fun laughing and cutting up together.  Every time he saw me in the halls he would say "Hey sugar."  It was a fun relationship that, surprise, surprise, turned into more of a love interest rather quickly.  So he ask me to go on our first date together for Friday, September 16, 1994.  The night before we had a football game and I of course was elated to be cheering for him on the sideline. Oh those high school days.

So we went on a double date with some good friends and well that started a relationship that is celebrated 14 years tomorrow.  Our years in high school were good but rocky.  We both broke up twice during the next two years only to always end up together again.  The fall of 1996, after graduating high school John proposed to me and of course I said yes.  We spent 1 year at the JuCo in our home town where his mom taught before moving to South Alabama.   

I had gone to church off and on during my life and would have said to you I was a Christian.  I tried to be a good girl.  John on the other hand, did not even believe in God.  I specifically remember a conversation we had our senior year of high school (I even remember exactly where we were and what we were doing) in which he told me that something drastic would have to happen for him to believe that there is a God.  I continue to love him and later planned to marry him so that tells you where I stood spiritually as well.  So our Sophomore year of college we moved to University of South Alabama.  I planned to be an Occupational Therapist and well John just planned to follow me down there and decide later.  This move completely changed our life!!!!! If you care, read part 2 to find out how.

Look what we saw today!!!

So yes there is a hurricane in the gulf that is over 200 miles wide (bigger than katrina) and we came to the beach. John and I needed a break so we headed to his moms (nana's) in navarre beach. It was amazing to see how the waves and wind were so strong today. We went down to the beach and the waves were amazing. Some of them were as tall as me when they were crashing onto the beach. Brady could not stand up by himself in the wind. He was determined to do it and he would get down and try and every time it would blow him over. The boys got to see kite surfers (wind surfers) and loved it!!!! The winds were sustained at about 40 miles per hour on the beach (or so I was told). The beach was amazing and very foamy. Anyway, just thought it was amazing that the hurricane is almost 200 miles from the beach we were on and yet it was really affecting here. Several of the roads had to close because the water had rose so much. Anyway, it was pretty cool.

Bradykins

My sweet friend April calls Brady this every time he does something silly so I thought if quite fitting to title this post Bradykins...because he is silly.

Brady has started wanting to pray like Jake does at meals so we started off doing the little "God our Father" song that Jake learned at Mothers day out a few years ago.  Then we moved on to teaching him to talk to God.  So now he walks around saying Goooddd, help me.  I so hope this will be his battle cry for the rest of his life and every time I hear him say it I pray that for him.  Well, the other morning he was sitting in the living room floor playing by himself.  No one was watching or listening to him (so he thought) and he meshed the two.  He began to sing the words "God help me" to the tune of God our father.  I thought well that works to...good job Brady.  Well then for the silliness.  But the crazy thing is he wasn't being silly for anyone, he just said it and went on about his business.  Well the next line of the little song is We thank you, we thank you.  Well Brady seem that his jingle sounded better:

God help me, God help me

Cockedoodle do, Cockedoddle do.

Kids say the darnedest things!!!!