He didn't want to go to children's church this Sunday, but that was OK. Meemaw and Peepaw were in town, I'd probably want to hang out with them too.
Our friend and pastor is speaking on the gifts of the spirit, and he talks about having love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control regardless of the circumstances. He asks, "How many of you have prayers you feel haven't been answered?" My husband and I raise our hands.
Our son looks to us with a question in his eyes, what does that mean? We've only recently started praying with him- and he already knows that God answers his prayers. He takes it without question- apples fall down from trees (not up) and God answers prayers.
I lean over and whisper to him- Sometimes it feels like your prayers aren't answered, sometimes it takes longer than you would like for God to answer your prayers. But He always answers and He is always good.
Ok, he says, nodding knowingly. He knows. The kingdom belongs to ones like him, with faith like that.
Me, I remember when I knew it like that. I remember when I trusted, so young and so willing to believe. I remember when I grew older and told God that He didn't work fast enough for me, I didn't want to do it His way anymore. If He wouldn't answer my prayers then I would go and do it myself. (Shake angry fist here...) I said that...I remember. And the pain that followed...how I hope my son will never know.
O how good is our gracious God, who's mercies endure forever! How loving and forgiving He is, how gentle He guides us back to Him!
Now I know that truth: We love because he first loved us. (1 Jn 4:19). It couldn't be any other way.
I have so much to be thankful for.
Galveston Island views- family fishing
Sunday morning beach venture- Ocean Football!
Prayers answered:
... Grandpa reunited with Grandma after long in waiting, with more job opportunities than could have hoped for!
... Niece and nephew are safe and family reconnected.
... Son looks for us and seeks us out for sweet hugs!
... Husband with new job, contract in the works!
... House in new city ready to move in, next door to good friends!
... One year in fellowship nearly over, one year of blessing.
... So many ways to keep "watering the grass".
I had just arrived home from 3 weeks in Kenya, and we had our son for the weekend. I couldn't wait to go to church with my family.
But we had discovered that our son wasn't quite comfortable at church. During my trip in Kenya I had spent some time thinking and praying about this and decided I would not force church on him. I would invite and hope and pray.
So that weekend, he didn't want to go. I was crushed. I felt like a failure, and didn't know how to take it. That Sunday morning, as I was preparing to walk out the door by myself, I cried. My hopes and dreams for a family grounded together in Christ, connected to community and living out the Gospel... seemed hopeless. I was afraid I would always go to church alone, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Just then, my husband lovingly stopped me, held me by my arm and looked into my eyes with his deep blue-grey, "Have faith." All he said were these words. That and the look on in his eyes filled me with hope. I still cried in worship, praying my heart out for the Lord to hold my family together. But I had hope.
And how the Lord answers prayer! I came home to find my husband and son had read scripture together, and promised each other to go on a 'journey of discovering' to learn about, as my son put it- "God and Jesus and stuff".
And since then our son has not refused church- not even once. In fact, he has voluntarily gone off to the children's classrooms on his own! At our last Sunday together, we could hardly pull him away from the church's "5th Sunday"- fun filled community time with food, games, and bouncy houses. Who wouldn't love it?!
And yesterday, as my husband held me during worship, his eyes full of compassion looking deep into mine said "It will be OK." This time I cry over my family, the pain they face. His look of faith, filling me with hope, spurs me on to believe and trust in the One who is in control.
Its a beautiful connection, a shared trust that we have, to know and believe that our God hears and He will answer our prayers. Each new challenge, each new daunting task or difficult reality, broken dream or fallen loved one... we share the same Truth- full of faith, hope and love.
Gifts a-counting...(~ 550 or more)
... He surprises me with a new book
... Roses at church for moms
... Special sushi lunch
... We stay up late reading to each other
... Piggy back rides!
... Dad and son have special laugh together
... We surprise dad at the beach
... Amazing moon!
... Sharing life with best friend miles away
... We make it home safe through a storm
... He takes me shopping @ fun Galveston stores
... Invitation to friends graduation party!
... Breakfast with good friends
She walked with me through some of the most ridiculous things I have ever done... It seems that when I felt unstable, blowing with whatever wind there happened to be, she was steady, present, and prepared to walk me through it.
She was not phased when after meeting Travis, we were married only six months later. She walked with me through that one too.
My mom is a rock. No other word. She feeds on the Rock of Ages, more steady than mountains that shift with time.
And beautiful.
My mom taught me to count my blessings. I remember laying with her, in the king size bed under the windows, at night or in the morning listening to the doves sing out, and she would say "Always count your blessings". And we would count together, starting with the sounds of the morning doves outside our window. So many blessings.
My mom sees beauty in the simplest things. She knows the kind of joy that exists regardless of circumstances, something I only recently feel I can even grasp at.
My mom loves an iced Diet Coke and a good book.
And flowers. The kind you grow...
My mom gave me a love for creating, art and music and beautiful things. A love for imagination.
She is probably the smartest person I know, and taught me that you can never stop learning.
She always told me I could do anything I wanted to if I put my mind to it.
She took me to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on my 21st birthday to catch my plane to Delhi, India. I would be there for 9 months. She helped me raise about $1000 with a garage sale so I could go. We sold so much stuff that weekend, we still refer back to that when we can't find something. "Must have sold it in that garage sale".
She didn't want me to go to India, but she loved me enough to help me get there.
Why did I spend so much of my early years wishing I could grow up faster? I left home at 16 and went to college, living in a dorm away from my family. I've been away ever since. My mom would come have dinner with me every Tuesday, rain or shine. We'd eat together in the dorm cafeteria. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I used to get frustrated too- I wanted to eat with my friends, especially my first 'serious' boyfriend during my second year at UNT.
I wish I could have dinner every Tuesday with my mom now.
My mom and I got to visit Washington DC together in December last year. We discovered the national gardens and were delighted! We got on separate planes to head our separate ways after that- me to Houston and Mom to Amarillo. I got to see her at Christmas after that, but not since then.
I miss my mom.
Every year I learn something new and wonderful about my mom. She is the most beautiful person I know. I know she has always been that way, I've just grown to appreciate it more and more. And I've come to need it more and more- that steady beauty, full of grace, love unwavering, strength at hand.
Dear Mom- I love you, you are my heart and I love you and miss you. Thank you for everything, thank you for being there even though the many miles separate us. I hope I can be more and more like you every day.
I arrived home from Haiti on Friday at 2 AM. My husband glad to see me, only ~ 24 hours since discovering that his uncle, Harry Brown of San Antonio, had passed away unexpectedly. I spent my 5 hour layover in Miami discovering that my family had just experienced a serious falling out between two loved ones.
The whole earth groaning, broken, sad...
Seeing my best friend Becky Burton, husband Jimmy and new baby Abigail Faith was delightful. O to see Becky so happy with her first baby! To hear her story of how the birth went, how God was so present and faithful through everything, and how Abigail got her middle name. That was very good.
But Haiti? Haiti is hard.
I sometimes think of the verse in Psalms where David says "I was young once and now I am old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken, your people begging for bread". I like to claim that as the truth, but is it true in Haiti? Its funny, I think about the life I live here in the US, the life we provide for our son, and it feels opposite. We don't realize the pain and suffering experienced in other parts of the world until we grow up and open our eyes to it. My son has no idea still...
But the Lord is in Haiti, His witnesses are there and His beloved are cared for. His promises true, His life sustaining all.
Praise God for the faithful who serve, who love, and press on in the hardness of it all. My friends, Becky and Jimmy, serve as part of a ministry called Heartline. They do several things: provide education and work opportunities for women, family planning and parenting education, and health care for pregnant moms and their babies, as well as a home for new teenage moms in need of support. You can buy the beautiful purses and jewlery made by these women online: Haitian Creations.
Soon, Heartline will be breaking ground on a bakery that will provide jobs with about six men as part of an intense discipleship program.
Heartline started out as an orphanage offering adoptions for children in need. However, with the influx of mothers giving up their children for adoption because they felt they could not provide for their children (not that they wanted to live without them!), Heartline decided to change models. They started a program for pregnant mothers which offers healthy meals, pre-labor education and medical care through the delivery of their baby, and parenting education. The program is small, taking only 30 pregnant moms at a time. They intentionally keep it this way. The women make friends, build a support group, and the combined result of it all is that they feel loved and well equipped to bring a child into the world and care for it. They bond with their babies, even naming them from the moment they're born (rather than waiting months or even years because who knows? The baby might die.) They continue coming for about six months after the baby is born, but have friends and resources for life.
I had the incredible opportunity to assist in the clinics on two days, as well as a class on the stages of labor (where my friend acted out the second stage of labor and I dutifully rubbed her back!) The skit culminated in a baby doll being pulled from under an actresses shirt who was shouting "Jesus!" The women howled with laughter!
Passing the grey streets, rubble and trash, the throngs of people walking in all directions, (I wonder if they work or where they go?), pass the crowded UN tent cities still erected after the devastating earthquake of 2010, sitting with baby Abigail in my lap as my friends tell me of the random assaults and robberies of foreign missionaries that have peaked in recent months. They take me to the airport, and I leave my precious friends behind in the broken land, bleeding and pained, groaning for grace to rebuild, restore, set right. My heart cries out like in Isaiah 58-
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. 12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
"Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between
blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the
choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your
descendants might live!" Deuteronomy 30:19
I read today the difficult experience of one step-mom who said it is impossible to be and feel like a 'real mom'. Impossible to have that happy nuclear family experience as a step-parent. Doubtless so many step-moms really struggle with these feelings, like I have.
But do we not have a choice in the matter? Every day, the Lord gives us a choice- life or death. So simple. Jesus says "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life", and in Him we can have the fruit of that life: love, joy, peace, patience... its a choice made possible by the Spirit that lives in us. We choose to accept love and cast out fear. We choose joy, despite our circumstances. And with great reason, because we have life forever with the One who loves more deeply, more honestly, more beautifully than anyone or anything we can imagine! O, how He loves us!
I choose to be a loving, engaged, hopeful, full-of grace and open handed step-mother!! I choose it TODAY. I will put out my heart, weather it be loved in return or not be put aside, and I will love my step son, my husband, my sons bio-mom and step-dad. That's the kind of mom I want to be. That is the kind of family I want to have.
Although I am not a birth mom, I understand that mothers routinely face this tough choice- because although kids are amazing they are still fallen and know not how to love the way we want to be loved, they have to learn it and we have to teach it. How can we teach what we do not ourselves know?
I fail in love all the time. I usually choose to love people that are easy to love, I have never really been forced in any other direction. I love best the people I relate to most, and they tend to like me pretty well! But here I am, a step-mom for one year...and O the difficulties I never expected! It doesn't always feel good. Sometimes it feels so bad I can hardly put down my hurt feelings, my tears - sometimes I can't see through them at all. O how my God has ministered to my heart in those moments. He choose me when I didn't care one lick about Him, now I must choose His Life and press on and give thanks and be a real mom.
Today I choose and give thanks for these truths:
...I experience great joy from my sons laughter
...My husband loves me and is a good father
...I do not have to be angry over things done in the past, out of my control
...I can do the things that I want to in order to be the mom I want to be!
...I really can feel like a mom because I really am one
...Motherhood is so much giving, less receiving, but always receiving from Him
...Every moment counts- every positive loving moment builds on the last for my son
...I choose to make the most of the moments given by God
...He made me for this job!
You know what makes it possible? Worshiping God. There's no other way to be full enough to give what is required. There is no other way to know how to Love and find the courage to do it. I keep trying to read about how step-moms can be successful, I'm looking for solutions to the pain and problems I experience daily...But the only real help comes from my Father of grace who renews me day to day to day to day...O how I need Him!
Today I'm choosing to worship Him, so blessed by His love for me...
]
I am still counting. Sometimes I forget to write things down. I choose an easier road where I sort of ambiguously am thankful for this and that and I forget to be specific. That's when I loose site of the Gift, of Him who gave me everything, and a slip into the routine of my flesh: complaining, frustration, unholy dreaming of things not mine, wishing for what I do not have.
The last time I saw her was a year ago when she came as my maid-of-honor. With her, the time and space between us just seems to stand still, waiting for the moments we can be together again. This week was a time of sharing together, us sisters.
Who knows you as well as the sister who was there when you were born, took you everywhere and dressed you up when you were little, then dressed you on your wedding day?
Even from the distance and miles of desert in between she still knows me the best and loves me all the same.
All the trust and honesty that only years create. We both share and love everything. We have to be intentional, to make time to be together. It is always worth it. My sister is a gift and I am always thankful for her.
Our good friend, pastor, and pre-marital counselor told us before the wedding- "Some people get in trouble because they think the grass is greener on the other side. Just remember, the grass is greener where you water it."
Water your grass. Take the time, put in the thought and care, and your grass will be green and beautiful.
After a precious weekend made of magic memories and Christmas trees, he still wants to water. He finds the biggest rose and leaves a poem for me to find. He surprises with dinner at our honeymoon hotel. He practices a dance to romance me in the living room, and remembers the sweet cake in the freezer.
Our friend and pastor also said that as you each spend time to grow close to God, you grow closer to each other.
Like a triangle, you each move close to the point, the head which is Christ, and by default become closer- become one.
How much closer in one year have we become? And a mystery still is that watering our joy, our love, and giving thanks to the maker of it all - the giver of the daily grace that makes it all possible - we keep moving toward Him who is Enough.
Saturday night fancy dinner, followed by dancing on the patio
Billy the goat (left) and Bucket the sheep (right)
Sunday morning
One year and counting!
How many blessings could I list today? Today, one year ago, my husband and I made solemn vows to have and to hold by God's grace until death do us part. We then walked down the isle, our son in hand, to the tune of Fly me to the moon and proceeded to celebrate with the best party of my life! My mother-in-law still says that was the best wedding she had ever been to (which is saying a lot seeing as she owned a wedding cake business for some time!)
We wanted to celebrate by having a get-away-weekend. My husband searched far and wide for a B&B. Everything was booked due to spring break and he was close to giving up when the Red Caboose gave a call back and were open.
The Red Caboose Bed and Breakfast is a sweet little log cabin located on a Christmas Tree Farm north of Houston. What a delightful surprise for us both! Never having been to a Christmas Tree Farm, we did not expect the warm welcome and magical feel of a working Farm always preparing for Christmas.
The log cabin was decorated in rich greens and reds, with lighted Christmas trees in every room. Breakfast was homemade apple sauce, home baked muffins and banana bread, fresh fruit and fresh squeezed juices. Our gracious hosts, Christina and Bob, were incredibly friendly. Christina made us cookies in the afternoon, and assisted us with salad and cherry pie to accompany our fancy dinner Saturday night- our favorite: steak and sweet potato.
Bob told us the stories of nearly every animal on their farm. Bob and Christina own: 4 horses, multiple goats including Billy, Bucket the sheep, a pony that is nearly 50 years old, a couple of miniature horses, a pot-bellied pig names Arnold, Guinna foul, chickens and roosters, a turkey, 3 peacocks, several macaw and parrots, and mastiffs. Nearly every animal we met had been strayed and rescued, bottle fed, or had some other precious story. Well loved, they were all incredibly friendly.
My husband hates goats, something I learned early on, because apparently when he was a small child a goat he was petting turned on him and attacked him. Scared him silly. Billy the goat probably changed that for life. Billy (the white goat in the picture), is something more of a lap dog stuck in a goats body. He always had his head out through the fence, always trying to get closer and closer- either to get petted or to eat your shirt! The grin on Travis' face was well worth it.
There's something magical about walking through a grove of Christmas trees, just waiting for winter. They open every year after Thanksgiving and set up a small train for children to ride all around the property, do hay rides, and run their little petting zoo while families pick their special tree and take it home from there. They stay open till they're sold out. I tell you I know where we're getting our tree this year! What a special experience. We'd love to see Bob and Christina again, too.
And in the space and quite, there was plenty of time to read and pray, to remember and give thanks for every special gift this past year. With so many gifts, so many times when we have felt loved and rescued from on-high, how can we fear the uncertainty of the future? Are we not always in His hands?
I prove it everyday because I know that I definitely am not the one in control here...
Stepmoms have to learn how to live in the midst of the daily uncontrollable. And when it all seems to fall apart - the carefully laid out plans and good intentions smashed to bits - it is hard to choose Joy.
But when I have so little control, I can trust that my God is in control.
I see it in his little face, Every Moment Counts! And every moment is a gift from God. Every moment with my little one is a blessing, and every moment without him is an opportunity to choose joy, to pray, and see my God work in my moments. Counting these daily blessings has helped me make it through the tough moments. And maybe the tough moments push me to learn how to trust God more than I would have without them?
Trusting in the One who has brought us all together pays off in the moments when I see this little one's face light up over understanding Compassion and Mercy, and all the answered prayers that have come to pass in this week alone! Praise God- He really does hear me and He really does care!
And then, when all you want is control but you don't have it at all, God springs a beautiful SURPRISE! And if I really did control all of this, would I get to enjoy the surprises??
Mi-ma and Pi-pa visit!
We stand all happy next to TIV
The Tornado Intercept Vehicle!
Sean Casey, visiting Moody Gardens with TIV to celebrate opening of his IMAX film- Tornado Alley (we gotta see this!)
Gifts... 290 -320
...New hairbands!
...new book- stepping stones for step mothers
...new music- Gungor
...Mom and Dad- In law visit
...time to rest
...build up and encourage the young weary at heart
...Children's museum!
...Son learns about compassion and mercy, takes lesson to heart
...Daddy takes the lesson to heart too
...Son loves to tell stories, I love to hear
...Son teaches me all about monster trucks
...Best friend has baby! All is well (IN HAITI!!)
...finally give the dog a bath ;)
...Daddy does the dishes
...Tornado Intercept Vehicle and Sean Casey!
...Daddy's face lights up all JOY
A reminder to always praise... enjoying praises this week
Being a newly-wed-step-mom-semi-professional woman.
Some days it feels like walking in the dark, or maybe just walking with my eyes closed?
And it seems the only times I really see are those when I look for the gifts of God. When I attempt gratitude, I find sight and I can breathe and all is right.
When I get stuck with the big questions that I can't answer, and my mind gets cloudy and my heart confused- I see when I look at Him who set this life before me, the One who gave His life for me. The big questions? I see them in His hands. The tough time? I see His faithfulness proved over and over.
And after the heavy foggy grey comes the sweet smells and cools breeze of Island spring.
256. Leap year!
257. Husband takes time to listen and really understand.
258. Son wants to go to Africa to start a summer soccer camp for kids!
259. God sheds light and I see my selfishness.
260. Sunshine in the fog.
271. Hurt feelings dealt with followed by tickle fight before bed.
278. Morning walk to the beach.
280. Lunch with hubby.
282. Call from best friend in Haiti, ready to have a baby!
284. Morning time on porch, sun and breeze and bible.
285. Porch garden in bloom.
286. Smell of orange tree in bloom.
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7
These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater
worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result
in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not
see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and
glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1: 6-9
