New Leg of the Journey

 I had this moment when we left the hospital with Emma after she was born.  We put her in her car seat and the nurse rolled us down to the exit.  THEY LET US LEAVE!  They just gave us our baby and let us leave.  It was a moment of underlying panic as I realized we were on our own here.  We were taking home this precious gift that God had given us and no one was going to stop us and make sure we had a good plan, or adequate training... NOTHING, just a see you later.

I had a similar experience this week as we left our Abigail in CO for her to finish college there.  We just left her there, not knowing if she is totally prepared to be there or how things will go.  I had 18 amazing years with this precious gift and then she went to college 1 hour away and we still could be there when she needed us and now, 10 hours away, our baby gift is out there in the big world on her own.

I know she is smart, beautiful, amazingly creative and so very capable of this move, but I am her Mamma.  I also know that God is in control and that He has her in His hands.

So I have begun another leg of my journey with Jesus Christ and living in the grace only He can provide.  We have brought both of our girls up to love the Lord and now we have to completely trust them to the Lord.  It is so difficult to relinquish our control (not that we really had any control in the first place).

I will pray, putting on the full armor of God, and fight each day for my girls.  I will thank the Lord for this moment even when my heart feels heavy and broken.  I will say I believe, help now my unbelief.

You still reign and You're still God

When all foundations have been shaken,
When I'm left standing in the dark,
and all I feel is my heart breaking,
You still reign and You're still God.

And when it feels all hope is fading,
the heavy questions hit so hard,
and though my soul may feel forsaken,
You still reign and You're still God.

Though I can't see what's before me,
I know that I can trust your heart,
and this one truth will be my story,
You still reign and You're still God.

I will declare that you are with me,
though voices whisper that your not,
you'll never leave me or forsake me,
cause you still reign and your still God.

Though I can't see what's before me,
I know that I can trust your heart,
and this one truth will be my story,
that You still reign and You're still God.

Though I can't see what's before me,
I know that I can trust You're heart,
and this one truth will be my story,
that You still reign and You're still God.

I know You reign and You're Still God!

And when my enemy surround me,
I'll trust the victory of your cross,
and fix my eyes upon you Jesus,
for you are God and I am not.

You are good and You are faithful,
As You have been from the start,
You're working all things for Your Glory,
Cause you still reign and You're still God

And this one truth will be my story
That You still reign and You're still God
Yes this one truth will be my story
You still reign and You're still God

And though I can't see what's before me,
I know that I can trust your heart,
and this one truth will be my story,
that You still reign and You're still God

by Philippa Hanna

What happens in the struggles that we don't talk about?  The ones that are distasteful or awkward.  Perhaps they are are embarrassing or just down right painful.  What then?  

As we have been wading though this time in our family that seems overwhelming and painful  I am just remind and He still reigns and He is still God.

I don't know how many songs and verses that God has brought to mind order the span of my lifetime.  But the bible says His word does not come back void and that it will be recalled to you when you need it.  And so, He has been good and faithful and I am, daily, learning to trust Him in each moment.

Ecclesiastes says He can turn a heart of stone to a heart of flesh.  Do you hear that?  A hard, stubborn, heart of stone... He can make it flesh.  He is working all things for His glory.  Even the things I don't see, in ways I can't comprehend, for His Glory that I can not fathom.

Lord Jesus, thank you for using life to sanctify me, even when it is painful and seems so far beyond saving.  I am so very thankful that You still reign and You're still God! For YOU ARE GOD and I am not!

The moments you thought might never happen.... God is Good

 The wedding of our oldest daughter has come and gone.  Over the last 8 years there were many times when I didn't even know if we were going to be part of this day.  I wondered if we would make it through all of the crazy of teen years and raw defiance.

I have said many times while raising my daughters in their teen years,  that God gives us teenagers to grow our prayer life.

We really have two choices when we hit these rock bottom times in our lives.  We either trust that God is who He says He says He is and will do what He says He will do, or we don't.  

I am so grateful for a loving God who is faithful even in our unfaithfulness.  He has brought us through this time where we cried and failed and whined and lost all faith.  He was faithful.  He continued to hold us in His never changing ever loving hands, however often disciplining hands (because He disciplines those he loves).  

As we move forward I pray that I will continue to trust in the Lord for each situation.  I have seen Him work and have  no reason not to leave my life totally in His hands.  Not only has God given me the gift of salvation, He has supplied for my daily sanctification as we have moved through this life we are living here on earth.

Thank you Lord!

All....

I feel like everything is getting out of hand in this world.  Honestly, the world just needs Jesus!

I think we need to be very careful about the generalizations that we use....
All Blacks are ________.
All Whites are ________.
All Cops are ________.

And remember if you don't put the word ALL in there you are still using it when you say "Blacks are ____" it is just assumed you mean ALL.

I can't think of very many instances in which ALL is appropriate.  I know people of many different races and I can't think of one instance where ALL of them are anything.  Or jobs, I can't think of any job where ALL of the workers are good or bad.  I don't believe there is such a thing.

This is one thing I do know from learning about History.  There has always been time of great injustice to groups of people and in these times there has always been groups of people who stand against the injustice.

Slavery of black people in America, not only was there the civil war to fight against slavery, there were people who put together the underground railroad (note that these were white people who put there lives in danger to help black people because they knew that what was going on was wrong).

Natuzzi's are killing Jews by the thousands and a whole country seems to be going along.  Not only are they killing them, they are torturing them.  There were groups of German people who worked to hide and smuggle out Jews because they knew that what was going on was wrong.  We step into World War 2 because we know that what is happening is wrong.

There are always people in the group that is oppressing people who do not agree and who will not stand by and watch things happen.  They will fight, work together, and even put their lives on the line to help those who are being oppressed and work towards making sure that injustice does not continue.

God made us in His image.  Not just one group... US, ALL HUMANS.  So remember, when you look at a person and make a judgement on them, that we were ALL made in the image of God.  This is one time that the word ALL totally applies.  We are ALL made in the image of God and we need to remember that no matter the color of their skin, or their job, that ALL are image bearers of God and if you remember that God didn't make some in His image, that gives a clear picture of how we should approach each other.

Matthew 22:36-40
Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?
Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

So go.. Love God and Love those who are made in the Image of God!!!  That includes ALL people.

Not just a partner

Marriage, it is an interesting idea.  Two people, sometimes very much alike in personality and sometime very different, coming together to live "happily every after".  It is what we want and it is also why we see so many marriages struggle and fall apart.

Step one, dating.  This is a very exciting time.  Everyone is so perfect and so fun to be around.  You have bits and pieces of disagreements and even maybe a few good fights, but everything is so wonderful that you just move on together.  Please also note that "most" people, during this finding of the forever person, are in their 20's or even older.  This is not our story.

Halloween dance 1989, this is what we consider to be the date we started dating.  I was the ripe old age of 16 and he was just a youngster at 15.  That is how our story begins.  Sophomores in High School and off we went into this wild adventure.

After graduation in 1992 we waited all of 27 days to get married.  On June 27th 1992 we started this adventure called marriage.

We waited until 1998 to start our family and promptly had two perfect girls in 2 years.  I would like to tell you that this picture perfectly depicted the loving family  that we had.  Now don't get me wrong, we have had a good life.  God has always taken good care of us.  But life was not all glitter, roses and rainbows.

We had fights, BIG ones.  Children who were not always sweet and smiling, jobs that were not always stable, family situations that were not always easy.  Our family has seen been through many things that pulled us apart and we have had to find our way back  (which in our case was only made possible by Jesus) more than one time.

Life is messy and frustrating.  Life moves forward, ready or not, and you choose to go with it or fight against it.

So that brings us to the idea that you have a partner.  Partner: a pair of people engaged together in the same activity.  This was not always true of us, we were not always engaged together in the same activity.  I was being a mom and taking care of the home and he was going to work and creating a financially stable home for us, but to say we were doing it together was not always an accurate description of what was going on in and around our family.

What I have come to after nearly 30 years is an understating of what God meant when He said "and the two shall become one".

Being married is not about being partners, there is no 50/50, and we are not a team.  WE ARE ONE.  This is also not possible without God, He is what makes us one.

God uses marriage in the bible as a picture of Christ and the Church.  The difference between our marriages and Christ and the Church is that we are two sinners, imperfect in so many ways.  God as our husband is perfect, faithful, loving, full of grace and forgiveness.  Now we put together 2 very prideful, very selfish humans and we have this pattern of unmet expectations, hurtful events, and unfulfilled dreams.

So what happens when you start to see yourself as ONE and not just a partner in this life?

You begin to realize that this life that God has put before us is all about growing in Him.  We are not put here to create a life, or grow old together.  We are here to Grow in Christ.  To be transformed into His image.  When this becomes our life plan and we put aside our own ambitions and plans, then we begin to see this person that God has gifted us with as part of what makes us whole is also there for our transformation.

The bible says that God will give us the desires of our heart.  What we learn as we grow in Christ is that the reason He gives us the desires of our heart is because as we are transformed into His image our desires become HIS desires.  As we are transformed together as a couple, our desires, which are Gods desires, are also our spouses desires.

Are you starting to see the pattern of being ONE?  We are no longer 2 people working towards a goal as partners.  We are ONE unit, created by God, knit together with God as our third cord, transforming us into His image.  What a beautiful picture we have in Christ.

This is not a magical thing.  You say I do, slip on the ring, get a kiss, and poof your one!  If only it could be that easy.  It is a never ending process.  You make mistakes, you go to God and your spouse, ask forgiveness, and work your way back to oneness.

You don't have to read very far into your bible to see how God continues to pursue us even as we let him down, fall on our faces, and run away from Him.  We act as His enemy and still He love us and pursues us, He disciplines us, we go through the consequences of our sin, and He restores us into relationship with Him

In God we are ONE!

Perfectly knit together

For 39 weeks and 2 days God was doing the work of knitting this piece of art in her mothers womb.  

On February 8th at 2:52 am the beautiful Miss Lilah Rae Blaede was born.  Weighing in at 8lbs 4oz and 19 1/2 inches long.

What do you say about this?  I mean really, just look at her.  Every wrinkle is in the perfect place.  She is perfectly created with bits of both her Mom and her Dad.

When I look at her all I can see is what God did, as a gift to us that is beyond any of our wildest dreams.  She was no surprise to God, He made her in His timeline just as He had always planned it!

I watch my baby become a mother and it blesses me beyond measure.  I feel like she has been prepping for this moment her entire life.  She was always a little "mother" to each of my daycare kids and any other child who she was ever around.  Abby can tell you that she has always mothered her as well.   And now, I see her with her own child and I see the love that has come over her, the same love I felt for her the first time I held her and it SO blesses me.

She did such an amazing job carrying this child with her over the last 39 weeks.  Doing all the right things to make sure that she did her best to give Lilah the healthiest start that should could.  I could see the love growing in her even as she hobbled along when her hips hurting and her body was being changed in every which way to allow for this baby to grow.

Then I see this boy, who was not always what we envisioned for our Emma, become a father to his daughter and a partner to our daughter.  It was almost as if he transformed before our eyes.  It was a true gift to watch these two parents, that in our eyes are still babies themselves, become a family.

This whole experience has been so far beyond words, I am not totally sure how to express the whole experience.

I have seen God working over the last year.  I have prayed, cried, laughed, and prayed some more as we have gone through this experience.

The prayer I find myself in the most consistently is that all of us would see how God has been at work in all of our lives.  That we would choose to allow God to have control of our lives, because the truth is, we really don't have control, we just want to pretend that we do.

Welcome to the world Miss Lilah Rae!  I will be here, loving you, loving your parents, and most of all I will be praying.  Every single day that I have breath for the rest of my life I will be praying for you, just as I have with your mom and now with your dad, that you would all learn to love the Lord and put him first in your life.  That you would follow Him because that is all that really matters.

Christian Christmas

As a child I didn't grow up with Christmas.  My parents, who are Christian and do believe in Jesus Christ the Son on God and Salvation through him, did not celebrate Christmas because it does not ad hear to scripture.

None of their arguments can be disputed as far as I am concerned.  No, Jesus was probably not born in December, and yes Christmas was a Pagan holiday that was transformed by the Catholic church into a Christian holiday.  I could go on and on, but the fact is, that we didn't even really talk about Christmas unless we were being reminded how it was not biblically sound and all we really saw as children is that there were no decorations and no presents.

As a teenager I lived with my grandmother who did in fact celebrate Christmas.  She became a Christian in her 30's and was very adamant about making Christmas about Jesus.  It was not just about decorations and gifts but about Jesus and the gift that He was to us.

As I was decorating my tree this year I was brought to tears by many things.  Some traditions that she shared with me, like the German tradition of hiding the pickle (we used an ornament) on the tree, the first to find the pickle got a special gift.  I have special ornaments that remind me of special people, Grandma in particular, and others in my family.  But mostly I have the greatest gift that she could have ever passed on to me about Christmas.

I put up lots of lights,

 I love them, they are one of my most favorite things about Christmas.  I remind myself as I do this that Jesus came as the Light of the World.  He came to reveal to us what was once covered in darkness and is now replaced by light.  Once you have accepted Jesus Christ as your savior you then have this amazing light, the Son of the Living God, living in you.  Amazing!


 Each thing that I do reminds me of another aspect of who God is and why I want to be r
eminded of Him.  There are always ways to make anything about ourselves.  We can make Christmas about decorations and gifts, or we can choose where we put our focus.  Or...  We can use this special time of year to share the Love of Christ with those around us.

So, this Christmas as I hung the bird house and the Thomas Kinkade ornament and I was reminded of the gift that grandma gave me when she taught me to follow Jesus, all the time, in all we do, even celebrating Jesus on a Pagan holiday.