blessings.

there are many blessings we have. this one particular one has been truly from the Lord. she is haven’s special friend and counselor. she has sacrificed her time, she has given her heart and soul into praying with haven, loving on her, and helping by the Holy Spirit. she has such a sweet spirit, i find myself thanking the Lord for her on so many occassions.  she is an answer to so many prayers. she gets to see her once a week and some days are better than others, but we know that God works all things together for GOOD, to those that love Him.

we pray for ms. savannah all the time, and i pray that the Lord would continue to bless her as she has been a blessing to us. that He would give her the desires of her heart, the longing of her soul. the peace and rest in the waiting. she, as we all have at times, been through hard days, not understanding the Lord’s hand at times, yet she is a testimony of grace and giving of self to fulfill the call on her life.

we love you so much and are so grateful that you are in our lives. thank you for showing haven Jesus and for not giving up on what the Lord is wanting to teach and work in us all.

you are truly amazing and we are in awe of the goodness of God.

Waiting….

A holy, joyful expectancy is the very essence of true waiting. And this is not only true in reference to the many varied requests every believer has to make but most especially to the one great petition which ought to be the chief thing every heat seeks for itself. That the life of God in the soul may have full sway. That Christ may be fully formed within, and that we may be filled to all the fullness of God. This is what God has promised. this s what God’s people too little seek–very often because they do not believe it possible. This is hat we ought to seek and dare to expect, because God is able and waiting to work it in us.

But God Himself must work it. And for this end our working must cease. We must see how entirely it is to be the faith of the operation of God who raised Jesus from the dead–just as much as the resurrection, the perfecting of God’s life in our souls is to be directly His work.

‘Waiting on God’ by Andrew Murray.

stick a fork in me

Get up and walk.

The veil is about to be lifted. You put the mud over my eyes, I can see. You put Your hand on my ears, I can hear. You reach for my hand, and pull me up. A new hope.You give me the courage to walk. One foot in front of the other.

You are the giver of this faith that is within me. You are the reason there is a hope within me that is unexplainable. You want us to continue on in that faith. To rise up in that faith, that hope, and walk in it! No longer sitting down, the veil over our eyes, our hearts.

Continue to speak to our lonliness, the kind that no one else sees, no one else knows about. It could be lonliness in caring for sweet babies all day with no adult interaction, struggles with spouses, a need to know where to fit in life.

Jesus, guide us. Give us that strength and desire to get up and walk. In truth, in faith, in hope in You and what You desire for Your children to be. So many of us desire that, yet so many are searching….yearning. Fill that in Your name.

Heal hearts, heal homes, heal minds. We still believe in miracles.

Reminders.

He has been faithful

He is gracious

He is jealous for me

He loves us when we aren’t so loveable

He helps us stand, He fights for us

He sees he innermost parts of our being

He is patient, kind, steadfast in His love for us

Our provider, our Healer

He is the lifter of our head, He wants us to come and sit with Him in the shadow of His wings

He is our refuge and redeemer

He is the delight of my children’s songs

He is the wonder of Christmas

A father to the fatherless

A lover to the lonely

He sees in us what we could never see ourselves

He entrusts us with Himself, with His Word

We are His delight. He loves us, oh how He loves us.

A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life.–Oswald Chambers.

That was today’s blurb on here.

Redeem: to repurchase, repair, restore, fulfill

I’ve thought a lot about life. While I was lying in bed not being able to sleep, the Lord reminded me of my babies I lost. The pain and emotions, everything that was little or small about it. And how I am still going through that grieving process. I’ll be honest, I thought it would go away. Not the memory, but the grief. It does get easier, but it’s still there, deep down inside. I now realize that and there are other things that I will be ‘peeling the layers’ back on to reveal what it is that is needing to be repaired and restored. Healed and fulfilled in my spirit, heart, and life. It’s exciting but scary. To walk in that. To be vulnerable. There is wisdom in wise counsel, and this is what I will be doing.

A sweet little 1o year old girl was killed while crossing the crosswalk last weekend. I didn’t know her, but knew her family from when I was in King’s Kids at YWAM. We are the body of Christ. She was a light for Jesus. I was reminded yet again, how tragedy pushes you. It makes you move when you don’t want to. It can also paralyze you in your tracks. It also is the opportunity for the Lord to work in YOU what He needs to for His glory. The testimony as a result will change so many. How He has to literally be your breath, your strength, your hands and feet. Out of such pain, comes the beauty. And I love how we see Jesus in their loss. I pray that in our losses, in our joys, in our lives, that we could learn to be real, authentic, not afraid to peel the layers back and see what God is ready to redeem.

Life. Death. Hope. Joy. It’s a journey. You were equipped for it. You were made for such a time as this. We will rise above it and continue to look ahead and expect amazing things from an amazing God.

And Olivia Ray is in heaven with my three angels. Wow.

Seasons.

I am so amazed at who He is. I’m amazed at the season I’m in, He still speaks to me. I’ve never heard Him more clearly than in this season, and it’s been truly awesome. A lot of times in the car….this morning, the song ‘Jesus Paid It All’ came to my head. Over and over again, the phrase- ‘Praise the One who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead’. I tried to search for it on youtube on my way to work. (not the brightest idea I’ve had lately..) This has meant much to me on so many levels. My heart aches for those who aren’t walking in this freedom, who need rescued. HE is big enough and strong enough. He can raise us from death to life. I have been praying for hearts that are hardened to be made new.He will melt the heart of stone…I mean HE can wash that all away…HE can make us clean. It’s a whole new light bulb for me, a whole new reality I am walking in. It takes my breath away.

I have been struggling with many things. My job, the feeling of being ’stuck’. The ‘I’m not sure where I fit’….being on the edge of something amazing and new, and yet I don’t know what it is or when.  Then I read these verses: Numbers 23:19 and Exodus 33:14. Yesterday, before I read these verses, I kept getting ‘the spoken Word is powerful’, over and over again in my mind. The Rhema word. It’s LIFE.

I pray that HIS Word would be life to you today. That you would realize where you ‘fit’, He would speak clearly to you that YOU are HIS, and that whatever your role is, YOU are valued, loved, and so truly dear to His heart.

I’m always amazed at his prophetic heart. The words he says. He said something last night that was so matter of fact. I asked him again, thinking maybe I misunderstood him, he said it again, plain as day. I just thanked Jesus. And prayed once again that the Lord would continue to protect him, that the Holy Spirit would continue to speak to his heart and that he would share. He is recognizing his colors, counting, and enjoys his ABC’s.

I love how they are creatures of  habit and routine. The same book at bedtime in the same spot. Cuddled up drinking juice and rubbing his index finger and thumb between the blankets he’s under. It’s the little things I want to not forget. That in the chaos of this season, the hurriedness,the impatience, the preschool all day I didn’t think he’d be in until he was 4 b.c I thought I’d be at home with him like Haven….that above all that, he would see who Jesus is. That he would learn through life, through mommy, through his sissy, and through those that love him, that Jesus loves the little children. That’s the song he wants me to sing at night before I put him in his bed. He doesn’t know I sang that since he was born. He loves to sing to Jesus and loves to pray. Faith like a child…

It melts my heart when they both run up to me after a long day. Or after they’ve been gone all weekend, and the house seems empty and not like a home until they are there. Or that my heart hurts when they do, or when they don’t understand why our season is the way it is. I have to be honest and say I don’t either, but that God knows what He’s doing in our family and we dont have to understand, but we get to love Jesus. We get to see how He loves us. How He shows us.

And sometimes He shows us through our babies. How blessed we are.

I was having church at home this morning. I read about how He knows. How He understands. He was a human. He faced love and hate. He faced rejection and loneliness. So why would He not know how that feels when those emotions come up? We say He knows our hearts. Our feelings, our emotions. He does b.c He also lived that out. He walked out being rejected. He lived with those that loved Him dearly, or hated Him feircly. His heart breaks like ours does.

He endured a lot in his short life.

Haven and I have had conversations this past week about Jesus. How He loves children just like the song says. How we need to have faith and believe like little children do. That He is everywhere. He loves us. He wants us to please Him, to sing praises. We talk a lot about songs that please the Lord. She so desires that. And I’m so grateful that the Holy Spirit is beginning to work in her heart to think about Him and what He desires of her. Yet Istill want to protect her from neighborhood girls who may not know the Lord, or who are petty and mean. It breaks my heart, even little things, b.c my baby girl is so sensitive. Wisdom indeed. She loves so innocently and desires to be included. I pray that I can contiue to help her realize that the Lord can be all those things for her, even if those people in her life fall short, because we ALL fall short of His glory, but HE remains. He will never fail her. He is her security.

She is 7. Her birthday was September 4th. We are going to have a little celebration, as she just moved into a new house a week before her birthday. We will be doing a little something for her soon.  Amazingly, while she learns life, I am also learning life. God is good.Even though our last week was really hard, He was there. In the tears, the I’m sorrys, the anger, grief, exhaustion, hands raised in surrender b.c I didn’t know what else to do. We prayed. I got a screaming Harbin, (not his norm) a very frustrataed Haven, and me. We all got in my bed. Harbin prayed first. Then Haven, and then myself. We prayed over each other. We prayed over our rooms, over our home, over our lives. That we would bring honor to Him, and that His will would be done in our family. That He would speak to the hearts of those we love the most, that He would redeem those things that are lost.

And we get to live out His story for us. It may not be pretty or perfect, or the way we thought it’d be, but we know that as we live, HE is there, and HE will get the glory. He endured and so will we.

one day

i will be able to write it out on paper. my desire is to write a book very soon. or at least start on it. i read a dear friends blog today. the kind of friend that you don’t see often, but you’re bonded through Christ, through kindred hearts, shared experiences.maybe i can say the word without wanting to throw up, or for that matter, snap out of my dream world. oh, there are times where, yes, i get it. it’s reality. it hits you in the face if you forget. yet, there are times where it still is so unreal. unheard of. unthought of. (that’s not a word, but for now, it is)

one day, i’ll be able to. it won’t make it any easier, or better, but it will be part of the process. healing. wow, to say it and type it, it’s so powerful. HE will do that for me. HE has and HE will continue. it’s a process. i think i think ‘one day…’ i just need to get through this process to get to the other part of the process, and He wants me to just be still. be in the process now, don’t rush. don’t try to fix it or change it, release and let Him guide the process.

our ‘one days’ may or may not come, but i know He will give us the strength to go through the seasons, process, learn, grow and then, if we’re lucky, we get to do it all over again. our ‘one day’ will bring Him glory every day. and He’s so worth it.