Chloe Turns Six!

Oh sweet "Snooie"!  This post is much later getting written than I had hoped, but darling, it is no reflection on our HUGE love for you, just a reflection on the fullness of our lives at the moment.  We had such a fun birthday party for you this year!  We meet Tayden and Milo, Auntie Amber and Nana at Lakeside Amusement Park for the day.  We had a picnic lunch and I made you homemade carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  You were a little dare devil on all the rides and I will never forget riding the Spider with you and all our uncontrolled giggles. You started first grade this year big girl, that really doesn't seem possible.  I'm certain it was just last week that you were my rolly polly, pigtailed two year old saying, "hogeyou me mommy!" or calling the phone a "whone".  But now before our eyes is a beautiful little girl of six with a smile and laugh that are truly infectious.  Something that hasn't changed, much to my delight, is that amazing and beautiful imagination of yours.  The day you stop gathering random household items to create barns for your animals (plastic ones or your little brother making horse noises) will be a sad day in my book.  At this rate, you will be the next bestselling author and I just can't wait to read your stories!  Kindergarten was a harder transition for you, missing mommy, just getting used to the school scene.  But this year, Chloe, you have taken to school with ease.  I get to come into your class every Wednesday this year to be a guest reader, which is truly one of the highlights of my week!  You are so proud to show me off to your classmates and I just love having you sit on my lap while I read to you and your friends.  And you've found a strong subject this year, sweet girl, you are quite the math wiz!  Knock on wood, homework time is a breeze for you and your reading gets stronger every day it seems.  Wow, I'm sure going to miss the days of having you home all the time, I have some precious memories of that time we had together.  But at the same time, it gives me such joy to see you thriving as a little student, getting to hear all about your day in the car on the way home, the friendship ups and downs, the exciting things you're learning in science.  Don't ever stop talking Rooie, telling me everything, the ups and the downs, the good and the bad.  You are such a gift to your dad and I, sweet Chloe Paige!  We are so blessed and lucky to get to love you as our own as we raise you up, pointing you towards Jesus and His perfect love and plan for you.  Happy sixth birthday baby girl!  You are beautiful, inside and out!

Making Sense of the Desert Places

Perhaps you’re like me and received Jesus as a child, or maybe it was just a few years ago. Regardless, you remember the moment, maybe it was over the course of weeks or months, but you remember the joy, the butterflies as the Holy Spirit took up residence in your heart and made you a new creation. Everything was new and you hungered for God and His Word like no craving you’ve ever known. As Thumper from Bambi would say, you were twitterpated! And then life kept moving forward, and for one reason or another, the spark faded a bit. You watched the flame dwindle and despite your best efforts and desires, you couldn’t get it roaring again. Fast forward in time and a really hard life transition was upon you. Once again, you found yourself clinging to Jesus with white knuckle grip. He wooed you to Himself, showing you the emptiness of all the world has to offer , your desperate need for Him, and you were head over heals yet again.
I could go on and on, couldn’t I? I mean I really don’t think I’ve ever met another Christian who hasn’t described these waves of closeness and distance when they talk about their walk, have you? So what can we make of these peaks and valleys, of these dry desert places and abundant gardens? What purposes is God working in this pattern, a pattern the saints have walked for all of history? First let me say that I am writing these words from a desert place. With parched lips and a growling tummy, I’m processing these questions with you. I am begging God to give me insight. After all, if you’re like me, it can bury you further in discouragement to hear from someone who only USED to be where you are. Fear creeps in that we may never get out of here, that we may never know the taste again of a deep and vibrant walk. I think the following passage explains our struggle well,
Romans 7:15-25-
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
It seems like a pretty hopeless picture if we stop reading before the last sentence… but then there IS that last sentence and in it we find our answer! So who will rescue us from this body of death? Jesus! Yes, the Sunday school answer. But maybe we over complicate things in our minds so that we can’t see the simple answer. Because of Jesus, we are new creatures, the old has gone and the new has come. I think the thought process that keeps us down is the false belief that because we are new creations, we should be perfect, that if we don’t have that blissful, awe inspiring quiet time every day that we have failed and can never really be good enough so why try. We wonder what’s wrong with us. Surely everyone else is having these said quiet times and we must be missing something profound. Oh how Satan would love for us to wallow defeated in this vicious cycle. But maybe, just maybe, these dry places, while never meant to be places we stay and linger comfortably, do have a good purpose. When you think about the picture of a desert and someone staggering to find the end of it, what’s the one thing on their mind? Water! And how good does the water taste when they finally find it? REALLY good! So perhaps, just as trials serve the purpose of showing us our deep need for Jesus and of pushing us to stop seeking things that will never satisfy, dry spells can serve the same purpose. Being hungry for Him, thirsty for His presence means that eating and drinking will be all the sweeter.
So what if, as the Romans passage explains, though the thirst and the hunger and the desire is there, we can’t seem to pick up our feet to walk in the direction of the water (FYI, this feels like me at the moment)? I’m drawn back to the answer in that last sentence of the passage, “through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Am I understanding this correctly? Jesus is going to help me pick up my feet and walk towards the water? Maybe my prayer needs to be even simpler, “Father, help me to lift up my feet and walk to your Word, to open my mouth to pray.” And maybe those staggering, baby steps need to be small enough that I can take them on an empty tank. One verse a day could grow into one chapter a day and praying every time I use the bathroom could grow into prayer without ceasing… but only by His strength. And perhaps the lush gardens are fewer and further between than the desert places by design. As we crave towards more intimacy with the Lord, as we stagger and sway in weakness towards the only One who can quench our thirst we are also staggering towards the ultimate lush garden that we’ll never have to leave, heaven. We have the promise of such sweet communion with our God, it will make those first butterflies seem like dusty moths in comparison!
So let’s link arms, sisters, when we find ourselves in these uncomfortable desert places, and spur one another on towards the water of His Word and the banquet of His presence. “Father, we pray a simple prayer in weakness. We ask that you would help us lift our weak and failing legs to walk towards your Word, towards YOU, oh precious living water. Let us not wallow in defeat, but rather help us see these parched times as times that draw us towards you! Amen”

Psalms 63:1 -"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

Emma is 8!

Happy 8th Birthday Emma!  I may have said this for earlier birthdays too, but I just can't believe it's been eight years since I first beheld your precious 8lb. 4oz. form for the first time.  To say I was in love at first sight is an understatement, because I fell in love with you long before that.  Before God ever created you in my womb, I wanted you.  I dreamed of having a daughter of my own, prayed for you, and oh how undeservedly blessed I am to have you!

There has been something special about this eighth year of your life, something about you really coming into your own, that has blessed my socks off!  You are MY girl, yes, and you are a lot like me in many ways.  But you are also beautifully unique, the only you God has made, and I get the privilege of being your mama for as long as God will let me.  This year you have moved into your own room, something you're giddy about. Just a small reminder that you are growing up and I wish it could slow down:(. Your outward beauty is obvious sweet girl, so many people tell you so, but what amazes me and makes me smile from ear to ear is your heart.  You love others well, you enjoy serving and encouraging, reminding others of how much you love them by every means you can think of.  Homemade cards, daily "I love you more than _____"s, doing things for others, giving them gifts.  You are such a great student as well, always doing your best for your teacher, showing respect to the adults in your life, you are a sweet fragrance to every person in your life, sweet peanut!  This year you got into Centennial Children's Choir.  Your love for singing, and the way you smile at me in the audience while you do it melts my heart into a puddle.  I am so proud of you, sweet girl, for every part of who you are.  And even when you struggle, against sin and selfishness, as we all do, know that my love for you never changes, because God's love for you never changes!  He sent Jesus to die for you sweetheart, a gift you received personally when you were 7 and that you can celebrate every day as you are washed with new mercy.  It's not to earn His favor that you live to please Him, but because of His favor, the gift of your salvation, adoption into His family, that you live your life to glorify Him.  As we head into your ninth year, your dad and I will be praying for you every day, that God will continue to shape you into all He wants you to be.  He has good plans for you, precious girl, and it is our pleasure to watch those plans unfold and to love you the best we can along the way.

Fergus and Mabel

We make plans for our families, it's what parents do right?  And we get excited, really excited, about the ways we plan to add joy to family life.  It was about three months ago that I started making such a plan.  A friend of ours found out her cat, that she inherited from the previous owners of her home, was having kittens.  They were told this cat was a male, so imagine my friend's shock.  My wheels started turning immediately!  Our kids have wanted a pet forever and we keep saying "later, later, later".  Well what if this could be later?!  I talked it over with Travis and after a few weeks of thought, he said yes.  I was giddy.  I had both cats and dogs all of my growing up years, but I've never been "the mama" to a pet, you know, the one who cares for that pet from day one.  So I staked my claim, Tricia granted me first pick of the litter.  And I waited.  They were born on March 2nd.  Yes, I remember the date, because who wouldn't remember the birthday of a beloved member of their family?  And then we had to wait some more, they wouldn't be ready for 6-8 weeks.  As the pictures came in, my excitement grew.  And then we told the kids, they were ecstatic!  Chloe started a countdown, she had it down the day without missing a beat. I ordered a litter box and cat climber, dishes, a brush, toys, researched litter and got their little spot all ready in the laundry room. We picked a precious little gray kitty that stole our hearts.  We went out to meet the kittens when they were just barely walking, there's just nothing sweeter than wobbling, tiny kittens!  Travis was surprised how smitten he was, for someone who never had cats growing up.  He asked me on the way home if I thought it would be good to get two instead of one.  I loved the idea!  There were three white females with the most adorable gray ears, faces, and tails.  So we thought it over as the weeks moved on, and the night before we planned to go get Fergus, we decided to get one of the girls too, we named her Mabel.  On homecoming day, the kids were on pins and needles, asking multiple times throughout the morning and early afternoon, "is it time to get Fergus and Mabel yet?"  They bolted out of the car when we got to my friend's house.  When we put them in the carrier for the ride home, it felt official, our babies were coming home.  It's amazing how much joy playful kittens can bring to every day life, they are so entertaining to watch!  They took right to their litter box and bed and toys.  Their cat climber was a huge hit, this became their favorite nap spot.  And our love grew for them every single day.  Every morning when I first saw them, they gave me special purrs and longing looks and every evening they snuggled with  me on the couch to nap and play and purr with my petting.  I often glanced over at Travis just beaming, and he was falling for them too.  And the kids, oh my goodness, I'm pretty sure they never once asked to watch a movie that week, those little babies became their world.  But that's all we got with our precious fur balls, one short but beautiful week.  Sawyer came down with a cold a few days before we got the kittens, so when his eyes started getting red and watery, we just assumed it was related to the cold, maybe pink eye setting in.  I refused to go to the possibility of allergies in my mind because I just didn't want to believe it could be possible.  But then on Thursday of that week, after red, itchy, watery eyes off and on throughout the week, Fergus licked Sawyer on the face.  Little white bumps started to form around his eye and then his eye almost completely swelled shut as the day progressed.  I knew it in my heart then, he was allergic to cats... and my heart sank.  I called all over town to allergy docs to see if we could get him in immediately to get tested.  I got him in for a friday appointment and sure enough, he is highly allergic to cats.  He also showed allergies to dogs, horses, mice, and cluster of certain trees.  The doctor talked us through all the medications and sinus rinses she was prescribing for Sawyer and my ears tuned out, I knew what had to be done.  There was no way we could put Sawyer on a laundry list of medications just so we could have cats.  There are things we can do as he grows up to try to improve his immunity to cats and other animals, but it isn't putting Sawyer first to make him suffer in the mean time.  Oh it was heart breaking!  So I put the word out to find a new home for the kittens.  It didn't take long and a friend from my childhood offered to take them both, which was great because I really wanted them to stay together.  When we got home, we broke the news to Emma and Chloe.  They were sad and angry and then just sad.  Chloe asked at one point if we could sell Sawyer at a garage sale!  She was only half joking, the little stinker.  And Emma couldn't stop the tears, she just kept saying, "I REALLY don't want them to go!"  On Saturday morning, we packed everything up and the girls came with me to bring them to their new home.  We all held up okay while we were dropping them off, but on the way home, we all broke down.  My friend's older cats weren't too sure of these new creatures, naturally, and one hissed at Mabel at one point.  Little Mabel hissed back in her tiny his and was shaking.  Emma kept recounting how sad it made her to see Mabel so scared and that they would have had a better life with us.  And I couldn't stop crying either, I think I was so focused on how much the kids were suffering that I completely ignored how much this whole thing was hurting my own heart.  I wanted these kittens, they were MY babies!  I had been planning for them for months.  But then it washed over me, what a gift this experience was for my kids, for me, for all of us.  It was training ground for the heartaches of life, the disappointments that leave us broken and sad.  It is moments like these that are the places we have to ask where our true joy comes from, what fulfills us, what is God teaching us in the disappointments?  And my heart smiled at my Savior and He smiled back as I talked to the girls about this very truth on the way home.  And then Emma said she wanted to pray, and it was one of the sweetest, most genuine prayers I've ever heard from her lips.  She told God about how sad we are and then thanked him for promising to comfort us.  And then she went through a list of gratitude, that we got to have them for a week and that we got to give them to this new family who would now get to love them.  She thanked Him for all we DO have and asked Him to help her be grateful.  The pain didn't stop after we prayed, but our perspectives did.  And I praised the Lord for this hurt, because it pointed our hearts to Him. 

Good bye sweet kitties!  We loved you well for that precious week and we will never forget you!
Job 1:21- "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."

Catching Up

Brushing the dust off this blog, whew it's been a full month!  I guess it's true that sometimes you're too busy living life to blog about it, I'll count that as a good thing:).  I'll start with Easter Pictures.  What a beautiful day we had to celebrate our risen Savior!

Our little "Noodle" is walking well now, I officially have a toddler in every sense of the word!  The girls only have four more weeks of school, needless to say May will not be any less full than April has been.  I'm already drawing up our plans for summer which will include so many fun things! Swimming lessons, farm camp, choir camp, school time, VBS, lazy days by the pool and picnics at the park, camping, road trips, new baby nephew to meet, but most importantly, time to love on my children 24/7!  My big girls have loved school so much this year, but I'm excited to have them to myself for a few months.  It's hard to believe it will be garden planting time next weekend!  We already have strawberry plants, raspberries, blackberries and rhubarb taking off.  Life is beautiful because God gives it!  He is good all the time. We had a sad course of events over the past week, but we are counting the gifts even in the midst of broken hearts.  These events deserve their own post... soon.