Touched.............................

My life is an ever changing billboard. Sometimes there is joy sometimes sadness. Like most humans I hates those valleys of despair and saddness. But am so greatful and reveled by the peaks that we find ourselves on. Though my life is far from perfect now I find myself in a place of praise and gratitude. I seem to be "stepping into" the word more and more. On a daily basis God is showing me himself and I am so thirsty for the word, in a way that I have never been before. Circumstances just keep leading me to the stream, I hear God say "drink and you shall thirst no more". It really means something now! I am reading and understanding the words on the page of my Bible. I have immersed myself in the Christian music that feeds my soul. If you have Direct TV go to channel 338. If not scan your channels!! I found the gospel music channel quite by accident and love the message it brings. I have been searching those "other" stations, you know the ones that you never sheck out. I have found so much. I listen and learn from Joyce Meyer every day. Ed Young if I can find him and Beth Moore Bible study comes to my house every Wednesday! I can feel the holy spirit in these teachings. Like it says in John 8:32 Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

I can feel the ropes being cut and being free to move. It is so hard to explain but today if Jesus called me out of the boat on the shoppy waters I could get out and walk to Jesus. The waters would not win over me, those words of doubt would not cause me to sink. I know my life is not perfect, please don't misunderstand........... the bills and issues are still there. But I have complete faith that God will provide what we need while we are here on this earth. What could be better? I hope your day is a blessed one. God is pressing on me to make sure that if you don't know the love of God and how he can change your life that you should send me a comment. I will do my best to let God speak through me to help you find the grace and peace that fills my soul.

Until next time......

Fun in the sun!

Over the last week or so I have tried to connect with friends and neighbors in the area. Before we know it the snow will fly and we will all retreat to our houses. Last night the Fare's girls, Karen, Simone and Shelby, joined us at the community pool and then a trip to the kids hands down favorite McDonald's. What is it about that place?!?! Kids absolutely LOVE the food. It was fun to see how big the kids are getting and how they get along so well. Simone and the boys just took off diving, jumping going down the slide you name it they were all fearless. Little Shelby was not so fast to jump and splash. The water is still a bit of a scarey thing to her, she did however try the water slide with the big kids .......once! That was all it took to realize that at the end of the slide she would be getting wet! It was fun to sit chat and poke fun at our wonderful husbands.

I also have a heavy heart with another situation that a dear friend and Christian Mom is going through. Her marriage is being tested and her life is at a hands down lay it all down before God place. It hurts so much to here the pain in her voice. She has wonderful children that are also being affected in a terrible way. God has designed us to be in family units. I can't imagine that God ever urges us to abandon the family or our children. Satan gets such a grip on our lives at some times he throws such convincing darts. The doubt and the ease of his path is so hard to resist. We are creatures of comfort and the easy path sounds appealing and Satan is so good at twisting our hearts and deceiving us. I have been praying for awakening, a time to just be still and listen to God's voice.
God is so good, he wants for us to have a rich and full life. We just have to listen and obey. It doesn't happen by accident.

Keep praying..............

He didn't even stay around!

Well, it again has been several days. My hope is to devote a bit of time each day to journaling some of the "action" that we have and some of the peace that God gives me to get through the day.

As we returned home after dropping the boys off for a visit to see my parent and stay with "the cousins" Kendall and I had just began the 2+ hr drive and I was settling in for the long trip. She was content and I had just got the phone number connected to a high school friend I hadn't talked to in many years.(with my blue tooth of course) Then over a small rise there he was! A deer!!! With no option I honked and slammed on the brakes. It just wasn't moving......... I panicked and watched as we hit the backside of the deer and pieces of my van went flying. I found a place to turn and went back to see if the deer was in the road. Not sure what I would have done if it was there but it was gone. My prayers went to hoping that I hadn't mortally wounded the deer. We continued home and almost hit a second deer on our road. Tim was understanding but now the car needed repair.

So today I have spent the better part of the morning running the car in and finding out that it is not drivable right now. Now I am working with the rental car place to get our rental so the kids and I can go to Indiana tomorrow for a family reunion. If I don't show up my MOm may just disown me. At almost 11 months Kendall has not met many from her sode of the family.

Have a blessed day and remember to step out of your comfort zone to be a blessing to someone else.

Time to reflect

I seem to find that my life runs in clumps.... sections that can be sorted and catagorized. I like things orderly and in its place. One of my control issues I guess. My groups are kind of
"Before Kindergarten"
"Elementary School"
"High School and Getting to Know God"
"Marriage Chapter One"
"The Girls Arrive and Grow"
" Life with Llamas"
"Betrayal and Lies"
"A New Beginning"
"The Boys"
"A Surprise that Changed Us Forever"
" A Miracle to Hold"

I think that takes us to the present. My life has never felt chearer to me. My Bible never as interesting as it seems to be now. It is almost as though I can taste the moment. Life isn't perfect, I still have laundry and dust, bills are still pouring in, I miss having Courtney here at home with us, and our building project seems to be never ending but at the same time I know in my heart that God is in control, he will handle the details. I know in my heart that the things that really matter are taken care of. 3 years ago after being surprised with a pregnancy I thought my world was falling in with the words of a Dr. Everything looks good "EXCEPT" Those words were the beginning of change for me. Loosing a baby that was almost here. I never dreamed I would be one of the many "marked Mom's". The ones that all belong to the same club, the club nobody wants to join. But without choice you join and you change. My life was marked with grief and despair, June 17 we lost Mackenzie. I had to be a Mom to 4 other kids so I couldn't just retreat to my bed. I treaded through the next months mourning the loss of our sweet baby. Then in the fall I just knew in my heart that I needed to have another baby. Tim was not so sure. I really wanted to try again but he wasn't even interested in talking about it. He got so tired of me talking about it that he made me promise not to bring up the idea till after Christmas. My first comment on New Year's Day was "Well, you remember what we are going to talk about?" Tim was not impressed....... he knows me well. I already had adoption information ready for him to look at. Unfortunately, he was not comfortable with adoption, in the states it is too hard to be sure that in the end the baby in yours and International Adoptions require lengthy stays before things are final. He did not want to leave the boys for any length of time. He finally agreed to try IVF for another baby.

In February I got a call from Elizabeth, one of the playgroup Mom's I had known since Logan was born. She knew all about loosing Mackenzie and wanted to talk to me about her carrying a baby for us. Although I was very touched I told her that I really wanted to carry a baby myself. We went to the Reproductive Dr. and took a class about IVF. Wow!!! Talk about a lot of shots. We got all set-up I got a box of drugs and needles and off we went. After our first retrieval we got 4 eggs, they PGD'd them to make sure that they didn't have any problems and the day before we were to put them back we got the devastating news that none of the 4 were normal. Back to the land of the dark!!! I took it very hard, I just knew that there was supposed to be one more baby. I was also told that 4 bouts of hyper emesis had taken a toll on my veins and that my thyroid was not really in any shape to carry a pregnancy.

Elizabeth called again, I dismissed it. Elizabeth called again, finally this time I listened to her tell me that she felt God was calling her to carry a baby for us. Tim was not listening yet, he felt like we were just being hormonal and was worried about how Elizabeth would feel when the baby was born. Elizabeth called again, this time telling me that at a stop sign she heard the voice once again tell her this was something she needed to do. I talked to Tim till I was blue in the face and finally after many weeks of pouting he said fine, your going to pout till you get your way. Although I felt bad about the puting I was overjoyed to hear him say OK.

Now the Dr. hunt was on, we were turned down time after time. Nobody wanted to get involved with this situation. She could change her mind things could get sticky. Finally we found a Dr. willing to help out. Score! Then we had to find a legal expert to draw up the proper papers. Another sticky thing to find but we stumbled on one of the formost in the country and she even lived and worked close to us. Score again! On our first appointment to the Dr. he told us Elizabeth was about 2 days from where we needed to be. We scrambled into place to get everything in order. One IUI later and a lot of stress due to scheduling and Elizabeth was pregnant!!! She had told me that she thought we would have a girl, in my heart I wanted a healthy baby so much but a girl on top would be my dream. The pregnancy was not easy for Elizabeth and she ended up in the hospital with kidney infection and then was taken off work 12 weeks before her due date. It was a very different pregnancy for me. Hard to not be a part of it but for the first time ever I felt good with a baby on the way. I decided I wanted to name the baby after Tim's Dad Kenneth. So girl or boy I wanted to name the baby Kendall Grace or John after my Dady for a boy. Tim hated it ...... it took a lot of begging and the attorney prenaming after casually asking if we were thinking about names to get my way on her name. Now I can't imagine her as anything else.

More of the story next time.............................. my eyes are getting heavy!