Worth it!

At church last Sunday the band sang "Beautiful Things" and we watched a video while they were playing. It had people holding pieces of cardboard with words on both sides. They would walk up with the words of what they once were on one side and then they would flip it over and show what they are now in Christ. I've seen this done before and it is just so powerful. This time there was one that stood out to me and just was so profound. A husband and wife came up. I don't remember exactly what words were on his card, but it was something like Didn't believe in God. Hers was something like Diagnosed with Cancer. When they flipped them over His said something like Accepted Christ as my Savior and hers said Worth it. Wow. Even now, to just sit and think about that, it's just overwhelming.

I have been struggling a little bit lately. We gave up a lot to come here, all of which I would totally do again, but sometimes, it's just hard. We've had a lot of trials come our way since moving here as well. Some that cut to my very soul. It's so easy to ask why. We're doing what God called us to do. We listened. We obeyed. Shouldn't our path be just a little bit easier? I feel like God just reminds me that those who he has called to much have to give up much.

If I step back and take a look at everything that has happened, I realize that everything has shaped me, or is shaping me, to be more Christ like. I see where God is moving in my husband and changing him and therefore changing our family. I see God working through our church. This church that we gave up so much to help start has already seen people finding new life in Christ.

I think of that women who at the time she was diagnosed with cancer probably asked why. Probably was devastated. Now, on the other side, she sees the why and knows that it was worth it. I trust that'll we'll see the other side. Next year at this time, who knows how many lives will have been changed. We helped with that. People that are lost today may not be lost tomorrow. What a privilege that God chose us to work through.

So, today, can I say it was worth it? Yes. Does it make it any easier? Well, yes! but that still doesn't mean it's not hard. God never promised us an easy life. Taking up your cross is never easy, but it's always totally worth it.

Beauty

As I started my prayer time this morning, the phrase "come into his presence with thanksgiving in your heart" came to mind. I started making a list of things I'm thankful for and as I was praying over it the word "beauty" came to mind. I don't mean beauty in the physical sense, but beauty almost in a spiritual sense. You know, like a child's giggle. The family hug when the dad gets back from serving overseas. A mother seeing her newborn baby's face for the very first time. Beauty.

I was listing out things I saw beauty in. Beauty in my family, beauty in this world and beauty in God. Then I really felt like God was saying "what about beauty in others?" You see, I have a tendency to dwell on things. I mull over them. I go over conversations in my mind. It just allows things to build and build. So what might have started out as something so small that someone did or said that just kinda rubbed me the wrong way, it is now a point of annoyance with them. It infects my very idea of them. So, even when they do or say the simplest thing, it can drive me crazy.

So, I've been working on my attitudes with a couple of people and God is really working in me with that. But today, he challenged me. "Why not focus on the beauty in people. That's what I do with you." When God looks us, He does not focus on all of our brokenness. He doesn't see all the little things in our life that probably drives Him crazy! He sees us as His child. He sees us as He created us to be. That's why we can be so secure in our relationship with Him. We don't have to worry about saying something that He is going to dwell on forever! He loves us! To the cross and back!

So, I am going to work on seeing the beauty in others as God sees the beauty in me. When people say things that hurt or even annoy, I'm going to look deeper. Is what they're saying out of love and it just came out wrong? Is what they're saying out of their brokenness and I need to be praying for them? Or is what they're saying truth and I need to be praying about me!

God, help me to see Your beauty in all things and especially in the people You created.

Our Manna

I have had this blog in my head for awhile now, life has just been crazy so I haven't taken the time to sit and write it down. I've been living it though and have told a couple of people of how God has been speaking to me. So, time to write it down so I can look back and see exactly how God is working in me and family during this time in our life.

Doug is still at the job that we both pretty much hate. It's not a bad job, really, but one of the main problems is the drive. It's an hour away, which means he's gone an extra 10 hours a week. It also doesn't pay a ton so he has to work extra, which means he works 10 hour days. Factor in lunch and he is gone 12 1/2 hours a day. That's a lot. Not to mention that he is randomly forced to work Saturdays. Last week he had to work Sunday as well, which means he's still waiting for a day off. Coming from where we were, where we lived not quite 10 minutes from his work so he was gone not even 8 1/2 hours a day and that included an hour home for lunch, this is just hard. It's especially hard on the kids. By the end of the week, Jazz is asking if Daddy is gone all day tomorrow. He only gets about 3 1/2 hours with us at night. To me, that's just not enough.

It's so easy to just stop right here. This is awful. I hate Doug's job. It's not fair. But, that's not where God wants me to stop. I've been reading in Numbers about the Israelites. God led them out of slavery in Egypt to the desert. When they complained that there was no food, God gave them manna. It miraculously showed up every morning but Sunday. Were they thankful? No! They complained after a time that they were sick of it and wanted some real food. I do not want to be like the Israelites! You see, God has shown me that this is our Manna. It's provision. It may not be the best thing that we could have. It may be hard to swallow some days, but God has miraculously provided a job for Doug that provides for all our needs!

It's so easy in places like this and in life in general to compare yourself to others. How do we do this? By comparing up. That person has a better car. This person has a bigger house. That guy has an amazing job, why don't I have any of those things? We shouldn't be comparing our lives to others in any case, God has given us THIS life and no other. But, take a glimpse for a second at those around you that don't have it as good as you do. Trust me, there are plenty to choose from! God gave me this glimpse and showed me just how blessed we really are. You see, God is using this time to take my eyes of my circumstances and place them on Him. I can be joyful no matter what. I can be thankful that Doug has a job at all since there are so many people that don't even have one.

So, I look at our Manna each day and I am thankful. It's not perfect. It's not ideal. But it's God's provision at this time in our lives. Thank you God!

Doug's Season

Well, Doug has a job....and I hate it! Ok, so to be fair, I am extremely thankful that God provided Doug with a job. He was only out of work about 5 weeks which is amazing. However, the job he has is terrible! He is working mandatory 10 hour days Monday through Friday and 8 hours on Saturday. When you factor in that it is almost an hour away, he is gone over 70 hours a week. All this to not even make what he was making in 40 hours at Pekin. It's just a hard place to be. My big issue is that I feel like I haven't really had to give up anything in coming here. I left some good friends in Pekin, but I moved near some good friends and my family here. I also just brought my business with me, really no big deal. Doug, however, gave up an amazing job where he put a lot of time in to be at the place where he was, almost sergeant. He moved away from his friends and family. I just feel like he gave up everything and now is really getting the raw end of the deal.

The good news is that I truly believe this is a season. I do not believe God called us here to have Doug be gone so much. It is not healthy for our family or our marriage. The question is, how long will this season last? The frustrating part is that God never tells! See, this is where our faith and trust is still being put to the test. We have stepped out in faith to just up and move here, but obviously, God wants more. He must have more to teach us, more growing for us to do. I'm sure when we're on the other side we'll be able to look back and know it was all worth it, it's just not that easy while you're living in your season.

I was reading Psalm 43:5 today:

Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God

Hope in God, that is all I have to do. Hope in God, Trust in God, Wait on God.

Freaky Friday

We had a pretty exciting weekend around here. Ok, not so exciting, but scary, stressful and just plain freakish. I spent Friday morning going to garage sales with Brooke. While we're on our way home I get a text from Doug saying he had inhaled a pin and that it kinda hurt. To be honest, I was more mad than worried. To be so flippant as to just send me a text message about it and we don't currently have health insurance. We ended up going to the ER that afternoon. The Er doctor said there were two possibilities. One, it could have entered his GI tract. If that was the case, it would simply pass through and they wouldn't have to do anything. Second, it could have entered his bronchial tract. Unfortunately, there's no "other end" with the airway system of the human body which would mean they would have to go an get it. I immediately started praying that he had simply swallowed it. They would send us home, Doug would be fine and our bill would be small, or relatively so. Of course, the doctor comes back and it's in his bronchial tract.

The doctor informed me that they would go in, right there in his ER room, with a bronchial scope to get it out. Most of the time, they can get it just fine, but sometimes, through fits of coughing, it can become embedded in the sides and they won't be able to get it out. He said since it had been a relatively short time since it happened, he was sure he would be able to get it out. After an hour of sitting in the waiting room the doctor let me know that he could not get it. He transported Doug up to xray so he could xray and try to get it out at the same time. The xray would help him be able to see much better. If he couldn't get it out, Doug would have to have something more invasive done. I immediately went outside and texted my family, Doug's family and our church family about what was going on and asking them to pray!

Well, the doctor could not get it out. I asked him if we could wait, we had a health insurance discount plan that would go into effect on the 20th, so if we could wait, they would help pay for anything else that needed to be done. He contacted the doctor at St Vincent that he was referring us to and did some research. He came back to say that people have died that had things left in them. That the pin was very close to Doug's heart and he was afraid that it could prick his heart and mess up his natural heart beat. He was having Doug transferred by ambulance to the St Vincent Medical Center that night. At this point, I am pretty freaked. We went from having a simple freak accident to a life threatening situation. I also quit worrying about the bills. I figured God would just have to take care of it.

He was transferred late that night and had the same surgery performed again by Dr Freeman. He had a little bit better equipment and was more of a specialist for this type of thing so he was hopeful he could get it out. He said there was a good chance he could get it out but there was also a good chance that he couldn't. If he couldn't, we would talk about the pros and cons of an operation vs leaving it. If he could possible die from leaving it, what in the world could be the possibilities if they operated??? We again went into major prayer mode. My sister came and stayed with me during the procedure. Neither of us can remember how it came up, but she started asking about cobra with Doug's previous job. There was a possibility that we could still sign up for that, pay the premiums and we would have insurance to cover the whole thing! We did some research about it while we waited, but there was no way I would know for sure until Monday when I could call the insurance company.

After about 45min or so, the doctor came back and said they could not get it, they couldn't even see it. He recommended for it to just be left. I told him the other doctor had said people had died from stuff like that in their body. Dr Freeman said he had never heard of anybody dying from something like this. I also told him the other doctor had said it was close to the heart and Dr Freeman said it was about as far away from the heart as it could get. He said it really couldn't move any farther and that it would just lay there and within 3-5 days it would scar over and Doug would never even know it was there. Wow! We went from near death to no big deal in less than 24 hours. We went from having possibly $15k - $20K+ medical bills to probably having to pay less than $2k in less than 24 hours. My God is amazing.

To keep this blog even longer, here are the things I learned over the weekend:

1.) God can take a situation from 0-60 in a blink of any eye. We went from absolute worst case scenario to a no big deal scenario overnight. He sent Doug to the right doctor. He provided for us for all the medical bills (I found out our cobra papers haven't even been mailed yet and by law there can be no gap in coverage. So, I'll receive them next week, fill them out and mail the premium in and they will pay for basically everything!)

2.) Having a church family is vital. Not that I didn't know this before, but when I was sitting out front texting everybody about what was happening I had a total peace come over me. I've never felt that before because I've never been in this desperate of a situation before. I know it was the prayers of believers surrounding me. Such peace knowing that others were worried about and praying for my family.

3.) Last and certainly not least is that my sister ROCKS! Along with that is my mom and Joe, my brother-in-law as well. They completely took care of my kids, so much that I didn't even worry about them at all the whole weekend. I knew they were being cared for and loved where they were at so I could just focus on Doug. My sister also took care of me. Just listening and making sure she was there during the procedure so I wouldn't have to sit through it alone. I am so thankful that God's call on my life included me living next to my family!

Wandering in the Desert

Well, it's been 5 weeks since Doug quit his job. I have to say that I have loved him being home. He got our shed and fence put up. Made a dress-up cabinet for all of Jazzy's dress-up clothes and has been keeping the house clean. I even came out one day and he had washed and waxed the van. It's just been awesome. He's also went fishing and disk golfing with the kids and we're just able to spend a lot of time together as a family. I would love for this to just be our life. Unfortunately, he will have to get a job at some point. He has been looking, earnestly in fact. He had an interview and test with a company last week and we're waiting to hear how the test went and see if he gets a second interview. I know something will come up. I totally trust that God has something for him in His time.

But...

Sometimes I just feel like the Israelites. I started a reading plan to read the bible through in one year. I like to read all the commentary that goes along with the chapters I'm reading, so it's going to end up being more like a two year plan. Anyway, I'm currently in Exodus and the Psalms. I learned so much about how God brought the Israelites out of Eqypt, things I never understood before. So now they're out of Egypt and every time something is not perfect, they wine and complain and question why they ever left Egypt. Sometimes I can totally understand where they're coming from. Every once in a while I get a glimpse of what we left. Doug would be Sergeant making about $70k a year. Jazzy would still be near her best friend and heading to the same school as her in the fall. Austin would still have a friend to hang out with. Live would be good. But then I stop and think that if we would have stayed, we would be in slavery. We would be slaves to money, to comfortableness, to our own selfish desires. Right now I am FREE! Freer than I have ever been. I have often referred to myself as a worrier, but I'm not worried right now! I can sometimes get stressed out if things feel out of my control, but I'm not stressed. All I am at this point is in awe. Just in awe and humbled that God chose Doug and I for this journey. In awe and humbled that He can use us to help further His kingdom. Just in awe and humbled by the awesome God I serve.

We're on this journey. This journey called life. And I am so thankful for the freedom from myself that God is teaching me through it. He can keep us wandering for as long as He needs to, we'll just keep our eyes on Him.

Today is the Day!

Today is the day that we actually do something hard in our journey to Fishers, IN. Up to this point, all of our decisions were relatively easy. We had to finish remodeling our house and get it on the market. We then went through several months of waiting for our house to sell. Once it sold, we had the extremely fun process of finding a home here. We then had to move, which was hard physically, but that's a different kind of hard then what's happening today. I have enjoyed every step of our journey so far. Even moving, though hard, was so much fun! We absolutely love our new house and it was so much fun getting settled.

So, what's happening today? Well, Doug is quitting his job. His perfect, cushy job. His job that pays very well and has awesome benefits. Not only do those things make this step hard but also the fact that he doesn't have any kind of job lined up here. Crazy right? I'm scared to death. But honestly, even though I'm scared, this is my favorite step so far in this journey. God has placed this call on our lives. I look at the other families that have moved here, and I can see the ways that God has worked everything out for them. I just Know that He will do the same for us. I'm excited to take this step and show God that our faith is in Him. It's not in a job, it's not in my husband's ability to provide for us, it's all God. So while I'm scared, because let's face it, we can trust and have faith, but we're still doing something scary, I'm also not worried. I KNOW God will provide, in His time. That's what's going to be the hardest part, having patience. Waiting on God's perfect timing.

I was reading in Genesis 48 today about when Jacob blesses Joseph's sons. Here's what happened:

14 Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. 15 And he blessed Joseph, and said:

“God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
The God who has fed me all my life long to this day,
16 The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil,
Bless the lads;
Let my name be named upon them,
And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;
And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”

17 Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18 And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”

19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.”

This is what the commentary said about these verses:
But in the blessing Israel crossed his hands so that his right hand was on Ephraim’s head and his left on Manasseh’s … even though Manasseh, the firstborn, would normally have been blessed with the right hand. This was Jacob’s decision in spite of Joseph’s direction. Joseph, like so many others, expected God to work in a certain way, but found that He is often pleased to work differently and sometimes even unconventionally. But faith recognizes that God’s ways are not man’s ways.

I am so thankful that God's ways are not man's ways. I am so thankful that God, in His infinite wisdom will make everything come together in His perfect time. My job, to wait.