soooo lost

Well, my hubby is leaving in an hour to meet the group at the church leaving for Nicaragua. He'll be on a plane at 6am in the morning heading out of the country. I'm so excited for what God is going to do through this team as they are ministering to the people in Nica. But, I also know this year will be a bittersweet time for Rodney. Two years ago we were getting ready to adopt a precious baby girl born there. She was so beautiful. We started the process and soon found out she was very sick, so sick that the US would not allow us to adopt her. We tried all we could to get her here. But, nothing worked. We had even been given the awesome privlege to name her. Her legal name was Renee Grace Williams. When Rodney visits this time he will visit Renee Grace's grave. She would have been 2 years old January 1 of 2007. She had a condition called hydracephalis (i'm sure that's not spelled right). This basically means she had water on her brain, and that half of her brain did not develop correctly. Because the shunts did not work when they didn't surgery to remove the water from her brain, her head just kept swelling and getting larger. From all the pressure building she was slowing dying. I can't even begin to explain the feelings of loss that I experienced. I felt like my own flesh and blood had been ripped to pieces as I had to sit back and be totally helpless through this whole situation. I do praise God that she is completely healed and happy now... but part of me still longs for my little girl.

If you get a chance just say a prayer for Rodney as he visits her grave. I know it's going to be really tough on him. He had actually been able to go to Nicaragua before and had held her and met her personally. I've only known her through pictures and phone calls.

STARBUCKS.. my new best friend

I've reached a milestone in my life. I experienced my very first STARBUCKS today. I have to say, it was quite emotional and spiritual all in one.

I've never had a coffee taste before, but for some reason here lately I've really wanted coffee. So, I gave it a try today. And, I'm IN LOVE!!!

TGIF

IT'S FRIDAY!! Thank goodness! We are heading over to Nana and Papa's today. Joshua is so excited. He loves going over there. He gets to swim in their inground pool, or his little kiddie pool, or the HOT TUB (my favorite). He automatically turns into a fish everytime we go over there. And, it's always so relaxing to be over there with them. I just love them so much and am so lucky to have such great in-laws.

I was reading my devotion this morning and it's so neat how God always gives us exactly what we need, for such a time as this. I read from Romans 8:26, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." I'm definitely in a season of my life that I really don't know how or what to pray for. I'm not sure what to be asking God for other than his will for my life. So, this verse brings great comfort. I know that the Spirit of God understands my circumstances and is asking God for exactly what I need.

I love how Beth Moore pictures this in her Whispers of Hope devotional. She says, "Imagine this poignant scene. The child of God musters her last bit of strength to collapse before the throne of God. Words do not come - just groanings. They are not her groanings, though they emerge from so deep within, she thinks they are hers. The Spirit of God searches her heart, gathers her pain, and lifts it to the Father of all comfort. The Spirit of God, knowing both the depth of her agony and the will of the Father, can bring forth glory from even this. He insists that the Father usher overflowing comfort. He urges the child to let the Father have his way. He prays for things she could not bear to pray - that she lacks the courage to pray. He prays for glory."

SUPER WIFE.... SUPER MOMMY

It's been a crazy, busy week. Rodney is down in his back and can barely walk without hurting, so he's totally out of comission. Which means, SUPER WIFE (tatatadaaaa) and SUPER MOMMY (tatatadaaaa) has had to come out. I am just so thankful that today is Thursday and I don't have to work tomorrow so I can have a looonnnggg weekend to do absolutely nothing. :) I don't know what Rodney is going to do if he isn't feeling better by next week. He is suppose to leave for a 1o day mission trip to Nicaragua next Wednesday. Now, of course I'd love it if he stays home because I hate being without him. :( But... I think this is just one thing satan is using to discourage Rodney and make him doubt whether or not he should go. I know that ultimately the Lord's will, will happen so we can rest assured in that.

Other than that we don't have much going on. Just working and staying caught up on everything else. Joshua is doing great, so that's always wonderful. He's starting to talk more and is saying a lot more words. I'm amazed at how much he's grown just in the past couple of months. He sure does make life fun. He's so cute at night, because he's got his routine down to a science. He takes a bubble bath, puts his lotion on (the boy loves putting lotion on), puts his jammies on, and then we go and dry his hair. He gets so excited when it's time to dry his hair, he just loves it. Then we go back downstairs and he gets like 5 or 6 books and wants to read every one of them before he goes to bed. So, he gets his blankie, climbs into my lap and we read... and read... and read.. But, you know I'm just cherishing every single moment I get with him. I'd sit and read 100 books with him if he wanted because I just want to enjoy this season of life to the fullest with him. There will come a day when he won't want to sit in my lap and read with me, so I'm not going to miss a night of it until then. :)

I think that's the problem with most parents. We rush our kids to grow up or we get frustrated because they want to do something that keeps us from what we wanted to do so we just brush them off, and we miss out on the small, yet most meaningful times with them.

Oh Lord, help us to slow down and spend time with our kids. They are gifts to us, from You. Remind us to cherish them and love them for the small amount of time we have them.

Where will my strength be found......

Proverbs 24:10 (esv)
"If you faint in the day of adversity; your strength is small."

Proverbs 24:10 (msg)
"If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn't much to you in the first place."

I really got to thinking about this verse and you know if we automatically get down and depressed over every pain, every adversity, every bad circumstance that comes our way maybe there isn't much to us. As believers in Christ we have every reason to remain strong in the face of adversity. Our Savior did it for us... so, what's our problem? It seems as soon as something bad happens we immediately go into a"woe is me...everything bad happens to me" syndrome. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of this. I want to be able to stand in the face of my adversity and say, "this might be a horrible situation I'm in, but I refuse to give in to it and let it ruin me or bring me down." Let's learn how to tap into the might power of Christ strength so that we can stand strong when life starts throwing waves.

Burger King/McDonalds

Here's some pictures of Joshua playing at the Burger King play area. We stopped at alot of these so he could run around and play a little bit as we were traveling to TN for vacation. :) Needless to say, I don't want to see another Burger King/McDonalds for a LOOONNNGGG TIME!! :) At least he had fun though.

Vacation

We are back from vacation. We went to Gatlinburg, TN and had a really great time. I had found a really nice resort to stay at that had an awesome pool area. It had a regular pool, a lazy river, and the winner for me was the 1foot kiddie pool. Joshua had a BLAST in that thing (it's the one to the far right in the picture with the yellow thingy). I'll add more pictures later when I get them downloaded on the comptuer. It was just so nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of life.

The only crazy, scary thing that happened was that the tire blew on the car on the way up there. We were only 5 exits away from our hotel and BOOM, the stinkin tire blew. Oh my word, it scared me half to death. We were in the fast lane when it happened, so we had to manuver ourselves over 3 lanes of traffic to get to the side of the road. I have to say Rodney did a great job getting us off the road, and getting the tire changed.

Other than that, we had a blast and got lots of rest, which we totally needed. I will say, it's great to be home though!! :)

Whatever may come....

My Life Is In His Hands!! I know God will take care of me.

Blah Blog Week

Have you ever had a week where you just feel BLAH... I mean just so blah that you don't even feel like you've got brain function going on. That's how I've been all week! I feel like I've just kind of floated through this week, and now here I am still blah and ready for the weekend. I think I just need some really good rest, which I plan on getting lots of tomorrow. Tomorrow is my day off and I'm going to stay home and float around in the pool ALL DAY LONG and think of nothing but how awesome the sunshine feels. :) YEA! I feel a little bit better just thinking about it.

Have a great weekend everybody! I'll probably blog again Monday. I'm resting and enjoying time at home with my family this weekend!

Godly Confidence

I love it when I read my bible and find where God says, "I AM." It's so encouraging to know I have a God that is so confident in who he is, that he can say, "I am the Lord, who heals, I am the Lord your God, I am the Lord." WOW! In a world where people seem to be so self-conscious and unsure about themselves. We can rest assured we serve a God, the only true God, that knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is God and He is the one who can save us.

We need to ask God for that kind of confidence. We can have that same kind of confidence in knowing that no matter what, I AM a child of God! and nothing or no one could ever take that from me. Who cares what I look like, what I wear, what I drive, where I live... none of that matters. The thing that will truly last is knowing that God is my God and he is in charge of my life. I live for him and no one else.

my momma is da momma

I just had to share this with everybody!!!! It's so darn cute.

We were going over to my in-laws yesterday and Joshua started saying, "My momma is da momma." At first, me and Rodney weren't sure we heard him right so we asked him to say it again. And, louder this time he said, "my momma is da momma." Rodney started picking on him saying, "no, i'm da momma." And, Joshua would just get louder and more determined to let Rodney know that, "joshua's momma is da momma."

Way to go Joshua... let daddy know who da mamma is.. :) I couldn't be prouder. (haha)

Is it Monday yet?

I'm actually ready for Monday. I think I'll probably get more rest at work tomorrow than I have at home this weekend. My sister-in-law, me, and my hubby did a HUGE yard sale for my mother-in-law this weekend and Oh my stinkin gosh, there was sooooo much stuff!!! But, I must say we did sooooo good! We got rid of most everything and made some pretty good money!! Praise the LORD!! :) The yard sale itself wasn't so bad. I think it was coming off a week of vacation bible school at church, working at work everyday, and then doing all the prep work for the yard sale that killed me. We decided that after bible school thursday night, we would go ahead and go over to my in-law's house and just stay there for the weekend since we needed to sort and get things ready for the yard sale. Well, Joshua (our 2 year old) didn't sleep well thursday night so that kept all of us up half the night and then we only got about 4 hours of sleep friday night because we had to get back up at 5am to start putting everything in the driveway. We sold stuff until 2pm and then what we didn't sale we hauled off to the dump or good will.

I was so tired that when we got home last night I crashed in the bed and Rodney asked me this morning if I heard the thunderstorm we had last night and I had no clue what he was talking about. And, usually I hear stuff like that. He said the rain was so heavy that it sounded like hail, and that the thunder was very loud and the lightening was very bright. He said it was crazy. Then, when I woke up this morning I still had that "cleaning" zap about me so I started sorting and organizing stuff in my house and did that all day until about 5pm and then I went to church.

So, needless to say tomorrow being at work will probably be much more relaxing than staying home. ;)

All that said, it really was worth all the work getting that done for my in-laws. I know they appreciated it and they do so much for us, so I was happy to be able to do something like this for them so they didn't have to. I do have to say that I'm a very lucky girl having the great in-laws that I do! :)

OH MY STINKIN GOSH!! This is SOOO FUNNY!

God Has Not Forgotten You

Luke 18: 1-8
The Parable of the Persistent Widow

Jesus is telling a story here about a widow who consistently, and persistently asked a judge for justice against an adversary of hers. In these verses it shows that for some time the judge would refuse to give her justice, but she kept coming back and asking. Eventually, the judge gave the widow what she wanted because he didn't want her to keep coming back and wearing him out.

Jesus is trying to make the point that if this unjust judge will grant justice to the widow how much more with HE, our Savior bring about justice for us. We need to be just as persistent and consistent in our prayer lives as this widow was in seeking her justice. Scripture tells us"that we should pray and not give up." God hears us even when we don't feel like he does. He's there, working in our lives and giving us exactly what we need at the exact time we need it. It may not always make sense to us, but our God is a God of perfect timing. So, no matter what we are going through we need to remember God has not forgotten us. He will see that His people have what they need.

I don't know about you, but I totally needed to hear this today. I've never really paid attention to this parable before, but I'll tell you it spoke volumes to my heart right when I needed it most. I guess this is just one of those days where Satan is trying his best to bring me down and I've got to stand against him and hold on to the FACT that my God is with me and He won't let me down! Life doesn't always make sense and it just down right hurts sometimes, BUT I refuse to allow my circumstances to bring me down. I refuse to allow satan to gain ground in my life, telling me I'm not good enough or that I'll never amount to anything. Because, the God I serve tells me everyday how special I am and that I'm everything He wants me to be.

Our Song

First of all, my son is the most awesome, wonderful, cute little boy there ever was!!!! He's just so dang sweet!!!!

Ever since Joshua was born I've sung the song "You Are My Sunshine" to him. Well, I was singing it to him this morning on the way to school and he started singing with me. It was sooooo precious! I stopped singing and asked him to sing it for me. His version went a little bit like this:

"You my sunshoooowww, You my sunshooowww, nanalaalananalala, You my sunhoooowww"

Needless to say, I just melted and fell more in love with his precious little self. God blessed me and Rodney beyond our greatest anticipations when he gave us Joshua. He is our joy!! It's so neat watching him grow and just becoming the person God has created him to be. My biggest prayer for him is that he will know God and love him with his whole heart. Speaking of prayer, I found the neatest thing and for all you mommies I will email it to you if you want. It's a calendar with scripture on it for each day that you can pray for your child. Like if it's June 1 you would pray the scripture on day one for your child. I've started doing this and using these scriptures to pray for Joshua.

Praying for our children is the most important thing we can do for them. I remember when we had the child dedication service at our church back when Joshua was just born and just telling God that I wanted him to use Joshua for whatever he had planned for him. We prayed 1 Samuel 1:27-28 over him which says, "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord."

I truly believe God has a huge, awesome plan for Joshua's life!! I can't wait to see how God uses him.

My Savior... My God

I put this video reel on the side of my blog because I really love the message of this song by Aaron Shust. You can see Aaron performing My Savior, My God in the 1st video. In the last video he sings another song on his CD, which is just as awesome! He's such a great worship singer.

The message of My Savior, My God speaks to me everytime I hear it. No matter what, I can always know that my God is with me. When no one else is on my side and when no one else is there for me I can rest assured that my God will never leave me. He's always there!

It is soooooo totally a Monday... but that's ok

It's MONDAY!! Don't everyone scream at once, now. ;o)

It's going to be a crazy busy week. We have Vacation Bible School at church this week. So, my schedule will consist of getting to work, getting off at 5, picking up Joshua and going straight to church for dinner and VBS. Then, getting home at 9pm, doing a load of laundry, putting Josh to bed and starting all over again. But, you know as I write this out and think about how crazy it's going to be, I am more overwhelmed by the fact that God is going to work in these children's lives this week and I get to be a part of it. Of course, I'll be exhausted at the end of the week. But, my spirit will be so excited and energized. A little girl closed in prayer last night at VBS and she was soooooo cute! She simply thanked God for all the things he has made and the things he gives to her. It's nice to be taken back to the simplicity of our salvation.

Pray for us as we minister to these precious children this week. But, most of all pray that God will move and pour his unfailing love out to each child present.

Good Morning.... I think

OK, I've come to the conclusion that I just must be nuts. I knew I had to get up and get me and Joshua dressed this morning because Rodney had to be at church early. So, what do I do but get up at 7 stickin 30 and have to leave the house by 8:00 to be at work on time. Oh my word! It was crazy. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And, to top it all off, Joshua decided he didn't want to get dressed this morning. So, I had to chase him around trying to dress him between sprints. Wow! And, trust me it just gets better. I have a dentist appointment this morning at 10!!! YIKES! Talk about a bad... stressful.... crazy.... morning!

I'm on this stupid diet thing right now too. Trying to lose a few clumpy pounds. (FUN, FUN) But, today I don't care. As soon as I leave the dentist I'm going to go get the biggest milkshake I can find.

Ok, I feel a little better now that I've been able to share all of that. Whew... I need to just take a breath.

God Tube

OK, I love God Tube!! It's got lots of neat videos and even some cool messages. Here is a link to a song that I think has a huge message. Check it out and let me know what you think.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=5a2e075a1a4a6e1b9770&page=1&viewtype=&category=tr