The Heart of the Matter

As I signed in I saw that this is my 200th entry. This isn't my only blog, so the fact that I've written here 200 times is pretty good. When I think of the subjects I've talked about I think the two top ones would most likely be GOD and my family. That's what I'm writing about "again" tonight.

Yesterday was an UGLY, I mean U-G-L-Y day for me and for my boys. The fact is I let Satan in and let him do what he does best...hurt and destroy. I complained about the boys to 3 people. Two friends and Chad when he got online. Then I opened up my email and there I read exactly what I needed to read. God's message to me. Had I rebuked Satan in the name of our Lord and Savior? Had I kicked him out of my home, out of controlling our lives? No I had not. So after I hung up the phone with Emily I was standing and praying. I went into every room of our home and prayed. I prayed over my children as they slept. I felt weak afterwards. God was and is the Ruler of our home and I will not let that change.

The thing is simple, we have enough grief and hardship with Chad deployed with God's love, tenderness, and allowances to see us through the hard times. I can not allow Satan to take control of this deployment. It's not going to happen. Our house belongs to the Lord, Jesus, and only him. This morning I brought the boys into the living room for a talk. We talked about the ugliness of yesterday, apologies were said from both sides, and we moved on. We made a chore chart on Tuesday and it's went well. Our biggest battle was their bedroom. That's what the ugliness was about yesterday. Today we took on a new way of doing things. After lunch they cleaned the room for 30 minutes. It was a challenge for them, to see just how much they could get done in the amount of time they had allowed. They got almost done! Tonight they went back in and cleaned for 30 minutes. Tomorrow, I think just one 30 minute cleaning period will be needed and they'll be done! Once it's clean they'll have to clean just for a few minutes in the afternoon and evening to keep the upkeep. Today the peace in our home was just simply God given. I am so thankful he sent me that article, opened my eyes, and showed me that I can do this without losing my mind! God is absolutely amazing that way.

Psalm 34:14
Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Praying for Steven Curtis Chapman Family

If you've not heard, Christian Artist, Steven Curtis Chapman's 5 yr old daughter was tragically killed today when his teenage son accidently hit her with his SUV. Let us all pray for this whole family, especially the son who hit her, the guilt must be eating this young man up.

CMT : News : Steven Curtis Chapman's Daughter Killed in SUV Accident

We were in a Car Accident

Hi
tonight on our way home from Edelweiss, it was raining really hard. The car in front of us slammed on her breaks. Chad slammed on ours and veared to the right (where there were no cars), unfortunately he still hit the right back corner of her car, which spun her and led to her getting hit full on her drivers side by another car. No one was hurt, just shook up. Jacob bumped his head, but he's ok. My van is in really bad shape. The tie rod, the strut, the stabilizer bar, the break line, the steering gear shaft, and the drive gear shaft was bent. We got towed and when the KID (he looked like he was 19) was lowering the van off the truck, he managed to rip tire/gear drive off the van completely. The kid actually was laughing. I was sobbing at that point. It's all the front drivers side corner. I took pictures at the scene of the accident of our van and Chad took a picture of the can he hit. The accident happened just past Munich/Munchen.

We rented a car to get home. We're hoping that our insurance will pay to have the van towed back here. We're not sure what's going to happen with the van, and of course Chad leaves in just a couple days.

Please pray that God will show us his plan with all of this mess. Satan is definately fighting to take control of this deployment and we will not let that happen. We've definately had issue's with the van this past year, and Chad thinks maybe it's just time to say goodbye and get a new one. I'm not sure about that, but will do what he thinks is best at this point. I just want a safe and reliable and obviously driveable van for our family. I am thankful we have our little reliable BMW, it's crowded for the kids, but it will get us safely from point a to point b.

I can say with all honesty that I'm still really shook up and in a bit of shock at all of this. We did have a good weekend in Garmish/Edelweiss. Thank you for your prayers over this as well as our impending deployment for Chad.

The Final Countdown

We're marking off the days until Chad leaves. He's heading back to Iraq in just days. This will be our longest deployment yet, 15 months. Those three months may not seem big to those of you who've never been through a deployment, but trust me those 3 months are pretty huge, especially when you have young children and so much can change in 3 months. We're praying that he's home in time for Jackson's 6th birthday, we're pretty sure he won't make it back for Emma's 2nd. There's so many things I was hoping we'd get to do and get done before he left and there's just not time enough now. We've, or I should say Chad has been working on Emma's room the last few days. He got it all painted, pink/mauve and tonight he's going to take the rug that's in there and take it over to recylcing, pull one of the dressers out and put it in the boys room, put together the crib so I can put her in there for naps and not worry about her falling off the couch or having to lay her on a pallett in the floor. I'm in the process of looking for wall decorations right now for her room, a cute rug and we already are getting a nice larger carpet/rug for her to be able to sit on and play with her toys.

I know it's boring, but it's life really. Laundry is constant and I hate laundry. I hate putting it up too, really hate that! :X That's why I have baskets of it just sitting in my room to be put away. I'm not sure what we'll get done before Chad leaves, but before the end of the month I plan on having our room looking good. I'm going to buy a new quilt for our bed, get some high thread count sheets, and make our bedroom into my sanctuary that I'll actually look forward to going into! Now that will be a change! Trust me it's a disaster area.
The boys have been working on their bedroom and it's looking a lot better. Jacob and I had a long talk on Monday about how we want things to go this deployment. They can either go nice or ugly...I can spend my day not yelling and screaming and feeling like I'm losing my mind or I can yell and scream and lose it! We're obviously going for the first! LOL So together we're going to create a chore list for each boy, they're going to help with what chores they will be doing. Some things they will do for the simple fact that they're part of this family and that's what is expected of them, some they'll earn money, and some they'll earn rewards such as a movie night (movie of their choice). I'm also going to surprise the boys with a coin jar. Every day that Chad's gone they'll be putting a nickle in the jar, every Saturday they'll put a quarter in the jar, when Daddy gets home for good we're going to take the money and do something special with it which the boys will help decide on! Maybe we'll let them split the money for our trip we take when we go on block leave. Either way it'll be a very nice sum of money saved. Next week I will go to the bank and buy a month's worth of nickles!

Well, Chad's heading home in a moment so I need to get off of here and spend as much time as I can with him.

God Bless

Pictures

We had family pictures taken last week in preperation for Chad deploying once again. We have one of the BEST photographers, I just love her to pieces. We went to a park downtown, Bug park (pronounced Boog), it was beautiful there. We also went ahead and did Emma's 9 month pictures! :)

Remembering Jordyn

Jordyn and Mommy 2/10/00


Today was the last day of Jordyn's life. I had written so much out, poured my heart out actually and before I could hit save AOL signed me off. God allowed me to get it out, but did not allow me to show it for all the world to see. I'm positively emotionally drained. I just ask that you keep Chad and I in your prayers. I am not sure yet what we're going to do to mark Jordyn's Welcoming into Heaven day, it's a very bittersweet day, to know she fell asleep in my arms and woke up in Jesus'. I wish I could say I gave and give all the glory to Jesus, but I can't. I'm a selfish, sinful mom/woman who aches for her child in her arms. I weap, I've screamed, I've kicked, and wailed. I know where she's safely at though and I rejoice for her. I would NEVER want her to leave Heaven to return here....just wish she wouldn't have went to Heaven quite so soon. I wish she'd have had another 80 yrs, with never having had deal with cancer, but that's not how life is for her or us. I will definately take quite time tomorrow at 5 AM EST., which will be 11 am CET and just think of Jordyn. I ask that each of you, if you're awake at that point to pray for me and Chad and remember Jordyn.

Does Anybody Hear Her

This says it all tonight....


Casting Crowns - Does Anybody Hear Her