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

Happy Birthday, Chad

Today (the 29th here in Germany already) is my husband's birthday.
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The kids and I have yet to go and get his gift so we're doing that once the PX opens tomorrow, I know, I know BAD WIFE! I will do better next year, because I'll have to mail it to him and so I'll have to be thinking ahead. I did get him a card already! Tomorrow I'm having the kids make him homemade cards. They'll mean so much more to him than anything we could buy!

I'm not 100% what we're doing for dinner yet...we're either going out to eat at his choice or I'm making his favorite: lasagna, homemade bread, and a salad. I will be making him no matter what a Cherry Cheesecake for his Birthday cake! :) It's his favorite so I know he'll love it!

I'm so blessed by this man and thankful for him! He's a wonderful husband, who had his flaws, but over all does everything in his power to make me happy. Poor guy has to work really hard sometimes at that one! :) He's an amazing father! If God allowed us to pick the father of our children and all the qualities we wanted in that father BEFORE hand, I mean long before hand...I'd have chosen Chad! He's truly one of the very best, dedicated Dad's out there. Our children are truly blessed to have him as their Daddy! They all love and adore him. Jordyn would run to the door to greet him everyday he came home when she was alive and the boys always light up and normally run to him when he arrives home and Emma if I'm holding her often tries to jump out of my arms to him or just gets really excited and snorts her cute little snort that she does, with her eyes just shining at him!

Chad's a man of substance. He loves the Lord and does all he can to serve him the way he feels led to. He's an example to our children in the way he's serving GOD, how he's a husband, and how to be a father. He's also a HERO. I do NOT believe every man or woman in the military is a hero, I think that term if thrown out there too much, but Chad is a hero. There are things he's done in his career, in deployments, etc and I'm proud of him for his courage, his wisdom, and his discernment. I'm truly blessed!

AWANA

Well another year has officially ended. By the time it ends I'm always ready, I have to say though that this year has been the best so far. I love the kids, it's truly amazing to see them growing in the Lord! What an awesome experience it is to see them memorizing God's word and keeping ahold of it! I wish I'd had this as a child, yet I love that my own are getting this opportunity and it's helping shape who they are. They LOVE Jesus and there's nothing more important than that!

Today was just a really long day. Last night the downstairs neighbor boy spent the night, they were up bright and early...thankfully Chad was up with them! :) Then it was time to head to church, once home Chad grilled while I finished up Awana things, then we walked down to the skating rink where we had the end of the year Awards ceremony/party. It was a busy night. I had more things to finish up once I was there, then we handed out the awards to all the kids, then because items weren't here on time we also had the final store night...that was somewhat controlled craziness. It was REALLY hot in the skating rink so I was sweating bullets. I'd like to say I'm one of those girls who doesn't sweat, but I do! Not everything went completely smooth, but it wasn't bad, just not perfect. Maybe next year! LOL The kids were able to enjoy skating, pizza, cake, drinks, etc. Emma was held by everyone but me it felt like, but it was nice to know she was being loved and cared for and I was able to do what I needed to do. I think the kids had a great time, and then we helped clean up a bit, and it was time to head home.

I will implement some changes next year to a few things in a few area's, but otherwise all is good. I have 2 options for secretary next year and both would be awesome. I am looking forward to having Sunday evenings free for a while though. It's always a well needed/deserved break by the time it ends. I look forward to Sunday evening BBQ's, letting the kids play outside, and just being able to come home from church and maybe taking a nap if I want! Oh now that sounds awesome!!! LOL

Let me tell you that if you have children ages 3 and up look and see if there's an AWANA in your area. Go to www.awana.org and there's a link at the top of the page about finding a club in your area, find one and get plugged in! Your kids will love it and you will too! You don't HAVE to volunteer, but it's so worth while.

I'm off to bed.

God Bless

God's Blessings, Satan's lies

Do you trust God completely? Before you jump up and say you do, think about that long and hard. I know I want to, and I strive to, but I know there are things that I have yet to trust him with. The thing is, it's rediculous. If there's anyone we should be trusting with everything, it's GOD. Yet we're selfish, controlling, foolish people, and so prideful. I know I may sound like I'm preaching but I just feel such desire to share this and truly believe it's from God and it's just something my heart aches over for so many.

Children. In our society today they are seen as a burden. They are. People will roll their eyes when talking about them, talk about how they can't wait for them to grow up, etc, etc, etc. Yet if you're a Christian God tells us that children are a blessing. He is blessing us with children. They are NOT a burden. So why are they seen as such? Why is it that God gives us these GIFTS and once a person's had one or two, or at the most 3 they say "ok NO more, that's all I can handle". Really? I don't get it. God tell us that they are a blessing, they are from him, our gifts, but we are telling him "no, sorry, I don't want it". Why because you don't think God is big enough to give you the ability to handle them? Or what seems to be the very popular "we can't afford them" or "I want to be able to give them a comfortable life, send them to college, have money so we can be comfortable, etc. etc. etc"....it all comes down to though one thing....trusting GOD. Do you trust him or not? Do you believe that God would give you a child to harm you? Do they/you not think he wouldn't show you a way to provide readily for that child and the others you may have successfully.

I want to know at what point in our society did children turn from a blessing into a burden? Why are Christians not trusting him in this part of their life? Why are they listening to Satan's lies? God doesn't say that following him will be easy. It's not and so often I have fallen flat on my face and failed God, but he helps me right back up and tells me to try again. He whispers it gently in my heart. God wants us to delight in his ways, in his blessings. It's not the "in thing" to do, but how often is following God the "cool thing to do"? Rarely.

We only have one shot at this life and if we don't take it and do the right thing. It's not easy, it's allowing GOD to call the shots, no matter how scary they appear to be!

I'm working hard on trusting GOD with everything. I have to, without that trust there's just so much I'm missing out of my relationship with Christ.