Blessings In A Difficult Season

color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;"> Happy Thanksgiving! Its a bit late, but it is still a good thing to think about. I have been reminded over and over again about all the blessings in my life. You see, in all honesty, things are tight. Moving across the country doesn't come easily. It is probably in the top ten on my 'hardest things I've ever done' list. With that said, it is probably the very first item on my 'Best choices I've ever made' list ( I don't actually have lists like that. They just fit well with what I was writing. But maybe I should make lists like these...)

Where was I? Oh yes.

This journey has had its challenges. A few of them have been being away from our loved ones, financial stress (everything really is more expensive in California!), figuring out things like health insurance and preschool, and also time management. As the icing on the cake, all of these have caused quite a bit of strain in our marriage and our motivation.

But, here's the best part: I see God in all of these (not always in the moment of stress, but when I reflect on the moment later, He is ALWAYS there). These struggles have, first and foremost, pushed us to a point in our marriage where we HAD to seek help. And God had someone lined up who is meeting with us weekly and guiding us with a biblical outlook on what a Godly marriage should look like.

You see, in every difficult situation, God is there saying, "Trust me. I am here for You. I love you." He has brought us here, and He isn't about to forsake us now. I haven't had to go grocery shopping in a while because of the food pantry that our church puts on. We don't have a Christmas tree or lights this year, but someone had an extra tree that they are letting us borrow. People from the church helped to furnish our entire home, including a crib and a bed for us. Aurelia is in preschool and loving it (and it doesn't cost anything for us).

God is with us. And we have had to rely on Him to be there for us, because we can't do it on our own. This is a hard season of life right now, but God never called us to an easy life. God is working in and through the church we go to. I get to see not only the congregation grow but also the leaders. We are being shaped into what He wants us to be, and it is something worth fighting for.

My blessings don't look like success to the world. And I think I am thankful for that. Yes, sometimes I forget about what we have, and think I want something different, but then I truly take a moment to look around at what is surrounding me - a God who is Love, friends that help me and love me for who I am, a husband who hasn't given up on our marriage (even when I have quit trying), beautiful, happy children - and I know that I have all that we need. Because God is taking care of us.

That's where my help comes from. That's where my peace comes from. That's where my joy comes from. I want to always turn my eyes to the one who created me.

This Christmas, I am thankful for all the ways that God is working in my life, and I am remembering who He is.

May Peace be with you all!

Let's Love Like Jesus

As humans, I think that it is a very difficult thing to love like Jesus loved. Jesus loves selflessly, and humans are naturally selfish. Jesus loves to serve people, and humans are naturally greedy. Jesus loves unconditionally and humans are conditional. We were born with the natural ability to love ourselves first. That's why grace and mercy are so important. God has so much of both of these. Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God. Mercy is compassion and forgiveness shown to someone whom it is in ones power to harm or punish. Both of these definitions make me stop and really try to fathom the beautiful God we serve. Mercy, however, is something that I just can't wrap my mind around.

God has mercy for us. He knows what selfish, greedy people we are, and yet he has compassion for us. He forgives us. Why? Because He is a loving God. And because of His grace and His mercy, we are able to love others in the same ways that He loves us. We love because God loves us. We extend mercy because we have been given mercy (that none of us deserve).

So why does the Christian world have such a hard time loving certain people? For instance, the LGBT community. Whether we consider ourselves a part of it or not, the Christian faith has had a bad name with the LGBT community. They tend to be cold and hateful toward Christians because many Christians have been cold and hateful toward them. As Caleb Kaltenbach explains in his book, Messy Grace, Christians and the LGBT community have a lot in common. They just dont realize it because they are too busy hating each
other.

Kaltenbach's book is a book written for Christians and the LGBT community alike. It is a call to love others like Jesus loves us. As a pastor with gay parents, Kaltenbach has had experience in both worlds, and this book talks of how he has learned to love without sacrificing his convictions. It is truly a book that should be read by all people, especially Christians. Its time for us to get in the Word, see what the Bible really says, and stop hating people because they make you uncomfortable. Let's love like Jesus loves.

I received this book free from bloggingforbooks.com.

To learn more about this book or the author (which I highly recommend you do), click here.

All in God's Time

As much as I try to make this entry sound sophisticated and well written, I just can't contain my excitement enough to do so. You see, today, Josh has secured us a place of our own. After three and a half months, after sleeping in our van, in hotels, and on the floor of other peoples' homes, we finally will have a place to call ours. 

Don't get me wrong -- the adventure that we have been on has been an amazing one! God called us to go, and we obeyed. Because of that, we got to experience some things that we never would have been able to experience. I learned a lot about myself, and became closer with my family. And, because we decided to be obedient, we were led to this wonderful church family who has taken us in and loved us like one of their own.

I will admit, it was a stressful time looking for an apartment. It was difficult because most of the places want proof of at least a years worth of income, and we obviously don't have that. There was also the fact that Fairfield is much larger than Mt. Pleasant, making the application process more of a competition of sorts. 

And of course, our budget for rent limits us on where we can live... California living is much more expensive than Michigan living! Because of this, we have been doing a lot of prayer, asking God to lead us to the best place for us. We know that wherever we end up, we will be right where God wants us, and He will keep us safe. We will definitely not be in the rich areas of the city, but we won't be living in the ghetto, either. I know that God is pushing me out of my comfort zone daily, and this will be a way of pushing us to love the people around us (and probably learn Spanish as well... most of our neighbors are Spanish speaking, I believe) no matter what, and to be a light n the darkness. 

All this to say that we are SUPER excited to start this next chapter of our lives -- it will be challenging yet rewarding, because we know that we are following God to the best of our ability, and God will shine. His people will hear of Him, and that is something to be excited about :D

This is My Body

Health is all the rage right now, with our society getting more and more unhealthy. I see it all over my news  font-family: 'Brandon Text', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">feed: Invitations to become an independent product salesperson for all types of health lines that are popping up all across the nation. I find myself getting annoyed by the constant barrage of invitations, but I will admit that I do enjoy a good success story. I find it motivating and helpful in my own journey toward becoming as healthy as I can be.

Ragan Sutterfield's story is one of those inspiring stories. He was unhealthy and uncomfortable in his own body, so he decided to do something about it. He started eating right and exercising, and found his niche in running. He has run crazy long races -- 50K's! -- and also competed in the infamous Iron Man competition. In his book, he talks about how he started the journey to health, and also talks about the training process for the Iron Man. Throughout the book, he talks of the why of why we should be getting fit... His reasoning is to be the best we can be for Christ.

I will admit, he has put much thought into this idea. He goes into detail on things that I have never truly thought about, and really had me pondering my reasons on why I want to get healthy. It was a pretty good read, and I think that deep thinkers would really enjoy sinking their teeth into the ideas that Sutterfield puts forth.

I received this book for free from bloggingforbooks.com

You can learn more about the author and where to buy his book here

The Ups and Downs of Social Media

Whether we like it or not, social media is part of this new generation and society we live in. It exploded into being with websites like Classmates.com and sixdegrees.com, but got really popular with sites like Linkedn, Friendster, Myspace, and of course, Facebook. The goal with these sites was always the same: Get connected with people. That's what its always been about, whether its about reconnecting with people you once knew, or meeting entirely new people. 

These days (with Facebook being the queen of all social media), while the goal is still to be 'connected', it seems to do just the opposite. We see people on their phones, tablets, or computers just about anywhere: waiting in the doctor's office, in line at the grocery store, in church... everywhere. It can be so easy to get pulled into the online community where many people post all the good things about their lives (leading us to start hating our life or wishing it was more like what we see). We can spend all of our time on social media and miss the everyday things happening around us. Or, we can spend all of our time trying to take the 'perfect' picture to post to social media that we are completely missing the moment to cherish forever. 

I've definitely done my fair share of  'Facebook Bashing', mainly because I feel convicted about the time I spend on the site. These days, however, while I still need to make sure to live in the moment and not spend all of my extra time on it, I have come to be thankful for Facebook, and use it for the true reason it was created: to stay connected.

Living 2400 miles away from our family and friends has proven to be no easy task, and it has only been about two weeks since we have officially moved. Facebook helps us to be a part of their everyday lives and for them to be a part of ours. I love that! 

I also love the accountability Facebook can give me. I don't put up post-run photos of my nasty sweaty self because I think it looks nice, or because I want people to feel bad about themselves: I post them because by posting them, it holds me accountable. When I don't post them, my runner friends can go, "um, where is your nasty sweaty running shot? Go get your run in!" Or they can motivate me if I had a particularly rough workout. If anything, I am going to be able to look back at all of my nasty sweaty pictures of myself and know that I am making a change for the better in my life. 

I guess I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I will keep posting photos of my family, though, and not feel like I am OVER posting.. Because after all, if you are my friend on Facebook, I am assuming you are interested in what is going on with my life :) 

**I apologize if this is scattered and not well put together... I am trying to write it while feeding children and answering the daily 100,000 questions that my four year old asks :)

The last week, and The Edge Community Church

This week has been pretty good. (I say week, but I don't even really have a concept of when our week starts or ends, or even what day it is...!) Since I last posted, we have been quite a few places. We have pretty much been all over CA... south, north, and central. From LA, we went down to visit Josh's
cousin, Ian, and his girlfriend Callie in San Diego.

We really enjoyed San Diego, and really would love to call that home. We were also able to spend the afternoon and evening with the Johnston​ family, who made us dinner, and spoiled me with some delicious iced coffee :D Josh heard from a church in Fairfield, CA while we were in San Diego, and the pastor was interested in meeting with him. So, we left San Diego, stopped back at the Sanford's home just to sleep, and then left early in the morning to make the six hour trip up to Fairfield.

We met with the pastor and his wife, and they generously put us up in a hotel for the night. Basically, the church is a newer church of about 120-150 people that is in need of a worship team/leader. After meeting with the pastor and also sitting in on a worship practice, Josh and I saw the need but also didn't feel like it would be a good fit for our family long term. After praying about it, we felt like Josh has a lot that he could offer the church, and decided to offer to stay for a trial period, or a time that we could help build the worship team/program up (because we have three weeks before we need to be back in MI..) From there, if progress was being made, we could come back in September.
We decided that if the pastor liked the idea (and could find us housing for three weeks) and wanted to do it, then God was moving this forward. If the pastor didn't, we would move on and that would be the end of it. Well, the pastor liked the idea, and found us housing for three weeks. and this is where we will be until we leave to come back to MI in August. It is an interesting set up. but I am excited to see what God will do with us here. I know that Josh has a lot of knowledge and experience to help grow their program, and is great at leading and teaching music, so he will be used in some awesome ways.

We also ended up going to Redding for a couple of nights, and camped at a place called Whiskeytown Lake. We got to hang out with Derek Collard and do laundry in a super retro laundromat. Oh, and we did get to meet some people from Derek's church, The Stirring... they were pretty awesome and pretty hipster :)

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us throughout this trip... A few specific prayer requests: Josh's throat/vocal chords have been rough  for a few weeks, from when he caught a cold. They are still trying to heal, so I ask for prayer for healing on his vocal chords, so that God can use him effectively. Also, prayer for our kids: they have been doing a really great job and seem to love our adventures (Aurelia was telling a lady about them at the laundromat!) but I know that it is a lot to not have a schedule. Please pray that they continue to do well, and continue to get rest.
Tomorrow we meet the congregation of the church (It is called The Edge Community Church). Prayers for that too! Thank you so much again, and know that all of you are in my prayers everyday :)

Week One -- The Thumb of Michigan

I would be lying if I said that the start to this grand adventure that God is taking us on started out smoothly. Our plans were to leave on a Thursday afternoon, and by God’s grace we did, but not without our fair share of obstacles to overcome that morning. First of all, we thought we were a lot closer to getting rid of/sorting out all of our stuff, but the stuff just never seemed to end! We spent the morning packing the van (which is stressful in itself to try to fit your life and the life of your family into a minivan!) and organizing/getting rid of the rest of our stuff. I guess it was just a high stress time, and to top it off, Aurelia gave us a pretty good scare when she lost control of the little four wheeler that she was riding on, started to go down a pretty good sized hill, and rode straight into a tree. Thankfully, and with God’s hand on her, she didn’t hit her head hard enough to have a concussion -- just a fairly large goose egg and some bruising and scratches.

That was our morning -- the morning of the day that we had been waiting for; the day of our grand adventure. That is not at all how I had pictured it in my head. I thought I was going to be very excited to get in the car for the first time as we took off for our first destination, with the kids singing and happy and Josh and I excited and on the same page. In reality, by the time we got into the car, it was the last place I wanted to be. The kids were tired and fussy, I was irritable, and Josh and I were at odds from all the stress and craziness leading up to that moment.

Whew. Now, I don’t want you to think that I am just going to whine about all the negative things that happen on this trip. My goal is to tell you the positive things that God shows us, and the ways that we get to see God moving. I just had to tell you this so that you know that even though we have, by faith, given up everything to go where God is calling us to go, there are still hardships. But I believe that God uses these hardships to bring us even closer to Him and to rely on Him more still. This is still hard for me – I try to fix things all on my own instead of looking to Christ to be my rock and my foundation. When we look to Christ in not just the big decisions, but even the little decisions we face on a daily basis, our relationship with Christ will grow.

Okay, so we finally made it to the Beutlers’ home, and we were so thankful that we did! We have been able to bless them by doing some odd cleaning jobs around their home that they haven’t been able to do because of time restraints or other things. (To learn more about the Beutlers and how they live out their faith daily, you can tune in to my newest blog, Everyday God, coming soon!) We have been able to wash windows, clean out their pool and get it ready for the summer, and mow their lawn.

The lawn mower was especially fun to use, and it was the first time either Josh or I had used a zero turn mower. And Aurelia really enjoyed helping clean off the blinds (although it seemed like we ended up getting sprayed more than the blinds did…)

Beyond cleaning and helping out our friends here, it has been really great to just talk and catch up. We’ve been able to hang out with our friend/sister Jody as well (if you watch the video Aurelia talks about our trip, it is the same Jody that she refers to two times!)

We were also able to go to the youth group of a church near Caro and play some live music and just hang out with the teens. God is always working, and we are able to see Him in the everyday things by putting aside our schedule and helping others. We are planning on being her until Thursday, and then we will be headed to the Chicago area. Thank you for your payers and support. God is good!