God is Faithful

"To the faithful You show Yourself faithful..." 2 Sam. 22:26a

I read this scripture this morning as I finished up 2 Samuel and it rested heavily on me. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we have strived to trust in the Lord and glorify Him this past year no matter what trial we encountered and HE has rewarded us greatly. Truly, there are no words that can express our gratitude and awe of what God has done over the past few weeks.

Earlier this year, my mom's side of the family began planning a family reunion in Florida. We prayed that if it was the Lord's will, He would provide a way for us to go. It did not come and we saw the Lord's wisdom in that as the date for the reunion came closer. We lost our home in a fire just one week before the reunion happened. Had we attempted to go at that time, we would have had to cancel all of our plans and lost who knows how much money.

Less than 6 months later, we received an incredibly generous and anonymous offer to send our family to Disney World for vacation. I have prayed for years for this impossible dream to become a reality. With our family and financial situation, it was a dream that I had written off completely. God loves to prove me wrong and He does it often. I'm so thankful for that! We planned our trip quickly, because Judah has been so stable and is doing so well. God provided a dear friend and my mother to watch him, so that we could be fully present for our 7 oldest. We were able to watch our children experience flying for the first time! I will never forget the laughter and excitement as we took off. We found an amazing house to rent near Disney for $99/night! It was such a blessing. It had a heated pool for the kids, plenty of room and access to a great resort pool and a park down the street.

One morning, the kids were swimming and I was reading my Bible. We recited Psalm 91 together and not 5 minutes later, a skywriter began writing messages. They were so clearly from the Lord, that it still gives me God goosebumps thinking about it. All in all, he wrote three messages -

"U + GOD = 😄"

"JESUS LOVES U"

"JESUS GIVES"

We serve an amazing God that will show off in ways you never imagined if only you will seek and obey Him.

The kids loved Disney! We attended the Christmas party and were able to ride more rides because of being able to stay in the park late at night. They were tuckered out when we left around 11pm.

The kids begged to go to LEGOLAND while we were there as well, so we planned a day for that. While researching tickets, I found a homeschool discount that saved us a total of $850! Instead of paying $99/ticket, we paid $15! WOW! Thank You Jesus! Not only that, but when we went, there was barely anyone there. The kids rode rides over and over again because there were no lines.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing family that I hadn't seen in years and being able to meet their children and watch as the "new" cousins hit it off instantly. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the family that came to see us. We love you all so much.

After LEGOLAND, we made the 90 mile drive to Clearwater Beach to fulfill another dream. I needed to see the ocean and Maggie was begging to see Winter and Hope from Dolphin Tale. We were not disappointed. I got to show my babies the ocean and the beach and we collected SO many seashells and even found a crab. So much joy and memories were made that I had kids weeping because we had to leave Florida. You know that it's been a good vacation when that happens.

Not only are we grateful for the financial blessings for this trip, but God also provided me with the peace, patience and joy needed to make this trip the best ever for our children. I struggle greatly with social anxiety and it had snowballed to totally consuming the couple weeks leading up to the trip. I prayed daily for God to relieve me of this and after praying with my face on the floor one afternoon, He gave me wisdom. Since the fire, I had not taken a very important supplement that regulates my thyroid. I believe He reminded me of that and within 30 minutes of taking it, I was 90% better, glory to God. I was able to take 7 kids through busy, busy airports and to Disney World at night without having a panic attack - although that did come at the end of the trip, which led to a memorable landing in Dallas and medical pre-boarding for the rest of my life. ;)

To update everyone on Judah, God gave me wisdom a couple weeks before we left regarding his feeding issues. I was able to find bottles made for babies with cleft palates, who can't create suction, and they have worked perfectly for Judah. Although he doesn't have a cleft palate, he could not create enough suction despite being very hungry. He is consistently taking 6oz at every feeding now. Praise God! He is more alert, cooing often and even smiled for his Mimi multiple times while we were gone. God is so good.

We are praying that all of our family and friends have a blessed holiday season and that God will be continually glorified in your lives as you seek Him first. Merry Christmas from the Pedigos!

And to our generous friend that allowed God to use you in such a big way, thank you for making our seemingly impossible dreams come true!

"From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised."

Psalm 113:3