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Showing posts from 2017

Judah is 2!!

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I've been trying to come up with adequate words to describe how I feel about Judah turning 2. I don't think it's possible, so I will share the thoughts that have been running through my head. Judah's birth mom was encouraged to abort him. He wasn't expected to make it through birth. He came to live with us at 6 weeks old after circumstances that no one could deny God's hand on. The first 9 months of his life were filled with anxiety, little sleep and lots of funeral planning. We almost lost him more times than I can count. When he was 9 months old, by the grace of God, a water pipe melted and prevented our house fire from spreading to his room. The room next to his was 400 degrees and full of smoke. He had no smoke inhalation or any issues afterwards at all. After that trial, I begged God for a break and to keep Judah healthy for awhile. For more than a year now, we have only had one close call, where I thought it might be the end. God is so good to have gi

The Lord's Faithfulness is Boundless

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As we approached the one year anniversary of losing our home this month, I read this in Lamentations. I am reading through the Old Testament, book by book, for the first time. I have read many books in it before, but never in it's entirety. It has been incredible to hear the Lord so clearly. The following scriptures grabbed my heart and expressed exactly how I felt one year ago. Praise God for His faithfulness! "The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!' " Lamentations 3:19-24 In His infinite wisdom, all the struggles and delays brought us to the point of laying the foundation for ou

Saying goodbye to Kingfisher.

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It's been 1 week since we've moved. I've been avoiding saying goodbye to Kingfisher, because I honestly thought it would never happen. I didn't want to process the reality of what was happening. 7 years ago, Seth mentioned that he had driven through Kingfisher and thought it would be a great place to live. Having never lived outside of OKC at the time, I told him that I was never moving to Kingfisher. 2 years later, we moved in. After the fire, God provided through our com munity in ways that we never would have imagined. For a month straight, we had people dropping donations off everyday. I told my best friend that I was never leaving Kingfisher. Even just to think about it would bring tears to my eyes. I remember asking her if she thought God was going to ask us to leave. God doesn't allow me to become too attached to anything, He wants me to remember that everything on this earth is temporary. Even though we lived here for only 5 years, we are from Ki

Deep Waters

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I'm reading through the Old Testament right now and I'm in Isaiah. I read it a few years back, but read a scripture yesterday that gave me goosebumps and gratitude once again for God's sovereignty. A few weeks before the fire last year, I colored a scripture page to hang above Judah's head. It read, "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you..." Isaiah 43:2. I chose this one as a reminder for myself, that when I thought about losing Judah, God would be with me through the deep waters of that trial. So every time I went to get him out of his crib, I would be reminded of this promise. I never thought to look up the scripture in my Bible. I just assumed that was all there was to it. I didn't know how pertinent the second half of that scripture would be to our future. After the fire - the discoloration is from smoke damage. The lighter area is where we had a blanket laid under his head. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you

Refined by the fire. Take two.

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" These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold--though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." 1 Peter 1:7 My last post on January 14th ended with what now seems like an invitation to more trials: "I jotted down a few goals for this next year, but they can all be summed up into one. I pray that at the end of 2017, I will be more like Jesus than I am today. I don't know what trials I will have to joyfully endure to meet that goal, but I know that He will be there with me every step of the way. Happy New Year friends." On January 26, Seth and I woke up to our phones going crazy with messages and phone calls from friends that our old house was once again on fire, "engulfed in flames" and "burned to the ground.

2016 - Year in Review

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I think it's safe to say that 2016 was our most eventful year to date. That's saying a lot looking back at the past 5 years especially. On January 27, we finalized the adoption of our 8th child. God provided everything we needed and more through our family, friends and church. The next few months were filled with minimal sleep, buckets of tears and multiple days saying "goodbye" to Judah. He had so many brushes with death. Twice his shunt malfunctioned and we were told that we could lose him within hours. He refused to eat for 3 straight days at one point, had multiple respiratory viruses that we were afraid would turn into pneumonia. The scariest two days were when we put him on a medication for hypertonia and he reacted horribly to it and began seizing uncontrollably, throwing up almost constantly. I planned his funeral every time we had a scare. By the time June rolled around, I felt like I couldn't take much more of the rollercoaster. Just