Really, I can explain...

First of all, I can't even believe that it has been 2 1/2 months since my last blog post.  Really, I have good intentions, as you have heard before.  I can't believe how fast time goes by, and again it is just a reminder of  the fact that our time is limited and passing quickly.
Family

• Sam is crazy busy.  I love watching him lead and grow and God change him into something more beautiful and amazing than I could ever imagine.  
• Bryson is such a good big brother.  I love watching his concern and care for his siblings and family.  Please pray as we make some decisions in this next month about possibly retaining him in 3rd grade next year.
• Landon is blossoming at school and recently won an award for character-that really made me proud.  
• Ashlyn is so ready to start school in the fall.  I frequently find her "reading" books and trying to sound out words.  I love her love for learning.
• Madelyn is growing and always has such interesting things to talk about, never a dull moment with her around.
• Hudson is taking on new words everyday.  He has no problem keeping up with the big boys and often wants to do everything they are (including the naughty things). 
• I am crazy busy being a Sr. Pastor's wife to a church planter, mom to 5 kids, daughter to a widow, friend to some great people and whatever else falls into my lap.  (oh and loving every bit of it!)

Church

• We just returned from Harvest University.  This is an annual leadership conference held by Harvest Bible Fellowship.  Wow!  So hard to put in words how much of a blessing this was.  This was my first time to attend.  Sam had gone last year as his first introduction to Harvest.  We were blessed to be able to take 5 others from our core group with us.  Can I just say how excited I am about what God is doing in our church, Harvest Bible Chapel Greenville South.

• We were able to connect with lots of people while we were there (Sunday-Wednesday).  It was great to see our fellow friends and servants from our time at the training center.  We also were able to meet others who are much farther ahead of us in this church planting process.  I was able to attend the track for Sr. Pastors wives and was so encouraged and challenged.
• On Tuesday afternoon, Sam was commissioned by Harvest Bible Fellowship.  Can I just take a moment to say how proud I am of my husband.  His humility and steadfastness have been amazing.  I am so thankful for how he has lead and continues to lead our family and watching him make this next step of accomplishment was amazing!

• We start meeting every week beginning this Sunday night for our core group meetings, which is an awesome next step for us. 
• Please continue to pray for us as we continue to build into leaders for our future church, which will launch this fall!

I really am hoping to get more regular on this blog thing....

Update

As I have said many times before, time seems to go by so fast and life seems so busy, that I would like to sit down and blog, but don't do it.  I ended my last post sharing about the book "Choosing Gratitude" that I have been reading and studying.  I really want to come back to some thoughts on how God has been working and changing my heart, but for today's post I am just going to update what's been happening with us for the last month.
We finished up our internship at Harvest Bible Chapel in Hickory, NC at the end of January.  We stayed with my mom for 3 nights while moving into our house!  That feels very weird to say after being "homeless" for 15 months.  It has been fun finding all of our stuff again and also cleaning out what we really don't need anymore.  Slowly but surely things are starting to come together and find a place.
The boys both started school right away.  They both seem to be in a good routine and I am pleased with their progress.  This is our first experience with public school.  I at first was a bit nervous, but they have great teachers and I am excited to watch them grow.  The school is literally 1/2 mile up the road which is nice!
Finally, let me say that I am so excited to watch God building Harvest Bible Chapel Greenville South.  I stand amazed at the people He is bringing to our path and them getting excited and burdened about our church.  I feel so blessed to be just a part of what God is doing.  We are having our first core group meeting this Sunday night.  One of the couples from our group that I from Iowa will be here this weekend too! (They will be moving here this summer....that is an awesome story in itself)
So, my heart is overflowing with gratitude and excitement of what God is going to do!

Choosing Gratitude

So I am continuing some thoughts on how I have grown over the last few months.  To be quite honest, being transparent is sometimes a hard thing.  To admit to others that I might actually NOT be so perfect? However, I have learned that it is very "freeing" to not have to be perfect and know that God is growing me and changing me into something for HIS glory.

Let me start off by saying that if you asked anyone who knows me well (husband, kids, close friends, parents, etc) they would probably say that I tend to be a negative person.  I get in this rut and nothing seems to go well, or maybe I should say, nothing goes my way.  I really do know that I can go to this place of "yuck" and at times it is hard to get out of it.  I know that ultimately it is a lack of trusting God and where my heart is so wrong.  Well, about 6 weeks into arriving at the training center, the wives were given this book called, "Choosing Gratitude" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.  If you have ever read anything by Nancy, you know how awesome she is in calling sin what it is and speaking the truth through God's Word.  At first, I set the book aside because I was working on reading another book that we were given (I will talk about it at a later time).  After I finished the other book I picked it back up and started reading.  Honestly, I wanted to throw it down because I was so convicted by the truths that were penetrating my heart.  It was so practical.  I want to share just a couple thoughts today that I have pondered on from chapter 3.  So yes, I am giving a plug for this book!

Chapter 3 is called "No Thanks" and it begins with this awesome quote by Elisabeth Elliot, "Thankless children we all are, more or less, comprehending but dimly the truth of God's fathomless love for us."  If you asked me I wouldn't really say that I was an unthankful person or had ingratitude.  But when the following list was given I was really convicted. Here are some signs, feelings or attitudes that can set off ingratitude in our hearts:

1. unrealistic expectations-sometimes I expect a lot from others around me or situations around me and when they don't live up to what I expect then where do I go?
2. forgetfulness-we were talking in family devotions last night about the Israelites and how they complained and forgot what God did, but how true of us that we forget what God has done in our lives (even if He just saved us)
3. entitlement-I have to say that this was a big one for me....I think, "really God?  Look at how I have sacrificed to serve you and do what you ask and this is what is happening?"  Or I think God really owes me some things....
4. comparison-This is really easy to do, especially in the ministry.  You see other people that God is blessing in different ways than you and you start to compare and feel like you are getting the raw end of the deal.  The whole time our focus in on me!  How crazy!
5. blindness to God's grace-This is where the rubber meets the road for all of these mentioned.  Think of all that God HAS given and done for us.  The Bible even says, "His mercies are new every morning." Lam. 3:23 So everyday, I have new grace and mercy from God to go through what He sees fit to put into my life.  Sometimes things aren't really as bad as it seems.  Look around....you can find someone else hurting worse, or experiencing God's grace and mercy in a different way than you.

Just some random thoughts that God is using in my life....by the way, at then end of the book there is a 30 day devotional focusing just on Gratitude.  I am on day 4 and looking forward to how God grows me in this over the next month.

I AM NOT THE SAME!

First of all, let me say I have totally missed blogging.  I think at least twice a week, I want to sit down and just blog, but either the computer is preoccupied or its a moment where I know I will be interrupted 100 times by my 5 lovely children.  So, with that being said, while we are here in Hickory, Sam has a computer at the church, which frees up our laptop for me.  Also, I am writing this blog at 6:30am which is pretty unusual for me.  God woke me up "early" this morning so instead of trying to roll over and sleep, I got up, made coffee and am sharing my heart today.
Last night I had the opportunity to slip out of the 3rd service (Hickory Harvest has 3 services on Sundays all identical) because I was working on a headache and wanted to take something for it before it was worse.  I ended up in the lobby area talking to some great people.  The lady asked me once I told her the journey we have been on if I was keeping a journal.  In some ways I feel like I have because I have blogged some, but then I was thinking I better sit down at the beginning of this year and just start writing about how God has changed me through all of this.
I am not the same person I was before.  I have grown up in church my whole life, literally.  I was saved at the age of 14, but I have grown MORE in the Lord in the last 2 years than I have since that point.  Does that shock you?  I hope it does, but I dare to say there are others like me.  There came a point in my life where I got tired of going through the motions and putting on a smiling face and pretending to be the "perfect Christian" that everyone else wanted me to be.  I felt like even though my sufficiency was in Christ, I was adding other things to that.  This is SO not what the Christian life is about....doing things to gain/earn HIS favor?  The moment I stopped trying to earn God's favor by doing a list of things and understood the fact that HE alone was who my sufficiency was in, it was a life altering moment for me.
I know, some of you say, "my sufficiency is in Christ," then you say, "but you still have to...."  If your mind starts saying or thinking but....then its not in Christ alone!  This may be a hard pill to swallow, especially if you have been raised this way your whole life.  It's an exhausting way to live my friend.  There is so much freedom in trusting Christ alone.  This is not a one time deal at salvation.  We have to be reminded daily of the gospel and what it means to us.  I want to share some more things (hopefully this week) about how I have been changed.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  II Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)

Happy 2nd Birthday Hudson!

So, my "baby" is turning 2 on Friday.  I am blogging tonight for 2 reasons:  1.  Sam is leaving tomorrow to travel to Greenville for a quick trip to meet with some people interested in our church plant and 2.  We celebrated tonight!

When I found out I was expecting Hudson (#5) I have to say at first I really wasn't very excited.  We had our 4 that we had "planned" on having and when he was born the other kids would be 6 1/2, 5, 3 and 17 months.  What would I possibly do with ANOTHER baby?  Little did I know what would happen the moment he was born....it was love at first sight!  Just a couple side notes about his birth.  First, we opted not to find out if this was a boy or girl, but I knew in my heart the whole time it was a boy.  Second, he went the longest of any of our kids without a name.  By the way, did I mention that I can't imagine our life without Hudson.  We brings us such joy.  He is so sweet and I pray that God will use him in a mighty way.

Hudsons typical look

Hudson when he turned 1

Found this pic while looking for a baby pic...couldn't refuse using it!  My dad's thing with all my kids was getting them to "talk" to him when they were babies.  I believe Hudson was around 9 weeks here.

Thanksgiving 2011

I guess Thanksgiving is quickly over and we are headed into the Christmas season very rapidly.  It is hard to believe that there is only 5 weeks left in this year.  I have to say this holiday season is a bit different in lots of ways.  Not only are we living in a different state and part of the country, but we are also missing someone so dear to us.  I didn't really anticipate the feelings that started to flood over me on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.  All I could think about was the all the years that dad was here and it seemed like he was going to walk through the door at any moment.  When I went the airport to pick up mom, I have to admit that seeing her standing there alone was like a knife in my heart realizing that he wasn't right there with her.  Sometimes, like Madelyn says a lot, I feel like we are going back to South Carolina and he will be all better and be there!  (She mentions this quite often.)  So when I finally step back, take a deep breath and realize that this IS reality then my mind floods with all the wonderful memories we share with daddy.
We had a great time with mom.  She flew in on Wednesday afternoon and left this morning.  We didn't do a lot of running.  Basically we did some Christmas shopping for the kiddos, since she will be in TX with my brother and sister in law.  I did cook my first turkey and meal pretty much all by myself.  Overall we had a great long weekend.  Sam was home all weekend and had no responsibilities so that was a nice break for him.  The kids have 3 weeks of school left before Christmas break.  We will then transition to homeschooling again for now.

My 5 Little Blessings

As we were sitting at the dinner table tonight it was one of those nights where I just felt an overwhelming sense of pride and joy.  Even though there are some CRAZY times in our household of 7....I wouldn't trade it for ANYTHING in this world!  I often get some crazy looks and comments in public over having a "big" family.  Sometimes people say things like:

• "Wow, are all 5 of those yours?" 
• "You must really have your hands full." 
• "Do you know what causes that?

I often feel a sense of "anger" come over me (righteous anger, of course).  Then it usually turns to pride...I realize how BLESSED I truly am.  God has given me the job of raising, but more importantly discipling 5 precious souls!  I feel so overwhelmed, but BLESSED!