She will not fall

Weary but joyful
Empty but full

I think that's the best way to describe things right now. There is a battle against a dark sense of hopelessness in our home right now, mostly surrounding very substantial, visible difficulties for us. It's been a struggle for months on top of months, and my heart is heavy and tired from the battle. I've asked God so many questions during this time, and I'll admit that even the darkest questions were asked because everything tangible was crumbling beneath us and I didn't understand how a God who loved us and promised to care for His children would let us live in such a desolate, fear filled situation.

And I asked Him where He was.

And I asked Him if He was here.

Was He really here?

And then he showed me everything He had made. It is so true that even the rocks cry out that God is alive! The ocean and the mountains and the skies reveal His glory. It becomes clear to me again and again that all of this came from God and so we have renewed hope.

And we still wait, trembling at times, but confident that He who began a good work in us will complete it, confident that He is not finished with us yet. Even as I describe that everything was crumbling beneath us and how dire and huge it seems to us, I am comforted by my God who tells me that our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

That is all I can say today. We are here today:

the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.
its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

And we wait for His rescue!

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.

Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see the works of the LORD,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.

"Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

And we wait for Him! Are you thrilled for His rescue? I know I am!

A long trip.Part 2

It's a rainy Monday morning. Happy Memorial Day, and I'm listening to the cartoons running in the background. Grace and Ben are playing a ladybug board game (obviously not Ben's initial idea, but he rolls with the punches), and Noah is crawling, YES CRAWLING around the living room floor. A week ago yesterday, we returned home from basically a four week vacation for me and the kids. Dad was not so lucky! He did meet up with us on the tail end in Myrtle Beach, though. In the last four weeks, we've stayed in several different places across the map:
Bristol, VA
Silver Springs, MD
Richmond, VA
Wilmington, SC
Myrtle Beach, NC
Gainesville, GA
and finally home!
We experienced a very scary apartment fire while in Silver Springs, MD that caused us to be outside in our jammies from 7:30am until about 1pm. Some people were never able to return to their homes because they were utterly destroyed.
In Richmond, we visited with old friends and family and celebrated a marriage. Grace now wants to marry her brother. I told her it's really not okay to marry family. So she decided she'll marry her cousin instead. We're working on this.
Wilmington met us with a hospital visit on Mother's Day and a very tired and heavily medicated Nathan. He is doing well now, thankfully!
Myrtle Beach was too short! We spent a week in the glorious fresh ocean breeze and enjoyed the sand and shores every day with every sibling I have. It was the best week of 2009 so far!
We cut our trip home into two parts and visited more family along the way. It was a great closing to our trip and so sweet to be able to visit some that we don't often get to see because of the great distance.

It's been a week now since our long excursion, and it's taken an entire week to catch up and find our normal. I think we're almost there now.

I'll post some pictures from our trip soon.

It is a gorgeous, clear day in Silver Springs Maryland, much more beautiful than I expected. With the wildly ranging temperatures occuring in Nashville at the time we were packing to leave (sometimes in the 30's, sometimes in the 80's and tornadoes to boot) I was a little bit clueless about how to pack for everyone and still maintain some room for the kids to squeeze into the car. I decided that Noah would officially transition from his 3-6 month clothes into his 6-9 month clothes in Maryland. So I kept him in his smaller clothes and just packed the bigger ones. Bigger ones that fit for less than two weeks. We have a problem here! Thankfully, Maryland has STORES! Imagine that! They have pacifiers for the many we've lost. They have toy cars to replace the ones that have been left at parks, churches, gas stations, etc. We are finding our way around this beautiful city and enjoying the great weather.

This past weekend, Nathan flew in to Baltimore's airport, and we packed up for a trip to Richmond, Virginia. We visitied two parks, attended a wedding, a church service, visited with family, and still found time for a date night! Then we drove back to Baltimore and sent Nathan back home again. It was incredibly busy, and I think my body has not caught up yet, but we had a great time.

This week I imagine we'll be going to see some Botanical gardens and taking many pictures. I'll be updating soon with some pictures if I can figure out how to from someone else's computer.

Thank you for your continued prayers. I am finding a lot of rest and feeling incredibly spoiled right now. This is quite a treat. The kids are just blossoming from the extra one on one attention that they have right now. More later on that. It's nap time for the kids, and I think I will sneak in a little one as well. Today we've had Noah take a 10am nap, and then we went to the post office, dollar tree, the bank, Ross, and then to McDonalds, all before 1:30. I think you can imagine how easy it was to get the kids to bed once we got back!

More later, hopefully with pictures!

A long trip.

We'll be going out of town for a bit. I'm hoping to return with many pictures and much enthusiasm and clarity on how God is directing our path.

I will say that I'm heavy hearted lately and there is a deep longing to be home with the Lord. And I'd think second best would be to be in community with His people, and we don't see that light at the end of the tunnel. A date, but no direction or tools to get there. I'm hoping to have time away to refresh my tired spirit (always type spit it?) and gain vision and understanding for the next steps our family take into a new season we're being brought into.

It is a long trip from Nashville to Baltimore with a 3 year old, 2 year old, and 5 month old. We will survive and maybe have some fun along the way!

Wish us well.

Big Boy!

Noah turned 5 months old yesterday.
Here is a testament to why humans do not gestate for 14 months.



My internal organs would no longer be internal! This kid is busy!


On a sad note, Noah also had an allergic reaction to something last night. I don't think you can even tell from the pictures. He had red spots all over him last night. I'm still not sure what caused it, but my guess would be that peanuts were involved because he hasn't shown reactions to anything else yet.






And today Noah is doing just great!






















I posted this because I am simply amazed at how Grace is growing into such a beautiful, graceful little girl.





... oops. Wrong picture










Here is my sweet princess girl!

Next to Godliness???

Why are we so concerned about keeping this baby clean during his breakfast???
And not so concerned about the status on this one???

Ben again.

If you're happy and you know it...




... make a silly monster face...


...or say a prayer over your soup.

No, seriously. He prays this way!!

And DONE!!