In the little things

I did not think that I would have a word that defined my year.  I have never been someone who starts off their year with a word that will define the year or that they will meditate on.  And yet, this year, a word chose me.  That word is obey. 

I talk about obeying all the time to my kids.  All the time, right?  But God has clearly told me and shown me over the last few months that I need to wait and obey.  

I was on the phone with a friend a few of weeks ago and we were past the little talk and onto the real talk.  The talk that says "how is your soul?"  She was sharing with me some encouragement that had been given to her about doing what we do well.  About whatever phase of life that we are in, we are to do it whole-heartedly.  That instantly resonated with the current stirrings of my heart.  

I have been reading through the book of Luke recently and Luke 16:10 says, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much" and I was convicted.  I was convicted about my attitude of the little things, my obedience in the little things.  
My world right now is in the little things.  I am raising little people, do little tasks for them all day long with often seemingly little outcome.  I am constantly picking up little toys, folding little clothes, putting together little meals to serve little people, answering 1,001 little questions and resolving little problems.  My daily job of mom and wife is made up of activities that are not changing the world, that are not leading the headlines and are not making huge daily impacts.  They are little things.

And yet it is the little things that matter.  God said those faithful with little will be faithful with much.  The little things in our lives need to take priority sometimes in order to make big changes.  We first have to be faithful with the little, in order to receive and be entrusted with much.  All great things start with small steps. 

And while I am simultaneously consumed with the little things, I am going through big things, deployment and more, that requires large amounts of obedience.  Sometimes I think that it is easier to obey in the big things because they are right in front of us and we have to.  It is easier to ignore the small things in our lives, the things that need to changed but are easier to hide or let slide by as acceptable.  Complaining, gossip, judgement, impatience, jealousy, bitterness and more.  In small doses, these things are all viewed as acceptable by most people.  And rarely are you going to confront someone on being too impatient with their kids or spouse or complaining too much about their daily grind.  We just accept these things in our selves and in others quietly, justify our thoughts and actions to ourselves and move on.  BUT little things add up.  Little bad attitudes grow quickly.  Little habits get ingrained fast.  And matters of the heart are not to be taken lightly.  God's word is clear that little wrongs are big to him and his commandments about our words (Psalm 34:13: Keep your lips from evil and your tongue from speaking lies, Ephesians 4:29: do not let unwholesome talk come out of your mouth but only what is helpful in building others up), our attitudes and actions towards others (Romans 12:10 Honor one another above yourselves), and attitudes of the heart (Psalm 51:10: a pure heart, Psalm 15:2: who does what is righteous and speaks truth from the heart) are areas where little changes make big impacts.

And ultimately, that is what my life is right now.  Shaping little hearts.  Everyday I am called on to be the mom to three precious kids.  They rely on me for everything.  And they watch me constantly.  They watch my attitude, they watch my actions, they watch my obedience.  And then they copy it. 

God has called out some very specific things in my life and he is telling me to obey.  Some of those things are everyday choices.  Some things I have to wait.  But through it all, if I want to be faithful with the much that I know he has planned for my future, I need to be faithful in the little that I am in now.  All these little things I do now will shape these kids into big people that will have to choose to live rightly on their own.  And truly, there is nothing I love more than the three littles that I am surrounded by so God's challenge to be an example in obedience with love could not be more important. 

Go into all the world

Well, here we are, three weeks into our first real deployment.  Week one was really hard.  But week two was better.  There have been a lot of tears from these three over missing Daddy, wanting to know when he is coming back, and just a lot of emotions for us all.  By far the hardest part for me has been seeing my babies' broken hearts, holding them in the day and night crying and calling for Daddy.  My own heart broke even more with that.  And yet, we are surprisingly good.  Tears bring healing and often emotional relief and peace comes even to these tiny hearts when we pray for it.  

And through all the tears and the broken hearts, we have had, and will continue to have, some wonderful teaching moments about what is truly happening while Daddy is on his "special assignment".  One of the bible verses that Cole memorized this year is Mark 16:15 " Go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone".  What a perfect verse for us to lean on in these months.  Cole and I had a long talk about this verse.  That THIS is what Dad is doing on his assignment and why he had to go.  That Dad was called to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ.  What a privilege Brenner has to go to a dark place where God is hated and he gets to bring comfort, counsel, truth, compassion and kindness to those serving and maybe even those who live in the area.  We talked about how we all need to have a heart for others and boldness in Christ and it was God's prompting that led us to full time Chaplain ministry.  And while for the last 15 months that meant applying Mark 16:15 to the base 6 miles away, the next 7 means applying it to a different part of the world that desperately needs the peace, love and mercy of Jesus.  

I miss so many teaching moments in my kids' lives, I am sure of it.  With busyness or selfishness, I know that I have not seen or not taken advantage of a moment to further explain something important.  But what an awesome 7 months I can have with the kids, encouraging them in their prayers for Dad and his ministry, for peace and the protection of life in the middle east, for wisdom for our nation's leaders.  Months where they can look back and remember that Dad was a part of something for our country and for our God that he was called to do, but that really we are ALL called to do these things where he has called us as followers of Christ.  I have a challenge now in front of me to be sure that we are living out that same verse to the best that we can.  

One year and off he goes

So the Campbell clan has officially been in California for a year.

Over a year, 13 1/2 months to be exact, and I meant to write this post right after we hit our one year mark but I procrastinated.  A lot.  I love to share with everyone how amazing this change has been for us, how much we have grown, how much stronger our marriage has become and how we feel like we are both being used by God in too many ways to count just because we said "yes" when He asked us to trust and follow him.  But the first year here and the second year here are going to look very, very different.

The reason for my huge procrastination in writing a family update is because Brenner is deploying in less than a month and my heart just hurts to write that.

It is not a surprise, we knew that this would be coming, and yet when we got the orders it was still a shock.  And so, here we are, reveling in all that God has taken us through in the last 13 months, grateful for the challenges of changing houses, careers, states, and time zones, amazed at the relationships formed, humbled by the love we are shown by the Air Force community and honored to given the chance by God to do such great kingdom work for full time ministry.  And now we have to gear up for another challenge, a 7 month deployment.

While my heart hurts, I mean truly aches, at the thought of sending him off for such a long time, I am also very aware that once again, this is part of God's plan for us and there are specific reasons that this deployment is not only happening, but necessary.  Every major challenge that we have faced I can look back and see so many reasons why that had to happen in order to change me in some way.  Challenge and suffering and changes in our lives should change us into people more like Christ.  So this past year, with the challenges we faced with our move to California and new AF life, has blessed us tremendously and we are so grateful for each day we are here.  I can see why I needed to relocate, I already can pinpoint areas of change in my life that are for the better and areas where I feel Christ is shining more than he was.

And I really think that this next year, even though Brenner will be gone for so much of it, will still be a great year.  My prayer for us is to grow in Christ, to have joy and contentment in our hearts, and to be used well in our full time ministries.  This is not going to be a seven month countdown of when our life can start again, this will be a seven month journey imitating Christ and treasuring the season we are in.  Be sure to remind me of that on the hard days :)

True Love.

So, with it being Valentine's Day and all, I thought I would talk about love.  Original, don't you think?  But what I have to say is not what much of our culture may say....

(us drinking our Dutch Bro Coffee on our day out for Valentines...that cooler in the back is about to get filled with stuff from Costco...our life is exciting :) )

Love is hard.  Love is work. Love is draining. Love is not what I thought it would be.
Rewind a dozen years back to when we first got married.  These truths hit me not long after we said "I do."  The reality hit that we had no idea how to love each other and that we both were living to love ourselves.  Of course we were in love, and we wanted to love each other, but we seriously had a hard time doing it for a long time.  At least loving each other right, the way that we do now.

It took a few hard years to learn that the core of love, true love, is sacrifice, servanthood and selflessness.  It took even longer to start to put all that into practice.  And it is still taking work to be selfless daily, multiple times a day, for the good of our marriage.  But, through all that work, do you know what I found?  I found that I like to be selfless.  I like it when my hubby and kids get the best parts and I see that my day has not revolved only around me.  I like the look on my husband's face when he notices I did something for him, that I did something for our family and I did it out of love.  But even if he does not notice, I still like to do things for him to show him how much I love him.  I also have learned (and am still learning) to keep my mouth closed as a selfless act, to not bring glory or attention to myself by getting the last word, making sure I'm known to be right or using a condescending tone.  And he does the same for me.  And that is love.  Choosing to be selfless for the good of someone else.  Choosing to put yourself and your thoughts and your desires and your words after someone else.

Early on in our marriage it felt like we were keeping tally of who was better, who did what, who did more, who did it best.  We were young and trying to figure out who we were in this world and make two crazy different personalities coexist in one house.  I look back at those two people and cringe that we missed out on chances to grow and change.  It took longer than I would have liked, but eventually we have changed, and I am sure that we will grow and change even more in the future.

Love is not just being able to pour out your heart and soul.  It is not just finding your soul mate.  It is not just the fluttering feeling that we feel inside.  The love that Christ intended, that he modeled is one of selflessness.  It is one that is eternal.  It is one that we truly cannot fulfill.  We are called to imitate Christ in this life and above all else he calls us to love: Love God and love man.

And yet our Valentines is based around feelings and expectations.  God has called us to an eternally focused love.  To love outside of ourselves, beyond ourselves, and love as Christ loved.  And that definitely includes our spouse.  My husband is to love me as Christ loved the church.  My purpose, my eternal-focused love of my husband, needs to be bigger than the love of this world.  For this world is fleeting and the feelings that are inside us will dwindle at times and things will get hard and the flesh will want to give up.  But through Christ's love, we can love better.  I am so glad that on our wedding day, we chose each other for life.  We chose each other knowing our love was not enough or the most important.  Knowing it would be messy and realizing quickly it would be way too hard to do on our own, without Christ and his love working through us.

I am so thankful for my husband that strives to love Christ first so he can love me better.  I am thankful for the time I get to have him here with me, where I can learn to love him better.  My heart still flutters with him, it truly does, but more than that, he takes delight in my growing more like Christ.  He encourages me to love God more.  And I am so thankful the lessons on being selfless sink in more and more each day, where we can choose to have our marriage and our love reflect Christ.
The world wants us to set our mind and settle our lives on things that are not eternal and are not Christ focused.  But while our culture wants us to make sure we have warm fuzzies, Christ wants us to love like He did, out of a servants heart with a bigger purpose.

Thankful for Brokenness.

This is the season for thankfulness.  

I feel like everyday between November 1st and December 31st we are bombarded with the reminders to be thankful.  Most of our culture is reminding us to be thankful at the same time that they are telling us we need more things.  They are reminding us that our family is the most important thing in our lives and that they won't really return our love unless we buy them the perfect present.

Don't get me wrong, being thankful is actually key to living a joy-filled life.  Thanking God for the blessings around us and acknowledging him as the giver of all things good takes the focus off of us and puts in onto God. 

Thankfulness is very important and a practice we should develop.

But I sometimes wonder if we overuse the word thankful as we seem so often to just apply it to the things that we own.

Trust me, I am very thankful that I live in the age of coffeemakers, lysol wipes and pre-made guacamole.  They make my life so much easier.  I am thankful for the things that surround me, such as my warm home, my Trader Joes groceries on the counter, and the pile of overflowing books and puzzles currently on my floor keeping the kids busy and learning.  

I am thankful for my people, friends and family who accept me, call me, hug me, and listen to me.

However, looking at my life right now, the thing that I am most thankful for is brokenness.

Years ago, I read a book by the pastor of my old church.  He wrote a book that really touched me and spoke to me and I have thought about that book a lot.  The message was about brokenness.  That God not only used people in Bible that were broken, but they had to become broken in order to truly be used.  

Moses, Paul, Job, David, Peter.  

Over and over again in the Bible are examples of men who were broken by God.  They had to reach their lowest point in order to fully put their trust in the Lord so that they could be used my Him.
And we are the same today.  God not only uses those of us that are broken, he actually is breaking us so that we will be able to be used more by Him.

Y'all, I have been broken.  

It is painful.  

I have had a couple of major low points and I am better as a result of going through those things.
I was overwhelmed, confused, angry, sad, disappointed, trapped, and discouraged.  I was unsure what to do or what the next step in the plan was.

I could not have learned the lessons that I needed without being at points of unbelievable vulnerability and having to totally rely on God.  

I would not be able to say "yes" to God now, to serve and to lead and to encourage, had I not been broken of areas of selfishness.

We are all going to have trials.  No way around it.  

It will look different for everyone.
But there is nothing like bring stripped of what is comfortable and habitual and self soothing and easy to make you look up and find what truly matters. 

I have several friends right now that are facing major trials.  Putting gut wrenching pain behind them and trusting that God knows what he is doing.

One friend told me that she was embarrassed about the stuff that has happened to her and what she has done, that she did not want people to know because she did not want others to judge.  

I get that.  I really do. Because most of the time, people are judgers.  

But how sad is it that we often feel like we have to hide our pain, our deepest emotions, our hurt and our sin.  God says that we are to cry out to him and he will answer us. 

The answers are sometimes painful, not taking us out of the pain but pushing us through it so that we can see His workings first hand.  So that we may be changed, better, humbler than we were going in.

We should not be embarrassed of the things that mold us and shape us to be closer to God, even if it gets a little ugly, even if we crumble and break before being put back together. 

I am thankful that we have lost jobs and money.  It has made us hold on to things more loosely and focus on things that cannot be lost.

I am thankful for the tears, for the raw emotions and the sadness that creeps in because it teaches me that joy is not found in this world.  Joy so deep down in your gut that it cannot be squelched can only come from God. 

I am thankful for deep pain from friends and family because it reminds me that selfish desires are in each one of us and we have to choose daily to put them away and love others better.

I am thankful for physical pain and hurt because it shows me that my God is the ultimate healer.  He has healed me.  He has healed my daughters.  I have seen it and lived it.  

I have been broken.  

I am thankful that I have been broken and I will choose to be thankful for each crack I still suffer because it will mold me closer to Christ.

I want to see God like Moses, I want to sing praises while imprisoned like Paul, I want to dance in the streets like David, I want to reach thousands for Christ like Peter, I want to have nothing else in this world matter like Job. 

I want to remember my brokenness so that I can remember who put me back together. 

In this season, I chose to be thankful for my brokenness because Christ was born for me, to be broken for me.

The two most important things.

I have been challenged recently in my parenting.  

Not because my kids are acting any worse or because we have hit a new hard stage.  

Because let's face it, every stage has its challenges and every stage of parenting is just hard.  

My challenges have come from me.  

God revealing things to me on how I need to be parenting versus how I am parenting.  

Through my summer reading and what I have been studying in the bible, I feel like I have honed in on the two most important things that we need to teach our children. 

1.  The purpose of our life is to glorify God.  

2.  We are sinners in need of a savior and the grace that only Jesus Christ can give.  

These are two things that I know myself.  

These are two things that affect me daily. 

But I do not think that they have been the two things that I have been focusing most of my efforts on in teaching my kids.
I think I have focused on obeying mom and dad, table manners, using kind words, sharing, respect and basic things.  None of which are bad things and all things that do need to be taught.  

And of course we teach our children about the love of Christ, that he died for us on the cross, that he rose on the third day, that we are cleansed from our sins.  

Cole memorized Romans 5:8 this past year which reads "while we were still sinners, Christ dies for us."  It is one of his favorite verses and he says it frequently.  

He also corrected me when I commented to someone that we were Christians, and he said "no mom, we are sinners!"  Well, we were both right:  sinners seeking Christ!

But am I teaching him that he is separated from God until he makes a personal decision to live his life for Christ?  

Am I focusing on the "you need Christ to transform your heart full of sin" part?

Because until he realizes that he needs Christ, not just that he wants Christ, wants to be a christian, wants to be like mom and dad, wants to obey to earn praise, but that he truly will be lost his whole life until he humbles himself before Christ, then his heart will be wanting to do things for the wrong reasons.   

I do not want these three to grow up obeying because they want to please me.  I do not want them to obey because they are scared of discipline.  I do not want them to obey because of social pressure or for physical/tangible rewards.  

I want them to learn obedience because in their hearts, they desire to be like Christ.  They want to submit to the authority of God because they know that they are sinners in need of a savior, and in need of immense grace.  

And when we submit to God, and accept his grace, the desire to glorify God becomes our focus, our purpose.  

Ultimately, the only thing that we will be accountable for is how we used our life, what God gave us, to glorify him.  From the way we used our time, our words, our money, our work, our faith, our everything....we will be held accountable.  

We will accountable on how well we raised our children and used our marriage to bring honor and glory to God.  

Everything we do falls under this umbrella.
And all the things that we must teach about sharing, respect, kindness, love, patience, manners, honor...it all comes back to giving God glory.  Using what we have and who we are to bring glory to God.

Like I said, these are not new ideas.  And they are things that I practice in my life.  

But do I talk with my kids about the choices that they make being for the sake of "because I told you so?" or do we talk about choices of the heart, about choosing to do things and say things that glorify God?  Do I tell them enough that the only way they will succeed in overcoming their sin is because of God's grace and because he conquered sin for us?

Many parents may think these things can be taught later, when kids can are older and can understand better, but I disagree.  Molding a child's heart starts at the beginning.  

And these two most important things are what matters the most and what we should spend time modeling for them, teaching them, and guiding them.

**Shepherding A Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp and Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick are the two books that I read that inspired this post.  Such good books! 

Striking a balance at five months.

We have been in California for five months!  

While we still feel new and still adjusting to a lot, we also feel like we are home.
And I really did not know if I would be able to say that as we left our beloved town of Waco after being there more than a decade.  But we do feel at home and are loving the area where God dropped us.  

There has been so many things to adjust to that there have been a lot of moments where we have felt overwhlemed.  

I think if this had just been a move to a new house or a new town or a job change it would have been crazy enough.  But all those plus leaving family, changing time zones, changing entire careers and getting a whole new family schedule.....well, let's just say it has been wild five months.
But truly it has also been great.

Brenner loves his chaplain work.  He seriously was made for this.
Although I laugh as I write that because if you know Brenner, he was made to do a lot of things and always does them well.
sometimes that is a little annoying :)
His days are long as he tries to keep up with all the regular duties of his job, which includes a lot of unexpected things.  He has also decided to relive college intramurals by joining in on the volleyball and softball teams here...to which he told me last week "I'm getting too old for this, even though I'm still awesome"
HAHA!

Back when we were first married and Brenner had decided to start his own business, I was still in undergrad at Baylor.  Our priorities in life were us.
It was about our careers, our goals, what we wanted.
Funny thing is, we thought we knew it all and that we were right on track.
For years we lived like that.  And for years we suffered, even though we did not always know it.
God breaking us 5 years ago, both individually and as a couple was the most amazing and life altering thing.  I know I have talked about it here before, but we were people desperately needing to be broken of living for the wrong things.

Now, here in California, here in the Air Force, I cannot believe my life.
I cannot believe how much I have changed, how much Brenner has changed and how much our life purpose is different.
To hear and see Brenner pour out his heart and work so hard just to build relationships with the people that he meets amazes me.  His purpose has become so much more than just himself.
God has also blessed me with so many opportunities to serve and to know people.
In fact, I feel God calling me to so much that I am getting overwhlemed.
I think that He is making up for all the years where I said no and stopped listening to Him :)
We never could have imagined being used in this place where we have landed.

I guess that I will never cease to be amazed at the way that God orchestrates His plan perfectly.
And that is a good thing because I never want to think that I know better than God.  I want to be amazed at His work because He is amazing!  

But, like I said, every day has not been easy.
This transition has been hard and tiring.  Like really, really tiring.
There have been many days where we feel we are barely keeping afloat because of all the many things that need to get done.  Brenner's work days are often longer than they were and after the kids go to bed he is often having to do work for his projects still going in Waco.  My kids, who all have the love languages of quality time and physical touch, demand a lot of my attention which I give them because they are my number one priority.  Therefore most of the house, garden, chickens, yard work and email stuff gets done either really early or really late in the day.  Which makes our long days longer.
Each day is a struggle to find the balance of what needs to be done...but that is no different then anyone else.  We are all trying to do that.
And some days I think we did it well and other days are a colossal failure.  
But at the end of all those days, whether they end in peace or in tears, whether the kitchen is clean or laundry has piled up for a week, whether Brenner has spent the day counseling and helping marriages or hugging young airmen at a memorial service, we are so content and filled by our new calling to the Air Force.  We are grateful for the chance to make a difference here.
We are thankful that God is using us and redeeming our hearts after years of going in the wrong direction.

And, after about two years of wanting to update the look of the blog, I finally did it!  Hooray!

God is good. Always.

Last week we closed on the selling of our house!  

After 2 years of the house being on the market, it finally sold.  

And we are so grateful.  

But we are not grateful just because the house sold.  

We are grateful that God's plan was way better than ours.  

His always is.  

Always.  

We obviously wanted our house to sell as soon as we put in on the market.  We thought we had a plan for what we would do when it sold and we thought that everything would work out perfectly.  

But God knew that he was taking us in a different direction (such as California!) and it was not the right time to move only to have to move again.  

And so we waited.  

Sometimes I was more patient than others because attempting to keep a large house organized and ready for showings with 3 littles running around was pretty impossible.  But God also knew that a mom with 3 littles always needs more practice with being patient :)

So we left our house in Waco unsold as we moved across the country, trusting it would work out.  

Which of course it did.  

God is so good because He knew what we needed and when.  

We are so grateful that His plan is perfect.  

We are grateful the house sold, but we would continue to be grateful that God's plan is good even if it remained unsold.  Because all things have a purpose and a plan.

God has a way of taking our plans that we constantly make and throwing them out the window.  

Anybody else feel that way?

Married while still in college?

Twins?

Major career change?

Move across the country?

I never expected these things and yet each one has resulted in blessings and great growth.  

God is good.  

Always.  

And THAT is why I am grateful.  

And so we now say goodbye to our house. 

Our first house together that we moved into when we got married.  

The house where we brought 3 babies home to. 

The house that was our home for a decade.  

Here is a picture of how the house looked when we moved into it:

I think the house changed as much as we did while we lived in it.  

So long Austin Avenue!

Leaving Waco, leaving home.

We have arrived in California!  

There will be lots more pictures for me to post from our last days in Waco and our trip around the country.  But over the last week of driving, between the dozens of book readings to the kids, the hours of kid CDs that we listened to, the 95 recitations of Itsy Bitsy Spider and Wheels on the Bus that I sang with the girls and the 500 stickers that ended up all over us and the car, I was able to reflect and give thanks over our years in Waco.  

And when I began to write down all the things that happened in my life over the years there, I was overwhelmed with emotion.  

Overwhelmed with thankfulness.  

And overwhelmed at saying goodbye to this chapter of my life.  

I met Brenner on my first day at Baylor.

We graduated from college.  

We bought our first house on Austin Avenue. 

Brenner started his own business. 

I went to graduate school. 

I got my first real job.  

Brenner found a career.

We had our first baby. 

Brenner went to seminary. 

Brenner joined with Air Force Reserves.

I became a full time mom. 

We had two more babies. 

We said yes when the Air Force called for more. 

But even more than those events, we have been through so much. 

We struggled through the early years of marriage. 

And our marriage grew into an amazing partnership.

I was sick.  

And I was healed.  

We learned the trials of parenthood. 

And we found being parents is the greatest joy in life.

Brenner's business grew. 

And we learned great lessons through hard times when it didn't.

We thought we were going to lose our twins. 

And our faith and trust in the Lord became stronger.  

  We fought God on where He wanted to take us. 

And we have been blessed beyond measure when we obeyed His calls.  

 We searched for a home church. 

We found more than a church, we found family.

We made a lot of mistakes. 

And we learned to give a lot of grace. 

We tried to live up to the standards of the world. 

And we learned that the ONLY thing that matters is whether or not we are reflecting Christ.

Waco and our years there have formed who we are.

I can't imagine more happening in our next decade than what happened in the last!  

We met amazing people who we will have relationships with for a lifetime.  

We are grateful that God placed us in a community as unique as Waco to start our life together and to prepare us for this next phase.  We wouldn't have listened to God and followed His call to the Air Force if we hadn't been through the crazy, hard and wonderful years.   

It was so, so hard for me to leave.  I have lived in two places: Virginia and Texas.  I never imagined myself living anywhere else, and yet, here I am, feeling at complete peace with having our new life in California.  But don't get me wrong, Texas will still be called home ;)

We are excited for this adventure and I can only hope that we will come to love this new place and every other place we may be sent as much as we love dear old Waco.  

giving thanks.

i love thanksgiving.  

i love that there is a day dedicated to being thankful for what we have been given.  it reminds me how often i am unthankful and selfish and small minded about my life.  

i have read, and am currently re-reading, One Thousand Gifts, and it is seriously a good book that has made me refocus on what is really important, what life it truly about.  

i have tried to become more purposeful in my life's focus and what that focus is teaching and showing my children and my husband.  

Luke 22:19 says that Jesus gave thanks the night that he was arrested.  he was about to die the most terrible death for all mankind and he GAVE THANKS.  i have been given so much to be thankful for.  more than i ever dreamed, more than i deserve.  i decided for this thanksgiving and leading up to christmas, and truly everyday, to thank my Savior.  to thank him for this amazing life that he has given me and to ask for daily reminders to stay focused on having a grateful heart.  

i want my heart and my life to reflect one of love, grace, and thanks and not one of self centered choices, competing to be like the world and choosing my desires over God's.  

let's make each day a day to remember from whom all of our blessing flow.  

and give thanks.  

the challenge.

y'all these days i am finding that there are a lot of challenges in my life.  

 they are small challenges but i have found that it is the small ones that creep up and eat away at me more than the big ones.  

anyone else like that?

if there is one major thing happening, then i feel able to deal with it better than the many small things that i am trying to juggle right now.  

we move in two months.  

we have a house to sell.

 a house full of things to pack up.

many, many work things for brenner to do.

lots of friends to try to spend time with. 

lots of family to see including a few trips.  

all this on top of trying to spend quality time with each of my children whose love languages are quality time and physical touch.  read: they want to be with me all the time and physically touching me 95% of that time.  

i am not kidding.  

i would also like to go out a couple times and talk to my husband in quiet place about grown up things.  

all this to say that this is a challenge right now.  

it is a challenge to live in the moment and plan for the future.

it is a challenge for me to fight back anxieties about our house not having sold yet and try to keep the house looking good.

i don't want to count down our last days in texas.  i want to enjoy them.

i have accepted the fact that we will not do and see all the people and things that we want before we leave.  it is just not possible.  

so i am trying to enjoy each day with my kiddies and schedule things with friends as much as i can but allowing myself grace when things or days do not go the way i want.  there are no wasted days when there are little minds and hearts to shape.  

i know that there will be new challenges once we move of a whole different kind.

but right now i feel torn and pulled in many ways here.  

 isn't it amazing that God never stops teaching you things?

never?

he is always molding you into something and calling for change in one area after another.  

he is teaching me huge lessons on patience, trust, faithfulness, goodness, grace, worry and love.  

ya know, just a few little things. :)

this week i am praying for a quiet heart and a quiet mouth so that i can hear God speak to me in these times of challenge.  

orphan sunday.

"defend the cause for the fatherless" isaiah 1:17

today is orphan sunday.

it is a day set up by the christian alliance for orphans where we, as christians, are called to become aware of, pray for, and do something for the orphans of our world.  8 years ago i didn't know much about orphans.  then brenner started the ministry in zimbabwe.  we have become much more aware of the orphan problem in the world, and yet we are still so ignorant.  and to be honest, most days i don't stop to pray for the orphans around the world that are lonely, hurting, starving, crying, scared and desperate for love. 

 there are over 150 million orphans in the world.  

friends, that is too many.

my friend Casey Chappell has an amazing story of adopting 5 children and is such a testimony.  she often says that if just 7% of people who claim to be christians would adopt an orphan, there would be no more orphans left.

do something, my friends. 

brenner is in zimbabwe right now, loving on these kids, and my heart aches to be with him.   

we have been able to talk with him almost everyday since he got there and even FaceTime with him.  

i adore this picture of clara (dressed in her kimono!) and a little boy talking via FaceTime.  they were dancing back and forth at each other and my heart almost burst open right then and there.  one day i hope my babies will get to hug those babies.  

i am asking you all to say a prayer for the orphans.  God knows which ones and hurting.  keep praying and make a commitment to lift up the ones who need our help.  

Miracles.

Two years ago we were told that one or both of these girls would not make it.  

The doctors told us that their condition, twin to twin transfusion, was non-reversible.  

But they don't know my God. 

They don't know that He still performs miracles.  That HE is the great physician.  

And he HEALED them.  

There were so many people that prayed for these two.  Their prayers were answered and we are thankful everyday for them.  They were answered.

Their little lives are a testimony to God's faithfulness.  

And we are so, so thankful for these two.

a little sisterly love.

elise was reading a book

clara wanted to read it too.

elise got mad.

she took it back. 

and then read it over the edge of the chair to avoid sister. 

no more pictures mom. 

don't worry, clara got to read it later.