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He lives! He lives!

After spending an evening/day at a very nice hotel and spa this week,  I’ve had some time to reflect and put things in perspective. Something I haven’t had time to do lately between 2 children under the age of 2, my learning curve as a new “professor” coming in mid-semester and sick family members. So, this night away from home that included a few hours of spa time and a nice massage in a really really nice hotel was extremely refreshing.

First of all, I felt like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court… Robbie and I are known for just “being ourselves”. We are what you see… normal, casual, down to earth people.  We live a modest lifestyle. No where near rich, also not poor. We are both blessed with college educations, good paying jobs. But we also came from more modest backgrounds than we currently live in and we know there are no people better than other people.

It was interesting to see an affluent family from NY who had missed a connecting flight in Raleigh, with the mom/wife worried about the condition of the hotel the airline was putting people up in, naming a reputable chain. She called a place I would have gladly stayed “sketchy”.  Her husband is a spine surgeon. They own a home in Tribecca and in New Jersey. Her kids to go school “in the city.”

All of this made me think of my Granny; she was a wonderful, sweet woman who had a very successful life. She worked hard, she had 3 wonderful children and gave all she had to love them and her grandchildren. She also was a child of the depression in the mountains of NC.  She was the oldest daughter, robbed of an education to care for her siblings and the house while her siblings were all allowed to attend school, she only finished the 3rd grade.  She taught herself to read and write (with a little help). She found Christ late in life. Her favorite old hymn was one we sang at her funeral, “God Saves Old Sinners”… I swear my life story could be told in music.  One day maybe I’ll make a post for you that includes all the songs I feel “formed” me… this is one of them.  I can see her now, in the back row of that small Baptist Church I grew up in, tapping her foot and nodding along as she hummed or sang the choruses while we sang it.  I’m so glad we sang it at her funeral. It was like her life’s testimony.

Writing my facebook status update today about how rich people have the same amount of “junk” I have, just more spaces to hide it all, this song came to mind.  There is no escape from God. No place you can hide all your junk. No station in life that will gain you salvation.  We are all sinners in need of salvation. There is no salvation short of the grace of God.  Given tomorrow is Easter, you should know that short of the Resurrection of Christ, there is no salvation.  If you do know God, consider this Easter Sunday your chance to set your relationship straight with Him. If you don’t, consider attending a church service tomorrow and seriously ponder what Christ did for YOU!

Here are the lyrics to God Saves Old Sinners for you…. Hopefully I’ll get some pics of the girls in the Easter dresses up tomorrow.

The drunk on the street
The rich in their palaces
The poor and unlearned
And men of degree
They all have a soul
In need of salvation
And they all have to come
By Calvary

CHORUS:
I am so glad God saves old sinners
I’m thrilled and amazed, how He sets them free
But the biggest surprise in redeeming old sinners
Is that He would save and old sinner like me

Was I so wrong,
That I needed forgiveness?
And was I so bad?
I had to be redeemed
Well I wasn’t a thief
But I lived in sins prison
And I was as lost
As a sinner could be

CHORUS:
I am so glad God saves old sinners
I’m thrilled and amazed, how He sets them free
But the biggest surprise in redeeming old sinners
Is that He would save and old sinner like me

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“When my world is shaking…

… I’ll never leave your hands.”  I love that JJ Heller song. If you don’t know what in the world I’m talking about, check her out on you tube.  She definitely knows how to put things into perspective with her lyrics.  Lord knows, we need some perspective right about now.

To catch everyone up, since November we’ve had quite the mess on our hands around here. Robbie has still been looking for work, his dad has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer, my grandfather’s health has seriously declined, and I lost my job. Oh yeah, and we had baby girl #2 (Miss Abby) in November!

This week, Robbie started a new full time job within 20 mins of the house.  I found out today I have a new job in academics of all places!  I will be teaching in the PA program at ECU as soon as they can get my contract drawn up.  I can’t wait, but at the same time I’m anxious about all I will have to learn.  Nonetheless, I know I’ll make it.  If God is for me, who can be against me? If God is with me, I will stand.

If I have learned anything in this time, it is about the faithfulness of God. Somewhere in all this, I have been clinging to the concept of “light”.. “God is light and in him is no darkness” more specifically…. These verses in John inspired me to dig a bit deeper. Within a day, I found this passage written by David in 2 Samuel 22: 1-37, 47. I have highlighted the verses that spoke out the most to me…

1 David sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. 2 He said:

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
3 my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield[a] and the horn[b] of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—
from violent people you save me.

4 “I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and have been saved from my enemies.
5 The waves of death swirled about me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
6 The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.

7 “In my distress I called to the LORD; 
   I called out to my God. 
From his temple he heard my voice; 
   my cry came to his ears. 
8 The earth trembled and quaked,
the foundations of the heavens[c] shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
9 Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.
10 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
11 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared[d] on the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness his canopy around him—
the dark[e] rain clouds of the sky.
13 Out of the brightness of his presence
bolts of lightning blazed forth.
14 The LORD thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded.
15 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy,
with great bolts of lightning he routed them.
16 The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at the rebuke of the LORD,
at the blast of breath from his nostrils.

17 “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; 

he drew me out of deep waters. 

18 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
19 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
20 He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

21 “The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness; 
   according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. 
22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD; 
   I am not guilty of turning from my God.
23 All his laws are before me;
I have not turned away from his decrees.
24 I have been blameless before him
and have kept myself from sin.
25 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness[f] in his sight.

26 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful, 
   to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 
27 to the pure you show yourself pure, 
but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.
28 You save the humble,
but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.
29You, LORD, are my lamp; 
   the LORD turns my darkness into light. 
30 With your help I can advance against a troop[g]; 
   with my God I can scale a wall.

31 “As for God, his way is perfect: 
   The LORD’s word is flawless; 
   he shields all who take refuge in him. 
32 For who is God besides the LORD? 
   And who is the Rock except our God? 
33 It is God who arms me with strength[h] 
   and keeps my way secure. 
34 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights.
35 He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
36 You make your saving help my shield;
your help has made[i] me great.
37 You provide a broad path for my feet,
so that my ankles do not give way.

47 “The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! 
   Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior! “

There are SOOOO many take home points from this passage, it is overwhelming to me.  What I liked best about the passage, is that David says he cried out to God who heard his cry… but it doesn’t say God immediately came to him and anything/everything was “perfect”. It says that as God came near, things got pretty ugly. The earth quaked.  The skies got “dark”. Darkness was his “canopy”. There were even lightning bolts. But through all of it, although those dark clouds “carried” God to David, God’s hand reached down and lifted David up.  Praise God for his faithfulness!!

Of course, here are some pictures to catch you up…

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a season on thankfulness

Of course I love my FB account. I check it at least every day, in the evening, while I’m watching TV.  This month, it’s been interesting to see people posting all the things they are thankful for each day. Some people made a specific post each day (ie, “Day #4: ….. “, etc.) Others just put up something they were grateful for each day (like myself). Truth is, I am super thankful this year. Not only is Thanksgiving a wonderful time of family celebrations of thanks for the whole year, but this year, it is also a celebration of my wedding anniversary, coming on the heels of the birth of our second child!   I’m thankful for our family, our extended family, our church family, our friends and everyone who has prayed for us this year.  Lord knows we still need and covet your prayers daily!

So, here we are, 4 years and 2 kids later… who knew how blessed we could be?!?   It all just feels surreal.  Enjoy pictures of our growing family!

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“Here I am! Rock me like a hurricane!”

Do you have ANY idea how many times I heard my husband sing this one line from that song on Saturday?? I stopped counting at some point. I’m surprised Em didn’t start saying it!  We did get rocked, quite a bit actually by some significant winds in the 50-60 mph range. We saw LOTS and LOTS of rain. I still don’t know the rainfall total but it pretty much rained non-stop from 4pm Friday until at least 10pm Saturday (I went to sleep after that and it had stopped by this morning).  We had a good 12 stuffy hours of no power. I grew up in the mountains. Not having power is common, especially during winter storms.  But the summer has something the winter doesn’t… heat!  The wind was so rough, if we opened a window, an entire room got wet, so we had to keep them closed. I walked out on our little porch several times just to feel like I wasn’t “smothering”.

Needless to say, as soon as the sun was up good this morning, I was begging Robbie to get me out of the house.  We took an adventure around downed trees to his parents where we had an unexpected but absolutely wonderful waffle and bacon breakfast! (That’s what you get when you wake up Grandma and Grandpa at 7:30 and let them know you have the grandchild with you in the driveway!)  Em has been really sweet for the most part the last couple of days. Today she got to playing a little rough/silly and had several bumps and bruises, but she’ll make it!

As I typed the title to this blog, I noticed the first line of that song was “Here I am!”  It makes me think of 2 things… Samuel (I think) in the old testament. When he was first getting the Lord’s call on his life. He heard God calling to his name and he said, “Here I am!”… The second thing is a song based on some verses in Isaiah, “Here I am, Lord send me. Here I am, Lord I’ll go.”  In looking at all the storm damage in person today, on the news and knowing there is a lot of damage in the Black Jack community, I really would have liked to have gone down there and helped personally.  That’s a challenge I’m feeling a lot lately. How do I serve God (physically) while still being faithful to my family?  I can’t exactly leave my 18 month old on top of Robbie all day to do physical labor. I shouldn’t go do that type of physical labor being pregnant and all.  I wouldn’t feel right asking Robbie to go do it all without me if he wasn’t called to do it.  It sometimes feels helpless to say, “All I can do is pray.” But at the same time, sometimes that’s the greatest thing we can do.  I guess I’ll figure it out as I go along.

Here are some videos of our booger today:

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overwhelmed

Life has been crazy lately. Crazy enough I haven’t even taken the time to blog and crazy enough to scatter my thoughts so I couldn’t think of what to blog about!  To catch everyone up, Emily is growing LIKE A WEED! She is more like a toddler and less like “my baby” every day.  It’s only 102 degrees around these parts, which don’t bode well on a pregnant woman, not even a half-way there pregnant woman. For all you moms who carried babies at term in the dead of summer, I could almost bow at your feet, especially if you were working a full time job at the same time.  My morning sickness has finally abated!! :) And, we’re having another baby girl!! Woo hoo!  Emme will have a sweet baby sister!! Whose name shall not be named until she gets here…. and when we figure it out :) . We’re still working on that.

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