Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Anniversary time!
















3 Years with my Nate.

5 changes of address.

2 children (one coming within two weeks still counts).

2 1/2 years of church ministry as a family.

12 1400-mile round trips from Iowa to Kansas.

Countless Brewers baseball games on the radio.

Maybe just as many meals at Asian King Buffet. ;) Almost.

9 jobs changes between us.

5 seasons of Community.

Lifestyle overhaul for the healthier.

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How do you encapsulate marriage in a few words? It's easy to rattle off a list like that, but when you look at each thing and just think about it all added up... It blows my mind.

It's amazing how God writes your story and how it's YOUR story and no one else's. No marriage but Nate's and mine could look like ours. It's as unique as the people who make it up.

There have been things so far in our story that I haven't loved, but I'm thankful that there has been so much that I have loved. There have been many hard times. Many. Stress that prevailed far too often. But we've worked together through the stress and let it draw us closer to each other and closer to Christ. And I love that.

3 years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things. Each year goes faster than the last. But 3 years hold a lot of memories already and I look forward to what the future brings because I can rest in God's love and sovereignty and I'm thankful for the man I married 3 years ago on a Kansas ranch in the summer sunshine and his faithful heart. 

What does your story look like?


Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Grateful

So I need to write. H.a.v.e to write. I'm pulling my hair out from motherhood and 8 1/2 months of pregnancy (which technically could be classified under motherhood I suppose) and the micromanaging of some people in my life. I'm sick of resorting to Facebook for entertainment and even the good blogs I read are starting to blend together.

Solution: go to one of my favorite blogger's sites and look up last week's Five Minute Friday, where she gives a word and challenges women to blog about that word for 5 minutes. I go to the site and laugh.

Because the word is GRATEFUL.

So here I go.
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Grateful.

Oh the irony. Earlier this morning I sat outside writing a thank-you note to the Lord while my boy and his buddy played in the sunshine. I kid you not...in between every sentence I had to hoist up my 8 1/2 month pregnant body with all its aches and pains and Braxton Hicks contractions and solve some problem. My son chasing his friend with a plastic shovel. His friend wanting to swing and needing help. My son tripping on the sidewalk and bawling his eyes out. My son grabbing my hand and begging mom to "come," because he so desperately wanted to go outside of the yard either through the front or back gate.

I sat down again. I had been just about to pen the words, "Thank you for spiritual rest," in my journal, and as I sat from making my boy apologize for something, I asked the Lord, "Really? Spiritual rest? Do I really have it?" And I knew without a doubt that I did.

The thought came to me, "You don't have to feel something for it to be true."

And so I penned it, and thought about rest. The quiet in my soul even when I want to explode. What grace does within my soul is a pure miracle.

So grateful this morning for fresh beginnings. After a snack and Cars movie, my boy is in so much better of a mood and here I sit sipping red grape juice from a wine glass just because it feels right and sometimes you just need the sugar (if it were tonight believe me it'd be my Riesling...). But God is so kind to me.

In a month or less our baby will be here. Until then, and hopefully as the summer wends on, I look forward each day to rest - soul rest - because of what Jesus has done for me.

And I'm grateful.