I dare to believe in incredible things.

April.. it has long been a month of pain and answered prayers. Beauty from the ashes. Redemption. Spring. New life from the dead ground. Green grass. New growth.

I love spring. It feels like spring inside and out...

God has answered some pretty big prayers. I got my April miracle, even tho everyone said it was impossible. (they did everything they could to help make it happen! I am blessed with an amazing team of caseworkers/adoption workers)

My friend says today: "I am never quite sure if the things you do are stupid or just really truly a faith walk." Two hours later she comes back and says.. Well, it appears God has answered your prayers again. ;)

I dare to believe in incredible things, because you are the God of the impossible.   

Two years of praying. Two long years of worry, sleepness nights, tears. Sitting with my kids, praying together, fervently begging God to protect. He has answered. 

                        You hear me when I call.... whom shall I fear? You crush the enemy... 

The God of the angel armies is forever by my side... he is a friend of mine... 

It seemed that we heard this song EVERY single week for almost 16 months as we made a weekly drive to visits. It always encouraged me to keep praying...

Check back soon for the official update on this answered unbloggable prayer!

Ironic... Ten years ago I stood at the side of a wonderful man. I pledge my life to him, through sickness and health, until death do us part. We were blissfully happy. We took our honeymoon to Hawaii. We also planned a trip to Hawaii for our tenth wedding anniversary. 

                      

Through good times and bad times, they shared them together.. 

they cherished each moment... but now he is traveling ahead in the distance. but he made me this promise I hold in my heart. 

He said I will leave you a message on the far side of Jordan, I will draw you an arrow down in the sand. 

I will point to the place I will be waiting and we will go see Jesus hand in hand... 

They sang this song at his funeral. I always cry. every single time. I listen to it.

It is now my tenth wedding anniversary...

Hawaii is not even in my wildest dreams.. reality check: I dreamed of going to this excellent training for connected parenting this weekend. Even that won't happen!!  Instead I will be  babysitting for friends! 

I look around me. I see the 6 beautiful children God has given me. I am blessed by some pretty incredible friends. I am living a life, that I could not even have begun to imagine. I love this story written by God. The broken beautiful.. some days I lose sight of the good things God has done. Some days are hard. Some days the tears fall.

some days... I get tons of hugs. My son writes in his language arts " being loved and cared for means... being adopted into a loving family that cares for you". I get to watch the excitement of a little boy experience so many firsts. I get to watch the big boys grow in confidence, into Godly men. I get to watch my beautiful daughters, heal, grow, nurture, love and just enjoy life.

This is my current favorite song...

I know that I don't bring alot to the table..
Hold me together when I fall apart.
Your love will never change.. you can take broken things and make them beautiful..
You say that you will turn my weeping into dancing.... 

                                       

Easter..

Today I am thankful for a Jesus who died for my sins. I am thankful for Easter.

We had an amazing service last evening at church. Today we will our own little celebration here at home. We were unable to travel to out of town family and are choosing to celebrate here at home.


We have lots of eggs to dye and good food to eat. We hope to visit Grandma E this afternoon.

But most importantly, we want to focus on what Jesus did for us. We don't want the Easter bunny crashing the celebration of our Savior.

Have a Blessed Easter! 

Budget Challenge

I am motivated by life challenges. So we are doing several  "do without" challenges.

 Last summer we started a with not eating out. at all. for a month. It turned into not eating out hardly ever. The same thing with buying coffee. It takes thinking ahead but truly saves so much money. For ex. I will prep a meal before we leave the house or I will make a coffee to go as I am leaving. Both these steps help us to save money.

So I decided to get serious about these challenges, trying to a do a different challenge each month.

The month of Feb. we hung all our laundry out to dry and switched to cloth diapers. I finally caved at the end of the month and allowed a friend to bless us with a wonderful dryer. (I am still using cloth diapers, much to the shock of those around me) ;)
I was so thankful for the dryer that I totally quit hanging out laundry! lol So not sure that one was really helpful long term!


I skipped the challenge in March...

For April, my challenge was to use up all the meat in the freezer and  go a month without using burger.

I have 3 freezers. Currently 1 is empty, a second is only half full and the third is almost full. (mostly fruits and veggies)  It is time to turn our steer into beef. But I wanted to fatten him up a bit more. So we decided to do a, clean out the freezer challenge. It has proven to be quite the challenge to cook gluten free with  the meat from the bottom of the freezer and no burger.

My friend ended up blessing us with a large of amount of meat, chicken, grillers, canned meat etc.. my children were thankful that this challenge did not last more then a week. They love their meat!


When I first started the challenge in Feb. I was sharing with a friend that while we were doing well and God was abundantly blessing us, I felt like this  challenge was important for my finances. So when my explorer needed replaced (some insurance money), my large van needed a good bit of work, my dryer died, my printer crashed, my hard drive died, and my kids burned up 2 tanks of oil in March,  we were ahead of the game because we had saved up.

There are days when I look around me in awe. Several people have told me recently that I am not getting "what I deserve" from several financial resources. That I really should be fighting for more. But I rest in that God directs every aspect of my life. My obedience in tithing and in never fighting over money, has brought back ten fold blessings.

My children and I pray over our finances. I explain how and why we can afford things. I make sure they pray AND acknowledge the answered prayers. You can't teach this in Sunday school. This is the real deal. Real life where God hears and answers.

Have you ever done a "do without challenge"?