Thanksgiving Days (part 4)

Thanksgiving 2013

I'm also thankful for our military friends that serve as family.  What a delight it has been over the years to celebrate with those God has brought into our lives to serve as family.  If there is a holiday that Chris has been absent for more than any other, it's been Thanksgiving.  The first one he missed was when Luke was a baby and a family from church invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving with their extended family.  We've been blessed to do this other times during our marriage.  Those days are just as special as spending them with our true families.  Never would I have guessed that God would provide and bless us so deeply in this way.

Thanksgiving Days (part 3)

I'm thankful for this family where I get to serve as wife and mom.  They love well.  It's not always easy, but God promised that life wouldn't always be easy.  I would call it more of a journey and adventure.  God certainly has put us in that place in life and I wouldn't want to do the journey with anyone else.  So very thankful for this family!

Thanksgiving Days (part 2)

Today, I'm thankful for my family that I was born and raised into.  God planted me in a home where he knew I would flourish, be loved, given good examples and be challenged.  I am deeply blessed in this area especially knowing this is not the case for so many in our world.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be where I am today in life and in my relationship with God if it wasn't for them. 

Thankful that we're now back in the Midwest where it's much easier to spend time with them after just a short car ride.  Looking forward to seeing them in just a few hours!

Thanksgiving Days (part 1)

I'm not very good at being consistent in doing daily blogs, but I thought I might give it a try - at least for a few days - this Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving so often gets lost in the rush of daily life, preparing for time with friends and family and Christmas is just begging to be noticed.  So this year, I wanted to try something different.  Something that would help me focus a bit more on what I'm truly thankful for.  So, we'll see how consistent I can be over the next few days...

Today, I am truly thankful for God, my relationship with Him, the fact that I can truly trust Him - no. matter. what!  God is never ever surprised by the events in the world or the events in my life.  I'm so thankful that He is so much larger than any of that.  This morning as we were going through the kids' devotional that God is so powerful that He only spoke the words and the world came into being.  If He is that powerful, it's beyond amazing and beyond words what else He can do.  I could go on and on, but I will leave it at that.  I don't deserve this blessing, but for it, I am eternally grateful.

Keepers of the Covenant - A Book Review

Keepers of the Covenant was a historical fiction book based around the story of Esther, Ezra and the Israelites that returned to Jerusalem from exile.  I had a lot going on while I was reading this book so it took me awhile to get through.  However, the story stuck with me and I was able to pick it up and know exactly what was going on.  I appreciated the story line, but I really appreciated the author's insight into the thoughts and feelings of the people as they made choices and lived during this time.  Culturally, this was so different than our world today so I really liked her thoughts as to why the characters made some of the choices that they would have made.  I also marked a couple of places in the book that I really liked and I never usually mark quotes in fiction books. She gave me real insight into the animal sacrifices (p 353-354).  Finally, I will leave you with this truth from page 240.

It was easy to rise up in faith and heroism when we faced a clear-cut enemy.  It's much harder to resist the enemy of gradualism and assimilation, much harder to maintain a passion for God when we're bogged down in the daily routine of life.

I received a complimentary copy of Keepers of the Covenant by Lynn Austin from Bethany House Publishers.

He's Home!

It had been awhile - around 3 1/2 years -  since Chris had deployed.  Thankfully, this was only another 70 day absence.  I say "only" because we've had several friends experience 6 months or more for a deployment.  We haven't gone that route...yet.

Things went quite smoothly for deployment number 8 (I think that's the count now).  The kids and I kept busy here on the homefront and Chris kept busy flying.  There are always "things" that come up, but this time around they were of a more personal nature for myself and the kids.  Nothing big and absolutely nothing bigger than what God can handle.

Thankful to have him home!

Ultimate Sacrifice

Today is Veteran's Day.  This is a holiday I appreciate more and more each year.  I don't ever remember celebrating when I was growing up.  Now, my kids get the day off, they had an assembly to recognize veterans and have written more than one note of appreciation to a veteran.  In a world where things don't always look so swell for America, I was deeply touched by all that my kids were given the privilege of celebrating.

Through this, they've been reminded of the sacrifice.  Not to mention, that they live the sacrifice.  However, they most likely can't verbalize the sacrifices they make as a military child or the ones we make as a military family.  Yes, we've sacrificed time together, moved hundreds of miles from sweet friends and close family on multiple occasions and sent my Husband and beloved Dad into the unknown.  I'm thankful for the blessings, though.  Without any of those sacrifices, we wouldn't have been blessed with the gift of friends that serve as our family when we're far from home.  God has also drawn us closer to Himself through all of this.  Plus, we've gotten to see some pretty fun places.

I think of the sacrifices, though, of those that came before us.  Technology today makes it so much easier to be apart.  Skype and Facetime, not to mention a phone, are great advances that have helped bridge the gap.  However, there was a time when people had to rely on "snail mail" and would sometimes wait weeks before hearing important news from home.  I've even thought back to earlier times such as in the Bible.  When those men went off to war, their sacrifices were even greater.  They didn't even have the luxury of mail.  The family must of waited months at times to even know if their loved one was still alive.  All of these are in the area of contact with home.  I also think of the weaponry and how so many more lives were lost before modern day technology made weapons so much more precise.

I guess Veteran's Day just got me thinking about sacrifices people have made for their country and their freedom.  There is one Sacrifice, though, that makes all of this pale in comparison and is the most meaningful to me.  My God sent His only Son, Jesus, perfectly man and perfectly God and without sin, to die for me and my sinfulness.  He did this so I could spend forever with Him.  That is a sacrifice that surpasses my understanding.  Some men may die for a good man, but this Man died for me, a person full of sin.  Jesus is the only one who would ever do that.  For that, I am forever grateful!

Odds & Ends

We haven't been up to much recently, but I thought I'd post a few of my favorite pics of the past several days.

The Trio in their new spirit shirts.  They have a character building program at their school and the assistant principal wanted all the students to have a school shirt to wear to promote the program (at least that's the way I understood the story).  Anyway, they decided to tie-dye a shirt for every student in the building - nearly 700 shirts!  When I heard this, I thought they were crazy.  Parents provided the white shirt and they did the rest.  I was there a couple of weeks later when the entire school was decked out in their tie-dye shirts and I must admit, it was rather neat.  (Their school colors are blue & yellow.  Each grade was either all blue or all yellow.)

 Halloween was not a lavish affair in our home this year.  I know I've said this before, this is my very least favorite holiday, but I do try to have fun with the kids.  This year we went with a sports theme and I pretty much let the kids just pick out a uniform because this Momma was lazy in the costume department.  So, we ended up with a soccer player, a 49er football player (with the world's smallest football) and just a big kid in an even bigger jersey (not sure how Chris came into possession of this jersey because he didn't play football, but the kids think it's fun occasionally).

Fall leaves are quite interesting to my kids this year.  This can probably be attributed to the fact that we didn't have one tree in our yard when we lived in Georgia and Kansas and the wind was always blowing in Oklahoma to keep them out of our yard.  So, it's not uncommon to see the kids with a rake outside.  This was my favorite use of the leaves - the sidelines of a football field.  I was amazed at how truly rectangular it was.  However, it's probably not the safest one around with that tree in the endzone.

We received word this week that some sweet and dear friends will most likely be moving to our area sometime in 2015.  One of their daughters is Hannah's closest friend.  Here is Hannah getting to talk to her and her reaction to hearing the news that her sweet friend will (hopefully) be just a few minutes away.