My little boy

Yesterday I took dinner to a friend who just had a baby.  She's tiny!  She was only 7 lbs something when she was born and she's only a week old.  Her little head is teeny tiny and her little feet are adorable!

Michael was home and Clark was taking a nap so I got to go by myself.  I thought I would be sad when I got home because Clark is so big now and not a little snuggly baby anymore.  To my surprise, although the  baby was darling, I wasn't sad to see Clark all grown up.  In fact I was delighted to see him.  Since he and I are buddies and spend 24/7 together I actually missed him a little while I was gone.  I loved him as a little baby, but I love him just as much or even more as an active little boy.  He cracks me up all the time.  I love his smile, his little giggle, his silliness, his kisses, his babbling and singing to himself, his little dancing and pretty much everything about him except his ear piercing scream.  I never knew I could love someone this much and I love him more every day!

Here's few of my favorite recent pictures of my boy.

Watching Sesame Street in his little rocker at Grandmomma's house.

Look at that mischievous face.

He loves playing the piano.

Haha!  Playing in the recycling.

One shoed boy enjoying the slide with Mommy.

His new favorite hobby: feeding his food to Hank.  He laughs hysterically when he does it.  I have a video of it I'm going to try to upload.

Rollercoaster

The best way I can describe the last year is a roller coaster ride. I loved roller coasters when I was a kid. The adrenaline rush, the wind on my face and the unexpected twists, turns and drops. Then, somewhere around age 16 I started getting motion sick and roller coasters weren't so fun anymore. The good thing about being on a roller coaster ride is that life isn't boring. I never know what's going to happen (not that we ever really do) and there's always something unexpected around the corner.

Today I visited a friend from our life group who just had a baby. Her sister, whose husband is a pastor in Mississippi, was visiting and so we started talking about church jobs and the journey we have traveled this last year. As I retold our story, thankfully in the shortest form possible, I was reminded again of how many times we've gotten our hopes up and gotten excited about a job possibility.

Just today one of those ups came and fell. We found out our home church in Brooksville is hiring a Director of Outreach. We loved our time at the church, loved living in Brooksville and would love to go back. Our dream job would either be at Faith EPC (in Brooksville) or at University PCA (in Orlando) because we feel like we've left a small piece of our heart at each church and the people there. We were so excited to see an opening and Michael quickly sent his resume and a cover letter. Then he talked to the pastor and we found out the compensation is very low (less than is livable...more like a part time salary for a full time job) and it has crazy hours (60+ hours a week).

Right now it seems like the roller coaster is dropping, but I believe in a big God who is capable of doing the impossible.  I am praying specifically that God will open the door to increase the salary or provide housing for us for this job to be doable.  Ultimately, I believe he will open the door to the right job in the right time, it's just the waiting and riding the roller coaster that's so hard.

It just so happens...

Let me start off by saying I like it when people have reoccurring themes in their blogs so I have decided to create some for my blog. The first one will be titled "It just so happens..." This title came from a Bible study on the book of Ruth I was involved in last fall. The play group I joined with our church here in Jacksonville did an alternating play group/Bible study every week. The play group was fun, but Clark wasn't really old enough to play yet and most of the kids were a good bit older than him. I really went because I needed friends. The Bible study was the highlight of the group for me because we talked about things that were going on in our lives and studied together. Our group leader decided to try out an online sermon series instead of reading a book. She said she often has so many books to read that it's hard to make time to read the Bible, so instead of having another book we listened to the sermon for the week, took notes, read the passage that went with the week and then brought questions/discussion we got from the text.

We studied the book of Ruth with Mark Driscoll. It was my first exposure to Mark Driscoll and it was a wonderful study. The first chapter was by far my favorite. He went through the themes of Ruth and one of the things he said was that the author often uses the language "It just so happens..." when he's talking about something God prearranged to work for the character's good. For instance Ruth "just so happens" to glean in the field of Boaz, or Boaz "just so happens" to be from Naomi's family line. The author doesn't really mean it happened by chance, but it's a way of making these arrangements from God stand out. Also, the reoccurring theme makes these seeming coincidences draw the attention of the reader.

As I started thinking there are so many "just so happens" events that God has orchestrated in my life to bring me to where I am today. Often I forget these things, view them as coincidences or just take them for granted. So, I've decided to start retelling these stories for my own benefit and for the benefit of anyone who happens upon my blog. To start out I may go back and record some of the "just so happens" stories from the last few years and then add the new ones as they happen. Here's a quick list of some of the things I may go back and ellaborate on in more detail in the future.

God's provision of scholarships, work study and random gifts to pay for my college education debt free.

God's provision of $28.000 needed to send me to Japan in only 5 weeks time.

Landing in Tokyo in a short two hour window between a typhoon ending and the 9/11 attack which would have grounded our plane for over a week.

Michael and I's "chance" meeting at a Boy Scout camp in New Mexico (how can you not say God had something to do with that?)

God's provision of a 5 bedroom house for us to live in rent free for 7 months when Michael first started seminary while we waited for our house to sell.

A buyer for our house without a realtor so that we didn't have to pay commission, made money off our house even in a down market, paid off Michael's car, paid for seminary and still have money is savings.

The thousands of dollars paid toward Michael's seminary, most of which didn't come from us.

Living within 30 minutes of my grandparents for the last 7 months of my grandma's life-- she got to see Clark often (which always brought a smile to her face) and I could spend time with her and my Grandpa could become one of my best friends in Jacksonville.

Ok, so you get the idea. Just writing this list makes me excited to see what God's going to do in the future, especially in bringing Michael into the ministry job he has been preparing for him (even though he hasn't revealed that to us yet).

It's the little things.

The weather has been so beautiful the last few days. Low 70's, clear and sunny is perfect! Because of daylight savings time it's light after we finish dinner, so the last few nights we've taken a family walk (well, Clark rides). Caroline is staying with us this week so she has joined us for our family walks. As I sat down to write I couldn't think of anything in particular. All I could think is that it's the little things that make life great. I don't want to take it for granted when we have beautiful weather or the ability to be together as a family and have the health and physical ability to exercise together.

Life has been a rollercoaster since last summer. The move to Jacksonville has been full of ups and downs. Michael was miserable in his job with the Boy Scouts, he was applying for church jobs and hearing no answer or "we've decided to go with other candidates", we've gotten our hopes up about several jobs and then smashed repeatedly. I've found myself getting discouraged and feeling sorry for myself.

I'm reminded of a sermon Chuck Berry preached a few years ago (you can tell it had an impact on me since I still remember it and reference it after several years). My paraphrase of his main point was that when we face hard times the difference between discouragement and faith is what set of circumstances we choose to focus on. One of his examples was the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. They could choose to look at the army of Egyptians chasing them or at the pillar of fire (God) leading them who had just parted the Red Sea. In our current situation I often find myself focusing on the negative circumstances, rather than on the way God had been providing.

In the past few months since Michael quit with the Boy Scouts we have had several unexpected sizable checks sent to us in the mail or left on our counter, a tax refund over twice what I thought was possible, a retirement payout because Michael wasn't vested in the 5 months he worked for the Boy Scouts and mandatory overtime in the first job he worked with Kelly Services, and we had an energy credit on our power bill so that it was only $35 in the coldest month of the year. Even though he's been out of work now for three months we still have money in our bank account, our bills are paid and we haven't taken any money out of savings. We have been forced to trust God even more than usual and he has proven faithful. We never know where the money is coming from or how it is going to arrive, but God has not left us alone.

I'm choosing to focus on God's provision. Just today I found a visa gift card I thought was empty. I called to check the balance to be sure before I threw it away and found it had $104 on it! God's provision once again!

We have a walker!

Clark's first trip to Disney

Mom and Dad are in Hawaii for two weeks, so they asked me to come stay with Caroline for a few days so she won't be alone too much. She loves being home alone, but she turns into a hermit, so she needs a little help having contact with the outside world. One of the perks of coming is that their neighbor across the street agreed to get us into Disney one of the days. So, last Wednesday Joel, Caroline, Clark and I went to Hollywood Studies and Magic Kingdom....FOR FREE!!! This time of year is perfect for the parks because it's not hot yet, but it's not cold anymore. Thankfully we avoided the rain. I love free days at Disney because I don't feel any pressure to ride a bunch of rides or stand in crazy long lines. I can leisurely stroll through the park and go to the things with the shortest lines.

I was afraid I might be crazy taking a one year old to Disney, but we had a great day! Indiana Jones was our first stop. Clark didn't seem to mind the explosions, but he had a meltdown every time the audience clapped and cheered. He actually liked the little cars in the stunt show and of course he tried to make friends with the people who sat around us before the show started. Here are a few pictures of our adventure.

Clark sitting with Uncle Joel waiting for the stunt show

Classic picture in front of Cinderella's castle

We rode the Peoplemover twice because it had no line. Clark loved it, although he wasn't so sure about the dark part through Space Mountain.

Shooting the targets on Buzz Lightyear. He liked the numbers changing and didn't discover the gun until the end.

On the carousel he jumped back and forth between Caroline and I. Once it started moving he rode with me.

Trying out the 3-D glasses at Philharmagic. He actually wore them during the show. I took a picture of it's too dark to see clearly.

Tired boy on the tram at the end of a busy day.

I love this kid!

Clark's basic bedtime routine includes a bath with lots of rubber duckies, brushing his teeth, reading a book and then rocking with me while I sing him a few bedtime songs (also known as the songs I remember from my CEF days). He doesn't usually fall asleep before I put him in bed, but he lays down with his lullaby seahorse and goes to sleep without a fuss. Tonight when I was rocking him and singing he started singing with me and giving me kisses. His little voice is so sweet.

Where to begin...

Obviously it's been quite some time since I've blogged. We started this blog to share our adventure in London, but recently I've decided to pick it back up again. The last post is from Christmas '08 when I was pregnant with Clark and it's now March '10 and Clark has already celebrated his first birthday, Clearly I've missed a lot. I won't even try to catch up on everything. 2009 was a year we will never forget. By far, the best part was Clark. He is such a precious gift...I thank God for him everyday.

I've never been much of a writer since I usually can't decide where to begin or what to say, but I'm going to try this out and see how it goes.