Needing to remember what is happening in our world right now!

March 2020

The month...the moment in history...that our nation is in turmoil.  Many states shutting down.  Our life has been turned upside down here in Michigan.

Ashlynn came home from college for a spring break weekend.  We picked her up March 12.

Governor Whitmer closed all the schools private and public in an 11 pm address March 12.

Our school announced we would be closed for two weeks after spring break March 13.

We enjoyed spring break as a family...and found out that Ashlynn would not go back to college till later...April 6.  We cancelled our trip to TN to take her back and take Alisa and Teddy for a college tour at Crown.

Our church services are now online indefinitely starting March 15.  We gather in the living room cuddled in blankets with naughty dogs.

Ted started working from home March 17 indefinitely.

The kiddos kept working at Dairy Twist...with a list of directives for how to return to our home...the safe zone!

March 23 we all began home schooling and working.  We got this...we have done it before!

Fear is swallowing our state...our country.

Shelter in place order handed down from our governor...anything non-essential is to be avoided.

Hundreds of thousands of people are now without jobs.  No evictions.

April 2, our governor closed all schools for the rest of the year.  

Alisa's senior year looks a lot different than we could ever imagine.  Ashlynn's first year of college looks different.  In all of this...I am blessed and thankful as I watch our family come together to deal with circumstances that are not our choosing.  We've had hard times before.  We have seen God take care of us.  We will continue to trust Him.

2018 It has been a year...almost...since I posted here.

It isn't for lack of learning!  It has been for a lack of choosing to take time to put all my thoughts in writing.  I have had to once again stand and watch and wait.  Then I have had to focus my time and energy to doing what I needed to do.  I have watched the mercy drops fall gently around me.  At first they started gently...but then...they became showers of blessings.  All I could do was stand and watch and say, "I don't know why, Lord.  It hurts every time, but I will trust You because I watched You protect and provide for me before.  Thank You, Lord, for teaching me again that You are in control and You have something for me to learn in every circumstance!"

As I ministered to the needs of one of our children, the thought came to me, "Why?  Why this?  Is it really necessary?  We can't do anything about this.  Why aren't You using people to fix this who can do something about this?"  And then I remembered...to be still and wait and watch...asking the Lord for wisdom to help someone weaker than I to be able to "handle or deal" with this type of situation...and I thought of the umbrella.

We are surrounded by people.  People have storms in their life, and often they aren't prepared for those storms.  Because we work, live, and go to school with people...we will inevitably stand near or under someone else's storm.  We may be affected by that storm.  We can have our protective rain-gear on...and still get splashed by their mess.

I stand under the protection of God's care for me as His child.  I willingly 

ask for His help each day in my life.  But trials come...the wind blows that umbrella inside out sometimes...but I still cling to the umbrella and fight to get it back in the right position!  Even under His protection...the attack can seem to come from out of nowhere...and there you stand wondering what just happened and why!

I beginning to understand why we have experienced some of the storms in our life...so we can help our children!

2016 Lately...we have had some circumstances...

where we have just sat in awe that things are going the way they are.  We scratch our heads and try to understand what is happening...and we have no answers.  We feel like we are following God's leading and then things come to a complete stop or take a sudden turn that we wonder what just happened and why.  Did we miss something?  Did we ignore something?  Why this?  Why now?  We pray.  We wait.  We don't rush ahead.  And so we stop, pray, and wait some more.
In my flesh...I don't get it.  In my own mind...I don't understand it.  In my weakness...I get frustrated by it.  In the quiet...I surrender it.  And then I am reminded once again...God's timing is not mine.  He has all things covered.  He doesn't need my help...I need His!  And then my spirit is calm...just like this picture...God's peace covers me with beauty and hope.

Not spending that much time in my slippers lately...

 since I started working in the preschool program at our school this fall.  I have so many notes and thoughts, but limited time to post here.  Per Ted’s request, each week I write a note to wives and mothers in a weekly email he sends out for our Sunday School small group.  (He has a special note he writes to the Husbands and Fathers.)  

 We have a study paper with questions and verses, so we can prepare for the following week.  I find myself meditating on these thoughts throughout the week!  I'll start sharing some of these thoughts here...as a way of keeping myself accountable to the things that God has brought to my attention.

 So...what begins while I am still in my slippers...affects the hours I am in my shoes and on my feet!

**As I sit each week in our small group, I am encouraged with the fact that there are other families that are in the trenches of parenting.  We all have struggles!  The best place we can go for wisdom and encouragement is God's Word and God's house.  What a responsibility that places on each of us to be "doing" and not hearing only!  We are held accountable for the example we have before others...at home, at church, and everywhere else we go.  I'm so thankful for our church leaders, programs, services...but all those aspects of "church" are God's people loving and serving in a biblical manner.  We have an incredible job to be a help-meet to our husbands, as they lead our homes and train our children to be the next biblically sound church members.**

I don't get paid for this

I was listening, once again, to KNVBC.com this morning and heard a song that made me stop what I was doing.  I had caught part of it one other time.  I grabbed a pen and whatever piece of paper I could and started scribbling.  It is so frustrating when the tears are blinding your eyes while you try to write!  I only got the chorus.  Tonight as I sit in the quiet house, I started searching for the rest of the lyrics and found a recording on youtube...with the lyrics typed out!  (I don't even care that tomorrow is spelled wrong.) 
"Thank you, Heavenly Father for people who play Godly music that ministers to my heart every day, all day!"  If I didn't know better, I'd think that God is whispering the daily playlist to the station manager after listening to my heart's cries.  I am thankful that the Holy Spirit bears witness with my spirit, giving me the encouragement I need...often before I know I need it!

Looking back through my notes...

I take when listening to various speakers, I found some great points that I had written down.  As much as I would like to, I can't remember things indefinitely!  I regularly go back and read through the thoughts and verses that touch my heart and mind when I am listening to messages...in real life or recorded. 
"When life puts a crunch on us, we start thinking unusually!  'Why me?'  'What now?'  A life's crunch reveals what a person is really like.  What is inside you will come out!  It was already there!  The crisis or crunch of life didn't put it there...the crisis or crunch revealed the real you.  What does it take for God to offend you?  What does it take for me to be offended?  What do you say when life isn't going as it should?  Have you ever said to God, 'Why?'  Luke 7...John took his eyes off of what God was doing and put his eyes on what he thought God should be doing.
1.  Stand not offended...not conformed to this world but transformed, not loving the world nor the things of the world, hated by the world because you have lines of separation
2.  Respond without being offended...loving by Eph.4 standard, forbearing and forgiving by Col.3 standard...whether they deserve it or not! I Cor. 13
3.  Serve without being offended...we are serving the Lord...not people!
God doesn't want you on your terms.  He wants us to willingly put our plans on His altar and serve Him.  What will it take for you to lay it all down?"
Blessed is the man who is not offended in Me.
"When you decide that no matter what...you will give God the glory....we will live with lines and respond well...serving unoffended!  Every one is the Christian they want to be."
I listened to D. Gibbs Jr. preach this message just this spring of 2011.  How helpful it has been!