Hard Fought Hallelujah - 10 Years Together

Brandon Lake's newest release catches my attention for many reasons but this month it has me thinking about our 10th wedding anniversary. My brain just keeps thinking, "I can't believe we made it here." and then at the same time, "Of course we did!" Marriage was created to symbolize Jesus' relationship with the church. It's the closest earthly relationship we can have to that of the one we have with Christ. So when I think about my marriage like I do my relationship with Christ, the words to this song fit so well.

"Yeah, I don't always feel it. Yeah, but that's when I need it the most. So, I'ma keep on singing 'til my soul catches up with my song."

Marriage is a choice. Each day I wake up I am given the choice to love my husband or not. I can do life with him or without him. This is the same as my relationship with Christ. And the days that I struggle to do life with Adam are the days, that I need him more, and my stubborn independent self doesn't want to admit it. These are the days that I keep pushing on waiting for the rest of me to catch up. Just like there are days that I don't really feel God, and just have to sing until I do!

"There are times when my hands go up freely and times when it costs, oh-oh, there's days when a praise comes out easy, days when it takes all the strength I got."

There are days when it is easy to be married and it is my favorite thing. Those days I'm excited to spend time with Adam and I can't wait to be with him. There are times in our lives when choosing to spend time with each other costs us our individual desires. And there have been times in our marriage when being together is the last place we want to be. Those days when you sit in the driveway a little bit longer, trying to decide if you really do want to go into the house where the other person is waiting. There are times when loving each other looks different than we thought it would and it costs those expectations we brought with us into the marriage. We aren't a romantic couple that dotes on one another, we are two people just doing life together, and if I look at our marriage through any other lens we can find ourselves at a loss. Marriage did cost us our individuality, we are called to be one, and there are times when it really does take all that we have to surrender to what we have together.

"I'll bring my hard-fought, heartfelt been-through-hell hallelujah. And I'll bring my storm-tossed, torn-sail story-to-tell hallelujah."

This part of the song makes me think of how we are two imperfect humans trying to do life together in a broken world. Each year, as we grow together, we are faced with many obstacles that try to break us apart. Arriving 10 years from our wedding date hand in hand, side by side is nothing short of a miracle and insanely hard work. We have fought for this life together. Some years our sails were a little more torn than others. Money, Jobs, Covid, Depression, Parenting, Stubbornness, ADHD, and Anxiety have all been a part of our story. We have been head over heels for each other, and glorified roommates. We have been best friends and frienemies. We have had each other's backs and left each other stranded. We have each stepped in and stepped up when the other couldn't. We have been through sickness and health, richer and poorer. We both have pushed and pulled. This marriage boat has almost sunk a time or two, but each time we have built it stronger together.

"Cause God, you've been patient. God, you've been gracious, faithful, whatever I'm feeling or facing."

But God! For real, we would not be here together today without God. I remember a season of our life that was particularly dark and I was ready to throw in the towel when a small voice whispered, "But you stopped praying for him..." What? Talk about conviction. I realized at that moment that I had again stopped seeing my husband as my partner and a human and was more focused on all the ways he wasn't what I signed up for. God was convicting me of all the ways I wasn't being what Adam signed up for either. The biggest one, was a wife who prayed. Why is it that I find it easier to love, serve, and pray for perfect strangers, and not the man I committed my life to? God said, "I will fight for you, you need only be still." So there I stayed and prayed and God brought us through that fire and every other one we have faced together. 

"So I'll bring my hard-fought, heartfelt, it-is-well hallelujah."

We have had some incredibly good times together. No one makes me laugh like Adam does. When we are good we bring out the best in each other. He relaxes me and makes me have fun. And I add structure and stability to his ever-active brain and life. We are so incredibly blessed to get to do life in the place where we met, started dating, and got married. I often think about this crazy camp life we live, and God knew that here we would thrive together. 

"I've wrestled with the darkness, but I'm trying to reach for the light."

We have a season in our life that we call the darkness. And we fought like hell to get out of it. And there are times now we have to fight to remain in the light. We try to leave this part of our life very much in the past. But we wouldn't be where we are today without it. 

"Yeah, the struggle keeps me honest. And it breaks down the walls of my pride. 'Cause faith isn't proven, like gold, 'til it's been through the fire."

Nothing in my life has humbled me more than marriage and parenthood. I'm not as "good" as I thought I was. I am an imperfect human being, I love imperfectly, and I have so many flaws. It has taken a decade in the same space as another person for my heart to truly surrender and say, "Yeah, I'm just as imperfect as you are."

This song is playing on repeat right now, and each of these parts just keeps jumping at me. There is so much more I want to say but that's not really necessary. We are here, we did it, and we are still together doing this life, serving God, raising our children, and loving each other! Hallelujah!

Goodbye Yesterday

October 20, 2024, will forever be a special day for Adah. We were on our way to church and the song "Goodbye Yesterday" by Elevation Rhythm came on the radio. 

"Goodbye yesterday

I'm living in the light of a new day

I won't waste another minute in my old ways

Praise the Lord I've been born again

(I've been born again)"

This line came on, and she said, Mom, "what does it mean to be born again?"

So I told her that being born again is when you ask Jesus to live in your heart forever.

She promptly looked out the window at the sky and said, "Jesus, I want you to live in my heart forever."

We then walked through asking Jesus to forgive her sins, and she acknowledged that He is the one and only savior, and she wanted him with her always.

So I told her that she was in fact born again, and October 20th would always be her 2nd birthday! She was so giddy and excited. 

This morning, October 21st. We listened to the song again on the way to school and then followed it with "Good Day" by Forrest Frank, which is on our morning playlist. I paused it and asked her if she knew why songs like Good Day and I'm So Blessed are so important to us? She said, "No." So we talked about how no matter what our days bring us we can know that it is a good day and we are blessed because we have Jesus in our hearts, because of yesterday she could always have a good day no matter how the world acts. She then said, "But I thought Jesus already lived in my heart." I said, "That is correct, yesterday you just chose to ask him there permanently." Then she bounced out of the car and off to school.

I grew up a Christian, I can't tell you of a single born-again moment in my life. So it never occurred to me that my children, who also are being raised in the church would have one, and it was so incredibly special and mind-blowing. Adah has always had a profound understanding of who Jesus is and who He is to her, this along with her divine understanding of death has been blowing my mind since she was a toddler. It has been so easy to get stuck in the things that are hard for Adah in this life. School is not easy, she struggles each day to control her emotions and the ADHD brain that she has been blessed with. She is anxious and loving and so many things. I have never met a more stubborn human being, and have spent her life choosing my battles, and usually feeling quite defeated. Since I work in ministry, it has never been an option to not go to church or be a part of a faith community. But lately, I have been wondering if I'm doing this right? Mom guilt is the worst. 

My song for parenting Adah has always been "Oceans" by Hillsong. And the line, "Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders," often haunts my mind. I used to wonder why that was her song, and then I came to realize that being Adah's mother is the place where my trust is without borders, this is where I'm walking on water reaching out to Christ. I wasn't called to a mission field across the world but to one in my own home. Walking this stubborn child through the waves of life is where I have been called to be. So many times I find myself at a loss in motherhood, the day-to-day is hard. Balancing all the activities, with the educational needs, and making sure we balance screen time with play time can just about undo me. Sometimes if I'm honest, I find myself in the laundry room wishing I had taken Paul's writing in 1 Corinthians a little more to heart and stayed single in ministry! (haha) Yes, ministry with others was so much easier when I was on my own, but my ministry keeps adapting and changing. My calling into Youth ministry includes the youth in my household and when I remember this, motherhood isn't quite so daunting.

So here we are in another mind-blowing reminder as to who God has called me to be, and my children to be. At the end of the day, we are called his children! My children are really his children on loan to me, my job as a mother is to make God known to them in their real lives, in the small moments and the big ones! October 20th will forever be a special day worth celebrating for the born-again birthday, and the reminder that we are chosen by the creator of the Universe to love and be loved!

Advent Season: God is in This Story

 The season of Advent is my favorite time of year. I love everything about it. The anticipation for Christ, Advent Calendars, Christmas Decorations, Advent Studies, and where my devotional heart goes this time of year. This season I am teaching a Bible Study on the book of Matthew, and doing an Advent Study using some of the women from the Bible. Week 1 is the story of Tamar. Never would I have chosen her to start a study that leads to Christ, and yet for that reason, she is the perfect place to start. 

Tamar has a very broken story in the Bible. She is married to one of Judah's sons. He is not a good man and doesn't treat her well, God takes care of him. Then in Jewish tradition, she is married to his brother, and the story is much the same. He refuses to give her children because he doesn't want his brother to get credit for any sons. So God takes care of him too. Leaving her a widow x2. Judah sends her home to live a widow's life until the third son is old enough to marry her. Time passes and he never fulfills his promise. She takes matters into her own hands and tricks Judah into sleeping with her. She gets pregnant and with this child enters the lineage of Jesus Christ. 

In Youth Group we talked about the different characters in the Christmas Story. The figurines we set on our mantle this time of year in our Nativities. 

• Shepherds: This wasn't a job that essential people held. It was a job for the least of these, they lived with the sheep and would have been dirty and smelly.
• Magi: These guys weren't even Jewish. They didn't believe in God or follow any belief system that looks like Jesus. They likely believed in magic and astrology, they were tracking stars. Definitely outsiders. 
• Joseph: a carpenter, nothing too special. Just a man willing to live by his convictions over the law.
• Mary: a young, virgin, betrothed, yet pregnant. 

In Matthew 1 we find the lineage of Jesus, these people were considered an important part of his story. Lineages were used to show how important someone was, and they typically leave out any of the black sheep of the family. We find Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and many more that have a history not fit for the King of Kings. 

If you break any part of the story of Christ apart you find brokenness, but when we put it all together and read the story as a whole we find love and grace. God could have chosen anyone and any way to bring the promised Messiah, he could have chosen the best of the best to be a part of Jesus' story. But he didn't. He chose broken sinful humans, and by choosing them he redeemed their stories.

Week one of Advent is Hope. These characters, these people bring us hope. There is nothing that we can go through in this life that writes us out of Christ's story. 

God loves us in our stinky shepherd clothes. 

God loves us even when we look to the stars to fix our problems.

God loves us when we are ordinary people living ordinary lives.

God loves us when we are called beyond the world's standards and the deck is stacked against us.

God loves us when we come from broken marriages and homes.

God loves us when no one else does. 

God loves us when we take matters into our own hands.

God loves us when we sin majorly and cause others pain. 

God loves us on the mountaintops.

God loves us in the valleys. 

The world doesn't define your story. God does. When we are stuck in the middle of something ugly and painful it is hard to see any good in the story. But God is there, and he is molding those moments into His story with love and grace. Don't lose heart, God is in THIS story.

God is in This Story - Katy Nichole & Big Daddy Weave

Daycare: The First Day vs. The Last Day!

The state of the crazy world brought this day a lot earlier than we had planned. On the plus side Camp Grandma is open and ready for play! 

In January of 2018 we moved to Camp and Adah started attending Retana Care each day. Courtney and I were friends in school and this was the only place I could imagine sending my child when we moved back to AC! There are no words to say to thank someoneel for loving your child like their own!

What Adah has learned:

* No biting! This was one of our first big hurtles. And I was mortified and had no clue what to do with a biter. But Courtney was patient and loved and coached her through it.

* How to go to the same place every day and not get bored. Before this Adah went somewhere different every day.

*How to be nice and share. This is still a work in progress but she has come leaps and bounds while being at Courtney's.

*How to have multiple friends.

*How to insert herself into group play that has already started.

*How to eat what everyone else is eating, or at least mostly!

*How to interact with babies and children younger than her.

*How to not be the center of everyone's attention.

*How to stay quiet at nap time even if you aren't sleepy.

*Adah became potty trained in this time with Courtney. 

There are so many more lessons and things that Courtney reinforced for us on a daily basis. It is such a blessing as a parent to send your child somewhere so you can work and know that they are not just being watched but loved and nurtured.

We will forever be grateful for Courtney and her family for loving our stubborn amd sweet Adah Grace!

From barely 2 to 4! Adah's first day and today when we said goodbye! Thank you Miss Courtney!

See a Victory!

At the beginning of this Lenten season I decided I wanted to write more and use songs to do it. I did this for almost a week and then got really sick. Since then it has been hard to get back to doing any of the things I had planned to devote myself to. 

  

Then the whole world went into chaos with this pandemic. Now we are supposed to stay home and distance ourselves and we should have a healthy fear in our hearts so we don't touch our faces. 

Well this past week or two has been a pure nightmare for many. Toilet paper is a hot commodity, medical personnel can't get the protective supplies they need, famous people have even died from this, birthdays are lonely, and you can't go visit anyone! It would be so easy to sit inside on social media and fill my heart with fear and sorrow. I could focus on the jobs that are lost and the freedom that seems to be stolen. 

But today was none of that. And tonight this song was the first one that played while I washed the mud from my feet.

See a Victory has the most perfect words for today. "I am gonna worship my way through this battle. You take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good!"

Enemy: churches are closed! 

God: let's worship online! (This morning I worshipped online with people 3 times my age all the way down to a 3 year old!)

People that have been scared of technology are now using it in bold ways to meet with those they love!

Enemy: you must stay home!

God: here is some sunshine, go play! 

Enemy: you must stay 6 feet away from everyone so you don't get sick.

God: you have a 4 year old!

Enemy: You can't go anywhere! And you live in a tiny little cabin!

God: You live at camp!

We live in an incredible time. We can see people without leaving our house. We can shop online. And we can be entertained, educated, and work from home. We live in a high speed, instant kind of world and we were all just given the gift of slowing down. So take a deep breath, follow the directions of the CDC, and accept this gift of a slower pace. Go outside, get muddy, play hard, do the things you never have time to, read, catch up on your shows, be crafty, make food...whatever it is the fuels you. Worship, pray, sing, & dance! Don't let the enemy win! Use this time for good!

Where Two or More are Gathered....

Growing up in Children's Church my grandmother always quoted the scripture "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be also." Matthew 18:20.

I woke up this morning thinking about this scripture. Grandma has been gone now for 3 months and she still has this ability to speak wisdom into my life. This week it seems as if our whole world has exploded into chaos. Going to the store is not suggested and you can't find anything you need anyway, people are working from home and all gatherings of ten or more have been cancelled across the country. There has been a lot on social media from news, to panic, memes, blatant meanness, and scripture...you name it someone has reacted in that way.

As the world is freaking out about toilet paper, and hunkering down, separating from everyone....It would be so incredibly easy to live in fear. This really reminds me of the days after 9/11 and the days after we went to war on terror. And other times in history where our need to control our world actually creates insane chaos.

I don't know if it is living and working at a Church Camp that has completely calmed spirit over the years, maturity, or my ever growing walk with Christ. But I have complete peace in all of this until I am completely alone. I am asthmatic, so there is a piece of me that is nervous in this virus pandemic. It could be really bad for me. Yesterday I enjoyed the quietness of camp as it was it empty and enjoyed the peaceful moments of motherhood. But once she was asleep and I was alone....I got nervous. I was riding my exercise bike and wheezing....and my brain immediately went to what if this is the virus. Not to the fact that it is spring and I have never been able to breath as things bloom. So this morning when I woke....a little clearer minded. I heard in my heart, "where two or more are gathered."

As a kid I always wondered what happens when you're alone....does God not join you when you are by yourself? How rude!!! When I am alone that is when I need the presence of God the most. Hey God, what is up with this verse in the Bible?! What about all of these people who are quarantined alone right now...you're just gonna leave them to their own devises?

Obviously when I am alone, my very powerful mind takes over! So in this internal conversation this morning, the response was again, "Where two or more are gathered!" And then it hit....I'm not alone when I ask the Spirit to be with me. I automatically then went to Grandma's and my favorite poem...the footprints poem. When there is only one set of footprints that is when God carries us. Oof....talk about conviction first thing in the morning!

I'm not alone when I ride my bike in the evening, I'm not alone when I can't go to the store, I'm not alone when the internet and the news run rampant. I'm not alone, unless I want to be. I can push the Spirit away. I can refuse to let the Spirit control my thoughts and desires. I can choose to be vulnerable, scared, and lonely. Or I can choose to let the Spirit in, and let God be in my thoughts, and my moments, and my days.

Toilet paper may be a scarce commodity right now, and your loved ones may be miles away. But God is only as far away as you want Him to be. If you are feeling isolated and abandoned, you're doing the pushing...not the other way around! Your mind is the most powerful tool you have, use it wisely.

"For where two or more are gathered, in My name, there I will be also!" - Jesus

Day 7: Even If

As I have spent time thinking about the purpose behind this daily song blog and what it is I want to share, I have come up with some criteria for the daily song. It must meet one or more of these.

1. At some point during the it has caught my attention and I can't quit thinking about.

2. It is a new song by someone I have never heard of and it speaks to me.

3. It applies to something in my life today.

4. It is a significant song from some part of my life.

The first one is probably the hardest and that is where the first few songs came from.  But today I land with #4, a song that is significant to a specific time of my life.

In 2017, on Easter morning my dad was taken by ambulance and was bleeding internally and they couldn't figure out where. In the midst of the other turmoil in my life, my father came close to death a couple times and was in the hospital for almost 6 weeks. This song hit the radio during this time. And I remember be struck to tears because I knew in my heart at any moment God could answer my prayer and heal my father and return him to teaching and being Grandpa. I also knew that God could choose not to, or He could heal my father and take him home with Him. 

Just like I knew that He could give my husband a job, heal my broken heart, make my child sleep at night, and make my budget work. God could do all the things I asked and He could choose not to. 

This season was so intense. My finances were as low as my father's hemoglobin and much like we couldn't find where he was bleeding we couldn't find a second source income.

This song was played on repeat and through tear filled prayers I fought so I could say It Is Well! Through all of it my soul was ok, my soul found rest in God. 

And today, 3 years later in a season that always makes me hug my dad a little tighter I can tell you all the ways God answered those prayers. 

And as I am battling my own stomach issues that are sure to hit me in the finances in a way that has me nervous, this song still brings me peace. Because there will always be something to break the budget, but I refuse to let my world spiral and I know that through all of it God is in control and if He doesn't move my mountain than the climb must be part of my journey.

No matter what your Even If statement is tonight, I pray you can see and feel that God has you and can sing deep down in the depths of your soul, "It is well, with my soul!"

this picture is from June 2017, I remember being emotional being able to take this picture, because just 2 months before we weren't sure this would happen again!

***Adah's lent: I am asking her each day what she wants to thank God for, what was her favorite thing that day!

Day 1: being able to talk!

Day 2: for Nicole's foster daughter being in our life and her upcoming birthday! 

Day 3: for the balance beam and fun activities at daycare! 

Day 4: for Nicole's foster daughter and her birthday party!

Day 5: Mommy forgot to ask.

Day 6: for Daddy!

Day 7: Mommy forgot to ask.