Mustard Seeds

This post is what I shared at church this past week.   A little update on our adoption: We went to Kansas for the birth of the baby that we were matched with last month.  The birth mother decided she would like to parent instead of going through with the adoption plan she had made. Our hearts were broken, but we have come to terms with this change in our plans.  Of course, this is not a change in God's plans at all. Here's what I have shared: Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,  and  being made in the likeness of men.  8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  10 so that at the name of Jesus  EV

This is the lesson that I taught a couple of weeks ago at our women's night at church.  It's the last lesson I'm going to have from the class for awhile, as I am stepping down from the position for awhile. ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... I started out naming some local (and not local) people to see if anyone knew them.  Some of the names only one person knew, some a couple of people knew, and some all of them knew.              Do you guys see a pattern here?  Some of these people, only one person in here knew.  Some of them, a few people might know.  Some of them, just about everyone knows. Tonight, I’d like to talk about our spheres of influence as Christians.   Each of us has a circle of people that we can influence for Christ like no one else.  No one’s circle will look the same as mi

I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago.  God really spoke something into my heart during our conversation.  She was telling me about some struggles that she was having at the time.  She is a military wife and mom of five kids.  She had just found out that they would be transferring duty stations in a few short weeks. This was right around the time that Jessi was waiting to hear back results from the tests they were doing on Baby Bean.  We were unsure what was going on and if Baby Bean was going to make it. Matt and I were in the thick of finding out we were chosen to parent a baby girl due in October and that we would have to have $50,000 for our adoption by then. Let me just tell you. Life as a woman is HARD.  It doesn’t matter if you have babies, are pregnant, are adopting, are empty nesting, or never had children to call your own.  Life is hard and wholly overwhelming sometimes. My friend just told me this week that they have to come up with $1,200 to fix

If you live in East Tennessee, you know it has rained A LOT these last few weeks.  I think it rained almost every day in the month of February.  March is off to a wet start as well. Last week, we finally started getting a little bit of a break from the rain. As I was driving to work one day, I noticed the most beautiful sunrise.  The next morning I saw another stunning sunrise. It's not that I haven't seen sunrises before.  They are actually some of the most beautiful parts of God's creation in my opinion. Here are my two pictures: They aren't the best by any means.  And pictures almost never do the real thing justice.  But after so many days of rain, it was like seeing it all anew. As I was driving, I started thinking about the work "sunrise".  I thought about how close it is to "Son Rise", which is what Jesus did the third day after He died on the cross. God sends us such a beautiful reminder of what His Son did for us all

Last week, after a very  emotional week and learning to give some grace to myself (something I really lack most days), we got our application in to the adoption consultant that we had prayed and chosen to go with Friday morning.   I immediately got the "automatic reply" email saying that it would take up to 14 days to hear back from them as to whether they accept us as client.  They take that time to pray over the applications before responding.  I love that!  I was so excited to potentially work with a company that actually prays over whether to accept you as clients.  It means that they actually CARE about each of their clients.  What a business practice, huh? Yesterday, I was having an absolute CRAZY day at work.  In the middle of doing a couple other things (including trying to get in touch with my husband to meet the refrigerator repair guy), I noticed that I had an email.  I'm not sure what made me decide to check it at that moment, but I did. Boy, did

This afternoon, Matt and I had the pleasure of watching my twin nieces for a couple hours.  What a blessing! I picked them up when I got off work, and we made a quick run through Sonic for some $0.50 corn dogs (Matt and the girls love them!)  Easy dinner for the win! As we came to the house, we sat down around our table and enjoyed a meal together.  I didn't even have to get onto the girls that much, which was a nice change of pace. After dinner, the girls colored at the table as Matt and I caught up on our day. We then spent some time reading to the girls some of the children's books that we have stashed away for our little ones in the future.  We even have an entire collection of books from Matt's childhood! The part of the evening that gives me the most hope is this: I watched my husband sit on the couch with two curly-headed four year olds and read them stories. I saw a glimpse of the daddy that he is going to get to be someday. And I loved every second

My best friend and I have been using this new bible study method recently to dig into God's Word.  It's called Project 89.  You can read more about it  here .   Basically, you read a chapter a day from the four gospels.  We are currently still in Matthew.  Today, I read Matthew 16 and wrote down several thoughts/observations. I am thankful that my friend brought this to my attention and asked me to try it with her.  I have been purposefully carving out extra time to just spend in God's Word these last few weeks.   I love that I have carved out this extra time because I am being intentional about prayer, worship, and study together, without the distractions that come so easily.   It is nice to focus just on God's Word and not on reading what other people have learned from it (by using commentaries and the like).   I'm not saying that these things are bad.  They can be very helpful and very insightful.  But I wanted to dig into God's Word for myself.  I want

So a few months ago I posted a blog about the Kissing Tree.  You can read it here . My husband, Matt, and I have been trying to have a child for two and half years.  Back last summer/fall, we decided to wait until the first of the year and start seriously looking into/pursuing adoption.   When we made the decision to wait, I thought, "January is months away.  We've got time." November came.  I thought, "Well, we still have a couple of months." December came.  I thought, "Okay. Wow.  That was fast, but it's not January yet." Today is January 21st (as I'm writing this).  January is here.  It's time. We announced at church last week our intentions to adopt.  We have done some research in the last week.   We started researching, and let me tell you.  What I found absolutely terrifies me.   It's one thing to get pregnant, right?  That's your child.  Yeah, having a child is expensive.   But then you start looking into ad