"When darkness veils it's lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace." ~Edward Mote

Ten Most Amazing Things:

1. We found out that I was pregnant with Josiah while we were visiting the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon wasn’t quite so grand after that. We walked around in a crazy excited state. We need to go back to experience the depthness and amazingness of the Grand Canyon with the kids one day.

2. Josiah Isaac showed up on February 11, 2004.

3. Tullie Rose showed up on June 13, 2005.

4. Eli Preston showed up on April 25, 2006.

5. Ellison Reese showed up on April 10, 2007.

6. We have had a few tight spots financially over the years. Tighter then usual. But each time Jesus provided. He provided for us financially, physically, spiritually and in our marriage.

7. We moved to Seattle, sight unseen (well, it was sort of seen, because we drove through and spent a little bit of time here on our honeymoon) to go to Mars Hill Church. Jesus has used Mars Hill drop some misconceptions that we had theologically. He’s used Mars Hill to provide friendships and community in the times of our deepest need. Jesus has used Mars Hill to bring us closer to Him, with one another and our children. We have been beyond blessed to be a part of this community and to watch and participate in it’s amazing growth in the last ten years.

8. Jesus has used tragedy and life experiences of the last ten years to become seriously broken hearted. To humble us in front of Him. To lean into Him when we were wasting away and trying to walk on our own. His glory has been displayed through tragedy and we continue to see that in a new way frequently. Jesus is good. He has taken care of us, and will continue to do so.

9. We have NO Land Cruisers on our property at the moment.  Seriously, THIS is amazing. (I stand corrected.  I thought we had one or two out there.)

10. We are not the same two people that got married ten years ago. We’re different. We’ve stretched. We’re better. It’s all simply by God’s grace and mercy. Every survival. Every thing learned, is simply Jesus. We did nothing, except ask for Him to help us. That is amazing. Jesus. He has carried us through.

When I was in college, a boy and I broke up.  Looking back on it, it seems so trite and I wonder why it consumed a couple of years of my life, but there is one significant thing that I was taught. 

One day I was in my room, crying my eyes out, all sad and filled with self pity, when I felt like Jesus spoke to me.  He said, “This will not be the hardest thing that you ever endure.  You will feel much more pain then this in your life.  I’m using this to begin teaching you about pain.”  At first, I thought it was me just trying to rationalize how I was feeling, but over time I kept those words in my heart and I didn’t share them with anyone.  I didn’t share them with Mike until after Tullie was born and Eli passed away.  I didn’t always think about them, but I remembered the small conversation I had with Jesus that day over the last several years.   In all honesty, I never thought that those words would hold any type of comfort to me in the future. 

After Tullie was born, I had a friend who was asking about her.  Her diagnosis, what her life would be like and other questions that were similar.  When we were nearing the end of the conversation, she said, “I couldn’t do that.  I couldn’t be a mother to a special needs child.”  I thought, “And you think I can?!?!  I have sooo much experience in this area, right?!?!”  I nodded graciously to her, but I left that conversation thinking, that I couldn’t do it either.  Jesus didn’t ask me if I wanted Tullie, He gave her to me.  He just said that that was what we were going to do.  Mike and I were parents to a child with Down Syndrome.  He didn’t ask us, He just entrusted her to us, knowing that we would take care of her.  It was just the way it was.  We didn’t have a choice. 

The same thing happened 10 months later.  Jesus didn’t ask me to give Eli back to Him.  He took him back.  I’ve been angry about that.  I’ve been sad about that (especially today), but Jesus has taught me much through that.  He has broken  us in a way that we would’ve never been broken before Him, if Eli were with us today running and playing with Josiah in the dirt. 

When people look at my life, and they tell me they can’t do it, I tell them that they could.  They could because Jesus told them to.  They’d do it because they didn’t have any other choice.   They’d do it, because, His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9)

With any trial and pain that our Lord asks us to go through, or sometimes tells us to go through, because it’s simply landed in our lap, He grace is sufficient.  It’s all we need.  Our Lord is enough and He will walk with us through the valley, because He brought us there.  He’s not going to leave us there.   We will mature and we will blossom if we keep our eyes and focus on Him.  He is the God of comfort and love.  He is gracious and merciful.

 I think about that girl in college who was crying over a boy, thinking that her life was coming to an end and I shake my head at that.  I think about how immature she was and trite, but how much that girl learned before she graduated from college.  I think about how God blessed her with an amazing husband, who loves her, cares for her and thinks more of the family then he does of himself.  This girl has been through much, but Jesus is the one who has brought her through.  It’s all Him.  Nothing about what she did or how she did it.  It’s all Jesus.  The pain of loss is there, but the comfort, hope and peace that wraps that pain like a blanket is from Jesus.  All glory goes to Him.

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Isaiah 53

 ¹ Who has believed what he has heard from us?
   And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
²For he grew up before him like a young plant,
        and like a root out of dry ground;
 he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
   and no beauty that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men;
   a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
   he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 ⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs
   and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions;
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his stripes we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
   we have turned—every one—to his own way;
 and the LORD has laid on him
   the iniquity of us all.

 ⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he opened not his mouth;
  like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
   and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
   so he opened not his mouth.
⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
   and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
   stricken for the transgression of my people?
⁹And they made his grave with the wicked
    and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
   and there was no deceit in his mouth.

 ¹⁰Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
   he has put him to grief;
 when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
   he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
 the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

¹¹Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
    make many to be accounted righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
   and was numbered with the transgressors;
       yet he bore the sin of many,
   and makes intercession for the transgressors.

(ESV, emphasis mine)

He suffered, so that in the midst of our suffering we may have hope.