From the fullness of grace...

From the fullness of grace, we have received one blessing after another. John1:16

That's on the header for Our Life blog, and that verse in scripture is so heavy on my heart this week. For those of you that don't know a couple of months ago I discovered this notsuppossedtobethere lump. With both my sweetiepie Mom and my dear aunt both having gone through breastcancer at young ages, you can imagine what that does for the old heart when you discover such a thing. With the discovery, me and my hubster fast tracked it to the breast specialist. There the Dr did a real once over and from there I went through ultrasounds, mammograms, and MRIs. With a thankful heart, I am able to report that God laid his Mighty hand on me and I am completely fine. But that's not the entire part of the story that I want to capture here for our family and for me, to remember for years to come. I want to remember all of the little glimpses that our Mighty Lord showed me and let me hear His love every step along the way in this process.

As I have stated earlier in this post, this has been a situation that I (and many) have been praying over for several months.... but just as you know it- God's timing is perfect. The real story starts when I went for the first MRI... and I laid on the MRI table, scared at the enormity of the situation. I closed my eyes and began to pray. I prayed that the right people would be on the other side of that wall reviewing my films and that the most skilled folks would be the ones that would determine what my health at that situation was. I prayed that God ensured that for me, so that I could trust that what they found or didn't find was accurate and I could move forward down whatever path that God lead me down. At that moment, the machine didn't work and the tech walked in and told me that I would need to reschedule my appointment. As I got myself up and headed to the room to get dressed and ditch that hospital gown, God let me hear.... he let me hear one of the tech's that were working my machine getting some lessons on improvement on how to preform his job. He let me hear how this gentleman had made a mistake on the setup of a previous test. That was not a coincidence.... I believe that was God showing me He heard my prayer. What an amazing God we serve that hears our prayers all the time. Not all are answered or maybe not on our timeline, but He, the Mighty Lord that breathed this world into existence, hears our prayers.
The blessings didn't stop there. I was able to see how He orchestrated and wove certain key people in my life for this experience together. How "chance" meetings or getting to know yous, really aren't chance at all. I felt the outpouring of a church family lifting us up in prayer. One blessing after another. On the day of the rescheduled MRI (at a different hospital), I again experienced that wave of emotion come over me as I headed in the tube. Their a technician shared with me afterwards her support and she gave me the name of the best surgeon she knew. She told me that "I would do fine." and instructed that I "keep putting one foot in front of the other, follow what the dr's told me, and I would do fine". She asked me if I understood what she was saying to me. Um, Yes. Normally these folks don't utter one word on what they read following your test, but for whatever reason this particular person felt so led to tell me these things. Her words led us to believe that they had seen something that was sketchy and needed addressing by a surgeon. Needless to say, the next 24hours seemed to move at a turtle's pace as I waited for those results, as my husband and I tried to sort through the emotions and heaviness of that situation. During that time, I told God that I trusted Him and should he lead me down this path, I trusted Him and I would be faithful to him. Oh, friends- how He is faithful. As I left the hospital that evening, without any rain insight, I saw a rainbow and knew that everything was going to be ok. Just as it says in Genesis: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:13
The most precious thing that He did for me, was the morning following that long, restless evening- I went to get my precious girl up and out of bed. When she opened her precious green eyes, she said to me " Mommy, God loves you. He 'ill pro-tect you." Let me stop here for a moment and say, 1) our kids had no idea what was going on with my health during this time and 2) she had never said "protect" before nor really heard it that much in her 2.5 years.... so I knew, as she uttered those words to me early Tuesday morning, that was not my sweet daughter speaking- but instead that was my Heavenly Father talking to me. And I could not dream of a more precious way to hear His love for me, then coming from the voice of my little girl.
Although this time was challenging, I was able to see God at work and feel Him all around me. What an amazing experience. I can tell you with a completely thankful yet completely un -derserving heart that He is Mighty, that He hears you, and if we are just open to it, we can see Him at work all around us. Oh how He loves us.

Insta-Friday

What have we been up to this week?? Here a few photo's of the week in action using nothing but the old cell phone. Insta-Friday, Our Life style.

There was a beautiful rainbow this week.... that followed an important event this week (more on that in the next post).
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:13

Love this machine... LOVE.... no more loading all the kids in the car, buckling unbuckling, shoes on, shoes off for all of the kids, in and out of the store to get a delish cup o'joe for me.... and not spending 5 bucks each time doesn't hurt either!

What a wonderful class... love learning more on how to help raise our children sheparding their hearts, and loving on my family!

This guy! (notice the shoes are already off in the car).... while practicing the days of the week, his response was "8" to everything thing.... he thought it was hilarious- lil' joker!

These boots are made for walking.... and she LOVES them. Stay tuned...

Overflowing...

We are so full over here at Our life full, we are overflowing-- literally. Courtesy of my darling twosome. This afternoon as I was cooking lunch for me + Luke and BellaB.... I heard an outpouring of laughter. As I stood at the stove, I was thinking how precious and delightful it was to hear them laughing, squealing, and playing together. I grew up in a close relationship with my brother, so I have always wanted that for my children-- I am sure that you know those moments when your little mommy heart swells full of joy in hearing the happiness in your children. Ok, so 1 second later-- you know what comes next. That immediate question of what is so funny for these two?
Imagine my surprise as I rounded the corner to see my dog, soaked, on the outside of the bathroom-- all the while water billowed out from under the closed bathroom door. And there it was-- the laughter, cheer, the delight- squeals and clapping. As I quickly jerked the door open, there they were-- The Wonder Twins. Grinning ear to ear. Catching hand fulls of overflowing water from the sink. Luke said, so happily I might add-- "Look, Mom-- we made a water park". And that folks is when I think my blood pressure reached stroke level. They climbed up on the footstool and closed the sink drain off and turned on the water to its fullest potential. Then stood on the floor and tried to make themselves as wet as possible.
I am trying to choose to see the humor in all of this mayhem, so as I type I am thankful- that God has blessed me with healthy children, that enjoy each other. I am thankful that I am able to clean up their messes and can dry my poor white soaked dog. I am thankful they choose to play with the water from the sink and not the potty. I am thankful that I am learning to be a better mother and was able to teach them a lesson about their mistake and help them to see how this misbehaving was not appropriate, and they learned a biblical lesson. And I know, one day soon when I go to pull out one of their pre-school books and the pages are all shriveled up from this very occasion I will be reminded how quickly these days go by, just like the rushing water.

Movie Night

In the spirit of working on just being, from my previous post- I put down the dish scrubber and decided we would do family movie night after dinner. We popped in a Veggie Tales movie and made a "pallet" as my mom would call, on the floor. BellaGrace shook her hips to every tune that came on, onthegoLuke was upandownandupanddown--you get the idea, but that Zackary-- he hushed with the best of em. It was beautiful-- all 3 plus doggieZ hanging out. Those dishes can wait until after the kids are nestled asleep in their beds with visions of veggies dancing in their heads. So tonight I have a full and very thankful heart, God has blessed my life beyond measure... and tonight just being-it was so special. (the quality of this pic is the pits.... courtesy of a frequently dropped cell phone)

Gone Fishing

While staying in Charleston on Mike's last business trip, the guys got to do a little fishing after work one evening. Here is our master fisherman with the largest catch of the night. What a beautiful sunset in the background.

Turning the corner

I am so glad to be back into the bloggy-blog world. This summer it seems that I managed to fill up that precious planner of mine (you know this girl loves to plan!) and spent way too much time doing and not enough time being. Have you ever been like that? Any who, as I sit here typing away there is a to-do list waiting for me- and that's what I wanted to chat with you over my coffee this afternoon. I would love to send you a picture of this delicious coffee that I am sipping on, but my precious toy truck pushing Luke decided that he would "clean" the photo card reader on the (less than year old) computer with a lip gloss wand. I love the little helpful man in him that wants to clean.... but really lip gloss. You can imagine what that would do to the card reader-- each time I would pull it out (because I am one persistent girl, I had to try multiple times) it was nice and shiny.... glossy if you will. Any who- back to being.
Right in the midst of planning this Ladies fall retreat for church (which by the way I have spent more time planning with my buddy Julie than I did on my wedding!), I have discovered that our house is so rushed right now. School is back in session, practices and games for Zack have begun, there's bible studies, Wednesday night classes, you name it- we are in full swing. With all of the running to the bus stop or homework that needs to be done I find that we are all busy. Busy with being busy- does that make sense? Weekends fill up and the house just gets chaotic.... grabbing something, dashing out the door, loading in the car, hurry.
Enter my 31 day challenge.... Courtney over at http://womenlivingwell.org/ started this challenge and I am excited to see what God has in store for me and our house as I pray over making our home a Haven. A refuge and much needed place of tranquility and calmness and joy.
So, here's to turning the corner... choosing being over doing(all the time) and looking forward to what God has planned for our home.

We've Moved!

Welcome to our new home! We have packed up the boxes from our old "starter" blog and found a new, upgraded, with room to grow blog. As with a lot of moves, I decided that this new home would need a fresh new look too-- enter my new virtual bf Jessica from diamond doll design. She has been such an awesome person to work with as I "re-decorated" with her-- she is super speedy and has such a talent to really make your blog show it's potential. Check our her site she's great.... and a super duper thank you to Leigh for leading me to her.
Sit back, relax and stay for a while, I have lots of unpacking to do!