Dying to Live

   Did you ever sit in church and there's one line in the entire sermon that just hits you and leaves you pondering it for the rest of the day? That was this morning for me. I can't quote it word for word because my attention span is amazing, but the gist of it was, "IF we could describe God, He wouldn't be much bigger than we are." (para-phrased from P. David Fisher at NBCF) When I heard this thought, it just made me want to spike a football hard to the ground and do some crazy child like dance! (Because after all,  that's how we celebrate overwhelming victory in America.) It filled me with all the "feels". (In case you younger and much cooler people are reading.)         It stuck with me throughout the day because it just made so much sense. If God wasn't bigger than us, we could somehow formulate His very existence. We could put measure on His love and His mercy. We could explain every "why" or "how". We wouldn't nee

Surely God is my help;     the Lord is the one who sustains me.- Psalm 54:3   This is week our baby boy turns one! I remember looking back over Kai's first year with such joy and peace. It's hard to do this with Theo. I don't think I realized just how hard until we began planning his birthday party. It makes me feel guilty. His birth is something I'm so grateful for, but wish I could forget at the same time. I'm not one who reacts to things as they're happening, emotionally. I shut down and just get through them. So lately I find myself reliving the smells, the sounds and the anxieties of his first week of life. I have never been someone to dwell on anything, I take things in stride and focus on the positive and move on. But I'll admit, this one is hard. It's the feeling of this time of year, the weather and atmosphere. Anytime I've thought back to his first days of life, I have only focused on the day he came home. The days before that are a blur

  There are times in life, even for the not so emotional people (such as myself), when something completely overwhelms you. I know in these instances my first reaction is "how do I fix this?" I'll be honest with you, I've been saved for about 17 years, and am just now learning how wrong that reaction truly is. How many times do I claim that Jesus is my everything, yet I first pursue other answers and ways first? How much more peace would be in all of our lives if we could train not just our minds, but our hearts to first cry out to Him? Even if it's just a simple cry of His name. Jesus. The most important lesson I am learning is when things happens, He is the first one on the scene. He's not sitting at the station waiting for a call, Jesus is a(the) first responder.       Think about that. If you were in an accident and a paramedic was already on the scene, would you being calling others for help? Would you be searching around for a band-aid? No. You would b

    How often do we ask God for direction and get fed up because we don't get an answer? We grow weary of seeking and asking because we feel as if we're yielding no results. The fact is, maybe we are seeking emotion instead of listening to His voice? We're waiting for that "ah ha!" moment and trying to "feel out" His answer. God gave us feelings, they're humane and natural. But He doesn't ask us to go with our "gut feeling" or "follow your heart". In fact sometimes what He asks of us is uncomfortable and hard and the opposite of what we're asking for. He gives us answers that don't make sense. He gives us answers that we can't explain to anyone else except to say "He asked me to." As humans we demand explanation. We have a hard time reasoning why we should do things without all the facts. Facts and emotions are what the world tells us we need, but in God's reality, in our reality as believers, we only

The blots of ink from raindrops run grey the black and white So lost inside the chaos pointing fingers all in fright. Bands of unity in one, no longer in a line. Divided are the very hearts morale once defined. What was wrong is not a right A right is now what's wrong. There's a race of finding justice where all consequence is gone. Alas this parchment paper is thinning day by day from constant friction of rewording everything we say. Life is now the great debate on every body's tongue. The sands of time are counting strands of prophecy undone. Inch by inch we're moving further from the light to where all life grows weary, blinded by the night. Victims pointing fingers each and every way looking for their power as grain falls upon grain. If all the pointing fingers should fall upon their knees they'd see the ones their pointing at are not the enemy. Divided hearts distracted, strategic, easy prey. Revelation swarming, time

    This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.  Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel."  - Jeremiah 18:1-6    From the time we give our lives to Christ until the moment He calls us home, we are all an unfinished piece of artwork; an unfinished creation of the Lord most high. He works on each one of us adding careful and unique detail. He builds us up for specific purposes and when that purpose has been fulfilled He molds us in to something different. Into something even better. He takes care to add water to refresh us. He takes care to

   It's ironic that I wrote last about being on the mountain top, when 10 days later we were quickly plunged in to the valley. October 10th I had a routine prenatal visit, where we learned I had prehypertension (which I also had with my first son, Kai) and they would be taking Theo by c-section 2 weeks earlier than planned. So we came home and got our plan in place. The new date was for the 16th and we charted the course of who would watch Kai what days, and if Jay would stay only 1 night at the hospital or more. We took a family trip to build-a-bear where Kai made Theo a stuffed dog, like he has, to give to him at the hospital.  We made sure we got a gift for Kai from Theo as well. We invited close friends and family to visit and let them know what times would be best since the number of visitors at one time are limited. Bags were packed. Phones were charged.     We woke up the morning of the 16th like every other morning. We spent our last couple hours as a family of 3 just c