A lot of catching up to do...

I realize I have not blogged in a long time. Almost three months to be exact. I'm not really sure why I have not been blogging. I guess just the busyness of life and wanting the chill out and be with Brice during the down times I would have to blog. It's always so busy through the holidays and it's hard to find time to settle back down to life again.

I ended up getting the laparoscopy done in the middle of November. It went really well and the doctor only found extremely early endometriosis. He was able to laser it right off and only had to make two very small incisions: one in my belly button and one on my right side. The endometriosis ended up being on the left side, but I guess since it was so early in its growth he didn't have to make an incision on that side to get it out. I'm very thankful that he found something, and not nothing. I'm even more thankful that the something wasn't major and was easily removed. The doctor told us that endometriosis can do various things to prevent pregnancy. He thinks in our case the endo was releasing a chemical to prevent the sperm from getting to the egg. Now it's all gone and hopefully we'll have some good news coming up here in the next few months! :)

I had the surgery the Friday before Thanksgiving, so I was still a little sore through that next week. We went to Atlanta and had Thanksgiving there with Brice's mom and sister, and then we went to the North Carolina mountains for the weekend. I had SO much fun just being with Brice shopping at all the little shops, taking pictures, and hanging out at the coffee shop. It was also great to see all his family that we only get to see that time each year.

We went to snow mountain with Brice's family a few weekends before Christmas. It was such a blast to play in the snow again! We were also able to celebrate Christmas with his family that weekend.

Christmas was also great this year. After a few years of not celebrating it (in the traditional sense of the tree and decorating and presents) we decided to celebrate it this year.

In previous years we were unsure about how we felt about celebrating it with all it's pagan origins and what we felt at the time unbiblical traditions. However, we prayed a lot about it and felt the freedom to celebrate it the way we wanted to for the first time this year. We are still working through the details about how we want to incorporate Jesus into every aspect of it. Thankfully we've had time, and still have time, to research, pray, and talk about how we want to celebrate Christmas with our children. It's much easier when it's just the two of us because we know that it's not all about trees, lights, presents, and santa. We want to teach our children about Jesus with every thing we do in celebrating Christmas. We want it to be a Christ centered fun time where we develop our own family traditions and teach our children that it's all about the celebration of Jesus' birth and how and why He came to the earth and died for our sins. We also want it to be a day of serving others and showing Christ's love to the lost and hurting. We want it to be part of our tradition as a family to spend some of Christmas day serving in our community and have the opportunity to share the Gospel with others.

Christmas eve I made Christmas dinner and some great friends of ours, Zach and Michelle, came over to eat with us. Zach's family was in town and also came over to celebrate with us. Michelle got Zach an adorable puppy for Christmas and brought her over to our house where he saw her for the first time. They named her Leah. :)

Zach and Michelle stayed overnight that night and celebrated Christmas with us that morning. It was so fun having a sleep over and we had a great time celebrating Christmas with amazing friends who are like family to us.

We were all supposed to go to Rob and Sherri's for homemade cinnamon rolls Christmas morning (more great friends of ours who live right around the corner). However, their electricity went out so Sherri came over to our house to make the rolls and take a shower. Then everyone ended up coming to our house for Sherri's amazing homemade cinnamon rolls.

Afterwards Brice and I walked and met everyone at First United Methodist where there were many volunteers serving food to those in need. Brice and I had the opportunity to go out with Rachel and take boxes of food and Bibles around town to people who were hungry. We went to all the inns around downtown where people were staying and brought them Christmas dinner. It was such a great day of serving and celebrating Christ with others!

It also snowed on Christmas! Well, sort of. It lightly dusted the day after Christmas.

This past weekend we went up to St. Louis for the Mobilise conference. We rode up there with Zach and Michelle while Zach drove the entire way, there and back. He's crazy! Anyways, the conference was incredible! It was a such a sweet time of worship and prayer and a great time of encouragement. It started Friday night and went until Sunday morning. The main speaker for the event, Tope, spoke Friday and Saturday night and we were able to go to his seminar in the middle of the day Saturday.

What really spoke to me out of all the sessions was on Saturday night when Tope was speaking on living by faith. He talked about Joshua 5 and 6, about the wall of Jericho. He said a lot of Christians will get to the wall of Jericho in their life, whatever struggle they go through and they will stop and camp out at the bottom of the wall and get stuck in a rut.

As many of you know who read my blog or know me, my biggest struggle is infertility. It's a continual struggle until God gives us children, and maybe even beyond that if we continue to struggle to have more children. It's one of those subjects that everyone talks about because it's such a huge part of life. Almost everyone has children, and many couples decide at a point in their life that they want to have children and end up having one soon after trying. We constantly find ourselves engulfed in conversations about children because all of ours friends have them. When you meet new people, most times the first question they ask is how long have you been married, then, if you have any children, and afterwards, in our case they ask when do you plan on having children? I've learned to expect that question when we first meet people, and most times it doesn't really bother me. However, sometimes it will be a time when I'm really struggling and it will get to me. Infertility is such a huge sometimes seemingly unending roller coaster of emotions, even though I know one day there will be an end. So, infertility is the huge wall of Jericho in my life.

Tope says, "Jericho stands unrelenting, high, staring down speaking the whole time saying I'm here, I won't shift, come!" He says there are three ways to break through these walls of Jericho: 1) Acknowledge God afresh, just see God for who He is and worship Him 2) learn to walk by faith, trusting the One who has called you (the wall of Jericho came down by faith) Seek God and don't give up, don't give in, and don't break down. Believe in His promises and 3) Obey the last command. God says show me your faith by your works.

I feel like a lot of times through this struggle I hit the infertility wall and get knocked down. I realized as I was sitting there listen to Tope speak that so much of my words in that area lack faith in God. I struggle with asking God why is He not giving us children and often find myself saying in day to day conversations, "well if we ever have children", or "well your children will be grown by the time we have kids". I think about prophetic words that have been given to us about having children and say, well that hasn't happened yet so is God really going to give us children? Was that word really from God? Tope says negativity is a faith killer. I often have negativity in the area of us having children and, not even really realizing it, doubting God and not trusting in His promises by what I say to other people. I say I have faith that God will give us children, then act like I don't.

I'm so thankful that God has revealed this to me and now I can move on from here with faith that God will someday give us children. My faith has increased tremendously that God will someday give us the desires of our hearts. I have renewed faith that when I pray and ask God to give us a child, He does hear me and He will give us children someday. I just need to keep seeking God and living my life for His glory. To keep walking this life of faith in God and preaching His word and ministering to others. To keep serving Him in everything I do and helping others who are need of Him. To praise God for all He has given me and worship Him each and every day. I thank God so much that He speaks to His children and that His Holy Spirit is at work in our lives transforming us to be more like His son.

Memories

I got home from work today and started cleaning my house for premarital counseling tonight. As I was cleaning, memories began flooding into my head of all the things that have happened in this house. This has been happening a lot lately... especially since its getting closer and closer to us selling it and moving to St. Louis. I usually don't have too much of an attachment to things, but this house is different. I have a strong attachment to it. I think it's because this is not only the first house we have bought together, but its also the first house we fixed up and worked on together (for before and after pictures, click here). We put a lot of work into this house, and have a lot of memories before we even moved into it. There have been many more memories since moving here and I'm definitely going to miss this wonderful house.

Not the best picture of the house, but our first one. This was before we bought it and for some reason the screen was taken out of the window? We were going in to plan our updates :)

We have some friends hopefully lined up to buy it from us. This house was rented out before us by some guys in our church and then we bought it as soon as they moved out. If our friends buy the house from us, it will stay in the church. I'm hoping and praying that it will work out to where they can buy it from us.

There are SO many memories of group get togethers, hang outs, babies playing, counseling sessions, leadership meetings, sewing adventures, movies watched, and amazing conversations made in our comfortable homey living room.

Sometimes I just sit the couch and look out into the living room from this exact perspective and think about all the times I had with Asher and Dallas. I really miss staying at home with them. I can't wait until God gives us children of our own that we can make tons of memories with.

SO many memories of great meals cooked, wonderful desserts baked, feeding babies, more counseling sessions, meetings, and talks, and many many dinners with guests that have become incredible life long friends all happened in this kitchen.

What I'm beginning to miss most are the memories of Suzanne and Dallas being here. As many of you know, she moved out from upstairs to live with her parents. A lot has changed in our relationship with Suzanne over the past several months. I've probably felt every emotion possible towards the situation, and now I'm really beginning to mourn over them being gone. There really isn't any communication or friendship left there, and it breaks my heart. For a while I've been angry about the things that have happened, just like I was the last time she moved out (January). However, this time it's different. I'm not so sure she'll actually come back this time, and we're moving. So the fact is, we may never see them again. What really breaks my heart is we've spent so much time with Dallas, and we love her so much as if she were our own. We still often quote Dallas' sayings and envision her running around the house playing with Leo or in her little red chair (pictured above in the living room). But in a short while she won't even remember us anymore. It almost feels like a dream now. All I have left to do is pray and trust God in all of this.

I know that as it gets closer to us leaving its going to get harder, not only leaving the first house we bought together, but also leaving our church family. But I'm also super excited to go where God is leading us and I know we're going to make many great new memories there too. God is good and He loves His children.

A Month's Worth of Events

I realized today it is has been almost a month since I have blogged. It's October... I can't believe that! Where did the time go?! I guess I've just been so caught up in life that I lost track of time!

Lots of things have happened in the past month.

I started my sign language class three weeks ago. I absolutely love it! I've learned so much already and I've only been to 3 classes. I can't wait to learn it all! I've been looking up Christian songs on youtube that are interpreted in sign and it's incredible to see how much the signs symbolize the meanings! I definitely want interpret someday.

I had a pumpkin spice latte for the first time ever last week! It was the most incredible coffee I've ever tasted!

I put out some of my fall decorations!

Not much I know. I still have some more to put up and I want to get some wonderfully scented fall candles! Fall is my favorite season!

We made this awesome soup the first official day it was cold! It's a Rachel Ray recipe and it's called BLT and Potato Soup. It is SO delicious!

I found out two of my friends are pregnant again. Congratulations again Kim and Emily! I love you both!

We celebrated Zach's birthday last weekend. We went to Atlanta to the Sun Dial and had lunch at the rotating restaurant.

We went to the Coca-Cola museum.

And we went to the Braves vs Phillies game. Phillies won. :)

Sadly Zach is not even in this picture. We didn't get many pictures of all four of us!

We've started pre-engagement counseling with an incredibly sweet couple that we recently met and instantly became close to. We have so much in common that we literally became great friends the first night we had them over for dinner. We talked forever and then Danielle came to my house a total of 4 times that week. We have so much fun together and I can't wait to continue growing closer with them!

I'm very sad that we don't have a picture with all four of us. We need to work on that one!

Oh, and the biggest news of all....we are officially moving to St. Louis next June!

I don't think I ever blogged about this, but Brice got accepted into the New Frontiers church planting internship. God has been speaking to us for months now about planting a church in Jacksonville. Carl, the pastor at Jubilee Church in Atlanta, put Brice's name out there to Jubilee Church in St. Louis. They sent him some tests to take to make sure he was qualified to be a leader, and then he had an interview. We found out two weeks ago that he was officially accepted and we're moving! We will move up to St. Louis for a year and Brice will learn everything he needs to know about planting a church. Then, we will be sent out to plant one! That's the very super short version of the story. It's very exciting news! God is also moving on some other couple's hearts in our church to come help build with us in Jacksonville. We are very excited to see what God does!