We were able to spend a few weeks really pouring in to the books we were going to teach. Eric- Titus and First and Second Timothy, and myself- Galatians and First and Second Thessalonians. We really enjoyed diving in to the Word and literally spending hours seeking God’s heart for these students. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to just sit and soak in the Word, really figuring out what was going on, what God was saying and how we can apply it to our lives today.

This challenged us to do this more often. Maybe not spend hours upon hours, but to really spend time in God’s Word. “The Word became flesh”, and we truly want to spend time with Jesus any way we can. Plus, why not be filled with Truth!? In a time where I have struggled to hold on to the truth I know, this was an awesome time to simply soak it all in. God is so good!

The SBF class was amazing and with skits, activities and illustrations, as well as old fashioned information of course, we hope and pray that God’s message got across. So, thank you for having us. We truly feel blessed!

This is the first time since December 2007 that we have had our own place, so it was pretty exciting to set it all up. The one thing missing? Well, maybe two. Okay, maybe five. Michael. Sarah. Finn. Fay. Mr. Neut. We are super excited to be “on our own” after so long, but there really is nothing like living in close community with good friends. For the past year and a half we have been blessed to live with two of our best friends. We learned what it was to move past friendship to family.

Denver, you’ve got hard competition. We have come with expectancy though. We are expectant that God is going to be with us. We are expectant that God is going to bring people in to our lives who will also become family. (It’s true, he already has!) We are expectant that God is going to use us in our brokenness for his kingdom and his glory. Are we expecting too much? I don’t think so, not if you know the God we serve.

As we settle in we remember our blessings and look forward to seeing what God has for us in this next chapter of life.

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

Encouraging. Challenging. True.

So what do you say when faith doesn’t seem enough? What do you say when you’re believing for a miracle with all your heart and it doesn’t happen? I’m still figuring it out…

Saturday afternoon I started bleeding (I won’t be too graphic). It wasn’t much, and I was advised to rest and keep my feet up. This isn’t too uncommon. Sunday morning I woke up and there was more blood, lots more. We went to the ER, got a blood test, an internal and an ultrasound. The Doctor said my cervix was closed, which is a really good sign, but the baby measured at 6 weeks and I was 9 weeks pregnant and there was no heart beat. He went on to say that this early it is possible that they just couldn’t get a heart beat, not necessarily meaning it wasn’t there. A mix of good news and bad news, a little heavier on the bad. The rest of Sunday was a blur, between emotional exhaustion and headaches from tears, I felt like we were lost in hopelessness.

Monday morning I got an email from my good friend with an article about “threatened miscarriages” saying that 50% of them end up going full term. This same day I heard about three other women who bled a lot and the doctors said they miscarried but then things turned around and they carried full term. What encouragement! Our chances jumped from 0-50% literally overnight. You know the feeling when you literally can feel the peace because of other people’s prayers. We felt that too. My faith had been so encouraged to believe that God truly can make things right. He would work a miracle.

Tuesday afternoon we had an OB appointment. We thought we were going to go in and get blood work done to determine if my pregnancy hormones doubled. If they did we were in the clear. If they didn’t, well, we weren’t going to think about that. The doctor came in and began talking about procedures we could choose to make sure everything was cleaned out. As if there was no chance for life at all. When we questioned her she informed us that the ER doctor, perhaps tentative to deliver bad news, didn’t really tell us what had happened. She said I had been dilated, and that you can hear a heart beat at five and a half weeks. Those two things pretty much guaranteed a miscarriage. We were in shock. Why would the ER doctor have told us things that would give us such hope if they weren’t true?! Why would we have been so encouraged and filled with faith that things would be okay if there was no chance from the start?! It seemed like the questions would never end.

We asked for another ultrasound just to make sure. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that there was a chance God was going to work a miracle in saving this babies life and we let it slip away because of what the doctor was saying. The doctor looked at us with pity, saying she would order it but not to get our hopes up. It really didn’t look good. The ultrasound results came back and our world shattered. She said that everything was almost back to normal, as if there had never been a baby there.

Our miracle baby was gone.

It’s so hard to even write that knowing the finality of it.

We felt sad, angry, confused, hurt, everything you could imagine all mixed in to one big mush of emotions. Was this because my faith wasn’t enough? Did I not hold on to the belief that God could do a miracle through this? Were the prayers from all the people who were praying for us just not enough? No. I believe in Matthew 17:20. I believe that my faith, that your faith is bigger than a mustard seed. I believe that my faith can move mountains. There are lots of things I don’t know. Lots of question I have. But my faith tells me God is good. My faith tells me God is love. My faith tells me God is sovereign. And right now everything in my wants to believe otherwise. That is my mountain. Daily I will resolve to hold on to my faith, to what I know to be true about my God. And my mountain will move, just not in the way I thought it would.

There can be miracles. I believe that with all my heart. But sometimes there’s just not.

Know my heart, I appreciate everyone’s support whether that be financially or through prayer. We literally wouldn’t be where we are without you. I guess I’m just tired of writing letters. I’d much rather sit down with people and share, or better yet, have each person who is supporting us come and join what we are doing for a few days to see what God is doing. Words on a piece of paper really can only say so much.

I suppose that is my frustration. I want to do more that write words and ask for money. I want people to experience what God is doing in the lives of the students out in Denver. I want them to experience the intimacy that is ushered in during Monday worship. I want them to be challenged by the speakers in a way that will leave them forever changed. I want that for you, for each one of you. I don’t want people to give us money because they feel bad at how poor we are, or think we’re doing “a good thing”. I want people to partner with us because they have caught the vision of God’s heart for our family and want to “come with us” and stay connected through all we do. I want a team, or a family rather, to walk with us through this. You want in? Let me know! We’d LOVE to have you!

We’re having another baby!!

This news is super exciting and super terrifying. Expected due date is March 4th… yes, that would make Malachi and this new baby less than a year and a half apart. Eek! This is the cause for both the excitement and terror. =) Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to adapt to the role of parents to Malachi and prepare to become parents once again to this new baby.

Any name suggestions!?

The night before we were going to hand in the application, about 8pm, we got a voice mail from someone saying we had left a message about an apartment and to call them back. There was no name of the apartment and the number didn’t match any of the ones I had written down… strange! When we called him back the next day we found out he was calling from an apartment we called maybe two weeks before that, we called more than once, and never heard back from them. He said that we could come check out the apartment in ten minutes- seriously?!

After looking at the apartment we decided no way, the kitchen was gross and the carpet probably had critters crawling around in it from the 70’s. After telling the man that the kitchen and carpet weren’t up to par he said that if we signed a year lease (I thought you had to do that anyway!) that he would totally redo the kitchen before we moved in and put in new carpet. Our no turned to a YES! The next morning we signed papers. Praise Jesus!

1. Personal revelation from God

2. Personal revelation of his heart

3. Personal revelation of his destiny

We are uniquely designed in the sense that there are things we can do that no one else in the world can do.

Basically the point is that your spiritual authority comes from a personal revelation from God. It isn’t something that can be given to you by another person, but only by the Father. He has so gifted us in a way to accomplish the task that he has for us. Because he has called and equipped, then we have authority.

He also shared about the time frame that this authority often comes through… it was sobering. Your call and your character have to be lined up. Often times character growth happens through three spheres, time, maturity and authority- until these three happen and your character is where it needs to be the authority you need for the call God has for you may not happen. Why is this so hard? It’s no fun to wait! Personally, I want to do what I need to do with the authority I need to do it without waiting… but I’m learning! In order to truly find my destiny, God’s wonderful plan for my life, I know I need to go through seasons of growth… so bring it on!

Thousands of people will not come to their destiny until we come to ours

when you disciple someone, do it from their strengths God gave them, not their behavior

This is such a sweet concept because its something Eric and I have specifically felt we were to do before we were able to fully put words to it. This goes not only for discipleship, but for living your own life. If you know what your strengths are then you are better able to operate out of and excel at areas using your strengths.

What are mine?

Adaptability: You trust you can handle whatever occurs. even when you do not know exactly what to do, you probably know someone who does. You have an uncanny ability to easily and cooperatively proceed  in the direction in which other people and processes are going.

Connectedness: This sense of being linked to other people means a lot more to you than finishing first or claiming an award. You may be fascinated by news reports that promise to improve the quality of life for the entire human family.

Developer: You like to lift the spirits of the people around you. You know what to do and say so individuals feel useful, valued, appreciated and important.

Empathy: You are keenly aware of the needs and desires of others. These insights allow you to freely share your knowledge, skills, experiences and expertise with many individuals. You understand that the act of listening is both helpful and healing.

Input: You choose to converse with people who talk about ideas rather than those who gossip or complain. As you amass bits of knowledge and tangible proof, you may enliven the discussion by adding some of your insights or ideas.

These are just parts from the Personalized Strengths Insight section… they actually really helped me understand why I do some of the thing that I do. It also helped me in the fact that four out of the five of my strengths are relational, one of them is strategic thinking… none of them are executing or influencing. What does this say? I’m a pretty relational person, which is why it is difficult for me to make things happen. Not to say its an excuse, just helped me understand why.

Eric’s strengths are: Achiever, Belief, Positivity, Strategic and Woo… all of these I could have told you without him taking the test. I am so thankful that our strengths are so different, I need him so much!

The truth of what he spoke was amazing this week, short and simple:

Ministry IS a choice to serve from a motivation of love. It is also the Holy Spirit through you, released by faith and obedience to meet the needs of the people.

Have you prayed today? Have you prayed for someone besides yourself? Do you believe God answers prayer? Then you’ve ministered! Brilliant! Don’t over spiritualize things. Nothing is unspiritual. Ministry is not a position, but a way of life. It is allowing God to work through you… we are all “doing ministry”.

One of the things that really stood out to me from this week is God’s desire for us to know his heart. Often times God won’t give a specific instruction, like go to India, but he will put things on people’s hearts that will totally lead them there. There are of course times when God has to beat us (me) over the head and states very clearly what He wants me to be doing, but sometimes he wants me to be walking with him in a way where I already know before he tells me. If I am walking in intimacy with God then I know his heart and his will without asking. If I am purposely putting myself in situations where I know God has to move through me to make something happen, then I can trust that it is indeed Him moving through me. Beautiful! Intimacy, all he wants is intimacy.