Round 2...on a Friday

This mornings post was unexpected, so I thought it would only be fair to finally and fully fill you in on what the true big announcement is.

Sadly, and I'm sorry to disappoint but it is no baby. No pea in a pod...yet.

My big news is nothing that we are purchasing...it's more or less as opportunity that God has provided for us. A family in our church is moving and was unable to sell their house. Knowing that we would be interested in moving out, they offered to rent their house to us.

Sadly though, we couldn't afford it. [insert much sadness here] With no real jobs on the horizon, it doesn't lend very well to paying rent along with other bills. 

Despite this my official announcement is....

we are still moving! :)

In order to help them and help ourselves, it's been decided that we will split the house and the rent with Greg's younger brother and his new wife (they are getting married a week before we move). [this is where you will kindly keep all rude and un-nice comments to yourself please]. We all know this isn't an ideal or normal situation. We know it's bound to have some issues. BUT we have had enough of living in an attic with 95% of our belongings in a storage unit 2 miles away. 

We are moving to this house:

and yes...this house has an awesome garden, full of growing zucchinis, cucumbers, tomatoes of all sizes, mint, raspberries, dill, parsley, rhubarb, green beans, etc.

We are house sitting while the owners are on vacation, so I am already benefiting from the oh-so-plentiful garden.

I'm sorry this has taken so long, lots of stuff has been going on around here. Like how on earth we are going to replace this car when our money is already going to that house up there.

**Us trying to unload all of my hubby's "stuff" from his car to mine

We are praying that God led us to this position because He has bigger plans for us than we can see. While he hope and think we are making the right decisions, there is no way to be sure. The next month or two could be great, bad, or a little bit of each. I guess we'll see what happens...

A Little Big Lesson on Life

In the summer of 2004, my hubs spent the summer with Campus Crusade for Christ in Wildwood NJ. As you may know, there are a ton of stores on boardwalks and Wildwood was no different. All the people he was with on "project" (as they called it) found a store that would stamp/burn a piece of leather with just about anything you want...as long as it fits. I can't remember what his says. wait! no never mind, definitely have no idea. Anyway, when he came home at the end of the summer, he gave me this.

He told me what the verse said and I loved it. For those of you who may not know, it says this: "Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Really? Seriously? That's awesome. Delighting in the Lord gets me the desires of my heart. Note: I was a veerrrryy young..baby Christian if you will. How silly of me!

Fast forward to this week. I was introduced to an app called Grace to You a couple months back and it provides you with TONS of sermons and scripture readings to listen to. I found myself not able to focus on any other tasks on my to do list, and so God gave me the inspiration to break open this app. A series called "A Course for Life" caught my eye so I went for it. The first sermon is called "Knowing God's will". And that really caught my eye since I'm trying to figure out what God's will for me is at the moment. I started listening.

Now I'm not going to spoil the whole sermon...I'd rather you listen to it yourself. :D  But what I'm getting at in this probably unnecessary long post is this. While Psalm 37:4 says that if you delight in the Lord, He will give you the desires in the heart--it's not exactly true as it may sound at first reading. The truth is that if you are truly and fully delighting yourself in the Lord, your heart will desire exactly what HE wants for YOU--and therefore you will receive the desires of your heart.

See how that works? It's not that if I give God my prayers and my praise and live accordingly for Him, I will suddenly get A, B, C (job, house, kids, etc) whatever it may be. No, God requires everything..and then through that process your heart's desire is no longer fixed on worldly things that are so easy to focus on, but your heart will now want what God wants.

At first I thought--DUH! of course. And then reality sank in. umm, wait a minute. I guess that means that I could possibly never have A, B, or C. But that doesn't matter, because when I'm fully delighting in my Lord and my Savior and my God, I will have things that are so.much.better than A, B, and C. I can't tell you what they are at the moment, because in all honesty I'm not sure I'm there at the moment. I'd love to be. But just not yet. It's something I need to work on...but thankfully I will never be alone in my course of life.

"How Great Thou Art"

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

I learned at my grandfather's funeral that this was his favorite song. Ever since then (Sept. 08), I was completely unable to make it through the song without crying for 2 reasons

1. the overwhelming words

2. the connection to my Bum

I didn't know if I would ever be able to overcome the tears from that connection. Last Sunday we were in church and I was able to sing the entire song. I don't know if it was because days before I uncovered a letter that he had written me and I sobbed and sobbed my eyes out or if I was able to finally come to peace knowing that he is with his Lord and Savior and ohh so happy to finally be *HOME*.

The Vet

Two words that we hate to hear (possibly more than the dogs...they like the car ride). Those two words usually cost hundreds of dollars. [sort of like getting your car fixed.] I love my dogs dearly and want to keep them healthy--but sheesh sometimes it's a lot. 

Like today for instance. I realized last night that in order to get Nittany shaved he needed to have an up to date rabies vaccination. And his--of course-- expired* or so I thought. So I thought that in an effort to vaccinate 2 dogs with one trip [kill 2 birds with one stone] I would take them both...at the same time. After enlisting some assistance from my mother-in-love, I set up an appointment and asked for an estimate to have a certain number of items done....

...at least $300 I was told. Now normally, it wouldn't be a HUGE deal, but for two people that moved into their in-laws house, lost a job, just barely making ends meet, and not buying any Christmas gifts...this was a HUGE deal. 

So it was my job to figure out which of all the OVERDUE** items should be done. I ended up taking Nittany to get his exam, rabies vaccine, and distemper (I was told by getting the distemper now, it would save us $60 later...I'm hoping this is true) 

by the way...how cute is he?

Soo until January/February...we are done. However when we get there--yikes! it could get ugly. Praying that God will continue to provide for us to make it through each month. So thankful for how He has provided for us throughout the last two and half years of our marriage.
 
*I found out AT the vet that the rabies didn't expire until the 29th of December, so we actually had some time. But to them--it was expired.

**I strongly believe they put OVERDUE in big bold letters on your receipt to make you feel like an awful puppy parent so that you will spend the money to get it done ASAP.

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future

Jeremiah 29:11

Some days are harder than others...This is one of them.

Trying to be patient and understanding.
Trying to be happy for others.
Trying to keep my mind occupied while I do all of the above.

Okay God...I'm listening

A post I wasn't sure if I wanted to make because if I wrote it...and published it then I couldn't ignore it. But who am I kidding, it's pretty much all I'm thinking about. Now where to start...

Clearly, if you know anything about my life at the moment you would know that I'm living on the 3rd floor of my in-laws. After 2 years (almost to the day) of moving into our own apartment, out we moved and back to my in-laws. Don't get me wrong, I love them dearly. We get along great, we give each other space and frankly most of the time I forget where I am. But still--it's not our place. After all 90% of our stuff is in a storage facility a couple miles away.        [How did we end up here you may ask. Well long story short I lost my full time teaching job because I was just a long-term sub. If I gave you any more details than that, it would just be my personal opinion and speculations about what happened. So let's leave it at that.]        Clearly this was not my plan. This wasn't my man's plan. Who would plan this? Ohhh that's right He would. God knew this all along. He wants us to be here. I don't know why...I don't know that I ever will. But I MUST remember it is His plan and that's all that should matter.


If it was MY plan, we would have our own house (mortgage and all) with a fenced in yard for the puppies. Greg would also have a full time job and I would be home taking care of our baby (or 2..hahah) Why didn't God ask me??? It sounds great right? Well let me step back a few days or a week...


First I read a post on a dear dear friend's blog. This is what she writes...

"Scripture is FILLED with situation after situation where people are praying, wanting, crying out for something and God seems to respond quietly with a "not yet." His timing is perfect, yet often much slower than we seem to think it should be. Although we don't audibly hear it, many of our prayers are answered with a 'not yet beloved, not yet.' I wish we could hear his gentleness as He whispers it..."

And right then and there..I cried--no not just a tear---I mean I cried. Somewhere in my mind and my heart I knew this. But sadly I was trying to ignore it because..well because I don't think I wanted to admit it.

And obviously He didn't think it was enough for me to just read that...Oh noo, He had to continue to make His point on the radio on the way to school yesterday. When I heard this song: My Savior My God - By Aaron Shust.
I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed, what God has planned. I only know at His right hand, stands one who is my Savior. I take him at his word and deed. Christ died to save me; this I read. And in my heart I find a need of Him to be my Savior! That He would leave Him place on high and come for sinful man to die. You count it strange, so once did I. Before I knew my savior. My Savior loves, My Savior lives, My Savior's always there for me. My God He was, my God He is, My God is always gonna be.
 [Insert tears here] Okay God really I am listening please believe me!

But He knew I wasn't listening, I was just hearing. Because if I was listening and understanding I probably wouldn't be as frustrated or jealous of all the babies being born and pregnancies around me or the ability of my friends to decorate THEIR houses. [lame I know]

Then came God:Step 3. Preparing curriculum for the coming weeks for the kiddos at church. And that's when I found myself typing this.
[Peace-Trusting God instead of worrying
Faith-Believing God's promise instead of doubting
God gives us a freedom and a choice to choose our life's direction. Committing our plans into God's hands means we PRAY each day that God will guide our life. Here is what a prayer of commitment sounds like: "God, I trust your plans are bigger and better than any plans I could ever achieve. I'd ask that you would guide me today. Lead me where you want me to go. Help me hear your voice and follow your plans for me. In Jesus' name, amen."]

Clearly I needed at least 3 reminders that my plan means NOTHING, because His is so much more important and better for me than I can even imagine right now. Maybe His plan is going to take years for us to have that house or a baby and no matter how much that upsets me--I need to trust HIM and let HIM lead me where HE wants me to go and wants me to do. I'm sure that while I'm praying to be able to do all of this and succeeding and failing to do this that I will have more reminders--but for now my eyes and ears are certainly open.

So in the words of a very very wise friend: He must be whispering...

not yet Katy...not yet. Come to me, trust me, I am always here for you. 

Now if only I could really LISTEN and follow.