Broken & Blessed

I have been pretty quiet on this blog lately because I have been exhausted. Our baby is still quite sick and after his week-long hospital stay and between sicknesses and around-the-clock meds and daily doctors appointments, we have had little time for much else.

I don't believe God only gives us what we can handle, because then we would never need to reach out to Him for help. This is important for me because I can be quite stubborn and know I need God, but don't always follow through in my life. The more challenging life gets, the more of a reminder I have of all the ways I can still put more of God in my life.

I do believe He gives us the resources and comes to us in people around us though to help us through when we just can't do it on our own.

While we have been overwhelmed with the realm of reality we are dealing with, we have also been overwhelmed (in a good way) with the graciousness of our family, friends and church community.

A ministry at our church I had just begun to get involved with has flooded us with offers to help in all sorts of ways. Many of the families we have never met or are just meeting now.

We have good friends who have been a good listening ear and who do the simple things that don't seem to get done. Thank you doesn't seem to be enough, but I don't think any words really can be.

We also have such a wonderful extended network of friends from the many places we have lived who are praying across the country and world right now, and that brings us the strength to do what we need to do as parents.

I never could have imagined what this year has brought. It has been challenging and a struggle, but we have been so blessed with the kind of community we have longed for and the type we grew up with, it is impossible not to be grateful.

It is humbling to accept help, but when you really need it you have little choice and it is important in our world of always building ourselves up, to be humbled.

One of my favorite praise songs, "Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord," runs through my head. Because without us humbling ourselves, we cannot get closer to God. And if we are not growing closer to God, we are growing further away, which is not the direction I want to be headed.

I read somewhere once when it is too hard to just handle the week, handle the day. When it is too difficult to deal with the day, just deal with the hour. When it is too much to deal with the hour, deal with the minute and if that is too much, deal with the second. It sounds a bit silly, but thinking about that tends to make me smile because even when life is overwhelming, you can at least handle the day, hour, minute or at least second and the rest gets taken care of as it is needed to be addressed.

The greatest graces and gifts tend to come out of the most challenging situations in life - at least this has been my experience in my life - and I pray God will shape me more into the woman, wife and mother He wants me to be.

I am so glad I am a work in progress, because I still need a lot of refining:).

The Waiting Game

God pushes me in so many ways and even when I don't feel ready to face life challenges, He hands them to me and says to keep going.

This week, after our house being on the market for 100 days and us lowering the price a good $25k, we got an offer. I am not sure it will go through or what will happen with it, but it was nice to know that someone out there came in and likes our house and could make it their own.

If we didn't have to leave it, I would've easily stayed their another several years. It's difficult to look at the photos of all the work we put into it and not get to be there because it still feels like home. It's the first place since we were married that has and there are so many good memories there. But alas, we cannot keep it right now. It's not smart or practical and so we have to let it go.

It is so difficult to do that though, but I think God is making it easier by having buyers approach us finally. I hated the idea of selling it to a corporation to whom it is just a business transaction. At least we are not in the positions many people our age have found themselves in - unable to pay their mortgages and trying to fight off foreclosure. We were blessed in owning the house as long as we did and hope someday, we will get the chance to own another one.

This has been a good reminder to me that God will work it out. It has stinked and hasn't had the best outcome, but there is an end in sight and that brings a smile to my face.

With the challenges we have faced this summer, sometimes it's difficult to not compare ourselves to our friends and where they are in their lives. Most of them seem more financially stable and have everything more together. We have to remember that there are benefits and drawbacks of many of the life choices we make and it's easy to look from a distance and say "wow, wouldn't it be great...", but if you erase those choices, you may also very well erase who you became in the process and what gifts you have received as a result.

Now I feel like we just have to pick up the pieces and begin to move forward and build new dreams. We hope that one day, we will have a house again and can make it our own and things may be easier, but it is an important to remember that the easy times are not what shape us....it's the times when you have to really struggle that show what you're really made of. It's facing those difficulties without a clear way to solve the problems at hand trusting that God is leading you and knowing there's a plan for it all.

Although I definitely do not beg for more difficult times (I'm not psychotic:), I wouldn't trade any of the obstacles I have faced in my life for a life without challenges. I know so much of who I am and the faith in God, fight and determination I have are a direct result from those times. I know taking away the difficulties would be taking away many of the characteristics that make me stand out and make me the person I am. There's a definite peace in knowing that no matter how challenging life gets, I am so blessed with so many gifts and God doesn't leave me to face them alone.

Honor Your Husband Challenge

I actually joined this challenge as I began this blog so it hadn't quite made it on here yet. Thanks to Christine at Fruit in Season for this challenge and Stacey at A Measure of Grace for passing it on:).

I LOVE this idea and it comes at a great time for me, I think. I have been having trouble finding the graces and blessings being moved so far across the country and away from everything and everyone I know, but I know the biggest reason we're here is my husband's desire to be able to provide for our family and allow me to stay home full-time should I choose with my baby and soon to be number 2.


I know he honestly doesn't want to see me unhappy and wants to be able to be a good provider and he is. I am even getting Sunday mornings "off" for a little blogging and some sleeping in.

So all of July (I think I got started a bit late:) is my month to honor my wonderful husband and all the ways he puts his family and our needs ahead of his.