A Week In Our New Home

It's been a week now that we've been living in this place that we now call "home." And a little less than two that we've owned it. And yet, it seems so much longer than that.



In that short amount of time, we've had friends and family give up their own busy schedules to help us paint and organize, drop off meals, watch Claire. We've put together new furniture, started dozens of projects, made incredible progress and already mopped up a geyser of water from a washing machine gone ruly. 

Our sweat and elbow grease are all over this place and it shows--it finally is starting to feel like us.

It is a grand thing, this place of home. And Claire already understands that, somehow knowing that the room with the room with the brightly-colored carpet and neon walls is hers. She loves opening all the cupboard doors and playing on the open deck. I think she understands this is home, our home.

READ FULL POST >>

Finding a New Home

Life as of late has been lived indoors, thanks to the off-and-on cold and/or rainy weather that the Midwest has been sending our way. (There's talk of snow flurries this week. Talk about a welcome home!)

But it seems fitting, this drive to the indoors, because right now we’re in the throes of house buying and are actually under contract on a house right now. It's been an exciting time, as we could see ourselves staying in this house for quite some time.

There's plenty that I'd like to do to this home (it currently is a mess of tans and decorating projects gone bad, including faux-bois on the kitchen cabinets and kids' painted handprints in the bathroom), and so I find myself researching all sorts of DIY ideas and paint colors and furniture purchases and a myriad of other things you can monitor along with me on Pinterest.

But the best thing we love is the location, which is in a part of town that's woven with walking paths and a pool just down the block and lots and lots of families littering the neighborhood. And it's not far from my husband's work (10 mins), church (5 mins), or our families (20 mins). I didn't know if it was possible, but things are starting to come together, it seems...

We are pacing ourselves in the process, trying to keep the future firmly in mind (along with the reality that life with a toddler naturally limits a lot of remodeling or redecorating) rather than get whisked away by pretty hardwoods and freshly renovated kitchenscapes. It can be quite the balance to strike!

I find myself having to remind myself to hold things loosely, that phrase that I feel as a banner over me now. I look at the stained floors and the pretty hues and I tell myself to calm. I look at the ridiculous wall paint choices or the cramped closets and I tell myself to calm. It is just a house, but I know the Lord cares about it for us all the same. I trust that he will guide us, as he did the first time around, to a house that will—in the end—suit us perfectly, as our first did for the year and a half that we lived there. And then when we needed to leave it behind, it sold without a hitch. The Lord saw us through that and I trust him to see us through this next one.

So I hold these things—the hopes, the hitches, the possibilities and the problems—loosely. I am learning this process slowly. I am being taught to practice at it constantly. But what matters, is that I am learning. And I am loosening this grip of mine.

READ FULL POST >>

Letting Myself Simplify and Allow Some Things Fall to the Ground

The rhythm of life right now seems to be about simplifying, culling and cutting, stripping and taking stock. It has made up much of my reading right now, having breezed through The Hyperlinked Life and then been slowly savoring my way through Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World.

Both books have been resonating with my soul and its cry to sift through my actions, my day and hold on to those things that really matter. Let the others fall loosely through my grip—and be okay with that. Sometimes the letting go, no matter how good it is for us, can be a hard thing. It can feel like giving up, like failure that we can't do it all, like disappointment.

And yet, they seem an encouragement to be willing to take those steps, to let some things fall to the ground.

The Hyperlinked Life is penned by The Barna Group, which is a Christian group that surveys people to find out what is going on in our world and how our faith fits into it. They've written some other books that I found incredibly insightful, so I was eager to get their thoughts on how technology is impacting our lives—specifically our relationships and time. There's no doubt that technology is good and here to stay, and they don't argue that at all. What they encourage is that we find ways to steward technology, to make sure we are controlling it rather than the other way around. The biggest thing they encourage is taking digital Sabbaths. Letting technology fall away from us, from our grip, for a matter of time, whether daily or weekly.


And in Notes From a Blue Bike, she looks at the act of simplifying across a bunch of different parameters, from the way you feed your family to school your children to work for a livelihood. While her "simplified" life looks very different from the way I live and envision my own, she too offers an encouragement to readers to live with intention and look at things closely and cut away the fat that, no matter how good it might taste, is weighing you down. And she shows how she's attempted to do that—sometimes to great success, other times discovering that what she once thought made her life better actually didn't.

That lesson resonated with me: Sometimes we have to reevaluate these things in our life, and I feel like that's what I've been doing here lately, taking time to breathe and pull back from this technological space. (Which is probably why I've found so much time for reading of late!)

It has felt good to not fall prey to expectations about how frequently I should post and comment and share and like and all that online jazz. It has felt good to have free time with which to just sit and not turn to my computer to fill every extra second.

And so this is the new rhythm of my life right now, one that feels right, where this blog space might be a bit more quiet than it once was. I don't expect to stop, but just to move more slowly and, hopefully, more intentionally.

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

"God Gives Gifts and I Give Thanks and I Unwrap the Gift Given: Joy"

In celebration of Thanksgiving, I have been thinking about those things for which I’m most grateful from this past year. In many ways, it has been a tough year for me. Perhaps a better word is “challenging.” I had a difficult pregnancy that landed me in the hospital unexpectedly, and then a labor that felt like it was never going to end. I had a baby who cried and didn't sleep for what felt like weeks on end. I felt alone caring for her. So, we moved across the country to find our "village," and for the past couple of months, my husband has been out of town during the week at training, only home on the weekends.

It has not been easy, but even in spite of those challenges, I have been careful to not lose sight that there is much for me to appreciate. Even in our suffering, there are things to be grateful for. I think that is a lesson I definitely learned this year. For even that, I am grateful.

Ann Voskamp in One Thousand Gifts posits that a life of joy and of a filling salvation comes when we learn to live a lifestyle of being grateful and thankful for every single thing God has gifted to us. Good, bad, big, little. We rejoice in it all.

Upon reading Philippians 4:11-12, where Paul writes, “I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation…”, Voskamp points readers to the fact that Paul had to learn these things. She realized that we must learn to live a life utterly thankful for all that God doles out. It does not come naturally.

So she decided to keep a list, to hone that sense of gratitude for the live that God has given. I love that idea, and while my efforts to keep my own running list have never made it more than a day or two, I still want to make an effort to see the beauty in this life of mine, the small acts of kindness God shows me, the redemption he brings to each and every one of those challenges.

“Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle," she writes. "The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of the life—even the hard—is made up of the minute parts, and I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out.”

Learning to seek out an attitude of gratefulness in even the smallest of things matters. Because there are always small things for me to be thankful for, and I think that is one of the things that helped me through that season, that buoyed me and kept me afloat when it felt I was sinking. We need not wait for the big things to give thanks.

Today, I look at my life and, in contrast to where I've been, it seems so full. No, it is not ideal. But it is good, it is vibrant, it is beautiful. To me, at least. Even in its smallest places, even in the midst of the struggles.

So grateful, I am.

“Joy is always given, never grasped.
God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.”

— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

Updating My Style as a Mom and My Favorite Fashion Finds for Fall (Sponsored Post)

Becoming a mom has changed the way I view my style. It's all too easy to want to be in a T-shirt and sweats all day, as I spend my day stooping up and down, changing diapers, nursing, and cuddling my daughter. But of course, because I spend so much time tending to Claire, it's important to me to take a little time each day to tend to myself. And that starts with getting ready in the morning so that when I look in the mirror, I feel good about myself.

Recently, I took a hard look at my closet and realized that it was time for an update. It was two years ago when I first took a heavy hand to my wardrobe and filtered it down to the key pieces that I loved. Now that my body and lifestyle have changed, it was time my wardrobe reflected those changes.



I want my wardrobe to be filled with clothes that I love but that also work hard for me and life with an infant: They need to be comfortable enough to wear all day long but have the polish that make me feel like the adult I am, like a grown woman raising a daughter. As I've started to prune my wardrobe and add to it, I've kept those two priorities as the filters through which I consider any new purchases.

In time for autumn, Meijer has rolled out their new, fall line of clothes and gave me a gift-card to shop the selection. While there are lots of fun and fashionable finds including some enviable tunics and chiffon tops that I loved (which you can browse in their online lookbook), I ended up picking out two items that I think will be real workhorse additions to my wardrobe:



First up is a sweatshirt—yes, a sweatshirt. But it is the most beautiful sweatshirt you'll find out there. I love the details that dress it up, including the side and sleeve tabs that ruche the edges, the tailored hemline and the small pocket. But what we really love about any good sweatshirt is how it feels. And this is no different. It's cozy with oh-so-soft fleece that is perfect for the cool breezes that are starting to settle in this time of year.



The second item I picked up was a new purse. As you can see, my color palette right now is filled with gray, and I truly believe there's no other color for me when it comes to a purse. The purse I was previously using was also gray, and I used it for over a year without ever feeling the need to switch out to a new purse. That's lasting power. I love the size of this one: Not too big, not too small. And I really like the versatility of the strap and handle, so that I can throw it over my shoulder, hoist it over my wrist, or wear it crossbody-style so I don't have to worry about it falling off my shoulder when I'm carrying Claire.

As the seasons evolve, so does my style. And, thanks to some of the latest finds at Meijer, I'm ready for both of those changes.


Related Posts
How to Pare Down Your Closet and Be Happy With It
Living with Less: Why I Got Rid of Half My Clothes

In exchange for this review, I received a gift card to shop the new fall looks at Meijer. However, as always, any and all opinions are my own.

READ FULL POST >>

Living Arrangements and a New Car: Lots of Big Changes Lately!

The past couple of weeks have been a blur of packing, moving, settling in, and trying to smoothe out last-minute details from the relocation. But now I have the driver's license to prove it: I'm (once again) an Ohio girl!

It finally feels like the dust is settling, so I wanted to provide a little re-cap of all the ch-ch-changes that have been going on, behind the scenes here:

Now that we are officially in Ohio (and everything with selling our home in Georgia went smoothly and without a hiccup!), we will be living with family for the next couple of months while my husband gets settled into his job. Through the end of the year, he'll have to do a lot of training that will take him away during the week, so waiting to buy will enable me to always have plenty of extra pairs of hands whenever I need them to help out with Claire. (She loves having someone nearby all the time!) And our families have been so generous in accommodating for us, turning bedrooms and basements into complete living areas so that—whatever the address—it all feels like "home."

Plus, even though I grew up here, my husband isn't from Ohio, so we didn't want to have to rush into figuring out where we want to live. We want to take our time figuring out what location works best for us and finding a part of town we could see staying put in for the long haul (because after that cross-country move, I don't want to have to move again if I don't have to!). We think we've found a church to call home in a part of town that's near my husband's work and equidistant between my family and his, so that's what we're thinking but this will give us time to explore and ease into the decision—and shop around for another great deal!

Another big change for us has been that we are no longer a one-car family. We lived with one car for a little more than three years, which was pretty doable and practical for us from a financial standpoint for most of that time. But once we had Claire, it became really hard for me to get out and do much because I had to borrow the car while working around his work schedule as well as Claire's nap schedule—which was a pretty daunting task that made me really start to feel tied down at home.

So, we took some of the money from selling the house and set it aside to buy a sturdy used car that we could pay for with cash. And because my husband really wanted a minivan (seriously), that's what we got this week! I figured that if he was willing to move us up to Ohio, I'd be willing to buy a minivan. (Compromise is the stuff that makes a marriage, right?!) But, after driving one (we opted for the Toyota Sienna, for anyone interested), it has some pretty nice features that I won't complain about. I'm not sure who's more excited to drive it—me or him!

So, as the seasons begin to change, so do things around here, and we're settling—slowly but surely—into this next chapter of ours.

Related Posts
Being Intentional about Saving Money
Living through the Question Marks

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

Goodbye Georgia, Hello Ohio

It's now been two weeks since we packed all our belongings into the back of a moving truck and drove eight hours from Georgia to Ohio.

We've spent these past two weeks tying up loose ends with turning off all our utilities and closing on the sale of our house (which went off without a hitch last week!), finishing up a couple of writing assignments, setting up our new temporary home with family. My husband started his new job and all the training that entails, and Claire has gotten used to all the attention she gets from having family to play with her practically around the clock! We're looking into getting a second car (to make it easier to get around and visit all that family and friends!)

All that to say, there has been lots going on. Particularly on top of a month spent packing everything into boxes, it's been luxurious to have time to unwind from that, to not have to worry about washing every dish or making every dinner and simply spend time catching my breath.

Of course it has been bittersweet to leave Atlanta behind: That is where my husband and I pretty much started our marriage and found our way—at times, stumbling and shaky—through newlywedhood. It's where we went through the ups and downs of finding jobs and watching God provide for us in unbelievable ways. It's where we found a church family that was there for us and supported us through all the twists and turns that came during those four years. It's where we got to spend holidays with my husband's family and celebrate the birth of our first niece, who's only three years older than Claire and gives us a glimpse into what all is to come. It's where we had our own bundle of joy just six months ago. It's where life grew us for four rich and full and fulfilling years.

I came across this quote from Richard Wright and thought it was fitting for this changing of seasons we're wading through:

I was leaving the South
To fling myself into the unknown...
I was taking a part of the South
To transplant in alien soil,
To see if it could grow differently,
If it could drink of new and cool rains,
Bend in strange winds,
Respond to the warmth of other suns
And, perhaps, to bloom.

Of course, Ohio has always been home to me. But still, those little pieces of the South will be held dearly as we make our way here and recreate our new normal, savor this new season, and celebrate the changes that are and are yet to come.

Related Posts
A New Place to Call Home and Lessons Learned in Moving
Learning to embrace where God was calling me

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

The Story of How I Decided to Leave Everything I Knew and Move in Pursuit of God (Part 3)

I'm currently in the midst of relocating from Georgia to Ohio, so I thought it was a fitting time to look back at another time in my life where God moved me across the country: I was 24 and single, and moved from my hometown in Ohio to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I knew one person in the entire state.

Earlier this week, I shared the first part and second part of my story about this leap of faith. If you missed it, click here to read Part 1. And click here to read Part 2. Today I am sharing the last and final bit, Part 3, in my story about how this all unfolded. 

Back in Ohio, I received word that I was invited back for a second interview. I ended up having to reschedule because the original date they wanted me to arrive fell during the week I had already arranged to chaperone a youth group trip. (As it turns out, this was the youth group trip where I got to know the man who would someday become my husband!) Fortunately they were flexible and were able to push the interview back another week.

I remained calm and at peace with the situation—until the night before the interview. At that point I had what I’d probably compare to an anxiety attack although I have nothing to compare it to. My heart was racing, I was short of breath, I was hungry, I was thirsty… I tried to pray through it but nothing worked. I barely slept and the next morning, I was still anxious the whole drive up. Even when I went into the interview, the anxiety was still right there, punching me in the face.

Looking back, I really feel like it was the devil’s one last-ditch effort to psych me out and pull me away from God’s plan. Because at one point, I really just wanted to call them and tell them to cancel the interview. And what was I afraid of? Of getting the job? How ridiculous is that?

It wasn’t until about halfway through the interview that I regained composure and the anxiety left me. By that point, the anxiety had already made me mess up a bit more than I normally would have so I figured that if I was able to get the job even after that–admittedly, not my greatest interview–then I knew God was in on it. I walked out of the interview at peace with whatever would happen.

The next Monday, I received an email offering me the position. Just. Like. That. I couldn’t believe it, that it all had really, actually happened. That God had planted this desire in my heart and arranged everything to come together and then he actually gave it to me.

As I considered all of that, I knew that I had to accept the job, even though by this point my friend had realized she didn’t want to move to Grand Rapids and I’d be doing it alone. Sure, there was uncertainty but I had seen so much of God’s goodness already, how I could expect any less of it in the future? God truly was so powerful in the knitting together of the situation, that I could not deny it. I could not turn away from it, from him.

I wanted this to be one of those times where I heeded and obeyed God, in hopes that doing so would make it easier for me to continue to heed and obey him in the future. Because I didn’t want to look back and say the only time I really knew I was listening to God and God was with me was when I was 24. I didn’t want to turn it down out of fear and run the chance of deadening my heart to listening to him in the future, as well. That would be so disappointing and heartbreaking.

So, with that awareness, I accepted the job.

Looking back over that situation, it is so encouraging to me to see how God guided the whole process, especially given that I was just starting to flourish in my faith. It was one of the first times that I tried to start to listen to him. And he met me in those places! There were many places along the way where I could have doubted more, where I could have ignored God’s still small voice. But I didn’t because he heaped grace upon grace, peace upon peace all around me.

What another testimony of his lavish love for even the least of these.

(If you want to read more about how God continued to provide for me once I did move to Michigan, you can read more about that here. And, a perennial favorite is my series about how my husband and I met and fell in love, Our Love Story.)

Related Posts
Hope For the "In-Between" Times of Life
Asking for My Daily Bread: God's Provision

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

The Story of How I Decided to Leave Everything I Knew and Move in Pursuit of God (Part 2)

I'm currently in the midst of relocating from Georgia to Ohio, so I thought it was a fitting time to look back at another time in my life where God moved me across the country: I was 24 and single, and moved from my hometown in Ohio to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I knew one person in the entire state.

A couple days ago, I shared the first part of my story about this leap of faith I took. If you missed it, click here to read Part 1.

Time was ticking as we got closer to visiting Grand Rapids and I still hadn’t nailed down any job interviews. I emailed a contact I’d made at the smaller publishing house to follow-up about setting up an interview and she suggested some new job postings for me to consider. None of them were in what I originally wanted to pursue (that of an acquisitions editor—the people who are finding the books to publish) but there were some in the publicity and marketing departments.

I pulled together my application and sent it off. Days later, I got an email that I had an interview with the publicity department while I was in town.

Now I had done this sort of informational interview seeking once before, right after I graduated college and thought I wanted to move to New York City. I couldn’t find a job and decided to visit the city and see what I could do. Before going, I lined up as many interviews as I could, at places like Teen People, Cosmogirl, and YM. (Now it seems kind of silly, but at the time I really wanted to work for a teen magazine.)

So my inclination with this Grand Rapids visit was originally to line up as many interviews as possible, but at this point I only had one. But Something told me to pursue this one avenue—to see it through and to trust. So I fought my urge to blanket the city with resumes and pitches and cover letters. I sat still. And waited.

When we visited in June, it was incredible how people reached out to us. Even before the visit, we seemed to be getting signs that there was a community already waiting for us up there, with people eager to open their homes to us and encouraging us to come.

The one, solitary person I knew in the town let us stay with him and his wife and invited friends over so that we could start to meet people. More people kept recommending folks for us to meet. It was amazing to see that all weave together and the semblance of a community start to take shape for us.

The last day we were in town (a Monday) was the day of the interview. Somehow through the whole process, God gave me an insane peace about everything. And you should know, by nature, I’m a worrywort (as we've already established).

But with Grand Rapids, I wasn’t worried or rushed or stressed or anxious. I just trusted: that God would provide a job if he was going to point me in that direction. That I’d figure everything out with my living situation in Ohio. When people asked me if I’d considered this and what I was going to do about that, all I could do is shrug and say I don’t know yet, and be done with it. How glorious and releasing is that?!

So upon going in for my interview, I could not have been more at ease. I walked in and met with the interviewer, and it was like meeting with a friend. We got along great and talked shop but also talked about life and the way God works. She recommended books to read to me and gave me one to take with me and I made recommendations for her. I walked away feeling like this is a woman I could really look up to and respect, not just as far as a job goes but also as far as having as a sort of mentor in my life. To have that as a boss? That’s pretty phenomenal!

So I walked away from the interview with a good feeling brewing in my stomach–as if I already belonged to this place. My friend picked me up and we went to a cute French cafe and met more new friends before hitting the road for the 6-hour return trip to Cincinnati.

Later this week, I will share Part 3, the final post, in my story about how this all unfolded and what God was doing behind-the-scenes as he prepared to move me to this new town which I could tell was starting to feel more and more like home...

Related Posts
God, Brussel Sprouts & Getting the Job
Turning Down the Job: And Lessons I Learned About Marriage

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

The Story of How I Decided to Leave Everything I Knew and Move in Pursuit of God (Part 1)

I'm currently in the midst of relocating from Georgia to Ohio, so I thought it was a fitting time to look back at another time in my life where God moved me across the country: I was 24 and single, and moved from my hometown in Ohio to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I knew one person in the entire state. It was undoubtedly a leap of faith for me and one that has guided me (and grown my faith) ever since. Here's a look back at how that all came to be:

In March of 2008, I was at work, doing a job I enjoyed where I worked as an editor for a graphic design magazine. I was taking a break from the daily grind and flipping through some articles online–not about design but about faith and the like.

A light bulb went off in my head that if my job had to do with God, I’d be so great about it because that’s where my passion for learning lies. I enjoy design and appreciate design but I don’t seek it out in the way I do information about God.

Now nothing with this light bulb moment would have really gone anywhere had it not been for the fact that I’d recently become friends with a girl at church who was another volunteer with the youth group girls. She confided that she was trying to figure out where she was headed in life and told me about the two places she was considering: Philadelphia and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

After that conversation, I got inspired and went home and started looking up where some Christian publishing companies were. Lo and behold, there were a handful of publishing houses in that little northern town of Grand Rapids. In fact, it’s deemed the Christian publishing capital of the country.

So the more she and I talked about it, the more right it felt to pursue Grand Rapids and this dream of Christian publishing. We set up a weekend to go visit, but one thing led to another and it kept getting derailed. We weren’t able to visit until a couple of months later, in the middle of June.

Trying to maximize this dream of mine, I put feelers out at a couple of the Christian publishers I’d discovered to see if I could meet with any when I was in town. The original publishing house that I thought I wanted to pursue never called me back.

However, there was this smaller one that I contacted and even when the operator patched me through to someone completely unrelated–everyone was so kind and so helpful to me. To me, that was God opening a door, and I took it by faith.

It was a couple weeks before we headed up to Grand Rapids and I still hadn’t secured any job interviews. But I still believed this is what God wanted. I got together with the youth pastor at our church, who had become a good friend, to get his guidance on the situation.

We talked through the reasons why I wanted to move. He had me create a pros-and-cons list of why I wanted to move to Grand Rapids. (He used a neat illustration to explain his understanding of determining what God's will is for our lives. Read more about that here.)

He asked me what I would do if I didn’t get a job up there, would I just move ahead? I told him that I wouldn’t move until I had a job because I felt like that was the whole purpose God was pointing me up there for in the first place, so I trusted that he would provide that.

Somehow God gave me such peace and clarity through the whole process–I’m still baffled.

After our meeting he told me that he wished he could tell me that I was doing it for the wrong reasons but he couldn’t.

I'll be back in a couple of days to continue with Part 2 and sharing my story about how this all unfolded and what God was doing behind-the-scenes.

Related Posts 
Decision-Making: Out of Fear or Faith?
Learning to embrace where God was calling me ...

{ photo source } 

READ FULL POST >>

Some Big News: We're Moving Back to Ohio!

Prepare yourself. There are lots of changes coming, and I don't have much time to spare as they are coming at warp speed, so let me give you the narrative nitty-gritty:

We are moving to Ohio.

It's the state I was born and raised in and where almost all of my family resides. It's the state I ran to when things got hard with Claire. My husband and I had always talked about moving there "someday," but didn't expect that to come to fruition anytime soon. 

Then, a couple of months ago, my husband got an email about an open position in Ohio. It was when Claire was just weeks old, but even then I'd already realized how hard motherhood is. Too hard for me to do it on my own. So when he told me about the opening, I did something I've never done: I practically demanded that he apply. I told him he didn't have to accept it but he had to apply—for my sake.

So, the loving husband that he is, he did apply, as did 230 other people. For one single opening. We knew it was a long shot, but decided to follow it through anyway and see what would happen.

From the very beginning, though, I prayed that if he wasn't going to get the job, I wanted him to get cut early on. And yet, he kept advancing.

He'd made it to the second or third round of interviews (which meant two or three more 8-hour trips back and forth to Ohio, with Claire in tow) when I submitted that same prayer to God again: That if he wasn't going to get the job, that he would not advance. It was the middle of the night when I lay awake praying that. Then it dawned on me: I must believe that God actually was answering my prayers. Because he continued to get advanced, I had to believe he's going to get the job!

Getting the job would mean we'd have to move, which would mean we'd have to sell our house. So the next morning I began doing a bunch of projects around the house that I'd always wanted to do (and that would really help our house sell) but had never gotten around to.

When my husband asked where my newfound motivation came from, I told him my epiphany: "I have to trust that God is going to give you the job."

Later, my husband told me that it was a bold statement, but I honestly believed it with all my heart. Working on those projects was a reflection of deciding to put my trust in God's faithfulness to me. Because God has proved he is faithful to me, time and time again. And, I told myself, even if my husband didn't get the job, all the work I was doing was for things I would have wanted to do anyway, so no effort would go to waste.

Meanwhile, at the end of June, after they had whittled the candidates down through round after round, my husband got the call that he was their number one pick—confirming that belief God had planted in my heart that late night weeks earlier.

The next step of the process came with having to sell our house. We were quite nervous about this, because we've only lived here for a year and a half and have put quite a bit of work into it and we weren't sure we'd be able to recoup it.

Again, though, I turned to the Lord, trusting him to finish what he had started.

Wouldn't you know it, but we hired a realtor who put a sign in our yard as he was leaving the driveway, and within three days (before the house even was officially on the market), we had an offer for $100 above our asking price.

And then, last week, my husband got the official offer of employment.

Oh, Lord, you are too good to me. You do take care of your children.

So, we are in the midst of boxing up our belongings again, making arrangements for our cross-country move. Which means things might be a little quiet around here while I throw myself into all this (and finding the time to entertain Claire in the middle of it all!). But I will be back, to share more of what God is doing in all this. May he be praised.

Related Posts
A New Place to Call Home and Lessons Learned in Moving 
Living with Less: Why I Got Rid of Half My Clothes

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

A Crafting Fail: What Happened When I Tried Painting The Nursery Curtains

I think it’s no surprise to anyone who reads my blog that I love crafts. I’ve documented recovering my kitchen chairs, turning a media console into a mirrored cabinet, hemming my jeans, even baking my own sandwich bread. There’s something about making things with my hands that pulses through my blood.

It’s even one of the things I’m excited about most about having a daughter and getting to share those experiences with.

And the fact is that one of the reasons why I love crafting so much is because, honestly, they usually work. Before taking on any project, I usually do enough research or preparation and planning so that the end result is at least close to what I’d imagined in my head. Plus, I typically try to use resources I already have on hand so that even if the project does go awry, it didn’t cost me anything.

Recently, though, all that changed and I was confronted with one big epic craft fail. Disappointing to say the least.

But, I figured that all of you might appreciate seeing the other side of the crafting life, where things don’t always go as expected and sometimes a project that you had big plans for and great expectations of just doesn’t pan out. At all.

So it was with one of my nursery projects. I had a set of black-out curtains that I wanted to use in the room, to hopefully help our little one want to sleep longer by blocking out the sunlight in the early hours. The only problem was that they didn’t match my color scheme and I’ve never had much luck finding black-out curtains in any shade but brown and black.

I’d seen plenty of projects on Pinterest and elsewhere of people painting fabric of all sorts—curtains, rugs, couches even. And they all seemed pleased with the results.

After doing my research, I picked up my supplies: a can of 100% acrylic paint (no-VOC) in a pretty teal color and some fabric medium. I mixed the two together according to the directions and started painting. I soon realized, though, that the fabric sucked up a ton of paint, so that it took a lot longer than it would have for the same-sized portion of a wall. I sat hunched over a single curtain panel for an hour and a half, just applying a single coat and getting into all the fabrics’ nooks and crannies.

After letting it dry for an hour or two, there were obvious markings of where one section had dried before I’d gotten to painting the area next to it. I decided to do a second coat, since that’s pretty standard for painting walls. Another hour and a half later, the second coat had evened out a lot of the marks, but it still dried splotchy and, even worse, stiff. Plus, after three hours hunched over painting, my (pregnant) back was pretty stiff itself. I had to then go take an hour or so nap just to recover.

I hung the curtain just to see if it was really as bad as I thought. I let it hang there for a day, opening and closing the panel and having to crunch it into place. It did great at blocking out but as I looked at the other three panels that awaited, I knew that I couldn’t invest 9 hours into creating something I didn’t love. Plus, I’d used almost a whole quart of paint on that single panel so I’d have to go buy a lot more of the supplies.

Like a weary but realistic fighter, I knew when to the throw in the towel and wave the flag of defeat. Fortunately, I ended up finding some black-out curtains in a lovely dark, teal hue on sale that couldn’t be more perfect: (I seriously could not believe my luck!) They block out light, they aren’t splotchy, they aren’t stiff, the color is a great fit, and it only took me about an hour to hang them in place, from start to finish.

I’m glad I tried the project, though, because in my head I was certain it would work. But in the end, things aren’t always as they appear—especially on Pinterest.

Related Posts
(Finally!) Introducing the Baby's Nursery
A Few of My Favorite Things: Craft Supplies Edition

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

Hello, 2013! Looking to the Year Ahead...

Happy New Year, friends!

As I'm sure you've noticed, it's been pretty quiet around these parts, as I've spent the last week or so relaxing and savoring the last days of 2012. It was a much-needed respite, to not have to worry about posting or typing or even checking my email.

But, this blog is important to me, so it can't stay quiet forever!

Like the blog, Christmas was pretty quiet and uneventful around here. We didn't do any travelling and didn't even put up a Christmas tree! It seems that everything has gotten sidelined with the baby only weeks away. (We're now at less than 8 weeks away!!) But we did manage to see family and have a nice little date outing to celebrate the season. It was not big and bold and mind-bending, but it was thoughtful and tranquil and well-timed—just what we needed as our lives will soon become completely different overnight!

As we continue to look forward to meeting this little growing girl of ours, I've been taking that idea of New Year's Resolutions and thinking of them in terms of becoming a mother. So I recently started a little list of goals that I want to zoom in on these last few weeks leading up to her birth.

Things like:

• Pray about my role as a mother.
• Pray about baby's name and purpose.
• Create a Mother's Mission Statement.
• Focus more on preparing my heart for the task of motherhood than on the nursery and on baby stuff.
• Prepare myself physically, mentally and spiritually for childbirth.

So, that's where I'm trying to aim my heart these last few days, even though it's all too easy to get caught up in everything else (like making the nursery perfect and buying last-minute baby items). But those are not the important things; however, a mindset confident with love and grace and peace and patience is. And that is what I'm after.

Related Posts
The Only Resolution That Really Matters
27 things to do while I'm 27: My goals for the coming year

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

Anticipating the Unknown

I have no idea how it has happened, but somehow, I'm already two-thirds of the way through this pregnancy. Everyone tells you that time flies once you have children, but I am convinced it's in warp-speed already! With three months to go and plenty still on my to-do list, I have to fight from feeling overwhelmed by it all.But things are slowly coming together as we prepare for this baby of ours. For Thanksgiving we went back to Ohio, where we got to see many

I have no idea how it has happened, but somehow, I'm already two-thirds of the way through this pregnancy. Everyone tells you that time flies once you have children, but I am convinced it's in warp-speed already! With three months to go and plenty still on my to-do list, I have to fight from feeling overwhelmed by it all.

But things are slowly coming together as we prepare for this baby of ours.

For Thanksgiving we went back to Ohio, where we got to see many of our family and friends one last time before the baby comes. I still cannot fathom that, even as the gifts and teensy-tiny baby clothes mount up. People say that once you start accumulating all those baby things, it will start to sink in. But I don't really think it will until she's actually here, until we get to actually meet her and hold her and get to know her personality.

It's a funny thing because I can see her squirm beneath my skin, I can feel her kick and move about. And still, she doesn't feel real. Yet.

But I think that's okay, to lay aside the expectations and admit I have no idea what it's going to be like, except that it's going to be greater and more lovely and harder and more demanding than anything else we've experienced yet. At it's essence, that's the gift of life for us all. And the gift of giving life to this child of mine, whose arrival we await.

Related Posts
Letters to My Baby 
We're Having A...

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

I Took A Walk This Afternoon...

There are days that sometimes seem to start off with an overwhelming sense of urgency, all for no apparent reason. I wake up and as I walk from room to room, I find myself presented at a to-do list that grows with every step, turning into a wild-haired beast skulking in the corner by the time I’ve made it to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water.

I look around me and The Things That Must Be Done snarl back: Do dishes. Make salsa. Respond to emails. Remember to call so-and-so back. Mail letter. Update this month’s budget. Water plants. Prep tonight’s dinner. Start writing my next freelance article. Read Bible. Make bed. Finish painting bathroom. Watch Netflix DVD so I can mail it back tomorrow.

It goes on and on, and with every step, I feel I’m gasping for air.

Some days, that’s where I find myself and I honestly have no idea how I ended up here.

But I know what I must do next, even when it seems the last possible option, when everything is screaming at me, Do this now! You must tackle this! Don’t wait before you do this!

I stop.

I breathe.

I put on my shoes and I go for a walk around the neighborhood. I marvel at all the leaves swirling in the yards around ours. I venture down the road and chuckle as a little mutt of a dog scampers toward me with a friendly bark to say, “Hello!”

I keep walking, past the house that reminds of a castle with the turret in the front yard, and smile when I make my way to the end of our street and watch the horses grazing in the yard (seriously), with a picturesque pond in the distance. (Maybe someday I'll befriend the family so I can use these moments to drink in the vista from the bench on the edge of the water.)

I walk back and make my way up our driveway, corralling sticks and branches that have littered the yard. I stack them in a pile and I unlock the front door, coming back into this house of mine, which is now a completely different place.

It’s funny how not doing that which you feel you must do is the thing that you need to do most. How the right move doesn’t always make sense, how what sets you free might be that which feels most foolish. And yet, that could not be more from the truth.

Related Posts
Capturing the Sights & Sounds of Right Now
Learning to Give My Worries Over to God

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

My Prayers for Healing: The Beauty of It All

This post is continued from my post earlier this week, "My Prayers for Healing: Things Start to Happen…" Click here to catch up and read that post if you missed it.

The rest of that day was encouragement after encouragement. I spent much of it catching up on the sleep I’d lost over the previous week, when I’d only been able to sock away three or four hours of sleep each night. That day, I was probably only awake that amount of time.

When I woke up for lunch, I looked down at my feet, which for the past week had been swollen so much that I could only force my feet into one pair of unlaced sneakers. Now, as I peered down, I saw my old feet again, the dainty curves of my arches and ankles looking once again like a woman’s instead of a goblin’s feet.

It was one answered prayer after another, that day.

My husband and his mom, who'd come to help look after me, both said I looked restored. My mom said she could hear the old me back in my voice. I had a glow. I had enthusiasm. I had peace. I had my collection of answered prayers staring at me as if to say, “See? I heard your prayers all along. I never forgot you.”

It’s funny because in the days leading up to all of this—before the pain even appeared—I had an old Madonna song stuck in my head. I have no idea where I even heard it but the refrain would not go away, try as hard as I might to push it out: “Put your love to the test. You know you’ve got to make him express how he feels, and, baby, then you’ll know your love is real.”

The song was stuck in my head for so long that I really began to think that maybe it meant something. Then all of this happened—and I came to trust that it really did mean something. I trusted that even in the pain, it was a way of God expressing his love to me—proving to me that his love was real. And the fact that he’d planted that idea in my head before it all started, well it gave me more faith to trust him with the rest. Spurred on by that thought, a favorite verse came to mind: “Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways,” and became another chant that got me through some of the hardest pangs of pain.

And that he did; he showed me his love in such wonderful ways that I—and nearly everyone else around me who knew what was going on—were left in awe at his work. At the—yes—miraculous turn-around I experienced.

I looked back at all that had transgressed and began to see his hand working in it. Even the fact that most of the doctors had pushed my situation aside in the hospital, I realized that maybe that too was a gift because it gave my body time to do more healing on its own and avoid any unnecessary treatments (like a stent, which they originally thought would be necessarily to relieve the fluid that had built up in my system, likely a kidney stone that passed before any tests were done). I saw how he had worked it all out—even the most dismal and disheartening moments—to make something altogether beautiful.

That all happened about a week and a half ago. It took another week for me to gain my energy and for all the pain (especially in my back, from a week of sitting up straight around the clock) to dissipate. But I finally feel renewed, restored and back to normal. Thanks to all my answered prayers.

And someday I'll get to recount this whole story and saga to and teach her that God is with us and hears us and loves us, working all things out to be beautiful in the end.

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 

“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? 

Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” 

“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. 

“This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”

John 9:1-3

Related Posts
A New Understanding of Suffering
A Prayer for Love

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

My Prayers for Healing: Things Start to Happen…

This post is continued from my post earlier this week, "My Prayers for Healing: And Nothing Happened..." Click here to catch up and read that post if you missed it.

After hours of waiting and wondering about the tests to figure out what was the cause of all my pain, the doctors let us know there had been a change of plan—it turned out that they weren’t able to do the special multiple x-ray test after all. Instead, we had to settle for just one ordinary x-rays. Though the professionals were discouraged at the news, I was thrilled! Only having to expose my baby to one instead of three x-rays was the first of many answers to prayer for me that night. I began to see how God was working all this out—even the complications that arose throughout it.

So, I went and had the tests done, while dozens of family and friends prayed along with us, that the baby would be kept safe during the tests and that the tests would provide insight about what was wrong with me. As it says in James, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and accomplishes much.”

Later that evening, the tests results came back and showed that there did not appear to be a kidney stone present. The fact that I was still experiencing great pain made me discouraged at the news because what else could be causing the pain? And then I began thinking about all the other tests they’d want to run and what that might mean for my baby. I felt no closer to an answer than I had the day I’d left the hospital.

Then a doctor came back to us and gave us some more news: When they compared that night’s tests to ones done the previous week, it actually showed that my kidney was getting better—that it was self-healing. Honestly, upon hearing that diagnosis, I really didn’t believe it because the pain had stayed strong since we’d left the hospital. I still could only sleep sitting up. I felt like, once again, we’d gotten the brush-off.

But after we’d returned home and as I got ready to go to sleep that night, I prayed that if in fact my body was healing—if God was healing me—then I needed clear confirmation of it. I prayed that I would not need a pain med at all that evening, which was a huge prayer since nighttimes were the worst and when I took the heaviest doses of my medication. But still, I laid it out before the Lord, since he is the one who can make the impossible possible.

When I woke up a couple hours later, I was shocked to discover that—miracle of miracles—my back did not hurt. I had not experienced that yet. I began to get giddy as I realized the enormity of the occasion and that God was actually answering my prayer. “He will finish what he has started,” I said to myself and decided to push the test even further—and try sleeping laying down. Previously, any attempts to sleep laying down ended up causing so much pain that I often cried. But I figured that if God was indeed healing me, then this would be the greatest evidence of that.

So I curled up on the couch on my side and drifted off to sleep, awaking a couple hours later without a sore stitch in my body. I ran into the bedroom and told my husband the good news—God was finally healing me!

Click here to go to the next post in this series and find out what happens next.

Related Posts
The encouraging testimonies of answered prayers
My True Story of Being Healed by Prayer
{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

My Prayers for Healing: And Nothing Happened…

Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about my surprise visit to the hospital when I was suddenly taken with severe pain that sent me into contractions. I wrote about what led up to going to the hospital and then what happened after I got discharged, while the pain persisted (only assuaged with medication and a constant rotation of cold packs) and I could barely get any sleep.

Through it all, I had been praying. Even before we went to the hospital, I’d asked my husband to pray over my pain time after time after time. When we finally decided to go to the doctor and then to the hospital, I didn’t question it because I knew that if God had wanted to heal me, he could have—he’s done it for me many times in my life, in everything from psoriasis to stomach aches. We had asked and we had not received, so I did not feel bad about taking the next step and seeking help at the hospital.

While they were able to stop the contractions and the nausea at the hospital, the pain persisted. I remember being up in the middle of the night—unable to sleep because of the throbbing pain—and all I could manage was to repeat, over and over again, “Lord, I need a reprieve. I need a reprieve.” The pain was so intense it overwhelmed me. And yet, the only reprieve came when the nurses administered some more pain medication.

That cycle continued even when we went home, and it seemed that my pain was here to stay. The doctors chalked it up to the baby’s position and said it would relent once the baby was born—in another five months. It looked like my newfound pain was here to stay.

Slowly, I started to come to terms with what looked like my new reality. I saw it as an opportunity to know—for the first real time in my life—what suffering actually feels like. At times, I began to embrace it, to take encouragement in knowing that it was drawing me closer to God and that it truly was him who gave me all strength. I could not rely on the doctors but I could rely on him.

At other times, I read the Psalms with new appreciation and cried as I prayed their verses out loud over myself, begging, again and again, for a reprieve. The doctors could not give it to me, but I knew God could—but would he? I latched on to the promises of those Psalms which say that he will. He will. It may not be today or tomorrow, it may be at the end of my pregnancy, but I trusted that it would come.

In the meantime, we were still fighting for answers and some kind of real treatment. We were convinced it was my kidney and there was one doctor who fought alongside us. Finally, just over a week after the whole ordeal had begun, a urologist took interest in my case and ordered some tests to nail down what was going on. For the first time since this all had started, I was encouraged; finally, I felt like we were making headway!

The only hitch was that one of the tests the doctor wanted to run was a special series of x-rays that would detect whether there was a stone lodged in my kidney. While they assured me that the test was of minimal risk to the baby, the idea of exposing my baby to any more radiation than necessary scared me and, once again, I turned to prayer and enlisted others to be praying alongside me as we figured out what to do next.

Click here to read the next post in this series.

Related Posts
Waiting on God and Finding Joy Amidst the Pain
Cultivating A Grateful Heart Even When It Hurts 

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

It’s the Middle of the Night and Here I Am, Wide Awake…

EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote this following post in the days after being discharged from the hospital. Since writing it, I am actually finally starting to experience some healing (praise God!) and we have more answers from doctors (though it has been a fight to get them) and believe the culprit was in fact a kidney stone (though they originally ruled that out). However, I still wanted to share this post as a way to document where I have been and how God has been pulling me through it... 

With my newfound condition that has left me inundated with intense pain, I no longer think of time in terms of things like days or weeks or months. Now, I count in hours: How many hours it has been since I felt “normal.” How many hours since I was able to sleep without crying from the pain. How many hours since I last took my medicine to numb the pain.

It’s a cycle punctuated by fragments of sleep followed by a time of recovering from the pain and resting from the pain and then a time that feels like nothing is wrong at all. But it all only lasts a handful of hours and then repeats itself so that each day is compilation of these fragments, over and over.

For instance, I used to sleep at night. I used to sleep for eight or nine hours at a time. But now, my body no longer cooperates with that schedule. So whereas I would have been asleep right now for nearly five hours, I’m sitting up with the lamp on, typing up a blog post because that’s how I’m learning to adjust to this new lifestyle of mine. And then when I would normally be packing my husband’s lunch or washing up the dishes, I’m instead passed out on the couch because the fatigue has finally hit me.

I don’t say all of this to elicit pity. I say this because I am slowly learning to accept this new place and pace of mine.

My instinct is to fight against my body and force myself to sleep right now, at nearly 3am. But I as I lay there, in pain, I decided to just listen to my body and get up and wait until my body is ready to lie down and slumber. It may only be for two hours at a time and over the course of a day, it may only total up to five or six hours total. But I must accept it for what it is.

It reminds me of the time when my husband and I started practicing keeping a Sabbath in our schedules, a day that was committed to relishing and remembering and rejoicing in the Lord. At the time, one of the things that was most difficult to me was not being able to do things like rinse off the dishes so that the crumbs would get stuck and I’d have to end up scrubbing twice as hard later. As I watched the dishes pile up in the sink, I cringed at what all I’d have to do later—and it seemed like more work than if I hadn’t taken the Sabbath.

And that must have been exactly how it was for the Israelites, too, when they looked over their fields or at their sheep and saw all that needed to be done and yet yielded from it for the sake of the Lord. They yielded because they trusted that God would make up the difference, he would make up for the lost time and the lost effort, he would make it all work out—even when they took one day off to not work for it themselves.

I remember that as I sit here and think about all the sleep I’m losing. I have to trust God to make up the difference somehow, to multiply my efforts like the fish and loaves that didn’t make sense and yet still satisfied. I have to trust that God is at work in this season of pain and inconvenience and uncertainty and suffering. And that he is—most of all—at work in my heart through it all.

P.S. (Just so you know, I have finally managed to sleep through the night, but it did take more than a week to finally get to that point! More on that and how I'm recovering soon!)

Related Posts
The Call to Simplicity 
What doing "nothing" for a day taught me

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>

Waiting on God and Finding Joy Amidst the Pain of My Physical Suffering

EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote this following post in the days after being discharged from the hospital. Since writing it, I am actually finally starting to experience some healing (praise God!) and we have more answers from doctors (though it has been a fight to get them) and believe the culprit was in fact a kidney stone (though they originally ruled that out). We have follow-up appointments with a specialist this week to ensure that my body is self-healing and whether any additional treatment is needed. However, I still wanted to share this post as a way to document where I have been and how God has been pulling me through it... More on the medical progress once we've had the chance to meet with more doctors!

I have now been released from the hospital for a few days. (You can catch up on all that drama here.) And while it’s so good to be out of the hospital—where we were cramped in a small room in the most uncomfortable of beds and I was hooked up to an IV and the most undignified of hospital that left me feeling trapped within those four walls—alas, life is still no picnic.

What sent us to the hospital in the first place was not necessarily the severe pain but the fact that it was causing me to vomit and not be able to eat or drink anything. That, in turn, caused me to go into contractions. The hospital was good for me, because it stopped the contractions and the nausea so that I’ve been able to eat and drink regularly without incident.

But the pain that started it all remains. It wakes me up and keeps me from being able to stand up for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. It limits me to only being able to sit straight up, at a 90-degree angle, or else suffer the consequences of pulsing hips and flanks. It makes laying down for sleep a chore, and one that often brings me to tears as my husband tries to help me find a position that provides relief—oftentimes, to no avail. It causes me to be tired more than I am alert, and incapable of doing the most simple of household chores. I haven’t washed a dish or made a meal or even gotten the mail since coming home. And while that might sound heavenly, it’s turned out to be a bit of a burden to not even be able to help out.

At times, it makes me cry thinking about how I can endure this for four more months. Because as of right now, they still do not know what is causing the pain nor how to alleviate it.

But, in spite of all this pain, God is showing himself to me, giving me glimpses of hope through it.

For instance, in the hospital, we got shuttled around from one doctor to another, each of whom saw us for five minutes or so before disappearing. One doctor called in an appendicitis surgeon to make sure I wasn’t suffering from appendicitis. He came in and met with us and quickly determined it likely was not appendicitis. And yet, he didn’t leave.

He stayed with us and talked about the pain and agreed with us that it probably had something to do with my kidney. That is not his area of specialty, but still he took up my case and went around to different experts with my case to see what could be done. He consulted with a radiologist about tests that we could do that would be safe for the baby.

He consulted with a kidney specialist about the findings that showed that, yes, the problem was with my kidney. (Though, it should be said, the urologist doesn’t think anything’s wrong with my kidneys, but it’s the way my uterus is expanding that’s causing fluid build-up—a case he said he had never seen before in 30+ years of practice.)

And then the surgeon went back to the OB/GYNs and advocated that they bring me in to look into this further. The OB/GYN asked him why he was so concerned about this—I wasn’t even his patient! But he said that he sees being a doctor as helping a patient, however you are able. Sometimes that’s by taking up your scapel, but sometimes it’s by facilitating with the other experts.

So I thank God for this surgeon, who has done more for us than any doctor actually assigned to us. I know without a doubt that he was a gift to us from God in this situation. We were so impressed by him that when we came home, I wanted to write him a thank you letter. My husband went online to find his address and came across his bio, in which it becomes pretty apparent that he’s likely a believer.

And it just makes me smile to think of how God is working in this for us, even if it is much, much more slowly than I’d like and lacks any of the miraculous healing that I’ve been praying for. He still is at work and still has much to do.

So for now, while we wait on more tests and more answers and hopefully more experts to weigh in on my situation, we hope and we pray and wait most importantly on the Lord, for “I wait quietly before God, for my salvation comes from him.” (Psalm 62:1)

Related Posts
Listening to that Still, Small Voice 
A Prayer for Joy

{ photo source }

READ FULL POST >>