house selling vs house staying update

 

123 Henry Meyer Road Virtual Tour

ok, so lots of you have asked for an update on the house selling etc...

the Lord will do what He will do..and we want nothing more than to be in His will..living where He wants us to live..doing what He wants us to do..in the neighborhood He wants us to live in...we put our house on the market at the beginning of feb...thinking that we would go ahead and move into a larger house to set ourselves up for having a larger family, etc.  the Lord has given us one interested buyer who had our house at the top of her list with another house and got her bid on the other house...so since then we haven't had any big bites. as much as our plan isn't matching what the Lord has in mind, we are at peace.  we love our house, our neighbors, our neighborhood...if this is where the Lord wants us there is nowhere else we want to be.

so we are going to start making some more improvements to 123. 

(in order of importance and urgency)

-sod the front yard

-fence the front yard

-put a door from our room to the living room so we don't have to go through our guest room in order to get to our room

-extend the concrete in our driveway another 10 feet or so 

-update our kitchen and middle bathroom

we will keep our house on the market until we feel the Lord is leading us to take it off...all the while, proceeding as if we will be living in 123 for the long haul.

the one thing that bugs both of us about all of this is that we started renting a storage shed in january to store things from the house that clutter our house..in order to stage it for selling.  Now we really really don't want that stuff back in the house. we enjoy the added space. however, we can't just sell the stuff in storage as much of it is valuable, antique, family heirlooms, collectibles..etc..so we are stuck with a 95 buck per month storage fee from here until...that is probably the biggest annoyance of all of this.

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” - Josh 24:14-15

update on being stuck

went over to Linda's...i have a few friends that i stalk when i need to process verbally..jack is not a verbal guy, so i try to hit up nan, linda, casey..and other friends who know the Gospel and love to talk things out and listen to me talk things out..and they tell me Truth. praise God for my girl friends!

so went to Linda's and told her basically restated the blog from yesterday..and the Lord spoke through linda and said...(beware, this may be very obvious to some people and way too wordy for some others...sometimes putting words to revelations is more complicated than the actual idea itself...ha!)

As a Believer we always are striving to live in our present reality...what do we know to be sin right now? what do we know to be Truth right now?  what is the revealed will of God right now? we are constantly praying for the Lord to make us new..for the Lord to reveal His character and apply it to our lives.  He is always changing us, always growing us in Him, thus, always changing our present reality...and revealing more to us every day. (Example of this in the stitches situation:  because Jackson had been so independent outside and careful and good with the dogs, and never finding trouble outside, my current reality was that he was ok to have some independent (supervised from the window) playtime in the back yard.  since the incident with the fall and the stitches, i have a new current reality. it has now been revealed to me that Jackson needs me outside with him when he plays until he is older.  This change in idea of what is safe for jackson, doesn't mean that I was sinning by letting him in the backyard before or that i was being a bad mom..or that i was to blame for his accident. now, however, i am called to live in light of my new reality.)

The realization that I am not to blame for his 8 stitches..for his pain..for his suffering..has really helped me grow and learn from the experience..and not want to crawl in the closet and hide from my role as a mom.

just thought an update would be in order.

thanks for your prayer!

Thank you Jesus, for your hand of protection and for sanctifying me in the midst of perceived chaos..
 

^{2 Thessalonians 2:13}But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. ¹⁴He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

 ¹⁶May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, ¹⁷encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

i wasn't there

this is jackson's boo boo..gash...8 stitches

the next thing i would normally do is tell you how he got it...if you asked me, i would say that he was on the backyard steps that lead to the back door and our dog followed him up the steps and because gabey doesn't do anything carefully and gingerly...gabey knocked jackson off of the steps..and he hit his head on the well and gashed it open leaving him laying in the dirt screaming with blood gushing out of his head.

however, that would just be a guess..because i wasn't there. this is where i am stuck right now. i wasn't there. i don't know what happened. i don't know how my little 21 month old son got hurt. he wanted to go in the backyard and play "gawf" with "abe-bie", so we put his sandals on and i carried him over the steep steps and put him on the ground where he ran for the golf club...i closed the back door and ran to finish up the few emails i had left to answer on the computer..then walked to the back door area to go check on him and then start dinner..as i walked toward the back door, i heard him screaming and looked out to see him laying on the ground with dirt on his legs and i went out to pick him and up calm him down and then noticed blood all over his head and flowing down his face, down his nose, out of his mouth..all in his hair...flowing down his face like the sink faucet on low.

the rest of the story is not a guess because i was there..this part is so much easier to tell...the feeling of guilt isn't in the pit of my stomach as I proceed...i was there to run him to the sink to find the gash..put a compress on this head, put on my shoes, and run down the street to find a neighbor who could take me to the emergency clinic. held him in my lap in the front seat of her car with the compress on his head...got seen immediately at the clinic, got numbing cream within minutes of arriving and as soon as the numbing cream took effect..he got put in a straight jacket where they stitched his head up quickly and we were out the door as quickly as we arrived...with 8 stitches.

i am so thankful for the Lord's protection and provision for jackson..the boo boo could have been 1 inch to the left and he would have been blind in one eye..i could have gotten caught up on the computer and wouldn't have heard him screaming at all and he could have lost tons more blood and maybe even bled to death in the back yard..the Lord gave me a neighbor that would take me to the clinic so i could keep holding the compress on the wound..the Lord really provided so richly for us.

but i wasn't there.

make me lie down

we have been running around like crazy people...from event to event!

with working out in the afternoons when jack gets home..and then coming home to quickly fix dinner and then go out to various fun events like this one above (a women's event for church called "amazing Grace"), or hosting bachelorette parties at my house,

or having small group women's prayer nights at my house...and then getting all packed up for weekend trips and such with the family...

and then there is cow day at chic-fil-a..

all great things...all fun adventures...but all of this stuff together leaves me feeling like this...

i often find myself wishing i could find a balance between crazy busy and calm inside...

i find myself really enjoying the fast pace and moving from thing to thing to thing..and jackson tends to like it too. we are both extroverts and get really happy and excited about seeing friends and family and being out and about..jack oscillates more between wanting to be doing something and desiring to rest...he may be more of an introvert than jackson and i.

nonetheless, i know focus is important. time with our Father to hear Him and examine our hearts and lay our fears and anxieties before Him. to learn from Him and Know Him amidst the chaos and fun.

the cry of my heart, Lord..."make me lie down".

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

 ¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. ² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
       he leads me beside quiet waters,
 ³ he restores my soul.
       He guides me in paths of righteousness
       for his name's sake.