A lot.

A lot has happened since I last posted on here.  So much.  I’m full of all of the things that have happened.  They overflow from me, and they pour back into me.

It’s hard to explain it all, and of course, I can’t just do that on this blog.  There’s too much.

We are out in the sea, our little family, in our little boat.  At the mercy of God, sailing after him with everything we have.  Our meager rations, our little sail.  It’s all we have to give towards following Him, but it’s everything, and so it is so much.

There are storms on top of storms out here.  But we are in a column of calm.  The chaos is coming against us from every angle, from below, trying to sink us and confuse us.  Trying to destroy us, but we are not worried because we know, we KNOW that we have a Victor that has already won.  There’s nothing that can harm us.  We are this little boat in this ocean of the unknown, caught in a current that is heading somewhere we can’t see, but we can look up.  We have thankfulness.  We have Christ.

A lot of people have been praying for us, and we can feel your arms around us.  We can feel the love you are sending us, the whispered prayers from your hearts to God’s.  Your hands are steadying our boat in the waves.  Your prayers mean everything to us.

On Sunday I closed worship with Praise You In This Storm (Casting Crowns) after Jon preached a sermon about Amen.  It was so powerful to me, a song Jon had requested two weeks before because of his sermon, but it had so much more meaning to me than it normally does.  Which is saying a lot.  This song was my anthem when my Gramma died.  It was her anthem when she was dying.  It stirs deep emotions that have been trying to heal and scar.  Normally, I wouldn’t have gone near it, I wouldn’t have been able to.  But God-things abound here, and it was just what I was supposed to do.  When singing it, I just kept singing the bridge over and over…

I lift my eyes unto the hills, where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth.

It wasn’t planned, but the Holy Spirit led me there and the words sunk into my spirit like rays of light through the clouds and radiated through me, warmed me.  I know where my help comes from, and I look to Him expectantly.  A gentle reminder that He is here, Jon’s mom sent me a message telling me that she is praying Psalm 121 over us, and asking us to read it and meditate on it.  Guess what it says….

My Help Comes from the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

Take heart, friends.  We are alive, we are standing firm.  When all we can do is stand, then still, we stand firm.  Our cleated warrior boots are dug into the ground, and He will not let our feet be moved.

We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, quite literally we could be in a thousand different places doing a thousand different things.  We don’t know what is happening with Jon’s health, and that is our biggest concern, so we are working on figuring out a diagnosis as soon as possible.  We are considering every option and the hows of every option, we are in flux.  We have a solid God that does not change, and He is always good and He is always faithful.  He has plans for us, we know.  He is not done with us, He has just finished building His foundation in us and that means something.  He has plans to prosper us and not harm us.  He is our Protector, our Refuge.  We are residing in Him.

Please, do not stop praying on our behalf.  We need it, desperately.  We love you all, our hearts are so filled with our love for you.  Thank you.  Each day, everything seems to flip a 180, everything we considered the day before seems to fly out the window, and sometimes new options cross our path, and we really have no idea where we are headed, but things are moving fast and it’s dizzying, and we are clinging to the hand of our Creator.  He is in control, and we trust Him completely.