This past week..

Has been soo incredibly humbling..but we are just blown away by how amazing our God is. Its sad to say that I have pointed my finger in anger at the Lord more then once this week and yet He is so patiant with me. Sometimes I feel like I am like a little toddler who's throwing a tantrum to get what I want not understanding that my Parent was way more capable of knowing what I needed and wanted then I was...and yet I know the feeling all to well of thinking I needed something and not feeling like I got it..ya know? Even if the Lord provided another way..Ugh..that was kind of gibber gabber sorry! :)

Too much complaining.

As I was flipping through some old status updates on Facebook..I was realizing how often I complained. Its hard..I rationalize complaining by just saying that I'm stating the truth. While I don't want to lie or pretend that crummy stuff doesn't happen, I also don't want to dwell on them either or give the impression that I'm over at my house sitting in the pits of despair. When I look at my life I recognize that its not easy or how I want to live the rest of my life, but its far better then a ton of people's. I have much to be thankful for and I just have to stop myself and remember the things I am thankful for.

I'm so thankful that today Luke is most likely finishing up a job and then its the weekend! I plan on getting the house good and clean today and put me in better mood, trying to get Olivia's school accomplished before dinner time(and the park if there is time!)..haha..make a good dinner and enjoy a chick flick with my man tonight.

Tomorrow night our church fellowship is doing a pumpkin carving party/chili dinner..I'm really looking forward to it. I didn't go last week to our normal meeting and have missed seeing all the sweet people. So thankful for all the uninterrupted time with Luke as a family.

Sorry there hasn't been pictures recently. We still haven't gotten around to replacing our camera and our phone's just don't take very good ones...one of these days! :)

On a happier note..

Olivia was talking and walking before she was 1...Noah on the other hand was on his own time table as far as those went. He didn't walk till like 14 months, and didn't starting talking(besides a few signs) till later then that. I thought the kid would never talk. He now talks fine...but it also allowed me to not feel as stressed when Kate decided to follow suit. Though she was walking by her first birthday, her vocabulary has been slow going. She all but refuses to sign(EVERY now and then I will get one out of her)..In the last month she's taken off a lot. She rambles ALL the time..but now she can actually say-

Mama
Dadda
Doggy
Night Night
Hot(I cook a lot..it comes up!)
PopPop
Out
Down
ick
Bye-Bye
says Meow everytime the cat comes around
and occasionally she'll say Livvy or Noah, but its few and far between.

This list may not seem like much for a 16 1/2 month old's vocabulary, but she's learned most of these in the last month and I can tell she's trying very hard to copy things we say so I know its only a matter of time before she starts up with more words. I'm just so glad she's saying SOMETHING understandable now! :)

Not handling life..

I don't feel like I'm handing life very well right now. To be honest, its probably because I haven't been leaning on the Lord as much as I need to. I've taken it upon myself to worry and fret and over think everything going on in life right now instead of really and truly trusting Him. My emotions feel raw and I've thrown myself more then one pity party. I'm not proud just being an open book here. I have a really hard time having plans and then having them changed. Some plans I don't mind changing...like when friends want to hang on a night I didn't expect or something like that, but when they change for the worse its really hard for me. My daily struggle right now is focusing on TODAY. Knowing I did everything I could with a mostly positive outlook.

This cooler weather isn't helping..thought I love going outside in the evenings and letting the kids play while its nice and cool and the kids love crunching through the leaves that are falling off the trees..it also brings out this hermit crab type feel where all I want is a good book, a cup of cider(or tea) and alone time.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but please be praying for Luke this week. He's had a possible job opening and we are REALLY hoping it works out. Thanks!

The rest of life..

Yesterday we had Erin and Wesley over(and Lucy of course!!) and we enjoyed a super late dinner(sorry guys!) and just getting to talk for a while. It never fails to make me so thankful when we spend time with them. I love it..and so thankful that we have such a good relationship. Don't take your siblings for granted people!

Tonight we plan on being lazy. Eating a frozen meal(that I heat up) and then plopping ourselves down in front of our favorite night of television. Holla! The kids and I did school this morning and we managed to finish by 1:30 which is no small task for Olivia. She has a pretty hard time focusing for that long even when the lessons are fun and involved. I decided we'd so something nice for lunch and go to Panera...I ordered and then sat waiting for 15 minutes. Not sure why I waited that long before asking about my food, but its no small task to wait till almost 2 to feed your kids and then have to keep them quiet and contained while waiting! When I asked about lunch, they'd never even gotten it on their screen on the prep side of the place..arg. But the guy whipped it up super fast and gave me extra bags of chips for waiting so long. Then we went to the Library...Olivia and I are going to embark on reading the Little House series..I very vividly remember my mother reading them to me, so I can't wait to read with her.

Tomorrow we'll have Tyler and Kelly come over. We love hanging out with them..

On a awesome note! My children were approved for health insurance...!! I mean I didn't think we'd be denied seeing as how little money we make currently, but its just SO nice to know we have it if we need it. It takes such a load off my back...:)

Where we are. Part 3.

Its getting to the place in our story that is just simply hard to tell over the Internet. Intonation is lost and interpretation can be confusing. So bear with me and again like I said last time, if you have any questions, please let me know. God has opened our eyes to how much bigger this journey is then which building we are attending to get our messages. Its also hard to say that we have gleaned so much from Frank Viola without sounding like a cult or some sort of following. Let me say that neither Luke or I think this man is flawless or that he is the end all-know all on home church's. Frank and other apostles like him are trying to imitate the New Testament model of what an apostle is supposed to be to the Church. So like apostles in the New Testament he helps start and or equip local bodies under the headship of Christ.

One of the fellas working with him regularly is a guy named Milt Rodriguez(his book-The Community Life of God )
His website-http://www.therebuilders.org/
He is currently in South Dakota working with a body of believers there and in Nov, will be headed to Gainesville, GA to help the group we've been meeting with. He'll be here for a few months to help equip us like Paul did in the New Testament then move on to another group that needs help getting established.

In the New Testament, every church without fail was either started or helped by an apostle. Frank really tries to teach the body to meet under the headship of Christ without the need for human control. I know, it goes against everything I’ve been taught, though when I look at the Bible, I can’t disagree with him. It’s a revolution to our thinking to say that we are able to come together without a pastor there to do church for us. Well, what is a pastor? What is his role in the church. And why is he almost completely missing in the New Testament writing? What would a church meeting without a pastor look like and would it even be biblical? These are questions we’ve been asking for a long time but are just now getting some answers to. Needless to say, God is challenging us in new ways every day.


There is probably may more that I could say, but honestly it would take way way too long and this is just a summary not a play by play of every feeling or experience we've had along the way. I just wanted to give a glimpse into where Luke and I are and what we've kind of gone through over these last couple years.

(BTW, all book titles are links to their books on Amazon if you are interested in obtaining any for yourselves.)

Where we are. Part 2..

Our main focus for our "group" if you want to call it that was solely relying on following after what God wanted for THAT meeting no matter what it meant..sometimes we would worship the entire time, sometimes we would listen to a message from various speakers, sometimes we would pray the whole time, sometimes it was just us sharing what God was doing in our lives and encouraging each other in the Lord..or usually a combo of the above. We have had people come and visit and be part of the get togethers but no one consistent.. We met like this for about a year doing a once a week get together with a spiritual meaning and then we'd get together maybe another night for just random hang time.

I think it was around March when Tyler brought up a author(Frank Viola) he had been reading some of his books and said he was having a conference down in Orlando in July and wanted to know if we wanted to go. We really didn't know anything about him other then what Tyler had told us and knew he was kind of a forerunner for house church type gatherings(or organic church as he refers to it). He suggested we read some of his books, although we never got around to it..haha..So the 4 of us went down to Orlando and attended the conference. It was SOOO good..and that's an understatement. It is seriously hard to sum up what we learned at the conference.

Most of what we have come to learn about this process is its totally led of the Lord, just like most Christians are in different places in their life with God. It doesn't make one more holy or less holy or a better Christian or anything, its just a different place. Luke was way more on board with giving up Institutional church way sooner then I was. I only saw a small portion of what I do now...and I'm thankful that Luke was patient with me in allowing me the freedom to come around in God's timing and not Luke's.

We realized at the conference how much bigger the plan of Christ was then just our individual walks with Christ. That's a part of it because we are each a member of the Body, but its also about corporate. I don't feel I'm very eloquent with words and I find it hard to put my thoughts on paper(or on blog!) so I'm really sorry if this is all coming out disjointed.

While at the conference we met soo many people who were looking for something like this and everyone in different stages of coming out of institutional church..Every time someone would speak we would have a time of breaking up into our table groups and discussing what we'd just heard. It was SO rich. There is something to be said of an open participatory meeting, with everyone bringing something to the table. We felt instant connections with tons of people. It was like walking into a family reunion..seriously. The conference also had all the afternoons empty of speaking time so that everyone could fellowship and talk to each other and connect with people in your area. Most specifically we met a group from Gainesville, GA and we were so excited that there was already a decent sized group of people meeting fairly close to us who were pursuing what we were!

When we came back we read one of Viola's books called Pagan Christianity. Its all about exploring the roots of the church's practices. It blew me away. I'm still not quite finished with it, but I'm getting there. Luke has the audio version and listened to it in about 2-3 days in the car(drive much?!). Luke has also listened to Reimagining Church which I think is supposed to be the follow up book.

To be continued..

(P.S. If anyone reading this has questions, feel free to ask. I'd hate for someone to be confused or think I mean something instead of asking me about it.)

Where we are.Part 1.

I haven't blogged really about this much because, well it can be offensive to some, and I never want to offend people(even though I'm SURE I do sometimes.)....but its me, its us, its what our lives are about and why we do what we do.

About 3 1/2 years ago Luke and I left our church in Thomasville. It wasn't because we were angry or upset or anything. It was actually very hard to do. We had both been a part of this church for basically our whole lives. Everyone we knew was from there, basically our entire life revolved around this church and the people in it. To an extent this is not solely a problem. However we felt a discontentment and felt the Lord drawing us away. Its hard to say you left a church without people wondering what all went down..but honestly we left because God told us to, not for any other reason.

As we sought out what God wanted for our lives over the following year we continued to fellowship with friends from the church just not at actual church meetings. It was during this time we knew God was calling us to Atlanta. The Lord worked out a job and we moved up in March of '08. We still didn't know what God wanted us here for exactly, but wanted to follow after Him no matter what. To help get plugged in we started going to a church here. Which has some of the sweetest people in it ever..but it just didn't feel like that was where we belonged. We were discouraged and spiritually fatigued from not having a group of believers to fellowship with.

We struggled through till we started meeting with some friends for some Wednesday night fellowship. Sometimes it was games, worship, sharing, or praying..and usually we ate together. However over the course of a few months we quickly realized that everyone was wanting different things out of the group. It didn't end badly but out of it we had met Tyler and Kelly who moved up for a job as well after they got married. Over the months of our group meeting we really came to love them and we had so much in common. So we decided that we would continue meeting as just the 4 of us until the Lord led us otherwise...

To Be Continued..

One of my faves right now.

I have this thing about songs and lyrics. I love singing..and I love worshipping..so its no suprise I like songs with awesome lyrics...Here's a current fave.

Part the Clouds by Jimmy Needham-

I like, like to be liked
And no one likes to hear the truth
And I've seen what the truth can do
So I tried, tried to downsize
The part of You that's hard to tell
But the layoff didn't go so well
Beat around the burning bush
Till that fire went away
God was once so palpable
Before the shades of gray

We might as well just fold our hands
If we can't call a spade a spade
Cuz we will miss the heart each time
If we won't ever shoot them straight
These pleasantries shading me and you too long
Let's part the clouds
And show the world the Son

We think, think we're helping
By giving You a little flare
But it doesn't matter what You wear
Cuz runways aren't Your forte
You prefer the narrow road
Even though its not in Vogue
The gospel looked so very cold
One night as I passed by
So I gave Him my best sugar coat
And dressed it in a lie

We might as well just fold our hands
If we can't call a spade a spade
Cuz we will miss the heart each time
If we won't ever shoot them straight
These pleasantries shading me and you too long
Let's part the clouds
And show the world the Son

This living water will not quench us
If its watered down
Its not our place to hide again
This treasure that we've found

Cleanliness is:

- When I can see counters in my kitchen.

- When I can walk through my living room without wanting to scream due to stepping on a lego.

- When I don't have to wash a dish just so I can use it again right then.

- When my children still look and smell clean.

- When I look down and don't wonder what I stepped in and if I should be concerned.

- When I'm not forced to wear the underwear with tons of holes because its the only thing left in my underwear drawer.

- When I get to shower once a week. At least.

- When I can find what I'm looking for in the car.

- When I don't find toilet paper, poo/pee in the toilet when I go to use it.


Its amazing to me how quickly my level of what I consider clean changes with each child I have. I'm still a neat freak in terms of meat germs and the such, and I WILL clean up if I know people are coming over..but if you were to walk into my house on any given day without letting me know, I assure you, you WILL find a dirty diaper SOMEWHERE in the house...toys cluttering the floor..dishes in the sink/on the counter/in the livingroom...laundry, Everywhere.... I am not perfect. I don't like cleaning..though I do it often because if I don't my house will literally swallow me up and will make me not want to clean at all which just doesn't help. Accept my imperfections? :)

Thrown off "schedule"..

I wouldn't say our home had a schedule by ANY means. I try and keep myself and my children fairly flexible so that we can go and do without too many upsets, but there is a natural ebb and flow to our day that changes when we have been gone and out of a sort of routine.

We thoroughly enjoyed our amazingly relaxing trip to Lake Burton with all of Luke's immediate family(His 2 parents,3 brothers and 2 sisters, 3 sister in laws, plus 7 grandchildren), however it definitely threw us off a bit. Schooling was most of it. I'm required by the program we are using to complete assigned lessons for the day and to account for 4 1/2 hours of schooling each school day. We can usually finish the lessons pretty quick but then its up to me to be creative in figuring out what to do during the leftover time. We've been doing mostly starfall.com, pbs.com, or educational programming...but thats harder to do when you are at a lake and all your child wants to do is go play with her cousins..So that was interesting, but we got it done.

Yesterday we went and visited my Mom and the new house they are moving into. Even though she isn't up here permenantly yet due to finishing up some clients, it was nice getting to eat dinner over there and remember what's its like not to have to drive 4 hours to see family(outside of Erin and Wesley which is such a blessing to have them so close).
(We did healthy for dinner though..trying to get back to that after all our splurge meals at the Lake..we did baked Talapia, my cous cous confetti salad with Quinwa(sp?) instead of cous cous and steamed broccoli.)

Luke is back to work as of yesterday..they are starting to frame up on their project. Our unemployment runs out this week. I'm really sad and nervous because like I've said its kinda been our "at least we have this" type thing even if Luke wasn't able to work or draw from a job that week. So we are stepping into unknown territory and though I would like to say that I have absolute trust in God(which I should, cause its not like He's let me down..!) I am definitely doubting how it will all work out without that little extra every week. Specially since mortgage is coming up and thats a biggie. However Luke does have a potential job that we are REALLY hoping he gets. It would be something steady and that just would make me so happy to know he's have a regular steady job all the time. Pray God's will would be done.

I haven't had the funds to go grocery shopping yet since we've been back, but I'll update on menus when I finally do. :) Meanwhile, I'm staring at 2 jumbo suitcases that are still packed and needing to be unpacked..and 3 more lessons for Olivia to be done.