I'm Stacy - a disciple of Christ, an Army wife, and a homeschooling mom to our 7 year old daughter. I spend my days doing fun science projects, going on field trips, cooking gluten-free meals, taking photos, reading, blogging & managing the home. I'm constantly behind on scrapbooking and want to learn how to crochet more than scarves, but there are only so many hours in the day.
I believe that shoes should always be optional, life is better at the beach, and chocolate is a necessary food group!
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Why is it sometimes so hard to turn my troubles over to God permanently? He loves me more than anyone else, yet I find myself trying over and over to take back control of things I’ve turned over to Him. I find myself feeling heartache and pain over something that I previously surrendered to God (more than once!). I don’t understand His plan, so I try to create one of my own – hoping that my desires will become His will. Instead, I should be praying that His will becomes my desire.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says,
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
I know we all have something that we struggle to understand. Something in our lives that we need to completely and totally surrender to the Lord.
For me, it’s dealing with my infertility and inability to have another child. My infertility is not a temporary condition. I dealt directly & actively with it for 3 years after our miracle daughter was born, waiting and hoping and wondering month after month after month. Almost 5 years ago it then became permanent when I had to have a complete hysterectomy due to a lot of complications brewing inside me, leaving me with no chance of another miracle baby in my tummy.
I can’t tell you how often I go down the “what if” path. How often I think, “What if I had just waited a little longer for God to perform another miracle?”…“If I hadn’t given in to the pain…if I had endured longer…would I have gotten pregnant again?”
By the way, that “what if” path was completely designed by Satan. It is a tool he uses to make us stop trusting God. When I’m feeling down and heartbroken about not being able to have another baby – the devil wants me to feel like it’s my fault. He tells me I was weak and I didn’t wait long enough. He wants me to think there is something I could have done about it. He tells me I’m alone.
The TRUTH is – God is in control. The surgery turned out to be a huge blessing in our lives and in addition to some other things I won’t go into here – it saved me from a potentially dangerous cancer that was in the early stages. The TRUTH is that God always has a bigger plan than the one we can see. He knows what’s around the corner and if I will let him lead, he will keep me on the path he has prepared for me.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
A couple years ago, God placed another baby in our lives as a foster baby. We brought him home from the hospital and raised him for 10 months – being told the whole time by the “powers that be” that we would almost certainly get to adopt him.
We didn’t. He ended up being adopted by another family rather than returned to his birth mother.
It hurts. Over a year later it still hurts.
Even in the pain, I am blessed because I was able to form a relationship with his birth mother and have been able to be there for her as a “long distance big sister” of some sort as she has no family and needs to be reminded of how special she is and how much God loves her.
Because it was an open adoption, she gets pictures often of her little boy. As a result, I get lots of pictures of him from her. He just turned 2. Each time she sends me a text message with another picture, my heart does flip-flops. I’m heartbroken. I look at the picture and my stomach just seizes up in knots. I feel weak in my knees. I miss him terribly. However, I am also overjoyed that he’s happy, healthy, and with parents that love him and can provide for him. I have to be thankful for that.
“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” (Ps 27:13-14)
I have to admit, this past year or so has been rough. I have 6 people super close to me that have either had a baby this past year, or are pregnant and will be having one soon. That doesn’t even count all the people that I’ve barely met or seen with adorable baby bellies or new babies. Don’t get me wrong - I am crazy excited for them! I really am. I’m just also jealous and trying really hard not to be. It’s even worse when I hear some women complain about how easy they get pregnant or how they can’t stand the thought of having more kids, yet they get pregnant with little effort. I want to scream, “Fine! Give them to me!”. But that’s not God’s plan, and I don’t have to understand it. He still doesn’t want me to be jealous. It’s even one of the 10 Commandments!
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Ex 20:17)
That includes babies.
Hubby and I still feel called to be foster parents and eventually to adopt (we think), but due to some circumstances out of our control we are having to wait a while before we can pursue it again. Once again God is showing me that I can’t control this – even the timing is HIS.
Fine. So, I surrender it again. My goals. My dreams. My desires. I submit myself to HIS will and pray that he would align my desires with His will and not the other way around. I truly want to feel content and to trust in His plans. I also want my deepest longing to be for HIM. That’s really what He wants too, isn’t it?
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:11-13)
Ok, so I surrendered! What next? Well, just as I think I’ve “got it” and have surrendered it all over to God, I get news that a good friend of mine is expecting.
Lord, this is a test…isn’t it?
I’m supposed to be THRILLED for her. I AM thrilled for her, but I also had to pray for God to take the jealousy away from my heart and to fill me with contentment again.
Amazing how God works, isn’t it? Every time I think I’ve surrendered, He tests me again. Every time He reveals that I’m still trying to hold on to control. How many more times will it take before I finally LET GO and LET GOD have it?
I don’t know what God’s plan is for our family. Maybe our family will remain a family of 3 (plus the pets!), or maybe not. Either way, I pray that I will surrender my will and my desires so that God can truly use me as His tool for the work He has planned for me to do.
Let me introduce you all to Duper. As in “Super Duper”. It’s a paratrooper thing
Isn’t he cute?? Now that you know what has been stealing all my extra time for the past 2 weeks, you can’t be mad at me for not posting lately, right?
Lovebug has been begging us kindly asking over and over for a dog for years. She is an animal lover to the core and she was hoping for something that would play with her a little more than our cat, Angel. Angel does love to cuddle & truly enjoys being outside, but remains uninterested in playing fetch or going to the park.
After our recent vacation, we were finally ready to get a dog. We’ve been researching & planning for months and it was time to make it happen. A couple weekends ago, Petsmart was having a “National Adoption Day”. The store hosted many local shelters and was crowded with many, many animals that needed a home.
This little cutie caught our eye. He is a Shepherd Mix, and is now 16 weeks old. He’s going to be a big guy! He’s got webbed feet, so we’re thinking he might have some retriever in him. Whatever it is, he’s cute! We aren’t sure of his background – we just know that he was “surrendered” at a Vet hospital and then he spent a little time in a foster home. I’m not sure how long he was at either of those places.
I have to admit, I was NOT looking forward to the “puppy stage”, but we had decided that it would be best for all involved if we got a puppy instead of an older dog. We wanted to make sure it grew up with the cat since she was here first, and we don’t want her feeling like prey. We also thought it would be a great educational experience for Lovebug to help train the puppy and to see it grow up from a baby. She already has a friend for life!
So far, we have been so blessed! I think getting him at 13 weeks really made a huge difference in his bladder size – he was already able to “hold it” for 4 hours easy overnight. He also already knew “sit” and might have had some training on “leave it” and “drop it” because he seemed to respond to those almost immediately. We are crate training him, so there have been NO instances of chewed up clothing or furniture. He loves his toys – especially the tennis ball and the Kong (because I put yummy stuff in it!), and he can’t get enough of the sticks and pinecones in our backyard!
Potty training is going great! He’s only had a few accidents in the house, and EVERY SINGLE TIMEH it was our fault. He was trying to tell us in his own way that he wanted to go out and we missed the clues. We’re a little slow, but we’re catching on! At night, Hubby and I have been taking turns sleeping on the sofa with him in the living room so we could be close to the back door where we would be taking him out. We set our alarm to get us in the middle of the night and take him out. First night was 4 hours. After a few nights, we bumped it to 4.5 hours. Then 5. Now we are up to 6 hours of sleep! YAY! A little longer to go, and then we will be ready to move him to our room once we get him used to the stairs.
Making friends with the cat! Duper loves to chase the kitty, but only because he wants to play! He’s not aggressive with her at all. He’s responds very well to “leave it” and will back up and sit down nicely too – what a gentleman! Of course, that’s as long as we have him on the leash – still have to work on the off leash manners, but we’re making progress.
“What is this thing?”
“If I ignore it, maybe it will go away”
“When will they let us back inside?”
The ups & downs of stairs!
He’s afraid of them. Has NO idea how to go up them. It was comical when we tried to take him up the stairs to get a bath last week. We put him on the stairs, moved his paws for him, lifted his bottom and he just FROZE. He stayed like that till we moved him again. Eventually we carried him. Poor little guy!
He also doesn’t know how to get in or out of the truck. No depth perception I guess. We’re working on it. As you can see, our stairs are wood, so I’m thinking we’ll need to get some pieces of rug and some no-slip stuff to go under them so he can get some traction. I’ve been working on him a little with with treats, and so far I’ve gotten him up ONE step on his own.
I’m really glad that Lovebug finally talked us into getting a dog. We can already tell that he’s going to bring us a lot of joy!
Almost a month ago, Hubby had his 2 week block leave period after returning from deployment. We tossed around a few ideas of what to do with our vacation time trying to find a balance between having a lot of fun & not spending a lot of money.
One idea we kept coming back to was going to New York. Our sweet Lovebug has been obsessed with interested in New York for years, most specifically the Statue of Liberty. Since she was barely 4 years old she’s been telling us, “I will go to New York when I’m 8”. That started when we lived in Texas, so we always told her that we would do our best and if there was a way to make it happen, we would.
Now we live in North Carolina…less than a day of driving to NYC.
She’s only 7.5 (not quite 8!), but we decided that now was the time to make it happen. You never know with the Army – they could suddenly decide to move us to the West coast, or overseas (doubtful, but still…) so we opted to take advantage of the road trip while we could.
I have a dear friend that lives partway between here and NYC, so we were also excited to be able to spend some time with them on the way and they blessed us with a free place to spend the night. God even threw in an extra gift of SNOW while we were at their house – bonus!
We had 2 days/1 night to spend in NYC. We ended up finding a hotel in New Jersey for a fraction of the cost of staying in NYC, so we jumped on that. Since we only had a couple days to spend in NYC, we made this trip ALL about Lovebug! This was HER trip, to see the things SHE wanted. Her dream has been to see the Statue of Liberty, so that was #1 on the list. Unfortunately, the inside was closed for renovations so we were only able to see the outside, not climb the internal stairs. Maybe next time! We weren’t sure how much time it would take to navigate the city and figure out public transportation, so we opted to see the Statue of Liberty on Day 2 when we wouldn’t be rushed at all.
Day 1 – We took public transportation from Jersey to NYC, walked/ran around (a fraction of) Central Park (GORGEOUS!), bought fruit at a sidewalk market, rode the subway, sang a song on Broadway (really, right under a Broadway street sign!), and saw Times Square. We weren’t sure we’d have time for Times Square but as we were riding the subway they announced it was the next stop so we jumped off to go explore! It was perfect because it was nighttime, so all the signs were lit up and it was just amazing. While in Times Square, we ate dinner, bought a city mug at Starbucks, visited a 2-story Disney store, and a 3-story Toys-R-Us (with a FERRIS WHEEL inside!).
Day 2 – Statue of Liberty day! We drove over to a state park in Jersey to catch a ferry ride to Liberty Island. As it turned out, catching the ferry from Jersey instead of New York was a blessing!! We were 3 of about 10 people on our ferry, while the ones from NY were packed with probably 200 people. When it was time to leave Liberty Island, we walked past the long lines waiting for the New York ferry and were able to just hop right on the Jersey ferry!
Lovebug was in AWE as she saw the statue in person for the first time! She was giddy with excitement when we saw it from the ferry, and even more so when she was able to touch the base of the pedestal itself. After taking lots and lots of photos and enjoying the view, we were ready to head back to the mainland. Lovebug had spotted a Science Museum when we were on our way to catch the ferry, so she asked if we could go see it. She *loves* all things science related! We had a bit of time and they offered a military discount, so we said YES! We spent a couple hours there enjoying the animals & exhibits before heading back to our friend’s house for the night.
It was a trip full of adventure all packed into a couple of days. A trip of a lifetime for our Lovebug for sure!
Rather than try to pick a few favorite photos, I’ll just share this slideshow with you.
Stay tuned for the second part of our vacation…”Hiking (part of) the Appalachian Trail!”
I came across this blog post today on the House Family blog and I just had to share it. It is such a beautiful story of Christ’s love lived out right here on this earth. A young man named Luke sharing God’s love with a homeless man named Kowboy.
“No one probably even noticed when this happened yesterday in the morning. It happened in the woods. In a tent. Probably alone. Kowboy was a homeless man who lived in the woods in Brooksville………….A man who usually wouldn’t get a second glance beyond the first glance of judgment. But those who knew him, and took the time to sit with him knew what kind of man he was. He was a man of honor. A man of dignity and hope. A man who was selfless. A man of compassion.”
Luke did something most people would never consider doing – he crossed the line into Kowboy’s world and became his friend.
A true love story. What love – God’s love – is all about.
“Luke listened to the man a lot of people would simply wave off. He learned that Kowboy had a sister, a family, loved ones. He learned that Kowboy served this country many years ago in Vietnam. That he was haunted by memories of things he saw, things he did, regrets. Luke also learned that he just met one of the most giving and caring people he would probably ever know. A man who had nothing, but would give you everything.”
Back in November, we took advantage of an online Black Friday special and bought a trampoline for the backyard. Unfortunately, for the last 2 months it has been sitting in the box in our storage closet.
First we had to wait until Daddy returned from his deployment right before Christmas.
Then we had to wait until we got a fence. Some Army posts provide fencing with their housing, but here at Fort Bragg if you want a fence you have to rent one.
The fence was just installed 2 weeks ago – right before we left to go on a family vacation – so we had to wait a little longer.
As soon as we returned from our trip, we were finally able to set up the trampoline! YAY! Hubby & Lovebug worked hard for the better part of a Saturday this past weekend to set it up while I did the grocery shopping. She has been on it every day since, even when it was raining.
This morning, Lovebug asked if we could do our schoolwork and reading on the trampoline. Sure, why not? Just because we CAN!
