I am choosing to breathe. To exhale. To attempt to express ALL that God has done in our lives and the lives of those around us. To share my joy and thanksgiving. To invite you to praise Jesus with me. To wonder at the God of hosts. To marvel at His awesome deeds.
I think if I were to wait a moment longer, I might just burst into a thousand pieces! And then my husband would have even more work to do than he already does! I certainly don't want to distract him from leveling the washer and dryer so I can do some much-needed laundry later :)
Well, I better get started, seeing as how I haven't even really begun and I've already been interrupted numerous times by two adorable little red-headed girls who don't seem to understand that I just want to sit and type my little heart out.
I feel as though I can relate to the psalmist David when he penned these lines in his famous poem/song:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runnenth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
(King James Version)
Or as some other, more modern, translations put it:
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
My cup overflows with blessings.
Surely Your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
(New Living Translation)
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.
Your beauty and love chase after me all the days of my life.
I'm back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.
(The Message)
Each version adds meaning and depth, hits another cord, highlights yet another way God is at work and making Himself known in my life (and those around me).
With all that has taken place in just the last week alone, I can't help but feel as though my "cup runneth over!"
I read this morning in the gospel of John:
Jesus' disciples saw Him do many other miraculous signs besides the ones recorded in this book.
But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah,
the Son of God,
and that by believing in Him you will have life.
And I suppose that if ALL the other things Jesus did were written down,
the whole world could not contain the books.
How very true!
There is no way I could put into words all that is on my heart. For starters, there's just too much and our God is far too complex to even begin to try to understand or explain. And then there's those two little red-headed girls I mentioned earlier. As I type, the youngest is trying to figure out how to open the It Works defining gel. At 14.5 months and weighing barely 16 pounds, I am pretty sure defining gel is the last thing she needs to be using at this point and time!!! :)
As I sit here in my new house, I keep waiting for the doorbell to ring, for a cop to come to the door and ask me what in the world I am doing here. I keep thinking this is all a dream. That I am going to wake up and it will all be over. It's simply too good to be true. I look around at our home and utter over and over and over again, "Oh Lord, I am not worthy of this!" Which is followed immediately with, "Dear Jesus, thank You, thank You, THANK YOU!" And in the same breath, "God, please help us to take and use all that You have given us to make You known, to shine Your light, to draw people to You, to bring praise and honor and glory to Your name." For that is the very reason why we are here!
And already I have seen Him answering those prayers, in a variety of ways.
On moving day, we had MANY friends and family members help us pack up our stuff and start setting up our new house. At least three of our friends brought their kiddos along to help, and these 4th-7th graders did indeed haul boxes up and down the stairs for quite a while. But as soon as the men carried the foos ball table inside, their work was done! The kids were given the task of putting the foos ball table together, and the second they finished, you could hear the ball rolling back and forth, followed closely with shouts of triumph -- or defeat, depending which side of the table they were on -- as the boys and girls enjoyed a well-deserved break. As I worked upstairs in the kitchen, I listened to the noise in the basement, and my heart swelled with joy. My cup runneth over. We have prayed time and time again that our new house would be a place for the neighborhood kids to come and play, to hang out, to have fun, but even more importantly to feel safe, to belong, to be accepted, to be able to open up and share what's on their hearts, and above all else to see Jesus' love in action and invite Him to be the Lord and Savior of their lives as a result. Saturday was just the beginning of many things to come, I believe. I anticipate many more kids, and many more messes, in my future, and I can't help but smile from ear to ear at the thought!
When I called my mom to get a progress report from our "old" house, she exclaimed, "Sarah, there's people everywhere! I was worried no one was going to come, but now there's so many I don't know what to do!" I was just getting ready to order pizza for everyone, and I panicked. I am sure Domino's didn't mind that I ordered TWENTY large pizzas that afternoon, but as the lady set box after box after box after box of pizza on my kitchen counter, I realized I might have gone just a little overboard in my exuberance to tell everyone thank you by filling their stomachs. Well, no one let hungry, that's for sure!!! Not even the Time Warner Cable guy who came to set up our wireless internet, as he left with a box of pizza in hand. The next door neighbor kids were delighted to receive two boxes of pizza, though I told them not to tell everyone that Mr. Young gave them pizza or all the kids at school might think their teacher will show up on their doorstep with Domino's. And the wives who stayed at home with their young children while their husbands helped us move might have appreciated the boxes of pizza that came home, meaning they didn't have to fix supper that night! My zeal and slight over-calculation of how much food we needed was slightly embarrassing at the time, but I believe God used my mistake to bless quite a few people. At least I hope He did!
Like John, I could go on and on and on about all God has done in my life, but I am going to pause and turn my attention to what He has been doing in the Ewing family. Many of my facebook friends have been praying for Baby Levi, as I share pictures and posts about this little boy who was found to have a brain tumor last summer. I am sure my friends have gone on to ask their friends to pray for Baby Levi and his family as well. As has everyone at our church. And so people from all over the world have joined from afar to pray for a miracle. Well, God has heard our cries and pleas. He has done the humanly impossible! Baby Levi (who is now over a year old) is back home with his parents and brother and sisters! Granted, he will be receiving oral chemo treatment and making trips back to St. Jude's in Memphis, Tennessee for many months to come, BUT he is not hooked up to any machines and he is ALIVE! His parents, Nathan and Alicia, shared at church this weekend some of what God has done in and through them during this terrible ordeal. could try my very best to relate all they said Sunday morning, but even my best efforts would fall short. You simply MUST listen to the podcast yourself!!!!
Only then will you understand what I mean when I say, "We serve a Warrior-Ninja God." Or when I encourage you to read Zephaniah 3:17. Or when I talk about being part of the family of Christ who comes along beside you during dark times. Or when I say, "I want to be like Alicia Ewing (and Grace Allen) when I grow up." Seriously, an entire book could be written about the faith of these two amazing women. I hold them both in the highest regard. I never, ever want to go through anything remotely close to what they have endured, but if God did chose that path for me, I would most definitely want to walk in the footsteps of these godly women, whom I am blessed beyond words to call friends.
Well, like I said, I could go on for hours, days even, sharing with you all that God has done in my life. I can't stop smiling. I can't stop praising Jesus. And I can't stop telling you thank you.
Thank you for all your prayers as we put our house on the market and waited for a buyer. Thank you for your prayers as we thought the snowstorm was going to interfere with our moving plans. But what's a mere 12 inches of snow for the God who has storehouses of snow in His backyard (Job 38:22)?! He was able to get our new buyers a 4-wheel drive vehicle and pull the title lady out of the ditch and get them all safely to the office to sign the papers on Thursday afternoon, despite the mountains of snow. I couldn't help but think of the time Jesus told His disciples, "If you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move." (Matthew 17:20; Matthew 21:21) How fitting at church, then, that we sang:
He can move big mountains like brain tumors and ATRT cancer. He can move little mountains like snow-covered roads. Whatever your mountain, God can move it!
In response to God working in our lives, I want to shout it from the mountain tops.
As the song we sang in church goes on to say:
Shine your light and let the whole world see
We're singing for the glory of the risen King
Jesus told His disciples, "You are the light of the world -- like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don't hid your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father."
Well, we want our house to be just that! A place where God's light shines brightly for all to see. And ironically enough, our house is actually on a small hill! God is definitely a God of details!!! From the location of our house to the color of its siding (when we first started looking for houses, there was a green one for sale that Lawrence really liked, but it was WAY out of our price range. Coralyn, however, took note that Daddy liked the green house, and whenever we would go look at houses, she would exclaim, "We want the GREEN house!" Well, we may not have gotten that particular green house, but our house is indeed green. God is soooo good, and most certainly has a sense of humor.)
Maybe with all the snow we've had, we can invite the neighborhood kids over to come sledding down the hill that is our backyard!
For now, though, I need to get off the computer and get busy setting up our house so that it's ready for visitors. And doing some laundry so we have clean clothes to wear when they come! :)
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