Pressing In

      Up until now, I have never opened this blog to the public. To anyone actually. It just started out as some sort of a journal for myself, but since I am not tech savvy and have a hard time sitting in front of a screen for long, I tend to write directly into my real life journal.=)       If anyone ever reads this, you will note that I started this a few years ago, and haven't posted much. However, I just wanted to note that though those entries are not the most current in my life, they are still just as heartfelt now as they were then. In fact, as I went back to read them, I did get a bit emotional at times because they brought me back to those very special, very real places in my life.  We have 5 kids.   They are all wonderful and I am proud of them all and WOW , what an adventure!! Our family is by no means perfect and I hope to never paint that picture here or anywhere else. We are all a little wild, it seems. As much as I can't...

                                                       Sushi    I don't even care for Sushi, but that is the first thing that comes to my mind when I try to describe my life right now. Not at all because I don't care for my life, but because my everything seems so simply complex.  When someone asks me how I am doing, I wish I could just say, "Sushi" and that they would get it without looking at me weird.  Last week marked the one year anniversary of my sister Ashley passing away and the one month mark of my mama passing away.  What the heck?! I'm not even sure if that is computing in  my brain fully. Jesse was kind enough to protect this night for me to be home alone, to do whatever I want or even "curl up in a ball and cry", he suggested. Not because he  gets joy when I curl up in a ball and cry, but because i...

          Recently, I went out to my usual spot for my usual run. It was the kind of morning when I was especially feeling like running. I find I like to run the best when I am wrestling with something. Whether its an effort to run away from something or a physical expression of running to Jesus, I'm not completely sure, but it usually seems to be both. I particularly love those days when I just need a good cry and I get to run in the rain and just let my tears mix with the rain on my face. Such a sweet release.   On this particular day though, I was wanting to release some pent up energy. Some frustration and confusion about my new place in life that I haven't quite figured out what to do with yet. As I was just starting on my third mile however, my knee threw in the towel. Annoyed, I limped around on it for a bit hoping to just walk it out so I could finish my run. It was clear after a few attempts at this that I wasn't going to be able to finish t...

                                   For over a year now, something has been stirring up in Jesse and I. The cool part is there is no human logic to why we both are experiencing this same stirring without any obvious cause.  We are though, and the best way I can think to describe it is that we are "expecting."  Like when one is pregnant, it is obvious that they are expecting a baby, but they don't know much about this baby yet.  The characteristics, hair color, sound of their cry, what they look like and in some cases even the gender is unknown, until the delivery. That's the closest thing I can use to describe this stirring within us.  We are expecting a change and although we don't know what it is, we are anticipating it.  Most the time there is an overwhelming feeling of excitement for me of the unknown, but there have also been times within the last year that ...

                                                                            It wasn't that long ago that I would just wallow in frustration with myself for falling short on things that I really felt I ought to do better at or have down by now. I would carry such guilt and shame over these things and not understand why I was still praying for freedom from the same things I was praying about for the last 5 or even 10 years! It was so darn frustrating to me. The example that stands out to me the most and the freshest was my struggle with anger. I had never  considered myself to be an angry person. In fact, I really considered myself to be pretty fun-loving and selfless.  Well, humility and reality hit me square in the face, as I started to have children and realized that maybe I...

                  I have a message to tell. Today it is clear and feels urgent. Almost as if I could burst, it needs to come out so bad! The Lord is stirring something within me. I want nothing more today than to tell someone about Jesus. In fact, I want to tell a lot of people about Him.  A message of Hope and Love and renewal.  A message of the crazy pursuit of Him to us. I feel that my feet are at this moment being equipped and fitted to carry this gospel message with love and authority. I am excited because this reminds me of a prayer that two different people in two different towns, 5 years apart both prayed over my feet. The same prayer! In both instances they were praying with me, when they told me(one of them a bit sheepishly) that the Lord was urging them to pray over my feet.  So they knelt down and put their hands on my feet and prayed very similar prayers and they both prayed the scripture that says, "How...

        Yesterday, I took my three younger kids to the park after school to enjoy the  beautiful fall weather before the rain moves in.  It was a bit chilly, and as I tightened my jacket  around me and zipped it up as high as I could, I sat down with the intention of  pulling a book out of my bag and enjoying the chance to dig into it. As I reached over to flip my bag open, something stopped me.  For some reason the usually coveted time to read,  felt undesirable now that I had it,  in comparison to the opportunity that unfolded  right in front of me. There was something bigger that enticed my attention.       It is a fairly new phase of life for me to be in that I can actually read now.  I really didn't  get much reading in while I was in the middle of raising and pouring into my little kids. So the  fact that I have read about 4-5 books in the last 6 months, may not seem like a lot ...