Waiting on Him

Waiting. This is what the Lord is teaching us how to do right now. Our lives seem to be in a waiting period currently as we wait on many different things. The most obvious is our waiting for Michèle's arrival, which is becoming more and more difficult at least for this pregnant mommy. We are also waiting for the arrival of family who will be coming to help us. We are waiting to see how the Lord will continue to grow the relationships with which He has blessed us. We continue to wait on Him to show us how we are to better serve the people of our city. I am not very good at waiting but it continues to be a theme of our lives, so I know that the Lord has much more to teach me about waiting on Him. This morning, He reminded of Isaiah 40:31 which states: "but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint." I am so encouraged to hear that it is the Lord who renews our strength and that all we need to do is wait patiently on Him. As we wait upon the Lord, I want to learn as much as I can from the waiting experience. Thanks for praying with us as we wait on Him.

Aromas!

The Lord has been recently speaking to my heart quite frequently about the aroma of our house. I do not mean if it smells good due to a candle or after mopping the floors with Pinesol (which I truly enjoy both of the fragrances), but instead if our house is smelling sweet to our Lord and to those who enter into it. The verse which comes to mind is 2 Corinthians 2:15, which states: "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." So often, we allow our circumstances, bad attitudes, stresses of life to destroy the aroma of our home. I find myself having to stop on a daily basis and ask the Lord to refresh the aroma of our home. We want to exhibit the sweet smelling aroma of Christ to all who enter into our home and to the other family members who share our home. We pray that our home will be a sanctuary where the Lord will draw people to Himself, for this reason we must stay focused on keeping Him as the fragrance of our lives and our home. To this end, we are very excited about this coming week, because the Lord has graciously allowed us to have three different opportunities where we will be opening up our home to others. We covet your prayers for each of these times.

We thank you for your continued prayers. We continue to be reminded of the Lord's faithfulness in answering our prayers. Some prayers are answered very quickly and some we are still waiting on responses, but He continues to remind us that it is all in His perfect timing. I continue to be amazed by how He chooses to use us to share His love and message with others. I feel so inadequate and undeserving when I think of my sinfulness, and yet He continues to give me opportunities to share His message with others. It always excites me when He uses my struggles to teach other people His truth and faithfulness. He chose to use my weakness this morning to hopefully draw someone closer to His kingdom. As Grace and I were walking back from taking the boys to school, I was praying and asking the Lord to guide and direct our steps and asking Him to forgive me of a sin which He had shown me. Later in the morning, I was on the internet when I had a friend who lives in another European country begin a skype conversation with me. I was so thankful to the Lord that I was able to share with her some Truth that the Lord had just reminded me of this past weekend and then later in the conversation I was also able to share more of the Gospel with her. I praise the Lord that He used me to share with her what He had just taught me. I continue to be amazed by His perfect timing.

This past weekend, He gently reminded me that He knows the plans that He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11). He spoke to me after the third word, that's all He needed to say and then we stayed at that place in Scripture for a while. Life can be very uncertain at times, but He reminded me that He is still the One in control and that His plans will be established. In the midst of these uncertainties (language school for Chris, Michele's birth, etc) I can still find peace because He is the peace giver. He did not give me peace this weekend by giving me an answer to all of my questions, instead He gave me His peace by simply reminding me that He knows His plans for me. This may seem completely obvious to you, but I needed to be reminded of this truth once again. May we continue to be hopeful and patient in Him!

His faithfulness in every detail

I just wanted to share how the Lord once again surprised me by His faithfulness. I know that I should not be surprised, because He has proven His faithfulness to me so many times before, but once again, I was amazed by His goodness and faithfulness. Here's the story: I had an appointment for my last ultrasound in Brussels, but my husband had class about thirty minutes away for our home and would be there until about an hour before my appointment. So, I had made arrangements for a friend to come and watch the kids so that I could take the train and meet my husband in time for the appointment. Well, my friend told me early last week that she was not able to watch the kids, so things began to get a little crazy. I began to stress out, because I did not have any other options and I knew that I would not be able to take the kids with me on the train by myself, especially since it involved changing trains and dealing with a stroller and lifting a three-year old on and off the train. I really began to panic! What was I going to do? I forgot that the Lord is always in control and that I just need to trust Him. So after, thinking through various scenarios, my husband graciously planned on missing some of his class to come back and pick all of us up and then drive us to Brussels. I finally thought that we had a plan. I forgot that God is in control and that His plans are always better than our plans. Yesterday morning, my husband called me and told me that he had wonderful news for me. His class was ending early and he would be able to come home and have plenty of time to pick us up and take all of us to the appointment. You may think that this is a silly story, but I am once again reminded of how GREAT and MIGHTY my God is and how much He cares for me. I just wanted to thank Him once again for His faithfulness in every detail!!

 

the wind and the waves

As I was reading our morning Bible story to the kids, I was once again reminded of our disobedience and our need for the Lord. The Bible story was about when Jesus was in the boat with the disciples and the huge storm came up. They were all very scared, but Jesus was sleeping. He had nothing to fear. As the story goes on, the disciples woke him up, because they were scared of drowning. Jesus calmed the storm by His words and the disciples were amazed. The passage reads: "In fear and amazement they asked one another, Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."
Obedience is a topic which comes up very often in my house, since we have three little children who do not always want to obey. As we were talking about the story, I reminded them that all of nature obeys Jesus, but we so often do not choose to obey Him. I am amazed by our disobedience and our lack of submission to our Creator. We are quite arrogant to think that we do not have to obey Him, even though all of His other creations obey Him. I was also recently reminded of this truth as I read David Platt's book, Radical. He states, "Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator... until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, 'No.'" Unfortunately, we do this every day. We, as the creation, think that we do not need to obey our Creator. How foolish are we?
May we learn to obey Him just as the wind and the waves do.

Exalting in our inabilities

One blessing which we received was the book, Radical, by David Platt. He was our speaker last year and has a wonderful heart for missions. As Chris began reading the book, he asked me to share with you a portion which was especially meaningful to him. We pray that the Lord would continue to be exalted in our inabilities, so that He may be glorified.

"In direct contradiction to the American dream, God actually delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him. In the process he powerfully demonstrates his ability to provide everything his people need in ways they could never have mustered up or imagined. And in the end, he makes much of his own name."

This past year has been filled with experiences which clearly demonstrated our inabilities, but I know that we did not always thank the Lord for allowing us to experience them so that His name would be praised. May we begin this new year on the field praising the Lord for all of our inabilities and thanking Him for showing us that we desperately need Him. May He alone receive the glory for our weaknesses.

Thought: What inabilities has the Lord placed in your life for His glory?

What a year!!

It's time to celebrate!! This coming Friday marks our first anniversary in Belgium. We want to truly take time and praise the Lord for the triumphs and trials which He has brought us through this year. So, here we go...
We thank Him for each of them, because we have learned to love and trust Him so much more deeply because of each of them. We thank you for being with us and encouraging us during this journey. We thank the Lord for the people which He has placed in our lives, for the two homes in which we have lived, for the three supervisors which we have had, and for all of the illnesses which have invaded our bodies. We thank the Lord for the use of the metro system and our wonderful van. We thank Him for the churches which we have been able to worship in and the fellow believers which we have met and grown to love. We thank Him for broken bones and new babies. We praise Him for the language acquisition which He is granting to all of us. We thank Him for teaching us that He is all that we need (this is a lesson that we are continuing to learn). We thank Him for wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ, living life here in Belgium with us. We thank Him for technology which has allowed us to see some of your beautiful faces through skype. We thank Him for airplanes which have allowed loved ones to come and give us hugs and kisses when we needed them most. We thank Him for allowing us to share His name with some who have never heard anyone speak of Him in the way that we do. We thank you for your prayers. We thank you for lifting us up while we sleep. We thank you for loving the people of Belgium and wanting them to come to know our beautiful Jesus. I think that I could go on for a long time, but I will end my list here. I know that there are some many more things for which I could praise Him.

Please take time this week, to reflect on what the Lord has taught you this past year, month, or week. And reflecting on Him, praise Him!!

We thank Him for what He will teach all of us this coming year. We praise Him for His beautiful faithfulness and sovereignty.

Romans 12:12 "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

Our move!

We have moved to a new city, so I have been quite busy with unpacking, getting settled, finding new grocery stores, new schools and everything else. We are very excited about our new city and the blessings that the Lord has in store for us here. I will update you very soon on what the Lord has been teaching us as we moved here and begin to get settled into our new life. We are so thankful to be on this crazy and challenging adventure with our Lord!!

Our idols

Tomorrow our crate is finally arriving after being stored away for over a year, we are going to see our stuff. Things which will remind us of our previous homes and hopefully make this new house a home for us. As we have been preparing for the crate's arrival, I have been praying that we would not begin to love or worship our stuff. I want to make sure that we remember that it is only STUFF, and in the end it does not truly matter. I have been praying about this because I know my sinful heart and how it can lead me astray. I do not want the next few days or weeks to become all about our stuff and that we lose sight of our very purpose in life. I started reading the book of Jeremiah yesterday and it has been very convicting. I was reading in chapter 2 this morning, and found some verses which truly spoke to me. "But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols." Jeremiah 2:11"They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves." Jer. 2:5b I am not going to bow down to my things when they arrive tomorrow, but I must guard my heart against loving the things of this world more than my Maker and Savior. I must constantly keep my heart and priorities in check with my devotion to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I cannot do this on my own, but by His power and strength He can change my sinful heart.

A blessed week!

We have had a beautiful two weeks and we have been so blessed to have Chris' parents here with us. We have all enjoyed having them here with us. It has been so nice to have extra help around the kitchen and extra people for the kids to play with! We have had lots of fun introducing them to Belgium and to our new culture. Since they do not speak French they have enjoyed having Daniel as their little translator when they have gone out shopping. Chris and I have enjoyed going out on a date! We plan to go out on another one at the end of this week. What a blessing to get to spend some time just with my husband! We were definitely very spoiled when we lived so close and we could have babysitters very quickly, but now it is much harder to find extra help, so we have been very blessed these past two weeks. Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of family. We are so grateful to have two sets of parents who love, support and encourage us so much! Thank you, Lord for these wonderful blessings in our lives.

Open our eyes, Lord.

We trust that you are having a blessed day in the Lord. We hope that this coming week each one of us will be able to focus on remembering what our Lord and Savior did for each of us and that we will be able to share that amazing gift with others. We praise the Lord for the gift of eternal life and for our eyes being opened to the truth of the Gospel. As I was reading my Bible this morning, I came across another story of someone's eyes being opened by the Lord and I thought that I would share it with you.

2 Kings 6:16-17 "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

May the Lord open our eyes to see what He sees and to see people the way that He sees them. May we not lose sight of the Lord and His plans for us. May we earnestly yearn for Him to open our eyes so that we may see His plans and His people all around us. If we have His eyes we will be victorious and the enemy will not be able to distract us. With opened eyes let us fix our eyes on Jesus, no matter what is going on all around us.

A Couple of Updates!

Well it has been a long time since I last wrote on here. My how time flies! It is amazing to see what the Lord is continuing to show us each and every day! He is so faithful!

Well, as the title suggests I have a couple of updates since the last time I wrote! Daniel did find his hat the next day at school, which was such an amazing blessing, because he was able to see that the Lord does answer our prayers and that the Lord is faithful. It was also great that he found it, because I was able to tell his teacher that we had been praying about it and that the Lord had answered our prayers! It always a special treat to insert some truth into her life! So, thank you Lord for answering our request and showing yourself to our little son.

Well, another exciting piece of information is that the family is expanding! We are pregnant with our fourth child and due in late October!! We are very excited and looking forward to experiencing a Belgian birth! The Lord is so good and so faithful to us. The kids are very excited about the new addition to our family. Joshie asks me on a daily basis if I still have a baby in my tummy and then always seems a bit confused, but he is excited. Daniel is very excited and thinks that we need to girl. He says that it would make sense to have two girls and two boys. He is praying to the Lord about it and I told him that we would see what God has planned for us. We are so thankful to the Lord for his provisions and blessings in our life.

We go back to the doctor in a few weeks for another ultrasound. We can't wait!!

A lost hat

Yesterday Daniel took his only baseball cap to school. On our way to school I told him to be very careful with it, because his Bop had given it to him and it could not be replaced. Well, when he got home from school, there was no cap with him. He told me that he had lost it in the cafeteria yesterday morning. So, this morning I went with him to look for it, but to no avail. I was very discouraged and almost began to cry thinking of the picture of him and Bop wearing their matching hats when he was only two. Then, the Lord spoke gently to my heart and asked me a very difficult question? Am I as concerned about all of the lost people around me who do not know about Jesus? Is the loss of a material possession making me sadder than the lostness that is all around me? How have my priorities become so confused? May I praise the Lord for this lost baseball cap, because it reminded of a much more important truth! May I seek hard after the lost of our city. Thank you for this uncomfortable lesson!

Thriving, not just surviving!

To be perfectly honest with you, the weather here in Brussels is grey and cold today and I feel that this is representative of how we feel right now. We are tired. Over the weekend, we were blessed to go see some colleagues in another city and this was a wonderful excursion for us. Daniel got to play outside in a yard!! It was a wonderful time for all of us. As we were having conversations around the table the topic of thriving instead of just merely surviving came up. These days we feel like we are just surviving, but we do not want this to a way of life. We WANT to thrive here where the Lord has placed us. We want to display His glory and it is most difficult to do when you are barely hanging on, or is it? Is it when we are barely making it that we learn to shine for Him the best? As I was reading my Bible this morning, I was struck by a passage which I have read countless times before but the Lord gave me a new perspective on it. Psalm 9:1-2 states: "I WILL praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I WILL tell of your wonders. I WILL be glad and rejoice in you; I WILL sing praise to your name, O Most High." (emphasis added) As I was reading, it was like the Lord was telling me that it is a conscious decision that I must make each day to praise Him. I must set in my heart to praise Him no matter what may come. This may seem very simple to you, but it was exactly what I needed this morning. When days are incredibly dark and difficult, I must determine to praise Him and when days are joyful and light, I must determine to praise Him. My praise of Him should not depend upon my circumstances, He is the same and thus worthy of all of my praise.

School adventures!

This morning, Daniel's class had a special crepe day, so we all went to his school, except for Daddy. When I say we all went that means that I was carrying Grace and holding hands with Joshie as we walked. Daniel was a big helper and held Joshie's other hand as they walked together. We have a huge double stroller and I did not think that I would be able to get into the school building with it, so at the last moment I chose to walk while carrying Grace and holding Joshie's hand. We were definitely a sight walking down the sidewalk. I always get lots of strange looks when I push the double stroller, but today I got some strange looks because of all of the children that were walking with me. We took up all of the sidewalk, but praise the Lord we arrived safely to school after having to cross the road three times. It was fun to walk with all of the children and we did pray for safety as we were walking. This is the second morning this week in which Joshie has joined us for our morning walk. He enjoys being a big boy and walking, though it is not always convenient. I think that the Lord is teaching me to be patient as I slow down to walk with Joshie. This morning, we arrived to school and went to the cafeteria where I was able to sit with some other parents and begin getting to know them a little better. I always appreciate any opportunity which the school allows for me to be able to come and meet other parents. I thank the Lord that I am able to communicate either in French or English with the various parents from the school. I was also able to watch Daniel interact with the other children in French. I am amazed at how the Lord is opening up his ears and mouth to this new language. Grace and Joshie enjoyed eating a crepe (Grace even sat at the table like a big girl) and then we were on our way back home again. We will now pick up Daniel from school, because he only goes during the morning on Wednesdays, but this time, I think that I will use the stroller. Enough exercise for one day! What a privilege to walk and talk with our Savior!

walks and talks with Daniel

One of the blessings of living in Europe is that I get to walk our oldest, Daniel, to school every morning. I love these times because we always pray for his day and for his teacher and Daddy's day. Some of the conversations that we have are so precious to me and I hope to never forget them. This is a very special time for the two of us, because it is basically the only alone time that he gets with me. We hold hands and walk and talk with our Lord. Some walks have been in the beautiful sunshine, some have been in the rain, but this morning's was in the snow. It was snowing so hard that we could barely see, none the less, it was quite memorable. I love these walks because we get to see our city as it is waking up and all of the shopkeepers who are beginning their day. We pass by many people rushing off to work or parents rushing to get their children off to school. It is just a very special time with Daniel and the Lord. I pray that as Daniel continues to grow up he will continue to want to walk and talk with me; I know that the hand-holding will not last forever, but more importantly, I pray that Daniel will walk and talk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ all of his life. I pray that as I am walking with him that he will see how important my walk with Jesus is in my life. May this be the legacy that I leave to him.
Thank you, Lord, for these walks and talks with you. I love you!