Much to report!

It has been months since I have posted to this blog!  Getting adjusted to our new life has taken longer than I expected and adjusting to changes at our age has been challenging, yet exciting.

Gus finished his first semester of seminary the first week in December.  It went by so fast and Gus is amazed that he has lived through Hebrew.  There were many times during the semester when he thought it would drive him out of his mind.  Over break he will continue to study it so he doesn't forget anything when Hebrew starts again next semester.  His full time job as a paralegal is going well and he is enjoying the people he is working with at the firm.  There are many Christians there, a few of them very passionate Catholics, so Gus is having some invigorating discussions with them.  One of the name partners really likes Gus and has given us his great tickets to a few University of Louisville basketball games with VIP lounge access - very fun!  Gus has also gotten on the nursing home preaching rotation with our church and is really enjoying preaching there on Sunday afternoons. One of the residents there is Catholic and she calls all the guys that come to preach "Father".  Zachary got a big chuckle out of that!  Zachary and I go with Gus when he preaches and we enjoy helping him with the residents and last week we sang Christmas carols with them.  Zachary wouldn't sing, but he loved helping the ladies back to their rooms.

Our home in Newport News finally sold - PRAISE THE LORD!  It took almost two weeks past the original date to close, but as of Friday it is done!  I can't begin to describe the feeling of having that burden lifted.  Paying that house payment every month for the past six months has wiped away everything we had left.  We had to sell the house at such a reduced amount that we are making very little off the house.  But it will help pay Gus' tuition and we are so grateful to the Lord for that.  He is truly humbling us to rely on His provision as we have not done since Gus was in law school - we have been totally relying on ourselves for far too long.  It has been challenging and at times difficult, so we covet your prayers that we will continue to rely totally and completely on Him.

I completed my first class at the Seminary Wives Institute on Spiritual Disciplines.  It was an insightful, challenging, and motivating class.  We used the book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Don Whitney for the class and the author's wife, Caffe Whitney,  was the teacher of the large group and my small group leader was Jodi Ware, Bruce Ware's wife.  Dr. Ware is one of the foremost theologians in the country and his wife is a wonderful example..  I was wonderful to be in a group with these two women.  I had an accountability partner that I met with every week and we encouraged each other in prayer, Scripture reading, meditation, Scripture memorization, fasting, worship, service and many other areas.  Can't wait for my next class to start and I'll be taking Baptist Beliefs with Dr. Al Mohler, the president of the seminary, and Dr. Russell Moore, vice president of the seminary and Dean of the School of Theology.  Gus is so jealous that I will take a class taught by these two men before he does!

Zachary's adjustment to all our changes has been an amazing gift from God.  Outside of the difficulties of homeschooling a 13 year old, middle schooler, with the same controlling personality as his mother, he is doing great.  He loved his travel soccer club this fall and is now playing on an indoor soccer league.  We are so pleased with the leadership of his youth group at our new church and he is making lots of new friends there.  His Sunday School class actually teaches their lessons right from the Bible - imagine that!  No books, no pamphlets, just Scripture and its application to their lives.  There are also several kids close to his age in our apartment complex and he loves being able to go to the gym and the recreation center and hang out.  One of the kids from his Sunday School class spent the night last night and he was so happy! 

Well this is long enough for now. I hope to post more frequently now that we have adjusted to things better and maybe even upload some pictures of activities since we have been in Kentucky.  Here is how you can pray for us:

*  pray that we continue to deal with the challenges of living in this very old campus apartment with grace and thankfulness;
* pray that I don't pull out all my hair homeschooling my very smart and sweet, yet challenging child;
* pray that Gus will continue to have the physical and mental strength to work a full-time job, be a student, husband to a challenging and difficult wife, and father to a teenager, a grown son, and a future daughter-in-law (phew! when I say all that I realize how easy my job is compared to his!).

"In every situation, in every problem, in every location, in every relationship, every moment in time, God is at work."  Paul Tripp

Blogging

I am not doing very well on this whole blogging thing!  There are so many amazing things that God is doing that I want to share, but just really short on time right now as we adjust to everything.  Gus - full time job, classes, homework, being a dad and husband.  Carol - homeschooling, everything at home since Gus is so busy, my wives seminary class, weekly Bible study, running Zachary to soccer practice, meetings with my accountability partner every week, going back and forth up six sets of stairs to do 5 - 6 loads of laundry a week with only five washers and six dryers available for use.  Zachary - his tough schooling with his tough teacher, soccer, weekly Bible study, guitar lessons starting, he helps with my accountability partner's children so she can actually talk with me.  So getting this all in line has been a slow process for all of us.  Fall break is next week, so planning to have a little more time to blog about some of the things that are happening.  God is so good and thanks to all of you who are emailing/facebooking me about how we are doing.  Some updates are on the way!

Change

Living in the same city and the same house for the last 23 years, I forgot how difficult change can be.  Especially to someone like me who loves routine, structure, lists, and schedules.  We were so happy when the POD arrived last Thursday and we picked up our uhaul to move all our items from the POD.  We had rented a storage unit because we knew 23 years of stuff from our house would not fit into a tiny two bedroom, one bath apartment.  Although we donated or got rid of a lot of accumulated stuff, there was still too much.  We went from a 1364 sq.ft. to 880 sq.ft. Saturday morning Zachary and I went to the apartment to clean and Gus started working on moving things from the POD to the uhaul.  He was moving along so nicely, he didn't pay attention to his body and about 1:00 he arrived at the apartment and immediately went to the toilet and threw up for about 10 minutes.  He had gotten heat stroke.  The poor guy laid down on the hard floor and fell asleep.  By the time he woke up it was 3:00 and the uhaul was due back at 4:00.  Obviously, we weren't going to make that deadline.  We started unloading and 15 minutes later a huge storm came with strong, gusty winds, lightening, and pounding rain.  We waited out the storm and began unloading again which was about 9:00 and dark outside and no power inside.  Four seminary students in the apartment complex saw us and starting helping us.  In about 20 minutes there were ten students and wives helping us.  It was wonderful!  They were all so much younger than us and were calling us Sir and Ma'am!

The unpacking is going very slowly because every room is filled with stuff and it is difficult to move around and it is a much smaller space than we are use to living in.  Everything is covered with something!  Needless to say this week I have been very homesick and wishing I was back in Newport News in my house (which hasn't sold yet so please continue to pray for us about that).  

Gus started his job and classes on Monday so he has been very busy and very excited this week.  He has two night classes and one class, Hebrew, that is 7:00 a.m. Tuesday-Friday.  So he goes to class those mornings and then rushes to work his job all day.  I think he is amazing!  Beyond the unpacking and cleaning, Zachary and I started his 7th grade school year this week with only three subjects and we'll kick in with all subjects next week.  Zachary has been wonderful.  We got him up and running online as soon as we could so he can play games online with all his old friends.  He helped a mom that lives under us Wednesday by playing ball with her 4 year old daughter so she could have a break - she has an 8 month also.  Yesterday he went to the gym on campus and played basketball with a girl his age that lives in our building.  We had already made contact with a soccer club before we moved so he practiced with them this week and made the team.  So for Zachary, life is good!

We have met all the families that live right around us and what an interesting group.  We have a very young couple, an Asian couple with two children, and a family from Nigeria with 4 daughters.  In talking with the Nigerian family, we learned that they just moved here too.  We assumed that they came to seminary to learn and take back what they learned to their country to share the gospel with people there.  But they came here to share the gospel in America.  They told us that people in their country see American lifestyle and that people here love money and possessions more than they love Jesus and they do not value families and children like they should.  What a sad commentary on our nation and how wonderful that they would care about us enough to leave everything to come here.  

We covet your prayers and would ask that you pray for Gus to have the stamina (we aren't spring chickens you know!) to work, go to class, and do all his homework - he has had two Hebrew quizzes already the first week of classes.  Pray that my homesickness with pass so I can embrace the mission and work God has for us here.  Pray that Zachary will make friends and embrace the new school year.  Pray for us as we begin trying local churches this Sunday that God will lead us to the place He would have us serve and worship.  Pray for our house to sell.

May we be obedient to God's will and His leading.

Living Quarters

Sitting in this extended stay hotel puts a new perspective on being a "close" family and living in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment will certainly be a huge change for us.  When we were looking for a place to live in Louisville, we didn't really consider the on-campus, married housing because we were being far to picky.  We were use to our 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with my big kitchen and our large great room and we didn't want to settle for anything less than that.  We did really want to live near campus to be close for Gus to get to class, we could all take advantage of the gym, and I would be close for my wives seminary classes.  So we began looking at homes for rent and for sale near the campus - nothing worked out.  We gradually started looking at places a little further from campus - nothing worked out.  We did find a cute little house for rent, but it was 35 minutes away from campus and we really didn't want to go that far.  As our week of looking was coming to an end, we were getting very discouraged and being only two weeks away from moving, we were feeling a little desperate!  So we began looking at townhouses and apartments.  The rent was very expensive and we weren't finding anything available until months after we needed to be here.  Ugh!

One Sunday, a friend mentioned to Gus that we should look at on-campus housing.  This same friend sent me a note on facebook about it.  Even though we knew the on-campus housing fills up very quickly and the chances were slim there would be anything available, Gus gave them a call.  Yippee! They had one 2 bedroom, 1 bath in married with no children available.  Since Zachary is 12 they didn't really consider him a child that needed to be in married with children housing.  What a blessing!  Everything immediately fell into place and it was clear it is what God intended for us all along. If only we hadn't been so intent on what WE wanted, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time and stress.  

So for this week we are in an extended stay place until our apartment is ready at the end of the week.  We are excited about being right around the corner from campus.  There are sooooo  many great things about it that I will have to save it for another post.

God is good all the time!

Finding a Job

So much has happened since the last blog. We were in Kentucky a week ago for two job interviews and to look for places to live.  Zachary spent the week with cousins which made him extremely happy and I am so thankful to them for keeping him at the last minute.  Z would have found it extremely boring to look at houses every day for a week.

I don't remember if I mentioned before that Gus decided not to pursue a job as a lawyer for several reasons.  It would be very mentally demanding and time consuming as he well knows to continue being a lawyer (after hours depositions, meetings, etc.) and try to attend classes, do all the reading/homework, spend time with family, etc. In addition, his Virginia Bar license would not transfer so he would have to spend time studying and spend $1,000 to take the Kentucky bar exam.  So we decided it would not be worth it to do that especially when he strongly feels God will not lead him to be a lawyer again.

So he subscribed to the major Louisville newspaper so we could get the classifieds.  He began to apply for every job he felt he could do.  As he applied for the jobs, it was hilarious to see that he wasn't qualified to do anything but be a lawyer.  Even a janitor job he saw that he would have been willing to do (whatever pays the bills!), he wasn't qualified to do because he had no training in OSHA safety requirements.  But his legal knowledge paid off and he got interviews at two law firms as a paralegal.  He got offers from both interviews 15 minutes after he left their offices! He took the second offer because the work would be more varied and interesting.  Both offered him a salary we felt we could live with and benefits, so we are thankful to God for that! His timing once again was so amazing. The salary is so much less than he has made the last 15 years and we will truly need to rely on God's daily provision and His guidance on living a much more frugal life.  We are excited about it!  We have also paid off every dime of debt we owe (except for our house which is still not sold) and I can't tell you how FREE we feel!

More on housing later. Glory to God for it all!

Depending on God

I wanted to talk about money.  I don't like talking about money and my husband doesn't allow us to tell people about our finances - not even Ryan or Zachary has ever known how much money their Dad makes or how much our house cost or any debts we've had.  But since we truly want God to get all the glory for this new adventure we are on and I've had some comments that make me feel like I should clear up a few things.  A few well meaning friends have indicated how blessed we are for Gus to be able to quit work and go to seminary for three years without worrying about money.  I guess they assume that because Gus was a lawyer, all lawyers are rich, so thus we have loads of money piled away to just take it easy while he goes to school.  We didn't always make the right choices with our money at the beginning of our marriage (Ryan and Diana - please don't make that mistake! Love you!) and so we spent the first five years of our marriage getting into debt while Gus finished his last year at Virginia Tech and went to UVA Law School for three years.  We spent the next five years getting out of debt and getting ourselves straight on what we should be doing with God's money.  We had a nice chunk in our savings account and started building up some money in 401K and retirement accounts.  As many of you know, we felt God leading us to not go into debt for Ryan's college and not let him start off in debt either.  So after $63,000 went to four years of tuition and room/board for college and $15,000 repairing and fixing the house up to get it sold, well let's just say we will be depending on God to provide everything we need.  We certainly have the option to move money from retirement and other investments for us to live on for the next three to four years but we have decided not to go that route. We truly feel God calling us to depend totally on Him.  We are putting our retirement and other funds in accounts that will not make it easy for us to get to them and we will live on whatever Gus makes at whatever job God leads us to.

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing." Matthew 6:25.

So this just isn't a career adventure for us, it is a total and complete dependence on God for everything - EVERYTHING!  And that is something we have not done in a long time - it feels amazing.  We have no job and no place to live in Kentucky right now and are unsure who will give us a place to live if we have no job.


"Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.  And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."  Luke 9:57-58


Jesus had no home and did not earn an income to provide food, but trusted His Father in Heaven to provide all He needed.  So everything in our new direction of life, will absolutely be done by God and provided by Him - no one else. We begin this journey with less than we have had since we first got married.  In fact, we were the happiest in our married life when we lived in Blacksburg, Virginia in a dumpy trailer, living on a secretary's salary, and didn't know how our bills were going to be paid (except for having two great kids since then that made life quite happy!) We have come back to where we started except this time we will be putting our trust in our Father in Heaven and not ourselves.  Am I still scared, oh yeah!

We're finally finished!

The for sale sign is in the yard and the house is on the market.  Two months worth of work and it feels amazing to be finished.  The house officially went on the market Wednesday and our staging is complete.  The whole staging thing is strange because we are still living in the house, but it feels like we can't really live in the house.  Does that make sense?  Every day we have to put out the staging towels in the bathrooms, almost everything we use in the house has to be put away so nothing looks cluttered.  Every day I have to tell Zachary "don't touch the walls" , "flush the toilet", "pick up that", and "take your shoes off before you walk on the new carpet". When someone is coming to see the house, we've been told to leave classical music playing and put out fresh baked cookies before we leave.  There are 35 houses in our small zone so it will be a true testament to God's power and all to His glory if the house sells in time for classes August 15th. 

So we press on in faith and Gus is registering for classes tonight.  I have already registered for my class at the Wive's Seminary and I am really looking forward to it.  I always wanted to finish my degree and am only three classes away from being done, but now I get to take these classes that will strengthen my role as Gus' helpmate in whatever ministry God leads us to after seminary is over.  I am praying he also uses the classes to lead me to whatever ministry  He would have me serve in at our new church in Louisville or wherever we eventually end up.  I have so many things I would love to do: lead a homebuilders couples Bible study in our home, have a support group in our home for young wives (and they are all young except me since I will be the oldest wife in the seminary classes), maybe offer a monthly babysitting night for all these young families who need a night out, or lead a book study for moms with a Sally Clarkson book.  Zachary and I have already looked into some volunteer options for us during the week.

One of the great things I love about homeschooling is the opportunity to volunteer together any day of the week.  There is an orphanage type facility in the area that we are living that desperately needs volunteers that might be a good option for us.  Gus thinks that if we volunteer there, I'll start bringing home foster children and want to adopt babies.  Wouldn't that be wonderful!

Each day brings us a step closer to starting our new adventure and it is exciting, frightening (we have no place to live in Kentucky and Gus does not have a job!), stressful, and AMAZING - may it all bring Glory to Him.

IT'S OFFICIAL!

I have always believed God must have an awesome since of humor. After all he made laughter and hilarious humans! All week we have been anxious about Gus getting accepted to Southern Seminary. We have spent all this time and money on the house, looking for houses in Louisville and making all these plans and he hadn't even been accepted to the seminary.  We were really rolling along on our feelings that this was God's plan for us.  He was told it may take longer than the usual three to five days to receive a reply to his application since it is nearing the July deadline and the school gets so many applications in May.  So it has been almost eight days since he received notification that they had received everything to complete his application.  They told us he would receive an email or a letter.  Since everything is done by computers these days, we assumed it would be email and have been checking Gus' email three or four times a day for the last eight days! Nothing.... So in our nightly prayer time together we have been praying that God confirm if this is His will and please send us an email.  Nothing....

Yesterday we had the new carpet installed. Everything was everywhere and constantly being moved from room to room and there was no time to get on the computer.  But it was in the back of both our minds all morning.  Finally the carpet was done and we were feeling so good about how the house was looking that we both were silently saying "Whatever you want God, we won't worry about it anymore"!

The carpet was finished and we had decided to run over to the mall and grab some lunch since we have barely been out of this house in weeks.  We grab the mail on our way to the car and there it was - five minutes after the last major house project was completed a letter from Southern Seminary was in our mailbox.  It was very thin and we started thinking like you use to when you received college letters - thin envelope means rejection, fat envelope means acceptance.  I thought we were all going to throw up and it seemed like forever that Gus held the envelope and we just stared at it.  Finally, Zachary says "what are you waiting for!"  Oh those first four words - "it is my privilege"!  We all started screaming and jumping around.  It was wonderful!  So after all our anxious moments, God delivers his confirmation five minutes after the last major house project was done.  What a sense of humor our Lord has and how wonderful He is!  All in His timing and all in His way.  All to His glory this journey will be!

The big "D"

Being the human that I am, I knew that it would come and so it has.  The big "D". D-O-U-B-T! I have felt much doubt about this seminary adventure this past week.  Our goal was to have the house on the market by the end of April because we know spring is the best time to sell a house. It is now May and we have finished maybe 1/2 of what has to be done before we can list the house.  Every day seems to create something else that has to be done.  At first it was ok, I knew we were working every day on something that needed to be done no matter how small it seemed.  Now, we discovered that seminary classes start August 15th instead of mid-September like Gus thought.  So I let the D-O-U-B-T start creeping in that there is no way we can make it to Kentucky by then - WE DON'T EVEN HAVE OUR HOUSE FOR SALE YET! D-O-U-B-T!

Then my son calls us to say he is officially engaged.  We knew it was coming soon, but since it wasn't official it was easy not to think about it.  Now that it is real, I don't want to leave my baby!  Sometimes it crossed my mind that we would be almost 14 hours away from him. A few tears would drop and then I would put the thought aside until he called or sent me a message and then it would creep up again.  Now that there are wonderful wedding plans that will be going on only 3 hours away, it is now much harder to think about being 14 hours away.  D-O-U-B-T!

Added to those two big "D's", Zachary is really beginning to feel the reality that we are leaving family, friends, and the biggest thing to him - Ryan. Our house has been in total disorganization for a month now, in 30 days Gus will be unemployed, he doesn't have a new job, and we have no new place lined up to live in.  This has really begun to weigh on the mind of my 12-year-old and he had a huge meltdown last week.  He was so upset, my heart just broke for him. D-O-U-B-T!

On the flip side of all this, I am excited about all God is going to teach us through all this. I feel He is going to change us all beyond what we can imagine.  He is already teaching me that Carol, the order-loving, routine-needing, hates being out of my comfort zone, control-loving, doubting Thomas, can only survive this with His strength and His alone. NO D-O-U-B-T ABOUT THAT!

Next Step of Faith

We made our next step of faith today!  Gus gave his 60 day notice at his job!  God has been sending Gus clear messages through his Bible reading, other reading of some Godly men, and other miscellaneous things that he needed to do this.  He felt God telling him that fixing up our house and making it public knowledge was the easy stuff, but to show true trust and faith in this calling to seminary, he had to let go of the job.  So he committed in his head to follow God's leading and just do it.  He didn't mention it to me yet - I would have been totally terrified and probably said "are you crazy??!!!"  But the next morning, Zachary and I went to our Bible study as usual.  I had dropped Zachary off at the door and drove to a parking place.  As I was walking across the parking lot, out of nowhere a thought came into my head - Gus needs to go ahead and quit his job!  I chuckled to myself and said "no way that would be dumb" and went to class.  During our small group time, while I was thinking about Paul and our lesson, I heard it several more times.  I got into the morning lecture and it just wouldn't leave my mind.  As soon as the morning was done, I went straight to the car and called Gus.  Can you guess already what happened? I told him what I was hearing and he said, "Praise God - there is my final and most important confirmation of what God was telling him to do!"  God had told his wife too!  So we prayed about it together for a few weeks - oh we humans have to double-check everything and give God another chance to change His mind!  So Gus officially gave his notice today.

Since we made the decision that it was definitely what we should do, everything has been moving along very quickly.  We had been getting quotes for work to be done and it was moving at a snail's pace.  Since we made the commitment to let go of the job, we now have the foundation work scheduled for a week from now and the drywall/carpentry work will be done this week, counter tops will be built and installed within three weeks. We will continue in our packing and decluttering and do the painting as drywall work is completed, replace the carpet and we are well on our way to the goal of having the house on the market by May 1st.

As Stephen Curtis Chapman said in one of his songs, "I am speechless and amazed" at how God moves and how much it pleases Him when we are obedient and trust in Him!  I thank Him for his patience with me who is already thinking about the fact that we no job prospects!

Selling our House

We  met with a real estate agent this morning.  Oh my!  It will be a testament of the power of God if we can sell our house by August so Gus can start seminary in the fall!  There were some homes like ours that sold in 60 days, but so many that are still on the market after almost a year.  So I could see Gus' heart sink that we might have to move this winter and start seminary in January.  I also felt a huge moment of anxiety after she left because there is so much to be done and that the timing of many things are really going to have to work out - selling the house, finding a new house, when to leave current job, finding another job, and a few other things.  So I got on my knees and just gave each and every anxious feeling and each and every step to the Lord.  We will trust in God that Gus will be there to start the day that He has already planned for him to be in his first class. If you hear me talking about it any other way, will you please remind me that God is in control! 

It was really helpful to have the real estate agent give us some hints on what to do other than the work we already knew had to be done.  Also learned that many of the things I learned working in a real estate office for 8 years haven't changed, so we were already ahead in our plans.  Another sign that God has us in the places, jobs, and situations over our lifetime for a reason. I never considered I might use that real estate experience at some point. 

So the goal is to have the house on the market by the end of April which is the best time of the year to sell a house.  We're going to have to pretty much do nothing else between now and then but work on the house.  Zachary graciously offered to give me a break from homeschooling until the end of April so I can do house stuff - like that's gonna happen!  So we prep our field so God can send a steady rain of home buyers!

Wife in Its Proper Place

After attending the Weekend To Remember Marriage Conference, God gave me so much to pray about.  As I thought about being sure our marriage was in the proper place amongst our every day priorities, I began to pray to God to show me the proper place for my ministry as Gus' wife and as mom to Ryan and Zachary.  Just like many wives today, I tend to put my children first when it is my husband that should take the next place after God.  Oh, how I fail at that!  Usually my husband gets the leftovers of my time, energy, and love each day and if there are no leftovers, then he doesn't get anything at all.  So how am I going to support his new ministry, when I fail at being a support to him now?  Only the Lord can give that kind of strength and guidance.

I turn to Proverbs 31 - one of my favorite passages of scripture - and the book of Ruth. The virtuous wife is a description of the kind of wife a woman should strive to be.  A wife is an efficient and organized homemaker; always watching over her home. She has a forever commitment to her husband and would never do anything to bring dishonor to his name. Verse 28 says "her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her."  The praise from family is meaningful because they are the ones that observe her in every situation and truly know her character.  It is difficult to admit how often I do things that please others before I do those things that are a blessing to my husband and children.   In the book of Ruth, I love 1:16,17. Although she says it to her mother-in-law, it is a wonderful commitment to my husband: "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God,  my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."  I am especially feeling this passage as my husband leads me away from the state I have lived in all my life and from the place I have lived over 20 years!

Gus would be the first to admit that he likes our roles to be like those that for most today would be considered "old fashioned".  He likes to be the spiritual leader, provider, and protector of his family. It pleases him beyond measure to come home to dinner, a clean and neat home, and a wife that wants to hear about his day.  I have to say "I dig" that about him!  It pleases me beyond measure to do these things for him.  But I have to admit that since we started homeschooling almost two years ago, I have let most of that fall to the wayside and the management of my home - or the lack thereof - and the pleasing of my husband has fallen to the wayside.  Thank the Lord he is a God whose strength can be renewed in me each new day. Thank the Lord for a husband who is understanding, forgiving, and wonderful at fulfilling his role!  I greatly desire to get back to my "old fashioned" role!

One book I love is "Passionate Housewives Desperate for God" by Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald.  I was drawn to it from the beginning because it used the word "housewife". Does any woman like to be called a housewife anymore?  How about a homemaker? I love those two words and strive to be able to feel worthy of being called those once again!  I end this post with one of my favorite passages from this book:


"Homemaking isn't about starched aprons, pearls, and high heels.  It's about doing the will of God even when the world scoffs. It's about loving the high calling that God especially has given to women. It's about learning to trust when circumstances would tell us to doubt and fear. We are called to be different - not conformed to the pattern of this world but transformed by Christ (Romans 12:2). We are to live in such a way that others may have hope. When we trust in the Lord and submit to His design for  marriage, family, home, and church, then our homemaking accomplishes far more than just making homes. It has the power to impact countless lives and generations for the glory of God."

Marriage In Its Proper Place

It feels so great to begin working on our list of things that has to be done for us to move. We are praying for a Fall 2011 start date at seminary.  In thinking about being prepared to make these major changes in our lives, God placed upon our hearts to be better prepared in some most important areas first. Our personal times with God every day, our devotion times as a family, our times with God as a couple, and our marriage (not necessarily in that order).


We attended a FamilyLife Marriage weekend this past Friday through Sunday and it was fabulous. We felt it was really important to have our focus on our marriage back in its proper place before Gus starts seminary and gets pulled in so many different directions. It will not glorify God for our marriage to suffer while Gus is doing other things to glorify God.  Like most couples with children, we are not that great at putting our marriage first before other areas. The needs of the children, their activities, our individual volunteer and service projects, our family service projects, and various other things tend to come before our commitment to each other.  We received a nice refresher this weekend on putting each other before the long list of other things needing our attention. We have occasional date nights, but how nice it was to be away and it was easier to just focus on each other, be reminded of God's plan for marriage, and that our marriage should glorify Him in every way.  


At the end of the weekend, we renewed our vows to each other and it was a wonderful moment in our marriage.  I'm sure Satan will not miss the opportunity to attack our marriage even more than usual while we take on this new challenge.  But God gave us to each other and with Him holding us in His hands, I say "BRING IT ON!"

Taking the steps

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase."  So as we step out in faith on this journey, we have started by making a list of some of those steps. We ask for prayer as we will need God's guidance and His wisdom as we do in everything we do every day!  But feel like we will be on our knees more than usual for a few of these - like selling our house in the current market!

1. Apply to Southern Seminary
2. Find a job for Gus in Louisville.
3. Repairs to our home here and put our house on the market.
4. Find a place to live in Louisville.
5. Going through all the stuff we have accumulated over 20 years in this house.
6. Packing and moving to another state.

There will be many smaller steps underneath all these larger ones. I look forward to sharing how God is moving us in all these steps. We cannot see the whole staircase, but we will take the steps and God is the banister we hold on to as we climb.

Southern Seminary - Louisville, Kentucky

Pictures from our fall trip to Southern Seminary.  God confirmed his calling to us that weekend.  So we begin....

Preparing our fields for rain

I can't believe I'm blogging! First my reason for starting this blog is a way to help our family keep up with our life as we answer God's call and start our new adventure.  One of my favorite parts in the movie "Facing the Giants" is where the gentlemen tells the coach this story:  Two farmers desperately needed rain.  One farmer prayed for rain and waited.  The other farmer prayed for rain, went out and prepared his fields, then waited for rain.  Which one trusted God to send the rain?  My awesome husband, Gus, has known for several years now that God was calling him to seminary and a life of ministry.  Finally this past spring, he felt God telling him the time is now. When we had talked about it years ago, he was looking at Southeastern Theological Seminary in North Carolina or Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  Naturally when he told me it was time to move in this direction, I assumed it would be to one of these seminaries.  To my surprise he said it would be Southern Seminary.  I said, "Great, where is that?"  He of course said it was in Louisville, Kentucky.  My next comment was "what?"  I have lived in Virginia all my life, so I needed to be sure he was absolutely positive this was what God wanted.  In September, we headed down to Southern Seminary's preview weekend.  And my oh my, it was confirmation from the moment we arrived until we left that it was where we are suppose to be!  Don't ever  let anyone tell you that God doesn't speak to His people today! So we are obediently preparing the fields and waiting for rain.  We will begin to get our home in order to sell and move to Louisville, Kentucky by the fall of this year for Gus to attend Southern Seminary.  I hope this blog will serve not only as a way to keep our family posted on our life in Kentucky but to show how God is moving and leading us along this path.