{ Only Grace }

{ Image borrowed from Naptime Diaries  }

 ( This last week we were asked by our pastor if we would write down the story of what God has been doing in our hearts since  RLM has become our home sweet home church and as humbling as it was for us we didn't hesitate to say yes, because God deserves all the glory for our anything good that ever has, is or will happen in our lives... )

  We are truly humbled and blessed by the opportunity to share with you how God is working in our lives.

   David and I just celebrated our tenth anniversary and we have four young children. They keep us on our toes. Usually they keep us on our toes, laughing.  We see parenting as a great privilege and gift from God. That being said, our life these days is a whole lot of sticky, noisy and messy. Thankfully, Jesus is all about taking our mess, especially the mess in our hearts and turning it by the miracle of His grace into something beautiful. We both grew up in Christian families. And we both accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior at a young age. We grew up in the church, but over years of being in unhealthy churches we felt reluctant to get "too close" in a church, for fear of being hurt, so we tended to stay hidden on the “fringes.”  

  This past winter, after the birth of our fourth baby, we found ourselves in a dark place, feeling overwhelmed and isolated.  Stuck in survival mode, far from a place that felt like growth or freedom. Looking back now on that especially hard season, we see it as a storm of grace. It was exactly what we needed. God used that time of desperation to break us so we could begin to know and experience Him in a deeper, more intimate way. We are so thankful for the way He has interrupted our sleepy comfortable, lukewarm lives, as “ good American Christians “.

 We have asked Jesus to make us hungry for Him and to forgive us for living mostly selfish, self-absorbed lives. He is opening our eyes to how“ good things” can often be the enemy of what’s most important, that being:  making much of Jesus and His glory revealed in His Kingdom here. And He has used getting connected here at Real Life, in real relationships to do that. Since coming to Real Life, God has done a miracle in our hearts and has given us a fresh desire and love for His Word, His people and a new burden for those that don't know Him. We've encountered Jesus in a deeper way , and we've experienced what it means to truly be a disciple. God has used the people of this church body, who have taken the time and invested in loving and pointing us to Jesus, and who have encouraged us to take the next intentional step of obedience to become the man and woman the Lord is calling us to be.  And in that we are experiencing that there truly is no greater joy, than the joy of drawing close to him and loving and serving Jesus as a couple and a family.

 God has called me ( David ) to lead my family. I am here to serve, in whatever way I can, to step up and see where God will lead me, my family and this church as we learn to work diligently and love well. I want to see people delivered from whatever it is that keeps them from Jesus.
  We are so grateful that God uses ordinary people. Because we are just that. And we feel so humbled to join with the vision of RLM, to see this city experience the miracle of deliverance and freedom and life abundant that Jesus has poured into our hearts.  
One precious person at a time. 

Happy { pink } Party

And just like that our Lucy Wren girl turned two. My " ha-bee-bee " she calls it! And she was positively delighted with her very pink party.

  This is signature Lucy Wren, just turned two... with her very few words, her blonde bangs and hair pulled back into pig tails that stick straight out, pretty dresses and " bee-bops" (flip flops) every day... she spends the day playing with her dollies and being their momma. She would eat a giant steak but turn down a ice cream cone. She is known for her love of cheese. Especially cheese sticks. Once at our friends house she ate eight cheese sticks. Yes you read that right,  I said eight. She throws some pretty big tantrums but also has the best leg hugs and neck squeezes and loves to kiss us and tell us she loves us. She's affectionate and nurturing, most darling and loved by all. xo

Annabelle's Lucy List:

She always gets dirty
She always says " I'm the momma, I'm the momma"
She always takes good care of her baby dolls
She is really funny
Her favorite song is Jesus Loves Me
And she's good at finding things
She likes flowers, just like me
And she's scared of bugs
And she loves to do dress up
She really like her little sister Ruby and calls her baby Grace
And she always likes to play with me and Jack
Her favorite is color is pink
She always calls me Belle

Jack's  Lucy List -

She likes to jump
She likes to touch the computer
She likes to try on Mommy's shoes
She likes hitting you  ( but that's not very nice )
She's very funny 
She loves to throw balls
She says " pee-pee bad " when she has to go potty
She likes Tinkerbelle
She likes to drive her little tricycle
And she likes to be chased by me
And she likes to watch Leap Frog with me

{ pink ballet slippers and sparkly mouse tales }

spark·ly  (spärkl)

adj. spark·li·er, spark·li·est

1. a. Giving off tiny flashes of light; glittery: a dress with sparkly sequins.

b. Lively; vivacious: a sparkly personality.

2. Effervescent.
 

  At 7 how well that describes our Anniebelle girl! We just wrapped up year # two of ballet for her with a recital this past weekend. She delights in all of it and that is our delight. But what girl wouldn't with gilttery mouse tails tied in pink satin bows and frilly tutus! She is so lovely and the pictures at the end with her Daddy make me cry. 

{ 10 things }

1. He is my one in six billion. I'd rather have a bad day with him than a good day with anyone else.
2. Nothing says home, like his arms. 
3. He loves sacrificially.
4. He works tirelessly and without complaining.
5. He has made me his standard of beauty + and I feel " safe in my skin" with him.
6. We are his hobby.
7. He is the truest and greatest earthly example of unconditional love to me.
8. As Anne Shirley told Gilbert Blithe, "I don't want sunbursts or marble halls, I just want you.”
9. He is my favorite and my best.
10. I love him far more than I have ever found the words to say to him. 

And now here's our "to-do" for the next 10+ years:  More flirting, more dancing, more laughing, more, much more time spent and memories made with our littles, and ever more loving, knowing and serving Jesus together! What a way to spend our one wild and beautiful life. I still pinch myself that I get to be his wife. It's such a honor and my absolute delight.  
For over a decade now I am happier than I ever imagined I could ever be, a deep down, more noisy than quiet, more messy than perfect,  more chaotic than calm and more often than not sort of happy. Truly. Thank you Jesus, and thank you Mr of mine. This is love. xo

{ the first one }

Nov.  15, 2002

Boy that I Love -

  I understand the love of God better than I ever have now that I am thanks to you, a recipient of the human counterpart. And grace, I feel so fully embraced by grace. That's what you make me feel, unconditional love + deep grace, my strong, quiet man.

  I am getting reports from reliable sources that you are turning into quite the conversationalist. :) I think you have been seeing too much of me. My talkiness is rubbing off on you. Scary thought. They say you have a perpetual smile. And oh that makes me happy because I love your smile more than any other smile in the whole entire world. I can see it 450 miles away. It brightens up any cloudy day, dark night or fearful thought. Because perfect love casts out fear. I have always wanted to experience a perfect love. Jesus love is perfect. And do you think David that just maybe sometimes He might us the love of a man and a woman to reveal that perfect love? I am full of wonder and joy over the possibility of that. 

You just keep holding onto Jesus honey...He's really all we need.

This is the first real love letter I have ever written. I always hoped that it would be to you.

Jesus, you are faithful and true in every way. Your love overwhelms me, Your mercy brings me to my knees, Your kindness humbles me.  Help us love you back like as you first loved us.

I love you so much that it makes this hyper girl calm. Figure that one out. 

Gladly Yours,
Chelle

  And the rest, ten plus years later is history as we proclaim how good and faithful the Lord has been to bless us with each other and a beautiful marriage, plus four small and crazy beautiful people that call us Daddy and Mama and share our last name.That is nothing short of a gift and the work of His gracious heart! I type this with tears streaming down my face, humbled by His perfect faithfulness and grace as we seek to build our lives and home around Him, " rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. " Colossions 2:7 
For He is love. Perfect. Amazing. Love.

{ Excerpt }

 I have been reading this book called Grace for the Good Girl, Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily Freeman, who writes at Chatting At the Sky and it is hitting me hard, every page and I mean that in the best possible sense, as a compliment to the author. It's spooky how sometimes I'll read a page and wonder how she got into my head, because she just described me so to a T. It has impacted me like no other book since 1000 Gifts has.I have underlined and circled and written notes on nearly every page. And could not recommend it more highly. Especially for those of us who are second generation Christians.
So here is a snippet from one of my favorite paragraphs so far:

" When you're used to wearing a mask, you are comfortable with compartmentalizing life. Mask-wearing good girls put worship in a slivered-up pie chart, dividing our lives into segments of importance. We assign percentages for work, service, prayer, school, exercise, PTA, meal planning, bill paying, dog walking, toilet cleaning, church and rest (if we're lucky). But the woman who has freely received the abundance of truth from Jesus abides in that truth as her very life. In other words, the lines of the pie chart disappear, and worship covers the full circle. Free women respond with worship in everything. We receive love, and extend worship. We embrace children, offering worship.  We comfort, we laugh, we mourn, we dance, we read, we dream, we exist- all worship. We pay the bills, we go for a run, we enjoy a good movie, we make dinner, we welcome friends with open arms- worship, all worship. We send money and offer prayer and sit with a lonely neighbor, in Jesus name. We wait for love, we long for home, we pour out our hearts and hopes and fears and longing; we create with words and photos and colors and food, all beautiful beautiful acts of worship! "

Or as Romans 12:1 say " So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. This is truly the way to worship him.   - The Message/NLT

{ Game...errr Name Changer }

 The name of my blog, it gives me away. To most of you it will come as no surprise that I have a reputation for and a tendency to more often than not, see life through rose colored glasses. I have always been known as a little goody-two-shoes, since I was a little girl I have carried around this weight of feeling like I need to make and keep everyone around me happy. I thank Jesus for kicking that all out from under me. For showing me how useless my attempts at joy are apart from Him. Like never before I have come to realize that my identity is not in how cheerful I can be. ( even as a proponent of true cheerfulness as opposed to being fake ) I feel as if joy has been an idol of sorts in my life. And by that I mean self manufactured, counterfeit joy, not true joy that is the overflow of Jesus in me. And so I am changing the name of my blog. As a marker or altar of sorts of the way God is working in my life. As He takes the broken mess of who I am,  the good the bad and the ugly and transforms me by this glorious exchange of my mess for His love, my emptiness for His joy, my striving for His peace, my impatience for His patience, my hardness for His kindness, my ugliness for His goodness my selfishness for His self-control.


I am so humbled by the way He takes the ashes of our sin and by the beauty of grace and the gospel turns them into beauty and joy. I am so humbled that He is opening my eyes to the truth of knowing Him in my head versus the experience knowing Him intimately and I never want to go back to that place of being stagnant by just going through the motions of being " a Christian." Once having tasted that freedom and abundance of life in Jesus, there can be no turning back. Only a going deeper.

{ Grace Storm }

Up ahead: Heavy duty soul baring sort of post. You've been warned. ;)

“ There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” Willa Cather

  Since becoming a family of 6. Since our fourth child was named for this very word. Since almost by default it has become my “ word “ of the year for 2013. Since I wear it on a charm around my neck ever day…“ by grace alone!“ Since, as the book of John says.." A person can not recieve even one thing unless it is given him from heaven" and I have written in my bible next to that verse, the this phrase from the beautiful Ann Voskamp:

All. Is. Grace.

  In the past 6 months, I have experienced some really dark times and by dark I mean, secret... in the hidden corners of my heart dark. I tried to push through. I've tried to grin and bear it but I’ve felt: stuck, overwhelmed, discouraged, defeated, drained, exhausted. At times I have felt powerless, I have yelled at my kids, like I told myself I would never do. I’ve felt that it was impossible to do life well or to live a life of love, on my own…I have felt desperate. At times in the past six months I have gone into hiding, been fearful, and my soul has felt lifeless, I have been in survival mode, and I have been blind to the depth of my selfishness.  But thanks be to God, in His perfect faithfulness + loving kindness that leads to repentance, I feel like he is beginning to open my eyes to seeing the condition of my heart without Him and waking me up to the ugliness that is in me, apart from Him. Because as I am learning by experience, as a recovering "good girl" that really, actually, in my own strength I really do not have what it takes to grow and thrive!

“ Therefore He says, Awake O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine on ( make day dawn) upon you and give you light! Eph. 5:14 ( Amp )

  In my case, it’s been a storm of grace. This past winter has been hard. I have felt overwhelmed as a mother. We have battled a lot of sickness. Some days it's seemed as though I barely have my head above water. And I have grown so sick of my self, and not feeling like there is way to rise above the mess and noise and fighting and moods to a place of joy. My prayer has become a desperate cry for help, that the Lord would soften my heart and give me the desire to wholeheartedly seek and desire Him like I never have before. And hope to keep praying that daily. That I would be led higher and deeper into Jesus. That I would quit putting Him in a box. That I would learn the secret to living the Christian life, is Christ in me, not me in different set of circumstances ( which today happens to look like bad moods for my three oldest children and a house that is anything but clean, full of laundry that is anything but folded and put away ) or anything I can do beyond opening my hands and accepting His love + grace, His amazing grace and living out of that. And in that place of grace, I have found freedom! In Jesus I have been set free!

He is teaching me that life doesn't have to always be "hard." That if I let Him, He will shoulder the stress. That His burden is easy and light!
 

He is teaching me that the less time I have, and the busier life is, the more time I need to spend in His presence!

He is stirring my heart and showing me how important it is to not fight harder for the idols in my life than I do for His glory.

He is teaching me that the goal of daily time with Him is not consistency but intimacy!

I am experiencing a renewed joy and gladness in the joy of His presence!

He is teaching me that without Him I am a complete mess. But in Him I am loved as Christ is loved. I am blessed as Christ is blessed. I am embraced and adored as Christ is embraced and adored.

He is whispering to me that I am free from religion and trying hard to perform for God. Free from shame and condemnation. I have listened to this sermon probably a dozen times now and it has become my mantra. And I am so umbled by His and of grae

  This week Jesus is using the Gospel of John, reading through the bible in a year, the book Grace for the Good Girl, this you tube clip called Jesus loves Barabas that a dear friend shared with me, and my loved ones to rock my world!

Jesus please shine your thrist-quenching, life-giving love into every corner of my heart! Jesus help me to know that even if all I have is You, that is More. Than. Enough.

" Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase but I must decrease." John 3:29 + 30

Look at how much they've grown in the seven months from my last post! And goodness sakes do I adore them!

{ every good + perfect gift }

{ Image curtsey of the ever lovely Andrea of  Take Joy Designs }

  She's been here for a little over three weeks now. Three wonderfully sweet, Ruby-Grace filled weeks. She is an easy baby. And when she does make a peep, which isn't very often...she is easily calmed. She has been smiling at us since one week old. She was born at home at 9:50 p.m. on Sunday September 9th...our first bedtime baby as our other three were all born in the morning...and it was so special to get to crawl into bed with our freshly born baby and just soak her up in all her tiny newness and glory and to fall asleep with her in my arms and to get to sniff her soft little head all night long.  She is our smallest baby, at 7lbs 5 oz + 19 3/4 inches long, and I have loved getting to dress her for the last three weeks in NB sized clothes. She's small and delicate and has captured our hearts. I love that she is so mellow. So mellow that she was born asleep. I  love how she snorts when she's hungry. I love how much she moves in her sleep, which through me off, because I thought all the movement before she was born meant she was going to be hyperactive.I love that her Daddy calls her Lucy's skinny twin, because she is so easy going like Lucy was as a newborn. I love how downy soft she is. I love that she smells sweeter than than any perfume. I love that when I brush my fingers across her eyes, she falls magically and instantly asleep.
I love how her little feet are long and skinny like a rabbits foot and can fold in half lengthwise.

   Annabelle, Jack and Lucy came home to meet her first thing in the morning. They had stayed with their Auntie Roo who they love and adore the night Ruby was born. We all do. She's is amazing and beautiful and such a huge help to me in every way. I don't know what I'd do without her. They tip-toed ever so quietly in to the room and were so sweet and gentle holding her for the first time. Jack is just so tender with her, he has a sweet little crush on her. Annabelle is such a big help to me with baby and so capable. I love it when she sings to Ruby. And I have taken hundreds of pictures of Lucy kissing Ruby because it's just that sweet. She is crazy about her. She calls her sis-sis. And comes running to tell me " wah-wah...wah-wah..."the second she starts to cry. I love to imagine how close they are going to be. Never having a sister myself growing up, I am so excited for them.

  David was only able to take one day off after she was born but we were blessed to have Debs come Monday evening, and stay all week to help us and make it possible for me to truly be off my feet. It was an incredibly special to have that time with her and while she was here she deep/spring cleaned my house and went through and organized every drawer for me and matched up all my missing pairs of socks, hauled off bags to the thrift store because well, she's just amazing like that. It took a village to care for us that week as David's other sister Rachel, bless her beautiful heart...stayed home and took care of  Deb's three littles, so she could come take care of us. Thank you girls. More than I can say. Your and the moms are right up there with Granny Annie, on my list of the most wonderful women that I have ever known. Deb, I'll never forget that week with you and how you so willingly cleaned up all that poop, even especially poop of the not so newborn variety. For talking Annabelle to school. And the morning the mouse jumped out of my underwear drawer. For how you love to kiss and love on my little people as if they were your own.
  And I cried when she left but thankfully my Mom had just arrived as Deb was leaving and I had her wonderful company and help and cooking for the following week. And for two days both Moms were here. Which really was too special for words for me and my kids to have both grandmas at once to love on us in every possible way. Mama B. brought Mums for my front porch and tucked chocolate away in the cupboard with my name on it and spent the day with Annabelle at school, kept up on the laundry, read to Jack, grocery shopped, mopped my floors all in a days work.  Every morning the week my Mom was here she would wake up early with Lucy and let me sleep in. It was a sweet tradition for the two of them that included sharing a blueberry lara bar...I have these amazing ladies to thank ( including some really dear + amazing friends who have scrubbed my house until it sparkled and fed us along the way and blessed us with treats and and brand new amazing triple stroller ) that I was able to rest and recover fully and helped ease us through these first weeks with David gone working long hours until dark and Saturdays. 

  

 My Ruby-Gracie girl, what a truly beautiful + treasured gift to us you are. 

There are no words to describe how much your Mama loves you!

" Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father..." James 1: 7

{ First day of First grade }

   How can it already be time to say hello a new school year? And how can it be that we already  have a first grader living under our roof? Excited for all this year holds for her and for me as one of her teachers. Pintrest has a world of information and resources to offer, which I am loving. But to be really honest, in a lot of ways this school year looks like it's shaping up to be rather crazy with a new baby girl to arrive on the scene any day/week now, and I have to admit that I am feeling more than a little bit intimidated by the challenge of homeschooling while also mothering other the three under three. She's going to be going two full days a week to a local public school that partners with homeschooling families. I am so thankful for this best of both worlds option for her right now. And feel so privileged for the opportunity to be her teacher on the other three days we are at home.  My prayer for her and for myself over the course of this next school year and all the ones to come, as much as I want to foster in her a love of learning and make sure she is up to speed in every subject for her grade and age, that I wouldn't lose sight of what's most important and that we we would before all else " grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. "  2 Pet. 3:18

So here we go1st Grade.
Ready or not, here she comes.
Please be kind.

{ Making cherry pie + a peek into my cheery kitchen }

There is nothing quite so quintessentially summer to me as baking pies. Domestically speaking, that is.

{ List no. 6 - 30 Songs I love }

 { Etsy Print found here }

  Music is a huge part of what defines home for me. I find it to be a powerful mood setter. It's amazing to me how a song can define a feeling or bring back memories from a certain season of life. 
  This is a brief history of our family in song. 
 During our days of falling in love this song was so special to the two of us, and this one to me. And then there was the music we had at our wedding, A Prayer for Home, and How Beautiful. Or the soundtrack to our honeymoon, slow dancing in our teeny tiny cottage kitchen as newlyweds to this song, and then a couple years later, the song Annabelle first started dancing to, by Gwen Stephani which was really popular at the time. We have at least half a dozen videos of her getting down to The Sweet Escape.  This song  reminds me so much of our Black Diamond years. And Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson, makes me think of our first days in Spokane when Jack was just a baby and beginning to dance. I remember" All the Pennies " playing on repeat after having moved into our house on 14th and while still very much in the remodeling process and didn't even " own a bathroom door." And I am pretty sure that I have listened to this song, a thousand times in the months before and after Lucy was born, and have still never tired of it. These days Matt Redman's 10,000 reasons is a family favorite. Lucy especially loves it...she toddles around with both arms raised, cooing like a little songbird. And it's also super sweet how babiest girl gets all excited when it's playing.
 
Thanks to Spotify, I have a hand picked playlist for almost every occasion. There is happy house-cleaning music, and bedtime lullabies and songs of worship, a mean dance lineup, seasonal lists of favorite songs, love songs, and songs for my little ones, and songs by genre...because I might secretly love bluegrass music a little bit. I have my parents thank for that.

  I want my children to grow up and say that worship was the heartbeat of our home. As C.S. Lewis says,  "It is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His presence to men." Isn't that beautiful?


  So now in no particular order, here are thirty songs that I love to lift my voice and twirl around the the living room with my kids to...

1. 10,000 Reasons, Matt Redman
2. Oh My Stars, Andrew Belle
3. It's a Gift, Andrea Hamilton
4. This Dance, Five for Fighting
5. Filled With Your Glory, Starfield
6. All Will Be Well Gabe Dixon Band
7. This is Just so Beautiful  Jenny + Tyler
8. Your Song,  Ellie Goulding
9. Bloom, The Paper Kites
10. Brand New, Emilie Mover 
11. Happy Lessons, The Vespers
12. Grace for Me, The Michael Gungor band
13. So Deep in Love, Joel Auge
14. Sweetheart, Jont
15. All is Grace, Shaun Groves
16. Joy is in Our Hearts, Sara Groves
17. Old Pine, Ben Howard
18. Forever After Love, Andrew Ripp
19. Angel, Jack Johnson
20. Viva La Vida, Coldplay
21. Friend Like You, Joshua Radin
22. For You, Peter Bradely Adams
23. Bring Me the Sunshine, Jess Penner
24. Little Song, Sarah Jarosz
25. Little Light, ( Our little Lucy's song. Her name means light.)
26. Blue Eyes, Timmy Curran
27. You Are Love, Rend Collective Experiment
28. Take Heart, Hillsong
29. Skyline Hill, Jenny + Tyler
30. Little Song, Sarah  Jarosz

 I would love to hear all about your favorite songs. 

{ on holding your breath }

  This past week David had to work out of town again. And as the contractions have already started up on a regular and daily basis with this sweet baby girl to be, and since I am only at 35 weeks and need to keep sweet said baby girl in for at least one more week, I decided to pack up and take the kids for a visit to Poppy + Nana's. The kids were thrilled for the time with them while this Mama sure appreciated the break.  Every time I'd get up off the couch either my Mom or Dad would suggest that I sit down and rest. Thank you both, and my was it amazing to just nap whenever and for however long I wanted too the last couple days. We spent a fun day at the beach and were able to get in a visit with some very dear friends who we haven't seen for a very too long time. And Poppy made us banana splits and his famous french toast. And Nana fed us her amazing summer garden veggies. And I was able to read, almost an entire book in two days..and I loved the conversation I had with my Mom in the kitchen about the book and about food and how it is tied to some of our fondest + oldest memories. And then last night, when the contractions hit hard again, I sipped down my ( prescribed ) glass of wine over the latest version of Jane Eyre , while my parents took all three of my kids to the park. Sound dreamy? It was. Until they came home with one hysterical and hurt 6 year old girl. She fell off the top of the slide, on to her head. She broke her fall with her wrist. She also, after today's x-ray showed, broke two bones in her wrist. She was incredibly brave about the whole thing. She is tough, doesn't cry easily and it was obviously very painful. The first thing she told me when they'd gotten her home was that she was so sorry that she wasn't going to be able to help Jack buckle into his car seat, bless her dear little heart.  My Mom and I both had a gut feeling it was broken so weren't all that surprised by the verdict this afternoon at the doctors office. Her cast goes on Monday. It's going to be hot pink. She's super excited about that.

( here she is the poor, pitiful dear just fallen asleep after her fall, thank you Jesus for Tylenol! )

  And then between Thursday and Monday's visit to our Dr. there was Friday's. The first words out of  Dr. Morgan's mouth when he walked in the room the following afternoon were..." Yesterday was not a good day for you, was it? "
  Just after we'd gotten home to David with our x-ray picture proof of A's broken wrist, we were happily cleaning out the van together, so thankful to be together as a family once again, when out of the blue and for no obvious reason we had the scare of our lives with Lucy. She started to fuss and we thought she was going to throw up when she went into what we now believe may have been a non febrile seizure. Including, complete loss of color, as her eyes rolled back in her head, and she was taking only really shallow breaths, and not responding, as she went completely limp and lethargic in my arms. I would like to say that I kept my composure in those excruciatingly long minutes but that would be a lie. I lost it right then and there and quite literally cried out to Jesus in desperation to please help my baby, save my baby, to not take my baby. And thank God that David was there. David called 911. Those 7 minutes felt like an eternity. By the time the ambulance pulled up to our house, she was starting to regain her color and was beginning to respond again. When they checked, her vitals were all perfect. And it was over as quickly as it came. I felt like I'd been holding my own breath the whole time it seemed she was holding hers. The EMT's were so nice and didn't even look at us like we were completely nuts, as I rocked in my arms our once again perfectly healthy toddler in my arms. And later sobbed in relief that it was over and she is fine. Because thanks be to God, she hasn't skipped a beat since then. Our Dr. said that hopefully this was a completely isolated, once in a lifetime incident for her. And as long as it never happens again, he didn't feel the need to do any further testing.  I have relived those terrifying minutes so many times in the past few days. And I cannot stop thanking Jesus tonight for the indescribably beautiful life of my little Lucy Wren girl. She is such a gift to all us. It  brings me such joy to get to be her Mama . She truly lights up our world, just like her name means...She's sunshine on a cloudy day and as the song that we sing to her and call "her song" and that she love to hum back to us says...      

  
Look at all the angels watching you
They’re singing songs that we have never heard
Their voices ring like bells over the mountains
Oh, if only we could hear their words
God is near, little girl.

Your eyes are brilliant,deep sky blue.
Your quiet wisdom is an evening song.
The angels must be breathless at your beauty
Like the world catches its breath before the dawn.
God is near, little one.

And Jesus bends to hear you breathe;
His tender hands are holding you tonight.
His heart is ravished when you look at Him,
and oh, the endless mercy in His eyes;
God is here, little light.

Little Light, by Audrey Assad

Oh for a heart to savor every day even...no, especially the brutally hard ones.
Oh for a heart that trusts and is surrendered.
Oh for the patience to be the tender Mama that I know I am called to be.
Oh for the eyes to see, and too not take for granted the gift of these days, and the almost four treasures that I call my own.

{ A letter to my Grandpa }

{ Grandpa Roland + Lucy, Summer 2011 }

Grandpa Dear,
  
  I am so sorry and sad to have missed out on your 90th birthday and getting to celebrate and hug you, in person. What a special, special time it sounds like you all had together. Such a blessing! You are one loved and admired man. If there is any way David and the littles and I can, we’d love to come visit you this fall or winter. 

  I know your biopsy was today and I want you to know that we were praying for you throughout the day and will continue to in the days to come. For peace and for relief, as you fight this thing like I know you will.

 We are doing well with our quickly growing little family of almost 6. Annabelle is about to start first grade and has lost two teeth over the summer and is such a beautiful little soul and really good big sister. Jack is a character! He turned 3 in may and wants to be “ a soldier who grows peas when he grows up. “ He keeps us in stitches and is 100%all-boy. Lucy is our little sunshine girl. She started walking a couple months ago and doesn’t say much at 15 months, but boy does she know how to smile and cuddle and give love. Our third little girl will be here somewhere around September 21st. And we are all quite tickled about meeting her.

  David bought another house at the auction last month. The plan is to remodel it and flip it as soon as possible but he is working long hours paving right now as it is there busy season. And by long I mean really long. Today was a 16 ½ hour work day for him and he has to get up at 5am and start all over again tomorrow. I am so thankful for him and the amazing husband/daddy/provider he is. So many things about him remind me of you. And I mean that as a compliment of course.
  I love you Grandpa Roland. So much! Thank you for building such an wonderful legacy and for being a man of God. And for only growing dearer and wiser with the years. Thank you for loving my sweet Grandma so much and for raising your dear + beautiful daughter to be my dearest ever Mama.

xo, Michelle ( for all of us )

{ I can't hear this beautiful song without thinking of you, Grandpa }