Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the three best fathers in all the world.  I couldn't ask for a better set of role models for my children.  The Lord was merciful when he blessed all of us with Erik, Pops and Grandpa.  I love you all to the moon and back.  

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Suffering

Ella's swim numbers from last night.  Today I have been praising God for the gift of hospital free summers and the opportunity I have to watch my other children enjoy life.  

These trials have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:7-9

I have been suffering.  I've been suffering for a long time.  The pain and anguish I have felt over the past two years is more than I could ever put into words.  As a Christian, I have continually looked to God for strength, peace and mercy.  It hasn't always been easy though.  Many days I have been angry and scared.  Some days my heart hurts so badly that I can barely get out of bed.  Suffering.

My friend Kristie, who lost her son Justin more than a year ago, sent me the scripture above.  I love it and find myself relating to it so closely.  Through our suffering our faith is made genuine.  Do you understand what that means?  It's taken me some time to digest and I am still working on it.  Through our suffering we are receiving our salvation.  This is so huge.  

Our pastor spoke recently on the topic of suffering.  A visiting pastor also spoke this past Sunday about suffering as well.  One of the things that they both mentioned is that God brings us closer to him through suffering because it is then that we have a small, tiny, glimpse of what Christ did for us on the cross.  When we ache and groan and mourn we can feel, in the most infinitesimal moment, what God felt as His son was crucified.  

I truly believe that God has brought me closer to Him through the trials I have faced over the past two years.  I no longer have sympathy for people, but rather empathy.  When my grandfather passed away last week I ached not for his passing, but rather for my grandmother.  As a mother who has almost lost a child, I could feel the hurt that she was suffering for the loss of her husband.  I remember wondering how int eh world I would ever go on living with Lucy.  I stopped breathing when I thought about never holding her again, never touching or smelling her again.  As I think about my grandmother now I know she must miss my grandfather so much.  They were together for 65 years.  I pray for her so many times during the day.  

Everyday I am learning more about God, myself and our relationship.  I am so thankful for His saving grace and His love for me, even when I doubt the most.  Praise God we have so much more than this Earth for which to long.  

Back to Normal

We are slowly trying to get our life back to normal.  It's been a hard, hard week.  I have cried more this week than I have since this time last year.  Not only did my grandfather pass away this week, but it was the one year anniversary of the time we came very close to saying goodbye to Lucy forever.  There were times this week that I couldn't even breathe I was so upset.

Three days before my Paw Paw went to be with Jesus, I began having anxiety attacks all throughout the day.  It was worse than I had ever experienced.  The day before he passed away I was in a total anxiety attack mode.  I was so sick I couldn't sleep and had nightmares worse than I ever could fathom.  I dreamed vivid dreams that every one of my children, my husband and my mother all died right before my eyes and I couldn't anything to save them.  Oh, it was awful.  I am writing about this not for sympathy, but rather to remember this journey along this road of suffering and learning to let go of my need for constant control.

My grandfather was an amazing man.  He was a visionary--a man with a passion for Christ.  Our church and community has been forever changed because of him and he will be greatly missed by countless people.  We had a beautiful funeral ceremony and truly praised God for the life with which he was blessed.  We still mourn the loss of his presence on Earth but have no doubts that we will be reunited with him one day soon.  If the Lord is merciful, it will be soon for all of us.

My life was put on hold for the past week and I'm drowning in laundry and to-do lists.  I'm slowly getting caught up and things are coming back to order around here.  We start VBS this week at our church and I'm excited to be teaching again this year.  My mom and I have been partners in crime for several years, but I've been out of the game for the past two years.  I love VBS and the fun week we have.  Jack's pretty excited too.

Here are some pictures from today.  It was so nice setting aside our cares for a few moments at least.  My grandmother even joined us by the pool for an afternoon in our beautiful June weather.

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Game Ball

It's been an emotionally draining and exhausting week. I can hardly process a thought. That being said --- I had to share this:

Look who got the game ball tonight. 3 hits without the tee, she ran with the ball from outfield to end the play at home and got to make a throw on the field tonight. 

I know my Paw Paw was smiling down tonight from heaven. 

Shh! It's a (Pop) Secret Top Secret

As we celebrated our last school night, I couldn't think of a better way to spend the evening than eating popcorn and watching our favorite family movie of the month (here's a hint: there's a famous Dog involved).  Lucy and Jack piled up in Erik's lap;  Ella snuggled on the couch.  It's the perfect night in my opinion.

I know we all have horror stories of burning popcorn in our microwaves, right?  You leave the room for a quick minute, the bag and popcorn burns and then your house smells horrible for the next week!  Don't worry, it happens to the best of us.  Just the other day I set off the smoke alarm trying to fix myself an afternoon snack.  Wouldn't you love to have some kind of technology that would alert you as to when your popcorn is done?  Well, I found the perfect solution.

As I was making the popcorn tonight I got the chance to try out this new, super fun app from Pop Secret.  The app is designed to listen as the popcorn pops and then it will signal when the popcorn has been perfectly popped.  Seriously, how could it get any better than this?  I was really excited to give it a try.

The app is crazy easy to use.  You simply put your popcorn in the microwave, hold your phone near (but not on or in) the microwave, and then hit "start" on the phone screen. It was really fun to watch how the app actually kept track of the pops it heard and then alerted me as to when the popcorn was ready.  When I opened my bags the popcorn was perfect and there were hardly any unopned kernels.  I was a excited as a kid in a candy store.  Try it out and let me know what you think.  You can download the Perfect Pop app for free in the App Store* or find a link on PopSecretLabs.com

My kids sure weren't upset about all my test runs.  They got to feast from the spoils of war.  All the extra popcorn will be put into baggies and we will have handy snacks for the next few days.  The night was a win-win for all!

PopSecret is giving away a $100 Visa gift card to help launch their new Perfect Pop app.  Leave me a comment below telling me about the worst time you ever burned popcorn and let me know if you give this FREE app a try!

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