Reflecting on Hope

Wow, what a wonderful Christmas! We had a blast! I just love to see my kids faces light up when they open a gift, especially one that they have been hoping for! I am just so blessed and thankful for ALL of God's blessings in my life. One blessing that I get to reflect on every year on Christmas,besides the birth of Christ, is Christmas of 2001. That year I learned so much about my God. His great love, compassion, and how I am able to trust HIM through it all. I learned that I was expecting, who would have been our 4th child, on Thanksgiving day 2001. A few weeks later I was told that my baby was "not developing properly"( that is how the dr. put it). That same week Ronnie totaled our car (not his fault), our dryer broke and Jacob,then 2 yrs, was hospitalized with RSV. Looking back I could only describe my life like a big storm. The storm was my circumstances and I was the ship at sea during it all, being tossed about but never cap sizing. That being ONLY because, though I didn't realize it then, God was the real captain of THIS ship! Over these 4 long weeks God was there guiding my through. He would give me his Word that became would I would hold on to because there was nothing else there to hold to. Two verses would be spoken to me over and over again( PS. 46:10 and Jer.29:11) I had NO idea why until....December 24,2001. I woke up that morning so excited the kids and I had big plans for the day. We were going to be wrapping presents making cookies and getting ready for Ronnie to come home from work so that we could visit family. Around 11 am I started bleeding. (I was almost 10 weeks pregnant) Terrified I went to lay down and called the dr. To say the least just like that all of our plans were over. And so were my dreams for this baby. Ronnie came home, took care of the kids and I laid in bed the rest of the evening hoping I would be saving this child. The next morning I went out to the living room with Ronnie and the kids to open presents but tried to lay low the rest of the day. Later the bleeding would pick up, and I would be told by the dr to come in the next morning.I still remember the conversations I had with God but I will never forget one thing I felt God tell me. " Hang on Rachel, just hold on to me I am doing something here!" Let me tell you I have never held tighter to anything or anyone else in all my life. He was all I had to hold to. He was the only one who could change it or get me through it. Well, He didn't change it,the next morning it was official, but He sure did bring me through it! Now every year as we remember the birth of Christ I also get to remember my baby and be reminded of all God has carried me through and know that God cares for us so deeply in spite of ourselves and no matter what happens around us like his word says in 2 Cor.4:8 we won't be destroyed or abandoned. That year God showed me Hope! Hope carried me. God's Hope! That is why we named that baby Hope. I am not sure what it will actually be like when we get to heaven, but I like to think that I will finally be able to hold that precious baby when I get there.

It's raining..it's sleeting.. oh wait is that SNOW??!!!

Believe it or not it IS!! It was certainly not a blizzard or anything...actually not much of a snowfall at all. But we were sure glad to see it! That morning as Luke and I watched the snow from inside I just held him and said "isn't this awesome" we just had to take a moment and give God thanks for such a WONDERFUL surprise!

Yes, that is a baseball helmet on Caleb's head! You know he belongs to us!!!

Time to breathe

I find myself taking a moment to inhale and then exhale deeply this morning. I was up for the better part of the night with Ben who now thinks that night should be time taken to spend more awake than asleep. Then I heard Ronnie wake up at 5:oo just to realize that he had over slept. ( which he NEVER does) Ben woke up again shortly after that so I decided to go ahead and get up so I could get some things done before the kids wake up. Well one would think that my kids have radar on me that signals once I am up and out of bed because next thing you know they are up and knocking on my door! Now maybe for some it would be nice for your kids to get up and start getting ready earlier than usual, but that is not the case here. The more time my kids have in the morning the more the arguing breaks out! And as if that wasn't enough... my dryer must be going out, since the clothes I had put in to dry LAST NIGHT were still not dry this morning. Yea, that's all I need. My kids to not stop arguing and now the clothes they were wanting to wear are not dry yet! Perfect! What a wonderful day this is shaping up to be!And then, instead of blow drying my hair, I had to blow dry the pants! ( by this point I had to remind myself that I need to give thanks in and for EVERYTHING)Now most of you have probably already heard me complain over the phone about how I have to hand wash my dishes by hand right now, so this is just great news for me! I have been wanting to return to the "simple life", but this is not exactly what I had in mind. I mean, come on, blow drying clothes and washing dishes by hand is not my idea of simple!!! Definetly not for a family of 10 anyway. So now it was time for the bus, the kids start walking out the door I am trailing behind with Eric still in the doorway and I hear Jacob shout "the bus is coming" so now they start to take off running well what would happen next?! Eric slips right on the sidewalk and starts to cry. I immediately have and show compassion for him helping him up and asking if he is ok. but I couldn't help but THINK to myself.. of course this would happen right now, is there any better time than when you have had such a cruddy morning and now you are running late. But he brushed it off and thankfully made it to the bus with the others. I walked back to the house letting out a big sigh and thought.. I need to breathe now! I come inside take a deep breath sit at the computer for my devotional and here is the devotional verse for the day...

1 peter 1:6-7 "You are extremely happy about these things, even though you have to suffer different kinds of trouble for a little while now.The purpose of these troubles is to test your faith as fire tests how genuine gold is. Your faith is more precious than gold, and by passing the test, it gives praise, glory, and honor to God."

The questions I had to ask myself was , Am I passing the test? Just when will I get it? No matter the what it is about the how. How am I going to handle this situation so that I pass the test in the end? Am I going to be found genuine?


I can breathe now!

A new idea

My sister gave me a new "recipe" for these great gift ideas! It only took like 5 min. to make. It was so easy, and comes out very cute. ( at least I think so) Ashley helped me, in fact, she made the leopard print one on her own!!

And in case you were wondering how I even had 5 min. this is what all the kids were doing!