Much Rejoicing

About a month ago, I felt like my Bible time with the kids had waned a bit and I woke up one morning just thinking/praying that I’d like to just find something to teach them some basic biblical truths.  I got online and searched for pre-school type devotionals and the Lord led me to one called Truth for KidsExactly what I was looking for, yes?

Now, some of it’s a little cheesy and the graphics are a little outdated and I’ve found a few spelling/grammatical errors, but the meat seems to be right on the money.  Every morning at breakfast, we’ve been studying these basic biblical truths and learning scripture and it has been a blessing to me, too.

A couple of days ago, we learned about how the Lord makes us a new creation once we choose to confess our sins and follow Him.  The little devotional talked about how in our sin, we’re like an ugly old caterpillar but when we accept Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, He transforms us into a beautiful butterfly.

At lunch yesterday, Sawyer was putting her dishes in the dishwasher and she started to say, “That ugly old…” and she caught herself.  I said, “Good catch, sugar.  We don’t say ugly.”

In the next second, we both thought of the caterpillar and we said, “Except for that caterpillar.”  I told her that in that instance, it was definitely ok to use ugly, because that is exactly how our sin is.  She said, “Yeah, I want to tell brother about the caterpillar.  And I want to ask Jesus into my heart.”   

I told her we could do it right then and there!  (I think I might have gotten a little too excited *ahem* because her shyness took over and she took a while finishing at the dishwasher…then she wanted her blanket…then she decided she just wanted to play).  I wasn’t going to force her into that decision so I just told her that whenever she was ready, Jesus was ready for her.

She came back about five minutes later and said, “I’m ready to ask Jesus into my heart.”

So we did!  We prayed together.  She said she was a sinner and that Jesus died on the cross.  She said she wanted Jesus to live in her heart and be in charge.  Then she said, “But I’m not going to change my mind.”

I asked, “Change your mind about what, sweetie?”  She said, “About being married and being a mom.  He can live in my heart, but I still want to stay here with you guys!”

She has been sooooooo concerned about that lately and I think she thinks the two are connected somehow; if Jesus is in your heart then you are/become a wife and mom.  How sweet is that?  We talked that through and she felt a lot better about it…even though we prayed about it again upstairs.  🙂

I am such a joyful, proud momma this morning.  I am boasting in Christ, because every good thing about her comes from Him – of that I have no doubt.  She is leaps and bounds ahead of me in this life and I’m glad she is!  It will serve her well…

Thank you, Lord, that you give us the free will to choose you! 

Thank you that you forgive our sins as far as the east is from the west! 

Thank you that you want to be in relationship with us from a very early age. 

Thank you for what you’ve done in Sawyer.

Sweet girl, you will never regret this decision – I promise you that.  Your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and no one or no thing can revoke that.  I pray that satan does not steal the joy of your salvation and daddy and I join forces with you to push away his nasty attempts to distract and restrain you.  This is the beginning of a beautiful journey and I pray that you follow close to Him all the days of your life.  I pray that you call upon the riches of the Holy Spirit in you to guide your every thought and word and action.  Go take the Kingdom by storm, sweet girl! We are so proud of the wonderful little sweetie you are; you bless us!

Sweet Sawyer, seconds after asking Jesus into her heart...
Sweet Sawyer, seconds after asking Jesus into her heart…

*****If any of you reading this have questions about following Christ or confessing sin or what He did on the cross, please don’t hesitate to shoot me a message or comment and I’ll be glad to help answer those.  It’s a life changing decision to be an heir with Christ…one you won’t regret!*****

The Perfect Saturday

Yesterday just might have been our favorite day of the summer, thus far.  We got to spend the day with some of the most God-fearing, solid people on the planet!  How lucky are we?!

The summer I was pregnant with Sawyer, Wrex and I ran a trade show booth for his previous employer down at the Colorado Cattlemen’s Convention.  We were boothed next to the Farm Credit team and in so doing, made some of our dearest friends.

They were so kind and encouraging and offered up so much wisdom and love regarding the new journey of parenthood that we were about to embark upon.  We stayed in touch via Facebook (it has it’s good, it really does!) and then we got to see part of them again the next year.

The next convention was less than a month from our departure date to a new adventure in life and they ministered to us sooooooo incredibly much!  We still have the piece of paper with a word they had given us regarding our decision that affirmed all that we had heard from the Lord as well.  Seriously, these are some special people.

Besides Facebooking and a few phone calls, that was the last time we had really spent considerable time together…until yesterday!  We met in southeastern Colorado for some swimming and picnic-ing and playing and chatting – it was the BEST!  The kids all had an absolute ball together and we loved every minute as well.

Wryder and Gunner - how CUTE are they?!
Wryder and Gunner – how CUTE are they?!
Sunbathing beauties!
Sunbathing beauties!
The men in deep discussion on a break from their game of washers...
The men in deep discussion on a break from their game of washers…
Love these ladies!
Love these ladies!

It’s such a beautiful thing when the Lord connects people in the Spirit.  These are people that love Him and live their lives for Him…who are bearing fruit that is evident in the lives of their children…who live their lives with their hands wide open, ready to give and encourage and love at the drop of the hat.

And their sweet kids!  They were all so kind and loving and polite and grateful and obedient and CUTE!

We left feeling like someone just breathed a huge breath of life into us!  Our steps felt lighter and our souls felt more joyful and we felt hopeful about the world.

You guys, seriously, we adore you – YOU ARE A RARITY in this world!  We are so thankful for the time with you!  Let’s attempt to make this happen at least twice a year, yes?!  And if you’re really serious about that commune thing, we’re in!  😉

How in the World Did We Get Here: Part 3

*****Ok, I lied – Part 4 is my favorite part!  There was too much to tell so here’s Part 3…or you can call it Part 2.5 if that makes you feel better…*****

Our time in Texas was HOT and, well, that about sums it up.  Good gravy…we’re still not convinced we could hack it down there as a permanent dwelling.

We lived with Wrex’s boss for three months while he learned the ins and outs of this plant.  He traveled to sales and watched and learned and calculated how to bid on cows and then got to follow them through the slaughter process to see if they made or lost money.

To be a cow buyer, you have to be able to evaluate livestock and, based on their weight and body condition, guesstimate how much they will yield (how many pounds of lean product the animal will produce), thus telling you how much you should buy one for, while also accounting for freight to get the animal to the plant. The cows have to fit the bid given out by the head cow buyer of the company, which he bases on several factors – how much meat is trading for, how much meat the plant has on hand, how much they need, where they could get it cheaper if your barn is high that day, etc.  You also have to know what your competitors are willing to spend and how far to push them to make them pay more so you can pay less.  It’s quite complicated really…and FAST.  They sell a cow about every 30 seconds, so you have to be on your game!

Around October of that year, they felt like he’d learned enough to be turned loose on his own.   For the last month, they had all strategized and come up with a list of sale barns that he would be responsible for buying at.  We would then need to find a place to live that would be a somewhat central location for him to travel from.

It needed to be somewhere in this general area...
It needed to be somewhere in this general area…

The company gave him a week off to travel and find the community and home in which we’d like to live, so we loaded up and headed north.   For as big of an area as this appears to be on the map, there aren’t a ton of communities in all of that off-white goodness.

Before we started looking in person, we had narrowed it down (based on distance alone) to six primary towns.  We also knew that we really wanted to rent a house.  Once we were married, we had accumulated over $100,000 in debt between the two of us (student loans, cars, credit cards, etc.)  Yeah, THAT’S a post for another day, for sure.  The Lord totally spoke to us regarding our debt, as did Dave Ramsey, and we had spent the last four years of our marriage getting out of debt and we weren’t really ready to jump in again with a big ole house payment.  Plus, we weren’t completely sure this was where we’d permanently be for more than a year, so it just seemed like renting made the most sense.  Those two things were pretty much the only qualifications we had for the Lord…rent and close to the chosen sale barns.

We started our journey in Wray, Colorado where some friends of ours lived.  They did their best to find us some places to look at but we learned there, and moreso as the week went on, that there were very few rental properties in the area and the ones that were available, were for sale at the same time.  We weren’t completely excited about that because we’d have to hit the road when they wanted to show the place and then find somewhere else to move if it did sell.

We looked in several communities in Nebraska and a couple in Kansas, none of which had much to offer.  Everything we did find that was empty was for sale, so we started shifting our thinking a bit.  Quickly, renting didn’t even seem to be an option….so….what next?

I remember going back to our room that night and just being shell-shocked.  Buying a house hadn’t even been on our radar.  I thought we’d find decent enough rentals and just have to be picky on the community, sign the papers, pay some money, go get our things and move in.  Not exactly.  We just continually asked the Lord to show us the place…the town…the house…the plan.

On our third day in, we felt a little defeated.   There were no rentals out there and of the towns and houses that we had looked at that were for sale, none of them feel right.  I remember leaving this cute little place in Bird City, Kansas and thinking, I guess I just never imagined giving someone directions to my house and it being in town.  Yet, I never asked the Lord for anything different.

The only place on our list of six that we hadn’t looked was Holyoke, Colorado.  The day was drawing to a close…it was going to be a little after 4:00 pm when we pulled in, so we debated even going.  The friend we were staying with during this house-hunting expedition needed a transfer needle from the vet clinic and has asked if we could pick one up while we were out and about.  We hadn’t done that yet, so we figured we could drive into town, get a needle, take a peak around, feel confused/defeated and then head home to regroup…again…

How in the World Did We Get Here: Part 2

We tossed the sheets in the wash, locked the doors and headed eight hours south to Booker, Texas.  One of our good friends from college worked as the head cattle buyer at the plant and had told the owners about Wrex.  With the drought hitting so hard in Texas, they knew cow numbers would soon be short and that they’d need to expand their buying circle.  They wanted to get a northern buyer trained and in place, but weren’t in just a huge hurry to do so; they wanted it to be the right kind of person.  Unfortunately, the cow buying business has it’s fair share of crooks and traders and this company had worked been working for a few years on cleaning up their buyer staff.

There are several owners and shareholders and only a few of them live around the Booker area.  As the Lord would have it, Wrex got to meet several out of staters, including a fellow Nebraskan.  That pretty much sealed the deal!  HA!  Kidding…but I’m sure it didn’t hurt.  Those Huskers gotta stick together…  It wasn’t a formal interview, but he was there most of the morning; a good four hours or so.  We ate lunch, said our goodbyes and then continued on to visit my side of the family.

For years, we’d talked about the possibility of him buying cows for an outfit; it’s a job that he’d been groomed for his entire life.  We didn’t have any doubts that he’d enjoy the work and he felt like things went well, but we left not knowing exactly what they were thinking.

We had a good time seeing my parents and brother and then traveled further south to see my mom’s extended family.  We don’t get down there often enough just because of time, money and distance, so it was nice to be able to have a few extra days with them.  It’s hard to have “time off” when you help run a farming/ranching operation so this was, by far, the longest visit we’d had with them since we’d been married.

They were all so sweet and were scurrying around trying to find Wrex a job down there, which would’ve been a-ok with me, bearing I could hack that heat and humidity.  I have gobs of incredible memories tied to their little area of Texas.  At the time, my grandma had already been moved into an assisted living facility and her house was on the market, as she wouldn’t be going back.  We got to stay there for what would be the last time – an incredibly bittersweet thing for me.  Talk about memories being bound to a place…we spent every Christmas and summer there since I was born and Wrex and I were married on their acreage.  It was hard to leave and at the time, every fiber of my being was just screaming for a job there so we could buy the house and keep the place alive, but it wasn’t meant to be.  I’ll always cherish that piece of our trip and I most definitely view it as a sweet little gift that the Lord gave me in the midst of an erratic time in our lives.

Once in Oklahoma, the Lord was so faithful!  We were really beginning to wonder what our next move was.  We knew we had to go back to Colorado for a few days, but then what?  He just showed us time and time again that He wasn’t absent from the process.  From people calling with words (rhemas) for us or the message at church we felt led to attend one Sunday morning that was titled, “What to do in the time of transition.”  Yeah.  That was us…and He was with us.

That Monday, Wrex got a phone call that ended in a job offer from the packing plant in Booker; they wanted him to come on as their northern cattle buyer.  He’d train in Texas for three months and then move up north and establish himself…somewhere.  They would give him a set of barns he was to buy in on a weekly basis, but he would be able to determine the specific community in which to settle.

After a day’s worth of prayer, we felt full release for him to take the job!  It felt so right and like a huge, heavy weight had been lifted off of our shoulders.  They settled on a start date, we hit the road back to Colorado to tie up a few more loose ends and grabbed a few little necessities out of storage – like a crib and a bed and a kitchen table – so that we could make ourselves at home in Texas….again.

****Part 3 is my favorite – stay tuned!****

How in the World Did We Get Here: Part 1

Our little, ole farm house is all tucked snuggly under a blanket of snow this morning as fresh flakes are starting to fall again.  Let it be known that I don’t mind that one bit.  In my book, if it’s gonna be cold it might as well snow.

Not a creature was stirring...
Not a creature was stirring…

We’ve lived here two and a half years although it doesn’t feel near that long.  Earlier this morning, I was reflecting on how exactly we got here.  It was all Him, friends.

Wrex worked for a family company in Denver that had their fingers (successfully) in quite a few niches; ear tags, farming, purebred cattle, show goats, horses.  He had an active role in each of those endeavors and thus worked A LOT.   The situation wasn’t ideal and became less so after Sawyer was born.  A lot of mornings, Wrexy left before she was awake and came home after she was in bed and that was definitely not how we wanted to raise our family.  It would’ve been different if it was our land or our cattle or our company and we were investing this time and energy into something for our future generations, but that wasn’t the case.

So after lots of intense prayer and discussion, we knew that the Lord was calling us away from there.   On his 29th birthday, he gave his one month notice and we stepped out in faith…no job lined up, no place to live (as we were living in company supplied housing), no idea where to go…we just knew that working there was no longer obedience, but that stepping away was. 

We spent our evenings together praying and job hunting and packing.  Our house was nothing fancy but we had made a lot of special memories there.  It was the place we celebrated our first five anniversaries…the place we brought our first baby home to…the place where we hosted friends who became our roommates for a season…the place where we threw card parties and goat dehorning work days and family get togethers.  Even though we knew that our leaving was the right thing to do and that it was what the Lord was asking of us, it still stung a little.  Obedience isn’t always easy…

W spent his days tying up as many loose ends as possible.  By the end of the month, the contents of our home were moved into a storage container and we?  We were jobless and homeless…but not hopeless. 

The job part never really concerned me for several reasons.  One, I knew that we were walking in obedience so I had no doubt that the Lord had something lined up for us; He wouldn’t call us away and then hang us out to dry.  Two, Wrexy has more skills in more different areas than any person I’ve ever met.  I often tell him that he’s handicapped me as a do-er.  If something breaks or isn’t quite right or needs a little finesse, I don’t even try anymore – I just wait for him to get home because he’ll fix it in a jiffy and in a way better manner than I ever could.  Plus, he’s the most loyal, hardest working, social genius on the planet.  And three, I knew that if he had to, he would work two jobs slopping hogs or serving french fries before we ever went hungry.  Before we ever left, he was offered two different jobs, but neither of them had the stamp of the Lord and as hard as it was to say ‘no’ to them, knowing that if we said yes we could stay in the same area, ‘no’ was what we said.

During that first week of our new found homelessness, some of our favorite friends were on vacation and they allowed us to stay in their home.  This was such a huge blessing to us as we finished taking care of last minute business things and fully getting a plan in place for what was next.

We spent a lot of time in the quiet together that week.  It’s a weird feeling, especially for a type A planner to not have a plan…but to know that THE plan was to be obedient to the Lord. There is blessing in obedience – I’ve experienced that richly! I’ve also experienced the consequences of disobedience and I didn’t want to venture there again.

We prayed continually that the Lord would make our schedule for us and that He would provide us with the job that Wrex needed to say ‘yes’ to…wherever that may be.  We knew that He knew our hearts in wanting more family time and He knew our hearts in wanting Wrex to have a job that was rooted in agriculture; a job that wouldn’t find him stuck behind a desk and a job that he enjoyed.  This whole process had happened so fast and was so outside of ourselves that we had no other option but to have hope; confident expectancy in the goodness of God.

As the week was coming to a close, we made plans to visit my family in several parts of Texas and then Wrex’s sister and grandma in Oklahoma and Kansas before heading back to Colorado to finish out a ministry event we were a part of.  We had cleaned up behind ourselves and packed what we needed for a few weeks on the road with a 10 month old, when Wrex got a call that we needed to stop at the tip-top of Texas before we ventured further south; a meat packing plant wanted to meet him and see if he was a fit for their company.  Maybe, just maybe, this was it?

A Biggie and a Boy Baby

Sawyer has always had a pretty intimate prayer life, especially given her age.  She is always quick to pray if she knows someone is sick or needs help or if she’s feeling really grateful.  As a parent, it’s been an incredibly cool thing to watch and foster.

This past week, she’s gotten to witness the Lord answer two prayers – how cool is that?!

The first was a biggie…a friend of ours from church was on a missions trip in Africa and had a pretty major health complication while he was there.  The church sent out an email and our family prayed loyally for him, Sawyer included.  He had a small procedure when he was there, came home early and has had follow up appointments with specialists in the area.  His wife reported yesterday that yet another doctor was stumped as to why he didn’t die while he was gone.  We all know why…because he had a multitude of people storming the gates of heaven for his health…and the Lord heard and acted.

On an incredibly (no really, a waaaaaaaaay smaller, less significant note) we’ve had a missing person around our house.  Sawyer got a dollhouse for Christmas and it came with two infants, which she named “Girl Baby” and “Boy Baby.”

Boy Baby
Boy Baby

Last week, Wryder had “Daddy” in one hand and “Boy Baby” in the other and was scooting all over the house…and then…Boy Baby went missing!  Sawyer had been quite distraught as we had looked for him EVERYWHERE; trashcan(s), diaper genie, wipes container, toy box, under the TV stand, under the chair, in the couch cushions, in the laundry – seriously, EVERYWHERE, with no luck.

Today, after searching some more, she declared that Boy Baby must be in heaven with Jesus and that we should pray for him.  Wrex told her that the Lord knew where he was and that we would pray indeed.  So we offered up a prayer of protection over Boy Baby and we asked the Lord to help us find him.  (Why didn’t we do this sooner?!)

I was laying on the floor playing with Wryder during this whole scene and, I kid you not, about 20 seconds later, I rolled over and looked under the TV stand, as I really felt like that’s the only place he could be (even though we’d already looked) and guess who I saw?  BOY BABY!

A lot of hollering and jumping and praising of the Lord commenced from all of us!  Not because Boy Baby was just that precious or important, but the lesson learned was.  He cares…even about the small things…and He will come to our aid when we petition Him.

These two things have resonated with her greatly and I know they have increased her faith, just as they have mine.  Talk to Him today, friend.  He IS Jehovah Shama…the God who hears.