{Hope}

As we celebrated our {first Thanksgiving} holiday in our {first} house I was overwhelmed with Thankfulness....

Thankful to have a house of our own,

Thankful for a safe, beautiful place to raise our family,

Thankful for a husband who loves me & sees my heart & who I was made to be,

Thankful for 3 sweet boys we are so blessed to call our sons,

Thankful for our parents who love & support us,

Thankful for friends that encourage us & love us as family,

Thankful that all our basic needs are met every month without fail,

Thankful for the opportunities and talents God has blessed us with,

Thankful for this beautiful life in all it's craziness, stress, messiness and failures.

And so very thankful for a God who loves us so deeply and gives us HOPE for our days ahead.


I am so so excited to now celebrate our first Christmas in our house...to start some more of our own traditions and teach our children what this season is all about.

Before we had children we knew we would not do Santa with them. I do not believe that Santa is a bad guy or that he represents anything bad, but I do not believe he represents Christmas. We want to raise our kids knowing the true meaning of Christmas, to celebrate the Hope that was born into this world, to understand that this is a time to remember the greatest gift ever given, Jesus.

Our children have been born into a world where we are all searching for hope and security. We are searching in all the wrong places...a perfect job, a perfect home, a large bank account, the right president, drugs or relationships...whatever it may be. Our hope is not found in any of these empty pursuits. The beautiful thing? Hope IS here. Hope arrived thousands of years ago in the form of a little baby born in a stable. The very first gift on the very first Christmas.

That hope came when our world was not perfect and it continues to come into our now not so perfect lives. It comes into our messy lives and brings life, security, love....anything and everything we are looking to fulfill.

I am so thankful that God gave us the gift of his Son on that night so long ago and I am so excited to teach our kids what it is all about.

I pray this season is filled with wonder in a God who loves us so deeply and that it is celebrated joyfully in remembrance of the gift that Jesus truly is.

{a story of love}

This is a story of love. One that is kept secret, misunderstood, misused, shouted from the roof tops, lived and died for....it is our story.

I am a Christian. 

{If you are not or if the very word makes you want to stop reading right now, please keep reading}.

The word "Christian" carries so many meanings to many people. It can be a word that brings memories of hate, of unacceptance, of fear.

Unfortunately that is not what Jesus intended for his followers, Christians, to do. Jesus is about love. He is about acceptance.

During this election I have seen many hateful comments from other Christians on the topics of gay rights & abortion especially.

I don't want to get into what is "right" and what is "wrong"---is it my place anyway? No. What I want to stress is that it DOES NOT MATTER what other people choose to do with their lives. We {as Christians} are not called to tell other people what to do, what we are called to do is to LOVE & ACCEPT, because isn't that exactly what Jesus did for us?

We might not see things the same way, but I love you. God loves you. 

I was not always a Christian. I have always been a sinner {and still am}. But, I have always been loved by God. Same goes for each and every person on this planet.

When I chose to follow in Jesus's footsteps I just finished my freshman year of college. I finally saw an acceptance and love I had longed for my whole life. No matter what I do, no matter who I am, God loves me. I learned this while working at a camp for kids with disabilities. They loved me as God did. They didn't care what I had done right or wrong in my life, to them I was valuable and worth loving despite any of it. It still brings me to tears when I think of the way these kids showed the Lord's love to me.

And that is just the point. This is a story of love. 

"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world."

-Mother Teresa

If we want God to be represented through our lives, we need to start loving people where they are. 

I want to say sorry to you if you have ever been treated without love or respect by a Christian. I want to say sorry if that Christian was ever me.

We are human. We fail. But, God never changes. His love is beyond us, beyond our understanding, unconditional and life changing. If you have never had the chance to experience that kind of love I pray that you would, because God deeply loves every person on this earth and desires to have a relationship with us right where we are.

Without a doubt, finding this love, finding a God who loved me like this has been the single most utterly life changing thing I have ever experienced. 

This is a story of LOVE.