Journey of Faith Friday- Music

This week's journey of faith Friday is about sharing the lyrics of a song and how God used it when you most needed them.

The song 'Blessed be your name' greatly touched me and Steve after Andrew passed away. It is based on the bible verse Job 1:21 and how Job chose to still praise the Lord at a time when he had lost everything.
 
When we were making the arrangements for Andrew's memorial service I remember the pastor asking us if we wanted any songs played. Steve and I looked at each other and we instantly both said the same song- Blessed be your name. There was no other song that came to our minds that day.
 
So we played this at our little Andrew's service and I think of him every time I hear it.
 
Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Imperfect

Jack's birthday is around the corner on Sept 14th. I can't believe my little tiny newborn will already be turning one! I know time will only continue to fly by (sniff, sniff).

I've been thinking about what to do for his birthday party for a couple of months now. You may know that I never had a baby shower for Jack when I was pregnant with him. It's not that I didn't want to celebrate new life, the thought of a baby shower was just really difficult after losing Andrew.

But then we didn't really celebrate his 'baby dedication' at our church either. Many of our inmediate family members were not able to come to the dedication due to a last minute family emergency. I was sad that we didn't get to celebrate with our loved ones that day. I had been looking forward to his dedication for a really long time.

So with all of this, I really wanted to go all out for Jack's first birthday. In fact I wanted it to be so perfect that a couple of months ago I decided I needed to learn how to bake cupcakes for his party. Now I've never made cupcakes before so Jack and I drove over to Michael's thinking that would be a good start.

I must've looked really lost to a lady that morning, who after 20 minutes of watching me aimlessly walk and forth down the cupcake aisle finally had the courage to ask me if 'I needed help'- ha! I inmediately told her I really wanted to make cupcakes but had no idea where to start. She laughed with me and helped me find what I needed that morning.

Now I practiced baking cupcakes a couple of times with little success. For some reason they come out flat yet my kitchen ends up really messy!

Now last month when we got Jack's order of his birthday invitations I noticed the address was incorrect. I couldn't believe it! I was really irritated for some reason (by the way the error had been on our part and not the company that printed them). The invitation should've had 'River Rapids' instead of 'Rapids'.

The invitations reminded me of how imperfect things are. After prayer and trying to surrender it, I thought of my little boy Andrew and how he is still a part of me today.

He once again reminded me of what's important. I remembered how I felt on July 14, 2009 and the deep longing I had to hold and kiss Andrew on his one year old birthday- I would've given up anything to have him. I remember thinking how one year in comparison to 10 days- is a really, really long time.

And so I stopped worrying about having this perfect party for Jack. I had built this unrealistic expectation in my mind of what it should be like. Honestly I'm not able to 'do it all'. I can't bake well and I'm not very crafty. I probably won't be making handmade decorations as so many of my gifted friends do. There won't be homemade cupcakes or monogrammed decorations at his party. And today I am completely ok with that :) Perhaps one day I'll get better at baking as I'll continue to practice as Jack grows up.

But I am good at organizing, decorating, and enjoying time with my husband and little boy. I will try to do that on that day, and I hope just for a few moments of good laughter and memories with them.

I don't want this party to be centered around Jack and how wonderful he is. I want this day to be a day of praise and gratitude to the Lord for he has abundantly given to us and fulfilled a great desire of our hearts with a little brother to Andrew. He's given Jack strength and health so far, and for that we are glad. I hope Jack grows up knowing that this day is really not about him, but about thanking the One who sustains us.

Ok sorry for my sappy ending. I am so glad that I haven't fretted since then about planning Jack's party. It will turn out however it turns out. And lately Jack has switched from two naps to one nap a day from about 11-1pm. So at this rate he'll be sleeping through his own party- ha ha!

One more note- There were many wonderful and dear friends we were not able to invite. Steve has a lot of family on both his mom and dad's side so it left little room to invite a lot of people. Not that his party is that important, I just hope no one gets their feeling hurt.

I will be posting a lot over the next week or so, and tomorrow hope to post a picture of Jack laughing in the bathtub :)

Journey of Faith Friday- Surrendering

Ok, I know I am a sucker for the journey of faith Fridays posts- but I really enjoy sharing these stories! Looking back at the times the Lord has come through for me in the past encourages me to not lose hope when facing trials today. I hope this story will be of encouraging for someone out there, as encouraging as it is for me to look back and reflect on this.

The theme this week is to share ‘about a time you surrendered something/someone to the Lord’. I am excited to share this week’s story with my husband’s permission...

In Sept of 2007 Steve purchased an Allstate insurance agency. We had been praying about this decision for a long time and were very excited it was finally happening. We were also nervous as this was a step in faith for both of us! Steve would be his own boss for the first time, but he would also have the weight of running a business on his shoulders.

For the first three months he was required to write $20,000 worth of insurance premium. If he didn't I thought he would be forced to sell the agency or it'd be taken away in some form.

I was anxious about Steve meeting his goal and would often volunteer my advice on what I thought he should do.

Come the end of the first month= $0 in premium.

In the second month I started to become more nagging and controlling.I would sometimes call Steve at his office to tell him how he must not be doing something right. It was a very frustrating and stressful time for both of us.

Towards the end of the second month, I remember a day in which Steve told me he did not appreciate the way I had been acting towards him and to please let it go. I apologized to him for the first time and as soon as he hung up the phone I started crying. I had done everything in my power to try to make things happen, but obviously things weren’t working out as I wanted them to. It was almost the end of the second month and he had barely written $1,000 in premium.

As I sat there crying there that afternoon in the international mall parking lot, I remember asking the Lord to please take charge of his business and change my nagging attitude.

Now I don't know what was so different about that day. I had prayed every day for the past two months for God to help him with his business, but nothing had changed before then. The only thing that was different about that day was my cry. Literally tears flowing down.

I cried out to the LORD in my great trouble, and he answered me. Jonah 2:2
When I was in trouble, I cried out to the LORD, and he answered me Psalm 120:1

Maybe the bible is straightforward about the 'crying' part. Or maybe the tears where just an outward symptom of my brokeness inside. Whatever it was, I was finally able to surrender his business that day.

Over the next month I respected Steve’s business decisions and stopped telling him what to do. There were many times when I bit my tongue and kept asking God for help to continue to leave it at his feet (believe me there were  times when I wanted to take it back!)

Well low and behold Steve not only met the $20,000 premium that last month but he exceeded it. It only took him one month! Truly it was nothing short of a miracle.

Steve did not do anything radically different- the Lord just really came through for us.

I am always amazed at God’s faithfulness when I finally surrender things to him.

Organic on a budget

Just wanted to share this Saturday Village Health Market is having a 20% off sale storewide. While I shop at Publix for our weekly grocery, I only buy our poultry and meats at VHM since they have some great prices!

Organic Chicken Breast
Publix = $6.99/lb
Village Health Market= $3.99
with 20% off discount= $3.20/lb!!

Organic Ground Chicken
Publix= $5.16/lb
Village Health Market= $1.99
with 20% discount= $1.60/lb!

VHM also sells organic ground turkey (not available at Publix), organic meats, and wild salmon. They are located in South Tampa off Macdill, about a block south of bay to bay.

And as a tip on how to make food just a bit healthier- whenever I make meatsauce with pasta I often substitute the ground round beef with ground turkey- it has 40% less fat than the meat and it tastes pretty similar. Steve who does not like to eat anything with the term 'organic' attached to it because he automatically equates it to 'Pretty bad tasting' even loves the ground turkey instead of the beef!
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On a separate note a quick update on our family:

My mother in law Patti is recuperating well from her surgery yesterday. And praise the Lord they did not find any cancer as originally suspected! What a huge relief and blessing to our family. Thank you to all who prayed for her.

Also Jack is back to his old self from the stomach bug he had last week. He only had it for about a day, but was not himself really for a couple of days afterwards. Glad to have my little boy back!

He just started saying 'ma-ma' well yesterday when he is looking for me, and now says it all the time for everything- ha ha!