How did we get here?

This is not the best picture but it is the best one we got of all three of them dressed up and ready for church. Lucas does not like to have his picture taken, still........ Of course I think they are all adorable :)
My mom got the boys these little shirts with ties and they think they are the greatest thing ever. Lane calls them his "preacher clothes" and tells me he is going to preach every time he puts them on. He thinks he wants to be a preacher now since Daddy is............ yep you read that right. You know I am a horrible blogger. I just don' t make the time to do it like I should.
Donny is a preacher, are you surprised? I wasn't, not really. He is not a Pastor of a church yet but he has been preaching when asked at different churches. He surrendered to the call publicly in January. It was a wonderful and emotional thing for me. I knew he was feeling it and knew it was God's will so I was thrilled.
Back in 04-05 when we lived in our home town we had a great church that we loved. We got plugged in and ended up working with the youth. Donny and a friend were the youth leaders and the friend's wife and I helped any way we could. That was such a fun and rewarding time. We loved working with the teens and they all have a special place in our hearts. We knew back then that Donny felt led by God to become a preacher. We talked about it a bit and he said yes he thought he felt it but he didn't think he could do it. (ha! how foolish were we? Like God wouldn't make it possible) So truthfully we kind of ran from it. (hey it is scary!) We had Lane, Donny got another, better paying job, we thought we were going to move and we ended up giving the youth group up. We had signed papers on a house closer to Donny's work, thought we had our house sold and all but then the sale of our house ended up not going through so we had to back out of the one we were buying. So we ended up not moving at that time but some others had stepped up and took over with the youth and honestly we weren't that involved in church any more. Sad and wrong, I know it but it is true, we were running remember?
In 2008 I was pregnant with the twins, we missed a lot of church, we had then moved out to the country (FAR out, I don't know what we were thinking) and the pregnancy was hard and I was so very sick. We weren't plugged in at all. We still had our Jesus and loved him but we were not putting him first. That is heartbreaking but true. Along comes 2 little babies along with our 2 yr old and we weren't leaving the house much at all those days. We were letting the devil win, we were putting everything else ahead of God.
I still had those thoughts of God calling Donny into the ministry in the back of my mind. I missed church, we tried to get back into it but it just didn't work out. We weren't living for Jesus. We weren't working on our relationship with God.
In 2009 we did end up moving closer to Donny's job. We bought a house next door to some friends that had strangely enough been our neighbors YEARS ago back in our home town. We now had no church. We were wondering around in the wilderness, just like the people of Israel in the Old Testament. We knew how great God was, we had felt His mercies and blessings. We knew He had plans for us but yet we wondered........
Our neighbor/friend has 3 girls and it seemed like every time we saw them, those girls would ask us about church. "Mrs. Brooke why don't you come to our church? Why are you staying home?" Let me tell ya, nothing makes you feel worse than kids knowing where you should be when you aren't smart enough to get your crap together and go there yourself. So we let them guilt us in to going a few times. We finally joined but it still took us a lot of time to get plugged in. Honestly I always had it in the back of my mind, wondering about God's plan for us. I didn't think His calling for Donny was just going to go away. I sometimes would look at Donny and wonder why he had ran. Why did he let our family get away from church? That was not healthy. It was not Donny for the most part, it was me. I was the one saying, "It is just so hard with the kids being so little. We will do it when they are a little older, " etc.... It was ME. I am to blame for most of it and I know that. He did try, I failed as a wife, mother and christian. I know that. It bothers me still even though I know I have been forgiven.
You see I was made to be Donny's helper. When I married him I took on that role. I am to support and encourage him and I failed miserably. I let my fears for our future get in the way of God's plan for us. It has taken me a long time to realize this but now I know it's true. So I have hit my knees. I have spent a lot of time in prayer, praying to be a better wife, a better helper. Praying to let my husband always be the leader of our family, the way it should be. I trust him completely.
I have had many people ask me if I knew God was working on Donny to join the ministry and I tell them yes but I don't tell them the whole story. I knew it for years, I knew it back when we were running. I knew it was in his heart, I knew God had put it there. I remember looking at him sometimes and wondering, when.....When was he going to get back to that place? When was he going to let God tell him His plans again? Or better yet when was he going to listen? I kept my mouth shut though because I didn't want to push him. When he felt it again I wanted it to be him feeling it from God, not me pushing it on him. I knew God wasn't done with him. So I decided to work harder on me. I started really reading my Bible and trying to apply it to my life, in every way. I didn't want to read it as a story, I wanted to read it as a instruction manual for my life. I know Donny had to wonder what had gotten into me. I was wanting to have Bible study together instead of watching tv. I was finally listening to him when I turned on the radio in the van and he'd ask to listen to the Christian channel and not something else, which before would bug me. I wasn't "getting" it. I didn't realize God was working on Donny again and me, just separately. I remember being so annoyed when Donny would complain about the music I was listening to, it was JUST country music. Now I see how hardened my heart was and it makes me sad.
God is stronger than little ol' stubborn me though. He wouldn't leave me alone, He knew I was one of his children that He had saved years before and that I had just been wondering on my own, like an idiot. So the Bible got read, every night, no tv, no me reading a stupid book, it was us reading together, talking about all of our stupid decisions we had made because it was US making them without God's insight. I remember thinking, it's coming, I know it's coming. I knew God was working on Donny so strong. We were finally plugged into our church and it felt so good. Donny was once again unhappy with his work, not because it's not a good job, it is a great job, but because it is not leading people to God. It is not doing God's work.
Donny started writing devotionals and sending them out to co-workers. He put a lot of thought into it and loved doing it. It was the only thing that made him happy, as far as work goes. It made me happy to see him so happy. I just stood back and watched with a smile. God is so good. Finally we talked about it. He told me what he was feeling, I told him I knew. :) We prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed..... He talked to our old pastor, our new pastor, our associate pastor. He didn't tell anyone until he was sure that it was preaching that the Lord wanted him to do, there are many other VERY important jobs and I think he was kind of holding on to that thinking, maybe it was one of those things but it wasn't. It was preaching, he finally came forth before our church and told everyone. We were showered with hugs, well wishes and prayers. Our preacher told him he could preach in a week and a half on a Sunday night....that was scary! It ended up being Super bowl Sunday, that calmed our nerves a bit, we thought a lot of people may miss, we were wrong! HAHA! Most everyone from church came, along with a lot of our family to hear Donny's first sermon and show us their love and support. God got him through it though as we knew He would. He is now in seminary and we travel and he preaches where he is asked. It feels good to not be wondering anymore and to be listening to what God wants and putting Him first. God is so good to love us through our wondering and our ignorance. He never stopped loving us and He never moved away, we did. He is always there for us and we just need to let Him be there and first in line above all else.

Ask and you shall receive

We had a wonderful Christmas. Here are the kids blowing out the candles on the birthday cake that we baked for Jesus. This is one of the traditions that we have started with our kids to do every year for Christmas. When teaching them that Christmas was about celebrating Jesus' birth they said, "He needs a birfday cake!" so now He gets a birthday cake every year. They love it and we enjoy singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. We decided we would not do Santa Clause. We just didn't want it to be about him. My kids still got gifts and had plenty of fun. I just get sick of all the Santa hype and that is not what it is about to our family. This did upset some people close to us but they got over it. I think they quickly realized that Christmas can be enjoyed without Santa.
Have I blogged about adoption on here? Hmmm I don't remember. I know I stink at blogging. Life just gets in the way, and that is okay, but I do want to do better. Back in the summer after MUCH prayer we felt like God was telling us to add to our family through adoption of foster child/children. I prayed for a while, then came to Donny about it and we both prayed. When we both said yes that we felt like it was something we are suppose to do I talked with a friend of mine online that has been through it. She got me in touch with a sweet lady from The CALL in Arkansas and I found out that while we had missed the information meeting that they do that makes things SOOO much easier for you, that she, being the sweet lady she is could come over and talk with us, give us the paper work and we could get things rolling. So we met, got the paper work and ran around like crazy people the next day to get all of the papers notarized, fingerprints taken, etc to turn in THAT day so we could be signed up for the training coming up. It all came together beautifully though. We ran all over town with our 3 kids in tow and when people doing the notarizing and fingerprinting, etc saw what we were doing it for they all wondered which of those 3 kids we were adopting :) haha Nope those already belong to us.
I suppose it is unheard of to want more than 3 kids, lol. Well we didn't get that memo.
So we got that done, went through the training which takes 2 weekends, of full day training and have been waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, trying to be patient. I am not so good at being patient. I pray for patience and please don't say, "NOOO never pray for patience! If you do that the Lord will give you hard times to make you patient!" I say poo on that. God knows my prayers before they are spoken, he knows what I need, if I need trials to make me patient than so be it :) (I do have two 3 yr olds and one 5 yr old, so plenty of chances)
So as time goes on I start to worry. Worrying is a sin that I struggle with, daily, hourly, by the minute....... Can I handle more children? Can we afford more children? What if something happens to me? We already have 3 children that someone would have to care for but to add to it, is that ok? What if something happened to Donny, would I go nuts? Are my children going to be able to handle having more brothers/sisters? Even though they are very excited and want more children in the family very badly. Will Donny and I EVER get alone time again? and much, much more. I still worry. I do. I hate it but I do.
So I prayed. I spent a nap time in prayer asking for God's help. Asking if this was truly God's will would He let me know, because we felt so strongly it was in the beginning but after months of waiting you begin to wonder. I prayed that His will be done. That evening when Donny came in he brought in the mail as always and announced, "Our CPR certified cards came in." I giggled and said, "Well maybe that is my sign," then told him of my struggle and my praying. With a big smile and laugh Donny said, "Oh you will love what else we got today then," and he laid a paper for an orphanage called "All God's Children" down and the bar. Ask and you shall receive I suppose :)
We have our first home study scheduled for Thursday so I ask for your prayers. I am very nervous and excited at the same time. I am mostly nervous that the social worker will see my children jumping all over me and run away saying no way do you need more. God has a plan for us though. I think He has a special child that is meant to be with our family, maybe more than one :)