Confession

I mentioned a few months ago that God decided to change some of the plans we had.   Those changes caused somewhat of a domino effect in our lives, changing the direction of our plans for the future.  I guess it is time to confess what the main change is.  We are not only are we putting an addition on our house, we are also adding an addition to our family.   Mr. E and I are excited to meet the new little "E" sometime in the fall. 

Early in January,  I felt like God was telling me to pray for a child, so I did.  He brought the verse, I Samuel 1:27, "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him." to my mind.  I don't know why, it isn't a verse that I had memorized, but I had seen it several times.  He also put it on Mr. E's heart as well, although neither one of us mentioned it to the other one for a week or so.  The Lord didn't take long to answer our prayers and those prayers continue as the baby grows.  I sometimes wonder why God has chosen to give us a child (it's scary to think of me as a mom, there are far more qualified people!), but we are extremely blessed that He did!  It is one of the best changes of plans that I've ever had! :)

Mother's Day

I have the best mom.  I know I wrote a post a few months ago about my family and mentioned how great my mom is, but it is definitely worth talking about again.  I call her all the time, asking all kinds of questions because I think she knows something about everything.  I still have yet to figure out how she does everything that she does.  She is a great wife, mom, teacher, author, quilter, gardener, household manager (that's a broad category!) and a bunch of other things, the list could go on and on.  She loves all of us kids very much and although we aren't perfect and can be aggravating :), she still loves us anyway.  Her attitude through the adversity in her life is amazing, leaning on the Lord through things that I don't know that I would be able to handle as well as she does. I would consider my mom the best mentor in my life, spiritually and in the everything else.  She is a great example to me and I hope that I will be just like her.  However, she does set the bar high as a mom.

This post doesn't do her justice, but hopefully it gives her a little credit for all she has done for me. I'm so thankful that God gave her to me as my mom.

Addition in Pictures

Mr. E and friends have been working so hard on this addition! I'm impressed with all that they have accomplished.  Here are pictures of the progress over the past month or so. 

4 years ago

I just looked through my past May blog posts and I never have blogged about this day.  I mentioned it once but didn't really expound.  This was the day in 2009 that I married Jared.  It is hard to believe that it has been four years.  These kinds of days are still very much etched in my brain.  I can still remember vivid details about this day.  I've heard that a lot of people don't remember their wedding day and refer to it all as blur, but that isn't the case for me.  However, the one thing that has changed in past four years is that I don't dread these days.  I first remembered that this day was approaching this past Saturday.  I was on a mini road trip by myself and one of Carrie Underwood's songs, "Just a Dream" began to play on my iTunes, the chorus always takes me back to those early days after Jared went to heaven....

Baby why'd you leave me
Why'd you have to go?
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
I can't even breathe
It's like I'm looking from a distance
Standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream

Sometimes it does seem like it was all a dream, but I know it wasn't.  There are too many memories and "scars" (that isn't the right word, but it is all I can come up with tonight) for it to have been a dream. I have very conflicting thoughts when it comes to days like today.  I am so blessed and happy in my life now and I wouldn't change anything about it.  However, it is hard not to think about my other life on days like today.  Someone told me about a lady who recently lost her high school aged teenage son.  She said something along the lines of....

His days were numbered before he was born. 
God never planned for him to graduate from high school.
She was never going to see him get married.
He was never going to have children.
and God knew all of these things before he was born.

I can say things that are similar.  My life as Jared's wife was only going to be 10 weeks.  That was all God ordained for us.  We would never have children together.  We would never grow old together.  I think you get the point.  However, I still am thankful that I have this day to remember.  I wouldn't have wanted to have the alternative of never knowing Jared.  Also, God has been so good to me and I've learned so much about Him that I wouldn't ever trade it all.

I am also incredibly thankful that God allowed me get married again and Lord willing, we will have long life together, creating our own memories that we will be able to look back on............together.

What to say?

I don't know if everyone who blogs has this dilemma, but lately I've really struggled with what to write about when I sit down to blog.  This blog initially began to help me think through things going on in my life after Jared went to heaven.  Then, as my emotions began to level out a bit, I began to write more about things that I was doing, what was happening in my life, while still writing about the different things that God was showing and teaching me in my life.  Now, I'm struggling with what to say.  Much of the reason stems from the fact that I have a wonderful husband with whom I can talk.  I don't necessary need an outlet, such as this blog, to help me sort through my thoughts, I have him.  I could still write about what God is showing and teaching me, but lately that has been the same thing......trusting Him. I know, I've written about that before, but I'm hard-headed.  Lord willing, one of these days I will take it to heart!  I could also write about all the happenings of the E family, but I know that isn't very exciting and I'm really not sure if I want to do that anyway because this is a public blog that anyone in the world can read.  So, in other words, I'm just not sure what direction I should go with this blog and maybe I don't need to change anything. Perhaps I just need to continue as I have, I just don't know.  Maybe my problems come from writer's block, although I don't really consider myself a writer.  Anyway, that's where I'm at right now, looking for some clarity. 

Failure

This past week, I accompanied Mr. E on a two day business trip.  When we leave on a trip I'm in charge of packing.  This time I didn't do the best job of it.  I didn't pack a jacket for Mr. E or pack him the right pants and I forgot toothpaste.  Goodness gracious!  I felt like such a failure as a wife.  I kept apologizing to him until he looked at me and told me to stop because it was no big deal.  I have such a wonderful, forgiving husband.

However, this scenario got me thinking and I asked myself this question.... Do I feel as badly when I sin against God as I did when I "failed" my husband.  I had to be honest, I don't think I do.  Yes, there is the initial prick of conscience and then confession of sin but do I really feel that badly?  I don't know that I think about how God feels when I sin.  I knew that forgetting Mr. E's jacket made him cold yesterday morning and he had to suffer because of my neglectfulness.  When I sin, do I think about the consequences, how God feels, how it grieves Him?  I'm good at confessing my sin and then think, "well, that's done, " and go on without thinking how much it grieves our Father in Heaven when we don't obey him.  Thankfully, when we do sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, (1 John 1:9).  What am I going to take away from what I learned this week?  I know that God will forgive me of my sins but I also need to think twice about my sin, learn from what I have done and strive to be more like Christ. 

Getting somewhere

A lot more work goes into laying a cement foundation than I ever thought. First Mr. E had to pack down all the dirt, using a handy dandy machine.  He had tried to dig the footers before packing it down and it was just caving in.  After all the footers were dug, which were all done by hand by Mr. E, he put it all the re-bar for reinforcement.  He then drove spikes into the existing foundation to tie the new and the old together so the two buildings don't separate.  After all that preparation, the cement finally arrived yesterday.  We had some concrete guys come and do the actual finishing work.  We now have a cement slab and we can be begin to put the walls up.  Finally, it looks like we are getting somewhere.  I really shouldn't say "we", Mr. E has done the majority of the work with some help from people other than me.  I'm amazed at how well he did everything, considering this is all new to him.  The concrete guys even offered him a job, they'd never seen a more perfect job. That's my man!