The Easter Bunny Came!

Here are some photos from my time in my home town with my family for Easter:

Hubby and I on Easter Sunday

My adorable parents 

Game time! (sister Rach grinning) 

I won this game! (I'm the yellow) 

My mom never fails to feed us way too much good food. 

Brothers: My hubby, and Rachel's hubby Nathan :)

Molly's first Easter

I think she likes her pretty Easter dress! 

so cute! 

alright, this is the the last one. At least of my family, I'll do another post for my crafting while I was there! I just had to show you how Molly crosses her ankles like a lady, cause it's so cute!

Hope you all had a very blessed Easter celebrating that our Lord is risen, risen indeed! And that through that truth we know that by grace, through faith, in Christ, we will be risen and know eternal life too!

Thank you Jesus! 

Life lessons.

Life is so silly, how one simple thing can poke and prod at our hearts disturbing our default mode of simply slipping through the day to day with little to no change. This evening I was gently reminded (certainly by the Holy Spirit) of what a prideful hypocrite I can be, and I am so thankful the Lord stopped me through one simple moment raking leaves to humble me.

You see, my husband is out of town on business and I am left to do all the nasty laborious chores he normally takes while he is here. Today, it was raking the yard. Leaves were everywhere, and I had some gloves, a small rake and some kitchen garbage bags. I jumped into the job with enthusiasm and as I made my way from side yard to the front, I thought to myself, "My neighbors must see me out here raking. I wonder what they must be thinking." My first guess was that they would wonder why Michael (who usually does the yard work) isn't raking the yard or carrying around a leaf-blower or doing something manly.

But my thoughts didn't stop there, as I noticed other neighbors out walking/playing with their children, carrying in groceries, etc. I sat there (piling leaves into bags) thinking they must just love having me as a neighbor! From what I've heard, the last tenant was not respectful of the property and ended up costing our landlord a lot of money. I figured the neighbors must love having a pretty yard to look at and love the fact that my husband and I are generally quiet, we don't do drugs, and don't have yappy/aggressive/big/stupid/whatever kind of dogs to poop in other people's yards. Furthermore, I thought, I'm not like this and such neighbor with this and such problem, and I went on and on in my head justifying what a wonderful person I am and how wonderful it must be to live next to me.

As I told myself that I respect my yard more than the neighbors across me because I'm raking my yard, I looked up to see the mom of that house handing her boys rakes. Conviction shot through me as I gaped at the little boys serving their mother by helping to pick the leaves/fruit that had fallen from their trees. I felt a push on my heart that what I had just been saying to myself was a pack of lies, that something evil, my own sin had been speaking to me, stroking my ever dangerously-large ego. Judgement had taken over because of some leaves accumulated on a person's yard, so very quickly I had elevated myself for the very purpose of looking down my nose at the "less worthy" neighbors that must be "such a burden" for their landlord.

Oh shame. Shame, Lizzy, that you do not love like Christ. Shame that you do not desire to serve, but only desire to be noticed and called great. Shame that you are impatient, so far from the Lord, our God, slow to anger and abounding in love.

These small things in life that bring me to a low place, these are the discipline of the Lord. Thank you Lord for your loving discipline! For disturbing my every day pattern of exalting myself.

Happy 2 Year Anniversary!

My love and I celebrated 2 years of happy union this week, and I just thought I would reflect on what a blessing it has been to be married to this man!

First off- marriage is a wonderful creation made by God to reflect his glory. Woman was created to complete man- to make God's creation finished and "good." It is a wonderful task to live out a reflection of the relationship God shares with himself in the Trinity as well as the relationship Jesus has with his Bride- the church.

It has been an especially edifying experience to share my life exclusively with one man- to be so vulnerable, to be so very humble in a relationship that I choose to honor their good and happiness before my own. I have learned through being married what a wretched sinner I am and how I cannot hide that fact from someone I am so close to. Marriage has taught me how wonderful grace is and how horrifying bitterness can be.

Marriage to Michael, my wonderful husband, has challenged me to grow more towards extroversion than my default mode of complete introversion. He has gently pushed me to speak more, to love lots of company, and to not be so afraid of new adventures. He encourages me to be creative and share my ideas and creations with others. Marriage to Michael means I am not ashamed to be myself, to be silly, and to play my music shamelessly. Marriage to Michael is lots of prayer, time in the word, humble correction, a life with Godly friends and their awesome wisdom, service in ministry, lots of practice and service for Worship team, and a general understanding that the direction of our life is completely in the Lord's hands.

Here is the card I made Michael for our anniversary. I think it looks very bridal

And here is the flowers my amazing husband brought home from work on our anniversary :)

And now for the story of the thank you card in my last post: We were invited over to a friends house (from church) the night of our anniversary for dessert and a little dip in the hot tub. When we got there they discovered it was our anniversary, and insisted they serve us, make us lovely cocktails and have the hot tub to ourselves that night. It was so sweet of them to do that, and we were so blessed just to have time alone that night with our drinks and lovely jets. So we simply had to thank them profusely and my husband asked me to make them a card with a ribbon for "Friends of the Year." I didn't think that would all fit very neatly into my little circle, so I just put a big 1, and told them they won 1st place for the coolest friends.

It is just so clear to me that they understand how important celebrating marriage and the milestones in it is- they clearly showed us by their service they long for God's glory in our marriage and desired that we strengthen it by an unexpectedly romantic evening to ourselves :)

And to cap off the celebrations: We're having a very fancy dinner tonight at a floating restaurant over the Couer d alene lake!

A Means of Grace

I thought I would share a very special story that recently had a beautiful ending in mine and my husband's life. About 2 months ago Michael and I were thrown a terrible curve ball as Michael got terribly sick and ended up in the ICU within 8 hours of first showing symptoms.

It all started with me leaving town to help my mom with her private voice studio. I drove 2 hours away to my home town and was about to have dinner with my parents when I got a phone call from one of my husband's good friends. He simply said he was in the emergency room with my husband and needed his social security # because Michael was too busy puking to fill out the necessary paperwork. It turns out Michael had been vomiting for 3 hrs straight at this point and the friend couldn't fill out the paperwork not because Michael was puking, but because Michael had no idea what his address, social security number, phone number and other things were- he was incapable of answering such questions

In the mean time, I assumed it was some sort of really bad case of food poisoning, packed up and left my parents for the 2 hour drive home. This whole drive I tried to keep calm, thinking he must just need an IV to rehydrate, and we would be home that night. Michael got hooked up immediately to all sorts of things including an IV as well as different antibiotics to fight the doctor's number one suspicion at the emergency room- that he had meningitis. He was given a spinal tap, draining his spinal fluid to test for meningitis, and also an MRI by the time I arrived at the emergency room.

It was such a strange thing to see the man I loved so very far from how I left him. He was on a bed, writhing in pain from a migraine, puking every 5 minutes, and speaking as if he had just had a stroke. At some points he was better than others, but there were times when his motor skills to speak the thoughts he had were completely gone and he couldn't ask for something as simple as a paper towel to wipe the vomit from his chin. I was terrified, overwhelmed, and so confused as to why this was all happening to us- so quickly and so scary!

The doctors came in to inspect his symptoms, and said they had suspected it was meningitis, but the spinal fluid came back normal, so now they were just puzzled. The moved him to ICU for overnight, and I called both my mother and mother-in-law asking them to come help me. I had absolutely no idea what to do, what to tell the doctors, and I was the closest relative.

After the first night in the ICU, another MRI and a CT scan, Michael improved. Around 3 in the morning I was able to go in and see him, and he started speaking more like himself. One of the first signs that he was going to be alright was when he looked over at me and winked. I knew he was still in there somewhere. Nurses were great to us in the ICU, and while I was very relieved that doctors thought he was well enough to be moved to a regular hospital room, I was sad to leave the wonderful care of those nurses.

In the meantime, we had a huge outpouring of love, prayers and concern from family members, friends, and our church. My mothers both came to keep my company and help me stay sane in the hospital. Doctors still had no idea what suddenly struck Michael, but after one more night in a regular hospital room Michael was released with no diagnosis.

His official list of symptoms included a terrible debilitating migraine, nausea, vomiting, fever, elevated white blood cell count, and confusion.

Doctors best guess- A complex migraine?

We went home and I did my best to convince Michael to take it easy and take as much time as he needed to fully recover. We prayed knowing that eventually the bills from that horrible 72 hours would arrive and begin to pile up. Many were very worried for us because we do not have health insurance. My husband works as a paid intern at a farm credit union, but gets no benefits, no health insurance, not even vacation days. So, we put our faith in the Lord and asked all those who prayed for Michael's health to pray for God's provision for the bills.

Sure enough, in the coming months, bill after bill after bill arrived in the mail. We contacted the hospital to ask if there was anything, any program that could help people in our position. First the bad news came that we weren't eligible for State funding. Next news was somewhat hopeful as we were informed that there was a program- "In House Funding" from the hospital itself, we are eligible for with our low income. Now came time for filling out the application, coming up with the necessary proof of income, and then the long, arduous wait for the application to go through committees.

In the meantime, our community gave us so much support and love. Several times we were given money, a couple times anonymously from our church. Our pastors prayed faithfully that our bill would be forgiven.

We waited as patiently as possible for the news to arrive until about 2 weeks ago- the letter arrived just as we were heading out for a bbq with some friends from church. I'll never forget the joy and relief I felt as I skimmed to see the words "forgiven 100%" and "bill: O$". In total, around 20k just wiped clean. God is SO faithful to provide! Not only was my husband healthy, but now we owed not a penny for the whole horrible event.

So why is this blog titled, "A Means of Grace"...? Well even though that whole ordeal was frightening and stressful, the Lord has been teaching me a lot about how his grace is most sweet when we truly need it. I love this quote from a commentary on Ruth: "It is the grace of God, which directs the outcomes of those decisions and events according to his sovereignty and good purpose for his people. That grace is not always evident to the players in the game at the time. But it is always there, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged. Ultimately, for Christians, the grace of God is always the defining element of our lives."
You see, because of this event in my life, I now have an increased measure of faith in God as my provider, healer, and comforter. I have seen his grace working to bring me to a low place where I have nothing and do not know what else to do but fall upon his grace.

I praise the Lord that he is more than capable to use the bad for good. He is always working for the good purpose for his people.

Romans 8:28
" And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are callen according to his purpose."