October 2014 Thankful List
Well friends, this month we have a TON to be thankful for
and although I plan to just hit on the highlights, I want to fully honor and
praise the Lord for the many, many ways he has blessed us recently!
Back in August I mentioned in a post that we were moving
forward with pursuing full-time ministry positions and were in the search
process with a few different churches. We narrowed down our options
to one church (fully prepared to start the whole process all over again from
scratch if things didn't work out). This particular church has been an
absolute joy to visit. The preaching pastor is extremely gifted at
expositing the Word (both in his Sunday School class and from the
pulpit). When we have visited, the congregation has been very friendly
and welcoming (although no one but the hiring board knew that Josh was the
candidate for the pastor position). Our kids have left the nursery excited
about their bible lesson and they get along great with the other
children. We started to really like this church and were becoming quite
fond of the people we were meeting. To our excitement, Josh was invited
to preach at a special service on Friday, October 10th. Two days later,
the hiring board met. That evening Josh was called and offered the
position at that church!!!! This past weekend we were invited to a church-wide reception. Josh taught the Youth group for the first
time during the Sunday school hour and then he was asked to preach to the
entire congregation during the Sunday morning service. During the service the members had an
opportunity to vote. We were thrilled
that they affirmed us and joyfully welcomed us to be become part of their
church family! We have been praying for
the past 10 months that the Lord would make things VERY clear for us. We have
prayed that if God did not want us to be in a position somewhere that we would
clearly see any red flags that were warning us to turn down an
opportunity. At the same time, we've been praying for God to make it very
clear of exactly where HE wants us to serve by giving us a peace,
encouragement, and excitement about a body of believers. We feel like God
has been completely faithful to do these things and we want to make sure He
gets all the credit for this new opportunity!
Continue to pray for us as Josh will officially begin in his new
position on December 1st!
Also mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been experiencing a
lot of back pain. I was finally able to see a doctor and my hip is
actually displaced which is causing my muscles to overcompensate and has tilted
my tailbone in the wrong direction. I'm having trouble standing, sitting,
walking, and even lying down however, my husband has been encouraging me to
endure and I’m thankful to know what’s actually going on so I can do the right
type of exercises to eventually correct the problem. In the past 3 days it has been feeling
tremendously better. Praise to the Lord,
who is the great physician and has the power to heal!
Several family members and friends have been going through
some very difficult medical situations.
This month the Lord sustained the life of two very close relatives who
both experienced very risky surgeries.
In addition, a dear friend who was not sure if she could ever have
children announced her pregnancy only to start spotting a week later. So far, the Lord has continued to sustain the
life of their little baby and I am so absolutely grateful!
The kids have been doing great. Homeschool has been a lot of fun. Addi is learning so much and I can’t even
believe how much Josiah is inadvertently absorbing. We had a family presentation during our
school’s assembly and the kids were naturals.
They had everyone laughing. We
also wrapped up Addilyn’s soccer season and she is thrilled about her very
first medal! Addilyn and Josiah both
have been saying the funniest things lately and I’ve tried to write down a lot
of the silly phrases. We also discovered
a book warehouse sale (that takes place the first weekend of every month) and I
got a ton of children’s books for next to nothing.
We had a yard sale to get rid of a lot of stuff and to make
a little spending money for the NC State Fair that rolls through Raleigh every
October. We had a fabulous time eating
lots of yummy food, checking out the animals and homegrown vegetables, watching
the BMX stunt show, and of course riding lost of rides. We learned that Addilyn is fearless and her
brother is just as opposite as can be.
The day we went the weather was perfect and we had such a great time as
a family.
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