#1 The Single Most Important Relationship in My Life

In the past 29 posts I have talked about a lot of people who have been special to me and great influences in my life.  While I love all of the people highlighted in this blog dearly, none can compare to my love for the One this blog features.  He has been my rock through everything life has thrown at me good and bad.  He has never left my side, He guides my every step and I know he will be with me forever.  If you've read any of my other posts. I hope it is obvious that I am talking about my Savior, the Lord of my life, Jesus Christ.  This post is about how I came to know Jesus personally.

As I mentioned in my very first post I grew up with parents and grandparents who loved Jesus.  They did their best to teach me about Jesus and the Bible. We were very involved at our church and so I heard the gospel many many times.  I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I remember hearing the story of how Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and then rose again three days later, when I was very young.  I remember hearing about how I needed to ask Jesus to forgive my sins and invite him into my heart.  I remember knowing I wanted to do this a long time before I made my public profession of faith.  The reason I think I waited so long was because while I knew I wanted Jesus to save me, I also kept hearing that Jesus would "knock on the door of my heart" and when I felt him "knocking on my heart" I should invite him in and I would be saved.

Now I was a VERY literal child and I heard this phrase "Jesus is knocking on your heart" a lot, so I can vividly remember waiting for Jesus to "knock on my heart".  One memory that stands out to me was that I was sitting my little rocking chair in my room, holding one of my baby dolls and I heard something. I remember I stopped rocking and thought "Is that Jesus knocking on my heart?"  If it is, I don't want to miss it!  Well time went by and I kept waiting for Jesus to knock on my heart, all the time knowing that I really wanted him to forgive me of  my sins and come "live in my heart."  One day when I was 7 years old my best friend Amy went forward at church and told everyone that she had been saved and wanted to be baptized.  This really had me thinking all week because Amy was actually a little younger than me.  I remember thinking if Amy is old enough to have Jesus in her heart then I think I'm ready to have Jesus in my heart.  So I thought about this all week and I finally decided to talk to my mom.

I remember it was Saturday night and my mom was getting ready to go out with my dad to a Christmas party.  We had washed my hair (because it was church the next day) and she was drying it in her bathroom.  I remember asking her, "Mom how do I get saved?"   (I already knew, I had been hearing about it for years but I didn't know a better way to start the conversation.)  She stopped the hair dryer and set me down on the toilet (with the seat down of course).  I remember she kneeled  in front of me  and we talked about how you need to believe that Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, and then rose again three days later.  She asked me if I wanted to do this and I told her I did.  Then she called my dad and he went over some verses in Romans with me called the Romans Road.  He asked me if I was sure I was ready to invite Jesus into my heart and I told him I was, so we prayed together and I told Jesus I believed he died on the cross for me, that God raised him from the dead and I asked him to forgive my sins and come live in my heart. The very next day I walked down the aisle at church and told everyone that I had asked Jesus into my heart and wanted to be baptized.  I had the privilege of being baptized that very next week, (Christmas Eve 1989 I believe) along with my best friend Amy. 

As I'm writing this right now it just hit me that the best decision I've ever made or ever will make, I made when I was 7!  That is a pretty powerful thought to me.  Now even though I officially started my walk with Christ when I was 7, it didn't end there.  I struggled during my childhood years as to whether I was really "saved".  I was plagued with a lot of doubts, maybe I was to young, did I really understand what I did, was Jesus really "knocking on my heart"?  (Yeah I will never use that phrase with my kids, it caused me way to much confusion.)  When I was 14 I went to camp and the preacher talked about being sure of your salvation, he talked about how salvation was more than just a ticket to heaven, it was about having a relationship with Jesus Christ and he said if you weren't sure you were saved you should nail it down right then and there.  So I remember that night I asked the Lord once again to save me and take away all my doubts this time, let me be sure of my salvation.

At first I thought that this night had been the night I had been truly saved.  I felt at peace and I came home from camp telling my parents that I got saved and I wanted to be baptized again because I didn't think I had really been ready when I was baptized at 7.  I remember they were supportive of me, but they encouraged me to wait. They said they really believed that I had made a true commitment when I was 7 and that I should just give it some time to think about it.  I was pretty annoyed with them at first, but looking back on it I'm so glad that I did wait.  A few years later I was able to look back on what happened and I realized that I had truly accepted Jesus with a child like faith when I was 7. In Luke 18:17 it says, I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.  That's what I believe I did at 7, I accepted Christ with a child like faith ,and I was truly saved at time. I did exactly as Romans 10:9-10 says, If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 

What I believe happened when I was 14 was that I began to walk with Christ.  I realized that being saved was not just about a ticket into heaven.  It was about being in a relationship with Christ every single day!  It was about seeking to know Christ intimately by studying the Bible, praying, worshiping with other believers and serving others.  It was about letting Him mold me into the person He wanted me to be whatever that might look like.  It meant surrendering every single one of my desires over to Him and allowing His will to be done in my life.  Now I really don't think I realized all of that in that exact moment at 14 years old, but those are things I've realized since I began to truly walk with Christ that night.  

Well if you've read my blog at all you kind of already know the rest of my story, well at least the good highlights.  Looking back over this blog and all the experiences I've shared I can see Christ's hand at work in my life in every single one of them, because He has been at work in my life every single day.  I would truly be lost without Jesus.  I can't imagine living my life without him and I honestly don't know how people survive who don't know Christ as their Lord and Savior.    My life would be so empty without Christ.  All these amazing relationships I've written about, these people who have made such an impact in my life, almost all of these relationships have one thing in common, they love Jesus too.  Without that shared love of Christ, I know that these relationships could never have meant as much as they did to me and influenced me as much as they have.  That's the thing about God, He uses His Holy Spirit to speak to us in many ways, through the Bible, through a sermon, through a still small voice and through other believers. He's used many of people mentioned in this blog to do just that.

 If you haven't noticed this blog is different than most of the others because I don't have any pictures in it.  You see I don't have any pictures of me with Jesus and I am really not a fan of most of the pictures people have tried to recreate of him. However even though I can't see him, he's as real to me as any other person I've talked about in this blog. My relationship with him is the single most important relationship in my life.  If you are reading this and you don't know Christ personally, you probably think I'm a little crazy, but I have to wonder if you got to the end of this lengthy post, are you a little curious about this Jesus I'm talking about?  Are you feeling like maybe you're missing something in your life? If you are then I would love to talk to you and share more about how Christ has changed my life and how he can change yours.   

As I conclude my LAST post of this blog, I wanted to end with a little note to my readers.
 I know many of you who are reading this are believers and I want to thank you for reading my stories. When I started this blog I didn't really think anyone would be interested in this besides maybe my parents and in-laws, cause they're just so nice and supportive, plus they are all retired so they have time on their hands. :) However its been really encouraging to me because a lot of people have read these stories and told me that they've enjoyed them.  It's been hard at times to complete this project but words of encouragement from you have helped me along. The other thing that has motivated me to finish is that while I started this blog as a way for me to reflect on my life and celebrate the 30 years God has given me, its become a gift I want to give to my children.  As the years go by I may not remember all these phases of life and the people who made them so special quite as clearly as I do now, therefore I wanted to write about it so that my children could see who I was before I became the old "mom" they know.  I hope it will be a gift that they will enjoy one day and I hope they will be able to see as clearly as I do the hand of God moving in my life, shaping me through life events and special friendships into the person God has designed me to be.  I don't think I've arrived at that person in this first 30 years, and I really don't think I will ever arrive, but my goal is to try each day to get closer to that person than I was the day before.  I know I'll mess up and fall back at times, but that's the great thing about having Jesus' unconditional love, I know when I do mess up, he'll forgive me, and help me start again.  

Thanks again for reading!  I'm hoping these next 30 years will be as awesome as my first!

 

#2 What Happily Ever After Really Looks Like...

One of the best days of my life was my wedding day.  It was February 24th, 2007.  My parents gave us a beautiful wedding.  I loved my dress, the ceremony was beautiful, and the party afterwards was a really fun celebration (even if there was an ice storm raging outside!)  The best part of all of that was that I was becoming Darin's wife!  For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health I was promising to spend my life with the love of my life.  I remember looking at Darin during our vows thinking, I can't believe he picked me.  I am so blessed.

I loved our wedding day.  We were surrounded by family and friends, which was awesome.  I got to have an all chocolate cake (yes, all chocolate, icing and everything!)  I'm not going to lie it was one of my favorite parts of our wedding.  We had a pretty fun dance party, which included my husband dancing around with a bag on his head.  Last but certainly not least I had a fabulous gown that was fit for the princess I always wanted to be.

The song at the very end of our ceremony, the one we walked out to, was Blessed Be Your Name.  If you don't  know the song, here is a link to the lyrics. I love this song and I picked it for our final wedding song because I wanted our mindset to be that, "every blessing you pour out, we'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, Jesus."    This was our prayer for our relationship because while our wedding was as perfect as it could have possibly been (besides the whole ice storm thing), and our courtship was somewhat of a whirlwind romance, everyday life is not like that, and that was what our wedding day was, the beginning of every day life.  So my prayer for us was that no matter what was thrown at us in this life we would always stay close to the Lord and bless His name.

One of those rare date night.

I love being married to Darin.  He is a wonderful husband.  He's always willing to help me out in any way that I ask him to.  He rarely ever refuses one of my requests.  He's a wonderful father, our children are so very blessed to have a daddy who loves them as much as Darin does.  Darin and I have a great time together, we can have great talks where were pour our hearts out to each other, or we can sit comfortably in silence.  We play games together (okay, well we use to play games together, the past few years we are so exhausted from the small children that while we do occasionally play games, most of the time we just crash in front of a favorite tv show or movie.)  No matter what we're doing, he's just my favorite person to be with.  It's true our romantic date nights have turned into family dinners followed by a walk with our two kids in the double stroller or maybe going on a bike ride with our children tucked safely into their bike seats behind us.  We do ocassionally get a date night but they definitely aren't the norm anymore.

 If any of you are young, and single reading this, you a re probably thinking "wow, that sounds boring", but you know what? I'm okay with boring if that's what it means.  We're happy, we have a happy marriage (most of the time.)   Its not always easy, we fight at times, we get annoyed with each other, we get overly stressed and busy but we have a deep love for one another that makes us stick out those harder times.  I'm thankful for a husband that I can trust and depend on, one I know isn't going to walk out on our family just because it gets hard. 


The other day Emmaline was sick and I picked up a few movies from the library in case we needed to have a cuddle on the couch day.  One of them was a princess stories movie, not any the original movies, but one of those that has short continuations of their stories.  I've always been drawn to those kinds of stories because while I love the romance and excitement of the original story, I want to see what happens after "Happily Ever After."  Shortly after I picked up that movie, I found myself in the bathroom, trying to have a minute to relieve myself, when my children rushed in demanding things.  I sat there thinking I wonder if they'll ever make a story about Cinderella where she's raising her children with Prince Charming and they have to get up in the middle of the night to clean up the vomit because someone puked all over her crib, or she's trying to make a nice dinner while her children are hanging on her legs screaming that their hungry or some other demand that she just doesn't have the time to do.  Or maybe she and prince charming are trying to have a nice family dinner at a restaurant but one of their toddlers gets upset because they won't let him crawl on the nasty floor under the table and he proceeds to throw a fit so massive that Cinderella has to drag her flailing child to the restroom in order to appropriately discipline the fit throwing child.

What do you think about those movie sequel ideas?? I think it would be pretty awesome to see a princess movie like that but we probably never will because most people wouldn't put those situations into the "Happily Ever After" category. However, that is exactly what my "Happily Ever After" looks like at times. And you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything else in this world because I get to do all of it, the fun days filled with laughter, hugs, kisses and fun family outings, as well as the less desireable tasks such as puke cleaning, group trips to the potty, and disciplining fit throwing children with my very best friend in the whole world, my very own "prince charming".  I'm pretty blessed because my prince charming is right there in the middle of all of it with me. He changes diapers like a pro, when I'm cleaning up the vomit covered toddler, he's changing the sheets and cleaning the crib.  But one of my favorite things about my prince charming is,( be ready to be jealous ladies,) he NEVER complains about my cooking.  He always eats whatever I make and never criticizes. The closest I think he's come in the past 6 years is ONE time he said, that wasn't my favorite meal ever. 

Being married to Darin has been one of the greatest blessing of my life.  He has give me so many precious gifts.  Our two children are of course some of our most precious gifts.  I was also given a wonderful extended family when I married Darin.  I am blessed to have a mother and father-in-law who I love dearly. They are supportive, generous and they love my children.  They taught my husband to love and serve the Lord and I am forever grateful to them for that.  I also got an awesome sister-in-law who I adore and really don't get to see often enough!  Another cool blessing is that he has an extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that are all really awesome people and I have very much enjoyed getting to be a part of their family over the past 6 years.

While all those things are amazing, the very best gift that Darin has given me is his steadfast love.  I know in good times and bad that my husband loves me dearly (even when he may not like me very much). I know he will stay by my side no matter what comes our way.  He is committed to us and our family and that is a priceless gift in a day and age where people take their marriage vows so lightly.  So yes... I can say with 100% certainty that I am very pleased with what my "Happily Ever After" looks like.

Thanks Babe for helping to make this girl's fairy tale come true.  I love you forever and ever! I'm praying for many more years of "Happily Ever After" with you!