Sweet Life in the City

Growing up we would switch going to Missouri or Tennessee or some times Michigan for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some years I couldn't keep it straight where we would be spending the holidays, but every Halloween I knew where our family would be spending this holiday. Every Halloween we would head into town and spend Halloween with the Kuiken family. We would go to their house and eat and then trick or treat in their huge neighborhood. Today I am thankful for so many fun and wonderful memories of Halloween. The Kuiken's had a son whose name was Joel. He was a year older than me and as we grew up together Joel became one of my best friends and like a brother. In 2000 my dear friend passed away at the age of 23 years from complications from Leukemia. I think of my friend often. I miss him and it makes me sad that he was taken from the world at such a young age. He worked at the Super Kmart in town during high school so  every time I go home and go to that store and I come a...

The  Lord  is my rock, my protection, my Savior.      My God is my rock.      I can run to him for safety.      He is my shield and my saving strength, my defender.Psalm 18:2 Today I am thankful that God is all of those things listed in the verse above. This verse was the verse for today and I was so encouraged considering all of the battles we have been fighting lately. I love the imagery of Him being our shield. Shielding us from all the weapons used by the enemy to harm us. I love the imagery of Him being our defender, fighting for us!  Today I am thankful for the opportunity to stay home with year. It was tough in the beginning not being in the classroom, but each day that goes by I know that this was the right decision. It is no wonder that I was stressed out and in constant pain while working. I am not sure how I did it the last few years. I am thankful that I can get things done while the kids are at s...

Oh give thanks to the  Lord , for he is good;      for his steadfast love endures forever! Psalm 118:1 It seems that the last few weeks I have been anything but thankful. So much being thrown at us and it seems my heart wants to only complain making my attitude pretty crummy. Thanksgiving is 30 days from today (crazy, right?) so I have decided to do 30 days of thanks. I know it should be every day, but my prayer is that practicing being thankful for 30 days will keep that attitude going. I am thankful that we have had some nice weather the last few weeks. In Chicago you never know what you are going to get when it comes to the weather, but the last few weeks the kids have been able to play outside during school and after school. We have been able to keep the windows open and keep fresh air moving through the house. These days are truly treasures because we know what is just around the corner :). You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;   ...

The year was 1985 and at the age of 7 years old I would be introduced to a movie that would instill a childhood fear that I would carry with me even to this day. The year before, 1984, MGM studios released a film by the title Red Dawn . This movie started by showing a small town in Colorado and then showing the sky filled with Soviet, Nicaraguan, and Cuban soldiers parachuting from the sky and landing on the local high school's football field. The students at the high are all looking out the windows of the school to see this terror unfolding. When the soldiers land they start shooting everyone and you see all of these high school students dead hanging out the school windows. Several boys see what is about to happen and they take off into the mountains to take cover and get a plan to save their town. Here in the mountains they have to figure out how to survive and I remember drinking deer blood was part of this survival. I do not remember watching the rest of the movie. Maybe I was ...

16-18  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “Your threat means nothing to us. If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king. But even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn’t serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”  Daniel 3:16-18 21-22  “O king, live forever!” said Daniel. “My God sent his angel, who closed the mouths of the lions so that they would not hurt me. I’ve been found innocent before God and also before you, O king. I’ve done nothing to harm you.” Daniel 6:21 I first want to thank you for praying for us this past week. I also want to thank you for all the encouragement that was extended to us. Jeremy got home Friday night and we were happy to have him home! There have been several personal attacks lately and several stories from the Bible have come to mind.  The stories of the fiery furnace a...

Yesterday was a stressful day. It seemed every time I turned around something else required my attention. I woke up yesterday not feeling very well. I think it is just allergies and the fact that I tossed and turned most of the night Wednesday. Yesterday while I was writing my blog post I got a text from my bank that they had restricted my debit card and I needed to call right away. I called them and I was told that my card was part of one of the recent breaches at a store and they would need to issue me a new card. They told me that at that point my card had been deactivated. I was a little panicked because what was I supposed to do until my new card came. They told me to go to my local back and get a temporary card, blah, blah, blah, but our bank near us is a nightmare to go in and do business. It is always packed and only one or two tellers and I don't mean this ugly, but there are usually foreigners in there trying to do transactions that they can't do and there is usually ...

I guess this post is a continuation of  my last post because it is a little insight to the struggles I have as a church planter's wife, but to be honest I am not sure what direction this post is going to go into :). The very thought of my sharing a post that focuses on me kind  of freaks me out a little. For most of my life I have been labeled "quiet". I guess growing up nobody used the word "introvert", so I was viewed as this shy, quiet girl who didn't like to talk. I heard it from family (outside of my immediate family), family friends, church members, teachers, and sometimes people who were at the same gathering as me but I had no idea who they were. Many times I would be so embarrassed because some loud-mouth person who call me out in front of people or make a comment to my mom about how quiet I was or what was wrong with me because I wasn't talking. I have VERY vivid memories of these comments and how these comments only sent me deeper into my ow...

The weekend started a little rough for us. My sister and her family got here Friday before the kids got out of school (not the rough part;) and we all walked to the kid's school to pick them up. At dismissal Samuel and Emma came out and then I see that Chloe's teacher is bringing Chloe to me and she is holding that dreaded blue piece of paper. Chloe got sent to the office Friday for doing some things that she was not supposed to do and for writing something very ugly on another student's paper. The teacher was awesome and we talked about what had happened. It is just so heartbreaking to see that some of this behavior is showing up again. It is also troubling because her actions on Friday were not just acting up or doing silly things, but it was a direct reflection of her heart (by what she wrote) and that is hard for this momma. It is also difficult for us because we don't know how to punish her. We have learned from last year that punishing her only fuels her anger and...

I knew this would happen. I took a few days off of blogging and it somehow turned into a whole week. On Friday I ended up having to do laundry and groceries on the same day and my hate fire for the stairs in this apartment were rekindled. I usually do laundry on Monday and Thursday and groceries on Tuesday and Friday, but my routine got off a little bit last week (as in I didn't want to do laundry on Thursday) and with the kids out of school on Monday I knew the schedule would be off a little bit this week. I wish I could explain to you how horrible these stairs all the time, but  I cannot begin to describe how treacherous they are when I am carrying groceries up or laundry up and down them. So when I get these "I hate this apartment mood", I try to fix things by getting super organized. I came up with this brilliant idea (can you sense the sarcasm) to go through every single room in the house and get rid of stuff. Then I came up with the idea to start packing things away...

My journey with infertility really started about 13 years ago. I would of never dreamed how this journey would unfold, but 13 years ago we knew there was a potential for this struggle. I spent two years in and out of doctor's offices trying to "get my body back on track." Eleven years ago the diagnosis came in that I had endometrial  cancer and went through 11 months of treatments hoping to reverse the cancer cells. 10 years ago I had a complete hysterectomy and my new reality began. During my years of treatments and cancer nobody really talked about the pain and struggle of infertility. In fact, I had been going to the doctor almost a year before I even told my family that there were some problems that might lead to me never conceiving. There were not blog posts and articles at the click of a button and the whole thing is so personal that I had nobody to talk to about this struggle. Over the past 7-8 years I have talked to more people about infertility than I can count....