News Worth Sharing

For weeks now I haven't been on my blog much. I just felt like I didn't have much to say. I also has a lot of things on my mind that I wasn't ready to talk about with the world wide web audience.
I guess now I'm feeling like it might be time to explain the journey we've been on.
It all started last fall, in November I think (I would have to look back in my journal to be sure, but I'm too lazy to get up and go find it at the moment), when I was feeling the baby itch. Kalei had just turned one in October, and I was ready for another. Rational, I think not, but then a mother's heart is not always rational.
So I was praying and asking the Lord when, when would my third baby come? I had already been praying for a few weeks for the Lord to move on Ken's heart to make him want another one, but so far there was no interest from Ken. I had just started a new and sort of stressful work schedule, and I wanted to know when I could expect to take a break to be with a new baby.
So I ask and asked the Lord, and then one day while I was sitting on my back deck drinking coffee I heard the Lord whisper 'when you are settled your third baby will come along'. I had no idea what that could mean, so I thought it must have to do with my new job assignments. I thought, as soon as I get used to this new work schedule, and learn to enjoy the routine, then I will get pregnant. I related it to the way that Julie Meyer's talked about her seasons in the 'back row' and how the Lord told her she wouldn't come out of the 'back row' season until she learned to enjoy it.
Then near New Year's Ken and I separately started to hear the Lord telling us we were on the verge of some big change. We had no idea what it was, but we began to ask Him what He wanted to do with us. Separately we both felt the Lord pointing to Morning Star in Fort Mill, SC, and so we sent Ken off to visit and hear from the Lord.
He came back and we both felt we were to move there and be intercessory missionaries on the Morning Star Campus. It was a big change for sure, and suddenly, the Lord's words back in November were making a little more sense, literal sense. So I began to pray again for the Lord's will to be done and I started praying for this little one that I felt was going to come along soon.
About that same time, without me saying anything to Ken, he decided he was ready to consider having another baby. It was a great breakthrough, because I had tried so hard not to talk to Ken about having more babies. I didn't want to manipulate him with my own wants and emotions on the subject. I wanted the Lord to make Ken ready when it was time.
So then I waited. Months went by, we were packing and moving and then we were in transition, me in Peoria with the girls for three weeks, and Ken here and there making loading and hauling our stuff. Finally by the first week in June we were in Fort Mill, all as a family.
Immediately I set to work. The Lord said the third baby would come along when we were 'settled', so I made my house as complete as I could. I cleaned and unpacked and organized and decorated. I even hung pictures within the first month, determined to make this place feel like home. It paid off, it did feel like home, but the baby didn't come in June. I wasn't too sad.
Then we had the whole month of July, and we had no money. Baby was not really on my mind. I was praying and petitioning for our finances, and I used all my extra energies to stir up my faith and hope in the Lord to provide. On August first we had no money for rent. We had a five day grace period to pay it, so we waited and prayed and prayed some more.
On the fourth day we decided that we would have to pay it, so we pulled money from our two credit cards and paid it. I cried all day. I felt so betrayed and hurt, because using the credit card felt so fleshly. I was a wreck literally, because I knew that the Lord could have come through but for some reason He didn't. I was so confused and I spewed all kinds of accusations at Him, and then Ken made me get out of the house which helped me get out of my self pity mode also. So I talked to the Lord and felt a bit better.
Later that same day I noticed some spotting and knew I was about to start my monthly cycle (men reading this, sorry, but this is how it happens, so get over it). I felt even more bummed out. He hadn't given us money and He hadn't given me the baby I'd been praying for.
        *side note: Kinsey had also been praying for a little brother in the month of July. Out of no where one day she asked me to get her a little brother, and I laughed and told her she had to talk to Jesus about that one, and so she did. I heard her pray out loud at least a half dozen times for a little brother, and it was so sweet, but I also had guessed it would be powerful because the Lord loves the hearts of little children so much.
But here I was with no money, a huge debt on our credit cards and a monthly cycle that made me feel even more pathetic.
The next day money came in, a lot of money, enough to pay off all that we had just put on our credit cards. It was amazing and wonderful and I cried. Then my spotting stopped, and I was confused, but I told myself not to be hopeful. Then it spotted again a bit, and it was all 'old' (women will know what I mean, men, be grateful if you don't). Then it stopped, and never started again.
Meanwhile, we got a house mate. It's a really long story how we met and this story is already long enough, but the Lord connected us in some odd circumstances and she came to stay with us the day after we got all the money to pay off our credit cards. So on Friday we got the money, on Saturday we got the housemate, and then on Sunday I took a pregnancy test and it was a bold two liner that made me cry with joy. I was pregnant!
Sigh.
What a crazy month, eh?
So now I have been just sorting through all the emotions while coming to terms with the fatigue that has already begun to set in. I am praying for an awesome pregnancy this time though, no sickness, so if you would like to join me, I would welcome it.
Meanwhile I've learned that although I want to be strong for the work that the Lord has called us to here in Fort Mill, I think this last month of testing was a beautiful picture of how we can be so strong up to a point. Then our weakness shows itself, we fall flat on our faces, and the Lord still comes through despite our weakness and makes us shine because of His strength and faithfulness.
If there is one words that sums up the way I've been feeling for the past week, it would be - grateful. Nothing has been able to dampen my spirits (except a brownie hang over which I suffered from early this morning, darn those brownies). People say that women glow when they are pregnant, but I think if I am glowing it is because I realize how loved I am by the Lord. Even little 'ol me is loved and precious and I'm feeling it full force right now.
Lord never let me forget these things which you have done for me and my family. Amen.
(PS, I have not proofed this post, I just hurried and put down all my thoughts, so if something doesn't make total sense, just try to grasp the jist of it.)