15 Days of Hope

God gave me a gift this month: hope.

Though I did not do it knowingly, over the last 40 months I have built a wall of doubt that comes between me and hope.  I put it there to protect my heart, which has been so frequently broken.  This month, God showed me that wall.  For 5 days He slowly took a few bricks down and allowed hope to creep back into my heart.  Even a negative pregnancy test didn't slow His pace.  10 more days went by and that wall of doubt was nearly gone.  I really felt like this could be the month!  Maybe it was finally my turn!  Maybe God was going to let me have that SO precious gift my heart has been aching for.  As day 15 came and went, with no sign of the dreaded red, Jared and I prayed with earnest hearts that this would be the one.

Wednesday, Day 16.  Jared left early in the morning for work, I got out of bed an hour later and started my morning routine.  That was when it happened.  The dreaded red appeared!

Disbelief...

Anger....

Pain...

I had spent some time praying with a friend the evening of day 15 and God gave us this verse which I then wrote on the bathroom mirror:

Psalms 16:11
'You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy: at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.'


With my heart shattered in a thousand pieces, I saw this verse; 'in your presence there is fullness of joy'.  I didn't feel joyful.  I felt broken and defeated.  I wanted to run and scream and hide away forever!  But that was not an option.  My daycare kids were coming. God gave me a smile which I glued on and I made it through the day.

My heart is shattered, but slowly God is giving me strength to give him the pieces to put it back together.


I did not post this out of anger.  I'm not looking for pity or sympathy.  But maybe you've been here too.  Your situation might be a bit different but your heart was broken too.  I encourage you not to run away in anger.  Turn to Jesus; 'in His presence there is fullness of joy' even in the toughest of circumstances.

God bless!

Until The Whole World Hears

The is an amazing song!  I love it how Casting Crowns used children in this performance to finish the song.  That just touches my heart every time!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqagxdDWxAo

Until The Whole World Hears
By Casting Crowns


Lord I want to feel with Your heart
And see the world through Your eyes
I want to be Your hands and feet
I want to live a life that leads

chorus
Ready yourselves
Ready yourselves
Let us shine the light of Jesus
In the darkest night
Oh, ready yourselves
Oh, ready yourselves
May the powers of darkness tremble as our praises rise
Until the whole world hears 
Lord we are calling out
Lifting up Your name for all to hear the sound
Like voices in the wilderness we're crying out
As the day draws near
We'll sing until the whole world hears

Lord let Your sleeping giant arise
Catch the demons by surprise
Holy nation sanctified
Let this be our battle cry

chorus

Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears
Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears

Want to be Your hands and feet
Want to be a life that leads
To see You set the captive free
Until the whole world hears
and I pray that they will see more of You and less of me
Lord I want my life to be the song You sing
Until the whole world hears Lord we are calling out
Lifting Your name up for all to hear the sound
Like voices in the wilderness we're crying out
As the day draws near
We'll sing until the whole world hears
Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears!
Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears!
Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears!
Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears!
Whoa oh oh! Whoa oh oh! We'll sing until 
The whole world hears! 

V Day

So we decided to do our valentines day a day early.  It was great!

My day started with a sweet text message from my dude wishing me a good day, and reminding me to take out the recycling!  Lol!  Yup, that's love and real life!  I had a good day watching a bunch of great kidos 2-5 years old.  After work we changed and headed to the city for our date at the Keg.  The food was really good!  But I would still say that our friend E.A. makes better ribs!  Then we sought out an open gelato restaurant for dessert!  And that was our valentines day date!

As for our actual valentines day, Jared has the day off from fire training so we have a fun evening of grocery shopping, a hair cut, and studying planned!  Doesn't that sound like a party?!

Have I even mentioned yet on here that Jared  was accepted to volunteer with the Steinbach Fire Department?  Well he's got a bunch of tests and a year and a half of training ahead of him, but he's got determination and is studying hard so I have faith he'll get through all that no problem!

Today actually started off really good too.  The verse mentioned in the devotional I'm using really stood out to me.

Colossians 4:5-6

 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

That is my desire and my prayer.  I think this is a verse I'm going to write on my bathroom mirror so I can see it every morning as a reminder!

"I Will Hold Your Heart" -God




Abby sleeping in the new bed she got for Christmas



I have 2 purposes for this blog.  One is to keep people informed about things going on in our lives, and also to help others dealing with similar struggles in waiting for the gift of a child.  This post addresses both!

First of all, we had a really good Christmas!  We’ve been able to see most of our family and extended family at a number of gatherings.  Though, we were pretty disappointed that this has been a brown Christmas with little to no snow on the ground. 

I received a Wii Fit as a gift which has helped my Bible reading time believe it or not!  There is a ‘game’ where you do basic step on and off the Wii board.  The game keeps track of your steps and tells you at the end about how many calories you have burned.  Now how does that help my Bible reading time you ask?  Well, I do most of my Bible reading in the morning, but when I’ve had a short night I find it hard to do my Bible reading without falling asleep.  So, I found that I can do the basic step game and read my Bible at the same time!  I have a chair with my journal beside me so I can pause and write notes and highlight things in my Bible reading.  I can get exercise for both my soul and mind at the same time!  I have also found that the movement actually makes me more alert!

I received another fairly small gift from my sister, SW which I didn’t realize how significant it would be to me.  It was two shrinky dink pieces attached on a string as a bookmark;  The top one saying ‘Little sister’ and the bottom one with a picture of children holding a banner of crosses.  The next two paragraphs expain it's significance.



Bookmark made by SW



New Year’s Eve was a busy day for us.  We had a gathering, I was doing singing at the evening services at church and we had a New Year’s Eve party that night.  All went really well and we both had a lot of fun.  There was one area though that made ringing in the new year pretty hard for me.  Between the gathering and evening party, I endured (mother’s in waiting understand the use of this term) a total 7 pregnancy announcements!  I think that’s a record for me in one day!  It was all God’s doing that I didn’t fall apart that day (it's been 36 months of waiting so far).  My heart ached, but I was able to smile, congratulate my friends, and carry on with the evening.  God reminded me of what he’d said another time when I was praying in hopes that this month might be the one, he simply said: “I will hold your heart”.  If God is holding my heart, I will not crumble, I will not get angry, I will not be jealous, I will not fall apart.  He is holding me!

Now, our New Year service at church was on ‘I Exist On Purpose’. (If you would like to hear the message for yourself you can click on this link:  http://www.mysouthland.com/index.php/en/i-exist-on-purpose.html )  After the service that week, I continued to think and pray about what my purpose is.  I thought about all the pregnancies, and the way God was holding my heart.  God has been using these tough times, waiting to be a mother, to make me stronger in my faith.  With this faith, I am better equipped to reach out to children and teach them.  This bookmark has already become a reminder to me that God has a plan and a purpose for me!  Right now he is calling me to reach out to children.  I don't know what God has in store for me this year; Maybe I'll become a mother, maybe I wont.  But God is holding my heart and he has a plan much greater than mine!

Blue Bay-Riviera Maya

We’re back!

Jared and I had an amazing getaway from November 11-21 at a resort close to Cancun Mexico.  We went with our parents and sisters, and bro-in-laws on the Reimer side.

It was the perfect mix of relaxation and fun!  We shed our winter layers quite quickly after landing in temperatures around 28C.  The resort (Blue Bay) was large enough that they used golf cart style vehicles to cart us and our luggage to our building (Coba) where we stayed on the second floor.  The only door between outside and inside was the door to our individual room.  That was how the racoon got up the stairs to our hallway.  He was a friendly racoon who came when Jared called him!

Though I’m not much of a swimmer, Jared is the polar opposite.  He was constantly in the water.  We both enjoyed walking along the beach.  As with all inclusive resorts, fancy drinks were readily available at any time and any place on the resort grounds.  On one of our beach walks we discovered a swing bar!  No bar stools, just swings hung around the bar!  Very cool!

This resort also employed professional photographers who would go around taking pictures of people which you could later purchase prints of at the store.  Along with taking pictures of people tanning and swimming, animal trainers came around with different animals that you could have your picture taken with.  In this way we were able to hold a small monkey and a toucan.  We also had a number of pictures taken on the beach.  As they were professional pictures I do not have the rights to post them.

One of the highlights for Jared was jet skiing in the ocean!  All three brothers (in-law) went out together and zipped around together.  Jared also went out with my dad and R.W. (bro-in-law) on an explore tour.  There they enjoyed sailing along zip lines, driving amphibious vehicles, underground rafts , and swimming in a stalactite river (underground river system).  http://www.xplor.travel/

As a family we went on a tour of the Mayan ruins.  The highlight of that tour was climbing the pyramid.  Jared made it to the top and got some great pictures.  I on the other hand was over heating and quite nervous around the halfway point.  After the pyramid, our tour guide took us to a glorified hole in the ground to swim!  Lol!  I believe the correct term is cenote;  A deep natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath (definition courtesy of Wikipedia).  Descending a spiral staircase for some time brought us to a beautiful underground cavern with crystal clear water perfect for swimming.  It was great!

Jared and I went on an ATV tour just the 2 of us.  It was fun cruising through the jungle along narrow paths.  The tour led us to another cenote to swim as well as another underground cave that the Mayan people, we were told, believe to be the entrance to hell.  There we saw some bats and small catfish in the cave lit with a flashlight.

We also enjoyed a few shopping trips to various flea markets.  The last one we visited we found a baby lion to take pictures with!

On our last full day we enjoyed our resort’s spa pools!  It was WONDERFUL!  It was laid out a lot like a lazy river but with different jet stations.  Jets for your neck, for your back, a powerful jet for swimming against the current… every kind of massaging jet you can imagine!  It was great.

Thanks to Mom and Dad Blatz and B.K. for bringing us to and from the airport!

I Did It

Well I finally did it.  I removed myself from the great distraction of facebook.  I hadn’t realized how much time I actually spent on facebook until now.  It’s almost a relief to not have it anymore.  It did make me a bit nervous how in deactivating my account they said people could still invite me to events and I could log back in at any time.  Hmmm...

So I had a really amazing devotional time this morning.  I’m doing our church’s ‘Foundations’ devotional and it was talking about reading the Bible ‘for real’.  Not just reading the words but seeking God in it.  I’ve been reading a Chronological Bible and I’ve found it very helpful to read the events in the order that they occurred.   So today before I started the Bible reading portion of my devotional time I asked God to speak to me though what I would be reading and these are the passages that stuck out to me:

2 Samuel 23:10

‘He killed Philistines until his hand was too tired to lift his sword, and the Lord gave him a great victory that day.  The rest of the army did not return until it was time to collect the plunder.’

2 Samuel 23:12

‘But Shammah held his ground in the middle of the field and beat back the Philistines.  So the Lord brought about a great victory.

Both verses are talking about David’s strongest warriors.  Jashobeam (verse 10) and Shammah stood their ground in difficult circumstances.  Even when the rest of the army deserted him Jashobeam kept fighting for the goal of victory.  He used all his strength and concentration until he could not even lift his own sword, ‘and the Lord gave him a great victory.’  The rest of the army ran away from this difficult task of winning a battle.  They only returned to reap the benefits of victory.

Now these guys weren’t perfect and neither am I; but what an amazing picture of faith!  Standing firm no matter what others around them were doing and God gave them great victory!  I’m going to ponder about that one today!

Thanks God!

Jesus in Everything!

Yesterday was another amazing day in Children's Ministry!  I took a picture of my amazing marker face paint which was part of our activities.  I also had the privilege of speaking the lesson part of the evening.  I’ve taught lessons for kids ministry before and so often I find that during my preparation time that God teaches me something through the lesson before I teach it to the kids.  This week’s lesson was fairly straight forward.  We want Jesus in everything!  Well maybe not that straight forward.  These were the verses I based my lesson off of:

Proverbs 3:6

“Seek his will in all you do and he will show you which path to take.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

“Always be joyful.  Never stop praying.  Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

This morning when I logged on to Facebook , I was overwhelmed with baby info and I had to face my biggest foe: envy.  It is just so hard to hear about ‘feeling the baby move’, ‘our precious gift has arrived’, and so many other real heartfelt posts and to be sitting here in a quiet house alone.  Just waiting.  I talk to God about this every day and today was no exception. I was reminded of my lesson from last night and how we want Jesus in everything, every situation, wherever we are, no matter how we’re feeling. 

“God I trust you.  I know you have a plan for me.  You’re holding my future baby in your arms right now.  But right now I’m having a hard time.  Give me strength God.  Give me strength and patience.  You know what you’re doing” 

Then this song came to mind and my Facebook friends helped me recall the title so I can share it with you.

http://youtu.be/CHdSgQVIb5c

FFH- One Of These Days
One of these days I'm gonna fly
Over the mountain
One of these days I'm gonna ride
On the silver lining
One of these days I'm gonna witness
All I've been missing
One of these days

One of these days I'm gonna do
All the things that I've never done
I'm gonna finish all the races
That I've run but I've never won
And I'm gonna see a million faces
And recognize everyone
One of these days

Chorus:
One of these days
Gonna see the hand that took the nails for me
One of these days
Gonna hold the key to the mansion built for me
One of these days
Gonna walk the streets of gold that were paved for me
One of these days
I'm gonna see my Savior face to face
One of these days

One of these days I'm gonna see
Just what became of me
On the day that I believed
When you took myself from me
And I believe I will see
What I would have been
If You didn't save me
One of these days

And one of these days I'm gonna talk
With all the saints that have gone before
And in their sandals I will walk
And we will sit along the shore
And I will learn all the things
That I never knew before
All this and more

One of these days I'll finally be
In a place where there's no more need
No more pain and no more grief
No more foolish disbelief
And all the joy there will be
When at last we finally see
One of these days