My last post was about our gotcha day with the newest love of my life, Tyley Sue. The past 3 years have been a whirlwind and I've not blogged because I was living, enjoying, and soaking it all up. Soaking up all of the little moments I could. The past 3 years have brought our family many changes! I am hoping to start blogging regularly again to help me get my feelings down on paper. I will start with an overview today and then dig in a little deeper to big moments in future posts.
1. Ministry: Tyler was the student pastor at Mt. View Baptist Church until November 2012. We moved to Family Baptist Church where he served until just last week. The year and a half that we served at Family brought a lot of changes in our family that we couldn't have foreseen and it made that year of ministry a little, okay a lot, more difficult than we expected. However, we made great friends, grew in our relationship with the Lord and our relationship with each other, and served our church and community in the best way we could. We are moving on now to Tyler's home church where we are just sitting and waiting. Sometimes God asks you to be still for a while before He reveals the next step in your life to you and I believe that's where we are at right now. We were clearly told to plant a church a few months ago (I will get into those details in a separate post) but now we feel just a certain that we are being told to take care of our family first. So we are waiting on God's timing, which as we've seen in the past, is always perfect.
2. Elijah Ray: So, God's plan was for me to have another child after all! On October 1, 2013 Elijah Ray Jones was born after the miracle pregnancy experienced by ME! The girl who was told she wouldn't carry a child, carried a child! God answered our prayers after our prayers changed. For years I wanted to experience carrying a child, feeling him move inside of me, knowing I was nurturing and growing a baby. I had two close friends that came and told us they were pregnant, and then there I was again, feeling the desire to be pregnant. So, I prayed that God would take away my desire to carry a child unless that was His plan for me. Four weeks later, I took a pregnancy test and say a + sign come up. I'm telling you, I lost it. I wasn't sure if I was even seeing right, so I took it out to Tyler and he hit his knees and began praying, thanking God for our miracle. I'll never forget standing in our living room, at the edge of our hallway seeing my husband kneeling at the couch in praise and thankfulness for the answer to our years of prayers. God continues to prove to us that He is FOR US. That He loves us. That He will not only supply our needs, but our DESIRES too. My son is a testimony to answered prayers, just like my daughter :)
3. Special Needs: I never thought I would be a special needs mom. If you would have told me that, I would have never believed it. I would have doubted how strong I can be. I would have worried about the details. Yet here I am. The mother to a special needs daughter. A daughter that is so unique and so special that doctors don't even have a name for what she has. A daughter that has stolen the hearts of most who have taken the time to know her. I'm her momma. Her biggest fan. She has taught me so much in her nearly 3 years here. Our family has been changed by her and I wouldn't have it any other way. Does that mean that I don't hope for the best or pray for a miracle still? No. I absolutely pray that God will heal her, but I also pray that He will use her and us regardless of His plan. If it's to heal, let it bring Him glory. If it's not, let it bring Him glory. No matter the road ahead of us, my prayer is for it to touch others and bring them to a relationship with Christ.
I will be digging into these life changing events in future posts, because as you can tell it's too much for one little post :)
