Prayer Warrior

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ”-Mark 10:14

This past week I went into Sadie’s room to get her up from nap. When I walked in she was sitting on one side of her bed facing a line of stuffed animals and baby dolls on the other end. Her hands were covering her forehead, like we do when we say the Shabbat blessings each Friday night and her eyes were closed.

I asked what she was doing.

She said, “I praying for all my animals. I pray they love Yeshua (Jesus) real soon!”

And then she picked her Minny Mouse doll up and showed me her.

Then she said, “I pray for Minny. She so sick. God heal her when I pray.”

Sometimes she just floors me and drives me to my own knees. There are countless instances when we as adults over-complicate our own belief in a God who simply desires us to come to him with a child-like faith. Just to sit in silence, stop what we are doing, rest in him, and pray for others around us.

Prayer can so often be clouded by right and wrong, major theological discussions, and our own hesitation.

Pray like Sadie. Pray for those who are in need of salvation and for those who are hurting.

Timing is Everything

If you follow my blog, you may recall my post on having low expectations. I challenged myself to not put God in a box and begin to expect greater and bigger things for Him to accomplish in my life and in the life of my family.

So I prayed head on for God to revolutionize our finances. I prayed specifically for this area because it is an area of our life that we feel we are very faithful in, yet always feel stunted and limited. Limited in being able to make family memories that couldn’t be funded, providing more basic necessities right away rather than waiting to get them accomplished, and being able to bless others.

God answered my prayers, and then some.

TJ was approached and decided to be faithful to walk through open doors. He blessed TJ with a new job that will enable us to accomplish all of those things I mentioned above, and he will be down the street from our home instead of his regular hour and a half per day on the road. This job will also be enabling him to have more upward mobility than his previous to further the blessings that much more.

It hit me one day as this job became a reality that God really does exceed my expectations in such ironic ways. When we were pregnant with Sadie, we were so hard pressed to find anything, let alone get an interview for over 10 months.

This time, while pregnant with Jonah, TJ was approached while having a perfectly comfortable job that we were already thankful for but chose to do more.

The timing God chooses is something I never will understand, but it gives me new perspective to not only stop limiting God in ways He can move, but to also trust that much for for Him to provide for all our needs as we need them.

It’s a wonderful feeling to see the hand of God at work in the intricacies of your life.

Words on Wednesday

Normally I stick in a “Wordless Wednesday” post with a telling picture of my girl, but today was too cute to pass up…

While Sadie was eating her yogurt and toast for breakfast this morning and we were chit chatting about songs and airplanes, she paused and said:

“Mommy. Make God toast, please.”

Happy Wednesday everyone. And לשנה טובה ומתוקה to all my fellow Jewish buddies!

Brown Family Traditions

TJ and I have been throwing around ideas for traditions and ideals we would like to instill in our own family “culture” as our kids grow up. Luckily, we were both raised with strong moral convictions by our parents and we would like to pass along the importance of our faith, the awareness of others in need around them, and being a stand-up individual.

Here are a couple things we would like to see our family routinely do in the years to come:

Birthdays: For each birthday, in addition to receiving presents, have child collect and guests/family bring an item that the child will give to someone in need. For example: Sadie’s birthday is in November just before Thanksgiving. This is the perfect time to be collecting canned goods and having her deliver them to a food pantry or homeless shelter to support Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless.

This way our kids get to enjoy their birthdays and receiving gifts of their own, but they also learn to give to others who desperately need the necessities we often times take for granted.

Receiving Commission: Our kids will have a list of chores that are unpaid that they are simply required to do as a member of our home. Beyond those chores, they will have the opportunity to do more to earn their own money. They will learn to divide the money up into 3 categories: Save, Spend, Give.

With their giving money, we would like them to adopt a child through an international organization that is the same age as them to support every month. This way our kids have develop a heart for missions and can develop relationships with kids their own age who live in much more need by writing to them through their own childhood.

Prayer Pail: Sadie already always asks to pray all the time (especially before dinner). Right now, it’s limited to praying for her cousins. We would like to use the above pail in our dining room to start off our family dinner times by letting each of our kids pick a stick from the pail to pray for. This way we are sure to always be changing and adding things to pray for and it gives us a good foundation to start our conversation throughout dinner.

Thanks Board: And since Fall is approaching soon, here’s a tradition to start now. Every year I’d like to put this board up in view and have the kids draw or write things they are thankful for during this season and hang them up as a visual reminder of all the good.

We would like our kids to grow up knowing that there is plenty of bad that is easily seen in the world, but we need to be intentional about looking at the good and be thankful for the big and small things that take place in our lives!

What do you do in your family? I’d love to hear more ideas!

Out of Control

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.- Corrie Ten Boom

Today I had one of my last ultrasounds for this pregnancy. As excited as I was to see my baby boy again, I have to be honest… I felt completely out of control.

I was laying there on my back thinking about what an eventful day today was even though it wasn’t even 11:00 am yet:

• A 7 month old baby was thrown off of a parking structure at a local Children’s hospital just a couple miles from our home by his own Mother suffering from postpartum depression.
• A friend of mine is in the hospital with blood clots on her lungs caused by a medication she was taking.
• Another is in the ICU because of an aneurism after surgery last week.
• Another has been in isolation because of contracting Tuberculosis from her teaching job.
• And another dear friend lost her 10 week old baby.
• And there was an 5.9 earthquake back east.

All in one day this is going on.

I was admittedly a little frightened to be laying there, having a medical professional look at my unborn son on a day like today. I was waiting for something unexpected to happen to me.

I was laying there once again realizing that I am completely out of control. God is the one and only who sees, allows, and solves all of these things.

Once my appointment was over, I finally took a deep breath. It hit me that God desires us all to just take a deep breath. No matter the circumstance or hardship, worrying about catastrophic events in our lives or the lives of others does nothing.

Giving it all to Him is the only thing we can do. So I did.

Matthew 6:34  “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 11:28-30  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Luke 12:25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his  span of life?

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you;my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Thankful Thursday-Blessed

I used to listen to this song by Martina McBride on the radio back in high school hoping that one day I would have a glimpse of this kind of life. It popped into my head again this morning (while in the middle of some crazy contractions) and as I was singing it to myself, realized that I indeed have everything this song describes.

Porch swing and hardwood floors included.

I am so blessed!

I get kissed by the sun each morning
Put my feet on a hardwood floor
I get to hear my children laughin’
Down the hall through the bedroom door
Sometimes I sit on my front porch swing
Just soakin’ up the day
I think to myself, I think to myself
This world is a beautiful place

I have been blessed
And I feel like I’ve found my way
I thank God for all I’ve been given
At the end of every day
I have been blessed
With so much more than I deserve
To be here with the ones that love me
To love them so much it hurts
I have been blessed

Low Expectations

Psalm 5:3- In the  morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay down my requests before you and wait in expectation.

I have a confession to make. For such a long time now I have been in a sort of rut when it comes to God and how He can move in my life. Especially in the life of my family. I have viewed my own shortcomings and past mistakes as a hindrance to fully allow God in to use our circumstances for the better beyond anything I could imagine.

Mark Batterson, the author of “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day” says,

“One of our greatest spiritual shortcomings is low expectations. We don’t expect much from God because we aren’t asking for much.”

This is the true story of my prayer life since we moved back to California from Dallas in 2009. When I pray, I don’t ask for much. Mostly because of my own limitations I have set on myself, and mostly because we don’t have much, so I don’t ask for much.

This mostly applies to our finances.

I could be asking God to do big things for us. To open doors that I think are impossible. To provide opportunities I could never imagine. To do away with such a heavy burden that we carry every day as we try as hard as we possibly can to do right.

But instead, I ask Him to simply allow us to survive for the next month. To allow TJ to keep his job stability. And to keep food on the table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads.

All of those things are good to pray for, but they are simple. God can do so much more than that but I have set limits to what God can do in the life of my family because to me, it seems impossible.

So, instead I am challenging myself to pray with larger expectations because I know God is in the business of providing. I will pray for things I would never think possible and allow God to do what He wishes…big or small.

Lessons Learned from Unemployment: Part I

Two years ago at this time, I was pregnant with our first, and was praying for TJ to be able to find a job after moving back home from Dallas to California. We were living in my Dad’s office with our entire lives packed in storage. We were surviving on our hard-earned savings and the generosity of our families, friends, and even strangers to pull us through my pregnancy safely.

It was a scary time. It was a sad time. But it was also a rich time of growing in a lot of ways.

There are so many people in this country who are unemployed or underemployed. According to this new article from the Economist, it’s not getting any better any time soon. In fact, many have it harder than we did with the average length of unemployment being 39 weeks long.

Although many things we endured have seared themselves on us and left scars, time does really heal many wounds. There are numerous lessons from our seven months of uncertainty that I hope I never forget or take for granted.

Hopefully the things I have taken can encourage and offer hope to others out there who are hurting in the face of the unknown.

Hold on Tight

I knew I loved TJ before, but going through unemployment revealed things I didn’t know so well about him and what kind of man he truly was. He was a rock. He was dependable. He was assuring even in the face of no guarantees. He was a go-getter, a fighter, a survivor, and a leader. He made hard decisions. He did what had to be done even when he didn’t have an ounce of hope left.

I know trails like unemployment or deaths, etc. can easily divide and break up marriages, but it really did bring us closer together than we ever had been because we were intentional.

So husbands, be open about your fears with your wife and then hug her. Talk everything out in exhaustion because she needs to know how you are processing everything. She needs to hear it.

Wives, encourage him to get up every morning and fight. Be his cheerleader without being his mother. Work beside him in practical ways to help him accomplish his goal. Remind him he is not a failure, he is still your man, and hold on to him tight.

Give it Up

There comes a point when you have a real problem in your life that you realize you are trying to fix too much by yourself when you really don’t have any control. Sadly, it takes getting to that point that many of us finally realize we are doing so and finally give it up to God.

The sooner you do it, the better you will feel.

We spent a lot of time asking ourselves why it was taking God so long to intervene. We asked ourselves what He wanted us to learn from a nightmare. We were angry at different points, in despair at other times, and just plain confused for periods.

Despite those real feelings, we also knew God’s promises to us. We had just finished a year at Dallas Seminary and knew God’s hand was active in our lives.

So we spent a lot of time reminding each other of crazy stories and miracles He had done. We read Job. We reminded each other of verses or stories in the Bible to offer clarity.

It was the only thing that brought us back down to reality and out of a state of panic.

To be continued…

Full Hearts and Full Bellies

Whenever we hear sirens, Sadie stops what she is doing to announce the car going “zoom.” Her fascination is just so girly. Just like my mom used to tell me, I tell her that those sirens mean the car is going to help somebody who needs it and we should pray for them.

Tonight at dinner, we were eating and talking together and then we heard sirens. Sadie dropped her spoon and announced the zooming car, as usual. TJ and I both repeated after her. She’s in that stage where you must repeat everything she says or you will hear it over and over until you give acknowledgement.

Then she did something that really took our breathe away…

Instead of going back to her dinner, she held out both of her hands for us to hold like when we pray as a family, and said, “Hands.”

TJ and I dropped our utencils, grabbed her hands and prayed for the people who needed help because of the sirens we heard.

She said, “Ahhhh meaahhhh (amen)” and resumed her eating.

What a proud moment for us to see this true first glimpse of God’s compassion for people permeating our little Sadie’s heart. My prayer is that her life is full of these kind of moments.

After a meal like that, we’ve never been so full.

They Are Not Ours

This morning in my Mom’s group I had the honor to listen to this Mom’s story of the loss of her son, Judson. You must watch this video. As painful as it is, there is so much truth and hope in this 2 year old’s story.

Disclaimer: You may want some tissues.

The two things that got me more than anything as this has been in the back of my head all day are these points:

1. Our children are not ours. God blesses and entrusts us with these precious gifts of life. He decides what He will do with their lives and how He will do it. Everything in His perfect time. Our job as the parent is to take them for as long as God blesses us and point them to Him. Parenting is so much more than teaching our children colors of the rainbow or how to share. Parenting is teaching God’s truth into our kids and loving them as God loves us. It’s not to show our kids we are “perfect.” It’s to show them that we are sinners who fall short and also rely on God’s strength. If we fail to do this, we are doing the greatest disservice to ourselves, to our families, and to God to gave this gift of life.

2. The everyday stress of life is so trivial. It’s been quite a while since I experienced such a heart wrenching trial that I have so easily become complacent to raw suffering. I remember a time where it felt like I was walking through my life not breathing. It felt like I was under water. It felt like nobody understood the deep pain and the uniqueness of my suffering.

But as things in life regain a new normal and as time passes, it becomes so simple to stress out the things that don’t matter and replace it for suffering. The truth is I am so lucky.

So the bills that can’t be paid can just be late.

The new food allergies we uncover with Sadie can be prevented and treated.

My nausea with a baby growing in my belly means there is a new life I have yet to see as God forms and molds them into His perfection.

We are all so lucky. Through the enduring of suffering, we have a hope in God caring intimately for our suffering who wants to reveal His providence and compassion.

Thank you little Judson for teaching us so much.