Fear

Soooo.... it's 3:45... AM. I may or may not have been up since 1:34.... reading about Measles. And fretting that Ellie could get exposed since she cannot get the vaccine until she's a year old.  I let fear take over for a little while.  My mind is very good at running.... far and fast.  In my head, as I'm reading all of these statistics and symptoms,  I see the lady who ran past me last week at the library get into her car with someone wearing a big ol respirator. At the time I thought, "hmm, she must be really sick."..... 2 hours ago, I thought,  "my gosh, that lady had measles!". A silly and overactive thought, (I know!), but, my reality. I share this with you not to boast about my fear and over active fretting,  BUT to boast about my God, and how good He is at speaking through His Word.  Instead of scrolling through tons of articles from the cdc, my first reading should have been HIS. I would've had more sleep tonight.  But thankfully I turned opened my Bible app before I was able to go back to sleep. And immediately my worrying Momma heart was not only put at ease, but truly a 'peace that surpasses understanding', wrapped me up in comfort. HE knew just what I needed.  Before I go on and on any more in my words, let me share His words.  Words that have true power and promise behind them.

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.

Isaiah 41:10 
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Philippians 4:6-7 
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 56:3 
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

Matthew 6:25-34 
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...

Deuteronomy 31:6 
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

Psalm 34:4 
I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

1 Peter 5:6-7 
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7 
Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Joshua 1:9
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Isaiah 35:4 
Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

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.

Proverbs 12:25 
Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

Psalm 23:4 
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

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.

Psalm 27:1 
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Whew, good stuff!  We serve an awesome God, who, over and over again assures me that I need not worry.  Not about Measles, not about Ebola, not about health, not about ISIS, not about the state of the world,  not about a car accident, or money, or relationships, or ANY other things that the devil may try to throw at me.  God's got this!  Woohoo!  The weight of the world is NOT on my shoulders!  Nope.  Jesus took that weight from me when He died for me 2000 years ago!  Woohoo! Nothing better or more exciting than that! Now I just need to pause and REMEMBER that more often when I feel that weight trying to come back on! !     SO, I challenge you(and myself). Whenever you're tempted to Google something that you're fearful of, (boy has Brandon laughed at some of the searches he's found open on my phone), try looking up His Word instead! Easy peasy, search: (your topic) Bible verse. And see what verses pop up. (Or you could  look in the concordance of your Bible)THEY'LL DO YOU ALOT MORE GOOD THAN GOOGLE!!! :D Peace, that's what God spoke to me tonight. Let God speak to you today. Let His Words tell you exactly what you need to hear.  Dig into His Word.  I promise you, He will speak to your heart. 
Whatever it is that is all over the news next, I guarantee you I'm not gonna go searching it....  I'm gonna read some promises of protection and peace over my family instead.  :D I hope you do the same. Okie dokie.  Good night!  (My husband is going to get up in 45 minutes and Ellie up before then! Eeek! ) :)

Donald

Donald Trump says,  "Good morning!".  Ellie's hair was rather Trump-ish yesterday morning!  Lol.  Love these smiles!  Hope you enjoy them too!  :D

8 Months!

Our baby is 8 months old! What a blessing this little hoot is!  Boy is she a fun one. 3 teeth,  lots of strawberry blonde hair (that's starting to curl), gorgeous deep blue eyes and 18 lbs of pure joy and spunkiness! :) She finally decided to abandon her amazingly fast army crawling for a pretty proficient crawl and then within a few days had already moved on to pushing herself to standing up on things.... especially brothers things.  Lol. She's so fun. And she plays peekaboo like a pro! She hides under the blanket and comes out with a huge grin.... it's so great!  And guess who her favorite person to play it with is? ... yup, Zion!  :) he's most definitely the greatest brother EVER. So compassionate, so caring, so fun,  so full of love for others, and doing a great job setting good examples for Ellie.  :) Zion is also doing such a good job on his school work.  His favorite book is Uncle Wiggly Longears... he looks forward to each adventure with Uncle Wiggley and always asks (and remembers) what the next chapter's titled.  He knows tons of verses, but will be quick to tell you only his favorite when asked to say a verse.... "Be content with what you have, because God saaaaaaays NEVER will I leaf you NEVER will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5. He's great. Saying this verse, whichhad alreadybeen his favorite,  especially helped him through our recent robbery experience in Seattle.  (Our rental car got broken into and stuff stolen)  It really bothered our sweet boy even more than we had thought,  but reciting that we are to be happy with what we've got and that God is always with us really helped him.  :) Alrighty, have a great day today and just think of our Zion saying his favorite Hebrews 13:5 to you!  :)

Happy Birthday Jesus 2014

 

What a JOY-filled day Christmas was this year! More than presents, we focused on Jesus and spending time with our family. And it was so perfect! :)We had a fabulous wake up with Zion and Ellie, (although Mommy was up for awhile before everyone else because she was so excited!) and then headed over to Monny and Poppy's for the second annual pool tournament!  So fun!!! While, much to Brandon's chagrin, Poppy won for the second year in a row, we all had lots of fun! Brandon and my brothers enjoyed setting up the brackets and establishing the rules... serious business you know. :) And at the end we get to pick gift cards in the order of how we finished. FUN! I got a gift card to BJ's(I was like the wildcard player or something like that, so I finished ahead of Brandon, even though I stink at pool!hah!), Brandon got one to Walmart, and because Monny and Poppy are awesome, Zion got one to Chuckie Cheese! Everyone had lots of fun! :) And that was just the start to our wonderful day! Hopefully I'll have more time to add to this later! For now, enjoy this! :)

Ahhh! So much to catch up on. ...

BUT so little time! So, until I have time to catch you up on the last wonderful month we've had,  here are some current pics of the cuties!  :) Enjoy! 

When you say "smile" and hold up my phone, this is the response!  Haha! Love it! 

Zion has started taekwondo!  He's only done the first day so far, but he's SO excited for class again today!  He did so good!  I'll post more when he gets his white belt! :) 

No words needed!  :D

She's infatuated with her socks at the moment.  

Our strong man! 

And the little one who could play games for hours and hours!  :) So fun! 

More pictures. ..

THANKSgiving

We had a lovely thanksgiving weekend, filled with love, laughter, thankfulness, food,  giggles and goofiness!  :)  We have such fun together and love making memories. We also put up the tree, which elicited joy and wonder from both of our blessings.  4.5 is a great age and Zion got such joy out of each ornament, snow globe and bobble that we have.  Fun fun fun.  And Miss Ellie wants to get into EVERYTHING.  :) it's amazing that at just 6 months you can tell that she delights in getting into what she thinks she shouldn't have. Lol.  She loves getting ahold of Zion's little people nativity scene.  Lol. 

But,  back to Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for the Many many many blessings that God has given us! ! Every single thing we have been given is a gift from God that we don't deserve. .. but are so thankful for! ! Most of all our salvation!  Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross to save us from our sins and rising again 3 days later!! Our children, incredible gifts that we are SO thankful you chose to give to us!  Our marriage, the gift of getting to spend our life with our best friend.... priceless! (My husband is the bestest ever, just in case you didn't know that! ) :) And our family and friends: we are thankful for YOU! I can't imagine living life alone.... so glad we don't have to! We're surrounded by wonderful people!

AND we're thankful that we will soon be seeing some of our favorite people!  We haven't seen grandma and grandpa Miles in over 2 years!  But we will be with them soon!  Yay!  I think every sales associate in green valley knows that too. Lol.  Whenever we've bought anything lately, Zion is sure to tell them, "this is for me to take on an airplane to take to grandma miles!" :) So fun! We can't wait!  Meemaw, Papa Wo and the Aunties are also driving over the pass for a couple of fun days in Seattle!  :) So... stay tuned for lots of fun! :) Be blessed today! And as I will soon sing to Zion and Ellie when they wake up, "this is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it! "