Category Archives: My 3 Sons

For this child we prayed…Rachel and Kyle’s Miracle

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God’s timing is perfect but it is rarely ours.

“For this child I prayed, and the Lord mmhas granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.” 1 Samuel 1:27, 28. 

Sixteen years ago we were moving to a new state, a new city and anticipating the effect it would have on our three sons. They were 18, 13 and 8 years old at the time and none of them were overly excited about leaving family and friends.

We attended a Christmas banquet that year before the move and several of the ladies were asking about our kids. I replied, jokingly, that it would make it a whole lot easier on the oldest if there were some pretty girls to entice him to make the move. Immediately they all chimed in, “You need to meet Tonya’s daughter, Rachel!” Tonya was a little overwhelmed by the sudden attention but pulled out a snapshot of her 17 year old daughter and I returned home telling Kyle that I had met someone that would be perfect for him. “Yeah, right, Mom. Not letting you pick who I date.”

Actually, Moms are smarter than they are given credit for and naturally, I kept pushing.

Kyle and Rachel just celebrated 13 years of marriage this past August! I have always called her The Little Girl I Never Had because I had written the name Rachel Lauren as my little girl’s name for years and years. (Her middle name is Lynn but I was okay with that.) Of course as you may know, none of My Three Sons seemed to fit the name, Rachel. Thankfully, we have been wonderful friends and have gotten along beautifully all of these years. She lights up any room she enters and even her brothers-in-law call her one of their closest friends.

About three years or so into their marriage, Kyle and Rachel decided to start a family. It seemed it wasn’t meant to be and for the next ten years they endured many different doctors, specialists and tests. There were so many disappointments along the way that it was difficult for them to talk about it, even to immediate family. We let them share when they wanted to but never pushed. Anyone who has experienced, or is experiencing infertility understands all of this so well.

Kyle is the worship pastor at The Experience Community in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and they do a series there called Life at the Experience. They will feature a different person or family, tell their story of how they came to the Lord or something God has done for them. Kyle and Rachel were asked to share their pain and they did it beautifully. (Go watch the short video here and come back…it opens in another window so you won’t lose your place.)

The video was so impactful and touched so many hearts. We all were thankful that they reached out and made themselves so vulnerable to help increase the faith of others.

Then, Sunday, August 2, Kyle and Rachel came to Indiana to visit. Rachel’s birthday was that week and she said she missed us and wanted to spend her birthday with all of us. We met for pizza and then went back to the house for birthday cake…

But things took an unusual turn when Kyle brought me a fancy box filled with six giant cupcakes and look what was on top!

For this child we prayed...Rachel and Kyle's Miracle

I was so shocked I am sure Kyle and Rachel were disappointed in my reaction. The tears came later and have kept coming for weeks. I just couldn’t make sense of it; we have waited so long and were definitely not expecting to be expecting. Ecstatic is an understatement…me and The Sweetheart? We are going to be grandparents!

God’s timing is perfect but it is rarely ours.

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We have all been through things in our lives that have caused us to question. We have had unanswered prayers that didn’t make sense to us. They were good prayers; they were unselfish prayers. We were confused.

  • Why did God not answer our prayers?
  • Why did He make us wait?
  • Why do we sometimes not seem to get an answer at all?

Consider some of these thoughts:

Maybe God is more concerned with my salvation than my comfort. The Bible doesn’t say He came to give us everything we want but He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

We know we are not the first to go through whatever it is we are experiencing. Our situation is not the worst and it isn’t the only. But of course to us it is of utmost importance.  We want to fear no evil but no one wants to go through the valley if they can live on the mountain.

If He is really our God and really in control, maybe the miracle isn’t really the miracle at all. Many times people only look for what they can put in their pocket, everyone getting along, all of the planets aligning just as we need them to in our perfect world. We think that is the miracle; getting what we want.

But maybe sometimes we need to just trust Him IN the place that we find ourselves, in the here and now, where He needs us.

And ultimately, maybe our difficulty would be a testimony to others and strength to them in their weakness.

As Rachel said in the video, “God has showed us His perfect timing and His perfect will for our lives. We have learned so much of just trusting Him… If that ever includes a baby we will be thrilled but if it doesn’t….we know that He gives us joy in other ways…God has made us stronger…”

The miracle was in the trusting, not in the end product. If there had not been a baby there was still a miracle. They were made better, made stronger and given a great testimony because of the struggle, because of the pain and they ministered to others even in their sorrow.

If others see us hold on to God and keep believing, keep living for Him no matter our circumstance, they will understand what trusting God is truly about. And friend, it’s all about Him.

for this child we prayed

Have you prayed for a miracle for so long it seems out of reach? Do you feel as if God no longer hears your prayer? Maybe the answer is in the waiting, in the trusting, in the struggle itself. And maybe, just maybe, the answer is on the way. Remember, His timing is perfect…but it isn’t ours.

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Update! Here is the post of Norah Jayne’s arrival! 

The-Daniel-Fast-A-DevotionalDo you have your copy of The Daniel Fast Devotional? You can get it in paperback or Kindle here on Amazon! Fasting isn’t just for the New Year and Resolutions…it should be a part of our lives all year around. This 21 day devotional is great for ANY FAST. Check it out!

Silver and Cotton: Anniversary trip with The ‘Rents!

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The celebration of wedding anniversaries dates back to Roman times when husbands gave their wives a silver wreath for 25 years of marriage, and a gold wreath for 50. Today, if you google, you can find a suggested gift for almost every anniversary. The first is paper, second is cotton, 25th is silver…you get the idea. Join me for Silver and Cotton: Anniversary trip with The ‘Rents!

Wedding anniversaries they come but once a year…

Those words are the beginning to a song that was serenaded over any couple having an anniversary in our church back-in-the-day.

Every. Single. Sunday. Morning.

I dreaded anniversaries and birthdays for that reason. Can I get an “Amen”? You couldn’t hide if you had been a member very long, they would find you and just might call you out.

Mine was made worse by the fact that I was also married on my birthday. (If you missed those posts last week you can catch up here and here!) So, you also went up for this one:

Oh, Happy Birthday to you
Oh, Happy Birthday to you
May you find Jesus near, every day of the year
Oh, Happy Birthday to you
Oh, Happy Birthday to you
And the best year you’ve ever had!

I know, it’s all sentiment and everyone loves sentiment, right?

As soon as they were finished singing the birthday song, all of the birthday people would head back to their seats. But you knew what was coming…anniversaries were next and I had one of those too, so what to do?

  • Hang around the front of the church?
  • Walk ever-so-slowly hoping they wouldn’t talk too much in between songs and hurry and call the anniversary people up?
  • Walk real fast back to my seat so I could at least sit down with The Sweetheart and walk back up together?
I couldn’t win.

One particular year I had started back to my seat, awkwardly, and they quickly asked if there were any anniversaries. So I turned around and walked back to my worn-out spot in the carpet. When I looked up, I was still standing alone! So they asked again, were there any anniversaries? Naturally, by then the congregation was chuckling. You see, it’s pretty funny when you are up there alone, all alone, celebrating an anniversary while your beloved is sitting in his seat with a big grin on his face. Hilarious.

He finally saunters up there, as if it were a drudgery to be married to little-ole-me.

Wedding anniversaries they come but once a year
And we hope that this one will bring you cheer…

Right. I wasn’t feeling too cheerful but he was just having some fun. Remember, he said I throw him under the bus quite a bit here on the old blog.

We have had many anniversaries and taken many trips to celebrate but we have one in particular that forever stays with us. All four of us.

For our important and milestone anniversary of 25 years, the eldest of My Three Sons, Kyle, and his beloved bride, Rachel, decided they wanted to come along and help us celebrate. We were married on July 20, 1979 and they were married July 27, 2002. We were checking off 25 big ones and they were just crossing the second one off their list. We were elated that they wanted to spend an entire week with the two of us!

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Kyle, the Adoring Groom suggests that I am in charge of deciding where we would go since it was The Big One for us. Naturally, he hints, that he and the Princess Bride, Rachel, absolutely adore:

  • cruises
  • the beach
  • ocean
  • white sand
  • dolphins
  • Mr. Sun
  • blue skies
  • warm temperatures
  • snorkeling and…
  • virgin strawberry daiquiris
But you choose whatever YOU want Mom, we’re just going along for fun!

Okay! I have always wanted to spend some time on the East Coast. We had driven from Washington, D.C. one year up along the coast and on to Niagara Falls but we didn’t get to stay in any of the New England states very long.

I chose Bar Harbor, Maine.

The Princess Bride and her Adoring Groom didn’t seem to be too disappointed since Bar Harbor is on the ocean and it was the end of July. There was hope for a beach vacation in their near future.

I poured over vacation spots and finally chose a home from VRBO; a  beautiful cape cod right on the water. We were set; but first we had to make the trek from Bloomington, Indiana to the coast of Maine; 19 hours, 15 minutes and 1,271 and ½ miles. Give or take a few.

The four of us; road-tripping; what fun!

Silver and Cotton

We actually did have a great time going out in the van, we stopped somewhere in Pennsylvania for the night and in one of our give-in-to-the-boys moments, we decided to share a room. I mean, come on, we are family, right? We’re just sleeping, taking showers and back on the road. I could write another entire blog post about that night. (Correction: The Princess Bride and her Adoring Groom could write the post. Let’s just say on the way back Dad treated us to our own rooms at the Hilton to make up for it.)

On with the vacation!

We arrived the next day at our Cape Cod on the water, which might be true if the waves were really high and reached across the road and up the humongous hill. When the tide was in it truly was a breathtaking sight, when the tide went out it looked just like a giant mud hole, not so picturesque. We decided that wasn’t a huge deal, we would just go to the beach. So we got inside the house and put our things away when our landlady knocked on our door asking us if we were ready for dinner. We had forgotten that an authentic Maine Lobster Dinner came with the first night’s stay! She came carrying in more food than the four of us would ever eat complete with lobster, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, bread, salad and homemade blueberry pie for dessert. We dived in.

All of us except The Princess Bride who had to make a fast exit when Kyle cut into his lobster and some undesirable goop came back out with his knife. She was finished; even skipped the blueberry pie.

Fun Fact: Did you know that over 5,316,000 lobsters are eaten in Bar Harbor every year! But not Rachel’s!

It had been pretty cool when we arrived but we knew that wouldn’t last; we were looking forward to some summer weather; at least half of us were.

Would you believe that week was one of the coldest on record? The last week of July and it was barely 60 degrees! I don’t think it ever hit 70 the entire time we were there, it was almost frigid. We bought jackets and plastic rain coats, at times it was miserable. I enjoy the cool weather but was feeling quite sad for the Newlyweds, their summer vacation plans were just not happening.

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(Of course this picture wasn’t taken in Bar Harbor in the summer but it could have been, it was that cold!)

We planned for a trip to Nova Scotia on The Cat Ferry while we were there. Finally, they thought, white sands, beautiful beaches and hopefully some sun.  They got two out of three. It was downright cold in Nova Scotia. We did have a great time on the boat although I understand they no longer make that run from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Such a fun, fast way to travel!

The trip wasn’t all a bust. We saw quite a bit of Bar Harbor and the Acadia mountains. Such beautiful country! We ate blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup, blueberry pie, blueberry muffins and anything else we could get with Maine blueberries. Delicious. We even saw Mel Gibson’s yacht one evening, all of us could have lived on that!

The Princess Bride and her Adoring Groom didn’t complain too much although they mention it almost every time our anniversaries roll around.

Today? Kyle and Rachel are celebrating 13 years of wedded bliss. They are truly made-for-each-other (teaser: that story is coming soon!) and light up any room they enter. I wish you both many more years of happiness together. Love you so much and miss you dearly.

10492259_10101868564084775_1389675887095090040_n (You can read Kyle and Rachel’s hilarious engagement story here, the all-time favorite and most viewed post on the blog!)

And, Kyle and Rachel, just to let you know…I’ll do the cruise for our 40th! EEK!

Wedding anniversaries they come but once a year
And we hope that this one will bring you cheer
With the Lord and Savior to be your guide
In the clouds of Heaven you will be His bride!

 

 

 

 

The Perfect Ten

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It’s #FiveMinuteFriday of a different kind for me! This is simple but oh, so good. Hope you enjoy my take on “Ten”.

All three of My Three Sons have played the same part in a church Christmas play over the course of ten years or so. It was one of my favorites the very first time I heard it and I have never tired of it. Angels Aware has some of the best stick-with-you songs ever!

When my youngest, Korey Ross, now 23, played it about twelve years ago, he had strep throat. Had to leave practice the day of the first performance to go to the ER for meds. How he ever pulled off the lead with a temperature and strep is beyond me but he did it. Memories!

The Perfect Ten is a wonderfully simple rendition of The Ten Commandments in rhyme. In the play, ten children stood in a line and held up placards with their number on it when it came their turn in the song. So adorable because some of them would have the numbers upside down, inside out or just couldn’t quite get it to where it needed to be. Of course you pick the littlest ones for this song for sure audience approval!

But the message was never lost. Take a look at the words:

Number one, we’ve just begun, God should be first in your life (Matthew 6:33)
Number two’s the idol rule, those graven images aren’t right (Romans 1:23)
Number three God’s name should be never spoken in jest (Deuteronomy 5:11)
Number four the Sabbath’s for our worship and for rest (Isaiah 58:13)
Number five we all should strive to honor father and mother (Ephesians 6:1-3)
Number six don’t get your kicks from killing one another (Matthew 5:21-26)
Number seven life is heaven when you’re true to your mate (Romans 7:2)
Number eight don’t steal or break these rules for goodness sake (1 Cor. 6:9, 10)
Number nine don’t be the kind who goes around telling lies (Proverbs 12:22)
Number ten don’t covet when you see your neighbor’s house, or wife (Romans 7:7)
That’s the list that God insists we stay away from these sins,
That is why we memorize commandments one through ten!
The Perfect Ten, The Perfect Ten, they’re just as good as they were way back when
The Perfect Ten, The Perfect Ten, let’s say them once again…

They are perfect because they were God-breathed, God-inspired and written by the finger of God!

Many say that the Old Testament is not for us today. Of course we no longer participate in animal sacrifice, thank goodness, but these rules, these guidelines and commandments are still to be taken seriously in our walk with the Lord.

Enjoy the song and dwell on the verses today as we strive to be more like Jesus and share Him with a lost and dying world! And if you were ever in Angels Aware, what part did you play and do you remember the songs??

 

Sharing with Grace & Truth, Fellowship Fridays, Faith Filled Friday, Dance with Jesus