Hello everyone! Last weekend we reached $9,000! That leaves us with $5,030 to go to reach our goal. I’d like to say another great big thank you to those who have given to us to help us financially on this journey! While we still have a ways to go, we are so encouraged by your giving, and especially by your prayers.
Please help us get the word out! You’ve all been such a blessing to us already, our prayer is that God will bless you many times over what you’ve done for us.
We are so close to reaching $9,000. All we need is $65 to reach that goal. We are so thankful for the money we have received so far from so many wonderful people. We know that without all of you there is no way we would be where we are! Thank you for being a part of our journey and helping us so much financially.
Please keep praying for us. We need those prayers so much as we do still have a little way to go to reach our final goal of $14,030. If you have it to give today please help us get closer to this goal of $9,000!
At our church (Fellowship Baptist in Wartburg), we have youth meetings every other Thursday night. We use this as a time to get the young people together and try to be an encouragement to each other in the Lord. I bring a Bible lesson, and then we take some time for fun and games, and usually have a few snacks.
Ever since we were married, Becky and I have loved working with young people. I believe it is something God has put into our hearts, and I believe it ties in very closely with our desire to have our own children.
Please continue to pray with us and for us. Please help us get the word out. We’re getting close to $9,000 raised now, leaving us with just over $5,000 left to go.
It seems like just a couple of weeks ago I was talking about how much snow we got, and how rare that is the past few years. Oh wait, it was just a couple of weeks ago. Since then, we’ve gotten a good taste of Spring with temperatures in the 60’s, daffodils and tiger lilies popping up out of the ground, and thoughts of getting things ready to start some outdoor projects. I love Spring, warm weather, and being able to get outside and do stuff, even if it is blistering hot.
I look forward to the day that I can go outside and build a swing set for my growing child. I look forward to the day I can teach him or her to fish and catch lightning bugs. You know, all that warm weather stuff you always liked doing when you were a kid.
As we continue to pray about God having His way in all this, and Him getting the glory in it all, I can’t help but imagine life with a little one of our own. This warm weather has made those thoughts stronger and more vivid.
Please help us pray, and please help us financially if you’re at all able – $5 goes a long way!
Nothing fancy today… Just one simple truth… Prayer changes things.
I hope that as we continue to pray for this desire of ours to be met that you will be praying for us too, and if you have it to give today we would very much appreciate it. It may not seem like much but $5.00 can go a long way today!
Maybe we should have been a little more specific in what type of ‘Snow’ we’ve been praying for! Wednesday night into Thursday morning, we got 7 inches of snow (the white powdery stuff) – the most we’ve seen all at once in years. Of course we’ve had a few other smaller snow accumulations this winter, but none like this.
It’s funny to see Facebook comments on some of the ‘shares’ we’ve gotten – people saying they’ve had enough snow, or they’re ready for spring, or other similar comments. While I totally agree (I can tolerate 90-100 degrees way better than 25 degrees!), I can’t help but chuckle about it all.
As you share this (and thank you so much to those who do!), please encourage others to read about our story and to give just $5 if they have the ability. Thank you for praying for us…and don’t forget to pray for the right kind of snow! 🙂
This past Sunday night after church Jonathan and I along with our Pastor and family went to some friends’ house for a get-together they were having. It was an evening of fun, fellowship, food, football, and good friends. While the guys sat watching the football game the ladies had fun gabbing about anything and everything.
Everything from food recipes to family members, upcoming church events, and even some questions were asked about the progress we are making in raising the money for our procedure. As we continued to talk I expressed my concern that I sometimes feel hesitant to share our blog on Fridays. Not because it embarrasses me for others to know about our story or anything like that. My hesitation comes from a fear of what some will think or say. Now… I know I shouldn’t let this bother me, but when you are sharing things about your personal life it’s hard not to wonder what other people will think of you for what you are doing. There are so many people who have been an encouragement to us and have helped us, but I have to admit that I’ve come across some people that have been very negative toward what we are doing. I suppose it’s these few comments that the devil has used against me to make me feel this way.
Since we started our blog, we knew all privacy for our situation would go out the window, and we were willing to accept that fact because what we wanted most from all of this was not solely about raising the money we need, (of course the financial support is a great need) and we desire your prayers very much, but our greatest desire is that people would see the true desire of our hearts is to please God throughout this whole process.
Jonathan and I are not perfect. We don’t have a perfect home, or a perfect marriage. We fail and make mistakes everyday. I fail so bad at telling how good God has been to us throughout all of this. I’m thankful that in spite of my failures He still chooses to use ordinary, everyday people, and while we do fail we are trying our best to do what’s right.
Sometimes I feel like I’m being so selfish in sharing something else about “us…” every Friday, but at the same time I do believe that it’s a good idea to share often so that it helps people to remember to pray for us. We want people to see the Lord in our lives and our story. To see that we love Him no matter what will happen. While this is OUR story we want the whole thing to be based around Him. He deserves the glory and praise for the miracle that we are seeing happen in our lives!
We know that He has used many of you to help us financially and we do not take this lightly. We know there are many of you that pray for us, and there have been many days when I know God has heard and answered your prayer because some days are hard. It’s in these times that I’m reminded again of how weak I am, but how strong He is! I know many of you know where I’m coming from because in some way or another from your own experiences you know how hard it can be waiting for God’s timing so we appreciate those prayers very much as we are learning patience. 😉 This is my favorite Bible verse and it very often comes to my mind.
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14
I know that while we have shared our story many times here on our blog and different social websites there are still many people who don’t know what our story is about, and maybe some will not even be interested to know, but we do hope that each time we share our blog that it will somehow be a blessing to someone else, that somehow we will be a help and a good example through all that we do, that somehow God will get the glory!
Thank you to all those that follow our story, and may God bless you all!
Well, maybe it’s not quite so snowy any more, but we had a decent snow here earlier this week while we had 3 of our nephews. They were dying to get out and play in the snow, so Becky went and dug out a couple of sleds to play around with. Maybe there wasn’t quite enough to sled with, but they had a lot of fun anyway.
Today we’re seeing only the second day that we’ll get above freezing temperatures. I’m ready!
While we’re trying to stay warm and cozy in the house during all this cold, spending time with our nephews, we continue to imagine and be excited about one day having our own child to get out in the snow with, teach, love and raise. We’re getting closer to reaching our financial need to do our IVF procedure, but we’re still not quite there.
Anything that you could give would be so greatly appreciated, and will help us get closer to meeting our goal. As always, we appreciate your prayers as well. Without God’s hand in all of this, it would never succeed.
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. Exodus 14:13
God gave Israel a great promise that day. They saw what He could do. I’m thankful this verse still holds true today for us too if we will just believe it.
This verse has been on my mind again for the past few days. It comes from a Sunday School lesson that Jonathan did in our class last summer. He actually was not teaching on this verse but it was one that he skimmed over in part of his lesson, but it jumped out at me that day. I can’t even remember what his lesson was about because I was so fixed on this verse.
During that time I was going through a struggle over being scared and a little overwhelmed of doing IVF. Honestly… I don’t know where that came from because when we first made the decision to do IVF I was just very excited and anxious. Throughout the past year there have been some times that were still a little hard but for the most part it’s just been exciting to see the Lord working for us. He has taken what was impossible and made it possible for us to do this. As I thought about this the other day this verse came back to me again and I couldn’t help but thank the Lord for His unending faithfulness.
The part of this verse that stood out to me so much was “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day.” I was so scared that what if we do all this… raising the money, the process we will go through leading up to IVF, and then the procedure itself and then it doesn’t work! I was scared of becoming bitter, of failing Him after everything that He has done for us, of ruining my testimony, and still not having a child of our own. All these things that kept me so upset, I realized I didn’t have to if I would just stop trusting in my own self and trust the Lord like He wanted me to. I realized the risk that is involved here, but I’ve also seen what God can do when we just trust… I discovered that day that what I really knew all along, that I don’t have to be afraid of all those things because He is gonna take care of us. His way is best and so if we do all these things and it doesn’t work then He has a reason for it and a better plan in mind. It was then that I was able to just focus on what is ahead and be excited about it. I have peace in knowing that I can just be still and see what HE will do!
I promised myself when we started all of this that I would always tell what He has done for us to anyone that wanted to hear about it. He’s done too much and been too good to keep silent about it! I’m so thankful to be His child. I honestly can’t imagine my life without Him in it. He didn’t have to give me peace through this verse that day, but He knew what I needed and He took care of it. There are so many promises in His Word for us. This just happened to be the one I needed for that day. And since He cannot tell a lie, it is through promises like this that I’m learning I can lean on Him. What a wonderful God we serve!
Please continue to pray for us! We ARE very excited. Seeing how far we have come… I can’t be anything else but excited. We are not done yet though so we are asking that if you have it to give please help us. It may not seem like much to some but $5.00 goes a long way. I don’t know if y’all really know how much of a blessing it has been to us. So many that have helped us financially and to all those that are praying for us. We are SO grateful. May the Lord bless you all in return for what you’ve done for us!
Happy Friday to everyone! Here in East Tennessee we saw some record lows this week. It was the lowest temperature I’ve ever seen – we hit -3 on Tuesday morning! But we’re on a warming trend now, and are supposed to see temperatures in the 50’s tomorrow.
While cold weather brings some beautiful scenes, I’m personally ready for some warmer weather. I’ll have to be patient, though – I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the cold weather.
Until then, we’re still raising money to have an IVF procedure. We are excited about what the Lord has done for us through your generosity and prayers! We also have some other exciting things we are working on, so stay tuned for those!
In the meantime, if you’re able, we would most sincerely appreciate your help by buying a puzzle piece for just $5. When bought, it is numbered and we keep a record of your name so that someday we can show our child just how many people God used to help bring him or her into this world.
Thank you again for your generosity, and for your prayers!