Life with a House Full of Boys

July 7, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 5 Comments

The pictures that you hung perfectly straight with a measuring tape and a level are always crooked.

Plastic frogs and lizards have found a home in your potted plants.

You find legos in every corner, sofa cushion, and pocket.

Nurf bullets are flying through the air at any time, night or day.

The furniture takes on the smell of stinky boy feet.

Even though they have been admonished to “Be Quiet!” during naptime, the herd of elephants still stampede through the house and up and down the stairs.

Screaming is a common sound, usually not even requiring a mother’s concerned attention.

Wrestling and pain and injuries are all part of the fun.

Food disappears, yet nobody knows where it went.

Mealtimes are a crazy event. (You might even end up with dirty underwear in your soup.)

Super heroes with varying special powers are flying around the house with their capes flapping in the breeze.

Sometimes the disregard for the law of gravity results in crutches.

You may see your toddler wielding a plastic firearm.

The boys might wake up covered in dust mite bites, because their room is so very…well, dusty; not to mention messy, dirty, unkempt, disheveled, and an all around disaster area.

Potty language is considered to be the highest form of humor.

You need your husband to constantly remind you to, “stop worrying, this is normal boy behavior.”

You have many interesting conversations that go something like this:

“Mom! Cooper ate a slug!”
“Is that true Cooper?” you ask, calmly.
“Yes!” Cooper replies with much joy on his animated face.
“Did you chew it or swallow it whole?” You are curious.
“He chewed it,” Cole answers.
“So what did it taste like?” you ask.
“Chocolate!” Cooper responds.
“Cooper, do you know why you shouldn’t have eaten that slug?”
“No…”
“Because I told you that you couldn’t have dessert tonight!” you reply with a smile on your face as you are thinking to yourself, “Boys!! I just love ’em!”

I could describe the perpetual state of your bathroom in a house full of boys…but I don’t want people to stop having little boys.

Crowning Jewel of All God’s Creation

July 5, 2014July 5, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 4 Comments

I have seen the majestic beauty of Pike’s peak.

I have beheld massive waves pounding the shore.

I have walked in the morning mist of a tropical jungle.

I have experienced stunning architecture, hundreds of years old.

But never have I had a view as great as this.

The perfection of each tiny toenail,

the softness of his skin,

the engineering of his ever developing brain,

the shimmer of his auburn hair.

And when his eyes light up with joy and his cheeks burst forth in a dimply smile…the sun pales in comparison!

All the music of a thousand symphonies, here in my house.

All the wonders of the universe, here in my home!

How is it that I should be entrusted with the crowning jewel of all of God’s creation – my precious baby boy, Courage Justice!!!!?

God Needs Me?

July 5, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 3 Comments

“He can do all things without us, but He had chosen to do them through us.” – The Call by Rick Joyner

I was pregnant with baby number eight. It had been three years since my last pregnancy, and I felt the strongest, the healthiest, the most alive I had ever felt! That was…until the morning sickness settled in. It was actually “all day but much worse in the evening sickness”. I had not felt horribly nauseous during my previous pregnancies, more like continuous car sickness. How I had wished I could stop the invisible car and just get out! I was optimistic that this pregnancy would be the exception, that I could say with a smile on my face and a twinkle in my eye, “I love being pregnant!”

Just the opposite had happened. I had never felt so bad! My days consisted of sitting on the sofa with my eyes closed, trying to feel better. My children ran around unattended. Home school, which we should have started a month ago, remained untouched. My older children did all the chores around the house and kept it running, though not as orderly or smoothly as I would have. My precious firstborn girl, Areli, carried an enormous burden. She heard my pitiful pleas all day long.

“Areli, could you make me some eggs?”

“Areli, could you fill up my water glass?”

“Areli, could you see who is crying upstairs, please?”

I tried to be a good mom; but mostly I whined, moaned, slept, felt sick, got sick, and slept some more. I felt useless and wretched. I knew theoretically that despite the weakened state of my body, my spirit could still soar high above my circumstances, like an eagle above the clouds. Yet, after days, weeks, and months of feeling crummy, my eagle had forgotten how to fly. My mind kept thinking about scriptures such as

“For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” 2 Cor 4:17

I knew that it was true, but it didn’t help me feel any better.

I thought about my joy in a newborn baby and how it was all worth it.

But it didn’t make me feel any better.

I reread every “Above Rubies” magazines I had ever received to encourage myself.

My mind was encouraged but my flesh still felt miserable!

My body felt like it was not capable to getting up off the sofa and doing anything productive or enjoyable, yet my mind continued to churn, swirling in descending circles.

“I just want to die. I can’t live like this. Why do I have to suffer? Why does God allow me to feel so horrible?”

Pregnancy is such a miracle, a blessing, a gift! So why did I feel so bad? My suffering was nothing compared to other women I knew, who kept almost nothing down for nine months, yet my suffering felt like too much for me to bear.

The question I kept asking was, “Is this worth it?” and I knew that it was. A new life is always worth it. After a mother is holding that precious bundle, her sorrow is turned into joy.

Then the question became, “How much is a human life worth? How much pain and sorrow is one life worth? How much would I suffer for one human life? Would I get pregnant and do this all again for one more human life? How much is a life worth to God? How much suffering did Jesus endure?”

The only conclusion I could come to was this; one human life is worth IT ALL! There is no limit to the value God puts on a life, no price too high to pay, no suffering too severe. Jesus suffered more than any of us. He went through betrayal, slander, hatred, lies, scourging, mocking, and the cruelest execution ever conceived. He felt the wretched, incurable sickness of the evil of the entire world. And he bore the effects of that twisted iniquity; separation with all that is good and beautiful and holy, his Father.

He said that his suffering was worth it because of the joy set before him. (Hebrews 12:2) That joy was human life, redeemed and set free. He said that I am worth it. He said that you are worth it. He said that the child in my womb was worth it. If Jesus was willing to suffer for my child, shouldn’t I? After the suffering of His soul, he saw the light of life (my life, your life, my child’s life) and he was satisfied. (Isaiah 53:11)

I knew that my suffering wasn’t in vain, but I still didn’t feel any better.

“God, give me a vision of this child! Something to keep me going,” I prayed.

In my mind’s eye I saw beams of life coming from this child and shooting out to the far reaches of the earth. This child would be a blessing to me and my family, yes. But he would also have an impact on the entire world! How? I have no idea! But if I could have some small part in sending life to the whole of mankind, sign me up!

Then I heard God’s loving voice.

“Thank you for being available. Without you, I couldn’t bring this child of destiny into the world.”

Then I felt the peace that only God’s voice can bring. I felt His gratitude sink deep into my soul until I was saturated by the unbelievable goodness of it. God needs me? The all powerful God NEEDS ME to be available? What if I had said that seven children were quite enough, and that there were too many children in the world already? THIS particular child, with unique DNA from his father and from me that could never be duplicated, would have never existed! His very individual purpose and destiny would have never been manifested. His precious personality, which was a dream in God’s heart since before the world began (Ephesians 1:4), would have never been realized. And now he exists…because of me! I cannot think of anything more powerful. I cannot think of any higher honor for God to give me, than helping Him to create something of inestimable value and eternal impact.

I never could say during that pregnancy that I enjoyed being pregnant. But I could say that pregnancy was when I relied on God the most and sensed His presence the closest and felt His glory the heaviest. And the moment that precious Babe was born…I could say…

HE WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!

My Adventurous Husband with the Crazy, Impossible Dreams Might Just Be Right

July 3, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 3 Comments

My husband, Chris, is very different from me. In fact, he is quite the opposite. He is spontaneous and impatient, prone to making rash and risky decisions. He is also very driven. When he has a certain goal in mind, all else fades to the background as he plows through valleys and climbs over mountains to reach that goal. When he gets an idea in his head, it seems like an obsession to me. I am a steady and reliable creature of habit. I like to dwell, remain, and stay in my comfort zone. I feel no need to go trailblazing into unknown and possibly scary territory. To change my course is like trying to alter the flow of a river. I have found that trying to deter Chris from a goal is like trying to stop a freight train once it is barreling down the tracks. It is much easier to jump aboard and enjoy the ride!

We faced our first major financial decision as newlyweds. Our apartment had washer and dryer hookups, but we had no washer and dryer. We would spend hours at the Laundromat. Chris reasoned that if we could put our Laundromat money towards payments on our own washer and dryer, we would be much better off. I agreed, but when I saw the large price tag, I was terrified. We ended up in our car in the Sears parking discussing the pros and cons. The worry of making a bad decision brought me to tears. We ended up buying the brand-new, super-capacity Kenmore beauties, despite my abiding nervousness. Eighteen years, 6 moves, and eight children later, they are still washing 2-3 loads a day! Chris was totally right!

In 2006 we were renting a nice house on Market St where I found my Little Piece of Heaven. Sure, I wanted to move eventually, but I figured that God would bring that opportunity right to us at the proper time. But Chris was obsessed. He was unsatisfied with our living conditions and upset that our rent money was going into someone else’s pocket instead of building up equity for us. He talked to realtors. He got lists of homes sent to him every week on the internet. He kept finding houses that he wanted me to look at. The available four bedroom homes priced around $100,000 were not at all what I would call attractive or comfortable! I didn’t want to look at these homes, not to mention consider living in them. But I did it, because Chris asked me to. We even put offers on two of them. They had been on the market for a long time. We thought we could get a good deal, fix them up and then sell them for more…all in an effort to get closer to our real dream house. Both houses were snatched up right before our offers came in.

Chris didn’t give up, however. He talked to other realtors, looked at other houses, and kept viewing homes on the internet. None of the homes interested me at all. Basically, I had given up on owning a home. One day Chris came across a picture of an older home, shrouded in dark awnings and overgrown shrubbery. He set up a time to see it. He walked in the front door, took one look at the high ceilings and beautiful woodwork and thought, “This is it!”

There was just one mountain of a problem. It was more than twice what we could afford. He set up a second time to view the house and wanted me to come along. I so desperately wanted to refuse him, and I almost did. I didn’t want to go see another ugly house. I definitely didn’t want to go see a beautiful house, fall in love with it, and then have to face the reality that we could never afford it. But I did it, because Chris asked me to.

The house was built in 1924 and was in a beautiful neighborhood with tree lined streets. I toured the gorgeous home, loving every detail of it! I tried NOT to love it…but I couldn’t help it. I took a paper containing the specs of the home that included a tiny black and white picture of the exterior. In my mind, that dreary picture was a picture of my dream home. I placed the paper on top of my filing cabinet. Every time I passed by and caught a glimpse of that paper, I would pray that God would do a miracle and give us that house! Every time we passed the exit on the highway that would take us to the house, longing would fill my heart that someday that exit would lead to my home! Every night before bed, the children would pray and ask God to give them that house! Chris’ obsession had become a family obsession!

The realtor went to the owners with a crazy idea. Even though the house had only been on the market for two weeks, he urged them to consider a sellers agreement, where we would make payments to them directly and take over the mortgage in a few years. It seemed like an eternity before they responded…THAT THEY WOULD! Amazing miracle number one! Yet our soaring spirits sank a bit as we heard the terms. The monthly payment was way too much, and we had to come up with $10,000 upfront. Chris countered with $300 less per month. They accepted! Amazing miracle number two!

Time came to sign the paperwork, and we still had no money to put down. Chris continued to plow ahead, scaling that mountain and signing away! I was terrified and thought back to the washer and dryer purchase so long ago. How small that decision seemed compared to this one was! I sat with the realtor, the paperwork, and a kitchen timer in front of me. I was timing contractions that had been coming every twenty minutes for baby number six. I was about to have a baby, and here I was, facing one of the biggest decisions of my life! I wanted to call it all off, or have a conference like we did in our car in the Sears parking lot. I wanted to cry my heart out and beg Chris to back out of the whole thing!

Quietly a peace descended upon me, and my emotions stilled. My contractions stopped. I saw the hand of God moving heaven and earth. I saw that it was He who had put that obsession into my husband’s heart. I signed the paperwork and believed that God would work out the rest. Amazing miracle number three!

I didn’t have any more contractions for almost a week. My grandmother joyfully offered to give us the money we needed and a bit more! Amazing miracle number four! Chris’ mom flew in from Colorado in anticipation of the new baby’s arrival. That night my water broke, but there were no contractions. In the morning, we thought we would pass the hours by showing my mother-in-law our new home! It was a hot and humid day in August. I walked around my home, and I began to get contractions. They increased as I showed off my four large bedrooms and gigantic bathroom on the second floor. They increased even more as I went down to view my spacious and clean basement with shelves and shelves of storage space. Finally, we all gathered outside to return to our rental house. I leaned on the truck with one intense contraction. It was hard to escape the pain with heat emanating from the sun above and rising from the blacktop below. I thought, “What have I done, coming here while in labor? I need to get home!”

We arrived home in plenty of time to fill the baby pool in our bedroom and call the midwife. Our little Cooper was born a few hours later, healthy and happy! Some weeks after that, we began to move into our new home.

We are still in this home, paying the mortgage (our mortgage!) eight years later. That is the real miracle! We have weathered job losses, economic downturns, and debt reduction programs. We were close to foreclosure during the hard times, yet we are still here!

Three years ago Chris became obsessed with another goal, to become a business owner. He talked to a business broker and received emails about local businesses for sale. He read books about entrepreneurs and conversed with friends who were business owners.

“Oh brother,” I thought. “Here we go again!”

He inquired about a Signarama shop just blocks from our house. He went to visit with the owner and saw the shop. He was convinced that this was it. He wanted me to see it all and tell him what I thought. I really didn’t want to! But I did, because he asked me to.

When I saw the shop I thought, “This is definitely NOT it!” A sign shop, full of vinyl to make signs? How boring! I never had any interest in being a business owner, nor ever thought about making signs. Chris began the slow process of turning my course.

We talked with the regional VP of Signarama to learn more about the franchise. What emotions surfaced when I thought about this proposition; spending all we had plus going into debt to acquire a business? Terror! Pure fear! Fear of not having enough to pay our bills. Fear of heading towards foreclosure again! Fear of making a big whopper mess-up of a decision! Quietly peace descended upon me, and I heard the voice of God.

“Do not fear making mistakes. Mistakes aren’t as powerful as you think they are. You see them as huge giants that can rob you of your destiny. That is not true. Your mistakes cannot negate my promises or my power or my faithfulness in your life. I can cause all your mistakes to prosper and use them for good. In fact, your mistakes are your servants. Use them to learn about me, yourself, and your destiny. Use them to draw near to me. Do not fear making mistakes. Make all decisions in confidence and faith. I AM able to lead you and keep you in my perfect will. I AM faithful!”

So we took the plunge into business ownership. It has been harder than we had ever imagined. Some of my fears have come to pass, but I realized that they weren’t so bad after all. God is in control, and He is bringing us through this into the abundant prosperity that He has promised! Chris is learning to slow down his freight train to prayerfully consider my wisdom. I am learning that my adventurous husband with his crazy obsessions might just be tapping into the very heart of God!

“The moment you are in is pregnant with possibility. DON’T kill it with fear.” – Bill Johnson

I won’t kill it with fear! I will move forward with faith and confidence!

I WILL ENJOY THE RIDE!

Ordinary or Miraculous?

July 1, 2014July 1, 2014 / Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / Leave a comment

We all hope and pray for that divine moment when life passes from ordinary to miraculous. Yet as I have experienced miraculous breakthroughs in my own life many times, I am struck by how they are always surrounded by the normal, everyday things. I think most miracles in the Bible occurred on ordinary days in ordinary lives. The people were still people like us; hot or tired, scared or angry, awkward or confused, obedient or backslidden…with faith and doubt living together in their hearts and minds. Perhaps they were battling just to keep afloat, yet secretly wishing they could give up and slip into a dark and peaceful oblivion. And after the heavens opened and the glorious event occurred, there were still battles to fight, details to agonized over, persecution and annoyances to deal with. There were still journeys as long as a lifetime to be navigated…one step at a time.

I have been reading 2 Chron 14-16 a lot lately. I am encouraged when I read about how God won an amazing victory for King Asa simply because the king relied on Him. An army of a million men were defeated before the small nation of Judah! Extremely perplexing to me, however, was the fact that the prophet Azariah came to Asa and encouraged him AFTER his stunning victory.

“The Lord is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you…But you take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded,” the prophet said.

Wouldn’t such a phenomenal victory be enough to show Asa that the Lord was with him? Wasn’t he already on such an incredible high after seeing the Almighty God answer his prayer, save his life, and deliver his nation from defeat and annihilation? Why did the prophet come to him AFTER the victory rather than before?

Recently we have had a miraculous breakthrough occur in our own lives, yet we still need many more miracles and feel overwhelmed by it all. I think I might understand why Asa needed that encouragement. He probably became king in his early twenties. He inherited a nation full of idolatry, foreign relation nightmares, and huge needs. He had a kingdom of people with problems, all looking to him for the answers. Being a man of integrity who sought the Lord, he felt the full weight of the responsibility that he was carrying; to please God and serve the people. He probably would have rather died in that battle than to turn out to be a lousy king and have the people suffer under his lousy rule. History tells us that he was a very good king, but he had no assurance that he would be. He was probably plagued with doubts and concerns…just like all of us! One miracle was not enough for Asa. One miracle is not enough for us. In order to take courage, we need the miracle of God dwelling with us everyday, just as Asa did.

Isn’t it glorious that God promised that He would NEVER leave us or forsake us? Isn’t it mind-blowing that God promised that NOTHING could ever separate us from His love?

The miraculous is ALWAYS at work, in every mundane step of the journey. We all long for that moment when the power of God becomes undeniably evident. Yet the miraculous is in the here and now, in the imperfection of ordinary moments. It was surrounding me this morning as I was lying on the living room floor doing exercises to alleviate neck pain and Coldplay was on in the kitchen and my child was asking if he could have sugar on his oatmeal. I wanted to just pause and take it all in. The vastness of the universe, complicated beyond my comprehension, forever expanding, and being held together by His words. The inconceivably minute details of every one of my cells, burning energy, producing life so I can exercise, listen to music, say, “Just a little bit of sugar on your oatmeal!” , and ponder the unexplainable mysteries of the cosmos all at the same time. The wondrous is all around us. The supernatural is on the inside of us…that is…if we have invited Him in.

How much of that miraculous are we missing today…simply because we don’t realize that it is here? Can I be like a prophet speaking to you, as Azariah spoke to Asa, when I type these words that God led you to read?

Take Courage, the Lord is with you! And with the Lord, every moment of your life is pregnant with divine possibilities!