I Sing Praises to Your Name, O Lord!

We have a HUGE praise ... Aaron was granted the Keesee Scholarship for the fall and spring semesters!!! We are so GRATEFUL for this scholarship. God has again provided. This further assures us that we are on the right path because He is providing for Aaron's tuition. We are so thankful to God and others God has used to support us in this calling.

• For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations,and sing praises to your name. - 2 Samuel 22:50

• Sing praises to the LORD, O you his saints,and give thanks to his holy name. - Psalm 30:4
• I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;I will sing praises to you among the nations. - Psalm 57:9

Romans

3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

10:9-10 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

10:14-15 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

Say What You Need to Say

Today is one of those days where I have so many things to say and so much running through my mind that I don't know where to begin!

Yesterday was Father's Day. I hope all the dads out there enjoyed their day.

Last week was VBS at Highview. I had such a great time. I had the sweetest group of 2nd graders and 3 really good helpers for the week. I so enjoyed being able to just teach instead of being involved in all the planning, organizing, decorating, etc. The only bad thing ... the songs are still going through my head ALL THE TIME!!! Otherwise, it was a really great week.

I also want to say how thankful I am that we found Highview Baptist. We have made some great friends there, and I enjoy worshipping on Sunday mornings so much. Yesterday the music was so awesome. We also heard Dr. Mohler (SBTS President) speak for the first time yesterday. I enjoyed that as well.

An update on our housing issue: Our landlord has posted the house for rent online and at the seminary. If someone rents it, we will be freed of our lease and be able to move. We are praying for God's divine intervention in all of this. I don't want the house to rent and there be no apartment available. I KNOW that HE is SOVEREIGN and will take care of it all.

I have decided that I am a "B.R.A.T." I came up with this as I was thinking about how unthankful I can be.

B - Brandi

R - really

A - ain't

T - thankful

Kind of funny, but I just thought of that as a reminder to me that I need to be more thankful. I think that it's okay to be down and out and to have "pity parties" for ourselves every now and then, but we must not dwell there. So from now on when I start to throw myself one of these parties, I am going to think about the word BRAT! Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I am going to try to be thankful. When I think about it, THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT I SHOULD BE THANKFUL FOR, and when I choose to feel sorry for myself I lose sight of all those things.

Anyway, those of you who read the blog get to see all of me - all of my shortcomings, all of my complaining, all of my thankfulness, all of everything. I am thankful for each of you who take the time to comment and encourage me and to pray for me and my family. It is so awesome to be able to keep in touch with every one via FB and blogging.

One last thing to say: I am so GRATEFUL for a loving God! HE is so GRACIOUS, so MERCIFUL. He's ALL KNOWING, ALL POWERFUL. I don't know how people make it through the day without HIM. I lean on HIM more than ever, and I just wish that everyone out there could see how AWESOME HE truly is. :)

Prayer, Please!

So today I am asking all of you to pray for us! I know there are many of you out there who are continually lifting us up, but we, well I, am feeling so discouraged right now. It seems as if we can't catch any slack.

This morning the storms were raging here - probably some of the worst I've ever seen. It went right along with my mood. The skies were dark and the wind was howling.

As most of you know from reading the blog, we had hoped to move to an apartment. We are not going to be able to do that right now. We had hoped that our landlord would be understanding and not see us as trying to short change him or take advantage of him. We honestly felt like moving to an apartment was the right thing for our family - both financially and emotionally. He is posting the house for rent again so maybe someone will rent the house and we can move to an apartment. Please pray for us through this matter. The apartments that we liked go quickly, and there were two people in line behind us when we were looking so the two that were available are now gone. The manager has had no notices either.

Aaron has been trying to change his major to Missiology - AND we THOUGHT everything was squared away. Well, guess what? The seminary called yesterday and Aaron has to fill out another application with personal recommendations and a church recommendation. We think it's crazy because he has been attending classes this semester on campus!! It's as if he is having to be re-accepted again.

A friend said we had so much drama. I totally agree. I feel like if it's not one thing, it's another. I even am beginning to wonder if we are doing what we are supposed to. Did we somehow miss God's calling for our lives or misunderstand? I don't know. I keep thinking about Job (and I'm no saint, not saying that I will ever be) and how he had so many trials when he was living for the Lord. And the thing that keeps coming to my mind is that he CONTINUED to praise the Father through it all. That is AMAZING. Since Monday, I truly have been down and out and upset and just mottling through. And what did Job do? He "...arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and WORSHIPED (!). And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; BLESSED be the name of the Lord.' In all this Job DID NOT sin or charge God with wrong." [1:20-22] Are you kidding me? Job is a much stronger person than I!!!! But he did exactly what God wanted him to do -what he knew he should do.

I came across another verse this morning from James. It says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." [1:2-4] Wow again!

So even though I am feeling so discouraged, so down and out, asking "why," and feeling like I'm barely keeping my head above water, I should PRAISE GOD and PERSEVERE because (as we have learned in VBS this week) "it all comes back to Jesus." It's all about HIM, and the moment I become like Peter and take my eyes off of HIM, I IMMEDIATELY begin to sink. And as always, Jesus is RIGHT there reaching out HIS hand to catch me.

So I have decided that my pity party is OVER! Yes, I am VERY UNHAPPY about not being able to move, and I'm wondering what in the world is going on, but I am CHOOSING to PRAISE JESUS anyway because HE is the only thing that matters.

We truly appreciate all of your prayers, encouragement, and thoughts. We love you and WE LOVE JESUS!

Drumroll Please .......

Aaron successfully finished his first semester at SEMINARY ..... with 2 A's and a B!!!!!!!  I am so proud of him and so thankful that God has blessed us during this first leg of our journey.  Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

GOD IS AWESOME!  We deserve NOTHING and He gives us EVERYTHING!  We deserve His wrath and He gives us His GRACE!

Update

Well, the last couple of days have been much better!  Thank God for his grace!

Aaron mis-read the info on Missiology, and after meeting with the Dean on Wednesday, has decided that the best option is to officially change his major to Missiology.  This program involves a little more Bible/theology than the other program.  Basically, the MATSIL program (from what we understand) is designed for people who have already been on the field and need to come back to finish/work on their seminary degree while they are on furlough. The program is 48 hours where as Missiology is 60, so we will probably be here a semester longer than we originally though - which isn't bad.  Aaron's expected date of graduation is Summer 2011.

This morning I found ants AGAIN!!!!  Pest control has been out 4 times now, if I haven't lost count.  For me, that's just another reason to move!  We have decided on which apartments we will move to, IF we move.  It is such a difficult decision to make - AND we want to make sure that it is a GOD decision when we do it.  As I've said before, it would save money (about $140.00, I discovered) so from that perspective alone, it makes sense.  But what makes sense to us isn't always what makes sense to God so we want to be 100% certain that it is His will that we move.

Aaron got a response from the media job at the seminary asking how many hours he wanted to work, but has not heard anything back yet.  Hopefully he will!  I called about a babysitting job for an 11 year old boy a couple of days a week that would continue through the school year.  I would be able to carry Briggs with me, so hopefully this will work out to bring in some extra income!

We had a great time kayaking last weekend, but Briggs is growing quickly and is almost too small for the dry storage area in my boat.  HMM.

We went to Churchill Downs yesterday for the first time.  It was really neat, and we had free passes which made it even better!

Below are a few pics:

So You Had a Bad Day ....

If that doesn't describe yesterday, I don't know what does!!  It started out okay, not bad, actually.  We were going to buy Briggs a prize for going in to his Sunday school room for the last 4 weeks with no crying, fussing, kicking, etc. Bribery, I know, but we had to do something!  Well, then, Aaron decided to pay the bills, and you know how that goes!  So then we leave to go looking for a fire truck - Briggs had decided that's what he wanted.  He's been obsessed with firefighters lately (he wanted his hair cut like a firefighter's).  We get to Walmart and he and Aaron went searching for the fire truck while I went to get groceries.  They finally found me a little later with a slip n slide in hand.  "Where's the fire truck," I asked.  They did not have fire trucks at Walmart (I thought that was odd) so Briggs went around looking until he found something he wanted. He found a slip n slide like Caden's and had to have it.  We tried to talk him out of it because if we move to an apartment (we still have made no decisions on this) he will not be able to use it.  He begged and pleaded, and we wound up with the slip n slide. In that whole process, Aaron snapped at me, and I snapped back at him.  Lovely!  We finally make it back home, and Briggs is asking over and over to go on the slip n slide.  Aaron set it up in the back yard.  Didn't work so well.  Briggs couldn't slide down it b/c of the way the yard goes back there. No water got on the slide and when he tried to go down, a stick poked through and made a hole.  Great!  We then moved it to the front yard to give it a try.  I came inside for something and a few minutes later Aaron came in to get some clothes pins to put on there to try to build up the water pressure.  I heard Briggs screaming to the top of his lungs, and I took off out the door.  He was screaming, "A snake, a snake!!!"  I looked, and there in the pool part of the slip n slide was a snake.  I just started crying. I thought they were all gone.  Oh, and by the way, Briggs has since decided that he doesn't want the slip n slide.  UGH!

All of this happened on top of us trying to decide about moving and changing or not changing Aaron's major.  We came to seminary with his major being MATSIL.  We thought (based on what we were told) that we would receive a discount from the seminary b/c we were going in to missions.  We found out this week that isn't so.  Back in February, we found out about a scholarship for students from SC that we applied for.  MATSIL was not an accepted program for the scholarship so we thought about it, considered our options, and Aaron decided to change his major to missiology.  We resent the paper work for the scholarship.  Yesterday, he realized that he can't be in the missiology program unless he has had 2 years of field experience.  That means he would need to change back to MATSIL and not be eligible for the scholarship.  Boy, we feel like we don't know which way to turn.  And then there's the moving deal.  I want to - have wanted to since we first moved here, especially with all the snakes and ants.  Aaron isn't as crazy about moving.  It would save about $50.00 a month, but we would have not storage place for our kayaks, and we don't know if we could get our deposit back on the house we are in now.  There would also be expenses involved in moving that we have to think about.  We are both on overload right now.  Did I also mention that Aaron has applied for a media position at the seminary that he would LOVE to have?  I need to find a job also to help with income, but it's hard to find something that doesn't involve childcare costs!  Aaron is not really crazy about his job at Kroger, although he is thankful to have one.  And on top of all that, Briggs' behavior/attitude has plummeted!  Did I mention that we are on overload?  Stressed to the max!  So yesterday was a bad day!

BUT THANK GOD that TODAY is a NEW day!  God has assured me that just because I have one bad day doesn't mean I have to have the "Ground Hog Day" experience over and over.  Each day is a new day in the Lord.  He also reminded me of my favorite verse: Jeremiah 29:11 "For I (that's God, not Brandi) know the plans I (again, that's God) have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  What an awesome verse!  I have to be reminded that it's not my plans that matter, it's God's plans that matter.  I am so thankful that He allows us to start over!  Today, I plan to focus on God and not on myself and the "problems" I think I have swirling around me. 

Matthew 6:25-26 "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 feed them. Are you not of more value than they?"