Be Still

Something I find myself saying quite frequently these days is "Caprina, be still!". It is impossible to change her diaper without saying those words many times over as she tries to squirm/roll/crawl away. A couple days ago I said it and the Lord revealed something new to me about my relationship with Him. One of my favorite scripture passages is Psalm 46:10-11. It says:

¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; 

   I will be exalted among the nations, 

   I will be exalted in the earth.”

 ¹¹ The LORD Almighty is with us; 

   the God of Jacob is our fortress.

I often turn to this passage when I am anxious and need the reminder that God (the same Almighty God that created us) is in control and it is foolish of me to try taking things into my own hands. Now, when I tell Capri to "be still" it is for her own good. I need her to be still so I can get the diaper on snug. I so often need to learn to "be still" before the Lord so that He can work in/through me for my good. It is so much more then just realizing He is in control. It is allowing Him to do what He desires in me even though it may be downright uncomfortable at times or I may prefer to be doing something entirely different. He has an eternal perspective while I have such a limited (and often quite selfish) perspective. Capri would much rather be be playing with the toy across the room but if I gave in to her every time she didn't want a diaper change it would ultimately hurt her. I'm so thankful the Lord doesn't give in to all my desires because He truly does know what I need more then I do. I love the many lessons I learn as a parent. It is constantly giving me a new understanding of my relationship with the Lord. 

Road Trip

Bryon and I decided to pack up and head to W.V this past weekend. A trip that used to only require a duffle bag and book bag now requires us to bring half our home. On top of that, a trip that used to take about 6 hours now takes about 8 hours. Hopefully we'll learn to tweak that a little the more we travel but having a baby sure does change things!

The trip was really refreshing. Our purpose in going was to spend some time praying and working on some different projects for raising support. Overall it was very productive and helped give us some more momentum in this whole process. It has been difficult to know how to balance our day to day responsibilities and raising support at the same time. It was nice to get away from home (no laundry, cleaning, phone calls, etc) and focus. When we are up there we don't have cell phone reception, television or internet. The pace of life is so much slower. It is so nice and quiet!

I am always surprised when I go up there by how much I love the area. It is just confirmation that the Lord has put W.V on our hearts for a reason. There is so much beauty in the area and so many people that need to meet the One who created the beauty around them. I am anxious to move there.

Here are a few photos I took while there:

The picture below shows some homes above the basketball court. It's not uncommon to see a bunch of boys playing basketball here in the afternoons. I'm sure Bryon will be spending a lot of time in this area with the young boys when we move here.

Happenings

I feel like the past few weeks have flown by! My family has been pretty under the weather the past couple weeks. It started with me getting a flu of some sort two weeks ago and ever since then one of us has had a cough/sore throat/runny nose. Capri was the first to get the cold when I had the flu but I attributed it to teething. I'm pretty sure it's a full out virus now though. I hate hearing my baby coughing and sniffly. It wasn't long before I got the cold and now Bryon has it as well. It seems to want to hang on to our family for dear life. Thankfully after the first few days it's just an annoyance but not bad enough to hinder us from most of our daily activities. I'm sure all this pollen in the air isn't helping matters. I dusted my home the other day and my dusting rag was yellow from pollen by the time I was done (and I haven't even had my windows open!). My sister, Amanda helped me put all this sneezing into perspective when she wrote in her blog about all the beauty that comes as a result of the pollen. I am looking forward to my family being healthy enough to spend some time enjoying the beauty outside!

My grandparents have been in town for a while. It has been so great being able to see them more often. They have lived in Minnesota my whole life so visits have been few and far between. I have loved being able to head over to my parents anytime I want and spend time with my grandparents. We have created a lot of great memories while they've been in town. We spent a morning at my sisters and had my grandma teach us how to make donuts. Last week we had a girls night with me, my sisters, mom and grandma getting together for dinner and doing our nails (a tradition we've always had with my grandma). We also had a family breakfast at Cracker Barrel with my entire family and my grandparents, it is not an easy task getting all of our schedules to mesh! I envy people whose grandparents have lived close enough to create memories like those on a consistent basis. I treasure these times knowing they can't happen as often as I would like them to. I am thankful I have had these past few weeks with them so close. It has been so special to be able to introduce them to Capri and to see her with her great grandparents.

Projects...

I've been on a project kick lately. If I didn't know better I'd think I was pregnant and nesting again with all the projects I'm doing/want to do in my home. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm anything but creative and crafty. What I can do though, is see something someone else has done and try to duplicate it. That's right my friends, I gank (that's a Bryon word) other people's creative ideas and then I pretend I'm creative.

Here's what I've been working on (or want to work on):

Window Art:

I got an old window from someone who had replaced their windows and were throwing out the old ones. I took out the glass and then sanded and painted the frame. Then I stuck scrapbook paper to cardboard and placed it behind the window frame. Ta da!

Side Note: I have always decorated with pretty dull neutrals. (I'm afraid of color!) Bryon loves color though so I'm attempting to branch out. Man is it difficult. This frame is the beginning of adding color to my home and now I need to bring continuity throughout the rest of the room. It's quite a challenge for me. I keep finding myself gravitating to the dull neutrals again.

Scrapbook:

I've started making a baby scrapbook for Caprina to have when she's older. I'm not sure if this was such a smart move on my part considering I've never really made a scrapbook before. Talk about pressure. A good friend of mine gave me her Cricut (paper cutter) so I've had a blast learning what I can do with it. I've also fallen in love with scrapbook paper. My mind is spinning with all the fun crafts I can do with it. It's a good thing paper isn't too expensive because I could go seriously broke buying it all up. I have a feeling this scrapbook project will be ongoing for quite a while. (I've done one page so far...)

Family Rules Canvas:

I haven't started this yet. You can see my inspiration here. I'm going to use paper (once again my love for scrapbook paper comes out) that will tie together with the window frame I put together. I'm excited to get started on this!

First Food!

Bryon and I gave Caprina some baby cereal last night for the first time. We were very entertained but I don't think Capri was amused. She actually did really well swallowing it but gave us some pretty disgruntled looks in the process. She only consumed about 2 or 3 spoonfuls, the rest ended up on her bib. We're starting pretty slowly and just seeing if she's interested before we introduce it to her on a consistent basis. As fun as it is to introduce some food to her, I can't believe she's getting old enough for it! I feel like my baby is growing way too fast. Whenever I see babies smaller then her I get sad (and she's only four months old!). I think I'm pretty much doomed to be a little sad the rest of my life. haha. On the other hand though, each new stage has been so much fun and whenever I'm feeling like she's growing too fast I remember all the fun things ahead of us.

For Shannon

Apparently I'm pretty horrible at keeping this thing updated. I think the problem is that once I've gone a long time without updating the blog I get overwhelmed at where to begin and how to update without getting too wordy! Thanks to the encouragement from a friend, here's my attempt at getting back into this.

The biggest (and best!) change in my life has been the addition of our sweet baby girl. Caprina Brynn was born on October 19th and has truly stolen Bryon and my heart. She is now four months old and is becoming a lot more interactive which has been so much fun. She loves to smile so of course my whole purpose in life right now is to get a smile (and occasionally a giggle) out of her. Bryon works two jobs to make it possible for me to be a stay-at-home mom. I am so grateful for such a hard working husband. He has given me one of the greatest gifts he could give by allowing me to be at home with our daughter.

We are still pursuing moving to West Virginia. We are currently in the process of raising support. It certainly hasn't been an easy process, but it sure is full of blessings! The Lord is teaching us to be patient for His timing. We are confident that HE will provide the funds we need when we need them. Our goal was to move up there this Spring but because it is taking longer to raise support then we had anticipated it'll probably be later then that. You know something really cool though? Our lease for the home we are renting was up in February and we decided to be very up front with our landlord and let her know about our plans to move to W.V. She told us that we can rent from month to month without signing a year contract and without changing our rental fee. This is a HUGE blessing! This means that when we do raise enough support we'll be able to move quickly (all we have to do is give her a month and a half notice). We are continually encouraged by the people that have chosen to come alongside us as we pursue ministry. Whether it's by prayer, financial support or just words of encouragement we have really been blessed by the many people that are teaming up with us. We know that a strong support system will make a huge difference in our ministry. Pray for us as we continue to build this support group.

While we are still here we have committed to leading a small group for the college students at our church. We are really enjoying opening up our home and getting to know the different students as we dig into scripture with them. They are a great group of people (and some of Capri's biggest fans!).

That's pretty much our lives in a somewhat condensed version. I hope to update this thing more frequently so I'm not constantly having to recap huge amounts of time in our lives. (Hold me accountable!)

Dreams

Last week I met up with some friends and went to Passion City Church in Atlanta. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a new church that is lead by Louie Giglio and Passion ministries. I thoroughly enjoy the way Louie speaks with boldness and enthusiasm about the Lord. Last night, part of the message was about trusting God with your dreams. It was so applicable to where I am right now. I feel like I have a lot of dreams about what the future holds for Bryon and I in our pursuit of serving in full time ministry. It has been easy for me to become anxious about the process it is going to take to get there and about what life will look like once we're there. The verses that Louie zoned in on were Phil. 4:4-7 where it talks about being anxious "for nothing". This was so challenging to me! I tend to want things mapped out for me way in advance and when that doesn't happen, I become anxious. I think I try to justify to myself why it's o.k to be anxious about the things I'm anxious about, but if I take these verses seriously I have to admit that there is never a good reason to be anxious. My anxiety is evidence that I'm not trusting that the Lord knows my desires and that He is ultimately in control of them. If only this was easier to remember!

Speaking of trusting the Lord, Bryon and I are searching for a new home to live in for this next year. We are currently in an apartment but our lease is up at the end of the month. We are looking for a place to rent that has a backyard for Bryon's dog because Bryon's parents are selling their home and need us to take him off their hands. Unfortunately I'm allergic to animals so we need to find a place where we can have him outside and in the garage. It hasn't been easy to find a place in our price range that meets our needs and isn't completely run down. We found a place last week that we both really really like. When we went to look at the house there were three other couples looking at it at the same time. I felt like we were embarking on a popularity contest to see who got the house! The lady renting the house isn't making a profit from it. Supposedly she really likes the house and wants to move back into it later on in life so until then she's just renting it out at cost. We filled out the application that night and turned it in the next morning to try to get in the running before the other prospective buyers. We were told that everyone who looked at the house was serious about wanting it. Over the past few days, the realtor has been in contact with us and has been checking our references and running our credit information. I'm afraid to get my hopes up too much, but I'm thinking those are positive signs that we have a good chance of getting the house. Meanwhile, we are continuing to search rental homes in the area... just in case!