peace like a river

bobo

2011-06-19T02:07:00.003-04:00

many memories i have of my childhood revolve around extended family and the times we would get together. ma and bobo (my dad's parents) lived in or near the same town as us for the majority of my life so we were over there fairly regularly. it was not uncommon for those who smoked to be outside shooting the bull about how much rain we needed or what the cowboys needed to do to fix their defense. many of the older kids and grownups would be gathered around the table playing phase 10, canasta or zonk. the one tv was in the living room and they had only 3 movies that we liked to watch- a care bears nutcracker movie, the unsinkable molly brown, and lil' abner. whenever we wanted to watch any of those we would have to ask bobo if we could watch it. so in we would traipse over to his chair and ask him to please let us watch these movies, and most of the time, he would oblige. in my opinion, the care bears was probably his favorite!
bobo was missing the tips of 2 of his fingers from an accident he had working in the mechanic shop at john deere, but whenever we would ask him what happened to his fingers he would tell us that was what happened when you picked your nose. as i got older and realized he was just joking i have fond memories of watching younger cousins' eyes bulge the first time they heard it.
in 2001 bobo had some serious heart trouble and it wasn't expected he would live to see 4 of us grandkids graduate that year- he was a fighter. doctors told him he needed to stop smoking or the outlook would be grim for him in the future- he was stubborn. in may of 2001 i walked across the stage to receive my diploma and bobo was alive. in june of 2006 i married chris and bobo was there to see me get married. christmas of 2010 i expected it to be the last time i would see him alive as he was quickly declining. i brought carter to texas to see him in march of this year. friday morning, my stubborn, tough, and loving bobo went to be with Jesus. he left his body riddled with cancer, his lungs that couldn't breathe well enough, his heart that couldn't keep up, to assume a new body that had none of the ailments that his earthly body had.
my bobo was not perfect- far from it in fact, but in the last few years, everytime i would see him, he would kiss me on my cheek, hug me tight around my neck, and tell me that he loved me, that he was proud of me, and that i was a good girl. so now if i close my eyes and try really hard i can still smell the lingering scent of tobacco, hear the gravely sound of his voice and feel the scratchiness of his stubbly cheek as he hugged me; and that is the memory i am going to hold onto most of all until i see him again, someday.

here's the story, part 2

2011-04-21T12:45:00.005-04:00

thursday, march 10, 2011

i woke up after a relatively restful night's sleep and immediately began to pray for everyone involved- M, S, the interim care mother, and us. during my prayer i suddenly grasped the enormity of the situation and it really started to sink in and i completely dissolved into body racking sobs of thankfulness. i laid there praising God for His faithfulness, asking Him to forgive my lack of trust and honestly brokenhearted for M and S. i was so thankful for this gift they were going to entrust us with, but i was so burdened for them at the same time... it was the strangest and most powerful combination of emotions i have ever experienced.

at 830 we called mark, our adoption worker, and told him that, yes, we were going to go pick up our son and he told us to head on over the office to sign all of our paperwork so we could get to the tri-cities by 12. i called christie who had agreed to go with us to take pictures of our first encounter with carter and told her what time to be at the house and we were out the door to bethany. mark went over many things with us and had us sign so many papers and going over all the legal responsibilities, et cetera, et cetera... it felt like 5 hours, but in reality it only took bout 1 1/2.

we left bethany's office and headed home to pick up christie and get the carseat loaded. the drive there was a blur of excitement, anticipation and angst. when we finally arrived at the bethany office in johnson city i felt as though i was about to throw up, i was so nervous. i kept thinking, what if this is one of those ugly newborns? (be honest, you know there have been times you have seen a newborn and thought, you aren't quite finished... not all babies are cute). we met julie and she told us that hope, the interim care mother, was in the next room with him so we walked in...

"thank goodness he isn't an ugly baby!" that was my honest to goodness first reaction when i saw him. you are lying to yourself and everyone else if you honestly believe that all babies are beautiful- miracles, yes, beautiful, no. so for the sake of honesty there you go. after that we talked with hope and christie was taking pictures for us and we loaded up and went to the pediatrician for his discharge visit. the whole thing was surreal. dreamy. not at all what i expected it to be, yet so perfect at the same time.

i remember as we were leaving tri cities and headed back to knoxville feeling like something would fall apart and they would realize that they were just handing over this beautiful, precious baby boy to us and sending us on our merry little way. at that moment all the trainings, meetings, interviews, etc we had done with the bethany staff didn't even register with me and i just kept thinking- is this real? are we just babysitting this baby?

when we got home we were so excited for everyone who had prayed him to us to come over and witness God's faithfulness and provision so we had a crazy night and lots of company and carter behaved like a champ. the first few weeks were such a whirlwind of company and travel that by the time we were finally home in april i realized almost an entire month of my leave had gone by.

so the past two months have just been glorious. i will not apologize for my lack of blogging as i am trying to soak in every single second with him before i return to work on friday/doom's day/ day of death/ whatever. i can't believe how absolutely quick you can fall in love with a child and be willing to fight or die for him. i can't believe that after years of heartache, pains, and questions we finally got our answer. and he is a smiley, happy, bouncing baby boy. God is good, all the time.

here's the story...

2011-03-15T23:04:00.002-04:00

tuesday, march 8, 2011

this evening i decided to look over our budget calendar and get a handle on how many vacation days i have and how we might be able to make our budget work for us whenever we got a baby. this is an activity i had done several times before in different stages along the way so there was no special significance- i just wanted to make sure that i could take off as much time as possible when we got a baby.

wednesday, march 9, 2011

i go to work, just another wednesday, and i did my work thing- a few loans, vault stuff, and i was trying to get some loose ends tied up; there was a sense of urgency, but no reason really, i just wanted to make sure that i had everything in order in case we were to be audited. it was a rainy and dreary day and i had forgotten to pack a lunch so i ran down the road to subway and was feeling pretty good so i decided to grab a box of these new delicious raspberry cheesecake cookies at subway for the branch to share. had my lunch, went back to work.

i went to the bathroom (tmi- perhaps, but this is part of the story) and while i was back there i started thinking, "we have 4 new employees; i should probably send out a refresher email that if mark or terri calls for me that it is urgent- this way i wouldn't miss their call and someone wouldn't tell them i was unavailable- because short of being unconscious at the credit union, there was nothing that would keep me unavailable from that phone call! so then i begin contemplating what our birthparent's names will be and if I would use an A or S or K to signify their name...whatever; wash my hands and i leave the bathroom.

i walk out the back and one of the girls, anita, says, "hey sass, a mark akers just called you..." i know there was more but i took off running and the only other thing i heard was "call you on your cell phone". so i have just run the equivalent of 10 yards to my office and i am sucking wind (duh, i am not known for my athleticism) and i hear my phone ringing so I take a deep breath, and acting as though i hadn't just depleted my lungs of oxygen from the marathon i just ran, answered my phone ever so suavely.

mark proceeded to shoot the bull with me about my day, blah blah, and then he said, "well cassie, today is march 9th" at which point i thought, great, he's going to talk about our renewal that is coming up for our 1 year approval... "yeah mark, i know" "and i really need to see you and chris just as soon as possible. we have a situation. either tomorrow morning or today..." "today will be fine. let me call chris. (dialing) chris, mark's on the phone and he needs to see us, can you leave? i'll meet you there! mark see you in just a few!"

i stand, i cry, and i go to tell my manager that it is time for me to leave because finally, FINALLY we have a "situation" and lo and behold, she's not there! she had to run out to drop her car off at the shop so when i called her she asked me to give her 15 minutes... does this woman even KNOW how long 15 minutes is? but i obliged and when she got there i took off out the door and called my mom to keep keep me calm as i drove to the bethany office (which i must say seemed to be at least 20 minutes longer than every other time i have driven there!)

so i get to the office, and chris was already there and mark sits us down and tells us that terri, the director, is just dying that she had to go out of town, but she wanted to be there with us, so she was going to conference call in, until it was time to board her flight. mark gave us a free question at the very beginning and it was, "boy or girl?" boy.

now i feel it is only fair here to stop and explain something. i never expected to get a boy. i fully had expected to adopt lillie faith and she was going to be a biracial or african american little baby girl. never ever in my head did i expect to have a boy. b-o-y. do you know how scary having a boy is to me? i am girly. i don't like dirty things, i am annoyed with sports programming, i hate video games, boys do not have as cute clothes or bows, you can't pain their fingernails... do you know how intimidating that is for a priss like me? it's not that i wasn't open to a boy, it's just so foreign to me and that is scary... not to mention all the boy parts... whew.

so mark starts with carter's story. the birthmom, M, is young and has another child. so he has a biological brother. she chose to make an adoption plan because she couldn't handle having two babies (her other child is young) and she has dreams and goals for herself. she hasn't had a great life growing up. she chose us when she saw our profile and was adamant that we were his adoptive family. not anyone else. in fact, she didn't even want to look at other profiles when she saw ours. here is where i jump in again... remember that prayer journal i have been keeping for her? i prayed specifically on a number of occassions that she would see our profile and know beyond a shadow of doubt that we were the family for her child. god is so amazing.

at this point mark stops us and wants to know if we have any questions. no dude. we're good. we have all the information we'll need. yes of course we have questions; how much time do you have this afternoon? so we ask a few questions, which was futile, because he kept telling us we would get to that part later. pshhh. so then he tells us about the birthfather, S, who is a little younger than chris and me and has also had a rough life. he really wanted to keep our sweet boy, but when it came down to it, someone close to him told him that one day he would be a good dad, just not then. so he made the decision for his child that he would give him the best life and signed his waiver. that was march 4th.

mark stops again and wants to know if we have any other questions. yeah- when is M due? we're getting there... sheesh. eventually mark lets it slip that carter had a negative toxicology screen... no drugs! and i was like, woah. (just like joey lawrence on blossom, woah) he's born? when? what? huh? explain! so since he spilled the beans mark told us that yes, M had delivered sweet carter on february 24, 2011, in the tri cities area and he was 6 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches long at 37 weeks. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

so we of course wanted to know right then when we could go pick him up but mark told us to just go home and pray about it and see if it was the right decision and to let him know the next morning at 830. we had prayed all along that we wouldn't be presented with a situation that we had to turn down and there was nothing at all in carter's history that made us think we needed to stop and tell mark that he wasn't the child for us. God clearly has big plans for carter, M and S. the rest of the evening was filled with hundreds of calls, texts and emails as we ran around babies r us and target picking up necessary items we needed to go pick up our sweet boy the next day...

thursday, march 10, 2011

to be continued....

whirlwind

2011-03-09T22:51:00.002-05:00

i don't want to forget any part of this so i am going to share with all of you my feelings and thoughts. i am sick to my stomach, have heartburn, and feel like every extremity is going to shake off. i truly feel like i am in a dream and just watching this happen to someone else. i am walking around the house gathering things to put in the diaper bag, washing bottles and washing the new clothes, burp cloths, and towels i just bought, but i don't think it's sunk in yet.

chris is bouncing off the walls and so ecstatic to have a boy and i am scared. i don't know what to do with a boy! but i am confident that He who has given us this child will help me along... I will share the whole experience later, but right now i am just going to try to get the rest of the house clean and move on from there!

stay tuned!

parenting curriculum

2011-02-09T14:31:00.001-05:00

i found this on another friend's blog and had to share...

Really. We have childbirth preparation classes. I found mine so useful that I eventually qualified to become a prenatal instructor, and did that happily for about ten years. Loved it! But are there Parenting Preparation classes out there? If not, there should be! A friend sent me this great curriculum outline this morning, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.2. Arrange to have 75% of your salary paid directly to their head office.3. Go home.4. Pick up the paper.5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.4. Set the alarm for 3AM.5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work. (Work hard and be productive!)*
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 4 – 7 months. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 3
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out…1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed and then rub them on the clean walls.4. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.5. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 5
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle Cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 6
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can accomplish this easily, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 7
1. Hollow out a melon.2. Make a small hole in the side.3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon bypretending to be an airplane.5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.6. Tip half the remainder into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine-month-old baby.

Lesson 8
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.**

Lesson 9
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 10
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

open mouth, insert foot

2011-02-03T09:21:00.003-05:00

ever had one of those situations where you said something and immediately wished you could put your foot, calf, kneecap and even thigh in your mouth? or have you ever asked an honest question and received a suprisingly awkward response from the person in question? well this post is one i am copying from an amazing family who has adopted transracially and has put together a sort of "adoption etiquette" list. hopefully this will save you from a humiliating moment, and from a less than polite response from a protective momma. :)

"Where did you get them?" I politely inform them of the agency we used and the city they were born in.

"Are they foster kids?" No, but even if they were that's not right to ask. If we had foster children, pointing that out only reminds the child of the situation with their first family. They need to feel loved and chosen, and not reminded all of the time they are only here for a little while. They aren't my adopted kids either...they are my children! They just happen to join our family through adoption. It's not a label, just a part of their story.

"Do they have the same parents?"- Yes, my husband and I are their parents. No, they do not all share biological parents. And why does that matter anyway? Questions about birth families are generally off limits. I will tell you what I want you to know. That is very private information and very intimate to my child. I want them to understand their story first before everyone else does. I could not say that enough...be very sensitive to the subject of birth families.

"Do you have any of your own?" - I really don't like this one. What makes a child more my own than these three? Please use the right words: biological children. And no, we don't have any of those, we chose not to. This wasn't our plan B.

"Do they call you mom?" No lie, I got this one yesterday. Lady...come on. Have you never known a child in an open adoption? Yes, I am their mom and they call me that. This one was almost laughable. But so many people have questions about open adoption. We often talk about how our kids have 2 moms that love them very much. We know less about their birth fathers, so we don't talk a ton about them except for in very quiet moments.

"How do they feel about open adoption?" First, we never say that "open adoption". They just know adoption and they know their story and it's very natural for them. They have no weirdness that adults put on kids about having relationships with their birth parents. That's all bunk in my opinion. That's adoptive parents making excuses for why they don't embrace birth families. Kids pick up on how parents feel about their birth parents. They will be weird about it if you are...and I seriously believe it will become an issue down the road. They will embrace it if you do, and your closeness with your child will deepen because you are loving and accepting ALL of who they are.But some of the worst things are not questions at all, but what people think are compliments.

These make me want to gag.

"They are so blessed to have you." Are you kidding? We are BEYOND blessed to have THEM!!! I mean, I think we are good parents, but every family is blessed to be together.

"You are doing the ultimate mission for God." NO! This is not a mission, these are my children. I didn't save them. Yuck. That's awful for a child to hear that someones sees them at "outreach" or a good deed. Please don't adopt children because you feel this way. Can you imagine what it must feel like for a child to be brought up feeling this from home?

"I just couldn't do it. I couldn't handle losing a child." Well, life is not about you. How come I have never heard someone say that of marriage? One in every 2 marriages fails, and yet no one says I just couldn't get married because chances are we'd be divorced. No one could walk into this wanting to lose a child, but it's well worth the risk. We are not super heroes, we are parents and we have to take that risk because it's a part of the journey. Don't act like we don't have feelings and intense bonding and deep love for every child placed with us. God carries us through, it's not by our own strength.

One of my sisters wanted to know what IS okay to say. She sees families like ours in public and wants to show her love and support. Yes, we have a need to talk to everyone in our family! Here are things I love hearing and we actually get a lot of these:

Your family is beautiful! Sorry but we just couldn't keep from staring.

Your family looks just like my family. I love seeing that!

Your children are gorgeous. They behave like angels too (just kidding, just wanted to see if you were still paying attention!)

Your kids are beautiful. We have always talked about adopting, do you mind if I ask questions?

Your family makes me smile.

one word

2011-02-02T11:51:00.003-05:00

so our super fantastic Christian radio stations here in town were bought out by k-love... not a huge fan, but it still beats listening to sexually perverse songs (stay tuned for a riveting post about music later this week) and swearing while driving down the road... i was just really partial to life 88.3... moving on from that little rant

so on k-love in the mornings the radio hosts were encouraging everyone to pick one word for 2011 and one verse. so after thinking for about 2 seconds i had my word... if you are a regular reader of my blog you probably can guess per my last post what that word is... expectant. i have decided that I will not allow 2011 to be a year of expectations I have placed upon myself and my life, but rather a year of expectancy; expectancy to hear and feel God's voice and presence guiding Chris and me. i am expecting God to continue to blow our minds and rock our world with His faithfulness and goodness in our life.

my verse this year is Ephesians 3:20-21 "God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us." (Message)

what is your one word and verse?

2010 year end review

2010-12-11T23:54:00.005-05:00

ok so i know it's mid-december, but to be honest i can't see how 2 weeks will change anything and i am not sure i will do it later if i don't do it now, so just give me this one. :)

this has been a year. (i would like you to reread that sentence and stress the words "a year"). it's been every single emotion, sometimes with the polar opposite emotions running rampant at the same time. but i am going to do my best to break it all down, mainly for myself to look back at years from this moment because i want to remember it all.

january:
chris and i started the year off by submitting our formal application right at the close of 2009, so entering january we were excited about moving forward in our adoption process. in fact, i was so excited that i deemed 2010 "the year of baby lawson". towards the end of the month we started working on our taxes and realized we owed 1200 bucks. super fantastic news to the couple who is trying to scrape together the money to adopt. we were very irritated, but God provided for us and we didn't have to dip into our savings for the adoption.

february:
this was a busy month for our adoption prerequisites. we did full day of required training and had several parts of our homestudy done. we purchased a crib and dresser/changing table combo that was in great shape and matched our current furniture on craigslist, and found our bedding on clearance at a store in north carolina. once again, i continue to press on believing strongly that we will be parents in the very near future. i also started back at my old branch working with the girls at the west knoxville branch and could not have been happier to have gotten out of the branch i was in and back to familiar territory.

march:
oh blessed march. a season marked by new beginnings, thus, new challenges. march was an expensive month. i had a minor wreck, got 2 traffic tickets, chris had dental work done, oh and lest i forget, my car had to have almost $2000 of repairs done. we really struggled with the car and how to repair it- finance, sell drugs, set it on fire, etc. and when we were pouring our hearts out to our good friends jesse and leslie, God showed us exactly where He wanted us to take the money from- our adoption savings. march was a pivotal month in our faith journey part of the adoption process. at this point we had not run into any real obstacles with the adoption and had already begun saving a good amount of money, and this really stretched us. but we submitted to God's plan and trusted that as we took this flying leap off a cliff that He was going to catch us and provide in ways we couldn't understand. this is also the month when we began our cookbook fundraising campaign. i also got to spend several days with my sister who flew out here to visit me during her spring break.

april:
i turned 27 and it was emotional, for reasons that i don't really understand. the only thing i could really put my finger on was i always expected that by the time i was 27 i would have at least1 child, if not 2 or 3 and here i was with none. but i believe it was about this time that i had to make a choice to rejoice for the time i had with my husband, uninterrupted by the demands and needs of a child. in april we had wrapped up our homestudy's with our caseworker, i had spent hours upon hours creating our 3 identical profile books for the birthmom, and we were able to turn in the final application fee.

may:
on ma 14th we got our approval letter from our agency letting us know that our profiles had gone live and we were an official waiting family. that phrase is so funny to me because we had been a waiting family for years prior to that letter, but i guess the :official: part is what makes this different! :) i believe it was may when my sister in love, maggie, came down for the weekend and i got to help her purchase things for her upcoming wedding, and just spend some great time together.

june:
the 10th of this month marked 4 years of marriage for chris and me. we were very reminiscent of the past 4 years and really looked at where God brought us in not only 4 years, but really just the past 6 months in the adoption process. we really began to see how His plan is so much better than ours and we were able to rejoice for what adventures and journeys we will face in the coming years. we were presented with a potential situation out of memphis with a baby boy, but the birthmother chose to find adoptive parents outside of the bethan christian services network. i saw an amazing family go through the heartache of an adoption disruption, and come out on the other side looking more like Christ than i could ever hope to in a similar situation.we were also immensely blessed by 2 anonymous families at our church with a large financial gift to go towards our adoption, and then several other wonderful families in our Bible Fellowship class donated as well. i wish this was all for june, but unfortunately, i had a little slip up at work on some water and injured myself pretty seriously and even knocked myself out cold.

july:
chris turns 27 and we had a big soiree at the house with loads of kabobs and homemade ice cream, and big chunks of a tree in our backyard falling on our power line. thankfully our friend, Mike (aka Gary Bunyon, Paul Bunyon's brother) came to our rescue and helped move it off the power line before it snapped. july is when doubt and fear began creeping in that we were not going to have a baby by december 31st, but i continued to place my trust and hope in the Lord. for the 4th of july we were able to hang out with some new friends we had made at our monthly adoption meetings and it was a grand ole time meeting more of their support system.

august:
we found out that we had been selected as the top family for a baby but at the hospital the birthmom decided to parent. we had never been informed of the situation because the staff at bethany was afraid she was going to waver, and through their infinite discernment, they saved us some heartache. it was still very emotional to think that we could have had a child, but the reminder that we have a special birthmom and child for us helped us get past it all. we were also so thankful to know that we are chooseable! I believe it was the end of this month when we got a grant from phillip and tiffany rivers for the remaining balance of our adoption fee. More than what we spent on my car in february. :)

october-present
i haven't written since october and even now it's hard to break down everything that happened month by month so i am just going to write a generalization of events. at the beginning of october i had a miscarriage, the night before i was scheduled to go out of town to shoot bridal portraits of my sister in love, maggie. the miscarriage was my first indication that i was pregnant and the shock of what was happening and what had been growing in my womb rocked me to my utmost being. my last post was probably the most raw and open post i have ever shared with such a large audience. through the next several weeks, in fact, almost the beginning of december, i had some medical issues with this miscarriage that were scary, frightening and at times overwhelming, because this one was so different from when i miscarried kya joy. i was in such a different place this time on so many levels. i wasn't expecting a pregnancy becaus e i was so focused on adoption and seemingly so close to expanding our family via adoption. a great friend of mine made the comment to me that perhaps God allowed me to get pregnant in order to remind me that adoption is His plan for us right now and that if He wanted us to have a biological child, He can do it. and how true i believe that statement to be. i have held on with both hands and my teeth for dear life to that statement. i absolutely have to, because if i allow myself to ponder the what if's of this loss, i will literally go insane and i will miss out on the blessings of this journey. do i mourn for what is lost? absolutely. but i have never been more confident that adoption is God's plan for our lives right at this moment.

as i go into 2011 i am going expectant. expectant to hear and feel God's voice and presence guiding chris and me through life and through this painful, excruciatingly difficult journey we are on in our efforts to expand our family. trying to plan it all the way i wanted it to be has obviously not worked out the way i intended it. and how bold of me to act as though i have some say or control in how it will work out for who knows where and how it will end up but God?
so 2011... the year of baby lawson? hopefully. but even if it isn't, it will still be the year of expectancy. because i am expecting God to continue to blow our minds and rock our world with His faithfulness and goodness in our life.

4 words

2010-10-12T03:00:00.003-04:00

grief: sharp sorrow; painful regret
hope: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence
understanding: superior power of discernment
confusion: perplexity; bewilderment

it's 3 am and I am awake, plagued by an outpouring of emotions i don't fully comprehend. the above listed words are probably the four which have been most prevalent lately. grief for what was lost. hope for our future family. understanding of which I have none. confusion of which i have too much. you see these four words do not make life easy when they are constantly battling each other. especially in the context i am feeling them.

there have been other times in my life when these four emotions/words were making life difficult and unfortunately i dwelt on confusion, which spawned anger, frustration, and depression. perhaps my faith was not as strong. or i've grown up. whatever the reasoning, right now as i am sitting on the floor of the nursery for the child who is not yet here, i cling to hope and pray for understanding.

i choose to choose joy, hope, and understanding. i choose to trust Your will is perfect. i choose to believe that Your promises are true. and i choose to let go of the hurt in my heart and allow You to heal. You promise peace; i'll take it. You promise Your presence; i need it.

contentment

2010-08-25T20:38:00.004-04:00

i have restarted this post several times because while i have so many thoughts i am having a hard time finding the words. i have gone through the gamut of emotions today: joy, relief, anger, happiness, delirium, frustration, longing, hopefulness, emptiness. i suppose the latter is what i feel right now; i have tears on the brim, they just don't seem to have the energy to fall.

last night the director at bethany asked me what i wanted to know about our profile being shown and comments, etc that have been shared. i, of course, said i wanted to know; stupid, silly girl that i am. so terri proceeds to tell me that at some point in the last two months we were chosen. hands down. some sweet birth mom looked at our profile and picked us. in bethany christian services infinite wisdom they decided to not bring us into the situation at that point because they were concerned she was wavering. at the hospital the birth father showed up and they together decided to parent.

when terri first told me we had been chosen my heart went from my chest, to my stomach, to my throat in a matter of about 2 seconds. when she told me they decided to parent my stomach resurfaced, and was quite confused about the series of events that left it very upset. now please do not mistake my current frame of mind as one who is not happy because i am truly thrilled to know the following things: a) our profile is being shown, b) bethany cares about us and allows God to speak clearly to them about when to bring us into the situation, and c) we are pick-able.

insecurities are a constant companion in my life and while i am able to put on a happy face or just shove them aside most of the time, this adoption journey, especially in the last few weeks, has really pushed my insecurities to the forefront and they will not be silenced. i know satan is using those to his advantage and his quest to keep me discouraged works better some days than others.

i also know that there is a specific child and a birth mom who God wants to bring into our lives but it doesn't mean that my heart isn't a little broken knowing we were really so close and now are back at square one: waiting. which i do not do patiently or joyfully most days. i desperately want to find that contentment that i had at the beginning of our real waiting phase and i am trying to pray my way through this, but tonight i feel broken and defeated. i cannot do it on my own tonight and so i ask my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who read this blog to please ask God to grant me contentment in the days to come. after all that is what the body of Christ is for, is it not?

as you pray for me i ask you to please also lift up the other waiting families, particularly our friends who are walking this road: brian and zerita brockman, and lauren and andrew jurbergs. the jurbergs have been waiting about a month longer than us, and the brockmans have been waiting just over a month. the length of time is irrelevant to many of you, but let me assure you, every day counts when you are waiting for the dream of your life.

be blessed.
cass

another step, another day

2010-07-16T01:45:00.002-04:00

i just submitted an update to a grant that we applied for: gift of adoption fund. if we were to get the amount we requested or even just a portion of it we would be so thankful so i ask you to all pray that God will give the committee discernment when they are reviewing applications. and if you want to pray that we would get a grant that would be ok, too. :)

i was rereading some of my blog posts and it is crazy to me, in retrospect, how fast this year has gone by. i made a bold statement at the beginning of the year that 2010 is the year of baby lawson, and while i stand next to that, i am feeling anxious. and you would too if your mother in law had shirts made up that say that very thing. :) i know the right birthmom and child will be brought into our family, but man it's hard waiting. and it's hard trying to plan for vacations, or lack thereof, for our family members who desperately want to come when baby arrives. there is so much to consider and if i think about it too much i will drive myself crazy. as we all know i am (say it with me) a planner, and adoption is not something that you can plan and have a definitive schedule around.

in other news, i had an mri on my back from the oh so graceful fall i had at work and my doctor has found something and now wants to have me do an emg. just click right on that link if you are unsure what it is. and for all of my regular readers you know how well i do with needles so you can only imagine my great excitement as i prepare to have this done. hopefully what needs to be done will be taken care of and my life can resume as normal. although this has given me a chance to think about something other than that ever present yet so far away phone call where my caseworker tells me we have been chosen by a birthmom.

hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
be blessed.
cass

just call me grace...

2010-06-26T00:17:00.002-04:00

growing up i was notorious for injuring myself- walking into walls, twisting my ankles, falling down, tripping over my own feet, twisting my ankles.... you get the picture. i was so prone to injuiring myself that instead of my parents rushing towards me out of concern for my wellbeing they would sit there, try to hide a smile, and say, "grace" with a slight undertone of sarcasm. okay so perhaps the slight undertone is incorrect... it was very sarcastic.

i guess as i got older i was under the assumption that i would become more graceful with age. i definitely have put that fallacy to the side. in my first year of college i tripped up several stairs on several occassions at good ole' king college. that is also where i managed to fall into the mud and mire in the center of campus while i was walking in uber high boots. and did i mention that the sidewalks at kc are bricks that aren't exactly cemented into the ground.... i will let you mind wander to the many encounters my knees had with those bricks.

now i am 27 years old and have learned to watch where i walk and be more cautious in hazardous situations. i tend to be so cautious, in fact, that my dearly beloved tends to make fun of me because i look like an 80 year old meemaw. well i met my match the other day- a large puddle of water on tile. i am positive you can tell where this is heading.

i am finishing my break and decide i need to put my phone in my purse in my locker. so i mosey on over to my locker, place my phone in my bag, pivot to walk away and, oh wait, what is this? i am soaring through the air; am i dreaming? what happens when you dream you are falling and you actually hit the ground? i reach for the rolling chair which undoubtedly will steady my rapidly descending body (riiiight) land on my back and then i am surrounded by blackness. now there are lights above me swirling around so naturally i decide i should move. there's the blackness again. who is poking me? do they not realize that i am in extreme pain right now? why are they repetitively calling my name? oh there's the lights and the breakroom, and nola, and one of our board of directors. fantastic.

several hours later, several ct scans later, a huge pain med shot, anti-nauseau med and 2 prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and a pain med i am leaving the hospital. no longer will i assume that because i am 27 years old i am be able to keep my footing or basically just walk without falling down. most people would have noticed the water before they were soaking it all up with their clothes. obviously you don't need to be concerned about my sense of humor as it was not disrupted, but if you are thinking about it, do say a prayer for my back as she doesn't see the humor in this, still. all in all though, i am thankful that it was me and not one of the other girls at work that fell... of course i would be more thankful if i could get another one of those pain shots...

be blessed.

crazy

2010-06-14T00:34:00.003-04:00

some crazy good and crazy nervewracking things have been going on here lately. first off i ask you to pray for c&j and their family's right now. they are in the process of adopting their second child, took braxton home, and the birthmom is now having second thoughts. she is expected to make her decision tomorrow (monday) about whether to parent or place. my heart is torn for c&j and for m, the birthmom, because as a waiting mom that is my biggest fear- the birthmom will change her mind; but having such a heart for birthparents i also cannot imagine the difficulty in placing a child that i carried for 9 months into the care of people you barely know. so please pray for m, c&j, and all those involved that God will help all of them to offer grace, understanding and love to the other and that He will make peace in the raging storm.

jess and les had cade about 4 weeks ago, some other friends (who I am not sure are ready to announce via mobile media) found out they are pregnant, and shaun and jen have gotten their first placement as foster parents! there are babies galore all around us, and all we can hope is that our turn is coming soon!

we get asked a lot, "any news?", and our answer is always, "no, not yet" (in a super sweet, kind voice) when what a lot of the time what i want to do is wear this shirt! i am joking but it can be overwhelming to try to live your life everyday without checking the phone 45 times an hour to see if the adoption agency has called you yet and then it only magnifies it when so many other people are so excited for you. so if you ask me and i seem a bit cranky please forgive me!

God has really been doing some work in my life lately and i can't wait to share it with all of you after i have a better understanding of what He is trying to teach me. what i can share with you all right now is that His faithfulness and encouragement comes in strange, wonderful and unexpected ways. we were blessed beyond belief this past week with 2 outstanding financial gifts to aid in the cost of our placement fee. we are only $3530 away from our placement fee! we are trusting in the Lord that He will provide that remaining amount when we need it so we don't have to take out any debt. His goodness and faithfulness has been such a sweet salve to my anxious heart.

profile: check!

2010-04-27T01:38:00.002-04:00

after over 6 months, yes I said six months, we are an approved family! i have spent the last few weeks struggling over our profile books, but they are now completed! tuesday night we have a monthly waiting families meeting and when we walk in the door, not only will we have all 3 profile books, but we will also be carrying in our $2000 check!
one one hand we are super excited to have our profile available for viewing because we have been working towards this for so long now, but at the same time i am feeling anxious because there is nothing less for us to do now but wait. some more. because we haven't done enough of that!
tonight we were talking about what will happen next: who the birthmom will be, if we will get to go to the hospital; when family is coming, how we are going to pay the remainder of our placement fee, how long it will be, etc, etc, etc. so much to consider, and so much to look forward to! and predominately, so much to be thankful for!
now to recap in case you are new to adoption, this blog, or are just really confused about where we are and what happens now: the profile books are the first impression and sometimes the only thing the birthmother knows about us. she will look at the books and if she likes what she sees, she is liable to ask to meet us. at that point we will meet her and hopefully be matched. this period we are going into is the blindest area of adoption because this is where the real, true waiting begins. we have to wait for our birthmother to make the decision to place her child. then we have to wait for some girl to choose us from our profile books. next we have to wait for a phone call from mark with a "situation" where he will present her situation and see if we are willing to meet her. then it's waiting for labor and birth. and finally it is waiting for her to relinquish her rights and for the revocation period to end. we've come so far, with so far to go!
but get excited people! i am hoping that in 3 months time (because that would be a "term" pregnancy) that we will be coming home with our own little bundle of pink... or blue. :)
be blessed. cass

discouraged but not defeated

2010-03-28T00:57:00.002-04:00

do you ever have those weeks where it seems that all of your plans and expectations come crumbling down around you? and then just when you think you have everything sorted out another avalanche comes crashing down? yeah, that's where we've been.

in the past few weeks we have dealt with taxes, tickets, wrecks, car trouble, dental expenses, adoption fees, nursery organization and preparation and a lot of other personal matters. in a way i suppose i was asking for it. chris and i, and let me emphasize the i here, have not shied away from saying that we believe God is going to show up in a mighty way and provide the fees for our adoption; enter the aforementioned offenses.

i don't believe God brings annoying or troubling things upon us, but I do believe that like job, He allows us to walk through some challenging situations in order to grow our faith. you see, the funny thing about faith is it's really easy and convenient to have when things are great. we were flying through the process to become an approved family, we had our homestudy fee in a savings, we had a plan for how things were going to work and a certain timeframe as to when it would all happen, and you know what? God doesn't care. He absolutely does not care what my plans are because He has a better plan. (i would just like to be privy to it) this is where faith steps in, and i really wish that when He gave me this opportunity to have faith that i would have grabbed it and ran as opposed to sitting in the corner, nursing my wound and crying over the fact that things aren't going how i wanted them to go. really?

i truly desire to be a woman of faith that can move the mountains, but i really struggle with the opportunities that God hands to me. i can sit here and blame it on my insecurities or my insatiable need to feel in control or even my fear of the unknown, but when it comes down to it i just have keep my eyes on Him, crawl out of the boat and onto the water, ignoring my brain that is telling me i will drown, that it's impossible to walk on water and that the waves are crashing around and are liable to drown me.

"So don't worry about these things saying 'What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?' These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers but your Heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need." -Matthew 6: 31-33.

my needs and my wants are completely different. i need to seek the Kingdom and live righteously but i want to know the plan for our adoption journey. i need to back up my professions of faith in God in all areas of my life but i want Him to reveal things to me in my time. i need to take these opportunities to to let His light shine in every glorious situation, as opposed to continuously crying, "why".

we were told coming into the adoption that it's not easy and not just a wham, bam, thank you ma'am process but a faith journey and it is truly living up to that. in just about 2-3 weeks time our profile will go live and then we wait... some more. :) but i am encouraged that all of my fears and insecurities about the adoption are not falling on deaf ears. Jesus hears me and knows my heart. and he has given me an especially comforting verse over the last few weeks which i will leave you with. be blessed.

"now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." ephesians 3:20

thankful

2010-02-19T22:22:00.004-05:00

what a busy and astounding past few weeks we have had! last post i shared with you how disgruntled i was with uncle sam and the money we owed him and i even alluded to the fact that we were trusting God was going to show up in an unbelievable way. at the time i had no idea how unbelievable but He just continues to outdo Himself using people in ways they cannot possibly fathom. so our tax situation will be taken care of in about 2 weeks time.

secondly we had a heard that our church, sevier heights baptist church, was going to be partnering with bethany christian services (which is who we are adopting through) but we didn't want to allow ourselves to become too excited because we didn't want to be disappointed. so about 3 weeks ago we walk into church for missions month kick off and hear tim tell the church they are looking for 10 families to accept the call to adopt, and those 10 families will be receiving a grant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of course that is as long as the people in the church give, but we are still excited at the opportunity to possibly adopt debt free. after much discussion we agree that regardless of whether or not we are the recipient of a grant, we are just so thankful God has brought us to a place that recognizes the ministry aspect of adoption and wants to be part of it. but i would be lying if i told you that we didn't want that grant, so do please pray that the right families will receive the grants and if it is His will, that we could be one of those families.

yesterday we bought our baby bedding! *if it seems as though there is a lot of excitement in this entire blog, it's because there is. i feel like i am going to burst out of my skin at some points.* we had chosen cotton tale designs', "elephant brigade" but couldn't find it in stock anywhere; we later learned that are discontinuing it, but found an outstanding deal on it and decided to purchase it.

oh and did i mention that we did our registries at babies'r'us and target AND bought a crib a few weeks ago?!?!?!?!

today we had our adoption training and while we were there and completely and utterly blessed, we were able to schedule 2 of 4 parts of our homestudy for this upcoming thursday. people may say to me that we are overeager and overzealous, but i will say once again that i believe we will be receiving a baby in the very near future so i am trying to be as prepared as possible. i also look at all these little stepping stones that are leading up to this most incredible experience and i can't even tell you how excited it makes me to see what else God has cooked up for us.

please continue to pray for us as we enter the final stretch of our homestudy and as we begin doing our profiles, applying for grants, and completing the nursery. there is so much to be done and an uncertain amount of time for it to be completed! but then again, there is so much to be thankful for! be blessed.

thank you uncle sam!

2010-01-30T22:14:00.002-05:00

i did our taxes this past week and as i was wrapping them up i discovered we were to be receiving a fairly large tax return and so i started checking off things we could payoff before we start the more expensive parts of our adoption. i was so excited............. and then realized we OWED that amount.

seriously?

please tell me you're kidding.

oh no, uncle sam and obama worked a fast one on us and now we owe them both 12oo big ones. basically the cost of our homestudy.

amused. not at all

excited. you have to be kidding

but we are placing it in God's hands and know that He will provide, just like He always does.

Friends

2010-01-19T23:22:00.002-05:00

2010- the year of baby lawson.

so that is my new motto for the year. i keep thinking if i put out enough positive thoughts it will happen... ok so not really, but i firmly believe that before the clock strikes midnight for 2011 we will have our own little bundle of joy. (:

we are going to an invitation only (sounds so fancy huh) meeting at bethany. you have to be at a certain point in the process to go here and we are actually a step ahead. so the hope is that after this meeting on february 19th we will be able to go ahead and start our home study if not sooner.

weight watchers- chris and i have been weight watchering for two weeks and we are proud to say that chris has lost 12 pounds and i have lost 11 pounds. we are so happy and are anxious to keep losing one pound at a time!

we have been really blessed in the last two weeks to get to spend time with some really great friends- akers', holden's, jameson's, and werner's. these folks are our family outside of our family and are such an encouragement to us.

oh and on a final note- i start at a *new* position next week- at my old branch. i am so excited to go back to the west knoxville branch and work with those ladies that i have come to love. and did i mention there is a ROCKIN' new manager out there? she is super and i cannot wait to have the opportunity to work with her. so praise be to Jesus for giving us so many blessings in the last few weeks- good friends, great jobs, encouragement on the path to being healthy and the hope for a new beginning for our family.

2010- the year of baby lawson.

maybe i'll have some t-shirts made up. :)

100 miles a minute...

2009-12-31T00:11:00.003-05:00

forgive me as this is going to be a sporadic post...................................

so we have been kind of lax on our adoption paperwork, mainly because i was looking into an opportunity that could have taken me away from knoxville for a few months. BUT after much more prayer and consideration i do not feel it is the right decision and just couldn't complete the final step in that process so we are back on the adoption train, but there is much more to be said about that later.

chris and i are starting weight watchers, again, at the beginning of the year and i do truly covet your prayers. it is no secret that i am overweight and need to lose some, but i have been really convicted about this and knew something needed to be done. so we are going nazi on weight watchers and are going to start going to the gym on a more regular basis and guys, it's hard. it's hard to eat only what is healthy when all you really want is a nice burger from five guys or a cookie carnival ice cream creation from maggie moos. so i ask you to pray that we can be diligent and active in getting our weight under control so when we get a baby we can model good food choices. enough said about that very uncomfortable subject...

now for the exciting news! (aren't you glad you kept reading?) WE ARE FINISHED WITH OUR FORMAL APPLICATION! (please note the use of capital letters in order to correctly gauge the excitement in my voice). tomorrow at work i am mailing the rest of our paperwork along with our $400 fee and we will be in the next waiting stage. not a clue what that is, but let me tell you i am excited!

let me also say that it could not have been done this quick (the money part) without a very generous gift from chris' nana, via randy and julie. we knew that we would need support from our parents in this adoption in many different areas and we also knew that God would provide the means for these things to happen in HIS time, and we were blessed this Christmas with a gift that will more than cover our formal application fee and the homestudy. praise be to God for He is orchestrating a miracle for all of us to behold.

it's late, i am hyper and still thinking about the adoption, the big mailing day tomorrow, avatar (which we saw tonight and was awesome), this past year, and my sweet mollie who is currently lying on the floor beside me with her head on my feet. thank you all for reading and for praying. keep it up team. i think my new mantra will be :team baby lawson: maybe i will even have shirts made up for it....

be blessed and safe this new years.
cassie

a BIG opportunity

2009-12-14T15:39:00.002-05:00

friends and family:
today i write asking for prayer. there is a potentially big opportunity that i am looking into that in the long run will be wonderful for our family, but in the meantime will be very difficult. i am not really at liberty to discuss any real specifics as of yet, but it is something that i feel needs to be done, so i am asking for you to please pray for this very vague request. pray that God will open the door for this opportunity and that He will provide for us in the meantime. if this particular opportunity isn't the one for me pray that i will be at peace. when more information is available, i promise you will all be the first to know. :)

miracles

2009-11-12T18:48:00.003-05:00

today we heard probably the second most exciting news ever... our friends, jesse and leslie, who have been just a few steps ahead of us in the adoption process, well, found out they are PREGNANT!!!!!!!!

words cannot express how joyful chris and i both are for the two of them. without their love, support and friendship i don't know how chris and i would have gotten through the loss of kya, the frustrations of infertility, and the beginning stages of this adoption.

as i sit here typing i am just crying uncontrollably because when i think about the mighty work of God in their life and this miracle i am just overcome by how awesome He is. He is still the God of miracles and i am so fortunate and blessed to have gotten to experience this miracle through our friends.

jesse and les, we cannot wait to meet your sweet, sweet miracle and see what else God has up His sleeve for the three of you.

one step at a time

2009-10-29T23:30:00.002-04:00

since we have been trying to add to our family the mantra "one step at a time" was one that we heard from numerous people and we felt as though we were doing things in a certain sequence. but as our steps began to labor and our feet began to drag that little saying really began to get annoying; however, we have really fallen in love with jordin spark's song, "one step at a time". i actually have started listening to it almost every single day. why? let me elaborate.

"we live and we learn to take one step at a time, there's no need to rush. it's like learning to fly or falling in love. it's gonna happen when it's supposed to happen and we find the reasons why one step at a time." adding to our family has been one step after another, some easier than others, but as we are embarking on this new adventure with our brand new tennis shoes on, we know that those brand new shoes are going to have to get broken in before the journey is over. and that is why it's important that we keep our eyes focused, our spirits ready, and our feet moving in the right direction, one step at a time.
be blessed. cassie

preliminary application- check

2009-10-20T22:57:00.002-04:00

as you can probably gander from the title, we have officially turned in our prelim application for adoption through bethany christian services. chris and i are stoked and anxious to get the big application to trudge through. there are a lot of things we have to get taken care of in that application like financials, fingerprinting, background checks, physicals, etc. thankfully our great friends jesse and leslie have already been through this part and kind of gave us a heads up on some of the things we would need so we have a little bit of a head start. our adoption counselor told us to plan to receive a child 2 years from today. obviously, we are hoping quicker, but at least we know that in two years it is highly likely we will have an addition to our family- and that is exciting!

please pray with us as we try to get all these little things taken care of. it is a very tedious and extensive application and our desire is to fly through it and move along to our homestudy. we were told that if we stay on top of this, it is possible we can have our profile available for viewing as early as january! so we beg and covet your prayers!

on a side note, in my previous blog i wrote about this blog being a testament and hard copy of our child's journey to his or her life with chris and me. well as we were in our meeting at bethany tonight and they kept encouraging us to pray for the birth parents i felt compelled to start keeping another type of journal- a prayer journal to give the birth mom/parents when the placement has occurred. she may not want it, but since i am feeling compelled to do it, i think she probably will. i want to write down every single date, time, and request that i prayed for this birthmom so that i can go back and see how God was preparing her heart and mine, but also so she can see that i was praying for her, before she even knew me. perhaps this birthmom will be someone who is unsure of their faith or their decision and that is why i feel the need to do this for her. or perhaps she is just overwhelmed with the adoption- i want her to see how God orchestrated the entire process in order to bring redemption, healing, and life. or maybe this will just be another way for me to chronicle this very very special experience we are going through. i don't know. all i know is that i am bursting at the seams with overwhelming excitement, anticipation and joy for what is to come. so much of this can seem overwhelming, but God really confirmed to us tonight at our meeting that this is the path He has chosen for us and we are going to take every step in stride, seeking to find the lesson in every situation.

so again, please keep us in your prayers and while you pray for us, please pray for the birth mother. what a gift this woman will be giving us and if she is lost what a gift she could receive if her heart is ready for the seed to be harvested. and even if she is a christian, what encouragement it will be for her, knowing that she is being prayed for. it's really overwhelming and exciting to know that God already knows her name, knows when she will conceive the baby,what sex that baby will be, and when we will get the life changing news that our family will be expanding. and who knows? if things go as quickly as i hope they will (unlikely but hopefully!) she could be carrying our child right now! (of course she could be getting knocked up right now too! ahh!) thank you all again, i promise your words of encouragement are not going unnoticed, and they are making a world of difference to us as this can be intimidating and frightening. but we love you all and cannot wait to introduce baby lawson to all of you!

be blessed. cass

change is a comin'

2009-10-08T23:27:00.002-04:00

this has been quite the week in the lawson household. we got back from vacation and i had managed to catch "the pig" aka swine flu somewhere alongst our trip. awesome. so that is not really good news, but what is good is that on chris' first day back he had a review with his manager and she gave him a promotion to another level in the credit union, AND a nice raise. so we were stoked about that. then today i got a call from the head of hr offering me a full-time position at the north knoxville branch where, if you recall, chris' started out.

it's so amazing to me to see the hand of God really and truly working in our lives as we are preparing to add to our family. when i was approached, out of the clear blue skies, concerning the full time job, i was very unsure of what to do and my dad asked me if i was just wanting to take this job so we could afford to adopt and i said absolutely not. i mean, sure the financial burden of adoption is overwhelming sometimes, but i have had complete peace that God was going to work out all the finer details. these two promotions this week, are the finer details.

before chris and i had even decided to start the adoption process God knew what we were going to need. He knew before we even worked at y-12 that on this day i would recieve a call to be offered this job. because He has orchestrated every movement under heaven nothing suprises Him. how cool is that?

i had a coworker ask me today why it is that i am blogging about the adoption and i told her plain and simple that in a way this is something that i want to be able to give to our child. one day when that baby of ours is old enough to understand adoption and perhaps is feeling abandonded or unloved i want to be able to pull out a scrapbook or a binder of some sort and allow that child of mine to read his or her story. i want that child to see how the hand of God orchestrated every step of his or her "forever family" even before that child was a thought. i want this child to read the agony and heartbreak we felt over kya and not having success conceiving a biological child, but more importantly i want our child to see how much we loved them before we even had them. and i want to show him or her to see what a true miracle they are to us, regardless of the circumstances of how they came into this world, or to who they were borne from. so that is why i am logging all of this, because what greater gift could i possibly give my child than their story, before they even knew they had a story?

chris and i have truly been overwhelmed this week by all the encouraging words and
comments we have received concerning the prior post. we sat on the couch last night reading all comments with tears running down our faces thankful to have so many people who are supporting us, even from a far. so thank you to all of you and please don't stop reading or praying for us. until next time, be blessed.

adoption diary

2009-10-06T14:02:00.003-04:00

there is a new series on tv called, "adoption diaries", that has come at a really great point in my life. for those of you who don't know, chris and i will be starting the adoption process this month. in just two weeks we will be submitting our preliminary application for adoption and will begin this new, exciting, and definitely challenging road. while we are not giving up hope that one day we might be able to have a biological child, we are anxious to add to our family and begin a new chapter full of sleepless nights, dirty diapers and all the challenges that we will face as parents.

but back to the tv show. this show is a reality show about open adoptions and it has bee an eye opener for sure for me. i see these adoptive parents who are much like chris and myself, who have struggled to have a biological child unsuccessfully and my heart breaks for them and then rejoices when they walk away with their new addition. but then i see this birthmother who through whatever circumstances has decided to make quite possibly the most difficult decision of her life. you can see the raw emotion of her face as she sees and holds her child, knowing that in a matter of hours that child she has grown and loved and carried for 9 months is going to be gone. it's heartbreaking to watch but gives me an entirely new perspective.

birthmothers have 3 choices to make when they find out they are pregnant. they have the choice to abort, the choice to keep the child and struggle, or the choice to sacrificially give their child up in the chance they will have a better life. as i have thought about these choices and the impact on the mother and the child i have realized that adoption is the most selfless and sacrificial choice a mother can make. i cannot imagine carrying a living child in my body and loving that child for 9 months only to turn that child over to a family that i have limited knowledge of. so to any of you out there who are birthmoms, i applaud you.

please be in prayer with us as we travel this road less traveled. we've heard plenty of adoption stories, but not a single one comes without the warning that it is an extremely difficult and emotionally and financially draining. we can't do this without a support system and seeing as how my family is in texas and chris' is in north carolina we desperately need all the prayers and encouragement from everyone. and of course $20k if you just happen to have it laying around. i'll do my best to keep this updated with our journey. until next time, be blessed.

the right decision

2009-08-10T23:49:00.002-04:00

earlier tonight i tweeted this message "just because it's the right decision does not mean that sometimes it's not going to be difficult to make". hopefully the point is coming across because i am way emotional and tired right now. so here is the deal... chris and i are no longer attending the gathering.

when we first started going to the gathering we always said we would never allow the distance to be an issue and truth be told while it was frustrating at times we stuck it out. after the move to the new building it became more and more challenging to get there and to do it with a good attitude. my dad said to me, "you guys have so much to offer a church and there is no reason God can't use you at a church closer to home" and while we agreed we also knew the gathering was the place for us; for a season.

a few months ago i stepped down from creative arts and chris stepped down from kidsplayce because our hearts were not in the right place and there were some unresolved issues that needed to be dealt with. when they were finally "fixed" and chris and i were preparing to start serving again it was difficult partially because we, predominately me, were feeling wounded and a little overwhelmed. in the time we were away much had changed and we didn't really feel as though it was our church any more. god was preparing us months before we realized it, for a move.

i was more willing to take the leave than chris was, but i began asking God that if this was His will for Him to show us and allow chris to lead our family where God wanted us instead of where we wanted us. and like we anticipated it has been a very bittersweet few weeks. we have since found our place back somewhere that chris once stated he would never return to. that God, i tell you, He has a sense of humor! but the relationships we leave behind in sevierville make it hard to leave. even in the last few months we just haven't seen our "family" hardly at all. the distance makes it hard and not serving together at the same church makes it harder. the sweetness of all this is we are reconnecting with those people whom we were very tightly knit with when we were first married.

a lot can change in two years and chris and i believe that God had us at the gathering in order to change us for the better. we also believe that God moved us away from where we were orignally in order to allow changes to take place at that church so we could come back and serve together with them again. so we have made the right decision, we believe, but there are times when it's hard and hurts. but that is ok because God is going to do mighty things with us as long as we continue to walk in His will and plan.

hopeful storytelling

2009-06-18T23:40:00.003-04:00

a few years ago i attended the national storytelling festival in jonesborough, tennessee, where i had the privilege to listen to some of the most honest, refreshing and talented storytellers. i can remember sitting under a tent at dusk, rain pounding the top of the tent, people crammed into incredibly uncomfortable seats just to hear some of the best spinners weave their tales. it was a truly memorable experience and as i pondered that weekend i started contemplating the beauty of a story.

everyone has a story which is their life. we can all sit around and share funny stories of our childhood, stories of pain and suffering, humiliation stories, and stories of events that shaped our lives and made us who we are. we all share that common thread. what everyone does not share is the belief that there is an ultimate storyteller, who can weave the most wonderfully crafted tale ever known to man, when man steps aside and agrees to put down the writing pen.

i connected to a blog this week through a friend's blog and was profoundly and utterly touched and blessed by something that was posted. it was said in a prayer format "Your story is much better than mine. Your story is far more beautiful. Your story gives you all the glory. Your story is one of Hope. Your "no" is filled with hope and your "yes" is full of hope. Thank you for being a God of Hope through it all."

hope: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence

above is one of the definitions used by webster to describe what hope truly is, and i am so thankful today to stand here and say that i am beyond hopeful for many things. one of those is to be a mother to children who are on this earth. another is to continue to be fashioned into the woman God created me to be. beyond stereotypes, beyond what others perceive, beyond what my mind can fathom, God has a plan to shape and mold me into who he wants me to be. sometimes it's painful and we are told to wait. sometimes we think that our storytelling capabilities are much better than God's, but as the blogger above writes, "Your story is better than mine."

i love a good story, and i am humbled that a great story has been written about me. selfish, ungrateful, unworthy, me has the most amazing storyteller writing my story. and my story is one of hope. hope that all of my dreams, realized and unrealized will come to fruition in His timing. hope that whatever life throws at me, and wherever my story may go that i needn't worry because the Master Storyteller knows what my ending will be. and i can promise you, promise you that my story will not end in heartache, but in joy, if for no other reason that i am a precious child of the living God.

be blessed.
cass

I stole this from Chuck

2009-04-29T20:59:00.002-04:00

1. Put your MP3 player on shuffle.2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.3.

YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS! DON’T CHEAT OR YOU’RE LAME

IF SOMEONE SAYS “ARE YOU OK” YOU SAY? "Beautiful" Bethany Dillon

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?“What about Now?" Daughtry; i am very impatient

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?“Lonely Night in Georgia" Marc Broussard... apparently I want to be alone

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?“Going to the Chapel". The Shirelles... no thank you; once was enough

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?“Sweet Little Jesus Boy" Natalie Grant... no words

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?“The New Girl in Town" from the Hairspray soundtrack

WHAT IS 2+2?“Lean on Me" DC Talk... oh yeah

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?“Starts With Goodbye" Carrie Underwood; not sure about this

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU Love?“What Hurts the Most" Rascal Flatts; that is sad

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?“Chicken Fried" Zac Brown Band; couldn't have described it better!

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU Love?“Man in the Mirror" Michael Jackson; for real, I did not cheat, promise.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?“Hope for Me Yet" Marc Broussard; holy cannoli

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?“Since U Been Gone" Kelly Clarkson; that's not a good omen

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?“Famous in a Small Town" Miranda Lambert; seriously

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?“I Love to Laugh" from Mary Poppins soundtrack; I could not have picked better songs myself... this is too funny

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?“A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella; is anyone really suprised I have so many songs from musicals on my iPod?

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?“Rehab" Amy Winehouse; well I definately have some that should go...

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?“Long Way Around" Dixie Chicks; again I am very impatient

HOW WILL YOU DIE?“White Christmas" Dolly Parton; haha! I HATE snow!

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?“I Have Nothing" Whitney Houston; alas I have everything in Christ

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?“Disturbia" Rihanna

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?“Free Fallin'" John Mayer acoustic; tru dat but only because it's so beautiful

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?“Wheel of the World" Carrie Underwood; huh?

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?“I Want it All" Shane and Shane

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?“Sovereign Hands" Hillsong; apparently only Jesus

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?“All that I Can Do" Bethany Dillon

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?“Sleigh Ride" Jump 5; yes I know this is the second Christmas song on here

oops.

2009-04-20T22:49:00.001-04:00

i promise promise promise i will update soooooooooooooooooon.

cass

that could never...will that ever?

2009-02-01T17:49:00.003-05:00

the last few months have been a whirlwind of events both good and bad. things i doubted were real or possible have proven to be true and things i have anxiously awaited and dreamed of have started to happen.

let me start with the chest of joash, per my last post. it was by far the most emotional and freeing thing i have ever experienced. it was also the first time i have ever completely lost compusure in public. wailing, sobbing, heaving; i did it all in front of the entire service that night. but when i finally was able to let go of my sweet kya, i felt as though i had dropped the weight i had been carrying on my shoulders and heart for over a year.

i was able to go see my family in texas over christmas and it was probably one of my favorite times i have had with my family. we had such a fabulous time and it was so nice to just be with them.

when we came back chris got a raise and then shortly after that i had my review and also received a raise. we have become so thankful as of late that we have jobs. perhaps not the jobs that we ever envisioned ourselves having, but steady jobs. we have also been given the distinct privilege to be exceptionally thankful for our jobs as we see countless numbers of people coming in with unemployment and/or severance checks. there is not a day that goes by at our jobs that chris and i do not both praise and thank God that we have this manner of security.

chris is growing into such a man of God. i can remember many prayers pleading that God would use chris in a mighty way and that He would place people in chris' path to help build him up so he could be the leader of our family that he should be. and God has answered my prayers. chris has been just saturated with love and attention from so many Godly men at the gathering. as i write he is at church watching the game with a group of men and then is going to hear a message from gene. i am so blessed.

depression is something that i have felt is an extremely overdiagnosed disease and is used for a crutch for many people so i never thought i would be plagued with it, but it has happened. on friday i had an emotional breakdown and panic attack after struggling with this for over a month. i ended up at the hospital and given drugs in order to sedate me as i had been hysterically sobbing for almost two hours, with no relief in sight. without going into all the details it was one of the scariest times in my life as i honestly felt i was going out of my mind and going crazy. monday i have a doctor's appointment to do blood work and check my hormone levels. while i am not one to willingly take medicine i hope that there will be some type of drug to help get me back to myself again.

so to recap: i never thought depression was something that could affect me, but it has. i always dreamed and prayed God would grow chris to be a man of God and he is doing just that. i didn't anticipate that when chris and i worked for the same company that it would be at y12, but i am blessed and content. i have learned to cherish every moment i have with my family as i never know how long it will be until i see them again. and i never knew the freedom and joy i could have by letting go of a major hurt, but now i am full.

so now 2009 has proven itself to be a year of new beginnings and changes in my life. and on days when i feel i cannot make it or that it just becomes too much to handle i know that the lover of my soul is holding tightly to one hand, while the love of my life is holding the other.

be blessed.

chest of joash

2008-11-18T13:36:00.003-05:00

at the gathering every year they do a speical sacrificial offering that they call the chest of joash. the name comes from the story in 2 chronicles where king joash places a chest outside the temple and the people came gladly to place their monies in the chest for the rebuilding of God's temple. our chest is the equivalent of that with every family asked to bring equal sacrifices not equal gifts. and of course the money collected goes towards our pledge for the new campus.

on december 5 & 6 chris and i will get to experience the chest for the first time and i am so looking forward to it. a big part of the chest is not only bringing our sacrificial offering in order to capture the attention of God to make a humble request for a miracle. now that is a mouthful but i want to break it down for you so you do not get the wrong impression.

when i first heard of this offering it was very reminscent of the prayer of jabez craze that went on about 5 years ago and it disgusted me. i am not one to give offerings in order that God will bless me or give me something in return. i think that is extraordinarily selfish and supercilious. but as pastor gene as taught on the subject of the chest and given us examples of people who gave sacrificially it has all started to make more and more sense.

take the story of hannah. (i know i have used her a lot on this blog, but bear with me). year after year after year hannah prayed at the temple that God would give her a son. her husband would even give her a double portion of an offering to bring to the temple because he loved hannah so much and she would bring it all to the Lord. her persistence captured the attention of God and He heard her humble request for a son. how was her request humble? because she made a vow that if God would grant her a son, that she would give him back to the Lord. finally after many years hannah had a son and at the age of about 3 she took samuel to the temple, dressed like a priest, and left him there to be taught by the temple authorities. later we see that hannah went on to have 5 more children, none of which are named, i might add, and that samuel would become one of the greatest prophets.

is that not so amazing to all of you? well chris and i have been praying about what it is we want to sacrificially give, what we think our pledge should be, and what our miracle is that we want to pray for. sacrificially giving we have decided on an amount, but for me there was something else i needed to lay down. while i can honestly say that i am completely content to wait however long it is God will have us wait to have a child, i have not been able to let go of the child that we created and lost. and God impressed upon my heart to lay her down and give her and all the hopes and dreams i had for this baby back to Him. so that is exactly what i am going to do. we have decided on our pledge amount for the new building and we have decided on what we want our miracle to be.

by now you might be thinking it is a baby, but you are mistaken ( i told you i have a peace). instead we are praying for chris' dad, randy, that he would come to know the Lord. we are going to give all that we have so that God will look down at us and see our sacrifice so we can humbly humbly ask Him to bring randy to Him. and then we are going to wait for our miracle. pastor gene thinks hannah waited a minimum of 15 years, and if that is how long we must wait, then we will. but i believe with all of my heart that if we truly give Him all that we have, He will look upon us and hear our cries and save randy's soul. so now i ask you to please also pray with us, not only in the coming weeks, but throughout the next however long it takes, that God would rescue randy.

puppies x8

2008-10-24T00:43:00.003-04:00

so mollie FINALLY had her puppies. chris and i had gone out on our date night, thursday night, and were commenting the whole time how we wished she would have them tonight so we could do what we need to do with her before the weekend. when we arrived home she was in our bedroom where her "whelping/birthing" tub was set up and i could hear her crying. when i opened the door she was freaking out, pacing, walking in circles, and crying. then i realized there was more than one cry and upon further investigation found the first pup, placenta and umbilical cord still attatched.

after i finally calmed her down and brought the pup to her she chewed off the cord, ate the placenta (it was very chewy apparantly) and started licking the pup like crazy. this was right at 9pm and we thought for sure that it would be about 2 or 3 in the am before she was finished but she had other plans. by1145 she had successfully delivered 8 pups, one of which was outside in the front yard and chris had to pick it up still in the sack and all and bring it inside.

we were concerned that she would be hateful and try to keep us away from the puppies, but she was the opposite. she was getting ready to have the 3rd pup and i had walked out of the room and chris said she stopped pushing and sat up and wouldn't continue until i was back in the room. she even let max come in and smell the pups, lick her cooter, etc. she didn't cry hardly at all after the first one and was just a real trooper.

so the pups: we have 3 girls and 5 boys. six are black with white on their chests like hers and of those 4 are boys. then we have one the exact same blonde color as max which is a boy and the baby of the bunch came out white like the markings on max's face and that one is a girl. whether we keep her or not i think i am going to name her cuddles because all she wants to do is lay up by mollie's face and cuddle.

even though mollie is just our dog and i know dog's have no soul it was still such an amazing experience to see her body go through the changes of pregnancy, to feel the pups moving inside her, watching the birth, helping mollie during it and now of course getting to see, feel, and hold these puppies. God is so amazing in how He has created us and how everyday real, honest miracles take place.

and for ty and em: congrats on grant marshall. he is stinkin adorable and i could not be happier for you guys. i love y'all more than you know and you're both a real blessing.

i'll post pics of the pups later... right now i gotta get in the bed so i can take the whole crew to the vet in the am.

be blessed.
cass

god is great

2008-10-21T21:29:00.003-04:00

there is a song that i heard sunday morning on the way to church that has the lyrics "we won't be satisfied with anything ordinary...we don't want blessings we want You" and it has stuck with me all week long. so as i sing this song i keep praying it and just crying out these lyrics to my most wonderful Saviour.

so today as i realized that i would only be getting around 20 hours at my full time job and began to realize that financially this was really going to be a hurter i started to feel myself beginning to do my cyclical worry. then i remembered the way God provided direction, guidance and clarity to me during my 40 day baby journey. so i left it in His hands and continued on my day.

about 230 this afternoon the head of hr at y-12 credit union (where chris works) called me and offered me a "part-time" position at the west knoxville branch. i say "part-time" because it's 32 hours. not only was i ecstatic to be receiving this news for the sheer fact of having stable hours, but then she told me my pay rate which is about $2 an hour more than i make now. GOD IS GREAT... and i just stand in awe of His love, provision and care for chris and myself right now.

on another note i know some of you are not having the same great news regarding employment and my prayers are with you friends. i have been in that boat where things seem to be going okay only to be devastated by an unexpected layoff or pay decrease. don't lose faith. not today or tomorrow or even in a few months, but eventually hindsight may show you that it was a blessing in disguise. remain faithful and steadfast in your love and praise to Him and He will provide... often in ways we do not anticipate.

love you all.
be blessed.
cassie

end of the 40 day journey

2008-10-12T21:18:00.002-04:00

well folks, it's been 40 days and quite the remarkable journey. at the beginning of this exciting trip we begged, pleaded and prayed for a baby. as the time wore on God began to do something in our hearts and we began to pray for a child which led to praying for direction about how to obtain child in His timing. About halfway through the journey i had two separate doctors appointments back to back and the consensus of my pcp and ob/gyn was that i needed to lose weight. this was a heartbreaking and embarassing time in my life because even though i know i need to lose weight it's very hard to hear it coming from two doctors in two days.

so i cried and felt sorry for myself for about a day and then realized that i could be embarassed about being told i was fat for the rest of my life, or i could embrace it and do something about it. so............ we started weight watchers. in 3 weeks time i lost 15 pounds and chris has lost 13 and i have already started to see benefits, physically, in this small amount of weight loss. my blood pressure has gone down, i have more energy and more importantly i have motivation that yes i can lose this weight. of course i would like to have someone just twitch their nose and make all the excess go away, but as the saying goes, "rome wasn't built in a day" and i didn't get fat overnight. anyway, moving past the weight watchers infomercial...
so the fat lecture was about halfway through the 40 day journey and it was a very clear direction that God was leading us to so we committed to losing the excess. then i began to wonder if perhaps we were not to have children of our own at all and i prayed that God would hear my heart and my cries and honor and bless me with a child but He told me that i had to be content with the possibility that I might not ever have a child. Of course this was also not something i cared for but i prayed relentlessly throughout the days asking God to help me be content with whatever His plan was.
moving on to this past tuesday, day 35. i was at choir and decided to share a little bit of what was going on with us and to just ask the choir to pray for us in the homestrech of the journey. after i shared ashley was praying and she began to pray for us asking God to open up my womb (which can i just say that 'womb' is a really funny word to me) and while she was praying i was agreeing but still trying to figure out which direction we needed to take. and i got an answer. as i was thinking about all this dr. harris, the fertility doctor, popped into my head and i heard an audible voice in my head say, " I am the ultimate fertility doctor". it doesn't get much clearer than that.
i do not know if we will get pregnant in the next month, year or ever, all i know is that we faithfully prayed for 40 days asking God to reveal Himself and His plan for our family and He did exactly that. my prayer life has increased exponentially, my faith has grown and i have complete faith and peace about us having a child... or not. i know this is a rambling post, and i apologize, but take this from this post: there is power in the persistent prayer, but more importantly therer is power in our Lord and His promises to us. i look forward to the day when i can post that we will be adding a child to our family.
be blessed.
cassie

puppies...

2008-09-23T17:46:00.005-04:00

this post will be entirely dedicated to our dogs... sick i know, but the stories should at least make you smile. :)

max:

this is our demon dog. he will be a year old in october and he is almost potty trained. yes you read correctly... he is almost a year old and not yet fully potty trained. while he looks adorable and cuddly do not be fooled. he is the most ornery and annoying dog ever. for example:

1. he is not yet potty trained.

2. when in his kennel he will paw at the bottom for hours making a very loud, scratching "whooshing" sound. he is persistent that is for sure.

3. he has figured out how to open his kennel door in order to roam the house at his leisure.

4. if you call mollie or chris' name he comes running and feels that it is imperative to be directly in your lap.

5. he loves cotton balls, toilet paper, kleenex, q-tips and any other paper product he can find to chew on. and when he finds them and starts chewing he smacks. when i see him with something in his mouth and call his name he will immediately stop chewing and hide it somewhere in his mouth and then watch me out of the corner of his eye to see when he can chew it again. it is stinkin hilarious but annoying nonetheless!

mollie:

in no way is this a good picture of how pretty she is, but this was the first time we threw her in the water... needless to say she was not amused. but i was cracking up when i found this on the computer and wanted to share.

she is pregnant (yes by max) and will be having puppies in october. (Lord help me!)

she is a moody girl but as of late has really become quite cuddly. she has gotten into the habit of wanting to be held all the time.

when it's time for bed and you tell her it's time to go night-night she lays down, rolls onto her back and waits to be picked up and carried to her kennel because that is what we would do with her when she was a pup. she is rotten rotten!

all in all we have two wonderful dogs who have very distinct personalities and as annoying as max can be i wouldn't trade him for the world. well maybe for europe or something. hope these stories made you smile... and if you want a puppy just let us know! they will probably look like max and mollie did as pups.

be blessed.

cassie

sometimes yes, sometimes no

2008-09-16T17:44:00.005-04:00

while i was at johnson i had the pleasure to meet and listen to a singer/songwriter by the name of jill paquette. not only was her music just right up my alley, her vocal skills impressive, and her songs very catchy, but her lyrics were and have continued to be a great comfort to my heart in heavy times. there is one particular song as of late that has been my mantra and prayer. if you would allow me to, i would like to post part of the lyrics of this song, "sometimes yes sometimes no".

i wanna know just what it looks like: what the answer's gonna be: i wanna grab hold of something: to give me some security: and know it's You i'm hearing: gently helping me to see: when everything i've prayed for: is not Your will for me: sometimes it's hard to live this way: holding on, letting go: when it's sometimes yes: and sometimes no

many many tears have been shed listening and singing this part of the song to the Lord, but it has truly been what i have prayed and i am finding daily such contentment in whatever it is He has planned for me.

in regards to our 40 day journey that i know some of you are praying with us, i had a dr appointment last week and we had some potentially discouraging news, but we have also gotten some direction. that being said, we have also gotten some more questions, but i am holding to the promise that God is going to continue to reveal Himself and His plans for our family in the coming days.

a closing thought. in the old testament there are some great stories where God said yes and no to some different people. as i have been reading it the last few days i am so thankful that God sent these people before me to walk that road so that today i could be encouraged by the struggles and victories of the saints before me. check out the old testament today if it's something you haven't read in awhile. until next time.

be blessed.
cassie

40 Days

2008-09-08T10:26:00.002-04:00

in the Old Testament there is a beautiful story about hannah, the mother of samuel. she goes to the Temple and kneels before the Lord begging of Him to give her a child. she prays so fervently that eli thinks she is drunk and reprimands her for coming to the Temple inebriated. she explains her distress and heartache and eli sends her on her way after he tells her the Lord will bless her with a child. as hannah leaves she turns and asks eli to continue to pray for her.

chris and i have embarked on a 40 day prayer journey in hopes for direction and guidance about having a child. we have enlisted the support and prayer of some friends and family and are praying every day for 40 days that God will give us a child. selfishly we would like to create a child, but that is not what we are praying for. we are asking specifically that God will reveal His plan for us in the pursuit of a child. particularly whether to adopt, foster to adopt, go to a fertility doctor, or be patient and wait. we know that God could create a child within me in these 40 days, but we are not holding out for that. direction is our main goal because trying without God this past year has been entirely too challenging.

like hannah we are fervently praying and opening up our hearts and minds to whatever it is God might do in us. and also like hannah we are asking people to pray with us. we are on day 6 now and believe in power in numbers. if you feel within your heart to pray with us we would appreciate and covet it. i am anxious to report back in a few weeks about what God is revealing to us. oh and as a closing thought, we think mollie might be having puppies. :)

be blessed.
cassie

breathe in, breathe out

2008-07-30T21:01:00.002-04:00

while the title of this blog might represent something you would hear a man saying to a woman in labor, rest assured i am not pregnant or in labor. but i do think the sentiment of "breathe in, breathe out" is one that i need to carry with me over the next few days.

i will just go ahead and say that i am sure 3 or 5 years down the road that i will all but worship at the feet of dave ramsey for his help in getting our finances in order, but right now the last thing i have is financial peace, which is the title of the class we are presently taking. i am sure many of you are sick of hearing about this class and quite frankly i am sick of it as well. i like to think that the oblivion we had for the first two years of marriage was much better than writing out our budget and seeing for ourselves that there is no way in God's green earth that we are going to be able to make ends meet when we are spending 106% of our income. anyone else out there feel me on this?

and while money issues are largely repsonsible for the mediocre meltdown i had awhile ago with chris, this wreck and chris' car and insurance companies and doctors and physical therapy and settlements and everything else under the sun definately played a hand in my frustration. my boss said it best when she told us that we just had a black cloud hovering over us. i figure that or i would like to think that perhaps God has something major in store for us and that maybe our situation is a bit like job's when God said to satan, "have you considered my servant, job?" i must say that job was a much bigger man of faith than i am right now though.

some exciting news, after all that drama, i have been in communication with a professor at JBC who is looking to start some type of policy change or restoration group or something for those people who find that they not only struggle, but fail miserably, in the area of sexual purity. i highly, HIGHLY encourage all of you to pick up bill hybels book, holy discontent and read it as fast as you can. i can truly say that these couples, particularly the ones at JBC, have a burning place in my heart and i want to do everything in my power to walk with them out of this sin and dishonor to God. pray that things will go smoothly in setting this up and that the administrators and staff will see that this is a hugely needed group.

so now that i have vented and continuously reminded myself to breathe it's time i go lie in the bed with my husband and maybe the dogs and remember to praise God in all things, even the sucky times, and that i breathe in, breathe out.

be blessed.
cass

please pray

2008-07-24T10:43:00.002-04:00

no time to mince words. yesterday i was involved in a car accident where a man ran a red light at 50 mph into the side of my car. while i am extremely sore i am thankful that nothing more serious happened. after being in the er all night long we came home and chris tucked me in and headed to the drugstore to get my pain medicine filled and his car started flashing "oil line, shut off car" and then his car stopped in the middle of the road. he coasted into the kroger parking lot and from there i called our 74 year old neighbor to pick him up. oh yeah, it was midnight and i had already taken a valium and hydrocodone.

to top things off things at y12 have been tough for chris due to his drawer not balancing one day and there is all kinds of drama mama there.

we are doing financial peace university and trying desperately to honor God with our finances and trying to get our "$1000 emergency fund" situated and we really believe that satan is trying to discourage us and break us down from doing the right thing. we truly covet prayers right now. we have no vehicle to get around, no family within 4 hours driving time, and our church is an hour away. to say the least we are discouraged and trying to hold our heads high. please pray.

and if you know anyone giving cars away for free... please let us know.

be blessed.

letting go

2008-07-15T13:08:00.003-04:00

as a child i can remember playing with my favorite cabbage patch doll, missy, and my younger sister, krystine, coming over wanting to play with her. now, there is a 5 year age difference between my sister and myself and quite frankly, i was a brat and i saw no reason to share my most favorite and prized doll, missy, with my grungy hands, obnoxiously irritating younger sister. so i told her no and what did she do but reach up and grab missy by the hair. now for any of you who know me, you know that i don't take well to that type of attitude (perhaps this experience is why) so i started yelling, "krystine dianne let go. Let Go! LET GO OF MISSY!!!" at which point my mother came in and got onto me for a) not sharing b) yelling at my sister c) who knows.

as i recount that story it reminds me of my relationship with God. i see something i want, oblivious to whether or not it is something He wants me to have and then i latch on like a blood-sucking leech. many times i hear the quiet whisper of His voice telling me to let go, but i grab on tighter. before long this dance that i do with God becomes me yanking and pulling like a selfish brat to something that i think i want but haven't considered God's plan. Occassionally God will raise His voice to me and yell at me to LET GO, but for the most part He paitiently waits for me to chill out and lose energy so He can look me in the eyes and tell me that His plan and way is so much better than my plans and dreams.

i have been reading the shack right now and i am astounded by what i am learning from this book. it is a fiction book but it has made some very real and valid arguments about God's plans versus what we want for ourselves. it has also really touched my heart in a way that few books have. one of the biggest things i am realizing is that while i look at situations in my life as evil or bad, God looks at these things as opportunities to redeem. i hesistate to go into much more detail because i would love for all of you to read this book and share your thoughts and insight.

so i guess it's time for me to let go of things i keep trying to make happen. it's time for me to say to my precious Lord and Saviour that i am ready to let go of the plans i have for me and of my dreams. i'm losing control of my destiny and i'm letting go.

be blessed.

blind faith

2008-07-10T01:44:00.003-04:00

blind faith. when i think of that phrase it reminds me of one of the indiana jones movies where indy has to have faith that when he steps off of the edge of a cliff that he will not fall. it is such a picture to me of how as a christian i should trust God. unfortunately my rational mind tells me that there is nothing there to catch me when i take that step so i tend to stand on the edge of the cliff and debate whether or not i am ready to trust.

i am so at that very place right now. how do i trust what i cannot see? and i do not mean how can i trust God, but moreover how do i trust those marvelous plans He tells me in Jeremiah that He has for me? how do i trust that His plan is always the right one when the plan i want, or at least think that i want, is jumping up and down, screaming and shouting out, "choose me!"? when do i finally concede to believe that His plan is always right even when i am afraid that i will plummet to my death? i guess it's that blind faith.

today my ob/gyn called and as we talked she informed me that she felt that we needed to see a fertility doctor. while this has always been a possibility that we knew we would pursue it was still disheartening and frustrating. i cannot fathom how it is possible to get pregnant immediately after quitting birth control only to lose the baby, and then try for almost another year and have nothing. nada. not one + on the pregnancy stick. the real kicker is i have been taking meds to help that along. i want so badly right now to grasp onto the blind faith and believe that this desire that is in my heart to have children will one day be fulfilled, but i am finding myself questioning it daily.

growing up you always hear the phrase, "life isn't fair" and i totally agreed with that when i wanted to go out with my friends and was denied that privilege. i completely agreed when 3 of my friends died within 6 months of each other. i knew life wasn't fair when i watched a 3 month old baby die due to lack of care at a hospital in johannesburg. and nothing reminds me more of how unfair life can be than when i see a 13 or 14 year old girl who is pregnant and either is miserable or thinking of their unborn child as the newest accessory.

so, blind faith. fertility doctors. blind faith. pregnancy. blind faith. jump? stand still. contemplate. jump? blind faith? jump? jumping... into the arms of my Father. i don't know what is ahead for us. i don't know how far we will go with this fertility business. all i know is that as i hear my Father's voice calling for me to jump blindly into His arms that i am going to close my eyes, spread my arms and step blindly off the cliff knowing that if He catches me or allows me fall that it's His plan. and His plan is always best.

be blessed.

protection

2008-06-16T16:19:00.003-04:00

today one of the scariest things of my entire life happened. i had just gotten out of the shower and i heard my dogs barking and freaking out and thought, "for the love! what is wrong with those dogs?!?!" so i quickly opened the door to the bathroom and there in my kitchen was a young black man looking just as suprised as i felt. immediately i remembered my phone was sitting on the table by the front door and so i started to go for it but the young man came over and shoved me into the wall, therefore causing me to fall to the ground. as i lay on the ground with this stranger in my home i prayed, "lord protect me" as i feared i was about to be raped or murdered or both. but to my suprise this young man took off out the back door.

never in the entire time that we have lived here have i been afraid to be in my own home alone, but i must say that today marked the first time i have ever truly felt that i was in a dangerous place. chris and i joke about the fact that we live in the ghetto right down the street from the projects and with drugs running rampant around us, but it really hit me today that we have truly been protected in the past year that we've lived here.

the police officers that came to the house kept asking if i wanted to press assault charges or breaking and entering but i was just so thankful that nothing else had happened that i decided not to. i figure that this teenager kid made a bad decision, but in all honesty no harm no foul. granted i may not feel comfortable while alone in my house for some time, but when i think about what he could have done, i am just thankful that the Lord sent his angels to protect me.

and now for the humorous parts of the story, because you have to know that there was something funny about what happened... not only was i taken to suprise because there was a man who was not chris in my kitchen, but i was stark naked minus the towel wrapped around my head. oh and my dogs, the vicious, flesh eating, protective dogs we own, were jumping up on this guy, tails wagging, surely thinking" pet me, pet me, new friend!"

be blessed... and make sure your doors are locked when you're alone in the house!

silence

2008-06-14T08:34:00.003-04:00

there are times when i am all alone in our house and the stillness and quietness is something rare. in those moments when i look around and see all the "stuff" we have i am reminded again how blessed we truly are.
when we bought our house a little over a year ago it was a whirlwind experience. we found a house, signed contracts with a realtor, made an offer, signed our lives away for the house, and moved in within a months time. tell me that was not God! and the kicker was our house payment is only $30 more a month than we were paying for rent. and while this was such a blessing i still find myself wanting more, or unhappy with the neighborhood, or... there is always something to complain about. but today i am not going to complain because i am so very very thankful for the provisions the Lord has given us. even though we may not have a huge house, or a pool, or a fenced in yard, there are thousands of people who would probably love to have our house. so thank you Lord for our home.
i am not exactly sure whose idea it was to make the pregnancy test sticks available to the public years ago, but i am not a fan of that person. we have spent so much money on those dadnabit tests in the last year and a half that we probably own stock in the first response company. it is an awful waste of money, but the first time you see that + - combination, the feelings cannot even be described. on the other hand the -- combination is a heartbreak every time. so in lieu of that, whoever decided to sell those stupid tests in grocery stores should be flogged.
chris and i are part of the planning party for the gathering's 4th of july festivities and i had the briliant idea of having a bake off, so they write up on the board "senior saints bake off", and i was like "hold up! i am totally entering". so they changed it to "senior saints/cassie bake off". gotta love the humor. anyways, so i was telling chris that i planned on destroying all the little old ladies who entered this contest, of course, all in the name of love. so i am going to try my hand at a topsy turvy/ or mad hatter cake. if you aren't familiar with what that is go here. it will be a completely different theme on the cake... red, white, blue, you know the drill, but it will be the same idea. anyways, hopefully it won't fall apart when we drive to sevierville.
well that is all for now, the silence and stillness is gone as the dogs have realized that i am up and moving around. be blessed this week.

update on life

2008-05-19T17:39:00.004-04:00

what amazing things God has been doing in our lives you guys! we have been so blessed to have found a church family to call our own where we can be ourselves. and we are learning so much under the teaching of pastor gene and in the conversations with our small group. the gathering has taken our walk with christ to an entirely different level, not because of pastor gene or small groups or actively serving, but because GOD is there. He is moving and showing us daily how to more effectively live as Christ. my hope is that each of you are experiencing God on this same level at your church.

now with all that being said, let's talk life. chris is doing exceptionally well at y-12 credit union and, are you ready?. we FINALLY have insurance. halle-freakin-lujah! i have been uninsured for over 2.5 years and chris has been uninsured for 2 years so we are victory dancing now. my job at daisy cake is proving to be exceptionally rewarding and fulfilling. and i have started taking some extra decorating classes (paid for by daisy cake) and am excited to learn more and more. who knows, we may one day have our own show on food network! :)

for my fellow readers out there i would like to encourage you to look up some of these books/authors i have been immersed in lately. it's a random collaboration of material, but i have found when i read a classic play like "A Streetcar Named Desire," followed by a fictional work by Alice Hoffman, only to top it off with another classic such as Jane Eyre, it is proving to be very rewarding. so here is a list of the top books and/or authors that i have been enjoying the last few months.

*authors*

jodi picoult, alice hoffman, kim edwards, and of course j.k. rowling.

*books*

the blessed life by robert morris, holy discontent by bill hybels, proverbs by king solomon

that's all for now. random post i know. until next time.

be blessed.

blessed

2008-04-21T10:47:00.002-04:00

well i started a new job. i know, i know, you are probably like, what else is new? but things have been really rocky for me since i lost my teaching job in october. but it has been amazing to see how the Lord has worked all those "bad" things for the greater good. let me elaborate.

when i took the director job at the daycare it was out of necessity. i desperately needed to find a source of income for our family or we were going to be in a dire financial situation. so i took the job at the daycare, thinking that this was where God wanted me. now, perhaps that was where he wanted me, but the revelation of why he wanted me there is unbeknownst to me. moving forward... i was miserable at the daycare for all sorts of reasons: the job description was not what it was supposed to be, my boss was ridiculously lazy, i was blamed for all the bad things that were happening, major religious differences, the list goes on and on. throughout all this i, of course, was venting to my parents and my dad said something that i would like to share with you.

he first asked if he could say something to me without me getting upset, which is never really the way you want to start a conversation, but i obliged. he then went on to explain that he really wished that i could have the opportunity to allow God to place a wonderful job in my lap, instead of taking jobs out of necessity. he said that by taking a job out of necessity and not trusting that God can take care of me despite certain circumstances, that i was missing out on a blessing. while i agreed i also felt that there was no way i would just have the perfect job thrown at me because let's face it folks; this isn't an 8000 person town i am living in, and we don't know a whole lot of people here who would be willing to just hand me a job. despite all those things...

about 3 weeks had passed since i had this conversation with my father and it was a tuesday. i was at work, more miserable than i had ever been at a job, and just wondering how i was even going to make myself get up the rest of the week and come work, when andrea of daisy cake company called and said, "are you still looking for a job?"

mind you, the last time i had even talked to andrea had been at the end of january and the conversation was more or less me trying to get an apprenticeship with her. so her call was heaven sent and of course, i took this opportunity and blessing that God threw at me. i couldn't be happier. and now because i am a loser and do not know how to make a link be a word (pitiful I know) i am just going to give you the url to go look and see what i get to do every week. www.daisycakecompany.com

be blessed; i know i am.

love you all.

cass

prayer partners?

2008-04-03T17:01:00.002-04:00

it's been awhile. though i doubt many read, my apologies to those who missed my words of wisdom.

i will not lie, this upcoming week is going to be emotional and i could use all the prayers you can muster up. saturday, april 12th, is when my due date was for our little kya joy. the past few weeks have been hard at time, but as the date that was once looming in front of us gets closer it becomes harder to get up in the morning, harder to breathe at times and harder to not fall on the ground, curl in the fetal position and cry.

we have so many friends and people we know that have just found out they are pregnant or are preparing for the birth of their first child. let me first say, that we could not be happier for these couples, but i wish i was in the same place as them.

i know this experience will inevitably have a wonderful lesson that i will glean from it later in life, but selfishly i want to forgo the lesson and just hold my baby in my arms. sorry to have been such a debbie downer this post. just lift me up this week, please. next time will be happier i promise.

be blessed.

cass

long way around

2008-01-26T00:40:00.000-05:00

it's been awhile. too long if you ask me, and so much has happened that it makes it almost impossible to decide where to start. i finally took a position as a director of a daycare and so far it is going well. there are definately some kinks that need to be repaired, but for now i am thankful to just have a job. i also managed to talk my way into an internship with the owner of daisy cakes company here in knoxville. i am so excited to learn tricks of the trade in making cakes and particularly dealing with fondant.

on a more somber note chris and i made a very difficult decision two weeks ago and decided it was time for us to find a new church. in turn it meant i had to step down from the band which is the hardest thing i've had to do in awhile. for all you musicians, you know when you find that one person that you can just make amazing music with because you are both so in tune with each other and know exactly what the other is thinking? basically that was me with tyler. and now it's over.
don't get me wrong, we needed to find a different church. we had just been fighting god for about 9 months now. we were comfortable. we knew almost every member of the staff at sevier heights and were good friends with many of them. i was extremely involved in the music ministry and that was comfortable. i mean, don't take it the wrong way, but it's nice to know that people want to hear your gift. and now i feel completely lost, as if the long road that was leading us away from sevier heights just got longer as i now search for the place to use my gift for the lord.

we went to faith promise church last weekend and in all honesty it was exactly what tyler and i always dreamed worship would be like at the walk. but selfishly, i found myself becoming so irritated that they were doing songs that we were supposed to be doing at the walk this semester. i wanted to be able to lead the congregation in those songs and lead them to the throne of jesus. but again, the road we are on doesn't have any pit stops for me to fulfil my singing desire. at least not yet. hopefully the long way around is almost over. but if it's not i am just going to have to trust that this road that is dark and narrow is the road we have been commissioned to be on right now and although it seems long now, in the end it was the only road that would have lead us home.

be blessed.
cass

held

2007-12-06T13:24:00.000-05:00

i joined a forum online with other women who have been faced with all facets of infertility. some have been trying for 5 or more years, some have been told they will never reproduce, some have had multiple children die. it is so humbling to me as i read these topics and see the hurt these women and their husbands go through.

i try to imagine how i will react to another miscarriage or stillbirth or finding out that chris or i have some physical problem that will not allow us to reproduce naturally (as in without the assistance of in vitro fertilization or adoption). i would like to think of myself as a christian who will say, "thank you for this opportunity to share my hurt and my pain with a non believer that will inevitably cross my path", but i am not dillusional to what my human nature says. that ugly selfish beast within me rears its ugly head and starts screaming "why are there babies aborted everyday? why are there teenagers having babies? why do abusive parents have children? why are babies abandoned and left to die everyday? why me?"

why me? why not me? i guess god in his infinite wisdom saw the hurt of a family dealing with infertility and said, "they don't know me, but cassie does. i know she won't understand why i make her go through this but hopefully she will use this pain to her advantage.

i don't think anything can better sum up this post than the chorus to the song, "held".

this is what it means to be held

how it feels

when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive

this is what it is to be loved

and to know

that the promise was when everything fell

we'd be held

be blessed.

cass

who knows

2007-11-20T09:25:00.000-05:00

we are leaving for the beach in a matter of hours. i am very excited, particularly to see my dog's reaction to the sand and ocean. she is going to freak out and it is going to be hilarious.
when i was growing up we never went to the beach for vacations. we went to new england via plane and train, san antonio, dallas, san marcos, paris (all in texas), oklahoma city and i am sure some other places. but none of those are beach destinations. the first time i went on a for real vacation to the beach was on my honeymoon. granted i had been to the beach before on numerous occassions, just never for the distinct purpose of vacationing.
that was a completely random rant and now i do not know what i was originally going to post...
back on track now. i don't know who out there has ever heard of an artist by the name of kari jobe, but you should check her out on youtube and listen to her sing. she is so annointed and she has such a passion for leading worship. there is an interview where someone asks her what it means to lead worship and, well heck i am just going to post the link because i think every worship leader needs to hear this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9gtKfEDuKH8 after you watch that you need to listen to revelation song. amazing
sorry to those few of you who read this. i am sure this is the most random and thoughtless post you have read in quite some time. be blessed.

holidays shmolidays

2007-11-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

my christmas tree is up and decorated... and i still have fall decor in my dining room and on my front porch. feelin a little red. the rest of the christmas decorations are coming up in the next few days before we head to myrtle beach for thanksgiving with the lawson clan.

the beach. at thanksgiving. this will be a totally new experience for me. the girl who grew up in the plains of texas and had never vacationed "at the beach" until last year. it's not the first year to spend thanksgiving away from my family and in a matter of speaking i suppose i am not spending the holiday away from my family... just the ramsey side.

this will be the first year i am away from my parents and sister for christmas. chris graciously chose to do his first non-lawson christmas last year and now it's my turn. but not only will we not be with ramsey family, we won't be with lawson family either. it's our first christmas completely and totally by ourselves.

we thought we would try to come up with a tradition that is just ours and maybe that will make the day brighter. not to be a pessimist but part of the whole joy of christmas is spending it with my family. the family that i grew up with. the one that i would wake up at 530am on christmas morning to open presents. the one that reads the christmas story before any presents are open so we don't forget the true meaning of christmas. the one where my dad shares words of affirmation to each of us so we know how much we mean to him. the one where my mom makes a brunch and then we have a huge dinner around 4. that family. the one in texas. the one that is no longer my immediate family.

"and then man and woman shall become one flesh [and become one family]". i still will be with my family this christmas. a new family. one that is smaller. the family of chris and myself. the family that has lost a child. but it's our family. our small family of two (plus mollie, the dog). the lawson family.

i guess christmas will be strangely andwonderfully different this year.

peace like a river?

2007-11-14T08:51:00.001-05:00

strange name for me to pick considering i don't always have a peace with circumstances in my life. is it possible to always have peace no matter the situation. i know the bible tells us that we should not worry and to not let our heart be troubled, but what is the solution when you do worry and your heart is troubled? is it possible to just fall at the feet of jesus and have him heal your heart? i think it is possible.

in the last few months i have learned a lot about heartache. i started a new job that i adored and unexpectedly was asked to step down. i was mad and angry for a few hours then realized that no amount of tears or anger was going to get my job back. so i have been taking some "paid time off" to reconsider my priorities, my life and my faith.

my faith was truly shaken in august when chris and i lost the child that i was carrying. there is no way to explain the pain or hurt you feel when you are so excited for this new life that you and the person you love have created and then that hope and joy is shattered. once your body starts attacking there is nothing you can do but watch and wait for the war to be over and lost. i was so mad at god, and i hated what he had done to me. i felt like pregnant women were stalking me and it seemed everytime i got in contact with someone i hadn't spoken to in awhile they always had news of some other person that we knew that was pregnant or had just had a baby. disheartening. disillusioned. distraught. i turned from god.

we pulled out of church because seeing baby dedications and going to our bible fellowship class where babies were popping out every week was too painful. then our new music minister called and asked if i would sing in church. the song "amazed" by the desperation band was the solo. my heart had started to heal and i thought it was time for me to rejoin my fellow believers so i consented. that sunday i began to sing the words "you dance over me while i am unaware. you sing all around but i never hear the sound. lord i'm amazed by you..." the words were so vivid to me that i could see jesus standing over me and rejoicing in my sorrow even when i was pushing him away and i became overcome with emotion. it was one of the most beautiful times of worship i had encountered.

even though i doubted and was angry he still loved me and never left me. i know we hear that all the time and it's easy to remember that and believe it when everything is going well in our lives, but when you feel as though you have fallen into the pit only to climb out and be thrust down again, it's hard to remember and believe those simple truths.

so, peace like a river? most days. still some rough waters today and further down the road. but i've got someone else guiding my boat down the calm, cool river.