Undone

Have you ever thought, "Where did the last few years go?"  That is where I am right now.  I don't know where the last 3 years have gone.  It seems like it has been so long since we moved to Germany, found out I was pregnant with Zechariah, moved to Texas to fight Zech's Congenital Heart Disease, lost myself in the process, only to find myself a few years later completely changed.  If someone would have given me the story of my life up to this point I would have called them a liar.  I would have never in my wildest dreams imagined in my lifetime that my family would have lived through the hardest season of our lives; better yet actually survived it!  I realized just this week that my life has totally come undone.  I have also realized that if my life hadn't come undone, I wouldn't have let Jesus meet me exactly where I (was) am at.   I have been thinking on a song called, "Here in Your Presence."  I have been really thinking on the chorus:

Here in Your presence, we are undone

Here in Your presence, Heaven and Earth become one

Here in Your presence, all things are new

Here in Your presence, everything bows before You

Isn't that the truth, in the presence of Jesus we are undone.  Thinking about my life up to this point I have either, a) truly come undone in the presence of Jesus, or, b) pushed Jesus away and done everything all myself.  I have been thinking on how to move forward this year and let 2012 be better than the last 2 1/2 years.  The bridge to this song has been just as thought provoking for me.

Wonderful, beautiful, glorious, matchless in every way

Wonderful, beautiful, glorious, matchless in every way

What if we believe that Jesus is as good as His word says?  What if we believed that he was wonderful, beautiful, glorious, and matchless?  If I believed this more often would life be easier?  What if I believe that all things are possible with God?  What if I believe that there is a joyous passionate life after such heartache?  If I believed all these things life would be TRANSFORMED!  Today I am going to let my life continue to be TRANSFORMED!

Good Bye Texas, Hello Washington!

Hi y'all, well we finally made it to Washington!  The drive was beautiful, and vacation was fabulous!  We spent time in Huntington Beach visiting my sister in law and her fiance, went to Disneyland, headed up and spent time with my nieces and nephews in Manteca, visited with old friends, and then headed up to Redding to spend time with my in-laws.   I do have to say that I have still been losing weight since we have been on vacation and traveling. I haven't gained any and proud to say I have lost 71.2 pounds.  It has been hard and taken a lot of mental rehearsing and compromise as far as food is concerned, but I am now only 20 pounds from goal!

Washington is certainly beautiful, and while it is beautiful it is dredging up old feelings of Germany.   Between the rain and the beauty of the trees it is stirring up feelings from just last year and our fight to get Zechariah back to the US.  I certainly don't want to forget Zechariah or pretend he was never with us, I just don't want to be that girl who's son died.  That is who I was in Texas, and I don't want that for my time here in Washington.  I want to be the girl who is being healed, restored, and living life to the fullest.

As I sit and write this I am feeling a bit anxious about our future.  We found out Derek will most likely go to Afghanistan in March (if you are reading this and are on my Facebook, please don't post any of this we are not ready to tell Derek's parents), and we still don't have housing.  Not having housing is not what is stressing me out it is the finances that have me stressed.  I don't want to go financially in the hole for this move, Derek and I pretty much live on the if you charge it pay it right away motto, but I just keep going where is the money for all this coming from!  I also have to keep my mind off of this deployment.  I already lost part of my heart this year when Zechariah died all I can think about is what happens if something happens to Derek.  I guess that brings me to church yesterday.  On Saturday, Derek and I took to google to find Foursquare church's in Tacoma.  We attended a Foursquare church in Manteca, CA, as well as an Assembly of God church, both are pretty much the same in beliefs, the difference is how each denomination appoints their pastors.  Anyways so we found the church Puget Sound Christian Center.  It was fabulous friends.  The minute we walked in there was a wonderful guy named Steve who gave us a tour, and when we had Faith all checked in to kids church we headed over to the sanctuary for worship.  While we were worshiping a guy came up to us shook our hands and started talking to us, low and behold this young nice guy was the pastor.  When worship was nearly done he went and started talking about how he felt someone was struggling with fear, if it maybe about upcoming deployments, finances, and what the future holds, and needed to know that God wanted to take those fears and wants our complete and utter surrender.  Those words spoke truly to my heart.  The sermon was on surrender, and boy did I need to hear it.  After the service was over we ran into the pastor again and he said, those words were for you.  We never told him Derek would most likely be deployed, it was Jesus, speaking to us through this man who was willing to be Jesus' mouth piece.

So today, I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that I will surrender it to my Savior, and pray that I can make it through all this unscathed!

He Is Risen, He has Risen Indeed!!!!

Boy have I missed you all!  I have been busy, busy, busy!  The time has passed me by with all the Easter activities and the process of getting ready to move.  This weekend we took Faith to the Easter Egg Hunt on Post, then to see the new movie Rio (which she loved), and then home to have an egg dying extravaganza! 

I had another successful weigh in this Saturday at Weight Watchers, I lost 2.6 pounds for a total of, wait for it...wait for it...62.6!!!! Not only have I lost weight but I am finding myself again.  Last night I ran for the first time in months because of my neck and knee issues.  I was reluctant at first but once I got my rhythm I ran and I loved it...granted I ran head first into the Texas wind last night and for all of you who don't know what that is like it can be a bit blustery, but I made and it and it made for some good resistance training!  Tonight I am heading to the gym for my workout and then to spin class tomorrow!

Here are some pics of the wonderful weekend we had!

 

Happy Easter, He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!!!

Amazing New Developments!

So life has taken a surprising turn for the better!  We found out yesterday that we were officially approved to leave San Antonio early, June 1st to be exact, but little did we know it would get better!  Derek came home and said "you might want to sit down for this one, we are leaving May 10th."  I was like sit down, I want to jump up and down!!!

San Antonio has been a God send.  Jesus knew exactly where we needed to be when we needed it.  From the doctors, to the people we have met we have been blessed!  To some people it may seem like we just want to pack up and leave but for the Reese family this move is bittersweet.  I speak for both Derek and I knowing we are both on the same page, we are so ready to move on and not have the constant reminder of how sad we have been for the last few months.  The grief that has rocked our family, not just the grief a of losing a child, but the grief of never being able to have another child, the grief of not really knowing how to move on.

The best way I know how to deal with it all is to say that moving gives us a clean slate.  Today I was reminded that we are given challenges so that we may choose to believe that God is still good, but in that same breath we are given the opportunity to doubt, and lately that has been where I am, doubtful.  I realize day by day, life is always going to have struggles, and we have choices how we will deal with it.  Right now I chose to move on, continue to lay my doubts, my heart, my pain at the feet of Jesus.  Moving away from San Antonio won't make it better, but it is another step in putting the sadness of the last year to rest.

I heard this on K-Love the other day and it was the perfect description of what we have been going through the last few months.  Have a wonderful day friends, enjoy every moment, you never know what the future holds.