Why so long???

 wow...I don't know what else to say.  It's been a little more than a year since I've logged in to this blog and the last entry I made I didn't even publish...I didn't even remember writing it!  Geez...I published it just now 😂 and I'll just start a new one.

UPDATES...I'll fly through as quickly as I can:

Panama City - we've lived here now for 8 years...Ryan serves at Hiland Park BC as the college/young adult minister and I work at a local contractor's office as the Office Manager.

Ayden - 11 years old, 6th grade, sometimes it's a struggle

Cade -  15 years old, 10th grade, girlfriend 😩 (i'm still working on this emotionally LOL)

House - well...it's big...a true blessing from the Lord...

Family - too much to put into words here...another entry maybe

Friends - this one is also going to require another entry just because of the many things that the Lord has taught me just in the short time we've lived in PC.  

The whole purpose for starting this blog so many years ago was to put my thoughts somewhere that I could be sure that either I could always access, or, if people wanted to, others could read and hopefully be encouraged somehow.  I don't think anyone reads these things anymore but I still enjoy typing things out when I can.  

So, that said, this morning I was flipping through the ol' Facebook account and a memory popped up that I just couldn't scroll past.  It was a sweet picture of my boys, hugging.  Can you believe that?!  They were hugging!! I was immediately struck by how sweet they were in this photo.  Cade was 5 and Ayden as a little more than one year old...and the top of the caption said "10 years ago"...seriously?  TEN YEARS AGO????  How?  How did time pass so quickly that we are 10 YEARS after this sweet photo?  After picking my emotional self off the floor I examined the picture a little closer.  The background shows dishes in the sink, lunch still out on the counter, something I forgot to put away LOL....things that were just "out" that shouldn't have been still "out"...just sitting there....being documented and showing my lack of good housekeeping at this moment in time.  What I didn't tell you about this photo is it was taken right after we had moved to Arkansas.  Ryan had just been called as the student pastor there and we were living in a tiny little house (it was a stretch calling it a "house"...it was a trailer...and there's nothing wrong with living in a trailer...but this one came with mice....so, that's where I'll leave that).  This little house was fine for us...it was FREE of charge and we lived there till we could find a home to buy in the neighborhood that we wanted.  I was home-schooling at the time, which I'll never do again, but at the time it served the purpose for what we needed.  It was only Kindergarten for Cade...teaching him to read was a little more than I bargained for, but I digress...

This photo....looking at the mess behind these sweet faces and seeing all of the things that I should have been doing...instead, I chose to sit there with them.  Watch them. Talk to them.  ENJOY THEM.  I look back over my time as a mother of young children and I think about how quickly time passes.  It happens in a blink, man.  This pic was taken 10 years ago and it feels like yesterday to me.  I remember everything about this particular day.  Mommas...take time to breathe in every.single.moment with your babes!  Time is precious and you can't get it back!  Those precious angel pies that you prayed for, carried for 9 months and agonized in labor over grow up!  Somehow they go from loving, dependent sweet babies to independent, selfish, stinky teenagers!!  I kid...LOL (sort of 😏).  It's a wonderful, sad, encouraging, victorious, heartbreaking time for a mother.  No one ever prepares a momma for the time that her baby will grow up to suddenly know everything, smell different, and eventually find another love that will occupy all of that time that was previously reserved for "mom".  

There's another thing about this picture...something that I didn't notice before.  These sweet faces, the sweet precious angel babies that you sang to about Jesus and read the Bible to and brought to church and had deep theological discussions with about whether or not dogs and fish go to heaven or if there are clouds in heaven or if Grandma Freeman can see us from heaven (lots of thoughts on heaven from my two)...those little hearts start to get soft and their little minds start to think on their own.  They start to question the sin that suddenly becomes very evident...and they come to you one day and say "I want to ask Jesus to be in my heart."  And that, mommas....that statement right there.....that is the reason we push forward, always and continually speaking Jesus into their lives...that one sentence makes all of the tears, all of the late nights, all of the diapers and the crying and all of the no sleep worth every, single, last drop.  I remember when both of my boys prayed to receive Jesus into their hearts and I remember their little voices admitting their sin and asking for forgiveness and committing to following Jesus the rest of their days.  It's the most precious memory that I have of both of them.

This photo...there's a lot here.  A lot of memories.  A lot of things that I try so desperately to hold on to because my boys aren't this little anymore.  I hold on to their little voices, their little hands holding mine, their little eyes looking at me.  Although they grow up, and although it saddens me to see them growing up, I am reminded that I have run the race that was set before me...no I haven't finished it yet, but I have run the race that was set before me for that particular time.  Seeing my boys loving Jesus and going to church and wanting to bring their friends to church and wanting to be with other believers is so sweet.   Don't give up, momma.  I promise, one day you'll look back and you'll see what God has done.  One day you'll no longer hold the little hand that needed you to help them reach the top of the countertop...One day you'll watch as your baby holds the hands of his friends showing them how to find Jesus.  Rest easy, friend...one day it'll be your turn...and you'll watch in awe as your child becomes identified with the very Creator of their precious soul.