Part 3 is hard to write. It's hard to capsulize 3 years into 1 post. It might be a tad long... A week after Aaron's meeting, we got an official letter in the mail confirming what we already knew. They had chosen not to renew Aaron's license. We didn't talk about it again for a long time. Emmy came at the end of May and gave me a new purpose and a new focus. I didn't allow myself the time to think about where we'd come from. I decided I could only look at what was ahead. There was too much pain in looking back. Aaron's job was going well. Better than we'd expected actually. Our little apartment was home. We were attending a new church with a lot of people our age. New friends. Our friends Kara and Landon, that I mentioned in my last post, were attending this church as well. Landon was on staff there as Administrative Pastor. Before we left for North Dakota, Landon and Kara had shared with us that they felt called to plant a church in the town Landon grew up in, Fishers, Indiana. We thought that sounded great, but just not for us. We'd been praying for thier efforts but chose to go a different way. Now that our paths were crossing again, Aaron and I felt like the Lord was leading us to join Kara and Landon on the Lauch Team for this new church. Would I even dare entertain the thought that Aaron could lead the youth ministry? We were so far removed from that, it seemed nonsensical to even think about. Yet, Aaron seemed resiliant. He'd been meeting with the Pastor regularly and decided that he wanted to start pursuing his license again. The Pastor presented it to the church board in the spring of 2010 and they voted to grant him his local license. (More church talk. It's 1 step below the license he lost). Over the next year, more people jumped on board with the church plant, we had meetings, made plans, raised money. Each step that moved us closer to the launch of the church squeezed my heart tighter and tighter. Would Aaron even want to take on the youth group? Would Landon consider letting him? If so, can we even do this? Should we do this? I mean, as far as I was concerned we were damaged goods, didn't everyone else see us that way too? In the Spring of 2011 we had a launch team meeting. During this meeting, we decided we wanted to nail down specific ministires we wanted up and running when we launched and assign ministry heads. I remember sitting in the meeting holding my breathe. Then it happened. Aaron volunteered to lead the teens. I sat there waiting for the objections, but nothing. Maybe we weren't as damaged as I thought. My heart soared. It was healing for me to know that other people had faith in my husband. In the spring of 2011, we were getting ready to welcome our 2nd daughter, Macie. Things were going great with Fishers Point, Aaron's job was going well, we'd moved out of our beloved little apartment into a larger townhouse. Aaron had been serving with his local license for a year and was preparing for a meeting with the credentials board here in Indy. He was ready to interview with them to try and get his district license back. Two weeks before the meeting, Aaron recieved an email saying that there was a plan that needed to be put in place, things that needed to be done before he could interview with the credentials board. When we receieved the email, we knew there was no way any of it could be done before the meeting. Again, I felt like we were in a bit of a tailspin. For 2 years, we'd been followed around by this so called monkey. He was always on our backs. Aaron was tired of explaining, reexplaining, and even just talking about those first painful weeks. He'd rediscovered his call and purpose in ministry and just wanted to get on with it. But, God had other plans. So, we went on with the process of waiting.... Part 4 will be the end of the story. No, not the end, we'll just come to the current time. The experiences Aaron and I have had have shaped us, our family, our ministry, but mostly- it's shaped our faith.
I want to take a minute and brag a little bit on our church family. We talk a lot at our church (now named Fishers Point Community Church) how we're a family and how we're a healing church. We get people who are at the lowest point of thier life. They're tired, battered, angry, hurt, run down. We love to just put our arms around them and love on them and show them Jesus as much as we can. I think we're probably so good at this because we all have been in the same position at one time. Before we ever set up a single folding chair in that school gym, or sang a worship song, or served a cup of coffee and a muffin, God knew that Aaron and I needed these people. He knew how deeply we were hurt and He led us to a group of people who loved us more deeply. He led us to a group of people who walked beside us, who held us up, who had faith in us. Wherever this road leads us, whatever else God might have for us in the future, I'll be forever grateful to our church family. It's Menu Monday here at Definitely.Maybe. I grocery shopped on Thursday last week, so my menu has been done for a few days. This week we're having one of my favorite meals, Chicken Pot Pie! I used up the last of the gift card I'd been shopping with the last 2 weeks and this was a true pantry week, so I've got a repeat meal from last week. We'll be on the run on Wed, so I picked something easy. I'm only planning through Thursday because Friday is payday and I'll just go ahead and do my shopping on Friday because Saturday and Sunday are super busy days for us! Menu for June 18-June 21 Monday- Chicken Pot Pie- This is a super simple recipe. I use a bag of frozen veggies, a chicken breast that already cooked and chunked up, 1 can of cream of chicken soup, and 1 can of cheddar cheese soup. I mix it all together with some garlic powder and a little bit of oregano and pepper. I use Bisquick Heart Healthy Baking Mix for the top. It's a family favorite. Tuesday- Ham and Cheese Calzones- I have frozen loaf of uncooked bread in the freezer that needs to be used. I'll pull it out, let it thaw and proof, pound it out and then cut it into pieces large enough to fill with ham and shredded colby jack cheese. Then seal off the edges with a fork, cut 2 small slits in the top, brush with an egg white, and bake at 350 until golden brown. Also a family favorite. Wednesday- Turkey and Cheese Sandwiches- We'll be busy at campmeeting on Wed so I'm doing something quick. Thursday- Spaghetti- I already had all the ingredients for this, so it's an easy meal that I didn't have to purchase a thing for! Weekend Recap
We had a nice relaxing weekend around these parts. Saturday morning, I had breakfast with one of the girls from our youth group and then when I got home, I fixed the kids lunch and we headed out to to pool. We had a great time swimming and enjoying the beautiful weather! Later on in the night we noticed that Macie seemed to be having some trouble breathing. I packed her up and headed off to MedCheck. When we got there, it packed and they told me we'd have to wait almost 2 hours. I said no thanks and headed to the ER. 4 hours later and absolutely no answers I brought her home and put her to bed. She was exhausted. Yesterday was another nice relaxing day. We had a great time celebrating Aaron. He opened his gift from the girls yesterday morning before church. Then we headed out to church. After church I made pancakes for lunch, then we all took a nap. We grilled out later on for dinner then we all watched Toy Story 3 for the first time. Oh man, I thought it was a little intense for a kid at some points, but it was still good. Definitely cried at the end. After the kids went to bed, I spent sometime ironing and getting ready for the upcoming week! All in all, it was a great relaxing weekend! We enjoyed it. It will be a long while before we have that much free time on a weekend again! This year, the girls Father's Day gift had to be on the cheap. On the cheap as in almost free. I made sloppy joe's with Manwich last week for dinner and I had the idea while cleaning out the can. Years and years ago, I made my dad a pen holder out of a can and popsicle sticks that I colored. That was probably more than 20 years ago. It's still sitting on my parents computer desk holding pens and pencils. I knew we had popsicle sticks and now we had a can. I set the can aside and hoped that Aaron didn't ask why a random can was laying around. He didn't. So, we set out to color popsicle sticks. I figured it would be easier for Emmy to color the sticks on the can, so I hot glued them down and let her have at it. I helped a little, but she did most of it. Then we made cards out of construction paper and a big sign to hang up in the morning. Emmy and Macie (but mostly Emmy) colored away.
I had around $13 to spend on Aaron's gift, so I figured I'd get a few things I knew he'd like. Plus, I knew I would need a bag and tissue paper. There are very few things that Aaron likes that he doesn't have to share with the 3 ladies in the house, two of which are sunflower seeds and Mike & Ike's. So, I figured I'd get them and make sure us females know they're off limits. I also got him a pack of nice(r) pens. He's always complaining that his nice pens from work get stolen or he loses them, plus, that's fitting with the pen holder. All in all, I think I spent about $6. Not too bad for on the cheap! [I may or may not have used the leftover $$$ to buy us girls ice cream sandwiches.] Here's a few pictures of our gift making extravaganza. *Please let me preface these pictures by saying I have ZERO artistic ability. No judgement of crooked letters!* Hey Everyone, I just joined the #SheReadsTruth community. Check it out here and join us!
Well, it's Friday again. It feels like I was just typing that yesterday. It's amazing how quickly the weeks go. I'm not going to lie, it's been a hard week. Lots of struggles, lots of quesions... but I'm trying my hardest to choose truth over emotions. Anyways.... here are my favorites from this week! 1. Even thought it's been a hard week and I feel like there are so many unanswered questions, I can't deny the fact that God is showing himself to me in random ways. Ok, not random, because God is never random. So I'm thankful for bread crumbs, even when I want the whole loaf. 2. On Wednesday night, Aaron and I went down to teen camp to sit through the last service with the kids, then bring them home. It was an awesome service and God definitely moved in the kids lives. I think back over my teen years and I can say that camp was always a time when I made difinitive decisions in my relationship with God. After the service we got to enjoy the finale lip sych. Here's a picture of some of the campers and a youth pastor being camps version of One Direction.... "New Direction". 3. On Saturday, I was able to have a Mommy date and have Starbucks with one of my former Pastor's wife. They pastored the church I grew up in in Michigan and now they live about an hour away up north in Indiana. We met half way and talked and talked and talked for over 3 hours. I was a young teen when they left our Church, and I've always counted her as one of the women who helped disciple me through some of the hardest years of life (teen years). I feel blessed that I was able to talk and share with her and that I can still be discipled by her through the other hardest years of my life. She was such an encouragement and I look forward to the next time we can have a Mommy date.
4. We moved our girls into the same room on Saturday. Our townhouse is only 2 bedroom and until now (13 months), Macie's crib has been in our room. I wanted my room back. So, we moved the crib in there and it's been loads of fun ever since. I was shocked at how quickly they adjusted and we love laughing at what we hear over the monitor when they are in there together. I'm so thankful that (right now at least) my girls are each other's biggest fan. 5. I'm excited about the challange I have today of coming up with a extremely cheap/free Father's Day gift for Aaron. I know he'll probably read this, so I can't divulge any secrets, but I have a few ideas and I'll share his gift with you guys next week! Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. I remember vividly the night Emerson was born. I can remember how the room smelled, I remember the noises I was hearing, I remember every sweet curve of Emmy's face. I remember all of this because I didn't sleep. I laid in that hospital bed staring at her couting each breath. I was too afraid to close my eyes. I was afraid that she would stop breathing and I wouldn't be awake to save her. Over the next few months I had many nights like this. I'd lay her down to sleep and panic because I was consumed with fear of losing her in the night. On those nights I would pray these exact words.... "God, Emmy is yours. I give her to you." Almost instantly when I prayed that prayer, God's peace would rush over me and I was able to sleep. Now that Emmy is older, I don't often have a fear of her not waking from sleeping. My fears have changed. Am I doing it right? Am I holding her back? Am I pushing her too hard? Am I being an example of God so that she is pointed to the cross? Am I expressing love, courage, strength, modesty, and dignity to her? About 5 months ago, Aaron and I decided that instead of just doing a generic prayer at bed time and praying for a few specific family members, we wanted to teach Emmy how to pray for others. I'd seen this idea online and decided to replicate it (another idea pinned here.) We also decided that as Emmy grows and her understanding deepens we'll add more sticks with specific prayer requests and deeper concepts. It was easy to make. I took an empty pickle jar, spray painted the lid pink. I used jumbo popsicle sticks and a pink sharpie to write the names, then tied some silver ribbon around the mouth of the jar. I used a silver craft pen to write Emerson's Prayer Jar on top. Every time she gets in bed, she instantly reminds us to pull a name out of the jar. She loves praying for everyone in the jar and gets excited about each name. She's recently started asking to pull 2 names out of the jar. She'll pray, we'll kiss her and tuck her in and close the door. And then every night I pray... not out of fear for the coming night but for hope in the future God has planned for her... "God, Emmy is yours. I give her to you." I had some extra time today so I decided to add an extra post including one of the wreaths I made for my front door earlier this spring. I'd had this straw wreath laying around and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I saw a few ideas on pinterest and decided to make my own.... (forgive some of my pictures, they were taken with my phone) I chose a nice green color. My front door is navy blue so I wanted something that would compliment it. Anyways, I took the yarn and wraped and wraped and wraped, and wraped some more. I used hot glue in places to make sure the yarn stayed nice and tight and didn't move around too much. Once that was done, I cut out diamond shapes out of white felt and placed them on my wreath at the approximate places I wanted them glued down. I left an open space at the bottom right of the wreath where I was planning on adding some embelishments. Once I had the felt shapes laid where I wanted, I glued them into place. Then, I took fuschia cross stitch thread and made sure the thread was doubled so it was thick. I wanted to make sure you could see it. I wrapped it cross wise around the wreath and then came back the other direction to create a criss cross across the diamonds. I used hot glue where I needed to hold the thread in place. Once that was done, I decided to make some felt flowers to add some flair to the wreath. I had a few pieces of mustardy yellow felt that I hadn't used so i decided to use that as an accent color along with the pink and white. I added a few buttons to dress up the flowers and that was that. (I don't have any pictures of the flower making process, but I will post some tutorials on how to make some of the flowers at a later time.) I decided to add some texture to the wreath so I used some burlap pieces to lay behind the flowers. I cut 2 larger pieces asymetrically and glued them to the wreath. Then I began attaching my flowers. I used lots and lots and lots of hot glue to attach the flowers. I tried a little bit of wire, but that just didn't want to work. And that is that! Here are a few pictures of it hanging on my front door. A wreath like this is fun, rather easy to make, and would make a great gift. I may make a Indianapolis Colts themed one once football season starts up again. (Although, that depends on how quickly my husband embrases Andrew Luck). It may end up being a U of M maize and blue wreath instead. GO BLUE!
Well, today is the day. I've been weighing on and off through out the week so I have an idea of where I was heading for today's post. The good news is that I'm down 4 lbs. The bad news is that I did not break the 5 lbs I've been trying to break since January. But, this is as close as I've gotten. So, I know if I just stick to it, it will happen.
Last week I posted about decreasing my calories and seeing if that helped. I set my calorie trackers on Spark People to a lower calorie range and it's definitely made a difference. I'm eating between 1300-1500 calories a day. So, all in all I'm pleased. I'm not feeling super sucessful just yet because I want to beat these stupid 5 lbs. 1 more lbs to go, I know, but still. It's my first goal. I'm impatient (imagine that) and I'm ready to be able to see results now. I'm torn because I feel like I've been at this long enough that I should notice more results. But, I know that just cutting my calories changed things and this won't happen over night. There is a saying that I keep repeating to myself... "It takes 4 weeks for you to notice your body changing. It takes 8 weeks for your friends, and 12 weeks for the rest of the world. Give it 12 weeks. Don't quit." I ran again last night and ended up only doing half of my run. I was supposed to run tonight, but I won't be home, so I decided to do it last night and not take a recovery day. I only ended up doing half my run. I walked the rest of the time then decided to sit by the lake and spend a little time with God. It was a BEAUTIFUL night and I'd really struggled with some things yesterday and I decided that it would be a great time to sit and just listen to God. It was the best part of my day. I'll pick up running again on Thursday and add Saturday that way I can make sure I get 3 full runs in this week. So, here's to hoping that next week I can bust that final lb and be done with these stubborn 5 lbs forever! Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Most of what I remember is snow. Lots of snow. We found out in late January we were having a girl. We already had a name chosen. Emerson Sharon. Some days she was all that kept me going. I'd stopped asking God for answers. I stopped looking for Him. As far as I was concerned this is what it felt like to be forsaken by God. In my head I knew we weren't, but I chose to believe what my heart was feeling, and that was fear. And anger. This is NOT how my life was supposed to be. This was not the plan.
The last week of February, Aaron got a call for an interview in Indianapolis. He had been applying for jobs in the area we were in in Ohio, near my family in Detroit, and back near his family and our friends in Indy. The call came at 6pm. I refused to have any hope. This wasn't the first interview he'd had and none of those has worked out, so why would this one. They asked if he could come to interview the next day. Eek! We didn't want to turn down the interview, but we were almost 3 hours away. The only thing we could think of was to call up our friends Kara and Landon and ask if we came late that night if they'd put us up for the night so Aaron could go to the interview. They agreed so we packed up and headed out. Aaron interviewed at 10 am. The interview lasted about a half hour then it was done. We grabbed some lunch and hit the road back to Ohio. We'd been on the road for about a half hour when his phone rang. He answered. 10 mins later he hung up his phone with a job. One we knew very little about and one that made very little pay. For the first time in a very long time, I felt a shred of hope. Instead of driving back to Ohio, we called Kara and Landon back and asked if we could stay a few days longer. We searched and searched for an apartment, and 3 days later (with a lot of $$$ from my parents) we had an apartment. We moved from Ohio to Indy the first weekend of March. All of our stuff got moved in with help from so many people, some we hardly knew. That night after all the furniture and boxes were moved in, we closed the door after everyone left and I sat in the bathroom and cried. Maybe God hadn't forsaken us. A month later, we were getting much closer to Emmy coming. Aaron's job was going well, and we'd started attending a new church. In the midst of all the pain, anger, grieft, and fear, I was starting to come back to life little by little. Then Aaron got a phone call. Something we'd never thought of..... Aaron had to meet with the advisory board to renew his ministry license for the next year. And they wanted to talk about the accusations that had been made in North Dakota. That little flame of hope that had been flickering inside me was instantly snuffed out. We went to the meeting a few weeks later. I watched as Aaron walked into the classroom with all those other Pastors to try and defend himself. I wanted to pray but God just seemed too far. At that point, I decided I'd just depend on the prayers of others. I sat on the floor in the hallway and waited until Aaron was done. We drove home in silence. Aaron already knew the outcome and by his silence, so did I. As far as the Church of the Nazarene was concerned, Aaron was no longer a pastor. The plan we'd made for our life, the future we'd hoped and dreamed about was suddenly taken away in a few short minutes. In the middle of the largest city in the state of Indiana, I found myself wandering through the wilderness. Again. |
HEY, I'M JESSICA!
Christian. Wife. Mommy. Daughter. Pastor. Friend. Saved.Redeemed. Beloved.
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