Stressed.....

Here I sit, stressed beyond words.  I am trying to find peace in this move, but I am scared.  We love our home and we never imagined we would be leaving it under these circumstances.  We thought a sense of adventure and excitement would accompany this move, but that is not the case.  Instead, we find ourselves struggling to make the right decisions, decisions that will bring glory to God.  We are torn.  Maybe it's just me.  I think Scott is more at ease with everything than I am.  Strange, considering I'm the one that moved countless times over the first 16 years of my life due to being an Army brat.  I love moving.  I always anticipate the newness of everything.  I love making a home.  However, this time, maybe because I feel so much closer to God right now than I have in a very long time, I am truly struggling.  I want to know that we choose the right home and that the home we choose glorifies the One that provides it for us.  I want to know that He is pleased with our decision.  I want to know that He chose the house for us long before we decided it was "the one."  I want to know that He will place His loving hand of protection over that home.  Seems kind of silly to some, I'm sure.  After all, it's not like we're making a life or death decision.  We found a home that we love.  It is a nice home.  A very nice home.  We have been countering back and forth with the seller and have come to a point that we are comfortable with the price and are ready to accept the counter and sign a contract to purchase the home.  However, the sense of peace I am looking for comes and goes.  Scott and I, when we decided to make an offer on the house, turned it over to God.  We said that we would use the house to glorify Him if we were able to buy it.  We made plans.  Good plans.  We said that we would have the youth over more often, we would have the youth parents in our home once a month, and we said that we would possibly start a couples Bible study...  All things that would glorify the Lord.  Then doubt reared its ugly head.  Now I am to the point that I don't know what to do.  I am seeking a clear answer from God, but I am not getting it.  I am fearful.  I am anxious.  I am in need of a word from the only One that can give me that true sense of peace.  I nearly had a panic attack on the way home from work today.  It was frightening.  On the interstate, traveling 75 miles an hour, I just felt overwhelmed for a moment.  I almost had to pull off into the emergency lane.  I knew that would be giving in to it though.  I kept driving and saying over and over again, "God is good.  God is good."  I made it home safely, but not without the spirit of fear riding along in the passenger seat...  I don't know if this fear is because it's possibly not the house God wants for us, or if this fear is simply due to the fact that we are leaving a comfortable home that Franklyn has known most of his life and I'm scared of messing up.  Last night I could barely sleep and I spent over an hour reading my Bible and then journaling, just trying to get an answer from the Lord about the house.  It's a beautiful house.  It's a house that would make me proud.  There is the word.  The bad word.  PROUD.  I'm afraid I will be prideful in that house.  I can promise over and over again that I won't, but God knows my heart.  God knows how easy it is for me to boast and swell up with pride.  I pray that, if we choose to buy that home, God will allow us to humbly use it to serve Him.  I pray this with all my heart.

Man At Work

This afternoon while I was inside gathering and pricing yard sale stuff, Scott was outside fixing our front porch.  One of the items on the home inspection was rotted porch posts...  Scott went to Lowe's this morning and bought new ones and then started tearing the porch apart this afternoon when he got home from work.  I'm pretty proud of him.  He's done all the work himself (with two wild 7 year-olds running around driving him nuts)!  That's my man!

A REAL LIFE BIKE

Mike, my former boss at work, sold me his son's BMX bike because he had outgrown it.  I brought it home yesterday and Franklyn was extremely excited.  This afternoon we went outside to start the process of learning to ride a bike (without training wheels) and Franklyn could barely contain his excitement.  He rubbed his hands across the handlebars and said, "Wow...  A real life bike.  I've never seen one in real life... except for Blake's."  Blake is a boy in the neighborhood that Franklyn has started playing outside with over the last couple of weeks.  I'm glad to see Franklyn getting out of the house and I'm VERY glad to see him roughhousing with other kids!  Much better than sitting around playing Pokemon or watching videos...  Well, Blake has one of those aforementioned "real bikes."  He rode it over to the house today to play with Franklyn.  Franklyn pushed his out into the driveway and parked it close to Blake's even though he can't ride it yet.

Blake and Franklyn ran around the yard all afternoon.  I sat in the house and worked on a new budget and read a little bit.  Not until after I snapped some pictures of the boys being boys though!

EASTER SUNDAY

Sunday morning I woke up and prepared all of the goodies the Easter Bunny brought Franklyn overnight.  After staying up late, he wasn't too thrilled to climb out of bed earlier than usual for a Sunday, but I eventually coaxed him out from under the covers.

After we showered and got dressed I convinced Franklyn to let me get some pictures.  It wasn't an easy task.  He looked so adorable though!  My mom and dad bought him a sharp looking seersucker suit especially for Easter and I couldn't wait to snap some photos!  Franklyn is quite the poser, so he couldn't keep the solemn look for long...

We left the house in a rush because we had to run to WalMart to get donuts for the middle school Sunday school group.  After our WalMart run we stopped at Starbucks to see our buddies.  We meet a sweet lady named MaryAnne Douglass there every single Sunday morning.  She is a precious lady that started talking to Franklyn there one Sunday morning TWO years ago and we have met her there literally every Sunday since.  She goes to church with us each Easter and we just treasure the time we get to spend with her.  Over the last six months or so Franklyn has also befriended my former boss, the owner of Sain Construction in Manchester, Pete Sain.  He comes to Starbucks quite frequently on Sunday mornings and he has become a dear friend as well.  Franklyn adores both of his Starbucks buddies and looks forward to the time we get to spend with them.  I made sure I got some good photos of the three of them together that morning.

The church service was wonderful Easter morning.  God is so good.  Dr. Cox's sermon just reminded me again how truly blessed I am.  MaryAnne joined us for the service and then came to lunch with us afterwards.  We had lots of laughs and just enjoyed being together.

After lunch we headed home.  Franklyn and Scott took a nap while I worked out.  Then we hid eggs for the great Whaley Easter Egg Hunt.  Ha Ha!  Normally we plant a tree on Easter Sunday.  We've done so for the last five years and it has become an Easter tradition that we look forward to every year.  However, since we will probably be moving out of our house within the next 30 days, we decided to save the money and plant a tree when we move into our new home.  Franklyn didn't seem to mind.  He was too interested in finding the candy filled eggs!

We have no Easter evening service at church, so we always just lounge around in the den and eat junk food.  We each had our own half gallon of ice cream to devour, so we were pretty content!  Like I said, God is good!