lots of change

sorry it has been so long since you've heard from me. i know i don't need to apologize because you all understand what we've been going through, but in all honesty i have wanted to post. i've had blogs on the mind for several weeks and it is so frustrating to not have the time to post them. we've been doing a lot of traveling and overall have just been busy. anyway, thanks for your many prayers and thoughts for my family during this tough time in life. keep praying as each day presents a new challenge.

it's truly amazing how much change can happen in one year. life is sometimes a lot like the coast we recently visited in nova scotia where 800 million gallons of water per second move across this point when the tide comes and goes. i found out that this is more water moving in one second than every river in the world combined flowing in one second. it was an amazing sight. it was pretty amazing to see how much the coast changed though with the tide. each day had different beauty depending on what time you were there.

that's a lot like what our year has been like. in december we found out that we were going to grow from a family of 3 to a family of 4. you can imagine our excitement and joy as we began to think about a new life in our home and a sibling for our then 1 year old son. then in february finding out that our new child would not survive. joshua ryan was born silently on july 21.

in addition our family has been preparing to become church planters and in 9 months we will be moving from philadelphia to montana. i have to finish 2 extremely busy semesters of seminary, complete a lot of internship requirements and compile all of my ministry experience into a novel by december. as if that isn't enough, i have to prepare for (in addition to my seminary exams) and take 5 2-hour exams in march in order to fulfill the requirements for ordination in april.

whoa! lots of change and stuff to get done. (by the way, christian also is in the same boat with me--pray for his family and mine as we try to accomplish all of this). this may sound like a complaint about the process to becoming church planters. but the reality is that i am excited about the upcoming year because i know i am going to need to depend on god. i can't possibly accomplish all of these things on my own. but i'm right where i want to be. struggling, desperate, in need of much grace and highly dependent on my father's embrace.

it doesn't matter if we end up planting the most successful church the world has ever seen. it doesn't matter if we fall on our faces and crawl home with our tails between our legs as complete failures in a couple of years. we are son's of the father and as jesus said, (italics are my paraphrase) do not rejoice in your ministry, "but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10.20)

what are you rejoicing in today. as for me...i'm just thankful to be a member of the kingdom. i really have no right to even have that.