So much to pray about...

"Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God want you who belong to Christ Jesus to live." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 MSG

Pray without ceasing. Something that I have been taught since childhood, and something that has always come very easily to me. I talk to God all the time, it's an open-ended conversation. It's something that Corey and I bonded over very early in our relationship. Recently, however, we have had two huge upcoming decisions impressed upon us that we have been praying about pretty fervently.

One: Children. Corey has the baby itch. And now that he has it, I'm a little apprehensive. I've wanted to be a mother my entire life. I know that's one of the reasons I'm on this earth - why else would I be known as "the baby whisperer"? Now it's real. It's possible, probable and wanted. There is a very good chance that within the year I will not be the only person in my body. Let me say that again so that you understand what I'm wrapping my noodle around: A WHOLE. DIFFERENT. NEW. PERSON... LIVING AND GROWING IN MY BODY! Ok, freakout aside, holy hannah, what a blessing to be in a place where we can even think about this.

So, yeah, we're praying about it. We want it in God's timing, knowing He will provide for us what we needs and that He wants to give us our hearts' desire.

Two: For quite a while, Corey has felt that he has the call on his life to be a pastor. It's not something he talks about all of the time, nor something he talks about with a lot of people, but something I've known for a long time. He and I were talking about him going back to school after I'm done and thinking of doing some research on which school he should attend online, and a few days later, a teacher at our church who has a definite prophetic gifting said very plainly, "You're going to be a pastor." Needless to say, sounds like that was a bit of a nudge from the Heavenly Father.

We met with a very trusted and wise man yesterday about what the process of becoming a pastor looks like to our church. Now we are praying about God's timing, scholarships, tuition reimbursement, majors, our current ministries, areas of pastoral care, chaplaincy and if the call is really on us to be a pastor and a pastor's wife. Of course, our plan is for Corey to finish out his career with the Patrol (hence the chaplaincy option), but it's nice to think and pray about what our lives will look like afer that.

I'm trying not to think too hard about either decision/blessing. Partly because I don't want my head to metaphorically explode, but mostly because I know God already has both of these handled, we just need to be patient (*heavy sigh*) and trust Him.

Bloggie Buddies!

YAY for Bloggie Buddies! I know it always motivated me to post when I knew people were reading and when I was reading things on blogs written by like-minded people.

That, my dear reader(s?), is what brings me to this evening's post. My friend Chelsea and I realized at Church at the Park this morning that we both have blogs! She updates much more frequently than I do, but maybe why I've been so lax about posting is because I didn't have a "team" anymore. Back in the LiveJournal and early MoaRR & HLOG days, it was almost all I could do to not post at every moment of the day (I can't even imagine if I would've had an iPhone back then...eesh).

Some might say that blogging is a bit passé, but (here comes another reason why I know this bloggie buddy relationship thing is important) one day, while Chelsea and I were hanging out in Sue's office at the church, a woman came in and was talking about the journals she keeps and how important it was for us to be journaling, not only for ourselves, but for our relationship with God and for future generations. Hard to argue with that, hey?

I’ll wrap this post up with a couple of “God things” that happened today. The first was being a part of the baptism team at Church at the Park. I can’t even begin to express how much God was in that lake at the end of the service. My favorite moment was right after I spotted our friend Shawn waiting to get into the water. He couldn’t hear me over everything that was going on, but he did hear Corey. We got to baptize him. I bawled like I had SPF 70 in my eyes (OK, so I did, but I was real-crying, too!). Like his wife said afterward, “It couldn’t have been scripted any better!”

The second time I got the “God-bumps” was tonight after the Discipleship Focus Classes. I have come on board as the check-in/administrator lady, so I was running around the church doing little bits of this and that while Corey was finishing his last class in the series (Serve 301 – Spiritual gifting). I should preface what I’m about to tell you with the tidbit that on Friday, Corey said something about needing to check out Colorado Christian University, Life Pacific College and a few other colleges about online degree programs. We got into the car and my husband turns to me and says, “You know how Mark says that sometimes it’s hard to be around people with the prophetic gift?” I acknowledged remembering that conversation and he went on to tell me about a moment in the class where the other student asked a question, Corey felt compelled to answer and made a comparison to himself when the teacher (a prophetic leader in our church) stopped him and said, “While intercession is one of your giftings, that’s not the calling on your life. You are going to be a pastor.”
“And that’s when I decided not to talk anymore in that class.”

Now, I’ve known for quite a while that eventually, my big, bad State Trooper wanted to become a pastor, but that was (well, until now) far from public knowledge. Nothing like a little nudge from the Lord that He has placed the desires in your heart for a reason!

AND with that, I must away to my night chamber – filling in for the sweet Sue tomorrow a.m.

How time flies...

Two years ago tonight, I recieved my first bit of communication from the man who would become my husband. For those who don't know, we met on Match.com via the Holy Spirit (that's a whole post in itself), so with him at work tonight, I went back into the archives of my inbox and read our exchanges. Then, I busted out my old iPhone 3Gs (which is now used as a trusty iPod) and read the first few weeks of our first text message exchanges.

I can't believe what a whirlwind that was! Everything felt so right and so ordained that neither of us knew how fast it was going. We were merely along for the ride, trusting in God's plans, praying, seeking to hear His voice and fasting when we couldn't hear it loud enough. Our third date was to my friend Holly's wedding, for which the theme was "Crazy Love". We started our own that night - the first time we held hands, our first slow dance and our first kiss - not to mention the start of our official courtship. It was about a week after that where we exchanged our first "I Love You"s and after many deep and prayerful conversations about commitment and marriage, two months later I had moved almost 1/2 way across the state to start making 'his house' into 'our house'.

Something both of us said in the first few days of knowing each other was that it felt like we had known one another for our entire lives. It's hard for me to think of my life before Corey was in it and I'm blessed to be building the rest of my life with him.

For as fast as these two years have gone, I'm really excited to see where the next two lead us.