ivy and orchid

Ten years ago, I discovered the Christian author Jennie Allen and she has been changing my life since. A decade ago, I read the book Anything which says we should be willing to do anything for God. Deep in my soul, I just wanted to do big things for Jesus. Abigail had just been born, I was working in the preschool at church and teaching piano at Spring Arbor, but I wanted to do something bigger. Then Allen put out the book Restless which is a follow-up to Anything which, to me said: sometimes "anything" is raising a family, but I didn't believe this was true for our lives. Feeling this pull towards something more, I had no idea where to look or what to do, so I kept on living just as I had been. Then about 4 years ago, I heard a quote by Jennie Allen that said; "I don't want to get to heaven and have God ask me why I didn't do more." In that moment, that is when I decided that I would say 'yes' to everything. So the journey began and it happene...

I hope you know Jesus's love like this:  He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realize just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me. And oh, how He loves us oh Oh how He loves us, How He loves us all And we are His portion and He is our prize, Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking. And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss, And my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets, When I think about, the way That He loves us, Oh how He loves us.

My life is easy. Even when I think my life is hard, it is easy. When Shawn and I first got married, money was tight. We both still talk about the horrible ham and bean soup that we ate every day for a week because we had to make our food stretch. At the time, it felt hard. Looking back, we were rich. We qualified for the University's Food Bank where we got amazing food for the week. We were able to receive health care at a really low rate through the University (Michigan State). If I needed anything, I could walk to any store in less than thirty minutes. So even when it felt hard, it was easy. Then Shawn got his first job and we bought our first house which we paid less than $20,000 for. We made it home, but when the cops started running in our neighborhood and killed a dog in front of our house, we decided to move to somewhere safer. We had the choice for a better home because life was easy. I can honestly say I do not know what it is like to have a hard life. When we went to ...