Our New "Normal" Day

Although this journey has had its fair share of bumps and bruises, we're so thankful that God has chosen to lead us down this path. Through the acts of receiving from those who have been so kind and generous to us, we have learned an enormous lesson about giving. God has brought sermons, conversations with others and Scripture before us to teach us about some changes He wants us to make in our lives. I could write a short book on this, but I'll save it for another day. Don't worry...it will come!



Another reason we're thankful for this journey is that we've drawn closer to God and to one another in this storm. Several people recently have said things like this:



"I'm so impressed with your strength through this."


"You are handling this so well."


"You have amazing peace considering all that's going on."



And while I greatly appreciate the affirmation of my personal character (ha-ha), I am keenly aware of how undeserved it is. And I want to make sure you realize the same. Nothing good in me or Josh comes from ourselves. Romans 3:23 says that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." So if you see anything "glorious" in us, it certainly belongs to Christ. We are taking Him fully at His word in 1 Peter 5:7, and we are handing all of our anxieties over to Him because we know that He cares about us.



He loves us.



He wants to make the best out of the circumstances of our lives (Romans 8:28).



Did you hear that last one? Did you breeze past it or did you really hear it?



He wants to make the best out of the circumstances of our lives. As Christians, I think we throw this verse around a little too easily. "Working all things together for good" doesn't necessarily mean that God will give us what we want. He isn't bound by earthly or secular definitions of "good". I don't think any of us would say that it is "good" for a small child to be bombarded with one illness after another. And none of us believes that it is "good" for a hard-working, ethical, and honest man to lose his job because of the mistake of another, but I can testify that even in the midst of this difficult journey, God has and will continue to love us, provide for us, and bring good from it. And He is the ONLY ONE who deserves any glory in that.



Whew...sorry about that little tangent. Now for pictures...



As I mentioned, one of the more pleasant parts of Josh's being "temporarily unemployed" is that we have been able to spend a ton of time together (did I just insult your intelligence by pointing that out?!?) But seriously, we really do love being together as a family. Here's a little rundown on our daily schedule:



We wake up and eat breakfast:

We do some arts and crafts:

We do a little yardwork:

We play a few rounds of hide-and-seek:

We work on designing new Christmas cards for Allison Lewis Photography (WARNING: this is a shameless plug):

We enjoy a little light reading before bed:

And then we hit the hay :-)



Here's the update on the little ones and Josh's job: Abigail is pretty much back to normal. Her throat still looks a little yucky, but she's feeling like a million bucks compared to this past weekend. Jack and Isabel are still completely healthy (what a tremendous answered prayer!), and Josh and I are doing great. Josh has a follow-up interview with a company he's really interested in tomorrow at 2:00. Please pray for him during that time. As always, thank you to the prayer warriors out there. We love you all.



allison