Worship...

Having three kids one of them being two weeks old feeding and sleeping every 3 hours makes it hard to do much else. Besides the fact I my c section war wounds are trying to heal as I motor around the house looking for burp cloths, diapers, wipes, Qtips and an extra set of clothes. (josie's great at the occasional blow out)

Spending time in the word is important to me. But lately I haven't been very good at diving in. I need to get back into it. I need to find well rested Mommy time in which I can read the Bible, and really let it all sink in.

I read something in the Beth Moore book called "Believing God" that talked about how the power of the Holy Spirit has always been represented with oil... when something is annointed and prayed over it the use of oil is important. Beth talks about thinking about "the Word" as if it were fire. And the two combined, the power of prayer and the holy spirit combined with the fire of the Word of God is extraordinary. Believing in that is important.

You'd think that would be enough for me to get off my booty and dig in. But alas, I am too tired.

Which brings me to worship. It is something I can do without thinking about it. It is something I can dive right into. I love worship music, the act of worship and just praising God.

I have always been one to "crank" my music. Worship is so powerful. Yesterday I was driving in my car and this song came on. I was depleted, I was tired, I was utterly done and wondering when my next nap could come. I was kind of feeling whiney. I pictured as I drove how "the enemy" would so much like to deter me and distract me from the blessings of the day. How aso many things had come before reading my Bible. How God wants me to hear from him and so much had gotten in the way of that.

My favorite part of worship is that when we do it when we focus on God when we direct all of our praise and glory and honor to Him... "the enemy" can do nothing but flee. "No weapon formed against me shall prosper..."

So today my friends, I am going to focus on the blessings in life, focus on the GOODNESS of what God is doing. Somewhere in this day I will dig into the word, but in the meantime I will worship Him with all I have. Crank it up!

Thankful Thursday - Barbara Rein Hohnke... YOU ROCK!

I wanted to write a note on Thankful Thursday about my awesome sister-in-law Barbara. She used to live close to me but now she lives back in the midwest... I have to say I was so sad when she and my brother and neice left Durango. However, in the time they have been gone she and I have grown close and I am proud to call her my friend.

I also have the privledge of working with her in a customer support position at the same company. She works remotely (as do I) and because of our close working relationship we have the opportunity to talk daily. We laugh a lot. We talk about life, faith and can rely on each other for support when needed. We have much in common as she has two small children... oh yeah... and we both love my brother. She loves him in a gross "girlfriend" kind of way and love him in a very normal sister kind of way. (giggle)

Anyway, I found out today that she enjoys Stevie Wonder and his musical talent. Which makes her even cooler in my book. So this song is dedicated to her. She is a lovely awesome chica who's friendship I appreciate and am so thankful she is married to my awesome brother Pete.

Love you B! You rock!

A Daddy and "big kid" camp out...

Me and Josie... I'm one "HOT" Mama.

While they camped... we rested.

The kids have been troopers hanging with their "tethered Mom" during the day. Preparing their own lunches (sometimes) getting creative with playtime. Playing on the trampoline with the sprinkler on hot days. But sometimes you just need time with Daddy. Daddy time is crucial to them.

Daddy talked to Grace about camping out on the trampoline one night. She was so excited. She had a camping bag packed and ready to go when he arrived home that night. This was going to be the highlight of her summer with her Dad. I was excited for her and we all anxiously awaited his arrival home from work. Frankly as exhausted as I have been I was surprised BK had the energy to do a campout on the trampoline, but he did and he was committed to the original proposal.

Me and Toby... a "close" close up!

When Dad arrived home the thunder began to clap over the mountains, it began to rain over the mountains and then it began to rain... pour actually all night. This weather mishap prompted some creative thinking by Mom and Dad to execute and prepare a camp out in the living room. While I nursed Josie, BK rearranged furniture, Grace grabbed pillows, sheets and sleeping bags... at this point Toby was all about the camp out too. So Dad, Grace and Toby all gathered in the makeshift tent to play and eventually go to sleep.

Daddy's Girl

I told my kids that if they were not sleeping by a certain time they would have to go to bed up in their bunk beds. I did not want them staying up all night. So we took pics, Grace and Toby grabbed BK's mag light and held the flashlight under their chins and told "scary stories". Toby's stories would go something like this... THERE ONCE WAS A SCARY MAN WHO WAS WALKING DOWN THE STREET... and THEN.....DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED???... DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?... DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? (all the time getting louder and louder) Then he would say something goofy like... HE WAS A VAMPIRE! And we would all pretend we were scared. Then we would laugh really hard.

Anyway, I went to bed, listening to BK finish off the scary stories... with a great story.. the kids were enthralled. When I woke up in the middle of the night I expected all of them to be back in their own beds. Including my husband....

The three musketeers

But all three of them were snoring and sleeping in the "tent". The campout actually went throughout the night and well into the morning. My husband slept on the floor all night. How cool is that. I am so thankful for him. I am thankful for my home, my kids, and my life. I thought I'd post pics of their fun night. This was definately a night to remember for all of us. Successful and fun.

Here's a little "old school" Bon Jovi for my friend Cari... this takes me back to 6th grade dances. You don't necessarily need to dance to this one... but you can remember your funky 80's hairdo and laugh a little. :)

The Photoshoot... what a blast!

I am so excited to post these pictures. I told you all that Josie had her first photo shoot. Well, the pics are back and they are delicous and sweet and I love them. I have permission from the awesome photographer who took them to put them on my blog. I HIGHLY recommend her.

For some reason I am having a hard time adding a link to this blog. But her website is : http://www.truereligionphotography.com Chelsea Valach is the photographer. She is an awesome woman who loves the Lord and it was so cool having her over to photograph Josie.

Here are some more of her pics. What a blessing this was to me and my family. To have such a creative and fun way to capture Josie as a newborn baby.







Too cool. I love how she pays attention to color and texture the editing is amazing! Enjoy!

PS. This song is my heart for my family my new awesome baby girl Josie Hope Kline and all of our Kline family.. my sweet husband Bill our amazing and wonderful big sister Grace and the boy with a big huge heart Tobias James. God made you all with me in mind and I have never been more blessed in my life. :)

She did it! - Let's Celebrate

She has totally and completely charmed the heck out of her brother. Last night we took "sibling pics" at our house. Toby was adamant that he hold one end of Josie and Grace hold the other. As you can tell he's pretty proud that he has a little sister. Then this morning I was nursing Josie when he woke up. I put her in the crib and put away some laundry. As I was talking to him about breakfast, he said, "Mom, where is Josie? Where did you put her? I thought she was in her bouncy seat?" He seemed very concerned he did not know where she was. I told him that I had put her back in her crib to sleep. He was cool with that answer. Little does he know that this sweet little sister of his is stealing his heart day by day. What a blessing they will be to each other. I tear up as I shovel waffles (with peanut butter and syrup) into my mouth and drink my coffee thinking about it. Man these post partum emotions are definately a rollercoaster of love ;) Thanks all for listening. Peace as we head into another weekend. May God's blessings just flow through your lives as we enter into the weekend.

PS. Kick it up a notch this morning with a little "Kool and the Gang" to jump start your Grateful/Thankful Thursday!

The Kline Babies... yep they are related! :)

Baby Grace

Baby Toby

Baby Josie

There has been much chatter in this family and my friends as to who Josie looks like. Grace insists that Josie looks like "Josie" and no one else. Which is true. She is her own unique special person. But it puzzled me as to why I thought at birth she looked like Toby. So I busted out the baby pics of Grace and Toby and thought we could take a look. They definately each have their own unique characteristics but you sure can tell they are related.

I am the dairy princess... nursing and resting and eating is what I do best. Does anyone else just LOVE lanolin cream as much as I do? It heals... just like it says on the little bottle. Josie is doing great. Has her first "photo shoot" tomorrow. A friend of ours is building her photography portfolio and asked if she could take some pics. It should be lots of fun.

Have a wonderful Wednesday. Peace!

My Brag Blog - Livin the Dream!

I have all these cool pictures of our new baby. I wanted to share them. This feeling of being tired and hormonal but so completely in love is what made me understand God's love entirely. Experiencing it with Josie is another great gift of my life. I will love her with all I have. I will protect her with all I have. I will never stop loving her no matter what happens. If my love for her feels this strong and this deep, I can't even fathom how much God loves me. I really can't. I am just so thankful for it every day.

She is sleeping now. I love it when she's so hungry she sucks on my face to try to eat. I love it when she tries to focus on me and makes little gassy grins. I love it when she explodes in her diaper and it makes this humungous sound... coming from this petite little princess, I love it when she hears my voice and calms down knowing I am going to take care of her. Again... I delight in her.. and take solice in the fact that my heavenly father delights in me.

We have awesome friends... have I mentioned this? We have meals coming every other night for two weeks. What a tremendous blessing this is to us. I had no idea how much that would bless our family. I had no idea how cool it would be to not to have to consider dinner for that long of a time period. What an amazing ministry at our church. Totally cool. We have friends who are offering to take Grace and Toby.. asking for help is tough. As women we are taught to handle it all, take care of it all. I am taking people up on their offers. I am needing my friends I cannot do it all by myself.... the surrender of it all is necessary but very hard.

Enjoy these pictures.



I know a lot of my good friends read this blog... and I am so glad to have you all in my life. I am so glad God put you in my life for such a time and place as this.

Thank you for loving me and my family. Thank you for loving us despite our imperfections. And thank you thank you for being who you are and following God with all you have. You are amazing examples to me! Peace to you! lv, jen

Josie's Here!

I feel like the biggest slacker in the whole wide world. Josie Hope Kline was born at 8:01 on Tuesday July 14th. She weighed in at 8lbs 4 oz and measuered 19.5 inches.

I must confess the morning of her birth and our scheduled c section as well as the night before was nothing short of chaotic. All of the things I have blogged about handing over to God.... worry fear and doubt crept into mind in the 24 hours before her birth. I did too much on Monday, I was totally worried about Grace and Toby and how they were going to digest the next four days and at the same time I was about to undgergo some big time surgery. Billy was dealing with a time bomb... I big huge prego time bomb ready to explode, I cried all the way to the hospital. Not for any reason other than I had this utter and total sense of surrender and lack of control over anything. This all was going to go down and I had to trust God was working all of it out for good. So I turned on worship music for our drive to the hospital. By the time we arrived I felt better, I felt peace, I felt ready and excited to meet this baby girl. G and T were with the "Grandmas". It's go time.

As they asked me all of the preoperative questions about past births, pregnancies, my history, my other children BK kept tearing up. I was not the only one dealing with the emotional stress of this exciting day ahead of us. BK's favorite part was putting on the scrubs and waiting with me with a video camera, my camera and my phone. Poor guy needed a fanny pack to carry all of the technology with him into the operating room. The surgery was a success, the baby was born beautiful and wonderful. God is so good. When the lifted her up to show me her... my first thought was that she looked like Toby. It took her a bit to cry because she had swallowed some amniotic fluid. That has worked itself out. But she is here and we are all thrilled.


The nurses were phenomenal. The docs were awesome. My recovery may be a little longer than I'd like, but I am praying God just miraculously heal me quickly. I love spending time feeding Josie, loving her, kissing her, staring at her in awe and teaching my kids about her and how babies should be handled loved and cared for.

Grace is thrilled and in love, she's helped me with her baths, her burping, holding her and watching over her completely. Grace hates to hear her cry. She has such a huge heart for this beautiful baby girl. I am loving watching this sisterhood unfold.

Toby was not too thrilled with me being gone and in the hospital. I had betrayed him somehow. He was not wanting to snuggle me, to hug me, or to even look at Josie. Here we are a few days later and he's warming up to her a bit. He'll stop by her and say, "look at her... she's awake... or her nose it so small or she can play with my new ball if she wants to. He held her yesterday and that was a breakthrough for us. He sat with her on his lap and he liked holding her. He said, "thanks for showing me how to hold her Mom. She's cute."

BK has really blown me away with his help in EVERYTHING. I cannot even say enough about how well he is adusting to life with three kids. I know he is making a huge effort to see what I may need help with what all the kids may need and really doing it all as the leader, the awesome Father he is to our children. He even has found time to compliment me on how well I am doing with Josie, he tells me I'm cute when I feel nasty. All of these things I am so appreciative and love him so much for. His effort and help are so much appreciated and make my heart swell with pride and love when I talk about him. I could not do this without him. Whatta man.

I have promised myself we would have Mommy/Toby and Mommy/ Grace days before they both head off to school. Time individually with both of them would be time well spent. In the meantime I am at Josie's beck and call. I am a feeding machine and she is a nursing champion. I affectionately call her "The champ" Because of how vigorously she anticipates breastfeeding. She balls up her fists, makes a scrunchy face with here eyes and looks like she is going to attack it. She makes me laugh. I'm in love.

Well, it's late. I should sleep now when she sleeps, I am fatigued, exhausted, but totally in love and totally in prayer to God for this awesome wonderful cool blessing. Enjoy the pics. Peace to you all my friends and thank you for your prayers.

Vulnerable and Loved

Throughout this pregnancy and this blessing and the past nine months I have been on a journey with God. I have many times asked God to not leave me "the same." By that I mean I want to see life with new eyes, I want more of God. Not because I want to be "perfect" because that will never happen. But I want to be changed by God in a way that praises God with my life.

On this journey (the past 9 months) I have witnessed much suffering of my friends and my family. I have heard life stories of struggle, I've experienced struggle, I've battled thoughts that are good bad and ugly. I am facing my own demons every day and watching others do the same. I have come before the Lord many times in prayer just a crumpled mess asking him to put me back together. To put my friends back together to be there for their children. To heal them, to show them how much he loves them to protect them, to guide them. To provide finances, when they needed it most. To surrender my life and the lives of all I know and take them to the foot of the cross.

To be completely vulnerable... to be stripped of thinking that I have the answers that I can fix it, that I know what to do next. I don't. I have no clue. But I know who does and who I can fully rely on to listen and love me no matter what the circumstances may be. When I pray I pray hard. When I come to God my heart is vulnerable, I have the best listener in my relationship with Christ. God stretches me I am seeing a very vulnerable Jen Kline. Which I know is God because normally that's now how I am. I just keep seeking Him on my knees, praying ALL the time and waiting on HIM, is the perfect solution.

Soon I will be stepping into a new adventure. I keep alluding to it. I will post as we move closer through my maternity leave about it. But I am entirely excited and continue to allow God to prepare me for this new opportunity and new journey. I am not afraid, I know that I know that God would place me here for "such a time as this." I am vulnerable before the Lord and before my friends. I am stripped of thinking this is about me. I am fully surrendering it all to the Lord, I will wait and watch with excitement and awesome expectancy of how God will work in all of it.

So, in two days Josie will be here. I thank God for taking me on this journey of fully being dependent on him. Needing my Savior day after day. I need you Jesus. I need you every day. Savior please continue to daily bring me to a place of needing you, wanting you, pleasing you. Living my faith vulnerable... knowing I need you.

A new level of laziness

Well, it just gets better and better. We are five days away from delivering this baby. I have been pretty motivated but I have my moments my very lazy very exhausted moments. Here is one of them:

I had to laugh at myself yesterday because I picked up a spoon I found in the living room the kids had used. I am teaching them all about how to keep the house clean with me. They are also earning money for helping me pick up around the house. If they keep their rooms picked up and the living room picked up... they get some good money. Anyway, in workign with them on this... I walked to the entrance of the kitchen... stopped... and threw the spoon from the entrance of our kitchen into the sink. I didn't want to walk all the way over to the sink. I actually made the throw directly into the sink which I was pretty proud of myself. Then I just started laughing at myself and how absolutley sad it was I did not want to walk another ten steps to the sink.

Have a great day. Hope you have some "funny" moments of your own!


PS. This 80's tune goes out to all my girls who love 80's music. This movie was one of my favorites growing up. It is a crank it up and dance around the house song... and don't care if anyone sees you! :)

My biggest achievement...

I am 37 years old. Billy and I are headed into our 10 year anniversary. We are having our third child, I am embarking on some exciting endeavors (which I will share soon)my high school graduating class just had a 20 year reunion, both my kids are going to school, my college friends and I plannning reunions. As I head towards the big 4-0 I can't help but look back and think... what has been the greatest achievement in these 37 years? What am I most proud of? It has been easy for me to look back and think about the bad choices I have made. Those come to mind very clearly for me. This journey has not been a path of perfection, but a learning experience. So, what has been the best thing?

The best thing I have ever done in my life is 1st pursue a deeper spiritual relationship with Christ and second becoming a wife and a Mom. I feel like my pursuit of Jesus and understanding my spiritual walk was the "professor" I needed to navigate through marriage and being the best possible Mom I can be to my kids. I have shared my story about how with each birth of my children I became closer to the Lord. In the Bible it says that God draws you near to him, well our children have drawn us nearer to Jesus than you can imagine. We need Him. We understand we cannot do it on our own and we love our kids so much, we want them to understand the peace, joy and excitement that a faith-filled life has to offer.

Last night I tucked Toby and Grace into bed. I had two tender moments. Toby was laying in his bed with his covers all messed up. The wind was blowing through their bedroom window. It felt cold to me. This is going to sound totally psycho, but I had this rush of joy come over me as I shut the window to protect him from the cold and this second wave came over me as I straightened his covers stroked his head and kissed his cheek. I knew in my heart that I was created for Toby. I was made to do this. I was created to love him and explain to him the pursuit of God and what joy it brings. What an awesome cool responsibility. I want him to know how much he is loved by me and by God. It is the most important job I have and I am so proud to be given.

My second "tender" moment was when I looked at Grace on the top bunk. Grace is like me, always warm... but the room was very cold last night and she had NO covers on her while she slept. I actually gasped... like heaven forbid she not have her covers on her. She was snoring and I laughed a little. My daughter is the night owl... she will fight going to bed with everything she has... she likes me to "smooth" her back before she goes to bed. I stand on the ladder and rub her back for like 2 minutes until she falls asleep. She told Billy that this is something "special" Mom does for her before bed. It is special. As I wrapped her up in her angel blanket and tucked it around her again, I felt this wave of excitement that God had entrusted this life to me as her mother. That although I am not perfect, I will continue to do the best job being the best Mom I can to them.

It is my greatest achievment so far. So as I continue to pursue and walk through this life in relationship with Christ. I can proudly say that I am most proud of being a Mom, a Mom who loves her kids and has faith in Jesus Christ.

9 days and counting

Can I just say how much I love my friends and family. So many people are telling me they are praying for me because of how uncomfortable I look and how absolutely huge my waist is. I measured 39 weeks at 37 weeks and I still have a little over one week to go before the big day we get to meet Josie.

This is my last week of work which comes as a huge relief to me. Sitting at my computer all day tethered to my phone watching my feet and ankles swell and not being able to get up and walk around is tough on me. I welcome the "sleepless" break of maternity leave with open arms. 24/7 feeding my baby girl and sleeping and healing will be my full time job moving forward.

Our 4th of July weekend and extra day off on Friday was awesome. We took the kids to a friend's house while my awesome husband loaded and unloaded some hay for them on their hobby farm. While that happened, the kids were able to play with kittens, miniature goats, horses and doggies. Grace was in heaven. Our plan is to get her involved in 4H her love of animals is so apparent we really want to encourage her in that. Toby loved chasing the animals and LOVE small dogs. He also spent some time at their house taking pictures of their flowers.

On Saturday we went to a 4th of July parade in a small town near Durango with some friends. We were running late so we had to park about a 1/2 a mile from the parade location and walk. I felt like a pack mule and was one sweaty hot mess when I got there. They had everything from horses, to tractors to military, shriners, old cars etc.etc. BK has such a sweet heart, often in each military parade participant ther there was a patriotic country song playing I would get all choked up an teary eyed and I'd look over at my husband and he would be doing the same. One thing his family and father instilled in him is a great pride for his country, our military and the fact we live in such a blessed nation. Toby is sensitive and I believe his sweet sensitive heart is his Daddy's influence. I love my husband so much. The kids had a fun time. The walk back was grueling but once we got to our friends house for a BBQ it was awesome. I rested, ate and laughed. We have awesome friends who have awesome kids and we all have so much fun together.




Saturday night we (against our better judgement) dragged the kids out for fireworks at about 7:30pm. We watched fireworks with some other great friends, with kids in pajamas and Toby fell asleep about 2 minutes into the car ride home. We are in the final stages of prepping the nursery. We have curtains up, we have the dresser/changing table in place. We need to hang her mirror and a couple other decorative items but I'll post pics of our progress. Josie will have a nice little place where she can sleep and sleep. (Dream on mama!) This room is a work in progress. It actually needs some trim put up and the closet doors need to be fixed. But, we are satisfied with the progress we have made thus far...




My husband has done an amazing job of helping me. I am blown away by his motivation and his help with projects around the house. He has moved big huge furniture by himself, completely landscaped our yard, has his awesome dream garden up and running and is in the process of creating a new compost container near his garden. We are anticipating our new arrival to exhaust us but thrill us at the same time. Please pray for Josie, that she be born a healthy and happy little baby sister.

Enjoy the pics, the firework picture was taken by Grace and the flower picture was taken by Toby.

Have a great July! :)

The Crackberry...

I've heard about Blackberry phones and how nice they look and how sweet they are and how you can check your email on them and access the internet and all this really cool stuff. Well, I upgraded my phone recently and decided that I would get the plan with all the bells and whistles. I have big plans after Josie is born and I am going to need to stay "connected" to lots of folks. Communication will be key at this time in my life. I am communicating with teachers at school, with friends and family from midwest, friends from church and facebook, my blog... the list goes on and on! What a blessing to be able to access everything in one little phone.

BTW - It also takes decent pictures, records voice clips and video images... so this is some little piece of technology.

However... this little bugger should come with a warning. There is one little feature on this phone that is sending my ability to concentrate, my ADD and my daily schedule into a tailspin. Three words, " BLINKING RED LIGHT."

The warning they should put on this phone is that whenever there is something that someone is trying to communicate to you on your phone in the areas I've listed above... the little blinking red light is blinking to let you know it's ready to be looked at.

This my friends is NOT GOOD! Here is why. I cannot have a phone that has a blinking red light. If there is something to be read or communicated to me I need to read it immediately. It needs to be known! I MUST stop what I am doing and read what ever thing was just sent to me on phone. I already have a slight case of adult ADD and a blinking red light distracting me from what I am doing is just not leading me down a productive path.

For example, I told you how I wake up in the middle of the night at 3:30am. I walk downstairs half asleep. My phone is plugged into the wall and laying on the floor. And there is that little blinking red light, telling me someone has sent me a message. It might just be 1800 flowers who just sent me an email or my daily devotional or mayb even just a new comment on my blog... but I won't know until I check it. And no matter how tired, no matter how much I don't want to have to bend over to grab the cord and yank that puppy into my little paws, I MUST check the message. Sometimes I just lay it on it's face so the blinking light is not blinking at me. I figure if I can't see it I won't want to check it. But NOOOOOOOOO... it makes me want to flip it over to CHECK the blinking light to see if it's blinking. (BIG HUGE SIGH)

I am going to play with my settings soon at some point so it doesn't blink for everything, eventually I'll figure it out. They really should have a 12 step plan for this communication device.

The "tough" stuff and total surrender.

Sounds like a pretty uplifting title huh? I've been praying and thinking about suffering a lot lately. We all have different things we struggle with personally. We all have things circumstances that have happened to us in our lives that cause us pain, confusion, frustration, anger and we carry those burdens around with us in life.

God allows these uncomfortable and sometimes very painful things to happen. I have been praying for years about my own such circumstances. I have been praying for many miracles concering my own burdens. But have yet to "see" them answered. I wonder to myself and God... why don't you fix it God. Why is this the burden I witness, experience and have to endure. If you are the God who you say you are... then just please answer this prayer for me. It is an external request and me looking for an external outward answer.

Alcoholism is a very prominent thing in my family. Many generations have been addicted to and lived their life drinking too much. I am praying for people to be released from this horrible addiction, but not much has happened in this family. It just stays the same. No changes at least that I can see. No apparent HUGE miracles. And no one being saved from it all. And I ask God why?

I ask God, where are you in all of this? Where are you in my family relationships? Where are you when I need you to show up work a lightning bolt miracle God? I can become very frustrated.

As I have been thinking about this. It occurs to me that maybe God does not work that way. He works from the inside out... he's not a magician. He works in the hearts of people. What I am praying for is something I can see externally. What God is actually doing is something very internal. In my heart and in the hearts of those I love.

In these burdens and suffering, God is working on ME. Maybe these circumstances in my life are showing me how to take a look at myself, to draw closer to Him. How to take care of me. I see it as an opportunity to be the "Super Christian" come in with my prayers my annointing my power and save the day. But maybe what God is asking me to do is be humble. See clearly that I truly have no power in it. Take the sense of "entitlement" I have to see them healed and allow HIM to do the work. I am not able to endure what I am seeing by myself. I need Him more than anything to help get me through it. I have to rely on God and believe He is listening. It's not about ME and them. It's about me and Him... and surrendering it over. Believing he already has it covered.

To not put all of my emotional, physical, and spiritual focus on the other person and their issues. Maybe God is already doing the work and I am in the way of it. He is obviously aware I would like to see them healed. He knows my hearts desire is to see them well, but I am so busy wrapped up in their crisis and their sin. I am missing the point.

God wants me to trust him that he will take care of them. That it is not my problem. It is their problem. That in my worry and codependent control of all things related to this terrible disease I am "playing God." Who am I to think that I can change this person to make them well. Who am I to think that I have all the power to make this happen. It is NOT about me. It is about God and HIS power, HIS love, HIS child... they are not mine to care for... they are HIS.

If we stop trying to control it all, carry it all and take our focus off of praying for a miracle, but pray for our own ability to hand it over to God, would our outlook be different? Would our hearts feel lighter? Would we see his miracles He is working in us? How would our perspective change? I am choosing to do that today. Focus on handing it over. Surrendering it all. Letting God be God and watching those miracles unfold. The Holy Spirit was sent to comfort me... in my faith. I am going to allow that to happen and stop getting in the way.

So as I wait for an internal miracle from God and the ability to surrender it all. My prayer is that he give you one too. That whatever burdens you bear whatever tough stuff you are going through... whatever surrender needs to happen. That you understand he's way bigger than we let him be. Thanks God for being so big and so cool.

Peace. - jen