A Blessing in Disguise

This week I came to realize that God has shed new light on our current situation.

A little background...like so many of our fellow brothers and sisters, Chris got the shocking news that he was laid off back in September 2008. Being young go-getters, about to embark upon the next 2,304 phases of our lives (i.e. purchasing our first home, starting a family, purchasing a new car, going on our dream trip to Australia...), we found ourselves stopped dead in our tracks, dazed and confused. On a side note, certainly no small coincidence, several weeks earlier, I had completed graduate school and began my career as a pediatric speech-language pathologist. Me becoming gainfully employed was a total God send.

Saying that we have simply stayed afloat over the past 8-9 months doesn't do our situation justice. We have had extreme ups and extreme downs. Being filled with the peace of God has caused us to go after his plan for us and to keep on keepin' on despite setbacks and failures.

The mom of one of my patients once told me: "You can choose to pray or you can choose to worry. You can't choose to do both. If you choose to pray, there is no need to worry. If you choose to worry, there is no need to pray".

At first glance, being faced with unemployment brings about feelings of...well, complete insecurity, fear, and a touch of insanity. Trust me, I have totally been "that" girl, you know the one huddled in the fetal position wailing and pounding her fists while crying buckets of tears. Yes, it was quite a sight. Upon pulling myself up by my bootstraps and drying off my tears, I realized that when there is less of me, there is more of God and more room for his mighty plan to prevail. At that very moment, I decided not to worry. I decided to pray.

This being said, Hubs and I have suddenly come to appreciate our current situation.

We know that we have all that we need and we have been able to open our eyes to the needs of those around us. No, we might not have the same level of income we were accustomed to, we might not have a 5 bedroom house to call our own, we might not be able to embark upon the journey into parenthood as planned, but we absolutely have ALL that we need.

I am confused and ashamed at why it took me so long to get over myself, to call off the pity party, and to seize the day and start livin' in the now. Looking back, I see that God has been at work in me this entire time. It is true that nothing surprises the big man upstairs. Although we felt like the earth tilted and threw us off, He has been in control this entire time and will continue to be in control. Absolutely remarkable!

Back when we were livin' in the land o' plenty, sadly, we failed to seek out those whose needs were greater than our own. Since having the financial rug ripped out from under us this past September, we have found ourselves on one sweet incredible faith journey. We have learned to trust God 100% with all that we have. In return, we have been blessed beyond our own comprehension. The most beautiful part is that we have been afforded the opportunity to be a blessing to those around us.

I won't go so far as to say that I hope we stay in this moment forever, but I will say that some things truly are blessings in disguise. For this blessing in disguise, we will be forever grateful.

In the Grip of Grace

"To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."

I am posting this quote because I simply never want to forget it.

I often find it difficult to articulate the beauty and power of worship. This quote, compliments of William Temple, hits the nail on the head for me.

That is all :)

Makin' Sure We Don't Put All of Our Eggs Into One Basket

So apparently it has been 22 days since my inaugural posting. Turns out I am not so good at this after all. As predicted, I was more excited about selecting my "Cutest Blog on the Block" background than I was dedicated to actually updating this thing. The thought of blogging has indeed crossed my mind several times over the past few weeks, but between religiously watching American Idol (for absolutely no good reason) and eating frozen Otis Spunkmeyer cookie dough balls, I just haven't had the time to update. :)

Life is rockin' right along here in the Davis Den. Chris has gone on approximately elevendy job interviews and we are still waiting for God to lead us in the direction he would have us go. We have discovered that our patience is much greater than we ever imagined. When you are waiting on God's goodness, there is simply no such thing as a time limit. We continue to stand in awe of the many blessings He has rained down in our lives and find ourselves seeking Him more now than ever.

We have recently found ourselves creating our very own dream world. In this dream world, we have decided that we would like to live in the following home:

It's truly fabulous! Although it does not have a rocking chair front porch, it does has 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, a full finished basement, and a view of the golf course (important, seeing as how in our dream world, we not only eat bon bons all day, but are also avid golfers who play 18 holes a day). This house is an absolute STEAL. This being said, we contacted the listing agent this morning to sneak a peek of the beauty. Sadly, it has gone under contract in the last 3 days. Perhaps God is not leading us to live on the 9th hole of the Appalachee River Club after all.

We capped today off by spending oodles of time with our favorite lil' cowboy.

Isn't he just the cutest thing? We picked him up from school and headed to the playground for some Springtime fun. After several hours of wrestling in the grass with Uncle Chris, dabbling in the water fountain, and swinging like a monkey (oo-oo-aa-aa), we headed up to Mellow Mushroom for a little slice of heaven. We decided that nothing finishes off Mellow Mushroom quite like Cold Stone. (We wanted the trip to feel complete). Our Lil' Cowboy went to town on some Cotton Candy ice cream, promptly tee teed in his pants on the way home, and finished the night giggling away in the bathtub.

Spending time with a 2 year old cowboy makes for 2 sleepy old people. Here's hoping it will be less than 22 days until my next post.

Bunches O' Blessings: Spending time with my amazing family, continued blessings from being a part of 12 Stone, clean bill of health for my dear mommy-to-be lifelong pal, completion of CFY (code for: 9 more months of certification completing my journey of becoming an SLP), and many exciting new adventures on the horizon...

Prayer Plea: Please pray for my sweet, sweet 4 year old little friend who was just diagnosed with a brain tumor. My heart is breaking for this precious little girl and her family.