This Year

I've been reflecting on 2014 a lot, especially as it is coming to an end.  I honestly can't recall too many tougher years than this one.  2005-2006 definitely comes to mind, as that was the first year Sean and I were married and he also deployed for 7 months, including a two month stint in Iraq.  That was a really tough year.  I was left in the strange land of California (I'm a Southern gal) and couldn't have made it without the help of my Marine wife friends!  

It's hard to not start crying just thinking about this year.  Yes, there have been good times.  The top of my list of great blessings is the birth of our first daughter, Hailey Elizabeth, on February 25th.  We had a healthy pregnancy and a healthy labor and delivery and a healthy little baby girl.  We were overjoyed and still are.  She is so sweet and we just love her so.  

We also have each other.  I thank God for allowing me to spend all these special days with my husband and our four small children.  I love them.  I cherish them.  I probably squeeze them a little tighter each day.  Mostly because of the things we have weathered through this year. We have food, shelter, clothing, and our health.  We truly are blessed.  We have a wonderful family, sweet friends, our church, and a beautiful area of the country to enjoy day in and day out.  We have the freedom that the US of A provides; very few countries have what America has.  

That being said, I know great trials and great hardships this year.  In January, we attended Sean's grandma's funeral.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to know her very well and probably learned the most at her memorial service.  I wished I would have gotten to know her better.  I know she was a special woman.  


A "For Sale" sign was stuck into our front yard in January, as well.  The owners of this house wanted to sell it, however, they were going to allow us to finish out our lease (end of June).  After that, they agreed upon a month to month lease while they searched for a buyer.  In all honesty, it was a little stressful and almost always a little of an inconvenience to show the house to potential buyers.  I know I didn't have the best attitude about it.  But even with my ungratefulness, the Lord blessed us with the owners deciding to take down the "For Sale" sign for now and letting us extend our lease until December 2015.  This was an answer to a specific prayer!  I had asked God to let us stay here until Sean graduated and he graduates December 2015!  Let me say, we only wanted to be here if the Lord wanted us to be here and we did not want the owners to struggle with not being able to sell the house. 

In May, my family suffered the loss of my uncle.  It was a complete surprise and a reminder that everyday with my loved ones is special and a gift from God because we do not know how long our lives are on this earth.  

About a month later, my grandma passed and words cannot even describe how much I miss her.  It is still new.  It is still heartbreaking.  It is an open wound that has not yet healed.  My father and my uncles lost their brother and their mother in the same month.  I lost my uncle and my grandma.  My last surviving grandparent.  It is one of those times in life when you just feel like things aren't fair.  I didn't understand and I asked God why.  Why did He allow this to happen?  I thought we had many more years with my grandma.  I miss her.  And usually it comes out of nowhere.  Some random memory or some thing about her will pop into my head, usually followed by a smile and a good cry.  I usually cry in the car all alone driving to and from work.  I think of her and just miss her.  I can't even begin to understand how my Dad and my uncles feel.  Broken, I know.  She was truly the center of our family.  She was our everything.  It's just not the same without her.  And missing her makes me miss granddad.  It's tough.  

We also had a season of sickness.  It was for most of the summer.  We rarely made it to church and we rarely got out to do anything.  The kids had multiple ear infections (all four of them) and I had a sinus infection.  It sounds wimpy, but they hurt!  And it seemed to last forever.  This season of sickness ended with surgeries.  Andrew was first.  Just a little over a month shy of his 2nd birthday, our little guy had to get tubes put in his ears.  He had suffered through 8 ear infections in one year and had hearing loss and not much in the way of speech.  I was so nervous.  Overly nervous.  It was scary.  But it ended great!  The surgery went well and he hears now and he talks now!  It's such a blessing and a joy to see him learning and growing and watching his little personality develop.  

But surgeries weren't over.  Shortly after Andrew's surgery, I happened to notice that our three-year-old Hunter had one enlarged tonsil.  I thought nothing of it at first, but a couple of weeks later, it hadn't changed at all.  So off to the doctor we went.  Again.  This time the surgery really scared me.  All of a sudden Andrew's surgery seemed so easy.  Our little Hunter had to get his tonsils taken out and he had to get tubes placed in his ears.  And since only one tonsil was enlarged, they would need to send it off to make sure it wasn't something else.  The "C" word frightens me.  And so I was a mess.  Praise the Lord, Hunter's surgery was also a success and he is doing very well.  He had about a week's recovery camped out in our room and he got to eat lots of ice cream.  And what's beautiful is all he really remembers is the yummy treats he got to eat.  And his tonsil test results came back just fine.  

Now, at this point we thought maybe we could get back on that mountaintop and out of the valley we'd been in, but God had other plans.  

In October, we had to put our beloved dog, Allie, to sleep.  She was our first baby!  We got her just a week or so after we married and had her for 10 years.  Our house is just not quite the same without her.  We are still grieving over her loss, as well.  She pretty suddenly got really sick and there probably wasn't much we could do to help her.  We did gain three cats over the summer and got to enjoy having kittens around (two of which we kept, along with mama Lily cat), but it's still just not the same without Allie girl.  

We also found out on October 25th that we were expecting baby #5!  We were elated.  Two weeks later, however, at the first ultrasound we were faced with the fact that all I had was an empty sac.  I was 6 weeks along at this point and so we had to wait two more weeks to know for sure if there was a baby or not.  I prayed, and prayed, and prayed.  I felt so much hope and a lot of faith, but we were deeply disappointed to find out it was still just an empty sac.  I guess I still didn't like that answer and felt like one more ultrasound at 10 weeks would give me the concrete answer I needed.  Still an empty sac.  I had a blighted ovum, where a fertilized egg implanted in my uterus, but never developed after that.  It was rough.  We were very saddened and are still mourning the loss of this precious little baby.  It was also rough because I still felt pregnant.  I was more nauseous and tired and sick than any of my other pregnancies.  We tried twice to schedule a D&C, but both times God closed the door.  We prayed and prayed and just felt like God wanted us to miscarry naturally.  So, I carried till 12 weeks along before I started to miscarry.  All was going well until December 19th when I started hemorrhaging at work and drove myself to the ER gushing blood.  This is still so new and I just posted about this whole experience so I won't go into much detail - http://alittlepeaceinourheaven.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-ending.html.  In the end, I received 4 pints of blood and was rushed to the OR to get a D&C.  I spent the night in the hospital and was released the next morning.  All of Christmas week, I have been recovering.  I have mostly gained my strength back and I feel much better.  I think right now it is still the emotional aspect that I haven't quite recovered from.  It was traumatic and scary and I know I was probably very close to losing my life.  


The same day I rushed myself to the hospital, our Expedition decided to start giving us problems.  So for now it is parked and undriveable until mid January when we will have the money to fix it.  This means we just have the Honda, which is fine, but we don't all fit in the Honda.  That is in a way a blessing to have a dilemma of not being able to fit all of my precious family in one car.  It is also a burden.  At least I thought.  That means no church.  No all of us going to swim lessons.  No all of us going anywhere together.  Why did God want to split us up and more often than not just keep us homebound?  But as He always does, He knows best.  And we are taking this opportunity to home church and hopefully teach our children the correct way to behave in church. 


Church has been tough for me this year.  I've built up envy, jealousy, and bitterness towards others and I've had unmet unrealistic expectations about our church in general and about its members.  I've wanted to leave.  I've had anxiety going.  I've left discouraged and despaired.  I've left angry, frustrated, and with no patience because of our children acting up during service.  I need to get my heart right.  And you know of course now that we can't go, I miss going! 

Through all these trials and tough times, God has taken care of us.  Andrew and Hunter are doing great.  I am also doing well.  God saved me and protected me from what could have been a very different Christmas for my family.  

I have also learned a lot this year.  I have grown closer to God.  I just want to know what He wants me to glean from all of this.  That's my main focus.  I think I am seeing what He is trying to show me, but I'm not positive.  I just don't want to miss anything.  I have been very mad at God, too. I have screamed and yelled and cried out to Him.  I have felt like walking away from my faith.  I have tried to convince myself that I am better off without Him.  But He has my heart and so I can't walk away from Him and I certainly know that life without Him is nothing.  It is hopeless.  I don't understand everything from this year.  Probably I'm not supposed to.  

I would love to say that I hope, hope, hope that God gives us an abundance of mountaintop living in 2015, but that may just not be the plan.  Just because 2014 was extremely difficult doesn't mean I've earned my way into an easy year filled with blessings.  I do know I want God's best.  So for 2015 I want my life to simply be lived for God.  

I hope that all of you have a God filled 2015.  Love you.  

New Year 2014

Happy New Year!!!!!  We are very excited to see God working in 2014 and for the things He will allow for our family and all of our loved ones in the coming year! 

To celebrate New Year's Eve we started some new traditions.  We went to Chilhowee Park and did the drive-thru lights thing and then we ate dinner at Litton's.  I have been wanting to eat there for months and my wonderful husband surprised me last night!  I now know why they are voted best burgers, diner, and desserts about every year for the Best of Knoxville contest.  Then we came home and let the boys stay up late and watch a movie (well, not Andrew, he only made it till about 10 or 1030) and me and the boys actually stayed awake to watch the ball drop.  First time getting to do that with the children.  They climbed up into bed with us and we rang in the New Year together.  Sooooo sweet! 

Today we are doing the typical tradition of ham, black-eyed peas, collards, and cornbread and my husband made an apple cake.  He actually is making the whole dinner, minus the ham, which we purchased from Honey Baked Ham.  The boys are getting a free day around the house and I am trying to get some chores done. 

I LOVE new beginnings.  I LOVE the start of a new day and I LOVE the start of a new year.  I just like new.  I also like new purses, new shoes, and new clothes, but that's neither here nor there.  :) We aren't really the types to make resolutions, per se, but we do have some goals that we felt like God was leading us towards for 2014. 

1.  We are going to try to be ON TIME!!!  Especially to church.  We are the worst about getting to church on time.  It's really bad.  Shame on us!
2.  We bought a devotional book for the children that has a devo for every day of the year.  We also bought them new Bibles for our evening family time. 
3.  Sean and I bought the Love Dare devotional that we are going to read together in the evenings. 
4.  I also bought a new study Bible to start. 
5.  We are starting off the month of January, learning the books of the Bible in order, which is a challenge from Pastor Bates for our church.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENT6HD58yA4 is a really good song and it will get stuck in your head for days! 
6.  I am feeling led to start memorizing James and 1 and 2 Peter.  Whoa!!!  Challenging!!!

Of course I want to (through the power of Christ) change the things in my life that don't give all the glory, honor, and praise to God.  To be more thankful.  To love more.  To enjoy each moment God gives me.  To discipline my children more, but praise them EVEN more often.  To LOVE, honor, delight, cherish, obey, and submit to my husband more.  I just want Jesus to have ALL of me and I want to walk in sweet fellowship with Him and be a blessing to others. 

I am also calling this my "year of reflection".  I am going to read through my past blog posts this year, just to remember the memories and also to make sure my posts are appropriate because God has changed me since I first began this blog.  I can't usually go back to old posts because I end up crying.  I am also going to go through all our photo albums this year and reorganize them.  Another thing I usually can't look at.  I think I am EVEN going to try to read all of me and Sean's letters to each other from when he was deployed.  He told me to let him know when I start to do that so he can be prepared for me.  HA HA!  It's time I have some healing in that area of my life and it's time I look at the past with joy and thankfulness, instead of sadness and regret.  "On life:  You can't change the past.  But with God's help you can change the future.  No matter what your life has been like so far, God wants to put your feet on a new path...a better path...His path"-Billy Graham. 

Lastly, well second to last, we talked as a family last night (another new tradition) about the ways God blessed us in 2013.  We got to travel a TON!  And God provided the financial means each time, even with our sometimes-more-limited-income-than-other-times times.  He allowed us to go to Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Colorado, Florida twice, Nashville twice, Virginia, North Carolina, and Gatlinburg many times.  Such wonderful trips and wonderful memories that we made together!  We also were blessed with a new pregnancy and we are so excited to meet our baby soon!  Ryan learned to start reading.  Andrew celebrated many milestones, like a first birthday, crawling, walking, talking.  Hunter has found wonder and amazement with God's creation, like animals and trains and planes.  :)  I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in nursing and got a new job that I LOVE and is such a blessing to our family.  We had lots of visits from Pappy and Grammy and a visit from Dave and Michelle.  Sean has been doing amazing in school and has been passing all of his classes.  Our marriage has improved a 1000 times over and I LOVE him more now than EVER before.  We had ups and downs with our townhome, but we are on an "up" right now, which is GREAT!  We have thoroughly enjoyed living in E TN and Lord willing would happily spend the rest of our lives here.  We LOVE our church and all the families around here that we have gotten to know and love, both at Bible Baptist and from our old church, Still Waters.  They are all such an encouragement to our family.  We were able to help celebrate two weddings and watch these new couples grow in love for each other and with God.  We memorized scripture and hymns as a family and Sean and I read the whole Bible in a year together as a couple!  Any way.  It's been beautiful and wonderful and joyous.  We had our down times, too, like the pasing of Grandma Brewner, townhome issues, lots of colds and stomach viruses in our house, and working through some tough spots in our marriage.  BUT God always sees us through.  He will NEVER leave us nor forsake us! 

And here's some pictures from last night.  :) 

May you have a God blessed 2014!!!