Chapters

Throughout our life, we will experience new joys, sorrows, upsets, and peace. Each of which have the opportunity to lead to new "chapters" in our life. Having starting a forever chapter in our life by having kids, we embarked on lifetime journey into two other lives that we will have the opportunity to have the greatest impact on. Like most parents, we want them to have a life full of happiness, adventure, and contentment. We have dedicated them both to God and promised to our friends and family to raise them both to know God personally to fulfill those things mentioned.

With Libby having gotten diagnosed with cancer, all four of us were introduced to a new chapter in our lives. Many of the pages of that chapter are full of sadness and anxiety due to the unknown. With each passing day and treatment, the pages were written, waiting for the next time scans were made to see if this chapter would ever end. Our hope was restored throughout this journey in knowing that no matter what life brings, God was in control. Through tears  and sadness in disheartening news, He was ultimately in control and was able to restore our souls. God gave us the right people at the right time in this journey to keep us going. Hope was restored in knowing we were not alone, and we are loved.

It has been almost a year now since Libby went through her stem cell transplant. The last treatment she went through. This chapter is finally coming to an end in our book of life and we are moving on to what God has next for us. It is our desire that those who have gotten to read this chapter in our life will know that no matter how bad or down right horrible your life may seem, even if you feel you have hit "rock bottom", God is in control and He will restore you. Let Him be the author of your book by giving him the pen. You will learn, as we did, a lot about God's character by allowing him a chance to write. By giving God control, we were able to understand more about God, as the verse we asked everyone to pray over us when asked what we wanted prayer for states.  Our verse throughout this journey has been Ephesians 1:17 which says: "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better."

Our church asked us if we wouldn't mind telling our story in this chapter so that they can show our congregation the God story in all of it and to provide encouragement to others. We are in awe in how well the team who put this video together captured the essence of what we went through. You can watch the video they made below.

We put some dreams we had for our future on hold until we knew that this chapter was over. One of those dreams was to determine where God wanted us to send our kids to school once they were in elementary school so that they would get the best education and environment. Another dream was to give our kids the opportunity to have more land to play on. God has recently opened up a new chapter in our lives that is giving us both of those dreams and prayers answered.

God has provided us the opportunity to build again. This new build will give us almost twice the total land (which equals almost quadruple the amount of yard) we have currently and also put us in a much better school district.  Our new home will be complete hopefully sometime in July of this year. Perfect timing for our oldest to go to kindergarten. Another side benefit that God has blessed us with is that I am even closer to work.

As this chapter is written we will update the blog with pictures of the progress until completion. We are sadden to see our current home go; one which holds many memories. But, we know that God is writing one heck of a chapter for us. One in which we will have more opportunities and dreams fulfilled.