Aug 13th, 2009 by Allison
God has flooded my heart and mind this week with some amazing memories.
In early December of 2006 on a Tuesday night, Joey and I were having dinner at Applebees in Clemmons. At this time in our lives, Joshua was 3 1/2 and Jonah was only 6 months old. We were waiting on our food while enjoying adult conversation without the boys. Out of the corner of my eye I see the hostess seating a man and a woman. I notice the woman is pregnant and she looks as if is she is about to pop. I turn my attention away from her and then out of nowhere I blurt out to Joey, “I wonder if I am pregnant.” The idea just came out of me before I could process it in my mind. Joey’s response to me was that isn’t possible and if it were it would be a miracle. (I must add here that Jonah was 6 months old. I had just stopped nursing him the month prior.) As soon as I got home that night I went to the calendar in the kitchen and starting counting the days in my cycle and realized that there is a possibility that I could be pregnant. It was a slim possibility but there was one.
The next morning Joey takes me to the drug store to get a test; he didn’t think I needed one. He dropped me back at the house and didn’t see a need to stick around for the results. I was watching the test work across, the first line appeared and then instantly the second one did too. Of all the at home pregnancy test that I have taken it was the quickest and darkest line that I had ever had. Needless to say I grabbed my chest for air and started to panic. My first thought was, “What is my mom going to say?”. I then called Joey at work . . . he was speechless.
This pregnancy changed our life and I am just talking about the pregnancy at this point. This surprise gift from God opened our eyes to God’s plans for our lives. It reminded us that we need to always be open to what he wants to do in us. We realized that we may not always be in Davie County living our lives with the people at Cornerstone. I worded the previous sentence with purpose. We were over burdened with the programs at C3 so much that we didn’t have time to build relationships with our neighbors. So, Joey and I began to pray for what God wanted to do in us and how he wanted to use us. This pregnancy showed us we needed to completely surrendered to God and be willing to do ANYTHING that he calls us to.
I realized before Joey that God was doing something bigger than this pregnancy. That the pregnancy wasn’t the climax in the story of our lives over the next nine months. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I knew it was something bigger than Josiah.
A month after I took the pregnancy test God started revealing a vision to Joey of what He wanted . . . The River. Before Josiah took his first breath he had changed our lives in ways that we would have never imagined.
It occurred to me today the timing of events in the life of The River and Josiah’s life: his conception and the vision of starting The River, his heart surgery and creating a coffee house, and now the week that he is turning two God has moved majorly again in the life of The River with giving us the Arcadia campus. I don’t believe that these events are a coincidence because our God has a specific plan for our lives. He works with purpose. This was made even more amazingly clear to me when he were told the news that Josiah has Down Syndrome.
I can’t help but think of Leviticus 9: 24, ” . . . And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell face-down.”
Posted in Life with Jesus | 2 Comments »
Aug 10th, 2009 by Allison
I had a pity party over potty training Jonah tonight. So I call this post the “Pity Potty.”
I have been trying all summer to potty train Jonah and it has been difficult. It is now August and he starts preschool in 3 weeks. I decided last week to go cold turkey on diapers. The goal each day was to stay dry from breakfast to dinner and he could go to Confluence for a Fudge Popsicle (as he calls it). Needless to say, we never made it to Confluence last week 
Today I thought, “it is a new day and a new week, let’s give it a new try.” This morning he stayed dry until lunch! I even started calling him Dr. Awesome, which he loves! After his nap, his diaper was dry! He did have a #2 accident which I didn’t county because my goal right now is just to pee pee in the potty. He stayed dry today from Breakfast to dinner. Finally, we get to go get a treat at Confluence.
Joey has Elders tonight so I took the boys by myself. After they finished their treat I let them play a few minutes while I cleaned the ice cream off the table. Jonah comes out of the kids play area, walks across the stage and then stops. I look over and he is peeing on the stage!! I was so embarrassed! I grab some napkins and start wiping it up. Matt (the shift supervisor for the evening who obviously doesn’t know that I am Joey’s wife because he refers to me as Mam) comes over to stop me. He offers to clean it for me. I then had to admit that is was pee on the floor. So, he goes to get the mop and very nicely mops Jonah’s pee off the stage.
I made Jonah apologize to Matt for having to clean up his mess. Matt responds by saying, “No problem little man.” I was humbled by Matt’s generosity toward our family tonight.
I am thankful that God renews His mercies every morning and that tomorrow is a new day to try again! He will eventually learn.
Posted in Raising Boys | 5 Comments »
I have been protesting my blog for the past few weeks. It has not been very user friendly to me. Some parts of it stopped working. The post from yesterday was actually written in the middle of July , I just wasn’t able to post it. However, a BIG thank you goes out to Brian for upgrading my WordPress software. I am so excited to have the updated version which is a million times more user friendly than the previous version I had. So to celebrate my excitement, I decided to give my blog a face lift!
Posted in Our Crazy Life | 2 Comments »
The other day I pulled a package of yeast rolls out of the freezer to de-thaw. A few hours later I go to take off the bag to bake them. When I took the bag off I noticed that there was something in one of the rolls. I jumped back and gasp. I took a closer look and mustered up the courage to poke it.
Then I read the label on the bag again and laughed at myself.
Posted in Our Crazy Life | 3 Comments »
Jul 17th, 2009 by Allison
- I don’t run a tight schedule in the summer with my boys like I do during the school year. They have been staying up to 9:30 or 10:00 some nights.
- I haven’t been making Jonah take a nap every day.
- I realized today that my boys have not had a bath since last Saturday night. Oops! Please don’t tell my mom.
- I have been listening to 98.7 Simon this summer instead of WBFJ.
- We have been eating almost every meal on the back porch. It helps keep my kitchen floor clean. By eating on the porch all I have to do is sweep the crumbs out the door.
- I set my thermostat at 80 degrees during the day and 76 at night to save money. (Joey doesn’t like this)
- Joshua has soccer camp next week and I am nervous about letting him go.
- My focus during the summer is having fun with my kids. The summer is a great time to build memories.
- I try to take the boys to the pool almost everyday. The pool is an excellent method of getting that male aggression out of their system.
- My mind has turned to mush this summer. My eye doctor asked me how old I was today and I couldn’t remember. I had to do the math in my head to figure it out.
- The older I get the faster summer flies by. I can’t believe that school starts in just 5 weeks
- So far this summer Joshua has grown taller, Jonah has become more creative and Josiah has turned into a toddler.
Posted in Our Crazy Life | No Comments »
Jun 19th, 2009 by Allison
A few weeks ago Joey and I went away for the week to a church planters conference. I realized during that week that I had not laughed as much as I did that week. I also realized that I had lost my passion for Christ because it came back that week. Since I have been home it seems to have gone again.
This past week at Life Group Sherrie ended with leading us to Revelation 2:1-7. The end of verse 4 is what lunged at me, “You have forsaken you first love.” I realized again that I have lost my first love. Since Wednesday I have been trying to figure out how not to loose my first love with the daily stresses of raising three boys and the different stages of life they are in. We are in a difficult season with our boys. I have even thought about my friend who hates her job and is only working for the money. How does she not lose her first love?
On Thursday I got on Facebook yet when I pulled up the site it was on Joey’s account. I noticed that one of his friends commented that she was at swimming lessons with her kids and reading a book called Crazy Love for the third time. I have been wanting to find a new book to read and her comment sparked my interest.
Last night while on the Internet I remembered about the book and looked it up on Amazon. This is what the back of the book says:
Have you ever wondered if we’re missing it?
It’ crazy, if you thinking about it. The God of the universe – the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor – loves us with a radical unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs and try not to cuss .
Whether you’ve verbalized it yet or not . . . we all know something is wrong.
Does something in deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our work with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and dont’s – it’s falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same.
Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything
At this point I realized God is trying to get my attention.
If that wasn’t enough, Chris Tomlin wrote in the Forward
I encourage you to face up to the convictions of Crazy Love. I know your heart and spirit will be stirred again for your First Love.
I am pretty sure I now get what God wants me to know!
We’ll see where this leads 
PS: I shared all this with Joey this morning and he said, “This is the topic of his sermon this week.”
Posted in Life with Jesus | No Comments »
Jun 16th, 2009 by Allison
The pictures in themselves tell the story.
After saying no, turning my back and a few minutes later:
Posted in Raising Boys | No Comments »
Jun 16th, 2009 by Allison
Jonah was supposed to going to sleep but instead I heard, “Somebody help, I’m stuck!” I went up the stairs ready to give him a lecture but instead I started laughing when I saw him.
I actually feel bad now because I can see the tear in his eye
Posted in Raising Boys | No Comments »
Today is my Jonah’s birthday! I tell Jonah that he is my “special one” because his little brother is Josiah and that makes him special. I also tell Joshua that he is my “special one” because he is the the oldest brother. I am waiting for the day when they compare notes and all three see that they are my special ones.
Three years ago today was a Sunday. I was at home waiting for the hospital to call to say they had a bed open for me. The previous week I had been having A LOT of contractions they would start and stop. On Wednesday of that week my OB decided to send me to the hospital to have my water broken. I waited by my phone until Sunday at 12:30 to receive the call that they had a bed open for me. I had to call Joey home from church to take me. They broke my water at 2:30 and he was born at 5:30 pm.
Jonah gets his middle name from his grandfather Richard and it fits him perfectly. He and Joey’s dad are a lot alike. Both were/are risk takers and they both have/had no fear. One of Jonah’s love languages is touch. He gives and wants hugs and kisses. He loves for me to pray for him and sing to him. You can read my previous post about that here. His current song list is Sanctuary, Hiding Place, Jesus Loves You and Nighty – Night. He (and also Joshua) just recently has been asking me to play Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi over and over while in the car.
My prayer is that we will raise Jonah to be a guardian for Josiah. I am thankful that God knew best by having Jonah and Josiah so close. My prayer is that they will have a special bond always. I often still rock Jonah in the glider. I talk with him how special it is that when I rocked him as a baby in that chair Josiah was in my belly. That he use to lay across my belly when Josiah was still growing. That he and Josiah had a special bond even before Josiah took his first breath.
Joey and I are away at a church planter’s conference and not able to be with Jonah today. So, I thought I would show you some pictures of my Jonah from the past three years.
If you can’t tell, Jonah enjoys wearing hats and playing dress up/make believe.
Happy Birthday Jonah Bear!
Posted in Raising Boys, Uncategorized | No Comments »
I heard someone say today that women are the worst at evangelism. We just don’t do it. We push away those little nudges from the Holy Spirit. I heard an amazing story today that has forever changed me. I am going to leave her name out for privacy reasons.
She said that at one point in her life her and her husband were selling microwaves. One day he came home and told her he wanted her to spend the next week at the Fair selling the microwaves. She laughed and thought he was crazy but then realized he was serious. So, the next week she sat in her booth selling microwaves. There was a man not to far from her booth giving hot air balloon rides. He would send customers to her telling them they could get free food at her booth. She would do food demonstrations with the microwave. At one point she started to get irritated with the man because it was costing money to give all that food away. She was getting a lot of customers because of him. Near the end of the week he came over to her booth and introduced his brother and nephew to her. Later that night he came back and said to her that she seemed like she was different to him. He asked her if she was a Christian. Yes answered, “Why yes I am.” He told her he wanted to become a Christian and ask her to help him. She said her mind starting running a mile a minute and her mouth fell open. She told him that she was not good at that and would mess it up. She told him to come back in the morning and she would bring her husband who was much better than her to help him. His nephew tried to encourage her but she again said she would mess it up.
As she drove home that night she cried. When she got home she told her husband what had happened. He reminded her what he had always told her what to say in that situation. He said that they should pray tonight and go see him in the morning. That morning on the way back to the Fair they heard on the radio of an accident on the highway. The man, his brother and nephew had an accident with the balloon and all 3 died.
I don’t know about you but this story brought tears to my eyes. I can’t tell you how many nudges I have ignored. I have had a nudge for a week now to send a card to someone who I had a conversation with last week. This person is not walking with Jesus. You better believe I am going to send her the card tomorrow. I will never pass up a leading from the Holy Spirit again after this story. You may be the last chance they will have to hear of Jesus.
One of the ladies in the room encouraged her that Jesus would honor that his heart was searching. The fact the he asked her shows he was searching.
Posted in Life with Jesus, The Beginning | No Comments »
You can connect with me via: 