Friend in Friend

here is a quick update. On Wednesday the 9th I had a 2 week check up (prenatal) (33weeks), well it turns out that the baby was wanting to come NOW, or at least very soon! I was dilated 2cm and babys head was down and ready to say hello, and since our wonderful thanks giving vacation I have been contracting like crazy. Well the Dr. did not like what she was seeing and forced me to go to the hospital. So I went over there that night, after my visit, and they checked me into Labor and delivery for monitoring and a lovely round of shots to stop the contractions. I had to stay over night, my dr. came to the hospital in the morning to check me out, the shots helped and there was no further progression. She has ordered me to be on bed rest until Jan! Now my first thought was,”yeah right!” I have 3 kids at home.
I have been truly blessed by loving church family that have gone way out of their way to help and love on all of us. I am really trying receive it all as from the Lord, he is so good and so faithful to us over and over. My next dr. appointment is this Thursday, my hope is that everything is good and no more progress has been made, and that I do not have to go back to the Hospital until it is time for this baby to be born. One good thing that has come from it all is I have been forced to just be still, to let other people take care of me, to receive. I do not always realize how much pride there is in doing, until the Lord lovingly takes my strength away, and I can not DO, do for others or even myself. I am learning and through God’s grace I hope to come out of this pregnancy with a heart of gratitude and humility, and a better ability to receive from those who just want to love and serve me.
Thank you Jesus!
~C

We are having a BOY!!!!! We are so excited, we do not have any names yet, but the Lord will provide that for us soon enough.
~C

This Thursday the 17th we get to see what we will be having Next!!
O yeah I just realized that I have never posted about our soon to be NEW addition, I am 22 weeks pregnant! We will have 4 children in January, craziness! We are all hoping for a boy, especially Cadence
So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, 2 more days!
~C

The Lord never ceases to amaze me with his continual goodness, his unending forgiveness towards this wayward heart. His amazing power and desire to save me over and over again, even from myself most times, the slavery I choose. And He cleans me and restore me to himself, only to put me back into the very place in which I had just failed him, to try it again with a Fresh Start.

These past weeks have been really hard and yet the most freeing.

Humility: Coming to God on His terms

“If My people who are called by My name will HUMBLE themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal their land.” (2 Chron 1:14)

This week the Lord has been greatly humbling this prideful heart within me, using his timeless and timely Word as a giant mirror, exposing all that is unseen and putting it in front of my face. I am not as good as I my heart deceives me to think ( Obadiah 1:3) “If you abide in my Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32) “Truly , truly, I say to you, EVERYONE who commits sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34) The power of Truth is truly powerful!

God is so good and there is none like him. He loves me by saving me, and he saves me by telling me the truth when no other will nor can, he alone allows Truth to dwell within me through His grace, with His rich blessing of humility to guide me rightly to Him, my heart on it’s knees before the thrown of the Almighty God in freedom as He alone heals my land!

O what Love is this

~C

Today I officially started Home School!!!

Today Cayla read all on her own for the first time, about 6 short sentences, It was so awesome! I am so so blessed to have such a smart child to start this Home School adventure with, she learns so quickly, it is probably more an encouragement to me then then to her. It just blows me away because I had to go to kindergarten twice, and she is starting kindergarten at a first grade level! Thank you Jesus!

So yeah, I have not posted in forever, it is partly because I have had nothing to share, well, that’s worth sharing any way. I have also been so incredibly busy with these kids of mine, still trying to find a balance some how. Spiritually I have been in a really hard place, my circumstances have not really changed, yet my walk with the Lord has. He is always faithful to me, but it is me who is prone to wonder. I at times forget that his ways are better, always better, and I decide to do what I foolishly think is right, kinda like my 3 and 5 year old often say, “I wanna do what I wanna do”, and yet I am 30.

So after the Lord has allowed me to hit a wall or two or ten, I decide that maybe he is right after all, better late then never , right? So I start to the path of obedience, coming from disobedience, finally allowing doors to close that I have been holding open through my own failing strength, changing my priorities, that have gotten way messed up, and I have just simply stopped, and have been taking a good O’ll look at the reflection in the mirror.

Recently I have went through this amazing study through Psalms 23 with Nancy Leigh Demoss (podcasts), the Lord is MY shepherd! It has been the personal reminder, of who my Lord is to me , that i desperately NEEDED to pull my soul out of the pit I had fallen into. I am so thankful that he alone is my Redeemer, my Savior, my good Shepherd, and he pursues me even when I go my own way, because he loves me.

So today, yeah, today was a good day, the first one in a while, I am so thankful for this day!

I will try to be better about posting, BUT…. my first priority WILL be my kids, so we’ll see, I’ll just say this, If the Lord allows

Even though I may walk through the deep dark valley I shall fear no evil, for you, My God, are with me. Your strength, O Lord, shall be my only comfort. Your goodness and your mercy pursue me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of my Lord forever!

May the Lord be my ONLY vision!

~C

Today at 1pm we have Cayla’s follow up appointment at Vanderbilt. She will be having another ultrasound done on her stomach and bladder by the urologist that preformed her surgery last month. Last month they found nothing, Praise God!, but he wants to check it out again just to make sure. Just wanted to fill you all in so that you can be praying, I will try to do a quick little follow up tonight sometime on how things go. Bye for now!
~C

There has been so much craziness in our lives, the Lord has been teaching me so much in the past month that I could not put it all into words, and If I even tried it would take days, no months! I am so going to copy my hubby on this one and just copy and paste an e-mail that i had sent a while ago updating family on Cayla, here ya go!

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Email:

Alright, we got the results back yesterday.

The Doctors took us back into the conference room and sat us down, he said, “well you know the mass that I was showing you in the Ultrasound (by the way it was very clear), well we went in and we didn’t find anything, there was nothing in there at all.”. He really had nothing more to say than that, he did want to schedule Cayla in for another Ultrasound, that he wanted to do himself, in a month just to make sure.
Then later the nurse that was with Cayla during all the procedures came in to run us through the different meds that she would need to be taking for recovery, then she said, “Don’t you think that is amazing that they didn’t find anything?” I told her “yes!”, then she started to tear up and said ,”Well I better get out of here before I start crying.” She rushed out, and a few minutes later came back with another popsicle for Cayla with tears still in her eyes. Praise the Lord! Not only was there Nothing found in her bladder, At ALL, but all of the pain and irritation resulting from the testing that we were warned of, was not there, Cayla has had no pain or even discomfort at all!
Thank you for your prayers, God is GOOD, and he healed our baby girl! We love you all!
Feel free to call or e-mail, we would love to share more!

~The Brown Family

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Psalms 90 :1-2

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations

Before the mountains were brought fourth, or ever you had

formed the  earth and world, from everlasting to everlasting

you are God.”

I really don’t think that I can bear to go through all the details again, so if you are reading this and have no clue what i am talking about, feel free to read my husbands blog (training for.. (I have a link to it)), in his last post he did a good job at the details of it all.

So today Cayla goes in for testing.

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“I will bless the LORD at all times ; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the LORD ; The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together! I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. O taste and see that the LORD is good ; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! O fear the LORD, you His saints ; For to those who fear Him there is no want.”

This summer it will be 3 years!

Three years ago I reached my breaking point, you that place where you reach the very end of your self and you realize that you have gained NOTHING!It’s where you take that honest look at yourself, and all that your life adds up to, and instead of adding up to something it just loops back around to the same place you have really always been, your whole life. Sure my circumstances look a little different, I was now married and had two children and a dog at the time. And yeah, along the way, through knowing  basic bible morality, I changed a few behaviors. I stopped the party lifestyle, I stopped cursing, I stopped listening to bad music, but underneath it all I was still the very same person. I had become a white washed tomb, I looked the part, different, new in fact, but there was still that same rotting corps with in the tomb.

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O how far I am from from where I so Long to be.

I am so tired of stumbling over this sinful flesh of mine.  It seems that no matter how close I get to the Lord, no matter how blown away I am at his almighty power and Love, no mater what all I have seen and heard, and no matter how many times he softens this hard heart, I can not escape my fallenness. How I long to be FREE from it!  Wall after wall is built and torn down, built up and torn down, again! Everything within me desires the day this flesh is gone!

Yet another day for yet another wall to be torn down.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way

everlasting!”

Yet another day to surrender more and more, letting go of the sin that so easily entangles, Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith!

At least I know, that no matter what, God is Good,  he loves me, and will never leave me as I am. Praise the Lord for that!!

~C