Awed and Thankful

Have you ever had a week where God has completely just shown off all day, every day? Well I just finished a week like that and He just continued on big time today! Last night I happened upon a conversation I had with an amazing person back in the beginning of May. It was the night of our first Moms and Daughters Bible study that I, by the way was a nervous wreck the whole time, prayed for ten girls and twenty girls and their moms showed up! So I was reading and I came across “You should take confidence in knowing that you are exactly where you are meant to be.” Wow! I slept good on that one!! This morning I got to Sunday School and Mrs. Virginia said that somebody made God change the lesson cause it was not what she had planned to teach. I think I might have been that person. It was perfection to what I read last night and to what I needed to hear! It was about where we are right now and what God’s purpose is for us! Hit me up if you want my notes or watch her on WFRZ Mondays at 10pm, Wednesdays at 8pm, and Thursdays at 3pm. Oh then I sat down to study for Tuesday’s Bible study and it fits perfectly for what I have been wanting and praying for Saturday’s Moms and Daughters!! And things Mrs. Virginia said this morning were perfect for some of the things I’m teaching Tuesday! God just blows me away!

My life would not be the same without the amazing people God has put in my path! When I wrote about God calling me into the ministry I started with “In the 8th grade, through a journey of many different people and a mission trip to New Orleans, God called me into the ministry.” I want to take time over the next few days or however long it takes to thank those people as I start this journey and as my story continues because they have such important roles in this and whether they are still in my life or not they mean so much to me! First of course I want to thank my parents! My life isn’t perfect and that fact starts with the two of them- when I was in the fifth grade my dad was diagnosed with cancer and six short months later he went to be with our Savior! Me, being so much like my dad and not much like my mom at the time, my mom and I grieved a lot differently. We lost a lot of years that we could have been clinging to each other and growing and healing together. My dad was my best friend, my knight in shining armor, my hero, my coach, my safe place, my prince charming, I could go on and on. He was the perfect dad for me and I know I grasp God’s love for me because of the love my dad showed me while he was here. I know I had more of my dad in the eleven years he was alive in my life than some girls have with theirs alive their whole lives. For that I praise God and thank Him every day. Because of the struggles I had with my mom, honestly until about senior year, I am able to share with my middle school girls now how important their relationships are with their moms. How I would do anything to go back and get all those years back I spent looking for other moms and trying to be in other families and wishing so bad I had any other life than the life God had blessed me with. I’ve learned through my life, my imperfect but mine, life that the grass might look greener on the other side but if I watered my own grass it’d be just as green, if not greener. I have a broken family. Without my mom and dad together, to me my family will always be broken. I will never have my dad again this side of Heaven, that breaks my heart and will always leave me broken. But God has healed me around that brokenness and I believe with all my heart in the wise words of Virginia Thompson “Christ leaks out of our cracks.” He shines most out of our broken places! Thank you Dad for loving me and being the best dad I could have ever asked for. And Mom, thank you for loving me through the hard times. There is no person I’d rather have by my side sharing this amazing experience with than you. Thank you for supporting me and praying me through every decision I’ve made in my life! I love you both! Thank you for loving each other and loving me! Thank you for being my starting blocks to this amazing journey!! So glad I have both of you by my side! One on Earth, one in Heaven!

Xo Amy