A new marriage and much grace
Gen and I were joined in the covenant of marriage on July 25th, 2010. I can't believe our first anniversary is coming up in 2 weeks! I still have to come up with a plan to celebrate it!In hindsight as God has drawn us closer, we really got here by His grace alone. Almost nothing we did when we started should have got us to such an intimate, amazing marriage place that we are now. I'll spare the world hearing about the many specific ways we grieved our Creator, but suffice it to say that God worked some mighty works of heart change during our courtship and in the past year of marriage.
It's been a year of conviction and of heart change - so many of the things I used to want just aren't the desire of my heart anymore, by the grace of God. My biggest regret is that I wasted 30 years of my life before I really started to serve Jesus.
I also find myself yearning for our next date night every week!
An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
Blending a family
I have been so excited to see God's plan unfold in our family. It is our prayer that we could be the beginning of a generational shift in our family - one where entire generations would turn their heart to the Lord and serve Him above all else.
Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint,
but blessed is he who keeps the law.
Gen and I have been prayerfully working on a family mission statement and a vision for our future. The children have responded well and get along famously together... which brings me to the next bit of joyful news:
A new addition to the family
Joshua Allen Brown was born on October 8, 2010! He's already grown so much!
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| Joshua at 9 months |
Discipling the children
RJ, 8, accepted Christ as his Savior last year and I had the privilege of walking him through the Romans Road verses that I marked in my Bible at youth group when I was young. The heart change that God has wrought in him has been incredible. I find it amazing how God weaves together His story even out of the brokenness that we all manage to create.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
We also homeschooled all the children last year. It's been a huge year in that alone - so many lessons learned and so much progress made. We can't wait to start the next year using the lessons we've learned from the previous!
Finding community
We've also been super blessed in finding a community group at our church (Mars Hill Church) and a couple of other local families that are larger homeschool families. Accountability is something sorely lacking in today's society and I for one am really glad to have it. Fellowship and friendship are equally absent. There are so many subjects like this that I can't wait to get into on here.
The children also have been blessed to find community with other believers within these families - although they are also well liked by the neighborhood children as well.
Starting a blog
Yeah, I always have thoughts about this stuff and I'm just glad to finally have a place to write stuff longer than a Facebook status update. I'm hoping to use this as a place to write out my thoughts on family happenings, theology, technology, homeschooling, discipleship, and all of the other things that I take interest in. I'm not a great writer, but perhaps it will be useful to some. Most of all, I just want a chance to draw attention to God's glory.
There is so much more that I want to say, but I'll leave my introductory post with this!
No matter what God has planned for the next year -- God is still God... and God is still good. Glory to God!
