Life is the little moments: Let's start from the very beginning...

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

Psalm 37:3-7

I have struggled with these verses for the past couple years. The past 4.5 years have brought the most joy and the most sorrow that I have ever experienced. I will try to give you the short version: Steve and I decided to relocate to be near family and to help with a church plant. We figured that if God was in this, jobs and selling our house would fall into place. Within 3 weeks of sending out applications, I had a job offer, and we were moving! Steve hadn't found anything yet, but we were confident the right job would be found. Someone from the church we were planning on attending ended up helping Steve get a job as an assistant manager for a McDonald's store. The pay was much better than we'd anticipated, so we figured it wouldn't be half bad! Right before we moved from Scranton we found out we were pregnant with our first baby. We were so excited. This was exactly why we were moving...to raise a family by family! We had our first appointment once we'd moved. The doctor thought everything looked great..even saw a little heartbeat! Shortly after we had started telling people the good news my greatest fear became a reality. After experiencing a lot of pain we headed to the ER, where we ended up losing our precious first baby. I had always told people that was the one thing I would never be able to handle..and after all, God never gives you more than you can handle, right? Wrong...God does allow us experience more than we can humanly handle...He wants us to learn to depend on Him! Everything I learned during that time is a whole post on its own that will keep for another time.

Fast forward 3 months, and we learned we were expecting again. That winter we learned we were having a boy. While I struggled with the loss of our first baby, Joshua 24:15 always stuck with me: "And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I could cling to my hurt and my despair, be angry with God..or I could trust that the covenant keeping God of the bible was LORD of my life and had a bigger plan. Because of this lesson I learned, we named our little boy Elijah...the LORD is my God. His name is my memorial to this time of struggle and growth in my life.

2.5 years later we welcomed Eliana Jane into our lives. Her name is also derived from my struggle. After losing our first baby I felt a kinship with Hannah in the Bible, who pleaded desperately for a child. Eliana means My God Answers.

Here are some recent pictures of our kiddos. They are absolute miracles