Bitter Sweet

That is the way I feel about the year 2008. We had an amazing, crazy, whirlwind of a year.

January: I was on bed rest so I did not get to go with our youth group to Myrtle Beach for Winter Rush. However, through that ministry 10 students came to know Christ, including a couple of adults...AWESOME!
February: On the first day of February Jeff and I, along with our families, welcomed our first child, Lukas Bona Walker, into the world. It was the sweetest point for me in the year and since it was at the beginning it allowed me to feel like the year would be great. I also ended up in the emergency room a week after Luke was born and diagnosed with Post Term Pre-eclampsia. However I also celebrated my 25th birthday in February!
I don't remember a whole lot of significance for March or April except that Luke's first girlfriend was born.
May: We started having church services in our fellowship hall because God was allowing us to extend and remodel our sanctuary. Being in the fellowship hall for services was an amazing experience!
June: We had youth camp at Blue Springs. It was also the first time I had left Luke...and it was hard! I didn't even sleep that well while I was gone... My parents celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary! They have been an amazing example for me. My brother also got married in June and I absolutely adore my new sister in law. Mom had major back surgery in June and would be recovering for the rest of the year.
July: Not much happened except we stayed with my parents for 2 weeks so that daddy could be at work and someone still take care of momma.
August: I started a wonderful new job...well, same job, new place. Jeff and I celebrated our 3rd year of wedded bliss! Jeff also had a birthday and turned the big 3 2.
September went by rather quickly without any major events. (That i can remember!)
October: Daddy lost his battle with Parkinsonisms MSA and Shy Draggers Disease. No, I changed my mind...he didn't lose a battle, God delivered him from his battle. It has been very difficult to accept that daddy is gone...It is a daily battle that I will struggle with for years to come.
November: My brother turned 29 on the 1st. Towards the end momma signed papers to build a house out here in Callahan down from us. It was something that she and daddy had planned on doing and she was going through with it.
December: Luke started crawling! ( I know, about time right!?) And we celebrated 2 firsts...Luke's first Christmas, and the first Christmas without daddy.

So, bitter sweet... I welcomed a new life into the world...and said goodbye to another life... I have hopes that 2009 will be great and I know that it will, because God's Sovreignty is an amazing thing...and He has shown me that greatly over this year...but that is a blog entry for another time.

3 years ago today

I was in Virginia with my mom visiting my brother, niece and nephew. My husband and I had been married only 4 months and it was our first time away from each other. The following day on our way home would be terrible...but that's another story. No, three years ago today something happened that brought joy and assurance to my heart.
When I was 9 years old I started going to church at FBC of Jacksonville and began praying for people in my life to come to know the Lord. Even though I wouldn't really accept Christ until I was 14 years old at a church in Callahan. One person in particular I began praying for, little did I know would take 13 years before God would answer that prayer.
Three years ago this evening I received a phone call from my husband that made me realize prayer works...no matter how many times you have to ask for it. From the mouth of my husband in Florida to my ears in Chester Virginia I heard the answer to my prayers of 13 years: My father, at the age of 49 accepted Christ as his Savior. It is because of this, that I knew when my daddy passed away on October 25th of this year that the verse: "to be absent from the body is to be in the presence of Jesus" would ring true. I was able to walk into my parents house and through tears say "I wonder what beauty he sees?"
For so many reasons I see now why God chose for me to marry Jeff. Among all of the wonderful qualities God has shown me about Jeff, God chose my husband to lead my daddy to his son Jesus. How amazing!
Three years ago today, I was blessed by God with the assurance that I would spend eternity in heaven surrounded by my family. And I know that if something was to happen to me today, my Heavenly Father and my daddy would be there to welcome me with open arms.

Just Because

My little man is growing way too fast! He is now 10 1/2 months old and I've realized that pretty soon I'm going to be sending out birthday invitations...oh gracious! I'm also wondering if we'll make it to the first birthday before getting his hair cut. It's really starting to get in his eyes, but I'm doing my best to hold off...not so much for him, but me!

Thirty-Onederful

Through a wonderful friend of mine who now lives in TN, I got involved with a Christian based company called Thirty-One. I haven't shared too much about the experience and thought here would be a great place to do it. The company has just over 5,000 consultants nationwide! This was one of the reasons why I chose it over some of the other at home businesses that are out there. We sell everything from home decor to purses to totes to thermal items...definately not your typical home sales!
I really love working for them on top of being a teacher, wife and mother. It actually enables me to have a little extra time with my family and still get all of my school work done. How often do you get to go to a friends house, sit around talking and eating and sharing a few products. It's like having a shopping spree in your home with your friends around!
I've held several parties so far and feel that each of them have gone great. Each hostess has come away with several free products and a large percentage off of the rest.
If you are interested in hosting a party or would even like to hear a little bit more about Thirty-One Gifts please feel free to contact me. Take a look at my site as well: www.mythirtyone.com/5287

Now he's done it...

My baby...10 months and 11 days old has hit a mile stone. It's not teeth, although we're up to 7 now. It's not pulling up...we've been doing that for a little while... No...he's crawling! We thought the day would never come because he seems more interested in walking...but he's doing it!
About 5 minutes before Jeff got home from the church Luke took about 3 "crawls." After Jeff got home he went around the corner to the bathroom and Luke tried following him!
My little stinker is growing so fast...of course someone told me he's making room for the next one...we'll see about that.
In the process of what happened today it has had me thinking a lot about my daddy. I called and told my mom about it, and normally would tell her don't tell daddy I want to tell him. But, now I can't even do that. I told Jeff that when it happened I had this thought of, "I have to go call daddy and tell him." So in honor of my little stinker hitting a mile stone and me feeling the sadness of not being able to share it with my dad, I'm going to post this photo of him and my dad from the day he was born.

Jennifer

It Finally Happened...Again!

Luke has always been a good baby. (every now and then the nursery workers may disagree...) He started sleeping through the night at about 4 weeks, but then stopped when he started teething. He would wake up in the crib crying, lay down on the couch with his daddy and be back out for the night...but not if you put him back in his crib.
Well...last night...he went down at 9:30 and slept in his crib all night until about 5:50 this morning!!! YAY!!!
So we're gonna try and do everything the same way again tonight...which also means that daddy has officially lost his nice feather pillow!

Jennifer

Laughter and Orders

We went out to dinner last night with two great new friends: Frank and Kris Ting. Frank and Kris, along with their wonderful family members Carrie and Johnathon have joined us in working with our youth department. Kris, Carrie and myself teach Sunday School girls together, and I'll speak for all of us when I say "we love it!"
We went out to Salsarita's at the airport and it was wonderful! Yummy in the tummy! (The only food that didn't make me sick while I was pregnant...mexican!) We originally had met up so that Kris could finish out her orders from her 31 party I held for her, but we ended up laughing and just talking through most of it...it was a lot of fun!

By the way, Kris and Frank, I hope you were able to "exchange" your fish!

New Home

Through everything that has happened one of my parents' dreams are coming true. They had been looking to move back to Callahan ever since we came back from Virginia. They kept putting it off because daddy was closer to the Mill where they lived now. However, momma is following that dream now and moving closer to all of her family. She signed papers today to start building a home in our neighborhood (the exact home she and daddy had picked out), across the street and two lots down from us. :-)
Now, some of you may say "oh no!" But that's not the case here. I don't have a mom that wants to constantly be in my business. And I know that my son will help her through this so much and being closer to her side of the family will make a huge difference in the long run. However, I do ask you to pray for her. This is a big deal for all of us. I don't want her to feel like leaving that house is leaving daddy behind. We're going to be going through a lot of his possessions and packing things up and figuring out what to do with it all. Pray that this be a happy time full of wonderful, everlasting memories.

Normal is just a setting on the washing machine...

At work today I noticed that there is a book for the teachers in the library called "Normal is just a setting on the washing machine." You have no idea how true that is to me right now.

I have found that I do not feel normal anymore... There seems to be a massive hole in my body and soul. I always knew that losing my dad would be hard, but I honestly never thought it would be this difficult... I always knew that when the time came, he would be in a better place and not in pain anymore...but the truth is, it still hurts. I feel that he was taken too suddenly...I expected the time to come after he had stopped working, couldn't do anything for himself...but he was still working, doing everything for himself.

I honestly do not know what normal feels like anymore...I don't know what it feels like to go to bed at night with a smile on my face, or go into my mom's house and not feel like my dad will come around the corner and ask Luke if he is ready for some groceries. I can't walk into the church without seeing my father's casket laying at the front. I drive to my parent's house and see daddy's truck in the driveway and think daddy's home early.

How do you go back to the way life was...or do you? Do you just accept that everything is different and go about your business?

The reality is that life goes on...no one else's stopped the day daddy died. So I guess the title of the book is right...Normal really is just a setting on the washing machine.