A Change of Mini Van Music

One of my favorite memories of my childhood home was listening to my dad's records; the real ones. I distinctly remember sitting at the dining room table at Christmastime listening to Amy Grant's "Tennessee Christmas" on vinyl. When I moved out of my parent's house, I purchased one of my dad's band's Compact Disks. I will never forget popping it into my Toyta Tercel player. Singing along to "Cool Change" by The Little River Band was nostalgic, but still not as good as hearing it on vinyl!

During our packing, packing, and still more packing, I stuck all our CD's into one of those books with sleeves and stored the cases. We took the book down to the van and broke out some of our teen years' favorites for the boys to listen to. We sampled a few oldies like the Third Day peach CD, Michael W Smith's "Missing Person", the Newsboys "Shine"... I could go on and on.

Last night after church, the boys were still feeling restless in the car on the way home from church. Andrew was singing in falsetto something about pancakes- I think. Having a slight headache from the sound of his precious voice bouncing all over the inside of the car, I suggested we turn on some music we could all enjoy peacefully together. I looked through our selection, Best of Bach... Nichole Nordeman... Bela Fleck... Seeds Worship... Nickel Creek... Ahhhh... The choice was obvious. Five Iron Frenzy Proof that the Youth Are Revolting. I chose it for a couple of reasons. One- I thought the boys would enjoy hearing the wind instruments and two- I could tell the the story of how mommy and daddy were at this concert when they were first married and "sang backup" with hundreds of other people on the CD (It's true! Our names are listed with the others on the CD insert!!!). My super hip stage name as printed is "Tiffany Childs" and my husbands is "Micha":)

From the first sound of Reese Roper opening the concert with a high F, 16 beat shout "To Hell with the Devil!!!!!!!" to song number 6 "Receive Him" (literally the whole song with a few drum rolls at the beginning), the boys laughed and danced as hard as two boys can strapped in to a Mazda MPV. I can say it provided a joyous ride home and needless to say, my headache subsided. Next time I have a migraine, it is loud falsetto singing and a ska beat for me. I wonder what the boys memories of "Daddy and Mommy's music" will be?

For those of you that were hoping for an update on our family and our move, we are waiting. Micah puts it well: we are not anxious, just restless. Waiting is hard and the boxes in our house are looming. Things do feel a little upside down--- Ok a lot upside down. Please continue to pray for us- that God would continue to make our path straight. We don't want it to be just any place, but His place for us. Pray that we don't miss opportunities today while we look ahead to the future.

Providence

At the beginning of the week, we thought we might be moving across the country. This made for the most exciting, stressful time Micah and I have probably ever experienced together. As you can imagine for the 14 hours we thought we were moving, we were moving! Then, we found out it was a "moving your family across the country" false alarm. In wrestling with the emotions and trials of this situation, I am thankful that after a day or so, I have been brought back around to what I know to be true. It is amazing and gracious of God to even give me direction in sorting out what I feel from what I know.

I have been reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love and read this paragraph last night after asking God all day all the whys of the situation:

Can you worship a God who isn't obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation?

Now for those of you who know me, I like straightforwardness, simplicity, and clarity. I don't know if I could have had a more blunt response to all my questions. Of course Chan's thoughts are no different than God's response to Job. They were exactly what I needed to hear.

God even gave me an answer to my "what to do next" question by reminding me of my own words to a friend last week. She was dealing with a very difficult situation and I encouraged her to think and meditate on how big and good God is. It is always easier to give the advice instead of receive it. When it is my turn to live what I know, will I be faithful or will I be all talk? In His providential care, God had given me means to deal with my current situation. I am sure that in the future, when the whys and hows are answered, God's foreseeing care and guidance will be obvious to us.

Things have calmed down and those initial urgent feelings have subsided. Micah and I feel like we have a better plan to deal with the future. Furthermore, we had a great week in Richmond, KY. Micah went there to help with a CFA that had just recently opened. I left my entire wardrobe in Louisville, so I spent a lot of time at a new shopping center being creative with clearance clothing!

Here the boys are sitting on their favorite thing at the shopping center; the fountain! I was sure one of them was going to fall in, but they were careful~

Here are the boys in the hotel after on our last night in Richmond resting peacefully:

Photography by Elijah

For a few months, Elijah has been "borrowing" our camera and taking pictures. I found about 50 extra pictures on our memory card recently! So to encourage his photographic bursts of creativity, we got him his own camera for his 3rd birthday. His memory card and camera memory are completely full already (with around 400 pictures!!!). Here are some of our favorites from his first collection with his titles:

Legos

Feet

Drums at Mimi's House

Elijah

I am sure there will be a second collection soon!