In the Land of the Living

I’m not sure how to start writing about the goodness of God that I’ve seen in the last week. When the Lord began the process of bringing us to PMBC in Douglasville, Georgia, I really had no idea how much blessing the Lord had in store for us.  And its a very strange thing to receive so much blessing after suffering through so much hardship and loss these last three years.  I am continually humbled and continually thanking my God for His abundant kindness. And I’m reminded of this verse that one of our former church members (a.k.a. Josh Dove) shared one time and I’ve never forgotten it…

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13.

Kevin and I had to make many a trip to Georgia these last few months searching for a home for our family.  I didn’t have huge expectations but my one request was that God would allow Mikias and Molly Kate to have their own rooms and that we would have a room specifically designated for school.  We were honestly growing pretty discouraged for a while…most of the homes here are foreclosures and most are in rough shape…too rough for a family ready to dive into ministry and not home repair!  Then, one evening, my dad called to tell me to jump online and check out a house he found.  Our wonderful realtor ran by the house and said that it was definitely worth a rush trip to Georgia.  So, I loaded up the kids, drove down by myself and by the end of the weekend, we had made an offer (without Kevin ever seeing it!).  I’m so thankful that my dad (an incredibly wise business man) encouraged us to always buy and never rent, even during the lean seminary years.  For that reason, we now have great credit scores and easily qualified for this home (which was an honest steal because of the current market).

Now, two months later, we have officially moved in and I am  in utter awe of the beauty of this home.  There are amazing windows throughout the home (complete with plantation shutters for those of you who love interior design!).  My seasonal depression will be no more with all the light that floods our rooms!  We have an amazing basement, with a full kitchen, guest bed and bath, school room and media room (my husband’s favorite part…the previous owners left a projector and a massive screen so we have a very cool room in which to watch movies, sports, and television…I envision some fun double date nights with couples from our church!).  And we have three rooms for our kiddos on the upper floor by themselves…plenty of space to spread out and grow, yet close enough to still find a sibling play-mate!

My dad, mom, Kevin and I arrived last Wednesday to begin our move-in.  My sweet mother-in-law agreed to keep the kids while the movers came and gave us time to set the kids’ rooms up before they ever arrived.  Oh what fun it was to get their rooms completely ready and surprise them with their new home on Saturday!  We felt like Extreme Home Makeover as we went room to room opening the doors to their new rooms!  And, given that we had packed up most of their toys ten months ago, they were delighted to just be able to play again…completely unrestricted play!!

So…here’s the start of lots of photos…I’ll post the rest tomorrow (and I can’t wait so show you my kitchen…its a true dream!)!  Thank you for rejoicing with us…I know so many of you have been so genuinely happy for our family to receive this incredible blessing and I am so thankful for you words of encouragement!  May God be greatly glorified as we use this home to further His name!

Let the unloading begin!

My job for moving day...checking off every box and piece of furniture as they called out numbers. This actually proved to be pretty stressful for my tired brain and it was freezing!

Molly Kate's very princess, very pink room! Kevin and my dad painted the room, Kevin hung the chandelier and my dad painted Molly Kate's furniture a great shade of green and purple. If you know my dad, its quite grand that I've turned him into a furniture painter over the last six weeks!

Another shot of MK's room!

I love how cute the chest of drawers turned out in green...oh, how I love painted furniture!!

The kids' bathroom...all four share a pretty large bath on the upper level where their bedrooms are located.

Miles' and Madden's room...their room is just awesome! The have a long bonus room over the garage that is perfect for two little boys. We even had space to set up Madden's new ride-on Thomas toy. This pic doesn't show the brown chairs that my dad painted for the white table and the brown bedside table that matches their blue chest of drawers. This room is probably the most fun to hang out in with all the kids!

A different shot of the boys' room...across from the map sits our large Thomas the Train!

Mikias' room...very sports oriented and complete with a desk for building legos. He was so excited to finally have a room of his own!

Another shot of Mikias' room...these bookshelves give him the space he very much wanted to display his legos once they were built! He loves not having to stick them back in a box!

Because we don't really believe in gradual transition (ha, ha!) we decided to just go ahead and move Madden to a big boy's bed and not mess with setting the crib up. Here he is taking his first nap in his new bed...he was so proud to climb up in it by himself and he's done so well. I can't believe my baby isn't a baby anymore!

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