Oh my goodness!  It is the end of April and it is my first blog of the year!!!!!  What's up with that?  It has been a great and challenging year so far.  I am daily, still after two years, growing in my role as a lead pastor's wife.  I am learning to juggle family, speaking, worship, women's ministry and counseling.  At times, I'm not going to lie, it is very overwhelming.  Overwhelming in the sense of feeling a heart felt burden, not just for my 5 children and husband, but for the church family that God has given Derrick and me the privilege to lead.  My heart rejoices with those that are discovering this amazing God that we serve and truly experience a life change.  It rejoices in the marriages that have survived adultery and are stronger than ever.  It rejoices with the addict that has learned to daily surrender their life to Christ and is reaping the benefits of God's faithfulness.  It rejoices that we have baptized over 20 people this year so far and that we had over 450 at our Easter services.  However, with every celebration there seems to be a heart ache.  My heart breaks for the many that have discovered they have cancer.  It breaks for the struggling marriages and the addict that slips back into old habits.  As the church grows, my heart is burdened for those who don't know what to do with all the new faces and slip out the back door.  As demanding as it all seems, I wouldn't change it for the world!  I love the calling that God has on my life.  I love my church family and I am honored that God allows me the privilege to serve Him in this way!  

On a personal note, I had my first experience at a cancer center to get checked.  Going  through the fear of the unknown was not a fun experience.  It was dealing with the lymph node under my arm that I have posted about before. All things have turned out good with that, praise the Lord!  The only sad thing was that my doctor tested all my hormones because I thought something had to be wrong seeing that I was about 25 pounds over my normal weight and have NEVER dealt with that before.  He reported that all were totally normal and gave me the speech, "Every decade you add on to your life changes your metabolism..."  Not what I wanted to hear, but totally grateful for a good report!


The kids are enjoying being in school.  I love seeing their personalities unfold and the many friends that they have.  We are fixing to kick it into high gear again, however, as basketball and football are starting back up.  Derrick will be coaching Eli and Jesse's basketball teams and Isaiah and Carmen are still in gymnastics.  It's also the month where we begin our 5 consecutive months of birthday's with the kids....ouch! It's crazy how big they are all getting.  Eli is almost as tall as me and Ciera, my youngest, will be 3 next month.  I can't believe my budget is almost done with diapers!!!!!  It's been 11 years!  Crazy!  This is always the time I develop baby fever though, so if any of my friends love me enough, please have another baby so I can snuggle with yours and not have to have another myself! :)
Well, hopefully I've caught up a little on my blogging, and as always...I'll try to input more often!