Has it really been almost 5 months since I posted last?  Man oh man...can't imagine why!  So hang on to your britches and let's catch up.  
On April 30th we celebrated our oldest son turning 12!  I officially have a pre-teen!  Yikes! Eli is still a sports lover.  However, for now, he is narrowing it down to loving basketball the most!  This started our string of birthdays as the kids b-days are about every 2-3 weeks starting with his. Yes, the kids birthdays are in April, May, June, July and August.  

A week after Eli's birthday we gave birth to our newbie, Samuel.  Wait, did I say "we"????  Let me re-phrase!  I gave birth and it was not a fun experience!  Showed up at 6 a.m. to be induced, doc broke my water and left to go do his office visits (30 minutes away), hoping to come back during his lunch hour to deliver. Nurse goes ahead and administers the petocin; and  I, because I am a wimp, went ahead and got my epidural.  I was enjoying having my parents and most of my kids there with Derrick and me, and we were just chatting away, even though I thought it was odd that my epidural was very minimal.  Still had all feeling in my legs, which according to the past three, this was NOT the case!  As the pain began increasing, I kept pushing the "administer yourself" button until I realized it completely shut off.  Pain became unbearable, petocin was kicking in full force and I was not a happy camper!  Asked my parents and kids to exit, nurse called anesthesiologist to come back, he was "too busy", and I went from 4 cm dilated to 10 in about  5 minutes.  The nurses quickly call my doctor to come back and meanwhile, the nurse shuts down my epidural machine realizing it's doing no good, yanks out my catheter, and proceeds to hold my baby inside of me, as I'm screaming bloody murder, for the next 25 minutes.  I begged for them to get another doc to deliver him and they proceeded to tell me that there was no one else in house that could deliver.  Are you kidding me???? Needless to say, I have now experienced a natural child birth...just wish I wasn't jacked up on petocin for the whole thing and wish he could have come out when he was ready!  Also found out that the labor and delivery department at the hospital I gave birth in is shutting down!  Go figure! Despite all of this, I have a precious new son that is beautiful and I am very blessed!

Ciera turned 4, 2 weeks after Samuel was born.  She is a mess!  She loves to sing and she pretty much runs the household...or tries to anyway!  

Carmen turned 9, 3 weeks after Ciera's b-day.  She is 9 going on 16.  I think God knew what he was doing giving me only 2 girls!  I think girls are born with the drama side!  She also loves to sing and play with her friends.

Jesse James had his b-day a couple of weeks after hers.  He turned 7.  He got an electric guitar for his birthday and plans to be a professional skate boarder/guitarist/drummer!  :/  He loves life and is still...living up to his name.

Isaiah ends the string of b-days and he turned 11 this year!  He is still our reptile kid!  He now owns 2 snakes and a tarantula.  Never would have thought I would have creatures like this in my home, but he loves them!  He volunteers every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. at a reptile store in town and his passion in this shines through!  However, I have told him no more until he is on his own!  :)

So we made it through the summer with all the kids being well as can be until 2 days before school starts.  Now, for the last 2 weeks, we have had 5 out of six get the tummy bug, one get a bad cold and then one brake his collar bone just after he got over the bug.  

I have started helping out at the church office since our administrator just moved to Germany, so I am wearing one new hat for now.  Things are going well at church and we are embarking on a brand new adventure at East Coast Church!  Excited about what the Lord has in store!  

Well, thank you for allowing me the time to catch up on documenting my crazy life!  I have to say, I can't imagine doing life without my faithful Savior seeing me through!  

Never in a million years would I have dreamt that I would be a 41 year old woman lying in bed on bed rest, fixing to have my 6th child.  My plan was to get married at 18, fresh out of high school, and begin having the 10 kids that I had always dreamed of having.  Mind you, an 18 year old has a lot more energy than a 41 year old!  :)
I have to say that God's plan was much different than my simple minded plan.  He had much more in store for me than I could have ever imagined!  Although I did not understand, at the time, Him allowing me to walk through the pain and agony of being infertile for 8 very long devastating years, there is always a much bigger picture that our Master Creator has in mind.  Through the hardship of it all, I learned so much about God's grace always being sufficient to sustain me; His peace to reassure me that He "did know the plans that He had for me that were for good and not to hurt me" (Jer. 29:11); His strength to help me persevere when I didn't want to go on; and most of all I can say that my God truly is a faithful, loving God that wants only the best for His children!  I think every day what a tremendous blessing I would have missed out on if God would have allowed me to have my simple minded dream.  I cannot imagine my life without my two oldest sons that God so graciously gifted us with through adoption.  His plan for us, long before we were even created!  It haunts me to think that if I would have demanded my own way and refused to open my eyes to God's plan and His ways, I would have denied two of the greatest blessings that God had in store for me!

Now, here I sit with five amazing, beautiful children that fill my life with laughter and joy!  I know that I have given my hubby a hard time about this predicament that I am in right now (being pregnant...again...at 41), but how in the world could I ever complain?  Children are a blessing from the Lord and I do thank God for this precious little boy that is fixing to come into the world!  I do have to say, however, that if God is insistent on granting me the millions of prayers that I offered up to Him most of my life for wanting 10 kids, I pray that there will be 4 little ones that are needing the love of a big happy family and we get to receive them as precious gifts like our first two were given.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I have had an opportunity to rest.  Over the last 12 years, I can probably count on two hands the number of full nights sleep that I have gotten.  So, for now, I am trying to relax and thank God for these moments of "bed rest".  Thank you to all who are making it possible and helping our family out in this time!  Thank you to my wonderful church family for providing delicious meals for us each night.  And thank you for your continued prayers as we welcome our newest Shirley into the world, and no, we have not agreed on a name yet!  :/

My husband told me on January 17th of this year that God had told him this was going to be a year of faith.  I had no idea the impact of what those words really meant.  I've always lived my life by faith so I just thought, "ok!"  The year started off great in every aspect of our lives.  The kids were doing well in school, and they finished up the year with a bang.  We got to go celebrate my parents 50th anniversary with them in June and had the opportunity to take the kids to my grandmother's farm  to see where I spent a lot of my summers and Christmas' growing up.  The church was doing great!  It was growing, new classes had begun, we had baptized over 30 just in the first few months, small groups were active...all was well.

The past few months have been somewhat of a whirlwind.  Derrick and I have experienced some of the hardest days in ministry which trickled to every area of our lives.  The heartache of losing friends.  The heartache of our kids losing their friends.  The struggle to understand what in the world was going on.  As a Christ follower, I have experienced spiritual warfare on a daily basis, but the reality of Ephesians 6:12 had never felt so extreme. 

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

I honestly felt as though we were on the front line of a battlefield and I never even knew what the war was about or how it started.  

You always hear not to pray for patience because you know that you will be tested in order for that virtue to be grown in your life.  I can definitely say these past few months have been a testing of my faith.  Thankfully, I know who my Redeemer is and I know who has the victory!  Through it all, I still have faith that my Savior is in control and that 
"In all things God works for the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose!"  Rom. 8:28
His never failing love never ceases to amaze me and His promise to see us through any hardship has definitely, once again, been proven true.
I thank HIm for the testing of my faith because I can continue to stand firm in His great love and power.

When your faith seems so small, remember that Jesus says that all it has to be is the size of a mustard seed.  "I tell you the truth,if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain 'move from here to there' and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you!"  Matthew 17:20  If that doesn't get your blood pumping, I don't know what will!  As children of God, we can move mountains!!!!  What mountain is standing in your way today?  

"Submit to God and be at peace with HIm; in this way prosperity will come to you." Job 22:21

I have learned through this trial that when you don't understand your circumstances, just continue submitting your life to Christ and regardless of what is going on around you, just make sure that you are at peace with Him!  I promise that good things will come!

As the turbulence subsides, and we continue seeking the will of our Father, I can tell you God has graciously brought sunshine at the end of the storm for our family.  I placed the picture above because the dot within the circle is about the size of a mustard seed.  That dot resembles the testing of my faith, which will now grow into another one of God's amazing blessings of life.  This was a very unexpected blessing, but I know that God had this special plan for us.  We are thankful and grateful and will continue on serving and doing the will of our Father...one more Shirley at a time!  :)  

Though it be a year of testing and growing of our faith,

"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" 

 

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!