Storms

OK so I (Jon, who is the Dad) thought I would post a something on here about our “little” journey. I thought I would write about "storms" that come up in our lives and how we are shown how to handle them from the greatest teacher that walked the earth. Of course I am talking about Jesus! I am taken back to a certain passage about the disciples crossing the sea and in the midst of a "storm".

They where out sailing just like any other day. Most of them where very capable of doing this, because most of them where fishermen! As they where sailing God caused a GREAT "storm" to occur! As the storm increased in power and force, they began to freak out with every passing minute! The disciples started bailing water out by the bucket full’s! Can you imagine the "storm" God caused!? It wasn't just a little rain and a little wind here and there. It was so intense the ship was rocking, waves were crashing, the men trying to hold on to anything for fear of going over board. Yet, in the midst of all this, there is Jesus down in the bottom of the boat sleeping VERY soundly. So much so that the disciples had to shake Him to wake him up! He was sleeping so soundly because He knew He was safe. He was secure in His Fathers hands and that nothing, I mean nothing, would happen to Him that the Father wouldn't allow. All Jesus had to do was speak the words "PEACE be still" and all was a calm glassy sea once again. As it is said in the scripture "the peace of God that transcends ALL understanding". Meaning no one can understand the peace of God unless they have literally been consumed by His peace. Jesus is the ultimate example of what we should do when "storms" or hard times come up in our lives.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding but in ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths STRAIGHT Proverbs 3:5-6. This verse has been a real encouragement to me personally. I really didn’t know in my heart what it meant to trust In the Lord with ALL my heart, till we started walking though this journey. The more I walk and talk with Him the more He tells me the way in which I should go. God has been and always will be my source of strength. So when times are "tough", Stop for a minute and give it to God. He will direct your path. He is our comforter, and He is our strength.

That's all for now. Jon

Thinking on Thankfulness

Well Thanksgiving got away from me this year and I didn't have a chance to get this posted before then (I was doing the dinner at my house for 17 family members, so I was a little busy).

As thanksgiving comes around every year we are reminded to remember the things we are Thankful for. It is a time to reflect on all God has given us and done for us and a time to turn our eyes upon the things they should be turned to all the time, however we get set in our "lives" and often forget just how much we have to be thankful for. I have so many things and I just wanted to share a few of them with all of you. So here they are, 15 things I am SO thankful for. (This list really could go on for miles...but I though I might loose you if it got much longer than this...lol)

1.My God! We serve such an awesome and mighty God and I am so proud to call Him MINE!

2.My husband! This could get long describing how wonderful he is, but I will simply leave it at the fact that God knew exactly who my husband would be long before I ever knew and I am so grateful he picked Jon – I couldn’t have dreamt of anyone better!

3.My children…ALL of them! The ones I have right here, that I get to look into their big beautiful blue eyes, kiss their sweet faces and whip the remaining dinner from their lips. As well as the ones who are all ready with Jesus just waiting for me to get there! And of course my precious Israel who is all ready my miracle baby!

4.My sister! God might have made us sisters but we have chosen to be best friends. She is so many things to me and I literally could not imagine my life without her!

5.My family! Everyone of them! Whether they are blood related or not, they are my family and I love each of them so much!

6.My health! I am praising God for my health!

7.Prayer! God has shown himself over and over again simply through the use of prayer and it’s amazing!

8.Flowers! One of my favorite things! Also a reminder of how God thought of me when he was creating the world! He is so thoughtful like that!

9.Laughter! One of my favorite things on earth!

10.Friends! Where would I be without them?

11.Tears! For the good times and the sad, tears are a form of expressing emotion and a powerful one at that. Something happens when you just let go and let it all out.

12.Smiles! It is true that a smile can really change things! Just try it...I dare ya!

13.Creativity! God gave me a spirit of creativity and I love it! I love being creative in so many different ways, something just for fun, sometimes to express something.

14.Music! God knew what he was doing when he created music! He knew we would use it to bring glory to his name and as a way to have an intimate relationship with Him. It is one of my favorite ways to spend time with my Jesus.

15.Photography! I so enjoy capturing that special moment in time and being able to remember it years later as I look back at an old picture. These are one of the many things that tell our "story" for years to come.

* Prayer *

Obviously we believe in the power of prayer. It is something I have talked about in this blog since the beginning. In the bible it actually says "Pray without ceasing" meaning PRAY ALWAYS! We have been in prayer for healing in our little baby's life and we know most of you have too, and for this we are so thankful! Since our next doctor appointment is just a week away and we are believing God to do a miracle in Israel's life, we have decided to have a prayer time the night before our appointment. We are opening this up to anyone and everyone who wants to join us. We will be meeting at Salem House of Prayer (S.H.O.P.) here is Salem OR on Tuesday December 2nd from 6:00-8:00. We will be meeting in the "Israel Room" How cool is that? Ok now they named this room after Israel Jerusalem, but non the less, we feel it has significance for our little guy too. Please feel free to just drop by and soak in God's goodness and lift up Israel in your prayers. We would feel honored to have any of you there with us as we continue believing God to show His hand in our little guy's life. Now we know many of you are not close by, so if you would like to join us from your home or where ever you are we would consider it a privilege just the same!

S.H.O.P. Is located in the heart of downtown Salem.
260 Liberty St NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-589-9176
You can look it up on MapQuest if you need directions and to see a map, or feel free to contact us for directions or help too. Parking is kind of a challenge, so just know that a head of time. There will be a prayer "Set" going on at this same time (It is actually Jon's group-however he won't be participating in it this time so he can pray with us) so feel free to take time and enter in to God's presence with them as they pray and worship as well. Thank you all again for your MANY MANY prayers! We pray Blessing upon you and your loved ones as well. Hope to see you there!

Update

Many of you have been asking for an update, so I thought I would give you one :-)

There is no update...lol. Meaning we don't know anything more. For right now, it is just "wait and see". There isn't anything we can do at this time, except pray and see what God does at the next doctor visit. Our next appointment is on Wednesday December 3rd in the early afternoon. At this time we will have another ultrasound as well as an appointment with our new doctor (Yeah!). From here we will see what the next steps are, if there are any.

A HUGE Thank you to all of you who are continuing to keep little Israel and our family in your prayers. You are amazing people and you have NO idea how much you bless us! We can literally feel your prayers and the comfort and peace of God and it is amazing! Just knowing there are so many people praying is an indescribable feeling. We appreciate your faithfulness! Thank you also, for all of your comments, notes, e-mails, phone calls etc. They have been so encouraging! I am always so blessed when I get on here and see a sweet comment someone has left or check my in-box and read a new e-mail from one of you. My love language is words of affirmation, so you have no clue how loved I feel through all of this!

We love you all and Thank God for you every day! We will keep you posted on any new details.

Wordless Wednesday

(Ok...so I know the title says "Wordless" and from now on it will be, however I just wanted to explain what that means for those of you who might not know) Wordless Wednesday is where you simply post a picture and nothing else. The picture speaks for itself, no words needed. So, with that being said...here is my first Wordless Wednesday Post.

A Journey…long before we knew it (Part 2)

(Continuing the story of how Israel came into our life)

So after all the joy and excitement of learning how God changed my husband heart we got pregnant right away! I was overjoyed! I went into my doctors office for a confirmation of the “facts” and she told me that yes indeed I was pregnant! HOORAY! We were trying to figure out how to tell everyone. I love surprises and I love surprising people. Plus no one knew we were trying for another child so this was going to be a great surprise no matter what! We had only known we were pregnant for a few days before we received devastating news…I was miscarrying…*ouch* my heart hurt! I wept as my heart longed for this child. I had to trust that God knew what He was doing, even though I couldn’t make any sense of it! My husband and I both grieved. However I am so thankful for our relationship that we could lean upon one another for strength as well as upon the Lord.

A bit of time passed, and we once again were overjoyed with the news that I was pregnant again! We started scheming of how we would tell our family and friends. I made shirts for Rachel and Jaxon that read “Big Sister” and "Big Brother” We presented the shirts to them…and it took them a while. Rachel is all ready a big sister so she didn’t get the “news” at first. Then she read Jaxon’s shirt and was confused. We then shared with them that there was a baby in Mommy’s tummy. They were beyond excited. It was a beautiful surprise. We told our friends and family by showing them Rachel & Jaxon’s shirts as well. Everyone was so genuinely excited for us and it was a fun time.

The pregnancy progressed with no problems. I always said I was made to be pregnant because I love it! My body handles it wonderfully. I never get sick, in fact I forget I am even pregnant for the first few months before I am showing because I don’t have any of the “usual” pregnancy signs. It's wonderful!

I love knowing what I am going to name my children WAY in advance! I can’t stand not knowing, I just have to know what their name will be! I started reading through baby name books. We found a few girls names right away that we loved, so no problem there. But a boy’s name…oh that was terrible! I didn’t like any of them! I mean some of them were “ok” but nothing that stood out to us. I was having such a hard time with this. Jon mentioned that maybe we should pray about it. Oh…what a good idea…I hadn’t thought of that yet. So we prayed, separately. One morning I woke up and felt a name was placed on my heart. But the name wasn’t a “normal” name…Jon likes the more simple traditional names and this name was not one of those. Oh boy I thought…not so sure Jon’s going to go for this one. So when Jon came home I asked him if he had been praying about a name. He said yes and that he felt like God had given him a name today. Ok, lets hear it I thought. He responded with the name Israel. *WHAT!* No way! That was the exact name that God had placed on my heart that morning. I couldn’t believe it! It was very exciting and we felt so good about it. We never felt like a girls name was given to us there were just ones we liked. Keep in mind, we didn’t yet know whether we were having a boy or a girl yet. Although…I think this was God’s way of telling us it was a boy.

His middle name we had decided on long ago. We like for our children's middle name to be after someone significant in their life (Rachel Anne - Anne is my middle name. Jaxon Jon - Jon is obviously my husbands name). David is one of Jon's brother's names. It was his closest brother in age and one of his closest brothers growing up. David is also part of Jon's "Life Change" name. (This is a long story for those of you who don't know what Life Change is, but basically God gave Jon this name in addition to the name his parents gave him. That's the super condensed version. Maybe I will blog about it some day). Anyway, David has a wonderful meaning (Beloved, Lover of all, A man after God's own heart). So thus the name Israel David was born :-)

***More to come in part 3***

A Journey…long before we knew it (Part 1)

Israel has been on God’s heart long before we knew of him. God has had a divine plan for this little boys life from the beginning…let me share the story with you that I am talking about.

I have always wanted to have 4 children. After we had our first two, Jon decided that we had one boy and one girl and that was all we really needed. I bugged him, pestered him and I am sure at times drove him crazy with asking him when we were going to have more children! I prayed about it and asked God to change Jon’s heart. Finally when Jaxon, our youngest, was three I decided I couldn’t keep holding onto baby items anymore. I had saved EVERYTHING! Literally! All of Rachel & Jaxon’s clothes, the crib, changing table, high chair…seriously everything! The attic was full and we were running out of room fast! I asked Jon for the last time if he thought there was any chance we were going to have more children and he reassured me we were not. My heart sank, further than it had in times past. I prayed and asked God to please change my heart because this was such a hard thing for me. I completely gave God this whole situation, my heart, my dreams, everything! My heart longed for more children, but I knew my marriage was the first priority for me and it was not worth arguing with my husband about it any more. I got rid of all of our baby items! Everything except for a few special items from each child. I cried as I went through the tubs of clothes and reminisced about my sweet children being that small and how I would never get to put these clothes on another one of my children. My heart was sad knowing I would never carry a child in my womb again, never have the opportunity to give birth to another beautiful baby. Non the less, I continued on with the process of clearing everything out, hoping somehow it would help my heart to stop aching for more children.

It was almost one year later, to the date, that Jon came home from work as he did every day. But this day was different. Jaxon and I were sitting together and I will never forget what Jon said. He looked a Jaxon and said “Would you like to have a little brother or sister?” Now for those of you who don’t know Jon all to well…he is joking with what he says about 85% of the time…for real! He loves to kid around and tease people about everything! So when he said this I responded with “No Jon, you can’t joke about this! It isn’t fair to Jaxon to get him excited about something he can’t have. And You CANNOT joke around about something like this with me! It isn’t funny Jon!” He commented back with, “What if I am not kidding?” I asked Jaxon to leave the room and Jon and I talked. He shared with me how Gad had changed his heart on the idea of having more children, and that he did want to have more! I was shocked…and so surprised! It is amazing what happened when you “Let Go, and Let God” This is a phrase I have lived by for years and it was so exciting to see it come to, with this situation as well.

That’s not all…oh no…there is more…but that will have to wait until another day…I have to give you something to look forward to :-) (Plus if I kept going this post would take up the whole page, and then some!)

Not Just Israel

Now that you have gotten a chance to meet Israel, I thought that maybe you should meet the rest of us too. There are more people to this family than just our sweet little Israel 

Jon –The Dad
He is my best friend, the love of my life, an amazing father, wonderful friend, confident warrior for God. Together we own and operate our own business out of our home. This came as a huge blessing to us this past January and we have been loving every minute of it. It is a blinds and window coverings business. Jon does the sales, installation and repairs. He Loves to bow hunt, play video games and spend time with family and friends.

Becca – The Mom
That’s ME! I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a warrior princess for God. I love life! I enjoy being busy, but in a good way. I always have something going on. When I am not doing the office side of our business or homeschooling our children, I love to bake, scrapbook, go for walks, shop just for fun, watch reality TV shows and be with those I love.

Rachel (6) – The Big Sister
She is a beauty queen, a dancing star, a loyal friend, the center of attention, a go getter, a lover, a true princess. She is our Rachel girl. She is so full of life and of energy. She loves being creative, weather that means doing art projects or making up dances. She plays soccer and takes piano lessons. She loves to be with people and would do just about anything you are doing if it meant she could spend time with you.

Jaxon (4) – The Big Brother
He is a boys boy, a busy bee, a thinker, a comedian, an imagination gone wild, the twinkle in my eye, my little man. He is our little Jaxon boy. His heart is so big and so full of love. He loves to use his imagination and become anyone (or anything) he can come up with. He plays soccer and takes piano lessons as well. He is sweet and gentle and sensitive too.

Paris & Zoe – The furry members of our family 
We love dogs  Paris is our 5 lb Miniature Pinscher Zoe is our 50 lb Weimaraner They are an extension of our family and very well loved. They are full of energy and we often refer to as our “neurotic dogs” because they can be so crazy sometimes, but we love them!

YES!

PRAISE GOD! I called the doctors office on Monday, and were able to get in with the doctor we were wanting to see. THANK YOU to all of you who were praying specifically for this! I feel so good about it and am really looking forward to meeting him and working with him through this process. This is just another way of God showing himself through all of this. We cannot wait to see what God is going to do next!

Thank you again to all of you who pray for Israel and our family, IT IS making a difference! We love you!

(Sorry this is so short, it's been a crazy week all ready!)

No Coincidence

I don’t believe in coincidence or even chance. I believe that everything happens for a reason and that many of the things that happen to us are directed by God. I always find it funny when people say things like “What are the chances of running into you here?” or “Wow what a coincidence”. Instead I think things like “WOW God, you knew I needed to see them today didn’t you?” or “I wonder why God crossed our paths today?”.

This is what happened to me last night. We were at church for the Saturday evening service. The worship leader is a long time dear friend of ours. He is newly married to his wife whom I don’t know all to well yet. In fact I have only met her once. But in that one time of meeting her I had felt a real connection with her. Last night when I saw her singing on stage a thought came across my mind, ”You need to talk to her, see if she has heard Israel’s story yet.” For me, it is still hard to tell people the story at times. I don’t just go around telling everyone everything. I am still emotional and often don’t feel like I can just talk about it as if it were just another piece of news. Non the less, when the service was done, I sought her out and found her. I chit chatted at first, but caught myself and got to the point. I asked her if she had heard the news on our baby. She said she hadn’t. I then shared the story of all we had learned about Israel this past week. She listened intently and said this to me. “My granddaughter is a miracle baby herself”. She shared with me the story of how God healed her little granddaughter when doctors said she was dying. It was amazing! Wow I thought! A miracle indeed! She continued on to ask me if we needed a good Perinatalogist (A doctor who specializes in high-risk & abnormal pregnancies). I haven’t talked about this in our blog yet, but to make a long story short, the Perinatalogist we saw basically told us in a few more word then this, that we should just terminate the pregnancy because our baby would have a hard life. She was very unsupportive our of decision to NOT do that and didn’t have much to say to us after we told her our decision was to keep the baby. With this being said, we did want a new doctor. One who would support us in our decision to keep our baby and encourage us in every way he could. My friend continued on to tell me about the doctor her daughter saw for her perinatal care and it turns out it is a doctor in the same practice as the one we had seen. I was thrilled to hear this because I can choose any doctor in the office that I want! She ended with saying this to me, “It isn’t chance that we are in one another’s lives and that we are having this conversation. Little Israel is going to touch so many people’s lives and I just can’t wait to see it!”

NOPE! That was NO coincidence that we had that conversation. I thank God that He had His hand in making that conversation happen. I feel excited to see a new doctor, one who was recommended to me, not just a name I had to pick off a list.

PRAYER - Please pray that when I call the office on Monday that there will be no problem getting in with this new doctor and that he will be the perfect fit for our family.

*Still Learning* (A side note)

Ok, so I really am new to this whole "Blogging" thing and have so much to learn! (I look at some of my friends blogs and am blown away at how detailed and beautiful they are! I will get there some day :-)

But for now, I know that I mentioned something in my first post about signing up to get e-mails when I update my blog. I realized that the link that many of you signed up for is really only useful if you actually have a blog yourself that you sign into and check. At which point it would inform you of my latest blogs. Not very helpful for most of you!

So with that being said, I consulted my very blogger savvy friend and she helped me out (Thanks Erica!). So here's what you do :-)

If you would like to sign up to automatically get an e-mail every time I make a new post (Meaning you don't have to check my blog every day, it will check it for you...how cool is that?!) Here are the steps to do it (I made them very detailed for those of you who want all the details)

On the right hand side of this blog there is something that says
"Get an e-mail every time I publish a new post!"
Below this is a place to enter your e-mail address, do so and then click on the button below that which says "Get e-mail updates"
This will direct you to another page.
Here you will confirm your e-mail address is entered correctly and enter a little code listed on the page.
It will send an e-mail to the e-mail address you entered.
Go to that e-mail and click on the link that says
"Click here to activate your account"
It will then bring up a new web page confirming your subscription to "The Journey Of Israel"
And your done! :-)

Wow...got all that? :-) Anyway, I think you will find this to be a much more helpful and effective tool in getting updates on our blog and learning more about our Journey.

Thank you to all of you who care so much about our family and our sweet baby boy. We are blessed by you!

Beautiful Boy

Now that you have had a chance to hear about Israel’s story, it only seems fitting that I share with you a picture of just how beautiful he is! This is an ultrasound picture we got from one the two different appointments we had. They were very sparing in the amount they gave us and honestly most of them look the same, so I will just post one.

I present to you, Israel David, at 20 weeks gestation:

God knows our needs

WOW! Seriously, wow! Today has been an amazing day. I have been flooded with e-mails, blog comments, text messages, phone calls etc. all day from amazing friends and family and some people I don’t even know. All of them with nothing but encouraging words to say. Thank you seems like such a generic way to express the way I am feeling about all of you. But on the less, THANK YOU! I stand in awe at the amazing people God has brought into my life, weather by family or by friend or by some other way. I Praise God for knowing just what I needed today to get me through the day. I kid you not, every time I sat down at my computer there was a new note from someone saying just what I needed to hear. I hope you all know just how much you have blessed me and my family by all of your encouraging, kind words and generous prayers. God is so good! I have heard from many that they passed our story along to people in their church, their bible study, the prayer chain at their church etc. and this blesses us more then you could even begin to know. Just the thought that literally thousands of people are praying for Baby Israel and our family is such a comfort. I know that God hears each and every prayer and I am so encouraged by the thought of how many prayers He is hearing for Israel and our family. We are believing in faith that God will hear our prayers and heal our baby completely! We serve an awesome God and He continues to reveal Himself to me in new ways every day.

THANK YOU GOD FOR MY FAMILY, FRIENDS AND PARTNERS IN PRAYER!

The Journey Begins

On a great day in July, we got wonderful news, we learned that WE WERE EXPECTING OUR THIRD CHILD! Praise God! What a miracle! We were so excited! I (Becca) had been praying for this child for years, so hearing this was good news indeed! We told our Rachel & Jaxon, as well as our family and friends. I had gone in for all the regular check-ups and even for an early ultrasound, and everything was going great! We began to plan and prepare (With much excitement!) for this baby to join our family.

At 20 weeks along, we went in for our routine ultrasound appointment. This is a day we had been anticipating the whole time! We had decided NOT to find out the gender of the baby. We wanted it to be a surprise :-) Jon, Rachel, Jaxon and of course myself all went in for the ultrasound. We were all so overjoyed to see this tiny baby moving around on the screen. The technician was brief in her talking about the ultrasound as she is not allowed to share information regarding the baby with us. She completed the exam, we got our pictures and home we went.

A few hours later I received a call from my Mid-Wife. My heart dropped when I saw her name on the caller id as I knew the old phrase "No news is good news" and that is also pertained to ultrasounds. She shared some devastating news with me that I never in a million years dreamt I would hear. She said there were some problems with the baby and that I would need to go see a specialist immediately for further testing. She continued on to tell me what the problems were with our baby. She said that the baby had no left arm or hand, no right arm or hand, no right leg or foot and a small partial left leg but no foot. She also shared that there seemed to be some problems with the baby's heart as well as with it's head. She continued by telling me that I also had complete placenta previa (Meaning the placenta was completely over the cervix, this can cause some problems as well as it requires a c-section at the time of delivery). WOW! What did you just say? I must be dreaming right? This is just a very bad dream and I am sure to wake up soon! Nope! It wasn't a dream at all. It was real! I was in shock.

I had an appointment scheduled for the following day to see a specialist where they would do a more extensive ultrasound, as well as an echocardiogram followed by a consultation with the doctor. Jon and I (As well as others we had told) prayed all night long as well as the whole day before our appointment. We went into this appointment feeling every emotion possible. As the technician was performing the ultrasound he looked at many things and took many measurements and notes. He was wonderful at providing us with tons of information as he did the ultrasound and we felt very "in the know"...well as much as we could anyway. He then made a comment and this is what he said "Ok, I am now going to move on and look at the extremities and take measurements of those." I almost felt offended as he said this as we knew there really were no extremities, except a partial leg. He moved the ultrasound "thing" to a bone. I assumed this was the one leg bone. He typed in the screen above the bone "Right Arm". I looked at Jon then at the technician and said "Are you saying that's an arm?" He replied with "Yes, and here is the rest of the right arm". He continued on to show a full right arm (However with an absent hand), a partial left arm (Also with an absent hand), a full right leg (With an absent foot) and a partial left leg (With an absent foot). I was stunned! During the ultrasound we also learned that my placenta was in a different place! I no longer had Complete Placentia Previa! I would be able to deliver naturally with no need for a c-section. We also learned that the baby's heart was completely fine! WOW! Praise God was all I could say!

Before we went in for this ultrasound, Jon and I had decided we did want to know the gender of the baby. We wanted to be able to call it by name and make this experience more personal. So during the ultrasound we learned that this wiggly little person inside my womb is a little BOY! We had a name picked out long ago (That God had given us) and so he will be called Israel David.

After the ultrasound was said and done we met with the doctor. She shared with us about a new problem we did not know of before. The baby's...um I mean Israel's chin was recessed. Meaning it was pushed back and not in line with his upper jaw. The long and short of that means there could be long term problems for him after he is born. He may not be able to breath through his mouth. If that were the case a traciastomy would need to be put in and surgery preformed so he could breath on his own. However this will not be able to be determined until birth.

So what does all of this mean? THAT WE SERVE A GOD WHO IS SO MUCH BIGGER THAN ALL OF THIS! If in one night of praying God created limbs on this precious child, completely fixed his heart, and moved my Placentia...WOW what could he do in the next 4 1/2 months?!?!

We are praying (And ask you to please join with us in prayer!) that God would just completely heal this baby! That every arm, leg, hand and foot would be complete! That the chin would realign and that he would be a normal healthy baby.

We have another ultrasound scheduled for 1 month from now. We will keep you updated and informed along the way. There is a place on this blog to sign up to automatically get an e-mail every time I post a new entry or you can just check back from time to time.

WE SERVE A BIG GOD WHO CAN DO ANYTHING! WE ARE BELIEVING FOR THIS MIRACLE TO HAPPEN IN OUR PRECIOUS LITTLE ISRAEL.

All our love, Becca (And the rest of the family too Jon, Rachel & Jaxon)