Faith

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." -Hebrews 11:1

We were asked a question in our Life Group today... how would we describe what we believe about God? Responses included "He is sovereign", "He loves me", "He is in control", "He knows what's best for me", etc.  When something bad happens to others, we hear similar ideas... "Everything happens for a reason", "It's all part of God's plan", "It's for the greater good".  My response was that I didn't really know how to articulate it in to one word or phrase.

A skeptic or a cynic might say something very different... "If there's a God, that wouldn't happen" or "How could a loving God allow that happen?"  On the heels of a second miscarriage, I can say that my mind has not gone there, and I pray it won't.  I haven't found myself angry or in question of the reasoning behind any of it.  But when it seems to be such a common occurrence, between other family and friends, and there are so many people dealing with similar or worse issues, I have found my mind wandering to dark places, allowing questions in like "What if this whole thing isn't true?",  "What if it's all for not?", "What if it all really is all just chance and circumstance?"

In Philippians 1:21-23 Paul talks about "...to live is Christ, and to die is gain..."  That sounds real awesome and inspiring, and all those phrases about "God's plan" and "He's in control" sound fantastic until I get punched in the stomach by life.  The pill doesn't go down quite so smoothly, and if I'm not careful, dark thoughts from a dark power allow me to go to dark places in my mind.  For me, these thoughts have only creeped, and I have not allowed them to take root, mostly through prayer.  Our pastor preached 1 Peter 1:13 today, "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."  A few of his points around this verse focused on how we are to protect our minds from distractions and hindrances.  We have to work hard to prevent the pressures of life from clouding our focus.

I have yet to experience a time when faced with doubt, struggle, or temptation, where I stopped and prayed for reassurance or a way out, that God did not respond in some way.  I'll give two examples from this week directly related to our current circumstance.  First, after the first miscarriage in October, we were very moved and very encouraged by this video, which we have watched many, many times...



In case you didn't watch the video, the scripture at the very end is Psalm 73: 25-26, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."  This past Wednesday, as we were getting ready to go to the hospital, I clicked on biblegateway.com to see what the verse of the day was and it just so happened to be Psalm 73: 25-26.  Some might say it was just a coincidence.  Maybe.  Later that morning, a friend sent me a text of encouragement and suggested that I read 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10.  It's long so I won't type the whole thing, but in verse 9, the Lord tells Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." And Paul goes on to say in verse 10, "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."  I find great comfort and reassurance in these words.  I read this passage with Em and her sister and we prayed together for it to be made so in us.  I've been listening to a lengthy sermon series on Ephesians from 2003 in my car.  I listened to the first 4 parts last week and didn't listen again until this Thursday when I went back to work.  In part 5, the pastor preached 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 as part of his sermon.  It blew my flipping mind and immediately relieved any doubts or uncertainty that were tempting me.  I can not, do not, and will not believe that it was just a coincidence... just chance and circumstance.  I believe it was His subtle, or not-so-subtle, way of whispering "I'm here... and I know... don't lose heart."

I do not believe that God made this happen.  I do believe he allowed it to happen.  Suffering comes in all shapes and sizes.  And when it comes, we have a choice.  We can get mad and shake our fists at God and say "how dare you?!" or "I don't believe in you!"... or we can put our faith in the idea that "He is sovereign", "He loves me", "He is in control", and "It's all part of God's plan".  Our pastor said it well this morning, "We are not at the mercy of anything in this world because we have hope in Christ."  That same faith that is so strong when things are going well has to hold up when things go badly, or it stops being faith.  The bible is very clear that following Christ will likely involve suffering.  Just ask the disciples.  When I am struggling with doubts, questions, uncertainty because of suffering that just doesn't make sense, He is always faithful to reassure.  It sounds cheesy and cliche to say that, but I've experienced far too many things in my own life and in the lives of others to write it off as coincidence.  It's been a tough week, and we have certainly had better ones.  But our faith is not shaken.  God is good, even when things are bad.  We may never understand why this happened, and we don't know what the future holds.  We aren't promised anything.  We're not promised tomorrow morning.  But our faith is in the promise of something better to come, and so I think my answer to the Life Group question would be that I believe there is no way it's all just chance and circumstance.  And Emily and I will continue to do our best to be faithful in both good times and bad.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." - Colossians 3:17

It's Thursday morning, Thanksgiving Day 2010.  But this year, it feels very different.  We always celebrate Thanksgiving with my side of the family and Christmas with Emily's side, but this year, we are going solo. I think this is the first time that I've ever been away from my family on Turkey Day.  This is Em's year in the holiday rotation at work so we were unable to go to the Woodlands with the Koelling clan.  And with Mom's move to Oregon, we didn't have a lot of options.  So as I sit here watching Abbott eat breakfast while Em is at work, it really just feels like another day.  But I am determined to get in the holiday spirit and make it feel like Thanksgiving for us at home and I thought a good way to kick off the holiday cheer might be to write some things that I'm thankful for, so here goes.

First of all, if you're reading this, I hope you don't hear me complaining or pitying myself.  It's just a little different and a little weird.  I'm so thankful for all of my family and the fact that everyone is getting to celebrate together in some form or fashion.  I'm particularly thankful that Mom is spending Thanksgiving with Charlie and the rest of her family up in the northwest.  I'm so thankful that Em and I both have good jobs, even if they do keep us from doing what we want from time to time.  I'm so thankful that we have a roof over our heads and a way to get from point A to point B.  I'm thankful for the freedoms and the luxuries we have in this country.  I'm thankful for the fact that we don't have to worry, at least for now, about if and what we are going to eat or whether or not Abbott is going to be provided for.

I'm thankful for my friends, of which I have many.  Many of my best friends have been so since elementary school and remain so to this day.  And many of my best friends I've gained along the way.  I'm thankful for my family.  Despite my parents' divorce, they managed to instill in us the values, morals, and wisdom that we have today.  And because of that, I remain very close with my brother and sister and, despite all the turmoil, we've somehow managed to keep our heads on straight and work together with Mom and Dad to keep this family together despite it's division.  I'm thankful that even though they couldn't work things out between them, they loved us enough to "raise us right" as my brother-in-law, Hudson, would say.  I'm thankful for Emily and her family, because in the last decade they have been a source of stability for me when things weren't really stable on my end.  I love them all so very much and am proud to call them my family.

I am so thankful for my beautiful wife and my precious daughter.  And I am so thankful to the Lord for the blessings He has showered on my life through them.  Emily is such an amazing strength in this marriage and family.  She does so much and gives so much of herself that I marvel at times.  Anyone that knows me knows exactly what I'd be doing if I had to work today, tomorrow, and over the weekend.  It wouldn't be pretty.  Yet I haven't heard, or even detected, a single hint of negativity or complaint from Emily.  She's much better at removing her wants and needs from most equations than I am.  And she's such an amazing mother.  Watching her with Abbott makes me love her a little more every time.  I'm so thankful for my Fridays off with Abbott, but it ain't a cake walk by any stretch.  And for Em and all you other mothers that stay home with the kid(s) on a more frequent basis... wow!  Anyone that would talk down at being a stay at home mom has absolutely no concept of the hard work it is.  I'm thankful for wives and moms, and if any of you men out there haven't taken a minute to reflect on all the hard work they do while we are sitting on the couch, or at work, or doing "guy stuff", you should do it now.  It's the perfect day for it!

Watching Abbott grow up, especially at this phase in life, is like watching an ongoing daily miracle.  I'm probably a little biased here (just a little), but she is so smart.  She catches on so quickly and she's so sweet and playful.  Not the biggest cuddler, which has been hard on Daddy, but we have our moments.  She is so expressive and funny, and slightly dramatic... I can't imagine where she got such qualities.  It's kind of like here blond hair and blue eyes... what in the world is that all about?!  Being a father is such a blessing.  She has added so much joy to a life, marriage, and family that already had it's fair share.  I hope and pray that we will have more children.  And I would love to have a son some day.  But having a little girl makes me kind of want more little girls.  It's weird what happens to a man when a daughter arrives on the scene.  I'm thankful for my girls, and I love being able to say "my girls".

I'm very thankful for our church family.  We joined our church a few years ago but have only started getting plugged in in the last several months.  A door was opened up for us to get involved with the college ministry and it has been quite a blessing.  And I'm thankful for Mary, the leader of the college ministry who is opening her home this afternoon to us and a handful of college students so that we can all spend Thanksgiving in fellowship with friends and loved ones.  I'm thankful for TURKEY BALL (if you don't know, you should find out!).  And I'm thankful for awesome traditions like Turkey Bowling (because my family is awesome!).  And yes, we will be passing the tradition along this afternoon, as Emily has obtained a set of bowling pins from the bowling alley.  Pins, check.  Tarp, check.  Frozen turkey, check.  Awesometown, check.

I very much believe that all of these things that I have to be thankful for are made possible only by the grace of God.  I am so thankful that because of what happened on the cross, I have been given the gift of grace, and through faith I can have hope in something greater than all of these things.  I've had very few real trials in my life, but I'm not promised 5 minutes from now and I'm so thankful that no matter what happens, no matter how the tides may turn, no matter which way the wind blows, my hope and my faith and my fate don't terminate here on earth.  I stumble and stray more than not, but the beauty of grace is that I don't have to run away from God and clean myself up.  I can press in to Him and keep trudging forward with an assurance like no other.  Grace and mercy are hard to wrap your head around sometimes, but unmerited favor in the eyes of God is a powerful thing to be thankful for and I probably don't thank Him enough.

"Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.  For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God." - 2 Corinthians 4:13-15

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Thank you very much if you took the time to read this.

GOBBLE GOBBLE!

So 3 Months Later...

WARNING! This is ridiculously long. I've been doing this post for 4 days. It's tough to stay motivated when the browser crashes every time you try to upload multiple pics. Oh well, it's done now. Hope you enjoy it, if you make it all the way to the end! Also, I'm fully aware of the shameless self-indulgence exemplified by the absurd number of pictures... and I'm ok with it. Have fun scrolling. Here goes...

"For this child I prayed..." -1 Samuel 1:27

It's hard to believe that it has been 3 months since my last post, which means it is also hard to believe that Abbott is 3 months old! Where to begin, where to begin? How about this:

And now with a little more pizazz!

Before I proceed, let's get one thing straight... I'd be lying if I said I didn't go through my Limp Bizkit phase in college. Come on, you know you did too. However, I currently think they are one of the most terrible bands of all time, so that is in no way an endorsement of Durst and Co. That said, the song seemed appropriate.

So a lot has happened in the past 3 months, and Abbott is changing every day. Perhaps I'll summarize each month separately.

August:

We spent most of the first month home just getting used to having an additional family member. Fortunately adjustments were minimal because Abbott was a pretty easy baby right out of the gate. Our main focus was trying to get a pattern established and letting Em get as much rest as possible. We had many visitors and Abbott got to meet lots of friends and family. Kyle and Julie stopped by, and Gwendolyn came to visit for a few days. So did Mason, Amber, Anna Kate, and Grace. We got to see Nana and Papoo, Moninny, and Poppy and Dovey as well. Charlie, Oriana and Clare and Kyle were also here for a few days. It was the first time that I've seen my brother since May of 2007 and we finally got to meet Oriana! We had a blast with them just hanging around the house and playing some serious Wii Disc Golf. Here are a few pics from August... just a few.

September:

A very eventful month. We didn't get to go on the annual Gulf Shores trip this year, seens how the baby was only 2 weeks old. However, Hudson, Melissa, and the kids met us back down there over Labor Day weekend and we had a blast. And Abbott did great on the 8 hour car trip, which actually ended up being about 11 hours! Both ways! Around 1 month, she really started being responsive, cooing a lot and smiling at us and to our voices. She also started tolerating a little tummy time, but only a little. She experienced her first football Sunday with Dad too. Oh, and lets not forget that first round of shots. That was not fun. Em and Abbott took a little road trip to Crossett one week and then I met them with Nana and Papoo in Hot Springs for the weekend. Abbott got to go out on the barge, but she pretty much hated her life vest. The picture should explain why. Here are some more pics from the month... just a few.

October:
This has been the least eventful month since Abbott arrived, yet it has still managed to be a blast. Of course, how can every single second not be an absolute blast when you have such an amazing, beautiful, perfect child? We haven't done much. We haven't gone anywhere. I spent a Sunday with Mom a few weeks ago for Family Day with her church and had a great time. She's been over a few times for dinner, which we've really enjoyed. Abbott loves to see her Moninny. We've spent a few Sundays with Chip and Kirsten for football. It's become tradition on the weekend when we're all in town. Dad and Deb came over one Saturday for a few hours as well. It's been really great for Abbott to get to spend so much time with all of her grandparents, on both sides. It's truly a blessing. Here are some pics from October so far. Marc and Dana are coming in on Friday for a long weekend. We are super excited! This will be their first time to meet Abbott. We'll post more pics afterwards... but just a few! Enjoy!

If you've managed to make it this far, then thanks for taking the interest. Now that I've proofread it, it actually isn't that long, there's just a lot of scrolling with all the pictures. Maybe it felt long because it took FOR-E-VER to get all the pictures uploaded and arranged. Ironic, since I decided against doing slideshows because they are so time consuming! We'll keep the updates coming, and it won't be 3 more months. I made a home page to serve as kind of a central hub for this blog, both of our Facebooks, and our MobileMe gallery. Feel free to bookmark it for quick access: www.emmyadam.com

PS-I just want to make it perfectly clear to all who read this how truly thankful I am for my beautiful wife and daughter. I don't know yet what God's will for my life is but He has, at the very least, given me a taste of what fulfillment is.

Wake Up, I'm Pregnant!

So it's been 3 months since my last post and a lot has happened in that time. I kept meaning to post some updates, but the longer I waited, the harder and more overwhelming it got. Leave it to a life altering event to provide me with the proper "kick in the pants" I needed to finally get after it. I know I tend to be wordy, and people have always said that I make a three ring circus out of everything... well, I have no intention to do anything different here.

It was Friday morning, November 7th, and I was asleep. Emily was up getting ready for work, which is typical. What was not typical was the way she kept asking me when I was getting up. I still had like an hour to sleep and she was all "hey when are you getting up?" "I'll get up in a little while." A few minutes passed... "so, when are you getting up?" "Babe, I'll get up in a few minutes." Another few minutes pass and she says "Hey, are you gonna get up?" "Seriously, how many times are you going to ask me that question?" Then the light comes on and I opened my eyes and saw this:


Then, after I rubbed my eyes, I saw this:


Needless to say, we are both very excited. Emily told her family pretty much right away because she knew that she wasn't going to see them until Christmas, but we waited and told my family over Thanksgiving. We told Dad and his wife Deborah, my sister Clare, and the Walkers (Dad's sister Debbie and her family) when they were here in Longview, and then we went and had brunch with Mom in Tyler and told her. My brother Charlie lives in Montana and we called him with the news. Everyone is very excited. This will be Emily's parents' NINTH grandchild, my parents' first, and my Aunt Debbie just became a grandmother too. In fact, she had just flown back from England where Abbey and Clark had Caleb.

It's been really fun over the past month as we gradually got to tell more and more people. We've definitely started the "preliminary" stuff. Our friends Marc and Dana just had their baby, Jake, in Phoenix and we visited them last weekend. Emily is doing great given the situation, although I don't think she tells me how she's really feeling most of the time. In her case, the whole "morning sickness" thing should just be called "sickness" because it seems to be pretty constant. She's a trooper though and isn't letting it keep her down too much. Last Thursday was her first official check-up with the baby doctor. I met her at the office and he came in and did his thing. After some questions and a little calculation, he said we were at about 8 1/2 weeks, when we were thinking it was more like 7 1/2. We weren't even sure if he was going to do an ultrasound, but he was all for it. When he gelled her up and put the transducer on her belly we could immediately see it. It looked like a little jellyfish and in the middle was the heartbeat, as clear as day. I've heard all the stories about how having a baby will change your life and I think I have a healthy respect for that concept, but nothing can explain the feeling I got when I saw that little thing fluttering away. Total joy and emotion. When I got to the doctor's office that day, I didn't even know if we were going to have an ultrasound, much less see a beating heart! What a surprise!

So here we are now, almost 9 1/2 weeks into pregnancy. It's so weird, because it seems like we just found out yesterday. I made a comment to a friend of mine tonight about how it was still pretty early, and he said "not really, you're almost through the first trimester, that's 1/3 of the way". WOW! Time really does fly by. July will be here before we know it. By the way, July 16th is the projected due date. My birthday is the 24th, so it should make for an exciting month. I told Emily she might have to hold out and have the baby on my birthday... she didn't like that idea. People keep asking me if I want a boy or a girl and my response is that I just want a healthy baby... and when he gets older he'll be the best big brother ever. Wait... um... I mean she'll make a great big sister. We'll know somewhere around 19 weeks when Em has her first full ultrasound. Until then, the doctor has said that everything looks 100% perfect and all we can do is pray that the baby continues a healthy development. We'll keep everyone posted on the latest goings on. Please keep Emily and the baby in your prayers.

Cyber Rose

I would have liked to post this earlier today but it was not possible. Today is September 18th, 2008, which means that Emily and I have been married for 6 years and 4 months. Isn't that adorable?! It's our month anniversary! (insert teardrops here) During our dating years and for the first few years of our marriage I religiously gave her a long-stem rose on our little "anniversaries". Not a huge deal, just something to make her feel special and let her know that I was thinking about her. I'm almost ashamed to say that my little tradition has all but fizzled. Well today I just wanted to something to show her and everyone else how much I love her. I can not imagine a better wife and friend. I'm a very lucky man so I thought I'd list some reasons why.

First I'll start with 5 things that I love about us and our relationship. 1) We share, or at least endure, many of the same interests. For example, I cried during The Notebook and P.S. I Love You... yeah, I said it... and she came with me to the 13-hour Lord of the Rings movie marathon and the midnight premiere of Indiana Jones. 2) We love spending time together, but have no problem doing our own thing. 3) We rarely argue, and if we do we always talk it through and it usually ends in laughter. 4) We share many of the same morals, beliefs, and opinions when it comes to religion, politics, discipline of our future children, etc. 5) We make each other laugh... a lot. We were sitting on the couch the other day and one of us said something that made us both laugh and Emily looked at me and said, "I'm so glad we're fun." I agree.

Now I'll list 5 things that I love about Emily. 1) She has the biggest, most amazing heart. Any of you that know her know what I'm talking about. Em always puts others before herself. A quality that many people, myself included, do not always possess. 2) She is an AMAZING cook! Which works great for me because I don't really like to cook and I'm not very good at it. 3) She is extremely supportive and always manages to cheer me up and help me see the positive side of things if I'm down. She is like this with friends and family as well. 4) She is freaking hilarious and has the best laugh of anyone I know. If you are around her when she laughs, you will instantly be in a good mood no matter what. 5) She is freaking gorgeous! Are you kidding me? Just look at the picture.


So there you have it. A handful of reasons why I feel very blessed. I guess this is my cyber rose to you this month. I love you Emily, happy mini-anniversary!

P90X Update.

Well, I originally intended to give an update on our P90X adventure every week but it hasn't really worked out for me. That doesn't mean that we haven't been getting after it though. Yesterday marked day 1 of week 7, which means that we are halfway through the program. I'm proud to say that we have not missed a workout yet... well, with the exception of yesterday. It was a 5 hour drive back from Brownwood and we didn't get home until almost 9pm. We were pretty exhausted and decided that since we are both off for Labor Day, we will do both workouts today. We've been very consistent (we even took it to Gulf Shores!) and since we won't actually be missing a workout, we agreed that this was acceptable and not "skipping".

As far as the program goes, here are some of my thoughts. P90X is the absolute real deal. It is intense, it is hard, and it is doable. You absolutely get out of it what you put in. The hardest part was making time the first week but now it is just part of our daily routine. We both enjoy it very much. I've never looked forward to getting up in the morning, or getting home from work in the evenings to work out. I think it is because of the results. I can feel the difference in my body, and see it in the mirror a little more every day. We both can. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Those of you that we've talked to about it, thanks for your support. I'll try to update a few more times before we're done and I'll for sure post at the end, maybe even some pics... if Em will let me! :) Now I'm going to bed because it's 1:30am and I have to get up early if I'm gonna hack it with Emily.

P90X-Week 1 Complete!

Emily and I started a workout program last Sunday called P90X. The name stands for Power 90 Extreme and it is 90 days of some of the most hard core exercise I've ever done. Em heard about it through a family friend in Crossett that has been doing it and is apparently getting major results. She has been talking about if for a few months but I was resistant to it at first because I didn't want us to spend the money on something that was just going to sit in the closet. After all, we all know how my Bowflex quickly became the Noflex! Not to mention, it's six days a week for at least an hour and, last time I checked, we have other stuff going on, like jobs, sleeping, breathing, etc. So when were we gonna have time to do it? But Em was pretty persistent and seemed really motivated so after some deliberation we ordered it online. I never really planned on doing it because I work out fairly regularly with a friend, but when we got it in the mail, I was pretty impressed. It's very high quality stuff. Guides, books, charts, "how-to's", recipes, workouts, DVDs... everything we would need to get started from an information standpoint. It's all home exercise so all we need is dumbells, bands, and a pull-up bar. We already had the bar and bands, so we just picked up some dumbells. After reading through everything with Em that first night, I got kind of excited too and we decided to do it together. Quite a committment, but a great way to keep each other motivated. We're following it to a T as much as we can, the workouts for sure. We're kind of doing our own thing on the nutrition side, but eating healthy and feeling great. Last Sunday was day 1 and we picked Saturdays as our "off" day. So yesterday we officially started week 2! I can honestly say that in a week's time, we both feel great and are already visibly noticing changes. The workouts are very intense, but in terms of time, we've just made it part of our daily routine and it hasn't been a big deal. We are both getting home each day, or getting up in the mornings, excited to pop in the next disc. Emily has been working really hard and is doing great. I'm really proud of her. I'm sharing this info, not to brag, but so that friends and family know what we're up to and can offer words of encouragement if they want. Every little bit counts. We'll keep you posted on our progress every now and then.