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12/13/06
So here is the interesting part of my life…



We are going to have a baby! We have been waiting all year long so that we would have a Sept07 baby. However, we got a bit carried away in our excitement to add on to the family so it turns out we will be having an August07 baby instead.

Having a large family, we have found that friends and strangers like to make stupid comments about our family size. People have wondered if we have figured out what keeps causing us to have more kids (yes, we have, and we enjoy it very much!). People like to let us know we have a big family (really? I hadn’t noticed). Sometimes people even wonder if it was an accident. Are babies ever an accident?

This is my fourth baby. There will be a total of six kids though, because I also raise my two step kids as my own. This will be our last baby. We are very excited!

12/12/06
I just finished up the fall term at school last week. Now I am enjoying a month off of school before going back full force next term to finish my degree. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it still seems so far away. I have high anxiety over the upcoming term because this is the most I have taken on so far, between work, school and family.

I realize this particular post is rather boring. I seem to be unable to achieve any real thought process at this time. I am exhausted and distracted at the moment, so this is the best I can do at the moment.

I promise, the next blog entry will actually be interesting. :-)

10/21/06
When was the last time you prayed for more than 5 minutes?
Hmm… It’s been quite awhile, to be honest. It’s not that I avoid praying. I usually have little snippets of prayer all day long. That is how I include God in my life; I take Him with me. But as far as having a really long, meaningful talk with Him, I am ashamed to say that I can’t remember the last time that happened. The only times I spend really extended amounts of time talking to God is when things are really bad. When I have really gotten myself into a deep hole, that is when I suddenly want to be close to God- so He will help me. Geez, how screwed up is that? What kind of a friend am I to only seek Him out when I need Him? And anyways, I always need him. It’s just that sometimes (usually) I think I can handle things on my own without having to go to Him and begging for his help.

Furthermore, I just explained how “I include God in my life”. Isn’t that a bit backwards? For “me to include Him in my life”, it infers that I am the one in control. Intellectually, I know that I am not the one in control. God is. But how do I turn that intellectual knowledge into heart knowledge? I don’t truly own that concept with all of my being, and I don’t know how to get to that place where I do.

I have trusted Him completely before. It was absolutely wonderful, and it worked out better that I could have ever done myself (duh…). I felt closer to him at that time than I ever have before or since. So why am I not still in that place? How on earth did I let myself start drifting again?

I guess on some level, I know the answer to that question. I haven’t been spending the time with Him that I should be. I have been spending much less time in the Word lately, and also less time in prayer. I need to start making myself read the bible every day again, and also make an effort to pray more.

I feel ashamed to say that I need to make myself spend more time with God. But it’s the truth. I owe it to Him and to myself.

9/4/06,
School is starting…YAY!!

The kids ALL start school tomorrow!! I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am! I’ve spent all summer longs with all five kids, and it has worn very thin. I am/was at the end of my rope; just a shred of sanity left. But now I will have a few days to live my life in peace while they are all in school.

Kaylee is starting “school” (daycare) for the first time ever. She will be 3 in October, so she will be put in the 3-5 year old class. She is very excited, since she thinks she is all grown up like the other kids now. I think I might be a little sad when it comes time to leave her at school. My baby is growing up!

I will be starting my internship on Friday even though my classes don’t start until September 25th. I should be able to get about half of my hours out of the way before I start school.

I love summer time, I also love all the changes and new beginnings that happen in the fall.

What's the Deal?
8/30/06

I don’t even know what is wrong. But something is wrong. I am so discouraged. Sad. Hopeless.

There have been some very stressful/sad times this summer. But I think I’m over that.

People/situations have unknowingly hurt me a little bit. It stings a little, but it’s the sort of thing where I just move on knowing to trust less and expect less. No biggie.

I have been mildly sick for nearly three weeks, but that’s just annoying- nothing to get upset over.

There are decisions to be made regarding housing, and a car. Sometimes my husband’s job stresses me out. Some of my kids drive me nuts. But again, this is just normal, everyday stuff.

So what the heck is wrong with me?? I actually found myself contemplating quitting school. If you know me, you would know that is completely off the wall. School isn’t even stressing me out. I haven’t been there for months. When I am there, I mostly love it. So why would I even think such a thing, when I am almost done earning my first degree?

I suppose it could be burnout from dealing with my kids all summer long while my husband works long hours. If so, that would be great, because they all go back to school next week. So I hope that is what my problem is.

I wish I could just feel normal and happy right now.

8/26/06 Clear as Mud

I want to post something in my blog. It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post, and I don’t want to leave my readers hanging (I have a big crowd of readers- probably upwards of 5). So I’m going through my journal to see what I have that could be posted. In addition to this picture that has nothing to do with my blog, several subjects catch my eye:

A cute story about one of my kids,

The gossip problem that is creeping into our church (yes, OUR church!),

My customer service experience that escalated to my openly yelling at the witch/manager while customers stopped to see the show,

My excitement and relief that the kids will be back in school in about a week

I don’t know… It's all either too boring or too in-depth.

I’ll just ramble about my feelings, I guess.

I feel some sort of emptiness. I don’t know why. I am relatively connected to God. I force myself to trust in Him, and immediately start feeling a sense of peace or relaxation. I love how that works. But then it is short lived. I have to keep letting go over and over. Maybe that’s how it is supposed to work, but it just seems like a battery that won’t keep a charge.

I need more friends too. For years, I have been praying for a friend. I have always had lots of “friends” in social situations that are fun to talk to, and who I care about. But in my whole lifetime, I have had very few friends who really know me. I keep trying to build friendships, and I really love the ladies who have entered into the early stages of friendship with me. I am thankful for all of the new relationships. There are so many possibilities. But how long will it take to form that special friendship with someone, and will it ever happen?

Well, that’s all for now. Maybe next time I will have a nice, well-thought-out entry for my blog. No guarantees!

8/11/06
It has been an awful week.

We have had our own heartbreaking crisis here at home all week, which I’m just not ready to talk about.

My mom’s uncle has lost the will to live, and was sent home to die. It should be any day now.

One of my parent’s closest friends, who is the pastor of their church, died unexpectedly this Wednesday. I can’t imagine what his wife is going through right now.

We will end this terrible week at the Unity Christian Music Festival. It’s tough to even go there right now. But God can and will use the festival to help us move through our brokenness.

Last night, I held my son for about an hour while Chris Tomlin was on stage. Through our tears, we clung to each other and sang our praises to God.

Worship means so much more when things in life aren’t going well. It gives me a new perspective. No matter is wrong in life, no one can take God away from me. Beyond that, what really matters?

My two year old, Kaylee, just said to me "What am I thinking"?
So I said, "I don't know. What are you thinking?"
So she headed towards the bathroom and replied "I'm thinking I need a bath".

I love the cute things she says. She comes up with new cute or grown up things to say every day. I think she might be growing up. She was supposed to be my baby forever.

7/20/06
I finally got my cable internet back today (Thurs) after it went out in the storm Monday night! Our home phone runs through the internet line (VOIP), so we were without phone service that whole time. Good thing my TV programming doesn’t come from the dreaded cable company too…
My neighbors who have cable TV were going nuts with their cable out for three days. Hmm, our satellite signal never even stumbled. Needless to say, at least one of our neighbors will be switching to Dish Network now…LOL.

6/27/06

I can’t believe it has been over a month since I posted. There has been so much going on in my life that I could have had all sorts of semi interesting material to post…

Tony has been at his new job all month now. It is going great! It has been an amazing answer to months and years of prayer.

We went through very tough times that seemed like they would never end. It was beginning to seem that there was no hope. Now I see that we needed to go through that storm for a reason. Being poor showed us what was really important in life. No matter how bad things got, we still had each other. We had our health, and all of our basic needs were taken care of. We still had God, and the right to openly worship God. It was amazing that when we had no idea how we were going to pay our bills, we were (usually) able to step back and see how incredibly blessed we were.

Would we have realized how blessed we were if all of our needs were taken care of without having to put our faith and trust in God? I doubt it. It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing it all on your own when you think you have all the resources to do so. People are doing it all the time. They think they can do just fine on their own, so they either don’t acknowledge God, or they put God into a nice little compartment of their lives so they don’t have to be bothered with Him until Sunday morning. Then they go through life feeling the unquenchable emptiness of a life without a relationship with Jesus Christ.

God gave me an opportunity to truly find Him. I am so thankful for that. (Let me just point out that He gave me many opportunities to find Him and know Him throughout my life, but I was usually too blind to turn to Him)

Another thing I learned is that our marriage was strong enough to get through poverty, which often destroys marriages (again, Thank You God!).

We learned to trust God through the worshipful act of tithing, even when we already can’t make ends meet. (We can’t, but God can!)

We were forced to humbly ask others for help. (That was a tough one!)

And we will forever have a heart for the poor.


Don’t misunderstand. I am not saying we are all the sudden rich or something. Not at all. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We are going to be OK. We will wisely spend whatever God gives us in a way that is pleasing to Him. It all belongs to Him anyway.

5/26/06 I Knew He had a plan!

We have been praying about Tony's job situation for weeks/months. We had an opportunity to learn how to trust completely in God's plan for us. We knew that God would take care of us better than we could ever take care of ourselves. The timing of a new job was a big issue for us due to our family obligations vs. my very busy school schedule. But God has perfect timing!

Tony found out this week that he is hired! He will start next week, 6/1/06, which happens to be the same day I will finish my internship. Is that perfect or what?

This week has been a very stressful and busy week for me. I have had huge projects due in several classes, as well as a difficult test. On top of it all, I have been somewhat sick all week too!

I have finally finished everything that needs to be done this week. It probably isn't my best work, but under the circumstances, it was the best I could do. I am so glad to have this all behind me! I will have Final Exams in less than two weeks, but compared to what I had to do this week, that won't be bad at all.

I look forward to finishing this term and having the summer off (pretty much) to recover from school.

5/22/06 Waiting...

We are faithfully waiting for God's plan to be revealed. I am convinced that we will continue to wait for a couple more weeks for God's perfect timing. He knows what our needs are better than we do.

The original job opportunity looks like it is not going to be "the one". There is another job that looks very promising right now. Tony interviewed with three people for quite a long time when he dropped off his resume last week. A couple of days later, he went in and did a personality test. The next day, he talked to the manager who said that Tony will be called this week for another interview. We are very excited and hopeful.

If it turns out that this company is not what God has planned for Tony, there are also several other jobs in the works.

I love having complete faith in God and His plan. God is good!

-Kendra

5/12/06 “Faith in God’s Plan”

We’ve been praying like crazy for God’s will, and for God’s plan for us to be revealed. Waiting is one of the hardest things to do, but we have been getting better at it.

A possible new job opportunity is being dangled in front of us right now. Maybe it’s too good to be true, maybe it won’t work out. But maybe it will. So many little things have fallen into place; we are convinced that God’s hand is in this opportunity. We just don’t know exactly what His plan will turn out to be.

We have complete faith in God’s plan. Clearly, whatever He has planned for us is much better than anything we could do on our own. This faith we have in His plan puts us in a mindset that what ever happens with this job will be exactly what God wants for us. There is no need to worry. It’s not up to us.

We thought we would get an answer this morning. Things didn’t fall into place the way we hoped and expected they would. So for now, we continue to wait to see what God’s plan for us will be. Waiting is really hard sometimes (I want to know RIGHT NOW!). I could get discouraged, or I could start worrying about things. Maybe making us wait just a little bit longer is part of God’s plan. It is giving us a chance to use our faith in Him, and know that no matter what, God will come through for us. He will never let us down.

This plan he has for us is not about us anyway. It’s all about Him, and what He wants.

I pray for His plan to be carried out perfectly, and I pray that He will abundantly give us His Mercy, His Favor, and His Love. I also pray that we will gratefully accept whatever He has planned for us, and that we are pleasing to Him in all we do.