Full of Joy

I was able to get out of the house the other day, and as I was driving home Carrie Underwood's version of, "How Great Thou Art" came on the radio.  As the years have gone by, this hymn most consistently brings me to tears.  I absolutely love the line that says, "And when I think of God his son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in.  That on the cross MY burden gladly baring, He bled and died to take away MY sin." Even at I sit here and write, the song is playing and I am practically bawling.  There are definitely a flow of tears.  Christ gladly carried my burdens, and He took away my sin!  How can I not just weep with thanksgiving?   This morning I read a verse in a different version than what I'm used to.    It really stunned me:  "When you were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self, GOD MADE YOU ALIVE WITH CHRIST, and he forgave ALL our sins.  He C...

Thank you so so so much to those of you who have been asking about our job situation, and most importantly for praying for us!  There are some things we wanted to share, and especially wanted to ask you to PRAY for.  We absolutely need prayer!   MALTA  God has opened up the door for us to head to Malta to work with teenagers of some European and Asian missionaries next month.  Please pray as Chuck studies and prepares to teach several sessions.  Pray for us to make quick connections with the students as we only have 1 week to build relationships with them.  We also need prayer for the health of Baby Dubbe and me.  I have been sick since the beginning, and feel pretty awful about 80% of the time. We are at 15 weeks now- all glory and praise to God!  I'm very nervous about traveling so far away feeling this lousy, and I'm also nervous that if anything happened with the baby we would be very far away from our doctors.   JOB ST...

Tonight Heidi and I went out for a little Target shopping as I needed to pick up a wedding shower gift.  Chuck and I had attempted to buy a gift earlier in the day, but got so frustrated that Target had NOTHING off the registry they claimed to have, we gave up and went home.  I needed a girl friend reinforcement.  Sure enough, when she and I got to searching for something off the registry, she pointed me straight to the correct item I was looking for.  The trick was, what the registry claimed the item was called, it was not in fact called that.  She looked up the tiny sku number, and voila!  We found the item.  In like 30 seconds.  I was kinda more ticked at Target for making it so complicated.  My poor man had just about passed out from boredom and irritation following me around Target, going back and forth to a million different aisles looking for the correct name.  It's not the name people, it's the SKU . This little narrative ac...

Many people have been asking if there are any job updates.  No.  Nothing.  Not even a speck of a chance anywhere.  We don't mind the question, but we never have an answer.  And we probably won't have any answers until the very last possible second.   We did experience God in a cool way last night.  It was His way of showing us that He has not forgotten our situation, and does have something up His sleeve for us.  You see, we are officially moving out of our house.  Our landlords met with us this week, and want to sell the house we're renting.  Since our lease isn't up until July, they have offered to pay us to move out early.  The earlier we move, the more they'll pay.  We see this as a sign from God that He IS doing something, and He IS working.  We don't know where we'll move to, or when.  We obviously can't move into another rental since we might be leaving the area.  It all depends on where God ...

It's officially a snow day here South of the Mason Dixon Line- in the month of March.  Who would have thought?  I'm pretty excited about the change of pace.  The snow keeps coming down in HUGE beautiful flakes.  We have nowhere to go, no place to be, and are quite happy about it.  Plus, American Idol is on tonight and we can curl up, settle in, and enjoy the two-hour guy's night.  Normally we'd be with our teen small group, but obviously that's not going to happen given the circumstances. My baby girl LOVES the snow.  I'm tempted to take her out and play, but then she'll come back in reeking like a wet dog.  We just got her groomed recently, and don't want to pay for that again right now.  Although I have to say, Pet Smart has a great deal for grooming.  It's totally worth the $25 for them to wash, dry, brush, and make her fur smell nice.  Plus they trim her nails (which takes us an eternity!), clean her ears, and make sure her sk...