Silence

Silence...do I know what silence is? Let's see...when I am driving I listen to music, when I a with Mark we (mostly me) are talking, when I am at work there is constant sounds of phones, talking and business, when I take a quiet bath or spend quiet time my mind is going crazy being loud with the thousands of thoughts that are running through my mind. I am not sure that I know what silence is. And yet I feel as though it is critical to my walk with God. How, if I am never quiet, do I hear God speak? How, if my mind is always going, do I experience true peace and restfulness?

I often feel stressed, overwhelmed and over stigmatized and have no idea why. And now I am beginning to wonder if it is because I never ever experience true silence. And if I am honest I might say that silence, true silence, is a little scary.

I talk a lot. And when I say a lot I mean all the time. Its habit I guess. It drives Mark crazy because he in fact likes silence and is good at practicing pure silence and me I am good at disturbing that silence. I find the constant need to tell him every thought that goes through my mind and I don't even realize I am doing it. This is something I have been working on for a while now. I want my words to be few and everything I say to be important and not useless. Anything else just gets me in trouble and annoys those around me. So if I could get this down silence may just come easier but really these are two very much related topics but also two very seperate topics...back to silence.

I want to try and spend time being truly silent each day. I will start off small maybe 3 min and grow from there. I think God calls us to practice and incorporate silence into our lives but what a struggle this is in our busy busy world. We are trained and raised to have overactive brains. We are always thinking, seeing, and listening and we don't really know any different. I suppose the only way I will pratice silence is away from phones, clocks, music, people, signs, books and anything else distracting. A closed room with nothing else going on. Quiet...oh how we all long for peace and quiet yet we rarely seek it and practice and take it seriously.

Today I will begin quieting my mind,talking less, thinking less, listening and seeing less....more Jesus please...

time flys...

Well....I don't know if anyone has hung around long enough to see if we still post blogs because it has been FOREVER! When we moved to Cincinnati and started looking for houses I guess we got busy and distracted and then since we have had the house we have been busy and distracted fixing it up, painting, setteling in and enjoying.


An update on our lives:

-Jen works at Starbucks still and is now a shift supervisor. She work between 38 and 40 hours a week.
-Mark is working at Chic-fil-a about 35-40 hours a week and is also working on a web design business.
-We are attending LifeSpring Community Church and are really enjoying although we are taking it slow getting connected and involved.
-We have really been enjoying the large amount of free time we have now that we moved to Cincinnati.
-We have loved spending time getting to know our neighbors and having new and old friends in our home.
-We love our new home and are so thankful for it....we spend lots of time doing projects around here and just learning how to take care of a home and make it ours.
-We love being with our housemates (aka family) Faith and John who are living with us, they live upstairs. Faith also works at Sbux (a different one) and John is looking for a job.
-Jen likes to cook and bake and spend lots of time reading :-)
-We are loving fall and that Cincinnati brings tons and tons of sunshine!!!
-So far we have gone camping for a weekend, been to Michigan for a weekend, gone to Atlanta for a weekend and will end the summer with another trip camping in Kentucky next weekend.
-We are overwhelmed by how good God has been to us. We are so thankful for where he has brought us...6 months ago we had no idea life would be as it is now but we could have never imagined!
-We feel like after 2 years of marriage we are finally actually beginning our life together...things just feel right and they never did before and we are thankful!

I can't beleive that we are already in October. Two years ago we had just gotten married and settled and were getting ready to launch Journey. One year ago we were preparing to leave Journey full of all sorts of emotions and not knowing where or what to do next and now here we are in Cincinnati and for the first time I think we can say we are home.

waiting

Over the past three years of my life I feel as though I have spent more time waiting than I have doing any other thing. We waited for job interviews and job decisions, we waited on a wedding and on a marriage, we waited on a new job and a new home, we waited on a new city and a new path and here we are yet again waiting on our very first home. Growing up if I had to pick one thing that was the absolute hardest for me it would have been having patience and WAITING. Oh God knows my faults and knows what I need to work on.

These times of waiting have been extremely difficult but yet I love that I have such clear words from God to take comfort in. Wait patiently on the Lord. Be still and know that I am God. Strength will rise as you wait upon the Lord. These waits have been everything but comfortable each though have been unique in there own way. Some have been filled with so much excitement and anticipation that I could hardly stand the wait. Others have been a walk of faith trusting God to provide and waiting patiently on him. Some have been simply inconvenient. And others have been filled with pain, hurt and confusion, longing for the next phase of life to finally bring renewal and love. And as you can guess God has taught us so much in these periods of waiting. All though at times it felt as though we were sitting in the empty waiting room listening to the clock ticking echo off the walls, just waiting for God to open the door and finally call our names to follow him. Every time when the waiting has ceased I look back and think why did I not wait more patiently, why did I ever doubt, why did I not enjoy the waiting more and why did I not just crawl into my heavenly Fathers arms? He is always there at the end of the wait. The wait was always part of the plan and he was always part of the wait.

As we finish up yet another period of waiting this Friday when we close on our house and our able to move into our own place again I confidently finish knowing that God has refined my heart a little bit more. Every time I look back and know that he smoothed another edge of my rough soul during each wait and that my character has been refined. But the most amazing part of it all is that in the end I always understand my God a little better, I always love him a little more and my Faith always is magnified. God knows me and he knows what this heart needs.

New season of life...

Well in case anyone was wondering...we are still here and we have not forgotten about our blog. We just have not thought to update it. I just wanted to post in my excitement about being home owners this week. It looks like we will be closing on our very first home on Tuesday. We are so incredibly excited. We cannot wait. We will post pictures as soon as we get a chance. We are excited to see what life will be like in this home. We know God has plans....

home?

So here we are. In Cincinnati finally with a routine of sorts kicking. It actually is starting to feel as though we live here and not like we are some sort of long extended vacation that we have chosen to never have end. I love everything about it here. I miss people back in Grand Rapids but I do not miss Grand Rapids. In fact I don't miss it even a tiny bit. I have found however a longing for a home. And not just a place of our own to live in but a place that we love, a place we can raise a family, and a place we can stay in for years.

The home I grew up in was so special. When we moved into a bigger and more beautiful house it did not take long for us all to want to go back. That place holds so many memories and even now we love reminiscing about that house. That is what I want. A place that my kids love and a place that we never want to leave. Mark and I have lived 3 different places in less than 2 years and not one of them as felt like a home. But especially now it is as though we are very "homeless". Living with his parents has been easy, good and comfortable but man are we ready for our own place. I have found myself so many times saying I just want to go home and then realizing that there is no home right now.

I don't think I will ever appreciate a place more than when we find our permanent residence this time. I will be so thankful for our own place. We are on the house hunt. We have a Realtor and are looking for a real house. If all else fails we will find an apartment that can hold us and a least one other so we can stay for sometime ;-). Please pray for us in this home search. We want a junkie one. Hehe. We are anxious to fix up a home and make it ours. So we are on the search for the perfect, cheap peace of junk. We may have caught sight of the perfect home but we are still crossing our fingers.

Our first night on the 'Nati

We're here! And we're all settled in (for now). We're really happy to be in Cincinnati, and really excited about what the future holds. For now, at least, we have more time on our hands than we've ever had since getting married! So last night Jen & I took the opportunity to head downtown and spend our first night out on the town.

On the Kentucky side of the Ohio river is Newport On The Levee - basically an outdoor mall & tourist block. It includes the Newport Aquarium, a few dinner boats, a movie theater, a Hofbrauhaus, plenty of other restaurants, and a 2-story Barnes & Noble. This bookstore was our first destination. There is a BEAUTIFUL view of the river & the Cincinnati skyline from the top-floor cafe. The picture's not the best, but this will give you an idea:



The rain was just starting to clear up while we were there, and just as we were leaving, God decided to join us...



Can you see that it's a DOUBLE rainbow??!!! We loved God's extra touch there ;-)

After B&N, we walked around the plaza a bit and decided to walk on the "Purple People Bridge." Here's Jenny at the end of it, and a few views of the Cincy skyline from the bridge:





There are SEVERAL bridges connecting the Ohio side of Cincinnati to its Kentucky counterpart (historic German Newport). One of them is known as "The Big Mac Bridge." Can you tell why?:



Well, we're definitely off to a good start in Cincy. Thanks to those of you who helped us for your prayers and physical help. Check back soon!

Cincinnati here we come!!

Sorry it has been so long since we have updated! Life has been a little crazy! Biggest news is that we are moving to Cincinnati Ohio on Saturday morning at 6am! We are super excited and feel confident that God is calling us to move on from what we have been doing in Grand Rapids. We are sad to leave so many wonderful people behind but we are always excited about what is ahead! We will update more once we get settled but you can be praying with us for the transistion. We still need a place to live and we are still not quite sure what are life will look like but we are always up for an adventure!

So once again we are packing up and moving on!! Hopefully this time we can stay put!