Praying for Noah

I have all sorts of photos that I want to post. They are of my car's vicious attack on the garage door last week, but something much more serious is on my mind right now.

I have a SEVERE feeling of helplessness and I read updates from a sweet couple in Alabama - John David and Jessica Crowe - as they battle an aggressive form of brain cancer in their son, Noah. John David is the worship leader at Friendship Church in Athens, Alabama. I had the priviledge of singing with him many Sunday mornings during worship and I know he and Jessica both walk very closely with the Lord. However, their faith is being tested at this time as they struggle to put one foot in front of the other to walk down this tough road. The beautiful thing is that they are allowing God to lead them and it is AWESOME and WONDERFUL to see their faith in action -- if only the circumstances weren't sooo challenging. (To see their writing and updates on Noah, as well as photos of this precious little boy, you can go to http://www.prayfornoah.weebly.com/.)

I just want to ask anyone who comes across this blog to pray PERSISTENTLY for Noah. I use the term persistence because it was in KidzVenture just this past week that we talked about praying w/persistence. I joked with the kidz because our Bible verse was 1 Thessalonians 5:17 and our translation (NLT) stated, "Keep on praying." I had the kidz read the verse 3 times with me...one right after the other...and said - "There. Now you have memorized a Bible verse this week." They laughed, but if no one else had it memorized - I did - and I have needed it.

We spoke about praying with persistence being more than whining and asking God for the same things over and over again. Persistence comes in to play when God is saying wait or you feel like he hasn't answered just yet. Persistence means walking with God in an active way while continuing to pray for something that you think God would want. But all the time being willing to accept God's will in the situation. That sounds soooo good on paper (or the computer screen) but to walk it out is a VERY different story. I find myself getting discouraged and giving up when my prayers take a while to be answered. I know now that my focus is all wrong.

Noah has a long road ahead of him - perhaps 2 more months in Birmingham for treatments, etc. His cancer is most likely malignant. It was the size of a grown man's fist. They weren't able to get it all because of the proximity to the brainstem. But every step of the way, God has sent Christ followers to minister to the Crowes...even the team of doctors and nurses that performed Noah's surgery yesterday PRAYED for him and themselves as they began. God is using John David and Jessica at Children's Hospital to minister to other parents who are also hurting...but who see something sooo different in the Crowe family. God's hope.

The Bible verse that they are clinging to at this time is this. "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them." Romans 8:28 NLT

I am going to purpose to be persistent to pray for them. Will you join me?

Pumpkin Guts are STINKY!!

I am sooo behind on posts!! But I came across this picture again today and I had to put it on the blog and explain! This is what Luke thought of our pumpkin carving this year - "IT'S STINKY!!" He would walk into the kitchen and make the most hilarious face and immediately cover up his nose and announce those words to us. Needless to say, he didn't do very much to help prep the pumpkins for carving -- and it was HIS idea for us to do this.

This year we tried templates for the first time. I just googled 'pumpkin carving templates' and explored a couple of web sites until I came up with a few that I wanted. I wanted a silly pumpkin and Kyla's vote was for a vampire pumpkin -- I think we both got close to what we wanted. It was MUCH easier to use a template than to do the 'free-style' carving that we had always done before. In the past we drew on the pumpkin w/a sharpie marker and attempted to cut along the lines -- it always worked out fine...but was never EXACTLY like we had planned. Next year maybe I'll even try an 'artsy' pumpkin -- but I'll have to convince the kids that is what they want first - ha!

Summer didn't seem to find the pumpkin guts too stinky. Look at how close she is getting to them!

At 10 years of age - Kyla may be the 'expert' in the family when it comes to pumpkin preparation. (She already is on SOOO many other things - ha!)

Trick or Treat!

Trick-or-treating has become a BIG deal for us since we moved back to Texas. To be honest, we NEVER once took the kids trick-or-treating door-to-door in Alabama (the Haneys did once, but we didn't). That sounds soooo terrible...but they ALWAYS had pumpkins FULL of candy before Halloween ever came and went. At our church they had trunk-or-treating at the fall festival...where people would line the parking lot and hand out candy at their automobiles. Talk about covering a lot of square footage QUICKLY...it was VERY efficient! On Halloween night, we never had many trick-or-treaters because our house set sooo far off of the road...you wouldn't drive up to it if you didn't know who lived there...so we were able to let the actual Halloween night sneak right by and the kids were none the wiser. Advance a couple of years and now we live smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood where ALL of the kids head out for candy. No more hiding from it so we have embraced it!

This year - we had a pirate girl (Kyla), a candy corn witch (Summer), and a boxer (Luke) - as well as Princess Jasmine (Caitlin) and Snow White (Taylor). It was WONDERFUL that Halloween was on a Saturday AND that we received a bonus hour!! I'm not sure how many trick-or-treaters came by the house...PopPop stayed to hand out the candy this year...but I know that it was ALOT. We went to more houses this year than ever before...mostly because there ARE more houses in our subdivision than ever before. And more to come - wonder how much candy there will be NEXT year!?! ha!