While trying to figure out how to use my new camera, I took this picture at a concert. It isn't my favorite, but I love everybody's hands up and clapping and praising. It brought wonderful memories of Passion back where human trafficking was revealed to thousands upon thousands of people for the first time!

God and I had a chat this morning. I was in the kitchen making my oatmeal, and I was in the middle of my morning when I began to cry out to God for those who are in bondage right this moment. Very rarely do these incidents happen, but they come when I am not looking or expecting. I will be in the middle of everyday life, but then their voices will sound in my ear, and I find my attention focusing back on how big God is and the things He wants to do with my husband and me. My husband has these times too. He will be in prayer or in discussion about something, and silence will come over him. His heart just begins to break for the things that God has opened Michael's heart to see.

These times are hard but important. Here lately, God has been moving so quickly in Michael's and my life that we need a wake up call on occasion to remind us why we work so hard. God brings us to a place of complete humbleness so that we remember to recognize Him as all knowing and all control. We have no reason to worry because God knows! Yesterday, I got an amazing chance to speak out against human trafficking. This chance is something that I would never have dreamed of a few years ago when I first learned about trafficking, but God knew. He arranged the perfect timing by moving people's hearts, and finally He brought me into the picture with my wonderful husband. So yesterday, I was focused all day long on things that I needed to say and ways I needed to reach out to the community more. I spent all day working, but half way through the day, I got a text message about another dear friend being pregnant.

Ready, set, go spiritual warfare! I love hearing about my friend's babies, and I desire for all of my friends to get pregnant! It makes it hard though to hear these things when my own body refuses to hold a child. God used this time to remind me that He is in control over everything. He is in control of what Michael and I do to fight human trafficking, and He is in control over whether or not we have babies. Yesterday, I was told in order to get my voice heard more, I would need to get trained this summer. However, the training is right when Hope Ann would have been born. See, God knew that His timing was perfect. This doesn't mean I don't miss my baby or that I want children any less, but it means that God reminds me that He is in control. After a few tears, I picked myself up out of self-pity and pride and now I can praise God that my friend is pregnant.

I know that storms are going to come because my husband and I are open for God to use us, and the more that God is using us, the harder the storms. God protects, and we pray for His protection. We do not want our lives to be meaningless like the book of Ecclesiastes talks about. We want our lives to have a purpose, and when we die, we don't want to look back and think (man I lived so comfortably). I feel like I am getting to a point where I praise God more for the storms because I know that when the storms hit, we are being used. However, I appreciate light at the end of the tunnel just like anyone else, and I am happy to report that I am finding things about myself more and more that I thought I had lost the past two years.

I guess if I had to sum up this post I would say: tears are going to come, praise God. Joy is a choice, praise God. God loves us, knows us, and gives us rest, praise God. God opens doors for amazing things to happen when we decide to walk through them, praise God. Storms do not have to destroy us, praise God. God's timing is perfect, praise God.

Now comes the money raising portion of Michael and I's adventure (I hate this part)! To get a more in depth view of what Michael and I have been doing lately to fight human trafficking, click on the Wilderness Way tab, also new pictures up of a couple of beautiful girls in the Serendipity Photography tab!

In what ways has God been showing His love for you lately?

Come like a child to God so that He can give you rest.

Brokenness in the Bean House

I can't really explain where my heart is today. Yesterday, I began a blog post about the difference between God's leading and God's calling. I never finished the post because honestly, it sounded boring. The technical explanation is always horrid compared to the real life version right?

A long time ago someone explained to me that God doesn't call us to anything except to Him. He leads our path. Sometimes, He directs that path in very different directions than what we intended. For example, a few years ago I thought I was going to become a youth pastor's wife and help teenagers. Then I watched an inspirational movie and decided that instead of being a youth pastor's wife, God wanted me to be a teacher. Now after two years of teaching, I am saying goodbye again to one life adventure and trying to raise money to fly out to California to become an key component in the fight against human trafficking. Don't even get me started on marriage because there was no way I could know that the strange boy I accidentally went on a date with three and a half years ago would now be my husband.

I am so thankful that God leads us and calls us to Himself. I feel like my trust in the Heavenly Father would be altered if I believed that He called us to different ministries, situations, or people. Each change in the plan would send me on a spiraling wave asking Him why my "calling" was changing. That is what they called in the churches I occasionally visited during my pre-believer life. I honestly do not even know how often that the word gets thrown around nowadays, but this is where my heart is.

It is always hard to be led away from something. I am not really sure if the pain ever gets easier. I think as we grow as believers, we handle the pain better, but it doesn't get easier... this I am sure. The last night I spent in my hippy apartment that was home to so many, I cried. So once again, I sit in my living room looking at our beautiful house, and I have a feeling we are being prepared to be led away again. We are now being led away from safety of two incomes and the picture perfect white picket fence lifestyle.

But the more I think about it... that kind of life seems horrible.

The unsure feels safer now because I can hope and trust in Him instead of trusting in what I can only see.

In an effort to rediscover some of my loves that I have lost over the past couple of years, I picked up my old running shoes yesterday and hit the gym. I started a new running program that honestly kicked my butt! It felt so good though to be back on the track, to be praying, to be loving and pushing. I missed those little dates with God, and I have realized the importance of those dates is immeasurable. After my run, I just thanked God that there is still hope. His timing is perfect, and He knows all things... even in brokenness.

My husband and I are experience a time of brokenness. God is giving us some hard truths about spiritual warfare and people... especially our little family. God is leading us to more wisdom, and when I got on my computer there was an ad pulled up for Bsecure Internet protection. That was definitely not something I thought I would have ever seen on our computer, but my husband is clueing into some serious spiritual things. My husband and I are also having to say goodbye to some people in our lives so that we can focus more on the people God has led us to, and each day I realize how quickly my time with my students is fading.

God is using this time of brokenness to bring my husband and I closer together and closer to Him which is so important considering the life that is coming at us. Again, I feel like the little girl in my hippy apartment saying goodbye. I want to cry, but I know that God is faithful.

So here we go!