I love you because...

I am one of those girls that absolutely LOVES the simple SWEET things, and my husband doesn't always remember that( of course, he's a man, lol), but he does every now and then, and when he does its usually something REALLY sweet! So, this Valentine's Day I didn't get diamonds, or roses, or anything like that, I got my man's love. Not only did he just say "I love you", he let me know WHY he loves me, which I especially love to hear because then I know he really does, haha. I woke up Valentine's Day morning to a really cool thing on my mirror. Robbie had taken pink sticky notes and spelled out "I love U". At the top it says " I love you because..." and then on each of the other sticky notes below is a reason why he loves me. PRETTY SWEET!

My Life verse...

"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." -Proverbs 3:5&6

This is such an amazing promise from God. A long time ago I heard a very wise man say that we all should have a life verse, not because God commands it, or because we are not a good Christian if we don't, just because it is an amazing thing to have one verse that we can constantly come back to that keeps us looking in the right direction. So, not long after that I set out on a mission to find my "life verse" and this was it.
I love this promise from God because it encompasses the Christian life. If we can learn to FULLY trust in God with everything that is in us, totally forget our way of thinking, make sure that we look to him in everything that we do, then HE will make our paths straight.
It is so amazing to me after soooooo many times of reading this verse and reciting it in my head, I STILL stray from the beaten path in my walk with God. BUT, the absolutely incredible part is that because of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, no matter how many times I fall, or stumble, or stray, He always forgives me, he always wipes my slate clean, and he always allows me to find my way back to the path.
My point in taking a moment to dwell on my life verse today is three-fold: Firstly, we as imperfect human beings will ALWAYS fail; Secondly, God's grace is MORE THAN ENOUGH to cover our failures; And lastly, find a verse that you too can call your "life verse", it is something that you will value forever.

Family is a gift that lasts forever...

With the holidays always comes time with family, but this year after the holidays were over I have had the priveledge of having much more time with family. My brother, Grant, and his wife Ashley are in town staying with us for 10 days. They just moved to Pensacola, FL from Hawaii where my brother was previously stationed. My eyes have just really been opened lately to how important your family is, and how precious of a gift that it is. When no one else is there and you feel all alone, aside from our creator, we will always have family. It has been so much fun to spend time with my brother and his wife, my parents, my MawMaw, my cousins, and my Aunt and Uncle.
One woman in particular has really shown me and Robbie unconditional love, and has opened my eyes even further to the gift of family, and that amazing woman is my (step) Mom. I put "step" in parenthesis because if I didn't tell you, you would never know that we weren't her biological children because of the love and selflessness that she shows us. She has helped heal wounds, shown me what unconditional love really means, and just shown such a great example of a Christian mother! I love you!
I also have a wonderful biological mother that I love very much, and is a great Nana, but its a DOUBLE BLESSING to have two great Moms!
I just can't say enough about my entire family who are all wonderful people, and to all of you who I didn't speak to specifically in this blog, you have all taken part in making me who I am and
I LOVE YOU VERY VERY much!

ONE!...wait what???

I can't believe my little boy is ONE!  Where did the time go!??!  But man, what an incredible year it has been!  I have watched my little bean turn into a fun-loving little boy.  I am one of the luckiest mom's in the world, I had an incredible baby who at five days old slept through the night (and has ever since I might add), didn't really cry very much just grunted to let us know he needed something, and has always been very mild mannered.  It has been an honor to call myself Caleb Haiden McLaughlin's Mommy for a year now, and I can't wait to continue with that name for the rest of our lives.  To know that God has entrusted me with such an amazing little boy is such an honor and I hope I never get over that.

We had Caleb's first birthday party on his birthday, Sunday, December 28th.  It was so much fun to be able to celebrate Caleb's first year of life.  We had friends and family over to our new home and ate lots of food and cake, and watched Caleb open the sea of toys he recieved! =)  But, definitely the best part was watching the confused look on Caleb's face as we all stood around him singing Happy Birthday with a cake that had fire on top sitting in front of him, lol.  The other GREAT part was getting to watch Caleb dig into his own little Birthday Cake, just waiting for us to tell him to stop because surely he wasn't aloud to be making a mess and eating something this good!  I love my little boy and I can't wait to see what this years brings us!

A season for everything...

I just had to sit down tonight and talk a little bit about my man...now for those of you that hate all of that mushy stuff, I will try and keep most of that out! Robbie has just blown me away lately with how selflessly he has given himself to his work and the position God has him in at Next Level Church right now.  He is not getting to do all of the things that he has always loved and is EXTREMELY talented at, like leading worship, speaking, or shepherding.  But, he is just doing what he feels like God has called him to do right now, because he loves getting the opportunity to learn from and work around some of the most amazing leaders!  AND not only is he doing it, he is doing it whole-heartedly, and passionately!  He is constantly giving himself away without needing or requiring praise for it, but he still does it and doesn't complain. I watched Robbie go to the church this morning at 8:00 am, and is still there now, even long after everyone else is gone, working, without complaint.  Why, because he loves his church, his job, and his God!  WOW, what an incredible man of God that truly loves his creator and longs to see everyone know the savior he knows!

"Thankfulness." Wow, such a hard word to live out sometimes. I know this is such a God-glorifying word, but man is it hard to have it be a part of my thinking. But, God has totally been changing my heart lately. I have, since Robbie and I got married, felt like we were just struggling so bad financially, and were just in a really hard spot. And it hasn't been until here recently with things getting tougher and the economy getting worse that God has really changed me, every day I get up even when I am struggling, and sometimes wondering how we will pay the bills, and just think "thank you Lord that I have bills, bills mean I have a house to live in, a car to drive, electricity to live with, and an education." The thought that I never imagined I would have "Thank you Lord for my bills", but WOW, think about it, if you are priveledged enough to have bills, whether you think you can pay them or not, you are blessed, MUCH more blessed than most people in the world.

It is definitely time for our generation to step up and move past all our crazy selfishness and indulgences that swallow up our entire being. We must move past ourselves and on to the well-being of others.

This is why I feel so blessed to be a part of a church like Next Level, and feel so thankful that we have other churches in our city like Ridge that desire to team up and change the landscape of Charlotte, and our world.

Fragile Happiness

One of my best friends,(I love you Courtney!) sent me such a blessing this morning in the form of an e-mail, and in the e-mail was a Blog posted by Beth Moore's daughter, Melissa. It was talking about her son getting this red balloon at a restaurant and how he loved it so much and it made him so happy, but she kind of cringed when he got it and was playing with it because she knew that happiness would be so temporary and would soon end with sadness because she knew that the balloon would soon pop or get a leak and be gone just like that. She then went on to say how it reminded her of what God is probably always thinking when he looks down on her saying this, Oh, baby girl, that is so temporary. It's already got a leak in it - you just can't see it yet. Find your joy in me! I'm everlasting! My unfailing love it what your heart truly seeks. Man that just BROKE me when I read that! It is sooo true, so many things that we try to find happiness or fulfillment in are soo temporary and will soon "pop" or "get a leak" and will turn into sadness, or emptiness. It makes me think of the terrible week I had last week, and how things go wrong and I just feel so defeated, but I have to remind myself that no money, no job, no things will ever fulfill me, and even when I feel like I won’t even have money for the necessities of life I just have to remember that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he WILL provide! So many times I let my happiness rest on whether or not we have a little extra money, or I can buy this outfit for Caleb, or my marriage is going well, or my business, or whatever it may be at the time, and all of those things are so fragile as she said and NONE of them will EVER fulfill me! So I must remember that no matter what circumstances I face at the time in my life, good or bad, that God holds me up and showers me with his unfailing love and WANTS to do it!

"God you are so merciful, and never cease to amaze me! Thank you for your unfailing love!"

Here is the scripture that Melissa had in her blog post, it is so fitting, and beautiful! May we rest in God's words of truth!

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, put your hope in
the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
(Psalm 130:5-7)

But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose
hope is in his unfailing love.
(Psalm 33:18)

In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as
we put our hope in you.
(Psalm 33:21-22)

Sick week! =(

Man, it has been way too long since I have posted a blog and I figured it was about time to start again! Well, the whole family has been VERY sick this week, no fun at all. I always knew that being sick was terrible, but that misery multiplies times a gazillion when you have to see your baby sick, take care of him, and take care of yourself all at the same time! It started off with Robbie, then Caleb last weekend, and then my body finally decided to get it around Tuesday, ugg. But, last Saturday we did get to do something fun, we went to the pumpkin patch. It is Caleb's first Haloween and he got to get his first pumpkin and see a WHOLE BUNCH of them. We also got to go on a hayride, see animals, and watch Daddy and Tio go through a corn maze. I say all of that stuff, knowing full well that I just wanted to go for the photo op! lol. I took a gazillion pictures as always, and actually made Robbie hold the camera for the majority of the time, so it wouldn't seem like 10 years from now that I was just a ghost in this time, lol. But, it saying all of that it was a lot of fun! Caleb is at such a cute age right now, because instead of saying what he is thinking, everything comes out in an expression! So the faces are priceless! I try to catch all of them in a picture, but that definitely doesn't happen! Today is Halloween, and we are not dressing Caleb up, going Trick or Treating, or handing out candy at our door. We are going to the Opening Night for the Charlotte Checkers! Definitely a McLaughlin thing! We love our sports, so much fun!

Oh my goodness! CRAWLING!!

I would have to say this is probably the first milestone in my son's life that I wasn't all that excited about when it happened! Well, maybe the first couple of "crawling steps", but it was all downhill from there! The house we are in right now is really hard to put up boundaries in, especially down stairs because there are not really any narrow doorways where I would be able to put gates up in. So, my day consists of a lot of chasing Caleb around and taking things out of his hands, or MOUTH! BUT, in saying all of that, it is VERY cute to see him squeal and laugh because he is able to move from one end of the room to the other to get something he wants. And let me tell you, when he gets his "eye on the prize" there is no stopping him. Although, he hasn't quite figured out yet why his head hits the coffee table every time he tries to go under it. (he's usually trying to get to our chiuaua, abby, who weighs like 3 lbs!) He will be 8 months this week! I can't believe it, time is flying so fast and before I know it he will be walking and talking too!

You have done great things!

Man, God is so amazing and has truly done great things! It seems like no matter what he does for me, I always doubt him, and then he just proves me wrong over and over again. Well, we didn't get the house we were looking at in Crismark that we wanted to rent, BUT we found out that we actually qualify to buy a house! This is something that we thought wouldn't even be possible for us right now, but my dad and stepmom spoke some wisdom into our lives and told us to at least just find out if we would qualify, because you never know until you try, right? So, we took their advice and they were oh so right! We are now in the market to buy a house! One of the most exciting and scariest things we have ever done. We might even be able to build a house which we would really love to do. Sooo, we are now looking to maybe build in Crismark! Life is good, and God blesses even when I am not faithful to trust him. GOD ROCKS!!!!!