When God Moves, You MOVE!!!!!!

   Recently we have seen God open doors wide open and flood us with overwhelming love. As I sit here listening to Kari Jobe, I can't help but feel peace and God's grace over my life and over my growing child's life. Listening to the words to "Beautiful" I can't help but smile and agree over how amazing God truly is to just sit and enjoy his presence in my life, and to just see all that he has gotten me through it amazes me.
   We have been praying and saving and hoping to find an apartment to move into sooner than later before the baby is born that would allow us to expand and have more room. Well, it looks like that may just be happening this weekend. Now that the time to move is finally here I have no clue how to feel about it. I mean I do, but I don't. There's so much that goes into moving, but it's more so the unknown of a new place. The unknown of new setting, new neighbors, new way of life in essence. However, the feelings are good feelings its the scary you feel right before you enter college campus and realize your where your supposed to be, the nervous you feel right before you walk down the aisle to your soul mate, the excitement you feel while preparing for your family to expand, and the exhaustion you get when your training a puppy (thrilling but also at times frustrating).
   When God wants to move in your life the only thing you need to do is MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! Don't try to control God, don't try to tell Him the directions and the timing and how it needs to be done, just accept what He is doing for you and in you and your life. Most importantly when you wonder if God is there, when your going through hard times and you think God is abandoning you, DON'T. He didn't abandon you all this time, He isn't going to now. He knows your not perfect, He knows your going to screw up, that's why we have the cross that saved us, He sacrificed His everything to ensure that you would be taken care of. You are far more precious than any gem, diamond, amount of money, material item or possession. You are now His everything.

What you don't know about teachers!

I don't talk about my job often, I don't talk about what I do for a living because it's so a part of my life that I feel it's obvious what I do. However I recently had a reality check as of yesterday that there are so many people who misunderstand what it is to be a teacher. They make their jokes about teachers having it easy because we get summers off and holidays all the time, but in reality they have no idea what we are doing with that time, or the impact that our jobs have on us. Just like I would never assume I know what it's like to be a doctor, construction worker, or police officer, I would hope that people don't assume they know what it's like to be a teacher. I had someone yesterday make a remark and while it was in a conversation that was light and I don't think directly meaning to offend it did offend me and it stuck with me for quite a while, and the more I sat and thought about it the more it made me really steamed. Now though I am over the steamy anger and more so realize it's for a lack of education on what being a teacher really is.

I don't defend myself to strangers because they have no business making assumptions about me and if they do then that's on them, but I do have a defense when it comes to my profession that I pour everything into. Though I may be part time, my job is anything but part time.

Things you don't know about me the teacher:

1. When I meet my students each for the first time I take the time to know the face, the name, the family, I take as much time as I can to get to know their hopes and dreams. 
2. A lot of my time while teaching is spent encouraging students who are discouraged in every aspect of their life and have no self esteem or think they have nothing to offer this world.
3. Every day when I come home from work, I have to pray and listen to the Lord's guidance for each student that I have interacted with for that day because I can sense the hurts and mistrust they have gone through but I am limited to what I can do, I have a few hours each week to get as much encouragement, guidance and direction poured into their lives that will hopefully carry them till the next time that I see them. 
4. When it comes to my curriculum it is never set in stone, as a teacher they don't give you a book with the lessons laid out and exactly how it should be taught, no that's my job to find the sources, the activities, the discussions to have and it's always changing because the world is always offering us new things to learn. 
5. When I am home on vacation, I am not always vacationing, I am reworking curriculum, I'm going over papers, tests, books, and seeing where do I have weakness showing and where are strengths showing. I am constantly trying to improve the path of education. 
6. I am not paid some gigantic salary, I'm not even a salaried teacher. A lot of times I purchase things for my lessons that come out of my pocket, and while yes I could find something else to do with students it wouldn't be as effective and it wouldn't be near as impacting. 
7. I wear many hats, I am not just a teacher, I'm and encourager, counselor, nurse, career adviser, college application counselor, sometimes even cook because some of our students are hungry and maybe didn't bring something to eat or have something to eat. Yes I know I am to educate these students however I also have to see that they aren't just students their humans with needs other than an education. 
8. No matter how hard my life may be at home, or what I may be going through I still have to get up put a smile on and go into work because I could very well be the only person they see today with a smile and a positive attitude. 
9. Many people who aren't teachers or who aren't close in the education field picture students sitting quietly at desks working, that's almost NEVER the case. We deal with kids who have come in with a bad night out, or bad family time, parents not hands on, parents who are hands on but are nothing but negative to their child, and parents who are so positive they refuse to see where there may be errors occurring or where their child may be struggling. 
10. I love my job and wouldn't trade what I do for anything in the world. Yes I deal with harsh realities that I may or may not have experienced in my life, I come face to face with the affects of drug addictions, teenage pregnancies, depression and anxiety, abusive homes, I see them and I see the product of them, but the best part is I also see the light, the glimmer of hope that these kids hold onto in hopes that their life will be different, that they have a chance at being something other than what society expects them to be. I get to help them find that hope when their sealed off in darkness. 

So my reply to you sir is, No I don't get paid to sit and do nothing, I may just be so good at my job that your observing someone who needs no effort, but let me tell you every night there's a battle in my heart and every morning I wake up with a new found strength to make this day worth it for these kids. 

Miracle Baby

I recently watched a video about a couple who struggled through infertility and their relationship with God and how it lead to their adoption of their daughter Chloe. This video was such an awakening moment for me a soon to be mom in my second trimester.

I have wrote on here before about my husband and I's struggle with infertility but watching that video it reminded me the battle, the road we went through, the gloom I had fought through and where we are now.

A lot of people know I've struggled with PCOS and with the diagnosis after diagnosis of being infertile but when my husband and I were married we chose not to accept that fate. We did countless doctors appointments, countless false positive pregnancy tests, countless heartaches and hurt and brokeness. Finally we decided to do foster care because regardless we knew God intended for ust o be parents. We finished foster care classes last winter and decided to wait till this August to puruse it actively to give us some time to find a place and be settled and prepare. In October I made the choice with my husband's support to not try actively, to stop tracking everything, to not take medications and to not crazily see doctors and do blood work and etc. My thought was I want to go through the holidays with the heartache of trying and failing screaming in my face. Little did I know that over the holidays I would be experiencing the beginnings of our first trimester. Now in August we are going to be parents to a sweet little one and it's only by God's grace and healing power. There is no doubt in Randy and I that this baby is a miracle from God specifically for us. We haven't let go of our foster care but we have put it on the back burner for now but we know from being faithful and trusting in God that He would bless us with this child.

When it seems like all hope is gone, when it seems like everything is slipping and there is no hope we need to grasp God as tightly as we can because it's in those moments that God is doing the mightiest amount of work in our lives. I had been facing infertility since I was 16, doctor after doctor telling me my chances were slim if any and my husband and I when married going through the bouts of trying and failing and me going through the hurt and heartache of not being able to do the one thing a woman should be able to do and that's be a mother.

Our turning point I will never forget, it was the week of my birthday I was turning 24 (my favorite number) and I looked at my husband and said "This year is MY year, I am going to accomplish whatever I want this year and nothing is going to hold me back. This year EVERYTHING is going to go my way." At the time my husband did the loving chuckle and said "Okay it's the year of Ashley"

Fast forward now... It's the end of November, I look at my husband in conversation and I don't know what possessed me to say it but I said to my husband "I have decided something, I have decided that I am pregnant and that is just how it's going to be." my husband slightly concerned smiled and lovingly but sternly looked at me and said "I don't think that's how it works, I think you may want to have a talk with God on that one." and without even blinking I said "Oh trust me I intend to." That night I prayed so hard and talked through so much with God while my husband peacefully slept and I went to bed knowing it was in God's hands.

After that moment I never really talked about it again, I moved on and honestly forgot about the conversation till December and no time of the month like usual... so I talked with my husband and we agreed to not talk about it with anyone and not take a test till after Christmas because I wanted to enjoy my holidays it wasn't the first time I had missed a month. I however did have prenatal I started taking in case but of course it was on the down low so as not to have people speculating. Then on December 31st 2016 I woke up at 7:00 am and decided while everyone was sleeping that it was time to take a test. By 7:15 am it was a definite that I was pregnant. I calmly walked into my husband who was sleeping and said "Do you want to know a secret going into the new year?" Immediately he woke up and said "You took the test didn't you?!" and I smiled, showed him the test and said "I'm pregnant" we smiled, laughed and for some reason unlike the other positive tests from previous thoughts this one we felt confirmed in our spirit was for sure real. I entered 2017 knowing that God had performed the biggest gift and miracle He could have given my husband and I.

A lot of people may be skeptical of our story, and our testimony but it's just that as cliche as it is, when we are put through the hardest of tests that's when God decides to make it a testimony. Don't give up, but don't hold tight either. Be ready for however God wants to work in your life and in whatever timing He sees fit. There is no doubt in my mind that this child is God's and will do great things for the kingdom. While my husband and I may be parents, it doesn't change the fact that God is still God and He is the one who ultimately has control over our child's fate. It's comforting to know that thought we may be newbies to parenting, and though we may not have it all together, God has His hand and control on this child's life so we know everything will work out for the good.