(Guest Post by Heidi Anderson)

Last night my husband showed me this video, and to say I was moved, would be an understatement.

Afterward, I found myself remembering my life as a child, with really no worries, just ambitions and the dreams of who and what I would become.

I would find myself dreaming only the biggest dreams, wondering where they would take me. I would sit at the piano for hours thinking about where I would end up and what I would do. It’s funny, looking back it was probably like every other child’s dream of being famous, or at the very least someone important.

In all that dreaming I NEVER once thought I would have struggles or experience disappointment in my life. I guess I had always thought that life would be perfect, but what I’ve come to know is that life is not perfect, it’s definitely not always easy and we don’t always get what we want out of it. In other words God has a plan, and that plan doesn’t always match ours.

Sometimes God will give us the desire of our hearts, but sometimes God will say NO! And we have to not only be OK with that, but we need to realize that no matter what, God is still God and He is still good!

Here’s the video…

Yesterday was not just another day, well at least not for me. I suppose you could say that it started out that way. I mean I got up and turned on the stove, prepped the beans and got the french press ready for deployment. Turned on some music opened my bible and dove in. Got to church and had a great time getting things ready and praying with the staff. Church was good and so was life. So I suppose one could say things were pretty normal. And then it happened and I left absolutely wrecked. Pastor Dan gave the altar call and so I came up with the prayer team to pray for those responding. I found myself standing in front of a man with his son holding tightly to his dad’s side.  I prayed for them, I earnestly prayed for this man and his son. I looked around to see who else was still waiting to receive prayer when I felt the need to ask them a question. I looked at this man and his obviously distraught son and asked if there was anything specific I could pray for. He informed me that his whole world had fallen apart. He told me that his wife who was about 10 feet behind him had just been diagnosed with cancer and they didn’t know what they were going to do. They didn’t know how they were gonna pay for treatment. Then he said holding his son and teenage daughter “How am I gonna do this…” as to refer to life without her. I was stunned all the wind had now left my sail. Here I stood with a beautiful healthy family living a dream with a good home and great friends. While in front of me lies a family who’s life seems to be in ruins. I grabbed as many as I could to pray for this family. Not that other people didn’t need prayer or have needs but for me something was happening on the inside, something that I just couldn’t shake. I believe with all my heart that God can heal this woman. I believe with all my heart that God can give this family peace and we prayed for these things. But I found myself wanting nothing more than to try to give this family a little hope. Even if all that meant was knowing for a few minutes they were not alone. Don’t get me wrong we presented Christ, we explained healing, we offered the hope of knowing who He is. The results, who knows. We’ll continue to follow with this family and be there as much as we can.

You see lately I’ve found myself really stirred by this passage in Romans:

Romans 15 (AMP)

¹³May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

I keep reading this passage and desperately want to see this transpire in my own life. I love how the amplified translation says that through the experience of our faith our God will fill us with all joy and that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound and be overflowing or bubbling over with hope. I read this and dream of a life that literally overflows and bubbles over with hope. Where hope just leaks out of our pores. I looked up the definition of hope and was blown away by one in particular:

Hope
a person or thing in which expectations are centered:

Think about it like this, we can overflow with hope (the person in which all expectations are centered). In fact we’re called to. What would it look like if we all lived with Jesus our hope, bubbling out of our lives. What would the lives of those that we come into contact with look like if  He literally spilled out of us on to the hopeless. So like I said I’ve been wrecked…

So I was able to pick up a new toy this last week. I bought a new lens for the camera and got to play with it a little. So here are a couple of pics from this weekend. I’ll be posting more soon…

The camera that is, and thought I’d post a few pics with some updates.

For some reason Elisha really likes to strike a pose flexing but if you talk about just how large those “Muscles” are he gets rather upset and grunts loudly! It’s scary just how much of myself I’m seeing in this little guy it’s scary and amazing all at the same time.

I think helping Coach little league might be one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I absolutely love the fact that I’m getting to spend more time with Tre. (playing 3rd base in this pic) It’s had it’s moments that we’ll leave alone for now, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Tre’s turning into a pretty good ball player and definitely makes the game more interesting.

I took this pic on Saturday which turned out to be one of the funnest days I think I’ve ever shared with my wife or anyone for that matter. Man I love this lady!