My children amaze me.  How they can pick up on my mood.  I've been feeling kind of sad lately, but maybe that isn't the right word.

I am so thankful to God for answering prayers.  I am seeing things fall into place that I never thought would happen.  I am marrying my best friend soon.  However, with the fires in San Diego, we may not be celebrating our honeymoon out there.  Say a prayer for those people affected, who have lost EVERYTHING.

I am watching the man I so dearly love come into the ministry to which God has called him!  I am so excited for him...and yet my heart is saddened.  For those women who have husbands in the ministry, how do you deal with it?  The time you can't spend with your husband because his ministry work takes time away from family?  I have a need to spend time with him every day, even if it's five minutes.  I have a need to spend time with him in prayer and in the Word each and every day.  It doesn't substitute for my personal time with Christ but when we get together, the Holy Spirit moves even more powerfully than when we're apart! 

And I'm also struggling with my priorities right now.  We asked God mere days ago to bring Ryan's girls back home after his next court date on November 12th.  Monday, it didn't look like that was going to happen anytime soon.  Tuesday, it became a real possibility.  That is definitely a praise God moment...because it wasn't by anything Ryan nor I could do, but by the power of God working in the situation.  :)  God did exactly what I knew He would do.  There is no way I was nor am going to allow the enemy to destroy my family even before Ryan and I are joined as one flesh! 

With the avent of his girls coming back home, it's causing a struggle in my list of priorities.  God comes first, Ryan second, the children third, ministry fourth, my job fifth (when I have one again), and me last.  But it occured to me that a brunt of the parenting responsibilities are going to fall on my shoulders.  I have a husband that is in ministry, and because of that, I'm going to be responsible for all five children.  Which ultimately means that I am going to have to put away my desires to serve God in a church environment for the next ten years.  There are days when I'm not sure how it's all going to work....being a full time mom and supporting my husband and taking care of the children so my husband can be free to minister as God has called him to do....being a full time student....working full time....it is beyond my ability to even imagine how God is going to give me the strength to bear all of this.  This, too, makes my heart just ache right now, because here I am again, having to put my desires aside and do what I have to do to make sure five children and one husband are taken care of with the best of my abilities.  So I'm praying for contentment and peace to do what I should do and not what I desire to do here. 

Here I've been praying for God to instill in me the virtues of a Proverbs 31 woman and it's true that God is working in me and His Word is not returning void.  I just wonder how I'm going to become the wife that Ryan needs me to be.  How I'm going to become the mother that Chase, Abigail, Hunter, Rachel and Caleb need. How I'm going to help support my family financially, as no job is appearing on the horizon for me.  How I'm going to be able to handle full time schooling so I can fulfill the calling God has on my life.  This all is burdening me and this is one of those times when I wish that someone would just point me in the right direction, give me a hug, and tell me everything is going to be ok....