I’m Listening, Lord…

September 20, 2017September 20, 2017 The Not-So Newlywed LefebvresLeave a comment

At this point, I almost feel like a broken record – except that I have been silent for so long, it is more like a broken record player. Yes, I am a bad blogger – and vlogger, to that point. Certainly beginning work on my Masters of Divinity has cut into my blogging time, as I am constantly writing and reading – but not about blog-able topics to be sure! We have also been grieving, though. Not only in the loss of our pregnancy two days after Mother’s Day, but also in the fact that our second, and last, round of IVF failed – and we have no remaining embryos, and a big question mark as we face our future.

As I sit back and reflect, and try to wrap my mind around the fact, that I may never carry a child, to term, on my own…that we may never have a biological child, I am reminded of the Bible verse that graces our kitchen’s chalkboard: Psalm 113:9.

He gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother. Praise the LORD! (NLT)

I can never put from my mind the memory of the vision the Lord granted me nearly four years ago. Interestingly, I know of two other women to whom God gave a clear vision of a child or children who are still ‘barren’. It is easy to abandon hope and believe the God-given dream to be a figment of imagination, but faith reminds me He brings beauty from ashes. If we are to have a child now, after every medical option is exhausted, it is He who is glorified, and even more so. If we adopt a child someday, he or she will be appreciated and loved and rejoiced over that much more.

Our waiting in this season, as I approach my 35th birthday this week, reminds me that I felt like I hoped, prayed, begged, and waited for an interminable amount of time for Craig…and yet, God knew what He was doing. My husband was worth every bit of waiting, and appeared on the scene at precisely the right time in life.

While it is difficult to surrender all to Him in this instance, it is the only choice we have, and that still, small voice beckons me to drop my agenda and rest in Him.

Listen closely. What is His still, small voice asking of you?

TTC Tuesday

Though You Slay Me

May 30, 2017May 30, 2017 The Not-So Newlywed Lefebvres6 Comments

Crying in front of people doesn’t come easy for me. I was told once, as a child, that I looked like a duck when I cried, and that was that – I have tried to hold back the tears ever since. But there are just certain times when ‘logic’ is thrown out the window. Times when the pain is too heavy to hold in. When the tears are too quick to wipe away before someone sees.

Unfortunately, I have had some practice crying over the past few weeks. Alas, I haven’t mastered *not* looking like a duck…

I guess it isn’t *popular* to discuss the awful parts of life, but I’ve never been one to follow the crowd. After almost five years of prayers and hope and tears, we found out on April 21st we were finally pregnant…And then, at 8 weeks, we miscarried. There was nothing that could have prevented it. No womb has been prayed over more – before or after pregnancy. We have had faith out the wazoo for years (and still do). The truth is: CRAPPY THINGS HAPPEN. That’s why this is the fallen world we live in, and why we anxiously await Heaven and its unimaginable perfection. {If you want the full, detailed story, visit our YouTube channel here.}

So far, we are still searching for meaning in all of this. Eerily, this feels all too similar to our failed adoption last summer, and we were only just beginning to ‘heal’ from that heartbreak. Thus, I can tell you that what I have learned is that biology has little to do with matters of the heart. Losing our own biological child, and the one we grew to love in our hearts from afar has dealt the same pain.

We need your prayers as we heal and begin to move forward. We know we are called to be parents, and have faith that God’s plan for our family is infinitely greater and more incredible than we could ever imagine.

As we have grieved these past weeks, we’ve heard and read so many things contrary to our beliefs:

From A Christian Publication: Miscarriage is punishment for something you have done.
From A Christian Book About Marriage: When facing miscarriage and infertility, you have to realize when is the time to give up on your dream of having children.
From A *Trusted* Christian Leader: This pregnancy would have continued smoothly if only you had had enough faith.

Seriously. As we have searched for answers in the midst of this tragedy, these are all things we have read or heard…All of them claim to be ‘Christian’ points-of-view, but not a single one of them is Scripturally-sound. There is not one woman in the Bible who remains barren for life. There is also no guarantee of a stress-free life of ease in the Christian journey. Why would there be? Aren’t we meant to long for Christ’s return and our Eternal Home in Heaven?

As I dwell on upsetting, make-me-cry-like-a-duck life events, I recall Paul, Sarah & Abraham, Hannah, Jesus, Job. No *happiness-only* lives there. In James 1:1-13, we learn that trials in life mold us into mature Christians, as we learn to submit wholly to Jesus, and trust in Him completely. This doesn’t make sense to us, of course – myself included, but as the prophet Isaiah tells us:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55:8-9)

God’s ways are certainly not our ways, and far far above and beyond anything we could fathom or comprehend, but speaking to the loss of a child-in-utero being a punishment, have you ever heard of Job? Most faithful man on the entire planet in his day? He lost his whole family and all of his belongings, and the Bible is clear when it relates that it wasn’t the result of sin.

But the real ‘lesson’, I suppose, is not in the causation so much as in the response:

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” (Job 13:15)

And so that is how we are trying to respond to this trial. It’s all we can do. Trust and wait on Him. Though we are heartbroken, yet will we stand in our faith.

Thirsty For Christ Thursday · TTC Tuesday · Uncategorized

Our First Christian Passover Meal

April 18, 2017 The Not-So Newlywed LefebvresLeave a comment

In the midst of this round of IVF, I think I speak for both Craig and myself when I say we have been in prayer around the clock. So many times when we pray, any of us, we are so focused on one thing, in one neat and tiny box, in exactly the way we ‘imagine’ it to arrive. Fortunately, our God doesn’t always stay within our human confines for Him, and He can use our intimate quiet moments of prayer to bring something to our hearts we didn’t know was even relevant to what we were asking.

One thing the Lord has placed on our hearts in a huge way this year has been creating our own family traditions. Genesis 2:24 instructs married couples to leave their parents and cleave to one another. This doesn’t mean to abandon your families or set off on a journey through the desert alone like the Lone Ranger. No, it means that marriage is special. Sacred. It means that we operate as a unit of one with our spouse. We make all decisions together. We rely on one another for support and love. We don’t look elsewhere for that which we should be providing each other. The priest who led us in our pre-marital counseling gave us the best advice of all: Don’t bring friends and parents into your relationships. If there is a problem beyond what you can handle with your spouse, seek spiritual guidance – from your priest, pastor, Christian counselor and from the Lord.

Honestly, that has been some of the best ever advice, and through many trials and tribulations, Craig and I have come through – stronger, wiser, closer and better equipped for ‘what’s next’. And what the Lord has revealed over the past several months has even shed some extra light on our move to Maine…

As a childless married couple, we are often ‘grouped in at the kids’ table’ for lack of a better analogy. With no children in tow, it’s easy to consider us as a temporary situation or just ‘off playing house way out in Maine’ – I imagine it’s a subconscious act, but it’s present nonetheless.

This year, we had the opportunity to spend an incredibly brief 36 hours together over Christmas, and unlike other years, in which we have scrambled and scraped to be in one place or another to celebrate the holiday with one of our extended families; this year, we felt as if we could – and even should – simply enjoy our time together. Create our own family traditions for each holiday. And even, begin to discuss with seriousness, how we would share and celebrate Christmas with our children ‘one day’. Leave and cleave.

Over our 36 hour Christmas, we read the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth from the Bible – while we sipped champagne. We enjoyed sleeping in as long as we possibly could, aware that next year there could be a baby crying down the hall. Sweet friends from church said they felt sad we were spending Christmas ‘alone’ and invited us to celebrate with them. It was a generous thought – but honestly, we just enjoyed each other.

This year, just before Easter and our embryo transfer, God spoke to us and encouraged us to add in a new and important tradition – for our family. We had been praying and begging and crying for a precious baby, and the Lord didn’t say yay or nay. He simply asked us to begin a new tradition this year – one for our family. A tradition that would be important to share with our children.

Isn’t it amazing how the Lord answers your prayers with His own amazing Ways?

Us: Lord, please. We long to be parents. You asked us to see first Your Kingdom, and we are seeking You, Lord. Please, Holy Father, bless us with children.

God: There is a new tradition I want you to celebrate. One that will bring light to Easter. One that will be important to share with your children.

Just as Noah cried out: Save me from this sinful land!

And God answered: Build an enormous boat in this desert.

Answered prayer isn’t always as plain as we hope it to be.

And so in answer to His request, we studied the Passover and we prepared for our first celebration of this long-standing tradition. You can too – this is an amazing pdf file that leads you step by step through the celebration of the Messianic Passover meal. I won’t even begin to try to magnify its unbelievable significance and undeniable parallels for Christians…Please click on the above link, and you will be flabbergasted to discover that (SHOCK!) God really was in control and knew what He was instituting all along!

Really, our faith makes a mustard seed seem huge sometimes.

The Passover Lamb – totally unblemished and pure | Jesus – Our Sinless Savior.

The matzoh bread – unleavened, pierced and striped | Jesus – sinless, pierced and striped for our salvation.

The lighting of the Passover candles by a woman | Jesus – light of the world, brought into existence by a woman.

Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us in life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this season!

Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who sanctified us in Yeshua the Messiah, the Light of the World and our Passover Lamb.

“It is appropriate the woman lights the candles that bring light to the Passover celebration. It reminds us that Messiah is the “Seed of the Woman” and the Light of the World, who will overcome the powers of darkness and restore truth and life.”

“Knowing He had been given all authority in Heaven and on Earth and He had eternally shared the glory of God and would soon return again to share God’s glory, [the] Messiah acted as a servant and washed the feet of His disciples. He set for all time the supreme example of servanthood and humility. Let us now wash our hands.”

Karpas: Parsley; Passover, is celebrated during spring, when the Earth is green again with life. This parsley represents life. It is dipped into salt water, representing tears. This is a reminder of God’s people’s slavery in Egypt, and also represents hyssop – the plant dipped in the blood of the Passover lamb and applied to the doorposts of the Hebrew homes in Egypt.

Maror: Bitter Herbs; This is eaten because the ‘Egyptians embittered the lives of the Hebrews they enslaved.’ For the Christian and Messianic Jew, we remember the bitterness of life before we were saved by Christ’s death and resurrection!

Charoset: Sweet Apple Mixture; “This represents the mud mixed with straw to make the bricks to build Pharaoh’s cities. It reminds us that, if we really know the Three-In-One God and know that we are redeemed, there can still be sweetness – even in the midst of life’s most bitter circumstances…This reminds us that the sons and daughters of God…whom the Father purchased with the blood of His own Son, and for whom He has prepared an everlasting inheritance, must endure trials in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Though we may be despised by the world, we are kings and queens and a royal priesthood.”

Our make-shift Matzatash is the white cloth to the right. A piece of matzoh is divided into 3 separate ‘compartments’, separated by a piece of cloth. The middle piece is removed, broken in half, and one half is placed back in the middle section of the Matzatash. The other half is placed in a cloth and hidden. As Christians and Messianic Jews, we recognize that these three piece of matzoh represent the Triune God – the Father (whom no eye has seen), the Son of God, Messiah (who reveals God to us), and the Holy Spirit (whom no eye has seen).

The middle matzoh is removed – just as the Son of God came down from Heaven and was revealed to us as our Savior on Earth. It is unleavened just as Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life. It is stripped and pierced just as Jesus was for our transgressions.

This meal touched our hearts so much and was an even more thorough representation of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for His children than we could have ever imagined. There is so much more beauty in this Passover meal than I can relay to you. I do hope you’ll visit the link I mentioned above and learn more for your own family! Who knows – maybe next year, your family will be celebrating both Passover and Easter alongside ours!

God's Will · TTC Tuesday · Uncategorized

Our Unexpected Journey

April 4, 2017 The Not-So Newlywed LefebvresLeave a comment

Wow. Where do I even begin? I haven’t posted since August 26th…there’s a new domain name for our site…so much has happened…

The Lord has been knocking on my heart to begin blogging about Him – to share His Holy Name with the world, and to be honest, I’ve been lazy. I’ve been intimidated by the responsibility. I’ve been hiding in my grief after losing my precious baby boy this summer. But God continues His knocking, His beautiful persistence. And this morning I literally had no choice. I was compelled to follow His nudging. So let me catch you up on our journey to now.

I’ll begin at the beguine. If you are new to The Not-So Newlywed Lefebvres, I would ask you to back up a few posts and get a little bit of back story…but for any of you who have followed us for awhile now, you might remember that all Craig and I have ever longed for is a child. God promised us our precious Jonah Elizabeth, and we have been waiting ~~patiently~~ for nearly five years now. We were called to serve God in Maine this past year, and at the end of June 2016, we packed up our home in Georgia to move to a tiny town in Maine, into a big farmhouse we fell in love with. Almost immediately upon our arrival, amidst all of the painting and decorating and revamping, we received a call from the adoption agency we had been courting (but had not yet committed to), with amazing news: they had a precious baby boy (to be born in a month) for us.

As you might imagine, we ran the gamut of emotion: overwhelming joy, utter fear, anxiety, love, and were especially filled with praise for the amazing Father God who had blessed us in such a MIGHTY and unexpected way. Adoption had always been on the table for us. We have always wanted a house-full of children, and the moment we were exactly where God called us to be, here was our baby boy. Overwhelming cannot begin to describe the fullness every emotion carried during that month.

The adoption agency demanded every cent of their funding at the drop of a hat, and while scrambling to prepare a nursery and a home for this precious child, the Lord, literally, blessed us with every cent and every single thing we needed for our miracle. I could not have been more in love with a child if he had been growing in my own womb. I must have cried tears of joy 60% of every single day. Every. Need. Was. Met. In less than a month. How can that be attributed to anyone but God?

I spent afternoons with the birthmother. I heard our boy’s heartbeat, watched him wiggle on the ultrasounds, saw him kick her stomach. He was my miracle. And then, he was not.

On August 17th, the birthmother’s parents intervened and told the agency their daughter could not give her child up for adoption. This precious child who they had tried to abort in the first months; who was the victim of alcohol and heroin and methamphetamine and cocaine abuse… And there was nothing we could do, but pray.

And we did. A whole army of prayer warriors rose up and prayed for this situation. But alas, what I believe was God’s Will was not done. And we were left standing there, not knowing if we could move or breathe or smile ever again. I have never known that kind of pain – pain I still face whenever I allow myself to think about our would-have-been baby boy…So I try not to.

Our failed adoption led to persistent longing. In prayer, the Lord was urging us on as He had never done before in pursuit of parenthood. It ~~was~~ as if a lion had been awakened from slumber. Friends reached out of the woodwork and recommended specialists and volunteered themselves to help in anyway they could have. It was beautiful.

On one such recommendation, we made an appointment with a doctor of functional medicine in Minnesota, Dr. Paul Deglmann. And in the same breath, we also made an appointment with Boston IVF, to speak with them about our options – maybe after 4 years and all of this heartache, we felt it was time to see if an IUI was an option for our family.

‘Dr. Paul’ in Minnesota, proved to be excellent and bring-about some thought-provoking insights for us about our infertility. After numerous tests, we began to solve many issues that didn’t seem directly related to infertility, but were certainly underlying factors. Eight months later and my blood work is what doctors have been referring to as ‘fantastic’. I feel better than I have in years. I don’t even need coffee in the morning. It’s pretty amazing.

Meanwhile, in New England, we had been to see Dr. Lannon at Boston IVF for an IUI consultation. After looking at our medical charts, he told us an IUI may not work with our particular fertility issues, because I may still (even after my procedure to reopen my collapsed Fallopian tubes in which I woke up from anesthesia during said procedure) have tubal damage. However, he said that in looking at my charts, we were a very unique case because I had been ‘diagnosed’ with PCOS, but had almost none of the symptoms. Dr. Lannon said he didn’t feel like I had been properly diagnosed (the same thing my endocrinologist and Dr. Paul thought), and that there was a clinical study that almost no one qualified for (but I did), in which we would undergo IVF for *only* $6,000 all-inclusive.

We were shocked. $6,000 is actually an unbelievable savings to undergo in-vitro fertilization.
IVF is something we had never considered for ourselves, and in fact, had always been opposed to doing.
Dr. Lannon felt that given our age, and our medical history, this could be our ‘only shot’ at having children biologically.

This was quite the amount of information to process…So we told him we would consider it, and get back to him…

Again, IVF is something that had been totally off the table. We both felt as if it would be unnecessary in our case, but after our summer of surprises, we decided we needed to seek the Lord about the options that lay in front of us.

Now, when Craig and I both ‘go off’ to seek God’s Will about something, we always acknowledge we will be praying, and don’t reconvene until the Lord has spoken. In this instance, God showed me some things, pretty emphatically, very quickly, but I knew Craig hadn’t received a Word yet – so I waited, as I have in the past, and lo’ and behold, several days later, he called from a trip to tell me what the Lord had revealed to him. Interestingly, God showed us the same things in different ways. Because God is AWESOME like that!

He showed me the book of Genesis, and pointed out that His first command to His creation was to “Be fruitful and multiply.”

“So God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.’ ” Genesis 1:27-28 NLT

To Craig, He revealed He is the author of life, and that this step would not be ‘taking matters into our own hands’ – that only God gives life, no matter science’s role in the ‘process’. We both felt, after years of feeling otherwise, compelled to take this step.

And so we did.

We began repeating every. single. fertility test known to man at the flagship Boston IVF clinic in Waltham, Massachusetts, driving there several times each week. Giving blood samples like candy to kids on Halloween and being poked and prodded and tested. Everything was set in motion. This was really happening.

And then it wasn’t.

We received a seemingly standard call from Boston IVF, and were told that the group heading the clinical study had decided against my participation due to the fact I take the prescription Metformin – a fact they had known all along.

And once again, it felt like the world was crashing down around us. But still we felt IVF was on our table. Still, we felt the Lord right there, next to us, in the midst of all this pain. After four years of being still and silent, all of a sudden, this summer had become tumultuous and sad.

Dr. Lannon called us and apologized that this had happened to us. He felt that everything was handled incorrectly, but told us he still wanted us as patients and that the clinic would take our particular case into consideration, and possibly be able to discount our own in vitro fertilization journey. Honestly, he was more considerate, kind and caring than any other physician we had seen – and we had only met with him in person once.

Fast forward to today. After much prayer, we are in the midst of an IVF cycle. I won’t say it has been a fun journey – because injecting yourself with three shots per night would only be fun if I were a masochist, but we are here. And we are at peace.

I’ve seen and felt the judgement when we have told others we decided to pursue IVF, and I want you all to know this isn’t a decision we came to lightly. This isn’t a ‘last-ditch effort’ to have children, and we didn’t decide to take this path because we feel God is any less powerful than we know He is.

I mentioned above that in our failed adoption, I don’t feel like God’s Will was done. And I don’t. I think many times something happens, or doesn’t, and people say, “Well, I guess that was God’s Will.”

I respond, emphatically, “No!”

We live in a fallen world. God’s plan is not always heeded. If it were, this would be Heaven. All of creation would be following the Will and the Word of the Father. And that is not the case.

In the case of the adoption, the ‘birth grandparents’ intervened, I feel, against the Will of God. In the case of the clinical study, the megaset medical study team went on their own protocol and procedure, without giving a thought to God’s plan for the study.

Could I be wrong? Sure.

But I don’t feel so in my heart. The Lord let Craig and I be ‘us’, and led us to the place He called us, and now He has called us to fill our Ark. In the midst of these appointments and injections and medicines and procedures, we feel peace. And it’s the same peace I have felt when I relented to God and gave Him His way.

Watching a Joyce Meyer broadcast last week, she said something that really resonated with my soul:

Sometimes a miracle involves medical science. It isn’t that God couldn’t do it Himself, but Who gave the doctors and scientists the ideas in the first place? Without God, human beings wouldn’t have the intelligence they do to perform the medical miracles that are being accomplished.

God can use anyone, anything and any situation to bring about His Will. All that is necessary are His willing followers. Can He heal people miraculously? Absolutely. Does He always? No. Sometimes He uses doctors to heal His children. Sometimes He doesn’t bring us healing on Earth at all.

And so, my friends, here we are. If you wish to follow our IVF journey up to this point, check out our YouTube channel. We began vlogging about our experience because it is such an invasive and intimidating process and in our research and anticipation, we learned so much about it from other Christian IVF vloggers that we wanted to share the wealth (of knowledge).

And one other thing – I will be blogging again, as well. That’s no empty promise. God has been on my heart to write again, to tell the world what He places on my soul, and I plan to do just that.

So pray for us. And share this page. Tell your friends. You never know who God places in your path that might need a certain Word. Really. You never know…

Ta-ta for now, folks.

Food For Thought Friday · God's Will

Journey To Our Miracle Child: Thank You So Much For Your Prayer & Support

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 The Not-So Newlywed Lefebvres1 Comment

Hello Faithful Friends,

Thank you so much for your outpouring of amazing love, support and prayer over this past week. We love you all! Please click on the video below for an update of the latest in our journey for a child.

Please bear with us in this time of grief and pain. Please pray for our faith to be strengthened in this storm!

God's Will · Thirsty For Christ Thursday · TTC Tuesday · What's Up Wednesday

Prayer Warriors Needed

August 20, 2016 The Not-So Newlywed Lefebvres3 Comments

Please click the video below! Watch, pray and share! The more hands and voices to Heaven, the better!

Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

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Food For Thought Friday

Coming Clean

July 29, 2016July 28, 2016 The Not-So Newlywed Lefebvres2 Comments

Swiffering. Is that a verb these days? It’s like sweeping and mopping and dusting – all rolled into one satisfying chore. Or at least that’s what the advertisers would have us consumers believe.

When you have 3 furry creatures roaming around your home, however, swiffering may not be ‘enough’. I learned this the hard way last night. As you can imagine, this past month of moving into our new home, unpacking the boxes and furniture from 42′ of moving truck plus several car loads, deep cleaning hasn’t been our focus as much as unpacking and getting rid of the thousands of boxes that have been invading our home. But having 3 pets kind of trumps your plans for what’s on the ‘to-do’ list and so, when I traveled into town (yes, I have to say that now) to run errands, I knew that Wet Swiffers (the lavender scented ones are my favorite) had to be added to the shopping list. The fur was beyond the limits of my Zyrtec.

So I got home, unpacked the car and began cleaning. First, the toilets (yay! all 3 of them!) had to be scrubbed down – that’s ALWAYS THE FIRST THING THAT GETS CLEANED! Yuck. And then the dishes…(Getting used to well water and not having a disposal is taking some getting used to…) And finally, the swiffering.

But as I began swiffering the kitchen floor, I noticed it was a mere smattering of seconds before my wet moppy pad thing was unusable. It was full of fur and dust and living in the country. So, I switched it out for a new one…Repeat process. Several times.

Eventually, my kitchen floor was clean and smelled wonderful, but it dawned on me…Next time, I need to sweep first and then swiffer.

That might seem obvious to many of you, but understand I am new to 2 things:

Being a ‘stay-at-home’ (mostly) wife
Having ALL hard surface flooring

Cleaning can’t be done with a quick fix to be done right. Cleaning is a process.

And so it is with allowing Christ to change us from the inside out.

We don’t become perfect people overnight. As a matter of fact, we don’t reach that state of grace until we go to live with Jesus at the end of our earthly lives. On earth, He is constantly molding and shaping us into the Christians – the Christ followers – He has planned for us to be.

I was brought up in a Christian home. I grew up knowing the Lord. But somewhere along the way, I lost sight of Him. He was no longer at the forefront of my decision-making. He became like a long-lost friend: I knew Him…but we hadn’t talked in forever and even though He was making the effort to keep in touch, I wasn’t responding to His texts.

I remember rekindling our relationship.

It didn’t happen overnight. I didn’t go from the party-scene to youth ministry in a moment.

First, God grabbed the broom. Then, He showed me the dustpan…and we began. He started with one room and eventually swept the entire house. Next, He dusted. Room by room…And the swiffering has only just begun.

He is the Potter. We don’t become a beautiful piece of art overnight.It is the process of sanctification which molds us into that which He has destined for our lives.

Don’t seek out the ‘quick-fix’. Cherish the process with Him.

Thirsty For Christ Thursday

Redeeming Love

July 28, 2016July 27, 2016 The Not-So Newlywed LefebvresLeave a comment

Have you ever read a book that just CHANGED YOUR LIFE?!?! Getting to know the Lord more fully through Scripture is utterly life-changing, and certainly has proven so for my life, but in the past several months, I read another book that really got to me.

So much so that I began recommending it to every person God put on my heart. You may know how much I LOVE Goodwill shopping and I began praying before all of my shopping expeditions for the Lord to place a copy of this book on the shelf so that I could share it with more people. (And He provided!!)

I talked about my LOVE of the Book of Hosea yesterday, and this book is actually a version of that piece of Scripture, rewritten in a more modern setting.

You may, or may not, know this, but Hosea is a short book in the Old Testament about a prophet, by the same name, who God asks to marry a prostitute…and to continue loving and pursuing the prostitute – his wife – no matter what she does or how unfaithful she is…no matter that she has (at least) one child while they are married by another man…no matter that he ends up having to pay to purchase her out of slavery…no matter what.

And as you may have drawn by your own conclusions, the account of Hosea and his unending pursuit and relentless love for his unfaithful wife, is ALSO a picture of the way God loves us.

Think about that.

How many times have I run in the opposite direction at full-speed away from God? How many times have I prayed for forgiveness, only to make the same mistakes over and over and over again? How utterly LOST have I been that I couldn’t find my way back to Him, and yet, He purchased me out of slavery when no one else would have?

That is amazing grace. His truly redeeming love does not ask us to be the finished product to win Him over. No. He pursues us just as we are, and molds us into His creation.

Read this book. Read Hosea in the Bible. Discover the unrelenting love He has for each one of us, no matter how far we have strayed or how unfaithful we have been.

God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs (Psalm 103:8-10 TM).

I — yes, I alone — will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again (Isaiah 43:25 NIV)

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son… (John 3:16)

His love, my friends, is so unsurpassing we cannot even begin to wrap our little minds around it.

What's Up Wednesday

All Our Fruit Comes From Him

July 27, 2016 The Not-So Newlywed LefebvresLeave a comment

One month and counting in Maine, and we have been BUSY. Church events, planning a youth ministry from scratch and this house. Y’all. This. House. I can’t wait to share our finished product. And honestly, for the changes we are able to make now it shouldn’t be too much longer before we can do the big reveal! Wahooo!!!

One blessing, though, in our move is substantially bigger than the updates we are making toward making this house our home, and all the other activities we are involved in – it’s time with the Lord. What an extravagant gift! I’ve had the privilege to be involved in an awesome women’s Bible study (‘Breathe’ by Priscilla Shirer – it’s awesome!!), and in my read straight-thru the Bible, I have just made it through Hosea. I am loving this beautiful land. This quiet. This time.

And today, God blessed me with a Word from Him He knew I desperately needed to hear. And honestly, it’s my new favorite passage of scripture:

Healing for the Repentant

1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
    for your sins have brought you down.
²Bring your confessions, and return to the Lord.
    Say to him,
“Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us,
    so that we may offer you our praises.
³Assyria cannot save us,
    nor can our warhorses.
Never again will we say to the idols we have made,
    ‘You are our gods.’
No, in you alone
    do the orphans find mercy.”

⁴The Lord says,
“Then I will heal you of your faithlessness;
    my love will know no bounds,
    for my anger will be gone forever.
⁵I will be to Israel
    like a refreshing dew from heaven.
Israel will blossom like the lily;
    it will send roots deep into the soil
    like the cedars in Lebanon.
⁶Its branches will spread out like beautiful olive trees,
    as fragrant as the cedars of Lebanon.
⁷My people will again live under my shade.
    They will flourish like grain and blossom like grapevines.
    They will be as fragrant as the wines of Lebanon.

⁸“O Israel, stay away from idols!
    I am the one who answers your prayers and cares for you.
I am like a tree that is always green;
    all your fruit comes from me.”

⁹Let those who are wise understand these things.
    Let those with discernment listen carefully.
The paths of the Lord are true and right,
    and righteous people live by walking in them.
    But in those paths sinners stumble and fall.

Hosea 14:1-9

I stand in awe. His love is extravagant. It is all we need. HE is all we need.

~~So many times~~ All the time my prayers are asking and pleading and begging…and every time His answer is the same: I am the Lord Who provides.

How beautiful that His love knows no bounds!! He is even our SHADE!! (And on days as hot as today, I can fully appreciate that attribute – and I’m sure you can too!) We don’t just serve a god who makes us happy in this moment. We serve the Almighty God, the Creator who provides for our every need.

I am like a tree that is always green; all your fruit comes from me. Hosea 14:8b

He asks us to follow Him, and He will provide. Stop for a moment this afternoon and reflect on that for a moment…Whatever it is you are worrying about and stressing over, give it up to God. Fully surrender to Him. He. Will. Provide.

Return…to the Lord…for your sins have brought you down…Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us [Lord], so that we may offer You our praises.

Hosea 14:1-2 (emphasis & editing mine)

God's Will · Thirsty For Christ Thursday

The Nomadic Not-So Newlywed Lefebvres

June 23, 2016June 23, 2016 The Not-So Newlywed LefebvresLeave a comment

I can’t believe it. Tomorrow evening we begin our drive to Maine. Time flies much too quickly, and the past six months of discernment for us has not proven to be any different. Before we knew it, summer had arrived – and with it, our big move up to Maine.

I know it took me quite some time to allow God to soften my heart to the idea of moving back. Don’t get me wrong – Maine is a gorgeous place, and I can think of SO MANY PEOPLE we connected with in 2014-2015 who are amazing, life-changing, life-long relationships. But being so far away from home was hard. Being ‘alone’ with 10 feet of snow outside your front door and a sedan (Read: No AWD vehicle) in the driveway was hard. Feeling as if you weren’t being spiritually fed was really hard. And so, even though we knew we probably shouldn’t have, we left.

There were just so many easy ways to justify our move back to Georgia…and it didn’t take long before we were able to justify it for our own hearts.

Turning around and choosing to follow God’s plan was a pride-buster. God had His plan for us in that too! It isn’t easy to admit you were wrong and do a complete 180° turn with your life, changing all of your plans and returning to a place you ran away from.

People (who aren’t in ministry) always ask me, “Is youth ministry all you’re going to do? Isn’t that more of a part-time thing? Is that really the reason you’re moving back up?”

And the answer is that youth ministry – ministry of any sort – is more of a full-time job than any 40-hour per week career on the planet. Youth ministry is LIVING your life for Christ, as a role model for teenagers with keen eyes and ears and their finger on the tip of every social media site you could possibly ever be a part of. Youth ministry is waking up with your coffee in the morning to read scripture and study the Bible for hours. Youth ministry is always having your phone on so that anyone in your youth group can call or text at any time of the day or night. Youth ministry is planning a calendar full of events, studies, snacks, and trips a year in advance, to mesh with every possible school system. It’s praying constantly for yourself and others. It’s being a counselor and an encourager and a rule-reminder. It’s draining. No more leaving work ‘at work’. It’s all the time. The pay is awful (Read: Zilch). The health benefits are non-existent – there’s no overtime either.

But it’s the most wonderfully fulfilling “job” I can fathom.

Following the Lord is the most incredible journey…It’s literally beyond anything you could ever imagine.

We have been riddled with sneers about our ‘moving so much’, but literally, are you where you are called to be?? Or are you just settling for what’s less complicated?

Paul tells us, “As far as you’re concerned, we’re homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.” 1 Chronicles 29:15 (MSG)

Peter says, “”Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” 1 Peter 2:11-12

As Christians, we are called to be like nomads. Jesus tells a rich man in the gospels that in order to follow Him, the man must give up everything he has and leave it behind to follow the Lord. Is our faith that important to us? Or are we so concerned about remaining in the same house, close to our friends and family, in the best school district for our kids and close to our jobs, that we give God a deaf ear when He calls us out?

Think about it. It’s of utmost importance… WHO are you living for?

You or the Lord?