"Sam I Am Is I Was Me"

On this day one year ago, I was up running around, making sure every last detail was perfect. I was by far, a complete mess. My stomach had "butterflies", my heart sat in my throat like a huge lump and emotional wouldn't even begin to describe the state I was in. I was about to join with Sam as one person. Sam was and still is my best friend. So I thought what better way to celebrate today than to write about him.

I met Sam almost four years ago through a mutual friend. He was this incredible little ball of energy. He was facing many demons at the time, yet he had this enormous heart. He was so friendly and just a blessing to be around. People were naturally attracted to him. When he walked in the room, everyone was drawn to his electric personality. At that time I never imagined I was looking at the man God had created just for me.

Sam and I started Epic together literally when they first opened the doors. After being there for maybe a month, Sam was asked to join the Tech team. He absolutely loved it. Before Epic, Sam had never been exposed to church. Me, on the other hand, had been in and out of church my entire life. Everything was so new to him. It was amazing watching him grow spiritually. Sam is and has been completely sold out to the Epic vision since day one. Sam is a volunteer on the Dream Team at Epic. He has been showing up every Sunday for the past two years and every single time stays for all three services, sometimes working them by himself. Even when I go in the hospital, he will stay with me on Saturday night and then wake up around 5 am on Sunday and drive home just to make it to service. He has a drive that is unbelievable. Sometimes I have no clue how he does it. It by far is a passion for him. Sam was baptized for the first time in his life ever this year at Epic. It was such an emotional experience for me. I believe each of us has a story. Sams is truly one that will blow you away. To know where he came from, the path he was on, and where he stands today is a true testament to God's mercy and love.

He supports me and he loves me. He goes to work for us each week so he can provide everything we need. He goes above and beyond at work, doing extras for the doctors and his coworkers. Most of the time things that go unnoticed, but he continues doing them anyway. He gives God all the glory and takes none for himself, which to me blows my mind daily.

We have such a unique marriage because I am sick. Sam stepped into my life, knowing the hardships that were to come and loves me completely and fully each day anyway. On the days I can't get out of bed, he helps me. He never once complains. When I feel like crying and screaming because I can't quit coughing, he holds me as tight as he can. There are days it feels like he literally breathes for me. He gets out of bed on his only days off and takes Peyton to school so I don't have to. He hired a housekeeper so I wouldn't be stressed and feel inadequate from not being able to handle all of the housework. When I go to the hospital, he stays every single night possible with me, holding my hand and pushing me along the way to get better. He has been there with me when I am coughing up blood and not sure what the future is going to bring for me. He completely supports me with the book I am writing. He is so patient never hurrying me to finish it, knowing I will finish it in my own time. There have been several times when I have been sick and because of the physical limited activity I could do he carried me on his back when he noticed I was taking short breaths. He loves my daughter as if she were his own. He has told me time and time again, he truly believes God created her with him in mind, even though he wasn't in the picture at the time. He is a man of God. It isn't something he tells you, it is just something that radiates off of him.

It is an honor to get to walk beside him in this life. I truly believe that God created us for each other. That our story together was planned long before we ever imagine. He is me and I am him. His victories are my victories and his defeats are my defeats. He is everything I dreamed of as a little girl and more. I love his drive to be productive and adore his heart that wants to help those in need. He never meets a stranger. He always has a smile. He is truly my best friend. I am overwhelmed today as I look back at our journey thus far, for I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams. =)

Pumpkins and Life

It is that time of year once again. The air is cooler and everything that was once green is now beginning to turn beautiful tones of reds, yellows and oranges. This is by far Sam's favorite time of the year. We have all of the Halloween decorations up and ready. I must say, we have more Halloween decorations than any other family I know. This year we pulled 3 giant plastic tubs and four big boxes out of storage, as well as Sam's favorite, his black Christmas tree with a skull base. Yes Halloween is near. We usually celebrate this time of year with several trips to haunted houses. The rain has held us up quite a bit however we plan on venturing out this weekend, rain or not. The rain has put a damper on our holiday cheer. I know I talk of Halloween like it is Christmas. You must understand to my husband, it is exactly like that, if not better. He absolutely adores Halloween. We definitely take it a step further than the typical family. I must say, it does feel somewhat like I am a member of the Addams family at times. It is all in good fun though.

I do wish the rain would stop. I have just about made the decision to build an ark. Our yard is a mess and I don't even know when we will be able to cut the grass again. At this rate, not anytime soon. Of course since the weather has been nasty, it is soccer season. Those usually fall together. Peyton is playing her second year. She loves it so much. I never realized she was going to be a little athlete. She is so good and is one of the fastest runners on her team. She scored the first goal of the first game of the season this year. She did the same thing last year. At her last game, I asked her to help carry our folding chairs. After she strapped one over her shoulder I realized how small she looked, so I offered to carry them both. She looked at me and said, "Mom, I can handle it, I am a soccer player, not a ballerina." Haha I love her so much.


The month of October leaves us many things to celebrate. Our one year anniversary is on October 25th. It is so exciting to know it is right around the corner!! I completely and totally adore Sam more now than I did on the day I married him. The two of us work so well together. We have built our marriage around the foundation of God's word and that helps so much. We both firmly believe that when we were married we were joined together as one flesh. We do have struggles from time to time however we work together daily as a team. It is more evident now than it has ever been that he is who I dreamed of as a little girl. Some days, I wake up and look at the life I am living and think to myself, how did I ever get so lucky? God truly saw fit to bless me immensely.

We are leaving November 1st for Severville, Tn. We are staying in the exact same cabin we stayed in last year for our honeymoon. We will be gone 7 days and six nights.Our cabin is located on the peak of a mountain with a breathtaking view. We are both like kids on Christmas morning...counting down the days. We CANNOT wait!!!! I will be sure to post up pictures.

We have been so blessed these past few months. God has by far been at work in our lives and we are so thankful. Life is good. =)

Kreativ Blog Award

Miss Katey gave me this blog award. Katey and I share a common bond, as we both have Cystic Fibrosis. Katey is a transplant patient. Her story is a true inspiration and full of hope for those yet to take that step. I encourage each of you to go to her blog and read her incredible story.

Katey, thank you for being a beacon for God's light and allowing us to be a part of your journey. =)


Here are the rules for the award:

Thank the person who nominated you.
Copy and paste the logo on your blog.
Link the nominator on your blog.
Name seven things about yourself.
Nominate seven "kreativ bloggers".
Post links to the nominated blogs.
Leave a comment on each of the blogs

Ok..so here are 7 things about me...
1. I have the most beautiful, incredible, amazing little girl. I am amazed that God found me worthy enough to be her mother. My pregnancy with her was hard. Doctors told me it could result badly. Yet she is here, perfect and healthy and will be celebrating nine wonderful years this year!

2. I attend Epic. It is more than just a building or a church to me. I truly believe Epic is making a movement in the city of Decatur. I have a huge passion to stay with Epic and see it through until the end. It was through their love and acceptance that I came to know the true spirit of Jesus.

3. I am married to the most amazing man ever. He loves life and loves God. It is a blessing to walk this life with him. I never knew what the true bond of marriage was until we were married. I truly feel as if we are bonded, flesh and spirit as one, just as God intended for man and woman to be.

4. My parents are my backbone. My Daddy has been everything a little girl dreams her Daddy to be. He set the standard high for any man that come into my life. He taught me to love wholeheartedly and to keep pushing forward. My Mother taught me to have my own opinions and to always stand for something. She instilled values of self worth , confidence, and self respect deep into the very spirit of who I am.

5. I have Cystic Fibrosis, however it does not define who I am.

6. I have a purpose, a will and a way. God has revealed to me that I am here to glorify His name. He is the Alpha and Omega. He shows me daily that there is no dark corner that he cannot see into. When life gets big, He proves to be bigger.

7. If I were to be completely honest, I would say for the very first time in my life I am living in a beautiful disaster and I am truly, deep down, from the bottom of my heart, inside my soul happy and it feels wonderful.



I nominate the following 7 "kreative" bloggers:
Candace @ The Fuller Family
Heather @ Shake It
Carole Foret @ Artful Living with Carole Foret
Frank @ Quid est Verita
Ronnie @ Run Sickboy Run
Jamie @ A Bumb's Life
Singleton Hippie Art @ Just Give Me Peace

Pictures of the Progression

I have decided to post all of the progression pictures from the painting here so you can view them side by side. I am also going to be posting pictures at the bottom of me working on the painting!! I have a great new art project coming up and it is TOP SECRET!!! I will give you a few hints as to what it might be! It is going to be a huge project and Sam is going to have to help. It will be in my home when it is completed!!! I am so very excited about this!! I can't wait to reveal it!! Once I get "elbow deep" into it I will post pictures!!! Until then, you can only guess!!! =) =)

Hope you guys are having a wonderful week!
I love you all!!

First Sunday


Second Sunday (This was the day the artists didn't touch the painting, the red paint was put there by IV during the message.)


Third Sunday after 1st service (This was when Melody had started her top half, I had yet to start on my bottom half)

Third Sunday (This was what Melody and I had both done after all three services on the third Sunday)

Fourth Sunday---The finished painting.

These are close ups of my half of the canvas.



Here are some pictures of me working on the canvas on the fourth Sunday.

Glory

The finished painting.



We finished up our "Canvas" series last week at Epic. I must start out by saying WOW! This series really moved something deep inside of me. Last week we talked about God's Glory. This meant so much to me. Most people live thinking about what if. What if I got sick? What if I lost my house? What if, what if, what if. However I...I live in the what if. I am sick. I have a genetic lung disease. To make it even crazier I just learned recently what my genotype was. A genotype is the type of gene I have that actually created Cystic Fibrosis in my body. My genotype is rare. To even get deeper into my genotype.....I learned that there is ONE mutation in my genotype that causes my Cystic Fibrosis. Most people have hundreds of mutations.....therefore causing it harder to find a cure for those types of genes. However mine only has one. This was exciting news, yet at the same time, it really made me reflect. There is one tiny little mutation that kept me from being normal....from being well.....from being like everyone else. Yet God saw fit for that one mutation to exist. This news was very bittersweet to me, as I am sure you can tell. So close to have having a life completely free of disease. That was not God's plan though. That was not what was painted into my canvas. Instead I have red paint in the middle of my canvas. Sometimes it makes me stand out among others, sometimes it makes life a little different from those around me, but all in all it is mine, my canvas, my life, and it is precious to me. Several years ago I learned to start giving God glory...and not just when things were going well. It makes me think of the song by Casting Crowns, "I Will Praise You in this Storm". That sums up my life. When I can no longer breathe on my own, when I no longer can depend on my body to carry me any further, that is when I will stretch my hands to the sky and praise God like I never have. My suffering brings me closer to God. It is through my disease that I have come to have a relationship with God like no other relationship I have with anyone else in my life. It is through this I have come to know a love so powerful that even time cannot touch it...for it is an eternity of love. My body is broken. It will let me down. That I am sure of. Each one of us will encounter death at some point. Our bodies are not meant to carry us all the way. However my body may be broken, my spirit is not. God gave me the spirit of a fighter. That is where His glory is.....in the fight. I have such a strong will to live, to move forward, it would take an army to stop me. God is always there, pushing me forward, moving my feet when I am tired, breathing air into my lungs when I can't, and holding my head up so I don't miss a single second of this incredible journey. It sounds so amusing to think of it. I stand 5'1 and on a good day weigh 120 pounds and I have the face of a child. Yet I truly consider myself a warrior. Life is not bad. I am actually very blessed, and seem to find myself sick less and less. Yet through health, sickness, and everything else I give God all the glory. If not for Him and His immense love for me and for all of us , I would not make it out of bed every morning, I would not be able to take care of Peyton, I would not even be able to set here three months out of the hospital typing this blog to you. He is the reason I breathe. I understand I don't always get to be well. I have to be sick sometimes. That is part of my canvas, my story, my life. Yet I trust His will and His way. Who knows me better than my Creator??? Who knows more about what I need and don't need?? I pray daily that He breaks me down and uses me so that I can serve Him. My life has to have holes in it for His light to shine through. Being sick is never easy for me. It is never something I will get use to. However knowing that even one person could see God and His true glory just by hearing my story or seeing my life makes every single second of it worth it. Every hospital stay, every blood draw at 2 am, every time I ever cough up blood...it is all worth it. He takes every negative in my life and turns it into something positive. How amazing is that?? I am not a preacher or a saint. I am just a woman with a divine love for my Creator. I am blessed that He opens my mind daily and feeds me more understanding each step of the way. It makes me have to stop and say through all the disease and suffering, life is truly beautiful.

I Am Not, But I Know I Am

I promise to blog on this really soon. However I know so many of you are wanting to see the progress. So I am posting a picture now and will return to blog later on. My work is in the lower right hand corner under the slash through the middle. The top part is Melody. =) We decided to divide the canvas last Sunday and work on our own sections. It is really neat to see how it is coming along and ties in together!! This Sunday I will be painting ALL three services! So please pray for me!! I have to run now, but promise to blog later!!! Be sure to check back for the update! You don't want to miss this blog! The title says it all!! =)


***UPDATE***

In the book of Exodus, inside the story of Moses and the burning bush, for the first time in recorded history, God tells us His name. Moses asks when I come to the children of Israel and they ask what is Your name, what do I say to them?? God replies, "I AM WHO I AM". God tells Moses to say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. (Exodus 3:13-15)

This was our message for the third week of "Canvas",I am not, but I know I Am. It takes us out of the picture and puts God in the picture. God wanted us to know His name and it is I AM. Since His name is I Am, our name is I Am Not. Who is going to take care of us? I AM When life gets hard and we want to give in, who is going to stand beside us to make sure we pull through?? I AM Who is going to be a father to my child?? I AM Who is going to take care of me when I am sick?? I AM Who is going to make sure we are fed?? I AM Who is going to love me?? I AM The list just goes on and on. IV explained this beautifully. It was what has been my favorite message in all the history of Epic.

Now the artwork. It has been very intense for me as this message has progressed. I have had to take myself out of the canvas and put God in. It has not been easy. Being sick, the focus has always been on my health, my entire life. Everyone I love around me is constantly watching and waiting for me to conquer my health. So often I pray to God, please make me well, please heal me, I know you can do it, please. However that is not making it about Him. My disease, although it doesn't overpower me, it still exists. Something I have learned in the past few years is my purpose for being sick. I don't believe I am sick by luck of the draw. It isn't an accident. Everything in His plan is perfect. There are no defects. God makes no mistakes......not even the scar on my lip. =)

Messing Up God's Plan

(*Note* I will be posting a blog soon with pictures of the progress from yesterday. I just really wanted to blog on this. God layed it on my heart. I hope you guys think about it for the next few days and it speaks to you in some way. Love you all!)


As most of you know from my previous post, I was out of town the second Sunday of Canvas. As I also posted earlier, the decision was made to leave the artwork freestanding, untouched for all three services. I finally was able to grab the message on CD that I missed that Sunday as well as see the canvas again. I was in for quiet a shock. As I turned the corner into Epic, I immediately noticed something horrible was wrong with the canvas. To my disbelief there had been red paint slung all in the middle of our beautiful art. The art was finally taking a direction and it was so exciting to see where it was going!! Yet there stood this giant piece of canvas I had been pouring my heart and soul into for the past two weeks, praying over, dreaming about, ruined. I was stunned, speechless. There were no words to express my emotions. I had a lump in my throat that felt the size of Texas. Someone in passing must have noticed me standing motionless in a gaze of fear and came to my side. They told me what had happened. They said I needed to listen to the message. The message. Hmmm....I had not heard it yet. I was suddenly so eager to hear what excitement I had missed. So I grabbed up one of the recordings and quickly ran to my jeep and played it in my CD player. It sounded so usual at first, IV coming on, welcoming everyone to Epic. Then he started speaking about God's masterpiece. The masterpiece He paints daily in our every day lives when we are so busy and unaware. I could hear him picking up the paint brush and then it happened. I heard the red paint slide onto the painting Melody and I had worked on. He told of how our sin and our plans for our lives ruins God's masterpiece. My heart was breaking. No longer was it because our artwork had a runny red glob in the middle, instead because I understood exactly what he was saying. Our artwork is no where near comparable to the masterpieces God paints every single day, however I knew just a teeny weensy bit, on a very smaller scale how God must feel everytime I say no to Him. The times He has already painted it in my life. It is already there, and I am busy trying to paint it in myself. What a mess I must look standing with all of that runny red paint on me in the middle of his beautiful artwork. I was touched. Something deep in my soul was awakened with this new understanding. I have always been one who loves everything life has to offer. The beauty and the chaos. I never take simple things for granted. Like the color of green the grass is after a hot summer Alabama rain. Or the way my daughter stares out the window while we are driving like she knows some big dark unkown secret. Or the way the sun shines on just the right spot of my yard at just the right time of day. Yet I now realize even though I take in every second of every moment that I am blessed with, how often do I find myself "telling" God how I think things should be. The perfect example.....Cystic Fibrosis. How many times a day do I say, you know, God I need you to do this, this is what needs to happen, I need to be well. Instead of trusting that God is the artist, and is painting something so unimaginable, so breathtaking that not I, nor you could ever even begin to wrap our minds around it. He knows the next brush stroke. He knows what I need and what I do not need. I think I need to be well, however He thinks I need to be sick. So this leads me to another idea, maybe the red paint, maybe it isn't always things that we do in our lives. Maybe sometimes it is misfortune, or illness that we stumble into with no fault of our own. But I ask you this....without the red paint, how beautiful would the world be?? If I was well, I cannot tell you where I would be today. I cannot tell you that I would notice the shades of the sky on a late afternoon, or the way the gravel crunches under my feet as I walk the trail between my dad's house and mine. I may not ever notice how beautiful it is to pull into Epic every Sunday morning, and see the most incredible people that I have ever met in my life. And to know they are all on my side, praying for me, and hoping and watching for my health to get better right along side of me. I may never notice the kindness of a smile. If I were well, things may swim past me so fast in a sudden blur. I would be left with the rest of society waiting to realize how beautiful and sudden this life is at an old age when I was wrinkled and tired. If that is how I see the red paint in my life, then I welcome it. Because even when there is red paint, there is also new beginnings. New beginnings for our lives. God can step in and paint over every last single stroke until all the red is gone. He can make it a masterpiece, His masterpiece. So I say to you today, no one is perfect. We as a human race will constantly struggle with messing up God's plan. We will always be red paint. Thank GOD we have a Savior who died for us, to make it right. Because I would HATE to know that I was actually in charge of what is going on around me. The one thing I have learned in my 26 years, sick or not, when I do things without God, all I end up with is a big red mess.