Christmas Miracles

Let's go back to Thanksgiving....

DE (Daddy Eagle) and I came up with a Christmas budget before Thanksgiving, adding more people to the gift-giving list than ever before. We love giving gifts, but I guess our faith was small in years past and have never really been able to give like we wanted to. This year was different. God had deposited a greater measure of faith in our hearts and we wanted to put it in action. So, our budget was the biggest one yet...and we were excited about what the Lord would do to bring in the money for this Christmas!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, our pastor called for a special offering. The Lord gave us an amount to give and we were obedient (knowing that it would stretch our faith). The same afternoon, our oven broke!! What?! Immediately, the thought came to me, "this is a test of your faith." So, we prayed and believed that God would still come through.
**Note: this is a very bad time of the year to not have an oven - Thanksgiving and Christmas?! All the holiday baking?!

Thankfully, my mother-in-law lives across the street from us, and so I'd use her oven.

A week later, we received in the mail DE's first royalty check from his book!! This was exciting enough! But, lo and behold, it was for just a little more than our CHRISTMAS BUDGET!!! Wow!!
Even though we knew that we could use it to fix the oven, we felt confident that the Lord had answered our prayer for Christmas and so we received it as that....and the Christmas shopping began!

In the meantime, we're having the appliance guys check out our oven problem....everyone's thinking it would only be a minor repair. But, by the second week or so, it was determined that we'd have to REPLACE the oven! That was NOT in the budget, ya hear?!
So, we prayed again, and asked the Lord to show us what to do about it.
You'd think after providing the Christmas money, we'd have great faith about the oven....but, NO. I guess we thought He just wasn't capable of that twice in one month. how absurd! how embarrassing!

A few days later we got a check in the mail that was a huge blessing, helping with several things including putting some toward our oven. But, since it wasn't enough, DE thought we'd have to borrow money to get a new oven. And, though walking across the street to bake was getting VERY old, I did NOT want to borrow money. But, my faith was weakening and I gave in....even though my heart was screaming DON'T DO IT! BELIEVE GOD!!

Right about that time my pastor's wife called me. We got to talking and I mentioned that we hadn't had an oven since Thanksgiving. And she couldn't believe it! She began to pray for our oven right then, believing that God could show up at our door tomorrow with a new one!! Her faith was HUGE! So, I decided to agree with her, since I needed the help :)
That was on a Wednesday. On Thursday, DE ordered a new oven, still thinking we'd borrow the money. But on Saturday, we were both so down-in-the-dumps about how we'd pay for the oven, we prayed again.

First, we agreed that we did not want to borrow money. Then, we prayed....repenting for unbelief and believing that God could and would come through. We felt much better afterward.

15 minutes later.....we get a phone call from a family who wants to "adopt" us for Christmas!! Since we did not have anything on the Christmas list for them to buy, they decided to PAY FOR THE NEW OVEN!!! Are you shouting yet?! I sure was!!!

15 minutes later....we get another phone call from someone who wants to give us money to fix our roof (which is still broken from Hurricane Gustav a year and a half ago)!!!
We'll even have enough to get the younger girls a bed I've been wanting to get them!!!!

A week later, just in time for Eaglet 3's birthday party and Christmas cookie baking, our oven was delivered and installed!!! I stand amazed!!!!

The biggest miracle is the victory over our faith! There was a real battle for our faith....it was indeed a test....and the battle was very clear. I rejoice over the victory, and give God glory for making us overcomers in Christ!

Up-to-date

This fall has been a whirlwind. Let's see if I can recap...and this year, since I'm participating in the 365 project I'll be writing more, too.

For starters, we're on track with school in most subjects, even though by October I had already failed miserably with the workcrate system. But, the Lord was gracious to remind me that when we fall down, we get up! So, no condemnation, we just started over in November.

I really took a break with the drama class I teach at co-op....no big production this year (including the coming spring). It was nice having that break. There were times when I didn't know what to do with myself at co-op. Could I really sit down at my break and do nothing? It appeared that I could....and I did. This semester will be the same. I'm grateful.

On a spiritual note, the Lord has done wonders in me and my family this year!!
We are now a part of a prayer ministry where we pray for people to be healed....from heart wounds, trauma, etc (inner healing) and delivered...from whatever is causing them to be stuck in their relationship with the Lord. It has been amazing to watch the Lord show up and reveal Himself in a powerful way to people. It has been an honor to be a part of these processes. Like Lou Engle said recently, "we're just midwives for the presence of God"....in other words, helping to birth (or bring forth) God's presence in people's lives. I love that! We're there to usher in His presence, and then when He shows up, we can step aside and let Him do all the good stuff!! And He's doing it....bringing healing, deliverance, peace, victory, grace, mercy, etc. etc.

So, God's been doing the same in my life as well....going to the depths of my heart, bringing up the offenses and hurts, then healing them once and for all! It's a beautiful thing. And, I'm amazed at how thorough He is!

Then, He blew us away in December at several answers to prayer!! (next post)

Shots for the New Year

Last spring, I took a wonderful photography class called Mommytography. I learned a lot about my new camera, and how to take better pictures. But, then I let life crowd out my time for picture-taking. So this year, I'd like to make time to hone my skills.





I am participating in the 2010 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. For those of you who follow this blog, you know by now that I won't POST every day :) but I'll post once a week (that's the goal) the images I took that week.
Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!