Here is our list so far, what do you have to add ~ creativity wins extra points!! ha!
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Garage Sale Goodness!!
So we're jumping in head first on this idea of raising some funds for our Haiti Mission Trip! We'd love your advice on how to do such a thing cuz we only have one plan in place with wheels in motion....and if I am stark honest with you all, I'd have to admit, *asking* for money makes the skin crawl right off my back so becoming a "fundraiser" is about as outside of my element as one could possibly SHOVE ME. But inventive ways to earn some cashola has my thinker workin' overtime, my engine revving, wheels turning, exhaust rolling...or maybe I'm just burning rubber over here? Please DeAr FrIeNdS...this is our plea to you: we'd love all the wild advice and crazy ideas we can get on this one as we have just weeks to prepare and as much as we've rubbed our two pennies together, they're not multiplying over here!
Here is our list so far, what do you have to add ~ creativity wins extra points!! ha!
We are taking donations for our garage sale if you have anything you'd like to part ways with we'd gladly accept some items to make our sale a lil more "beefy". We'd also LOVE for you to tell all your friends, especially all your Buckman & Pierz friends so they can come shopping.
Here is our list so far, what do you have to add ~ creativity wins extra points!! ha!
Saturday, July 12, 2014
When He Whispers...
I've been waiting for a few months to share this testimony and reveal the secrets of our heart in celebration of a wondrously big God who calls us to walk upon the deep waters with Him! I've been "holding this secret" since April and I want to BURST. Every time I sit down to express my heart, there are no words. That's a first for me (I see you nodding your head in agreement as you've all received a 'Maria War & Peace Novel' under the guise of an email response). Usually my fingers can not keep up to the speed of my spirit when I sit down to "pour out" onto the "paper"....but not this time. Time and again I sat down to complete blankness. So I waited for Him to give me the words, after all it is His story and so I must wait on Him to share it!
I feel that time has arrived. So here goes nothing:
Early this past spring, I sensed the Lord whispering to me in a way that only could have been His voice speaking. He was sending me intimately personalized signs, one after another, as if to say He wanted my undivided attention! Once I realized it was truly the Lord's heartbeat I was hearing, I was overwhelmed with excitement as He downloaded the secrets of His heart to me. Of course, I immediately ran off to Donny to share all that God had been wildly revealing to me and as always, when the details poured from my rambling mouth, I watched my husband's eyes grow to the size of watermelons and dislodge from his sockets and fall onto his lap. But we agreed to join together in prayer, listening for Him and pressing in for confirmation. And confirmation we did receive, in abundance, because God is that good and He knows just how to speak in a way that His children will assuredly hear His voice!
So what is it that God was speaking to me that was so glorious and terrifying that it could cause my husbands eyes to morph into some reaction reminiscent of a scene from Beetlejuice? It was an invitation of grand-proportion to see God calling our first born son as a man.
God began to reveal His heart to me about my son Zachary. He showed me deeply personal secrets of the visions & dreams that the God of the UNIVERSE carries over Zach's life AS A MAN and my heart began to unravel at the seams in awe & wonder over the magnitude of God's calling upon our son. I knew it was time for this mama to grab a new pair of eyeballs herself! I needed to open my eyes to start seeing this "little boy" of ours as the man that God could see. And I began to wonder if David's mother seen him in a new light after God called out that puny, little, pubescent, teenage boy to step into his calling by entering a ring to battle Goliath with a kid's sling-shot carrying a man's legacy as future king called to be a world changer, with a warrior's heart and the faith of an intimate worshiper? Did his mama look at him with those eyes? Did she see sitting before her a boy who was destined to overcome the impossible with just a little rock? Did she realize that day God began to reveal to all of us one of the most epic tales of a hero's legacy found in the Old Testament? While she looked in the face of that pubescent boy coming home excitedly telling her eye-socket-popping tales at the kitchen table over his peanut butter & jelly sandwich...did she see a man?
I'll tell you God doesn't see us the way we see ourselves or even see each other...and I'm so thankful for that. It is my life's pursuit of love to always see the way God sees. I have a long way to go, but every day I get the chance to practice! So on with spilling the secret;
After I had clearly received all the signs, knew God's voice was obviously pointing in this one direction, resuscitated my husband back to life, prayed together with fervency; we decided we had to bring this invitation to the table for Zach to pray about as well after all, it was more about him than either of us anyway..this much I knew. So one night I sat down with Zach while Donny was out of town to share with him the vision that God had shown me and ask him to pray with us. I was wildly excited, but my heart was reserved as I didn't actually believe Zach would EVER agree to something so monumentally big & scary for a 12yr old, not-to-mention it was going to be costly for him to accept. So I shared, that God was asking us, mother & son, if we'd go on a mission trip to Haiti together in November 2014. It would require that Zach spend his birthday in Haiti and that he would miss rifle hunting in Minnesota this year (his greatest passionate obsession with his dad), he'd miss school for a week and possibly some basketball practice. As you can imagine ~ he reacted in our new "Traut tradition" and I had to catch his eyeballs too as they lept off his face like spring-loaded bouncy balls!
Indeed it was a costly decision that he must pray about and hear God speak to his own heart, and he wrestled it out for a week. 7 days later we sat down to talk about a decision as a family as we had a deadline in April we had to make the choice by and it was the 11th hour. As we sat down on the couch and I could tell by Zach's behavior all week that it was a hard decision for him, I felt undoubtedly his answer was going to be "no" and I had come to terms in my own heart with "no" being the reality....but just as his eyes met mine;
I said "well, we have to make a choice tonight"
And he blurted out "I know what God wants me to do"
I said "you do?"
Then he said "yeah, God wants me to go to Haiti."
And I responded [in shock] "wow, did He give you a sign, or how did He speak to you that you're so certain?"
He then shared "well, the week before you told me about the trip, God spoke to me and said He had something really special for me on my birthday this year. Then when you were talking to me about the trip, God was speaking to me at the same time saying "this is the special thing I have for you"...then you told me the trip was over my birthday".
Yep, you guessed it...insert mom's dangling eyeballs from sockets here....with a side of speechless dad choking on his own tongue.
OH MY HEART....
At this point, it didn't matter to me if we went on the trip or not, I was in awe of my son's ability to hear the Lord speak to him and to KNOW God's voice so assuredly! This moment without doubt had me in tears of absolute joy.
Long story short(er): We didn't make a decision that night because Zach's fears and God's voice conflicted to the degree he simply couldn't answer. Zach still needed one last night to wrestle this through with God to see if his fears and/or desires were greater than God's invitation and in the morning when he woke up, he walked out into the kitchen with a new found confidence and I could see the wrestling match was over. Just knowing my son could hear the Lord's voice soooo clearly, my heart was now at peace with whatever his decision might be. And he said to me "Mom, I want to go to Haiti. Let's do it. It's more important to me to listen to God than anything else". And my heart melted into a puddle of overflowing malt-o-meal from the stove as I stood there in my pj's and bed hair, attempting to make breakfast before school and I became lost in a love encounter with God as He transformed my vision and I watched my son sitting there at my kitchen counter, eating his peanut butter toast staring back at me as a man, not a boy! A man who captured the heart of God so deep that somehow he knew at this wildly young age that following God out into the scary unknown, deep waters, listening to that whisper is always worth what we perceive to be "the cost". And I know that a very big God is waiting to show-up for my son as He polishes the gold hidden inside that young man's heart in preparation to and on the ground in Haiti, so much will birth to life that Zach never knew God had planted inside his heart and Zach will come home understanding that there never really was a cost in comparison to touch of God that radically changed him. And let's not even get started on what God's doing in & to "me"...that's a whole other novel!
[side note: just one awesome fun lil testimony of 'confirmation' we received ~ one of Zach's greatest fears leading him towards saying "no" was that he'd be the only "kid" on the trip with a bunch of old people "like me" and be stuck with all women. The day we signed up for the trip, the trip leader Becki responded to me with a quick email saying that she loved watching God orchestrate His missions ~ as Zach and I were the 4th pair of "mom & teenage son" duo's to sign up for the exact same trip!!!! Zach's face lit up like the glowing sun when I revealed the power of that one tiny detail of God's goodness and all fear was obliterated in that moment...of course...AFTER he took the leap in blind faith! Ha! Take that "fear"!!]
So here is our invitation for you to join us on this new adventure with God to Haiti. Follow us on this blog, pray for us [PLEEEEASE!], support us, walk into the heart of God with us and hopefully be gloriously ruined along side of us come November 8-15th as we venture out into the deep with the ACT Mission team!!
Much more to share in days to come! Stay tuned....
I feel that time has arrived. So here goes nothing:
Early this past spring, I sensed the Lord whispering to me in a way that only could have been His voice speaking. He was sending me intimately personalized signs, one after another, as if to say He wanted my undivided attention! Once I realized it was truly the Lord's heartbeat I was hearing, I was overwhelmed with excitement as He downloaded the secrets of His heart to me. Of course, I immediately ran off to Donny to share all that God had been wildly revealing to me and as always, when the details poured from my rambling mouth, I watched my husband's eyes grow to the size of watermelons and dislodge from his sockets and fall onto his lap. But we agreed to join together in prayer, listening for Him and pressing in for confirmation. And confirmation we did receive, in abundance, because God is that good and He knows just how to speak in a way that His children will assuredly hear His voice!
So what is it that God was speaking to me that was so glorious and terrifying that it could cause my husbands eyes to morph into some reaction reminiscent of a scene from Beetlejuice? It was an invitation of grand-proportion to see God calling our first born son as a man.
God began to reveal His heart to me about my son Zachary. He showed me deeply personal secrets of the visions & dreams that the God of the UNIVERSE carries over Zach's life AS A MAN and my heart began to unravel at the seams in awe & wonder over the magnitude of God's calling upon our son. I knew it was time for this mama to grab a new pair of eyeballs herself! I needed to open my eyes to start seeing this "little boy" of ours as the man that God could see. And I began to wonder if David's mother seen him in a new light after God called out that puny, little, pubescent, teenage boy to step into his calling by entering a ring to battle Goliath with a kid's sling-shot carrying a man's legacy as future king called to be a world changer, with a warrior's heart and the faith of an intimate worshiper? Did his mama look at him with those eyes? Did she see sitting before her a boy who was destined to overcome the impossible with just a little rock? Did she realize that day God began to reveal to all of us one of the most epic tales of a hero's legacy found in the Old Testament? While she looked in the face of that pubescent boy coming home excitedly telling her eye-socket-popping tales at the kitchen table over his peanut butter & jelly sandwich...did she see a man?
I'll tell you God doesn't see us the way we see ourselves or even see each other...and I'm so thankful for that. It is my life's pursuit of love to always see the way God sees. I have a long way to go, but every day I get the chance to practice! So on with spilling the secret;
After I had clearly received all the signs, knew God's voice was obviously pointing in this one direction, resuscitated my husband back to life, prayed together with fervency; we decided we had to bring this invitation to the table for Zach to pray about as well after all, it was more about him than either of us anyway..this much I knew. So one night I sat down with Zach while Donny was out of town to share with him the vision that God had shown me and ask him to pray with us. I was wildly excited, but my heart was reserved as I didn't actually believe Zach would EVER agree to something so monumentally big & scary for a 12yr old, not-to-mention it was going to be costly for him to accept. So I shared, that God was asking us, mother & son, if we'd go on a mission trip to Haiti together in November 2014. It would require that Zach spend his birthday in Haiti and that he would miss rifle hunting in Minnesota this year (his greatest passionate obsession with his dad), he'd miss school for a week and possibly some basketball practice. As you can imagine ~ he reacted in our new "Traut tradition" and I had to catch his eyeballs too as they lept off his face like spring-loaded bouncy balls!
Indeed it was a costly decision that he must pray about and hear God speak to his own heart, and he wrestled it out for a week. 7 days later we sat down to talk about a decision as a family as we had a deadline in April we had to make the choice by and it was the 11th hour. As we sat down on the couch and I could tell by Zach's behavior all week that it was a hard decision for him, I felt undoubtedly his answer was going to be "no" and I had come to terms in my own heart with "no" being the reality....but just as his eyes met mine;
I said "well, we have to make a choice tonight"
And he blurted out "I know what God wants me to do"
I said "you do?"
Then he said "yeah, God wants me to go to Haiti."
And I responded [in shock] "wow, did He give you a sign, or how did He speak to you that you're so certain?"
He then shared "well, the week before you told me about the trip, God spoke to me and said He had something really special for me on my birthday this year. Then when you were talking to me about the trip, God was speaking to me at the same time saying "this is the special thing I have for you"...then you told me the trip was over my birthday".
Yep, you guessed it...insert mom's dangling eyeballs from sockets here....with a side of speechless dad choking on his own tongue.
OH MY HEART....
At this point, it didn't matter to me if we went on the trip or not, I was in awe of my son's ability to hear the Lord speak to him and to KNOW God's voice so assuredly! This moment without doubt had me in tears of absolute joy.
Long story short(er): We didn't make a decision that night because Zach's fears and God's voice conflicted to the degree he simply couldn't answer. Zach still needed one last night to wrestle this through with God to see if his fears and/or desires were greater than God's invitation and in the morning when he woke up, he walked out into the kitchen with a new found confidence and I could see the wrestling match was over. Just knowing my son could hear the Lord's voice soooo clearly, my heart was now at peace with whatever his decision might be. And he said to me "Mom, I want to go to Haiti. Let's do it. It's more important to me to listen to God than anything else". And my heart melted into a puddle of overflowing malt-o-meal from the stove as I stood there in my pj's and bed hair, attempting to make breakfast before school and I became lost in a love encounter with God as He transformed my vision and I watched my son sitting there at my kitchen counter, eating his peanut butter toast staring back at me as a man, not a boy! A man who captured the heart of God so deep that somehow he knew at this wildly young age that following God out into the scary unknown, deep waters, listening to that whisper is always worth what we perceive to be "the cost". And I know that a very big God is waiting to show-up for my son as He polishes the gold hidden inside that young man's heart in preparation to and on the ground in Haiti, so much will birth to life that Zach never knew God had planted inside his heart and Zach will come home understanding that there never really was a cost in comparison to touch of God that radically changed him. And let's not even get started on what God's doing in & to "me"...that's a whole other novel!
[side note: just one awesome fun lil testimony of 'confirmation' we received ~ one of Zach's greatest fears leading him towards saying "no" was that he'd be the only "kid" on the trip with a bunch of old people "like me" and be stuck with all women. The day we signed up for the trip, the trip leader Becki responded to me with a quick email saying that she loved watching God orchestrate His missions ~ as Zach and I were the 4th pair of "mom & teenage son" duo's to sign up for the exact same trip!!!! Zach's face lit up like the glowing sun when I revealed the power of that one tiny detail of God's goodness and all fear was obliterated in that moment...of course...AFTER he took the leap in blind faith! Ha! Take that "fear"!!]
So here is our invitation for you to join us on this new adventure with God to Haiti. Follow us on this blog, pray for us [PLEEEEASE!], support us, walk into the heart of God with us and hopefully be gloriously ruined along side of us come November 8-15th as we venture out into the deep with the ACT Mission team!!
Much more to share in days to come! Stay tuned....
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