Blessings

I just recently decided to dedicate a door in our home titled "Blessings." (It's just the door that leads to the garage.) Here, my family and I have begun to post blessings from God. It can be anything, really. We just write our blessing on a piece of (nice) paper and tape it to the door. So many times I forget all the great things God has done and tend to wallow around and let my feelings and fears consume me. God has done many many amazing things in my life, and I don't want to forget it. It will also be great for Isaias and Lily to learn and see when and how God works in people's lives. I think we get caught up in life and can easily overlook these things. God recently began speaking to me about how I wasn't taking charge of my kid's spiritual growth. I'm leaving it up to the church, and while they do an awesome job, it needs to be a daily practice.

Today, I was able to write a big blessing down. Let me first give you some background. On Wednesday night Erik and Isaias went to Kansas City for a soccer game. The game was tied so they did a tiebreaker and it added an extra hour or so. (Don't you like my not-so-technical terms? :) So, the boys didn't get home until 1:30 AM! I of course stayed up and waited for them, and by the time we all went to sleep it was 2AM. I was up at 8 the next morning. By Thursday evening I was pretty tired, and Erik and I went to bed at 11:30.

At about 3:30 am I woke up to Erik looking out our bedroom window. There were some emergency vehicles in front of our neighbors yard. We live on a street where we hear emergency vehicles many times a day, and into the nighttime. I never heard anything though since I was SO tired. Our neighbor's house had caught on fire! It wasn't a couple houses down, it was right next to us! Our bedroom and Isaias' bedroom are on the side closest to their house. According to the news there were flames and it caught the back part of the house on fire as well as the attic. I'm so shocked I never heard or saw anything until the last couple emergency vehicles left.

 I didn't realize how bad it was until I looked at it in the morning.

From our bedroom window you can see their back deck area.

Erik talked with the neighbor and they said it was probably a cigarette that was thrown out and since it's been so dry it just caught on fire. The boy who lives there happened to go get a drink of water. (at 1:30am) and saw the flames. I'm not sure where the adults were, but it was their bedroom that caught on fire from the outside.

I can totally see how God protected our neighbors! I can also see how God protected me and my family as well. I started to think, "what if...." Many scenarios went through my mind, but God told me not to think about that, and to focus on how He had protected us all. Funny thing is, I had recently been wondering if God forgot about me. I can tell you for certain He has not!! He never will! God is good!