Thank the Lord for Thursdays!

I am sitting here on Friday afternoon thanking God for the date I had with my husband last night...dinner by candle light!

I can not say that our marriage has been without frustrations and disappointments nor can I say that there haven't been times when I have wanted to give up.  What I can say is that I sought the Lord for my husband and He opened my eyes and my heart to Walter Bowie and confirmed in me His will for us to marry.  Since that day, I have been dedicated to loving him with all of my heart, second only to the Lord.

Along our journey we have been blessed with 10 beautiful children who I love dearly, but nothing like the love I have for Walter.  My love for him is deep; I made a covenant to be his bride unto death not only unto him, but unto our Lord and that is what bind us.  Through good, bad and indifferent my heart yearns to be right with him, I love him so.

It has been so good to have a love like this, especially as I go through the seasons of life as a mother of many, grandma, friend, servant of the Lord etc. The tragedy of the fire has brought unto me the reality that life as we know it this moment is not promised and that having a marriage with Christ as the foundation is must.  Life situations and circumstances are that which test your faith and that which can destroy marriages.  I refuse to allow that to happen to us and thus I choose to cling to God and cling to Walter.

One of the blessings of our marriage has been our commitment to have a date every Thursday.  We have not allowed finances, pregnancies :), indifference nor tragedy keep us from this special time. We have kept it simple yet intimate...dinner and a movie together in the "Love Nest" (our bedroom).  It is not a time for the discussions of life, but a time to be "together".  Now, I must say that there have been times that we have come together with indifference and one or both of us have had little or nothing to say, but we met just the same and were blessed in the midst.

When we made the commitment to have a date on Thursday over 14 years ago little did we know it would be such a blessing to us, but God did!  At times it has been the anchor that has kept our ship from drifting away from God.  For me some weeks it is my motivation to make it through one more day for I know Thursday is coming and at other times I have looked forward to it that it would rekindle the fire that was seemingly burning out.  Walter and I  both agree that God has blessed us tremendously through this commitment and for that we are grateful.

We Walk by Faith

 

The need to reconstruct our home has presented us with an opportunity to expand our home to accommodate our growing (in stature) family.  As a homeschooling family of ten, consisting of seven growing boys who are at home most of everyday, we have need of more space in our house.  When considering this opportunity, reality presented itself...it takes money to expand.

With that reality in mind, we sought the Lord and He gave Walter and I peace about our desire to expand and then a floor plan which includes a bigger bedroom for our seven boys, a bigger kitchen and a bigger schoolroom allowing us to have more space in some very important areas of our home.   When presenting our expansion plan to the builder, he came back with what was a good quote, but it was well beyond our pockets, be it we had not planned to incur such an expense.  Walter and I were both disappointed, unto tears.  So, we went back to the Lord for wisdom and we decided to make a sacrifice and put the compensation we will receive from the insurance company for the contents of our home towards the reconstruction of our home and trust God to provide the furniture, appliances and household items we will need to return to our home. We both have faith that God will supply our every need.

In taking this step of faith, I made a list of our needs including the cost of these items and presented it to God.  He revealed to me that additional debt was not an option, but instead humbling ourselves before Him and others and willing accepting  things from  friends, family etc. as well as choosing to shop for clearance items and gently used items from resale shops to replace the contents of our home is the plan.  I trust God; for truly He is our provider and our sustainer.   We shared our decision with our children since they too will be making a sacrifice of not having things replaced that they once had; we are all at peace and excited to watch God do what He does...provide, for He has not forsaken us.

"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart . . . I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."
Psalms 37:4, 25, KJV