Family Memorial

We have just one more week left in our Growing Kid's God's Way class. I'm sad to see it come to an end, but I guess it will be nice to have our Sunday nights back. We have learned SO much from this class and from the teachers and other parents that we have been able to share the past 20 or so weeks with. This last week was about creating a family memorial. When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, God often told them to pick up stones or build an altar in rememberance of what God had done in a particular spot. The purpose of the stones was to remind them to tell the story again and pass it through the generations. What an awesome thing to be able to tell your grandchildren of a specific instance of how God worked. This was actually something that I had learned a while ago in a Beth Moore bible study and God had led me to create a memory box for our family. My parents gave one to us years ago at Christmas and I've been putting little symbols of things that God has done in our lives, but it's been tucked away. Well, after Sunday night, I was convicted to pull it out and proudly display it on our foyer table. I added the paper on the front and when I can find a nice family picture of the four of us will also add that to it, too.

I was also thinking that it might be neat to one day buy each of our children a smaller, simpler box that they can also put things in that God does just for them. Some of the things that are currently in our box are Hannah & Kate's hospital ID bracelets, the newspaper article from George's snake bite, our pregnancy test & a bib from our first baby that we miscarried, ultrasound pictures of the girls, and some other things that aren't coming to mind at the moment.

I find it such a neat idea that I wanted to pass it along to you in case you would like to start one for your own family!

In other Lantz family news, we found a house that we really like located about 20-25 minutes north of us. It's a little bit further than we hoped, but George and I both compromised on some aspects and we really like the house. It's in a subdivision (George's compromise), but all of the houses are on one acre lots and this one is on a corner lot with no backyard neighbors! It actually still has orange trees in the backyard. It's 1770 square feet, 3/2/2 with a screened lanai and built in 2005. It doesn't have that 4th bedroom we were hoping for, but it does have a dining room & living room. I don't have any plans for buying formal dining room furniture or living room furniture anytime soon so I'd plan on using those rooms for a playroom or an office when the time comes that we'd need the 3rd bedroom for a nursery. There's also room to add on with such a large lot. It's a foreclosure for a great price (less than what we paid for the house we have)! The only obstacle is that many others think it's a great price, too. The first day it was on the market, we looked at it. We made an offer the next day & apparently so did others. Right now, we are playing the waiting game. I KNOW that God can hand us this house. I'm not sure if He's going to show us his bigness by allowing us to get it despite all of these other offers or if He has a better house planned for us. We have a certain price that we will not go above and we haven't reached that price yet. We still have to be out of our house by the end of the month. We do have a place to go. Yes, it's back with the parents for hopefully just a few short weeks. We don't want to sign a 7 month lease on an apartment if we only need somewhere to stay for a month. We'd be throwing money away. The hard thing right now is not having any solid answers. We are living by faith. We are very blessed though to have a place to go.

Our church is focused on prayer for an entire month. The pastor shared a verse this Sunday from James about not having because we don't ask. I have to confess that I hadn't even asked for the house simply because I don't know if I had the faith that God could do it. Lord, help my unbelief. So if you want to join us in prayer on this matter, please ask with us that God would deliver this house into our hands. If that's not His will, that He would help us to accept it with trust that He knows best and help us to find a house quickly!