Sought by Joy

The righteous perishes and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil. He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. 

Isaiah 57: 1,2

O Love that wilt not let me go, 
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

~George Matheson

I wish I had the words to say how much Caitlin meant to me--and still means to me, every time I think of her. We saw each other so rarely the last few years that it is often hard to remember that she is sleeping in Jesus now. My heart breaks afresh every time I remember; yet I know she would not want it that way.

Caitlin didn't believe in goodbyes.

As this world is changing and drawing every day closer to its end, the greatest tribute any of us can make to Caitlin is to commit our lives to her Saviour and do all we can to continue the light that she shone into our lives, spreading it to as many as we meet. Caitlin made me want to be better than I am. Her memory makes me want to be a better friend, especially to those who feel alone or unwanted, as Caitlin so often was for me; to be a kinder and gentler wife and mother; and to be a closer and more devoted follower of Jesus, the One who used Caitlin to draw me to Him.

Right now the pain is intense, but His joy is still there, wooing my heart, reminding me that though my tears dim the rainbow of promise, there will be a tearless morn at last.

"And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more dearth, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Rev. 21: 3.4.

We will sing together again by the River, under the Tree of Life. Please be there with us.

Moving forward

Some of you, my friends, may have seen my facebook post announcing that we are moving to Tennessee this summer. What you probably don't know is how incredible it has been to see God moving to make this move possible!

I want to give glory to God by expounding to you the riches of His grace toward my family, not only to tell you more of His bountiful, beneficent love, but to remind me of it in the future when I am tempted to doubt His care.

1. God gave me an incredibly talented husband who has a heart for serving others and receives joy in his work as a result of the service he is allowed to give.

2. He provided the means for our education, and gave me a job so I could work to help my husband finish his schooling.

3. He provided us with the resource through the church of the NAD education listings (think of all the unemployed persons who have to pound pavement all day long searching for jobs, when we have the job listings handed to us and only have to decide to apply!)

4. Even though Steven does not have his teaching endorsements, God gave him the forethought to include most of the required classes for denominational certification in his class load at Walla Walla University, so there are few classes left to him before he is certified.

5. When Steven applied for jobs at schools, they considered him in spite of his lack of certification. 

6. God opened the hearts of the hiring committee at Highland Academy to look at Steven's work experience and skills rather than his lack: education classes and teaching experience. He gave them the faith to move forward and fly Steven in for an interview.

7. He gave us the job! It perfectly fits Steven's skill set and will be an excellent entry to the Adventist education system. He will be teaching upper-level math (Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus), Physics, and Microsoft Office, in addition to overseeing Information Services. He is a computer whiz, and majored in mathematics (which  requires physics classes as well). These are all the things he loves to do, and the school has a small student body so he will be able to start out with smaller classes. The school will pay for the remainder of his education so he will be a certified teacher within 3 years.

There are so many more things I could include! As I think of the process to where we are now, from taking a job as task force workers (read: slaves) that has been very stressful in many ways, to applying for jobs that turned out to be dead ends, causing us to have to wait for more jobs to open up, I can see His hand at work and rejoice in His grace to us. If we had not been task force workers this year, Steven would not have met some key people for references, and my first year of mothering would have been much more difficult (I have all four of my son's grandparents within a 3-minute walk of home).

Now we are on the final leg of this journey toward our new home in Portland, TN, and it has many parts we will need His help to accomplish:

1. We need to get packed! 

2. We need to have a yard sale to get rid of some excess stuff  that we've been dragging around for too long.

3. We need a home to move into. We have made an offer on a house (a modular home on 2.42 acres that is about 1.5 miles from the school), but we are waiting to hear from the bank moderating its sale that our offer is approved. Please pray that God will make His will known in this area by opening or closing doors as he sees fit.

John 1:16. From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.

I pray that you all receive His blessings of grace in your lives today.

Demographic Winter

Here in Spangle we are seeing the first hints of spring. I have pussy willow trees in my backyard and just this last week saw the first hints of fluffy buds. Several cut stems are now blooming in my living room where I can really enjoy their beauty. We have had two days this week of such pleasant, sunny weather that I have been able to take Grant outside without having to bundle us up first.
It is always wonderful to see the signs of the changing seasons, and when winter's grip loosens and spring begins to spread its new life and growth all over the world, new joy fills my heart.

Yet, in countries all over the world, a different kind of winter is just settling in. In some countries, like ours, it has not yet arrived, but is coming as surely as the spring is coming to the northern hemisphere. Chances are you haven't heard of it, or even suspected its existence. It is a demographic winter, and all our lives will be different because of it.

I won't go into too much detail here because I don't want to steal the thunder of the people who spent so much time and money on the documentary, but I want to get you curious so you will start thinking and choose to go to YouTube and see for yourself.

Here's a little information to get you started: 
Concisely, demography is the study of population growth and decline. Demographers look at long term trends and run all their little statistical algorithms and plot what our population will look like in the future. An important demographical concept is replacement fertility rate, the rate at which we must reproduce ourselves in order to maintain our current population. For every two people, 2.1 more people must be born in order to keep the population stable. The 0.1 is to take into account the possibility that a person will die before reproducing himself.
Nearly all Western countries currently have sub-replacement fertility. You might think this is a good thing. After all, isn't the world over-populated? I used to think so, too. This first clip is a very succinct and somewhat humorous introduction to the overpopulation myth. Next is the trailer to the documentary that helps to explain it all. Think it over!





Watch the whole documentary here.

Happy New Year!

Many apologies for the long delay between posts. Grant has been keeping me busy, and there has been so much to do! I hope to take the time sometime soon to share all the things that have kept us from posting for a while, but that time is not now. 

Grant is almost six months old. He now has three teeth and is learning to eat a few solids. He weighs 20 lbs. and is rapidly outgrowing his clothing, though we have enough clothes to last him quite a while. (Why don't they size clothes by weight instead of age with babies? He has never made it to the top of the age range in a clothes size.) Though he's not crawling quite yet, Grant is getting up on his hands and knees and rocking or pushing up to his tiptoes. Once he figures out that his hands need to move with his feet he'll be off! It's very exciting to watch. Just last week he started saying "Ma-ma-ma-ma", and today we heard "Da-da" for the first time. Now all his grandparents and aunties are vying for position as the next word. :) 

We are so blessed to have such a precious child, it is more than worth all the struggles we have gone through to get him to this point. We're eager to start over again! 

Here is a series of pictures that almost brings you up-to-date.

  

I hope you had a merry Christmas and a very happy new year. May the Lord bless you in this year to come.

Pictures

Grant is now one month old. He's gaining weight slowly but steadily (after an initial loss of about 10 oz.) and is more adorable with every day that goes by.

Oh, you want to see?

Too bad, not here. However, Steven has now started his picasa web album of Grant. There aren't super-recent pictures up, but we will add more periodically--we're in the process of moving right now and haven't had much time. Just keep watching for updates.
Back to unpacking...

Presenting...Grant Joseph Williams

I finally have a few minutes to post our news. Our precious son (yes, just one--we were very surprised!) was born early last week.
He was born at home into his father's hands on 18 July 2011 at 3:47 a.m. after 6 hours of hard labor (the easy parts having taken up the better portion of the previous 6 weeks :). Steven was indispensable to me during the whole process--I would not have survived without him! Labor was much harder than I expected, due mostly to the baby's size (see below), but with God's help and Steven's support and encouragement, I made it through and was rewarded with an incredibly beautiful son.

 

Vital Statistics
Weight: 10 lb 4.5 oz
Length: 20 3/4 inches
Head circumference: 14.5 inches
Eye color at birth: blue
Hair color at birth: dark
Eye color now: purple-brown and changing
Hair color now: medium blonde and lightening

We are gradually adjusting to the new way of life little Grant brings. Sleep is getting better, and I am learning how to get things done quickly while the baby is sleeping and/or not crying. He has only four modes, it seems: sleeping, crying, awake but not crying (rare), or eating. We try to take full advantage of the sleeping and awake but not crying states! We will be posting more pictures on our picasa web album and will let you know and post a link when that has been done.

Thank you for all your prayers, encouragement, and support. We are greatly blessed by this little life God has entrusted us, and each day is better than the last.

In Your loving arms we lay
This wordless one so new,
The incarnation of our love
We dedicate to You.

Hopeless, yet so full of love
We make our solemn vow, 
Not knowing when the time will come,
Not even knowing how.
And though it seems we try to make
A promise that is true
We really only claim for him
The Promise that is You.

In Your loving arms we lay
This wordless one so new,
The incarnation of our love
We dedicate to You.

The holy sleep which falls so deep,
A blessing from above,
Will now embrace our little one
In simple, trusting love.
We offer You this child
Who's only ours for just a while;
How could we keep him back from You
When You gave Your only child?

(Michael Card, "Wordless Ones")

Or not...

So, nothing happened on Tuesday night. Like before, labor just petered out when we tried to get some sleep, and no real developments happened in the next couple of days.

Today is seeming more promising. These babies have seemed to prefer Sabbaths, so it is fitting, and not surprising, that I've been having "labor signals" yesterday and today. I might not post again for a while if the babies come, but I'll try to get at least a little blurb in if I'm right and they make their appearance today.
We covet your prayers!