A WEEKEND AWAY . . . . ALONE!!!
Fun times at the beach. ALONE!!
Jesus blessed us with a beautiful, fun hotel room! ALONE!!
My handsome husband of 12 years! I can't believe it. It only gets better and better.
Solitary beaches in California DO exist!
We were delighted to spend a weekend away ALONE for our 12th anniversary. We had a wonderful time talking, walking on the beach, eating out, enjoying quietness, enjoying Creation and just being US. I resolved to give a vacation to every topic that causes any tension for us. Success! The problem spots took a vacation and so did we. That left simple enjoyment of our time and each other, remembering why we love each other and why we chose each other twelve years ago. Being a realist, I cannot paint a problem free, wonderful, blissful 12 years for you. But I will honestly say, I wouldn't choose anyone else to walk with through the last 12 years of ups and downs and good and bad. Heath Allen Locke is more the man of God, full of integrity, godly character, passion, purpose, talent, and faithfulness now than I could've ever envisioned 12 years ago. And I'm honored to be with him. I believe one of the primary purposes of marriage is to help mold us into the image of Jesus. Heath has done that for me over and over again. I am grateful.
I look forward to the next 12, 24, 34 . . . years together! Thank you to all who helped us with the kids, the hotel, the gifts to eat out, etc. We were blown away and thankful from the bottom of our feet . . . or is that supposed to be heart?! :-)
I love you, handsome Heath Locke! Glad to be yours.
You don't have to steer a parked car. It isn't going anywhere. It doesn't need direction. But if the car is in motion, we all hope someone is at the wheel! Many of us have heard the phrase, "God can't steer a parked car!" Cute. Cliche. But very applicable to our lives right now. We KNOW God has many things in store for us as individuals, as a couple and as a family. If we stay parked, we won't get there. That's why we're in drive again. We WANT God to steer us wherever He wants to take us. We WANT to go! We WANT to get there. Because He has the map and He is in the drivers seat, we don't have a lot of details about where we're going. But we have total peace because we are GOING! And at the bottom line is a core belief that Heath and I hold: If you are loving and serving the Living God, then He doesn't care that much what you "do" in the in between time! Yes, there are times we will absolutely KNOW what we are supposed to do and to not do it is disobedience. But more often than not, we don't really know an exact route. Our hearts are simply longing in a certain direction. We have a solid belief that these are more often than not, longings and desires given by God. We believe God is pleased when we pursue the things in our heart when He is the primary longing of our lives.
Neither Heath nor I feel like the "reason" we are moving forward again will be the end all. Yes, Heath has been working diligently on getting his business off the ground. But as of the last couple weeks, we are realizing that these ideas may partially be God's way of getting us into drive again! It may or may not have much to do with the next part of our journey. Last weekend I was asking the Lord if we were going in the right direction. I heard him say, "You are on target, but it may not be the bulls eye." I'm ok with that. I have total peace because I know that if we are shooting at the right target, Jesus can "blow" in our direction and the arrow can be directed to the bulls eye. If we are in drive and He is in the drivers seat, He can steer us down the right road.
And we're determined to have fun doing it! :-)
I just want to brag on my wonderful hubby for a bit. Today was his last day at his job. He had the privilege of sharing some of his heart, our journey, and the direction we are headed. But the best part of his goodbye luncheon was the encouragement he received from his co-workers about his character, his presence, his influence in the office. He was faithful to impact his environment with the Kingdom of God and people won't be the same because of it! THANK YOU HEATH, for being a man of integrity and for living authentic Christianity whether you are a traditional pastor, missionary or layman. The credibility of your life increases with every new area the Lord puts you in and I am thrilled to be your wife, your co-laborer, your friend, your partner. I'm so proud of you. You arise and shine for the glory of the Lord is upon you (Isaiah 60:1). I'm behind you all the way, babe.
The short of the long of it is that we are leaping once again! Some of you may never believe what I'm about to share. Brace yourself for the insanity of our obedience! Heath resigned from his normal, 9 to 5, regular paycheck job and we are leaping once again into the unknown of obedience! Don't misunderstand me, our leap into the normalcy of the last year was definitely obedience as well. It was the obedience step that made people sigh with relief rather than shake their heads in utter confusion!
Don't ask what we are going to be doing. We don't really know. We are going to keep being who we are, ministering to whomever is in our path, and doing whatever is on our hearts (and God's. And hopefully we are correct in believing that those two hearts of desire are lining up). Heath has some ideas and has been working very hard this last year to "plan his way." But it truly is the Lord who directs our steps! And just within the last 48 hours, we feel like God is setting us up for something we can't even see or imagine yet! Both of us have a great sense of anticipation of the future events coming into clarity! Afraid? Only when we quit looking into Jesus' eyes of love and peace.
So be on the lookout for more vague details of our journey! We will be excited to share its unfolding.
"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
~ Leonardo da Vinci
This quote is a tribute to my husband who will someday be known as a man of accomplishment because he truly is going out and "happening to things!" Go Heath!
Heath was out on errands the other day. As he was getting in his car, he noticed a woman with a couple of kids in her car counting money. He sensed she was wondering how to make it all stretch. He drove away asking God to bless that woman and her family.
Then he realized, "Well, I can bless her." So he turned around and pulled up to her car. He rarely has cash but this day he did. He walked up to her car and said, "I saw you counting your money and just wanted to add to it. Hope it helps." And he walked away, got in his car, and started to pull out. He saw her with her head back against the seat in relief. As he pulled away, they caught eyes and she said, "THANK YOU."
We are blessed in order to be a blessing. We don't need a lightening bolt in the sky telling us to give in order to be generous. Generosity (in all our resources: time, money, skills, belongings, etc) needs to overflow from His People ALL THE TIME, as easily as breathing. Why? Because God is a generous God and his generosity is overflowing from Him ALL THE TIME. In fact, it is in our every breath!
In Him I live and move and have my being! Thank you for your generosity, Lord. May we reflect you with increasing measure. All for your glory.
Yesterday was a day of errands. The kids and I were in the car for a couple of hours . . . never fun with a 2 and 4 year old! Heath was expecting a package from UPS in the next couple of days and of course, it was raining. I only had a few minutes at home as I stopped to pick things up before heading to pick up Heath and Abiel and then off to the prayer meeting. I didn't intentionally check to see if the package was on the front porch, but I was pretty sure I didn't see it in my peripheral vision!
I picked up Heath and then we got Abiel from 4-H. At a crossroad, Heath asked if I was SURE there wasn't a package on the porch. I was pretty sure! So he said, "Let's ask the Holy Spirit what we should do. (either go home to check or just go to the meeting.)
We took a few seconds and I heard, "No."
And Heath heard, "Yes."
Hmmmmmm. I admit, I was frustrated! We had been in the car all day, and I didn't want to waste gas going back home to see an empty porch. Because now I was SURE there wasn't a package on the porch. But he said he really felt like he was supposed to go back! Heath even said, "Hey, don't be angry if there isn't a package on the porch. I really feel I need to go back." And I retorted, "There WON'T be a package on the porch!"
We drove the 8 minutes back to our house and as we were pulling onto our road, the UPS truck was pulling into our driveway . . . with the package. . . that was NOT on the porch . . . but would have been on the porch if Heath wouldn't have gone home!!!!! We were both laughing our heads off!
As we talked about it on the way to the prayer meeting, we realized we had both asked the Holy Spirit different questions! I asked the Holy Spirit if there was a package on the front porch and He said, "No." And there wasn't! Heath asked the Holy Spirit if he was supposed to drive back home. And He said, "Yes." And he was supposed to pull up and get the package from the UPS man's hands through the van window!! We didn't even get out of the van!! God is so fun and funny and has a great sense of humor!!
So, I guess the lesson is that we may all be asking the Holy Spirit different questions about similar things and getting different answers. It may cause us to be frustrated with one another because we are SURE we are hearing from the Lord but so is the other person! It may be helpful to clarify with each other what questions you're actually asking!! Have fun asking questions and hearing answers. . . God IS speaking!
Just let me set the stage for this classic miscommunication that happened last night between Heath and I.
Heath has been REALLY busy the last few months. He stays up past midnight working on his material and is up at 6:30 to get to work!! For those of you who knew the old Heath, you can pick up your jaw off the floor now . . . I'm telling the truth! I have been very supportive of his extra work and his mind being tied up in all his ideas. But even though I support it all, it doesn't mean I don't miss him or feel lonely at times.
This week, there were some circumstances that triggered some deep feelings of loneliness (not from Heath) and Heath's busyness compounded it. Yesterday, I had my friends pray for me, and I was able to come out of the heaviest part of it. But I still knew I needed some time with Heath. And I needed it BEFORE I started to feel resentful of his busy mind.
We do Tae Bo together. Somewhere in the middle, I spilled some info about not being in a very good place. After the workout, he sincerely said, "I'd really like to spend some time connecting tonight if you have time."
In some orneriness, I answered, "I'm busy." Here's where it gets funny!
He laughed and repeated me, to which I responded, "I'm just kidding."
So we sat down on the couch and the first words out of his mouth were, "So why are you pissy?"
TO which I FLEW off the couch yelling some tirade about how if you really wanted to connect with me, that was NOT the way to start, even if you were joking!
I went to grab the basket full of clean laundry and came back to fold it and MAYBE talk.
He said, "I'm not sure why you're so upset when I was just repeating what YOU told ME!"
"I did NOT tell you I was pissy!"
"Yeah, when I told you I'd like to spend some time connecting you said you were pissy!"
"NO, I DIDN'T! I said I was busy!!"
OOOOHHHH!! We had a good laugh and then a really good time of connecting. He listened well, I had a really good cry, and was reminded again that it's all ok and the most important people in my life really love me. And above all, I am the daughter of the King. But it's really nice when His people step in and represent the King with skin on! Thanks, my friends who prayed and Heath, for being Jesus to me yesterday, even in the miscommunication!
Ok, so some of you are wondering what we are up to! We have been in hiding for a year. And for this year, I (emie) have been refreshed, revived, and renewed. Just a couple weeks ago, I was describing my season of rest and healing to my friend, she stopped me and said, "I think the season is over. It's done. You're healed and refreshed and moving into the next season." She was exactly right. In the last few weeks, I have had more "ministry," phone calls, visitors, and opportunities than I had in the entire last year. I've started blogging which has brought me back into the world of being connected in my day to day experiences. And I just feel like I jumped back in the race! In fact, I had a dream a few nights ago where I was on my bike and then all of a sudden I found myself in a huge bike race going through a city, streets blocked off, officials everywhere. At first I wondered why I was in the race and then I realized I was supposed to be!! SO, I'm back in the race. As I have been resting, renewing and being revived, Heath has been preparing, planning and moving forward in what God has asked him to do (writing, training, interviewing, reading, researching, studying, praying like crazy, going crazy, and moving forward!!). It has been a long, laborious process for him in trying to discover what God has next and how to prepare for it. But as I have shared with some of you, my Heath is a motivated, visionary, implementing personality. He can see what I never can, believe what I don't even think about, and pursue what isn't even tangible. . . yet. My favorite story about Heath to illustrate his personality is below: When we moved into our own house several years ago, the back yard was not landscaped. We didn't have the money to do anything with it (what's new). But Heath was SURE we were going to sod the thing. Really, I laughed. Realist me wondering what the heck he was thinking. Sure enough, he spent hours and hours preparing the dirt for sod. It took weeks and lots of shoveling and wheelbarrows full of moving dirt. I was frustrated with the amount of time he was spending on what seemed to me nothing. The day he declared the dirt was ready for sod, I said in a sarcastic tone, "Well, let's pray in the sod!!" Within a day, Heath was out in our front yard talking to a friend of a close friend of ours. He was a landscaper and just HAPPENED to be landscaping the new development where we lived!! I'm sure you can guess that Heath asked what he did with all the leftover pieces of sod when he finished a job. And you can guess that the guy said he either gave it away or threw it away. And you can guess again that within a couple weeks, we had our entire back yard sodded for free!!!! Silly me to think that it wouldn't happen!! :-) I tell you that story because that's just who Heath is in the deepest part of who he is. He can see what could be or can be and decides it WILL be. And he doesn't just sit around and wait for it to fall out of the sky. He gets to work in preparing for when it DOES fall out of the sky so that he'll know exactly what to do when it does. I feel like that is what Heath has been doing for the past year. Yes, he is working a traditional job. . . . for me. But the whole year, he has been researching, praying, reading, writing, interviewing, testing, worrying, planning, preparing for the sod to come. I don't know what it will look like or how it will work (whatever "it" is), but I do know that he is being prepared and being faithful. And because of that alone, I feel confident that when God is ready to drop the sod, Heath will be able to make something beautiful out of what looks like a bunch of dirt out my back window! And I'm learning, slowly, not to sarcastically decide that sod doesn't just land in your lap for free!!!So that's where we are in a nut shell. If you have questions or want more info on what we are doing or where we are heading, PLEASE ask, email, or whatever. We are open books on a journey that will hopefully inspire others to pursue God wholeheartedly, unreservedly, and unashamedly. We have great anticipation of this next season of life even though all I can see out my back window is dirt!! Someday it will be beautiful sod!
I am so very grateful for the man God gave me to walk this crazy journey with. Granted, some may say the journey is crazy BECAUSE of the man God gave me, but if the truth be told, we are both crazy!! Before we were even dating I said to him, "I'm going to marry a guy who will take me to the edge of the cliff and say, 'LET'S JUMP!'"
We are have jumped, fallen, hit the ground sometimes running and sometimes with a really big and painful thud. But through 11 years of this adventure, we are still extremely glad to say we are in it together. I LOVE YOU, HEATH! When we jump this next time, I know you'll be flying!
A WEEKEND AWAY . . . . ALONE!!!
Fun times at the beach. ALONE!!
Jesus blessed us with a beautiful, fun hotel room! ALONE!!
My handsome husband of 12 years! I can't believe it. It only gets better and better.
Solitary beaches in California DO exist!
