Happy 19 Years Sweetheart!

 Be Still My heart. This is an anniversary post for sure, but also a testimony. Years ago, watching this guy right here in our joint youth group and church setting, I set a standard in my heart. I told my mom that I wanted to marry someone "just like Micah Bumbaugh" someday. Years passed and God brought us back to a place our paths crossed again and getting to know him, becoming his best friend, and falling in love with him is to this date, my favorite parts of our journey! Loving him snuck right up on me. One day my emotions went from this guy is my best friend to this is the guy I Need to marry and spend my life with.

On Our wedding day, as I was ready to walk down the aisle my grandmother pulled me aside and reminded me of the conversation I had with her and my mom years ago of how I wanted to marry someone Like Micah and she quietly whispered in my ear "Today you are marrying THE MICAH BUMBAUGH." Open the floodgates of tears as I started walking down that aisle and the tears didn't stop for a good part of the ceremony. That was 19 years ago today!

For the testimony part. Life has not been an easy road in our house. Sometimes, many seasons, we felt scared, beat down, sad, broken, lonely, confused, and wondered if we would make it. Sometimes in our most grief stricken moments, we tended to pull away from each other or even push each other away because the pain of saying goodbye to children we loved and had opened our hearts to, or the pain of getting medical diagnosis that scared us and seemed hopeless, fear of financial hardships and what to do, and just regular life hardships all seemed too much for us. There were some desperate moments in our marriage and family and they were scary. Sometimes the commitment "under God" and vows we took to each other were the only thing that held us together. It didn't always feel loving and flowery, sometimes it was just an action and commitment. Those moments felt so desperate to me. But I am here to tell you if you have those moments God can restore and redeem!

Today I a reflecting on 19 years of life and what I am finding is as I go back and remember the hard times, I am amazed at God's timing. So often I questioned Him as to what was happening in our lives, but what I see today reflecting back is that in those hard times, HE WAS THERE. GOD always showed up to carry us. To put soothing balm on our aching hearts and SOMEHOW, He brought "US" back together. He did it many times! SO many times God would soften My heart toward my husband and remind me where my attitude needed to change and many times He would prompt Micah on the same. God would remind me that Micah is my gift from God to me. God was faithful to prompt our family and friends and they would stand with us, pray with us. God was faithful to save our marriage and for that I will always be grateful.

My favorite moments are not the broadcasted moments that everyone sees but my favorites are the sweet moments when we lay on a couch over the years broken and crying together instead of pushing each other away. Moments when we feel all is lost and we just cry together and silently pray over each other. When we hand back the children he gave us to steward for short times and those times are up and its time to say good bye to the littles that stole our hearts. . . those broken moments. . . when we grieve together because now I can see it differently. I can see that God gave me "THE MICAH BUMBAUGH" as a gift straight from Heaven for me, to walk out this journey and to be my partner in the good yes but even better in the bad!!!! In the hard.... in the moments that NO ONE knew my grief but Micah did because he was walking it with me. I am grateful for the times he said "yes" to an anxious wife that felt a huge call and though everything inside of him wanted to run the opposite way, he trusted God enough to give up his desires to say yes to the call. I am grateful for a man that loves the voiceless and the hurting and the broken. I am grateful for a broken husband because in that brokenness he is cultivating his heart to be more and more like Jesus. Micah Emmanuel "Who Is like the Lord, and God with us" I appreciate even his name and the prophetic implications. He has been father to many and loyal to his few! Love this man!!

Micah Bumbaugh I know you will despise this post as you hate mushy flashy in front of people declarations but, I know you know me and will forgive me for putting this out there. I am so grateful for you Tate! Thanks for loving me even when I talk too much, m
ake eye contact with EVERYONE, don't know how to say "no" and continue to frustrate you. Thanks for loving me for me. Thanks for being my protector and Provider. I do love you and appreciate you. Happy anniversary!!!!

Hold Loosely to the Things of this World

 Wanted to share something God has been sharing with me.  I feel like God has a message for all of us, so I am going to try to articulate what I feel He is laying on my heart.  

First I think we can just acknowledge and agree this past year and season of time has been difficult and hard! There has been So much loss and grief and HEAVY.  The heavy of it all.  That is what I seem to be having a hard time getting away from.  The burden bearer in me is going crazy trying to figure out how to bear all the burdens around me.  However, what I am finding is there are too many burdens and too much heavy for me to carry.  Christmas day I was crying out to the Lord asking Him what He wanted from me.  How did he want me to proceed?  Did He want me to keep trying to help carry the burdens around me?  If so, why did it feel so lonely and so hopeless?  Why was I struggling with helping someone pick up their heavy load only to find myself turning around to find another person needing help. . . . The hardest part was as I was leaning over to pick up and help carry other peoples heavy stuff I was spilling out my own burdens. How could I carry all of this?  

I was praying over this and crying out to the Lord.  The struggle was so real in my heart and the heavy was so heavy I felt trapped.  I saw so much pain, loss, grief, depression, injustice, fear, mean heartedness, selfishness, intolerance, pride, weariness, unfairness, isolation, disappointment, sadness. . . the list went on and on. In the midst of just laying it out before the Lord Himself, I felt Him gently remind me, "Michelle, I sent my SON to carry this.  He carried that burden of all of this on HIS shoulders.  He is who I sent for all of this you are crying to me about." Then our Faithfull Father God started to slowly walk me through laying each person on my heart down at HIS feet.  He started lessening the Load.  He reminded me that we are to carry others burdens along side and with them but not to the point that it destroys us and who He created us to be.  That is why He sent his ONE AND ONLY SON.   

Then yesterday, during church I had this message well up inside of me that I again felt God was imparting something in my inner soul. It was this:

"Hold Loosely to the things of this world.  Hold loosely my children.  There is loss around you and you have loss in your own life but I am here with you.  In this time of weary sadness and heaviness in our world, I am here.  Hold to ME, not the things of this world.  They will fade, they will ALL fade away, but I REMAIN, my child.  My children.  Love your family, friends, children . . . but HOLD LOOSELY to them. They were never YOURS, but they are MINE. So love them and enjoy each day with them but HOLD LOOSELY to them.  Love my people, MY CHILDREN lost in this world.  LOVE them and bring them to ME.  It is what I created you for.  I need them to come to me and I need you to help me with that.  Everyone loses in this LIFE but I your God have a place for you that has no LOSS.  No TEARS, No PAIN.  Hold Loosely to the things of THIS WORLD, and don't lose HOPE!"

Then immediately followed by this verse flashing in my head 

Job 1:21

And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there.  The LORD gave, and the LORD taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.