Stand By Your Man

The past few days have been some of the hardest, most confusing days we have had since we moved to Charlotte. Things are not going like we had planned, but it is very obvious that God had a different plan. On top of these past few difficult days Phillip is recovering from the flu, I have a sinus infection and the girls both have ear surgery tomorrow. Man, the Lord must know that we can handle a lot more than I think we can!

Phillip, I want you to know how much I love you and how proud I am of you and how you handled this difficult situation. You truly are a different man than you were 4 years ago. I know that the days ahead may be hard and awkward but I believe that God was honored through you, your reaction and your decision. God has called you to do great things for His kingdom and as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Him and not on our circumstances He will continue to be faithful to us, like He always has been. You are a great husband, a great father, a great friend and a great follower of Christ and none of that has changed because of this situation. I have grown to love you more and more as I see God working and moving in your life. I love that you were willing to step out on faith to move your family to Charlotte to be a part of something big that God is doing here. Sadly enough I think most people would have stayed were they were comfortable and had family surrounding them.

So without rambling on and on I want you to know that I stand by you, now and forever. You are my man, the man God appointed as my husband and father of my children and there is nothing you could do to change my love for you and my support of you. Continue to honor God right where He has you. I love you Phillip McCart!!!

Home Alone

Our time alone has begun. The staff at Elevation Church (that's right, the whole staff) is heading to the C3 Conference at Fellowship Church in Dallas, TX today. They will return sometime Friday evening. So, the girls and I are home alone for a few days. It's not so bad when the hubby is gone for only a few days, it just makes for really long days! We've tried to schedule a few "extra" things to fill up our time while dad is gone. Tonight I have small group and Miss Kelly is coming over to watch the girls. Tomorrow we're doing lunch with some friends and their kids and in the evening all of the staff wives left behind are going to enjoy a kid free meal at Macaroni Grill. Yippee! And to top it off Miss Kelly is going to spend the night with us so she'll be here Friday morning to play.

To Pastor, the Directional Team and the rest of Elevation's staff: I hope that God uses this time to recharge you, to inspire you and to show ways we can grow and stretch as a church so that we can reach as many people as possible who need to be filled with life in Christ.

My Birthday Princess!!!

Baby Savannah Grace!


Your 1st Birthday!


Your 2nd Birthday!


Your 3rd Birthday!


Your 4th Birthday!


My sweet Savannah Grace, I can hardly believe that you are turning 4 tomorrow! Where has the time gone? As I have looked through your old pictures tonight I was reminded of all the good times we have had together as a family and all the things God has blessed us with in you. You are so smart, so sweet, so loving and I'm so excited to see how God is going to use your life. Even at your young age your independence, stubbornness and fiery spirit have already challenged me as a person and as a mom. As you continue to develop into an amazing young lady I pray that you grow in grace, in beauty and in the knowledge of the Lord. He has a perfect plan for your life and I pray that even now He will start to tug at your heartstrings and begin to reveal to you His plan. God has entrusted your dad and I with a great gift in you and I pray that we don’t mess up but that we are able to call out the potential and abilities we see that God has blessed you with. You are His little Princess! I love you more than words can describe. You truly are my miracle.

My Funny Valentines

So I must say that this year has probably been my favorite Valentine's Day so far. On Wednesday we had the Masseys over to fill out Valentine cards, ice Valentine cookies and have some lunch. We had a blast! (and the cookies were pretty good too!) On Thursday we did all of our last minute running around to have things ready for SG's party on Saturday, SG had dance class, I had to take Rylee back to the doctor... another ear infection, but finally after all of the craziness of the day Phillip and I made it out the door for our date night! We had the best time. We went to dinner at the Village Tavern. It was amazing! We had great food and tea, great conversation mixed with a lot of laughing and exchanged some sweet and funny cards. After that we went and walked around South Park Mall. Walking around a mall with no kids, when was the last time that happened?!?!? All in all it was a busy but great day!

Selfish

Due to the sinful nature we were born in to it is natural for us, as humans, to be a selfish people. Not to mention that the world bombards us with the anthem, "Look out for number 1." (number 1 being ourselves) Hopefully as we grow up we learn to be considerate of others and we quickly learn that we're not the only people on the planet. Then when we give our lives to Christ we realize we are here to serve others in His name. Remember that old acrostic from Sunday School: J.O.Y.? Jesus, Others, You. There's the "You" at the END of the list. Then when we joyfully enter motherhood we quickly learn to shove that selfish old sin nature down even further. Sometimes we can keep it from rearing it's ugly head for an hour, or a day or, if you're really good, maybe even a week. As a wife and mom everything about you is at the end of the list. You are the last one to get a shower, if you're lucky to get one at all, your room is the last room in the house to ever get cleaned, you spend your time trying to make your kids and husband look presentable only to run out of the house with two different shoes and earrings on. The list goes on and on.

My point of all of this is to say that today "selfish" took over my body. My day started at 6:30 a.m. Now for some of you this is normal, however normal to us is 7:15 for SG and 8 for Rylee, selfish kicked in, I was not ready to be up! I made the girls sit in our bed and watch Dora so I could stay in bed, curled up under the covers for a few more minutes. That didn't last long. After we were up and going things went pretty smoothly and we were actually on time for church. When we got there I hauled the girls and all their stuff in only to find out that unbeknownst to me Phillip had to go over to Butler for the morning. I came in looking for a savior or a helper and my helpmate was gone. (Not to mention the fact that I didn't even get to see him in his cute orange pants and brown dress shirt that I had helped him pick out the night before) Selfish sprung up in my heart again. Then before I could even sit down to enjoy our 2 year anniversary celebration someone came to tell me that SG had escaped from her class, AGAIN! Selfish again, "Why do I have to deal with this by myself? Where is Phillip when I need him?" Made it through the service, went and got the girls then the wait began for our lunch. During this time SG managed to eat a small bag of sweet tarts, a twizzler and a piece of cake. After that, with no lunch in sight, I packed up the girls, took them to the car (thanks for your help Kelly, we love you) and strapped them in their seats so they could watch their movies in a contained environment while we finished out our wait. Finally Jason's Deli arrives. I left the girls in the car to run inside and get ours only to find out that they hadn't labeled any of them!! After 10 minutes of trying to help Stephanie sort through the lunches, Sean came to tell me that the "First Time Visitors" tent had blown over on our car and the girls were freaking out. WHY ME LORD?!?!? So I quickly grabbed our food and headed to the car. Tired, hungry, cranky girls... gas light comes on. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Selfish..."I just want to go home, get in my pjs and crawl in the bed." Oops, I failed to mention that I now have the sickness that the girls had last weekend and my throat is killing me with every swallow. So, we finally made it home, scarfed down lunch and headed off to bed. Thankfully the girls went down easily. As I laid in the bed I just kept thinking how unfair it was that I didn't get to go to the baptism service and support my friends whose children were being baptized and my husband who was baptizing for the first time at Elevation. Selfish again. Then my thoughts shifted to, "Where is someone to take care of me when I'm feeling bad? I'm always the one who takes care of everyone in the family when their sick, but then when I am sick no one is there to take care of me and I still have to take care of them and their needs." Selfish was all over me today!

So there is no point in all of this except for me to get it off my chest and say that I need Jesus more now than ever! Sorry to everyone who encountered me in all of my selfishness today. Thank God His mercies are new every morning! I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Contract

That's right, we have a contract on our house in Georgia! (pending the appraisal and inspection) Please continue to pray over the next 18 days that everything will go smoothly and the appraisal and inspection will come back ok. If everything goes well we have a closing date of March 31. Thanks for all your prayers and support!

M.I.A.

I know, I know. I was doing so good during the month of January blogging and then I went M.I.A. I am still here there just hasn't been anything really "blog worthy" lately coupled with the fact that Phillip has been so busy I rarely get to sit in front of the computer. (seeing as how we only have one computer, his work one) So here are some highlights (and lowlights, does that make sense?) of our last couple of weeks:

*Phillip took a core group of children's volunteers from the church to the Orange Tour here in Charlotte over the weekend. They had a great time and learned a lot.
*While he was at the conference all weekend I had two sick kids (yes, sick again). *Saturday I spent 3 hours at Urgent Care with Rylee who had a bad case of croup. She got a shot of steroids and a breathing treatment. That was tons of fun! Thank you Jamil for coming and getting SG so I didn't have to sit in Urgent Care that long with 2 kids!
*My friend Dawn and I hung out at Starbucks just talking until they closed one night.
*We had our Staff Wives Lunch yesterday at City Tavern (I believe) it was good.
*Phillip and I got to go to small group together last night! (Thank you Lindsey)
*LOST started!!!

Things I'm looking forward to:

*We are having a girls night out this Friday. We're eating dinner at Cantinas and going to see the movie, "27 Dresses". Yeah, I can't wait.
*This coming Sunday is our church's 2 year anniversary and it is going to be awesome!! It's a day loaded with things to do, but they're good things like a baptism service, a live recording for our upcoming worship album not to mention the wonderful service I know we'll have that morning!
*Monday night we're back to Momtourage! It has been way to long since we've met. Hopefully I can get all my reading done before then.
*Phillip and I already have our date night set up for Valentine's Day, babysitter and all.
*Family is coming into town next weekend as we celebrate Savannah Grace's 4th birthday! I can't believe she is turning 4. (Monday the 18th is her actual birthday)

So there you have it, a little sneak peek into our lives. I'll try to get some pics of the girls to post soon. Peace.