Weeds in the Garden

First of all, thank you so much for your prayers, letters, food, ect. Your love for our family has been overwhelming. I thank God everyday for our family, friends and our precious Grace Fellowship family. We have been truly blessed beyond measure with the people at Grace. You love us like family and we know you are suffering with us. God is continuing to show us what marvelous plans he has for our Sophie. I have recieved numerous calls about how God has changed your life. It is amazing. Some of you have made serious "life-changing" decisions. I see that Sophie's life is not wasted. God is changing hearts and souls as I type this.

Please continue to pray for me. I have good days and bad days. The good days are when my mind is focused on Christ. My bad days are mostly thoughts of self-pity, anger, and why me? When my friend, Jaime, went through this about a year ago, I thought to myself, "How did she survive?" "How did she go on with life?" Now, I see, that no matter the circumstance in life, God will supply you with grace upon grace. I recall seeing Susan Fleming at her son Micah's funeral. I walked up to her and looked her right in the face and said "How did you do this? I could never do this. " I will never forget her response. She said," Aimee, you would get through it. God will give you grace like you have never experienced." Oh, how her words are true. You don't understand God's grace until you suffer. You really don't. You don't grow leaps and bounds in your walk with Christ unless you suffer. Suffering makes you depend on God alone. There is nothing inside of me to muster up. I am totally, completely dependent on my creator. I have wanted this dependence on God for a long time. I never imagined this is how I would truly come to know my savior. Oh, how I wish this could have been different, but in some strange way, I am thankful that God has brought me to this point. I don't think I would know him this way without suffering at this level.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away,
our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is
preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we
look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the
Things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2COR 4:16-18

We had Noah's birthday party on Saturday. That was my goal for the weekend. My little boy and his truck party. He had a great time. I will include some pictures for you to see. After the party, we put up a fall scene in the yard and I planted some pansies for the fall. God was so good to me. While I was weeding out the flower bed, I thought about what God was doing in my life. Just like those weeds, He is pulling out things in my life that need to be gone! As I pulled the weeds, I thought "Here comes pride, selfishness, greed, self-pity, anger, bitterness, no love for the lost..." I knew I had to get to the root of those weeds. It was hard, but I dug and dug until I got to the root. I did not want them to come back! At one point, I had to get Carlton to help me. Some weeds had roots that were so deep!!! Then the dirt was clean and beautiful. There were no more weeds. As I planted the pansies, I thought about how God is planting things in my life that will bear beauty and life. Many of those pansies, I don't know about. I know God has many beautiful things in store for my life. I have to trust in Him and His plans, not my own.

I will write again soon.