Merry Christmas to you and your families! I pray that this letter finds you praising our Lord and Savior in whatever circumstances you are in as we remember that this season is to celebrate the peace, hope, joy, grace and mercy that Our Father freely gave to us in Jesus Christ!
This has been an extremely eventful year for our family! In February, Kelly made a career move to RBC Dain Rauscher Wealth Management after working 2 ½ years with NatCity Investments. The position is very similar, but there was a pay increase, which was a huge blessing. The position has been challenging on many levels, but all in all, we are very grateful for the blessings that have come from it. February also brought us closer fellowship with our congregation as we entered a new Bible Study group that has been a huge support for our family and has definitely pruned us to bear much fruit. We greatly enjoy our new brothers and sisters in Christ.
In April we were able to travel to California to reconnect with some of Kelly’s friends that she made while she served in the military. It was such a gift to receive such selfless and warm hospitality from our friends Mike, Katie, Preston, and little Sarah. While there we had great visits with dear friends, visited Calvary Chapel Temecula, went wine tasting, traveled to Julienne to have the best apple pie ever, eat authentic Mexican food, experience In and Out goodness, walked the beach, rode roller coasters, and ate fresh seafood.
March we gained a new addition to our family, we rescued a feisty Vizsla Hound mix named Copper. In June, we lost a very important member of our family. Paul’s Grandpa Lowe left us after 90 wonderful years of bringing joy, love, and wisdom to everyone he met. This Christmas will be hard without him, but we are definitely cognizant of how precious time with dear friends and family can be.
October was another life changing event, Kelly found out that she is expecting! We anticipate the coming of a new little Carpenter in mid June! We pray that this pregnancy goes much smoother than the first as she went into early labor at 28 weeks where she started dilating and her water broke. Luckily they were able to stop the labor and postpone it to 34 weeks, but she was on bed rest the duration of the time in the hospital. We look forward to finding out the gender of the little one in the beginning of the New Year. Chloe has had an amazing year at school thus far with straight A’s and the heart to declare boldly to her classmates her love for Jesus Christ. We are so proud of the love she has for our Savior.
December has blessed us with more growth in faith as Paul was unexpectedly let go from his position. We are eager to see the miracles of provision God is going to bless us with and how He draws us near to Him in these trying times. We are very blessed in knowing that we can never be in want because of the love of Christ Jesus and the promises He has given us. We bask in His glory and the knowledge of peace that only He can give and are grateful for all that He has done for us thus far!
We encourage you that if you too find yourself in circumstances that seem unbearable or impossible, to cast your cares on Jesus by inviting Him into your heart and learning what true peace feels like. Matthew 11:28-30 promises “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” We also find encouragement in Romans 5:1-4 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
Prayer has always been a struggle with me in public settings. Such a personal and intimate connection with God has always been just that for me, personal and intimate. Recently I’ve been excited about some future prospects of mine and have started in some goals that will lead me into some very different areas. To get to these areas I will have to put complete trust in God’s will for me.
Part of that trust is also a step of faith on my part. Corporate prayer. When I say corporate a lot of people get the missinterpretation that I mean in a business setting. This is truly not the case. Corporate prayer is any public prayer with 1 or more participants. Typical corporate prayer is prayer geared towards the church, the community, our nation and those around us. But it also brings us to a point of vulnerability and accountability. Up to this point in my life, I’ve tended to keep my personal and spiritual life to myself. It seems God doesn’t want it this way. In the past week I’ve made some interesting decisions, some changes in my daily walk and some outward motions that I’m not all that comfortable with. I’ve since made it a point to be faithful to our church’s Sunday afternoon/evening prayer service and the Tuesday morning Men’s prayer service. Both prayer services have kindled a fire in my heart that I can’t explain.
Prayer is not something that comes easily to almost everyone at first. Our bodies don’t want to sit still, want to fall asleep, our minds wander and our anxiousness increases, but when we continually pray and deliberatly pray, God puts those things at ease.
I invite anyone who reads this to challenge themselves to at least a monthly devotional time with their church body in corporate prayer. Not only do we need it, but our churches, our families, our communities, our nation and our world needs that intersession.
As the oft quoted bible verse says:
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
It’s a relief to know that God loves us no matter who, what, where we are and that we can always turn to him. I thank him daily for that blessing, that grace and that mercy, because I know, I’m not nearly close to what He expects of me.
I think this is my life theme. God continues to throw this motif at me every possible chance He gets, and boy do I need it! I heard it in my readings in Proverbs, at my personal training workshop, and even at work. I think I get it. The problem is applying it!
So, as you can imagine, the reason for my lack of posting is my busyness. I have been going nonstop for months. Pretty much since April. Let me do a quick recap. We went on vacation over Easter Break, where I was challenged to keep my mouth shut and pray about something, and I didn’t, so I swallowed my foot, not just sticking it my mouth mind you… Luckily, I have gracious friends. So on vacation we went to California where we got to eat fabulous pie in Julian, went to Adventure City in Anaheim, visited a different but great Calvary Chapel in Temecula, went wine tasting (Chloe didn’t do that), visited some great friends (Elinor and the Spencer’s), went to the beach, revisited Camp Pendleton, ate some great food, and played with awesome kids! It was a much needed break!
May was also another busy month, Paul learned that he had to take another pay cut. He was blessed to go on a great Men’s retreat in the beginning of the month. He had the opportunity to fellowship and meet a lot of great men. God really moved in his heart, he said. I learned yet another valuable lesson because I made some more mistakes that again hindered the growth of another relationship with my lack of discernment and my thoughts, not so much my mouth this time. However, I also went on a women’s retreat, and was forced to slow down, which lead me to the words of wisdom to rectify the situation. If only I would have turned to Him first and really looked at all angles of the situation, I would have seen the error in my ways to begin with, what a novel idea, right?! I was blessed with gaining new sisters in Christ that prayed over me and now have a better sense of community with our congregation.
June, what a month this has been! First off, my mouth got me in trouble for the third time. Again, thanks to graceful friends, I was forgiven. (I then studied Proverbs and got all kinds of insight and wisdom about holding the tongue.) Paul found out that he also had to take a week of unpaid vacation in July. His company did, however, pay for his tuition reimbursement for the summer months, so that was a huge blessing. The next day, we lost Paul’s grandfather, which has brought a multitude of feelings out for all of us. I did not deal with it well at all. Good fruit has not poured out from my tipped cup. Satan has had huge victories in my life. I think this really was the final straw to the realization that I need to do something about my lack of spiritual discipline. I have harbored so much anger, rage, unforgiveness, judgement, bitterness, pride, and lets not forget self righteousness in the past couple of months. If I would have evangelized to an unbeliever about Christ, they would have nothing to do with being part of our family in Christ.
This past weekend was BIG for me… I mean really BIG. I went to an NASM personal training workshop in Arlington, VA. God brought people into my life who taught me how to train effectively for life goals,and little did they know they were teaching me a spiritual lesson of endurance as well. In NASM they stress that Core Stability and maintaining postural alignment in all you do is absolutely paramount. If you can’t stick to the basics, you have no right to advance. You have to do it slowly. If you move to quick, and compromise that one foundation, not only will you not train effectively, but you are setting yourself up to get hurt and regress. Sound familiar, check out Hebrews 12. If we forget the spiritual disciplines,which are the fundamentals of Christianity, we will not receive the prize of faith! Good stuff, huh?!?
Just like the body, one compensation from the truth, causes major catastrophe to the whole body. (I am amazed at how they corralate, God is such an awesome creator!) So, in personal training, we need to take an initial assessment of where we are at, find out what our goals are (not just the ultimate ones, but small ones too), put a plan together of how we are going to achieve them, and make a realistic time line of what fruit we would like to see. Then, we have to start at the fundamentals, working on our core, the basic disciplines, then we can add other things into our routine. However, if our core isn’t strong, we have to step back, reasses, stretch out the impedences and over compensations that are hindering us from functioning properly as God made us to work.
I have made some huge assessments these last few days. I have decided my goals are to exercise the gifts of encouragement and intercession that God has given me a passion for. I will achieve these goals by setting a very strict schedule and diet (spiritually, mentally, and nutritionally). I have been in a Monthly Challenge with some women in church, and I think I am going to kick it up a notch. My realistic goal is to study the Word for at least an hour 5 days out of the week, pray 30 mins 5 days every week, do resistance training 3 days a week, at least 45 minutes of cardio 5 days out of the week, eat the required amounts of calories 6 days a week, and log it. In 4 weeks I will be reassessing my plan and goals to make sure my core foundations are aligned properly! (Does the turtle have his good core stability to carry his load?) HA!
Christmas 2008
Grandpa Lowe will never know how much we loved him and how greatly we miss him. He has touched our lives in so many ways and for that we are grateful. He even continues to teach us now. Thank you Lord for giving us a glimpse of you through him and using Robert Lowe for your glory, even to the very end.
We love our wonderful family so very much and want you to never forget that! Rejoice that we have a heavenly Father that will never leave or forsake us! He is our HOPE!
After much prayer and consideration. I feel that I need to clarify and apologize for including irrelevant events and painting my ex husband in a bad light by misconstruing information. He is a very loving father and a very caring person. I included an instance in my testimony that I had no right to include and should have asked his permission before I wrote it. I need to clarify that he is not, by any means an abusive person. Due to immaturity and selfishness, I knew how to provoke him to the utmost pinnacle of anger and hurt, and the night that I wrote about was in fact, a product of one of the arguments. Again, I do want to stress and reiterate that he is not an abusive person. It was not a Christian fruit of the spirit on my part to write so negatively about him as it was not a detrimental part of my salvation, but was in fact, speculation and my point of view. I do pray that no wrong judgment would be made towards him for my folly.
I do want to say publicly that the whole purpose for the testimony was to admit that I am an absolutely sinful person and to show God’s mercy through changing me, not to point out or condemn anyone else. I did not include all of my sins as I did not want to edify them, nor did I feel like I needed to list every sin. I know and believe that God is merciful and He examines my heart and knows that my intent of my testimony was not malicious and that I do have a repentant heart for any misrepresentation that I might have made. I do want to reiterate, however, that I have found amazing freedom through the grace of Christ Jesus and know that I am now whiter than snow. I am guilty of some absolutely horrible things, and for that I am truly sorry for the hurts I have caused and the friendships I have lost. I pray that one day I can restore hurt relationships and that they will truly be a light for God’s glory.
At church last night we were in Jeremiah 44 and it was observed that when women are corrupt and are allowed to lead their families astray, nations fall and calamity will soon follow (thought synopsized by me). I would like to first off say that the corruption of women typically occurs when men lack leadership and direction. For example, yes it was Eve’s sin to eat the apple, but she ate it due to lack of leadership just like the false idol worship in Jeremiah 44 that is being referenced. When I look at our society today, I feel it is very true. Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.
As a whole, the morality of our country has declined significantly in the past 5 years. Children are not raised in complete families and are not shown what healthy biological relationships with both parents looks like. The family isn’t how “God inteded”. Boys are not taught how to be men, how to treat women, or what a family should look like. Women are not given the opportunity to be adored by their fathers and develop insecurities, and they lack value and self worth. Not to mention the lack of attention from their parent because of work obligations. These examples are just the secular devoids. When you add in lacking Christian principles, it is even more severe. Both sexes have a skewed vision of their role and value and the value of everyone else. A survey of 108 rapists undertaken by Raymond A. Knight and Robert A. Prentky revealed the 60 percent came from female-headed homes,. 70 percent of those describable as ‘violent’ came from female-headed homes. 80 percent of those motivated by ‘displaced anger’ came from female-headed (single-parent) homes.
“No-Fault Divorce: Proposed Solutions to a National Tragedy,” 1993 Journal of Legal Studies 2, 19, citing R. Knight and R. Prentky, The Developmental Antecedents and Adult Adaptations of Rapist Subtypes, 14 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR 403-426 (1987).
Just like snow rolling down hill, these misconceptions and flaws become more dangerous and out of control as time progresses. As a result promiscuity, disrespect, selfishness, abuse, and insecurity are the norm. Can you see how this generational sin has taken us to where we are now? How the value of an embryo is gone to cover up sin (either a woman’s through promiscuity or a man’s through rape). 64.4% of all abortions are performed on never-married women; Married women account for 18.4% of all abortions and divorced women obtain 9.4% (Center For Bio Ethical Reform) and according to the NY Times, only 1% of the abortions performed are out of rape and incest.
So, what can we do to change this? Rest in God, repent, and don’t run away from Him! However, if we don’t, and continue down the spiralling disobedient path by running away from Him, the same thing that happened to the Isrealites in Jeremiah 44 will happen to us. 2 Chronicles 7:14 gives us great hope in God’s mercy “if my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgiven their sins and will heal their land.”
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:7
What a great month this has been for the our family! We have been blessed with new and awesome friends to fellowship with that are truly pouring into our lives. We really leaned on God during our struggle of lack of friends at the new church, and just like Mat 7:7 says, Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. Our greatest gift has been Tom and Lisa to encourage us. As mentioned in the previous blog, they are a blended family as well and married when her child was 10 also. Paul really looks up to Tom and he has become an awesome mentor to him. I am so grateful for how God has answered my prayer request in that aspect. Lisa has also been a huge encouragement to me as well with her open heart and extremely giving nature. We are smitten with our new found family!
We were also blessed with another great family to come along side us. A family that lives almost right around the block. Brian is a CEO and president of a computer consulting company, and is just as big of a geek, if not bigger, than Paul. Linda, his wife, is an absolutely brilliant woman that is unbelievably committed to the commission of training her children up to know the Lord and giving them every opportunity to succeed. They have 2 boys and a girl that is Chloe’s age. We look forward to getting to know them better.
Through these relationships, continual preachings, and examining scripture, God has really convicted me of my responsibility as a mother to teach my daughter all of His ways and develop an intimate relationship with Him. I really feel I have failed in this thus far. Luckily, there is grace and God abounds in that! As of the middle of this month, we are debt free and Paul and I sat down and really assessed our budget. We have committed everything to prayer and come to the decision that God is calling me to home school Chloe for a multitude of reasons. One being the afore statement, another being that I want to give Chloe every opportunity possible to excel at what she is best at and the ability to experience so much more than the school has to offer. I also want her to have the ability to learn how make healthy relationships in healthy environments. I don’t have that control in a school environment. As a parent, I feel I am responsible for her lifestyle, exposure, and decisions until she is at the age of adulthood. I need to equip her fully with these tools.
So, how will we go about this? Through much research and dedication we have made the following decisions. I am going to get recertified to personal train. That will be the vehicle to meet our financial needs and I will have the ability to make my own hours and work as little or as much as I want to. I want to loose 50lbs by my test date in July. This is attainable but will require much discipline. In making this decision, I will have to rely solely on the Lord to provide, this is both scary and exciting at the same time! I have faith that He will honor our obedience. It is amazing how God prepares us for these decisions, years in advance. I am so grateful that I have the skills to achieve these goals!
I have decided to maintain a rather structured environment and choose the Bob Jones University for our first year. A few families have recommeded the curricula to us. Upon further investigaion we found out that they have very high test scores and have continued to achieve academic excellence. Also, they spell everything out, which will be very helpful for the first year. Depending on how well it goes, we will re evaluate other learning options. I have also looked in to a number of art and music classes that we could get involved in. Most of them are very affordable and offer great opportunities to experiment and interact with other home schoolers. I also plan on getting her enrolled in various culinary classes, as Chloe seems very interested in cooking and baking.
We have a lot going on in April as well. California, here we come! We will be staying with my bridesmaid, Katie, and her wonderful family! Paul will also be able to meet my other great friends from Calvary Chapel Fallbrook!
I love basking in true light!
Downtown Skyways
I started my new job on February 2nd and on the 3rd, was off to Minneapolis, RBC’s US headquarters, to learn how “Complexing” works, daily tasks, my role in this new system, and the computer programs that will be implemented once the integration is complete (March 16th). Minneapolis was awesome! They have these skyways, because it is so cold in the winter (the highest it got was -4 while we were there), that connect all the buildings on the second floor. The developers were brilliant because in order to get to them you had to enter a department store! Because the integration will not take place until the 16th, I have been required to do absolutely nothing. Occassionaly, I am tasked with random copy making, or filing. For the most part, its been time to read a few books that I have really wanted to sink my teeth in and reread some old favorites. Not bad, eh?
My old neighbor, growing up, and I found each other on Facebook, which has been a huge blessing for both of us. I have found out that she believes, but isn’t quite walking. I have been able to witness bits and pieces of my testimony to her for encouragement. I’m praying for her to accept the freedom God’s truth has to offer and free herself from the bondage of sin and the lies the world conveys.
Paul and I started going to a biweekly coed study on Friday’s while Chloe attends her girls study. The couple that leads it, has a very similar situation to ours. The wife was a single mom and they got married when her son was 10. He is now 16 and she gave up her career to homeschool him. I’m really excited about this friendship that God is going to cultivate.
We found out that Broadview Heights is negotiating with Cutter Oil to establish 5 more oil wells. We are praying that they choose our property for one of the locations (3 of them are on our street). This will mean we will have a lifetime of free gas for our house and earn 1.5% of whatever they pump out of the well, plus they will pay us to just dig in our yard! If they do decide to drill on our land, I will be able to stay home and homeschool Chloe! I would also get re-certified to Personal Train and hopefully convert our garage or something into a private studio!
I have had the opportunity to read some great books at work (I know, what a horrible life I have!). One of the really great books was Never Surrender by Lt General Jerry Boykin. It was really eye opening at how gullible Americans are to accepting what the media has to say. It was also amazing at how easy it is to ruin someone’s reputation and the lack of regulations on media, which really disgusted me. I reread, for the third time, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero. I have decided to read this book once a year to take personal inventory of myself and use it as a gauge for my state of the heart. It truly is an amazing tool to have in your back pocket with regards to building and maintaining healthy relationships, especially with God. I am also reading Corrie Ten Boom’s three biographies that have been compiled to one entitled Her Story. I am so enlightened and encouraged to see the work of God truly displayed in the Ten Boom’s lives. Definitely huge rolemodels!
God has also really impressed upon me through this time the value of building relationships and how important it is to continue to make deposits into them. I have looked at Jesus and how He witnessed to others. The one’s who really took His messages to heart were the ones He spent one on one time with and truly took the time to know them. I realized how important it is for me to develop relationships where others see Christ through me instead of me just harping about it, even to people I don’t necessarily like. I need to love like Jesus and be reminded that we are all His children. So, that has been my mission, to be less judgemental and just love. Why is that so hard?
I’m really excited to see how my new job will look like when all this integration business is over. Change is good!
This month has been a very busy month for our family! Last weekend was the first weekend we didn’t do any entertaining since we moved in, which was really nice. We have been able to catch up with some friends that we haven’t seen in a really long time, which has been a huge blessing, but Saturday was a good family night that was very well needed.
On Sunday, January 25th, was Paul’s Grandpa’s 90th birthday! I feel so blessed to be able to have shared his special day with him! Paul’s Grandma threw a surprise birthday party for him where we got to meet even more relatives from all over, and some great friends of his from the Lakewood police force. He has lived a very full and exciting life so far, and I’m sure there is even more to come! He served in the US Navy during WWII and then served 20+ years on the Lakewood Police Department. He is very much a hero, in my opinion! You can check out pictures from the party on our gallery.
I accepted a position with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC Dain) and will be starting on February 2. On the second day with them, I will be going to orientation in Minneapolis, MN. That should be interesting since I have never been there. From what I have been told, all the building are connected on the second floor by skyways. I’m excited to see that! The position is very similar to what I used to do at NatCity. It is a lot less stressful than what I am currently doing, and it pays a lot better, which is a huge plus.
Paul found out at the beginning of the month that he had to take a 10% pay cut for the first three months of the year and then restoring his pay the fourth month. His company enforced this on all salaried employees in order to avoid laying personnel off. Supposedly, the company will be paying this back at the end of the year. We are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The bright side is, no one did get laid off.
We are still attending Calvary Chapel of Cleveland and are excited that our pastor and his wife are expecting his 15th child this year!!! We have learned so much from them and are continually encouraged by his sermons in these trying times for not only our nation, but also the world.
In case you don’t live locally, I have gained Artificial Intelligence by coloring my hair a chestnut color. So all in all, 2009 is looking really exciting!
I know we have been married for a while, almost 5 months, but I thought I would post our vows. I really need to remind myself of these promises daily!
I Kelly, take you, Paul, to be my husband and to honor the covenant that we now enter. I will seek to fulfill my role as wife through the strength that only God can provide. I will seek Him for wisdom and guidance, knowing that God did not create marriage solely to make us happy, but also to make us holy. I will love you and trust you, honor you and cherish you. Through the pressures of the present and the uncertainties of the future, I promise to be faithful to you. I promise to forgive you as Christ has forgiven us. I will strive daily to emulate His love for us by being kind, patient, gentle, prudent, selfless, protecting, trusting, obedient, uplifting, and persevering in prayer for you. I will seek to live each day with you as a gift from God as long as we both shall live. This vow I make before God and these witnesses.
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