Birthdays, Missionaries and the Hard Life

Happy 12th Birthday to Tyler!

His special breakfast in bed!

It is hard to believe that my baby boy turned 12 on the 14th of this month. He is growing into such a young man. I can't wait to see what God does in and through his life.

Yes, his birthday was Monday and it is now Friday and I am just now getting to posting about it (after a gentle reminder from one of my bestest friends from high school, Beky) Beky is one of those friends that you can not see or talk to for months and when you finally do land on the same continent you pick up right where you left off.  Beky is a missionary in Togo, West Africa. 

She is my hero.  She is a role model for my children.  You see, Beky is living a sacrificial life of serving God in Africa.  She has opened her home to children who needed a safe place to live, she shares the good news of salvation to villages all over Togo, she assists teachers improve their teaching, she ministers in the hospital and the thing that always gets me - is that she uses what she has named- "God's car"- to drive everyone around, even dead bodies to funerals!  To read her emails asking for prayer and sharing praises, puts me to shame.  You see, Beky, is living the hard life and yet she doesn't complain. 

This week was a hard week. Too many appointments. Too much to do. Leo having some serious medical issues to deal with. It was just a hard week. At one point, I looked at Jeremy as we were discussing how hard of week it was turning into and I said we can do hard. Yes, we can do hard. The question is can we do hard without complaining and whining about how hard it is? I want to. I want to do hard with a God honoring attitude. We all have hard things in our lives, the question is how will you handle your hard?

Happy New Year's!

I walked into the kitchen this morning to find this list on the whiteboard.  Tyler was standing there with a marker in his hand.  He took it upon himself to come up with the "Shafer Family New Year Resolutions".

I like his goal for today- "Thank God for this year."  I do believe we will need to spend some time doing that today.  So much has happened in the last year, good and bad, but God was walking beside us every step on 2012 and for that we are thankful.

In looking at his goals-
I am all for #1- be healthier,
#2- watch less TV,
I wish #3 could happen- go to Great Wolf Lodge, but not sure that is a realistic goal for 2013,
#4- 20 minute devotions- excellent goal
#5- Leo walks, talks and eats!  This is probably my favorite of his goals.
#6- adopt one more child?  Love the question mark, wonder is Tyler being prophetic, guess we will have to wait and see.  (and no I didn't put him up to that one, Tyler and Jordan are both supporters of adoption and would love another brother)
#7- to do this better next year with better spelling- he is keeping it real.

As the day has worn on, others have added what has become a goal/wish list for 2012- go to Disney- someone was dreaming big, do better at math, sleep more, Daddy and Mommy read through the Bible together and the list goes on.

All good things, I love that a number of them point our focus back to God.  We are excited to see what God has in store for our family in 2013. 

We wish you and your family a 2013 full of God's blessings.

Keeping It Real

This week Leo was called feisty by his physical therapist and stubborn by his feeding therapist.  Both thought these were good qualities he was developing.  I'm not so sure.

Last night we went to the Mount Laurel Living Nativity.  We had a van full (our gang plus 4 friends) and met more friends there.  On the way there, we remembered we had forgotten to put the stroller back in the van (we had taken it out for our trip to Nana's due to lack of space)- strike #1.  Jordan then informed us he had forgotten his coat (the nativity is outside, it was cold, and it takes about 45 minutes to walk through the nativity)- strike #2.  We arrived to discover that somehow Jonathan had only brought one of his crutches- strike #3!

We had to carry Leo.  We had to carry Jonathan.  Thankfully, Ben had a coat on that had a zipper lining so he "shared" his coat with Jordan. 

In the end it was a great way to kick-off the Christmas Season and we really enjoyed doing it with family and friends! 

This afternoon Jeremy, Jonathan and Ben are at Sesame Place courtesy of the Variety Club's free tickets.  Before they left we made sure they had coats and Jonathan had 2 crutches!