"miracles happen once in a while, when you believe..."

(And sometimes when you don't believe.) Funny that my latest quote is about miracles. I witnessed a real miracle at work this week. For privacy reasons, I'm not going to post the details of it online, but I'll be happy to tell you about it if you ask. It happened four days ago, and I still really can't believe it. I seriously feel like I saw Jesus put mud on a blind man's eyes and give him sight, and I want to tell everyone about it! It was incredible. The neonatologist, nurse practitioner, and all of us nurses just stood and watched as God took over, and none of us could deny that we had seen a true miracle. Though I had prayed for it, I must admit that I didn't really believe it would happen. Our neonatologist said she'd never seen anything like this in her 30 years of practice. Most doctors take pride in being able to explain everything, but the only explanation she could give to this family was "All I can tell you is that miracles do happen. . . all of us are believing in God right now."

"He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted." -Job 9:10

father's day

To my dad and all those who've ever played a dad role in my life -

Happy Father's Day!

As with Mother's Day, my best Father's Day work/pics can be found in last year's post. But I do want to share this "father" picture that I love of Dad, Jared, and Hunter. I can't take credit for this (I hate it when I love pictures and I can't take credit for them, haha!). I believe our friend Jane took this at HeartLight a few years ago.

"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!" ~Lydia M. Child

almost-nephew

I have a new nephew-ish little friend. Meet Connor.

Connor Ryan is the newest "first grandson" of Bartlett, the second son of our friends Ryan & Cari, and the little brother of Dylan. Connor's dad was lucky enough to have me as the little sister he never had when we were growing up. ;-) Connor was born April 24th, and I did these a few days later. But I wanted to wait until his birth announcements were out before I shared any pics. I didn't want to spoil the surprise for anyone! By the way, Cari - if you're reading this - the birth announcements looked great!

the proud big brother

Umm, what am I supposed to do with this thing??

This little piggy went to market . . .(just kidding. He was actually checking Connor's toes for "toe fuzz.")

sweet boys

mark your calendars

HeartLight 2008

Mark Schultz

November 15th

The Cannon Center

I'm getting excited about HeartLight! For those who don't know, HeartLight is Agape's annual fundraising (and Agape-awareness-raising) event. I'm especially excited about this year because now that I'm home I can finally officially participate in the planning of this event. I say "officially" because I've been sticking my nose in HL committee business and sending ideas via Mom for the past several years, haha. This year our entertainment will be Christian singer Mark Schultz. Mark was adopted into a Christian family as infant, so he has a special place in his heart for ministries like Agape's. Friday night my friend (and HeartLight committee director) Marka and I attended a Mark Schultz concert here in town. What talent this guy has! He's going to be great! Afterwards, we got the chance to meet Mark and his road manager and talk with them a little bit about our upcoming event. So basically we're best friends now. No big deal. We had a great time and are so looking forward to HeartLight '08! So . . . I don't know where you're going to be on the 15th of November, but if you want to see God doing BIG things, then you should plan to be at The Cannon Center. ;-)

Here's Mark's video for "Everything to Me', a song that he wrote telling his adoption story.

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In other news, my parents celebrated their 33rd anniversary on Friday! On June 6, 1975, I don't think they thought they'd be spending the evening of their 33rd anniversary seeing Horton Hears a Who with their 12 and 7 year olds. And I doubt they had any idea that, when they actually did get to go out and celebrate, they'd have to worry about a baby-sitter (fortunately they have a live-in nanny ;-). But God had different plans, and He is a better planner than any of us ever dreamed of being.

The nice thing about having a blog is that when you post about an important day but don't have new pictures to post or time to find old ones, you can just refer people back to previous year's post. And that is what I will do now. Go here to see some old pics of Mom and Dad. Happy belated anniversary, guys!