(A Recap)

Hello, again, my faithful friends & readers. Can I just say how much I love you? How much I appreciate you? Because we all know what a hot mess your girl is! 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Not really sure why anyone is sticking with us at this point, but for those of you who are…thank you. 💗 This post is for January 2020!

Our last blog post summed up June – December of 2019. The period of time after The Unfortunate Incident. After May and our decision to return to Arkansas for a time. That time turned out to be much longer than expected. Of course. But it has been good. So good. Of course.

God always places us right where He wants us, right when we need to be there…if we let Him guide us. And I’m here to tell you that letting Him guide us is not always fun! I’ve been so stir cray over the past four months. I don’t understand. His ways are not my ways…thank goodness! 🙌🏼 We’re still here. Still working. Still in ministry. It just doesn’t look quite like what we thought it would. We’re not exactly living the life we thought we’d live. But. It’s so good. He’s so good. And I’m just going to fill you in on how our January went. 😁 (Reminder: Posts in italics = our words)

Don’t worry. This blog post won’t be nearly as long as those in times past. 😏
📸 Photo credit: Image can be found on YouVersion Bible app

Happy New Year! 🥳 Here’s to new life in 2020! 🙏🙌

I was determined to hit the ground running in 2020. First up on my agenda: Finish up 2019’s blog posts so y’all would know why we disappeared!
📸 Photo credit: Image can be found on Unsplash

2020! New year! New decade! New blog post!!! 🥳🙌 About May 2019. 😑 It’s worth checking out. Promise. Who likes rainbows & gorgeous sunsets in the Tetons? 🥰🙋‍♀️

This is the last of my monthly blog recaps from 2019. I’ll do one more to sum up the rest of the year…then it’s on to bigger & better things! 😁 So excited to share what God has been up to lately!

📸 Photo credit: Image can be found at Unsplash

Anyone else swing wildly from, ‘I’m kicking butt & taking names!’ to, ‘I suck. At everything. I’m the absolute worst.’? No? Just me? Well. Lucky for me, God offers endless chances. 🙌 Resharing this for anyone who may have ever felt like this. You know, in the past. 😏

A few of you have asked how to find our Youngins. These days you can find them on Instagram! They each have their own account. I don’t turn them loose on the internet. So posting is…sporadic. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ But we’re working on it! If you’d like to be there when they do speak up, head on over to Instagram & give them a like!

You can find them by searching for these accounts:
@calebyoung.adventures
@tristanyoung.adventures
@alyssayoung.adventures

We like to keep it creative around here. 😏

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display His craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.” 
– Psalm 19:1-4

I don’t know if y’all know this…but we live in a breathtakingly beautiful country. 😍🌄 The skies display His craftsmanship – and the earth reflects it. Just seek Him. He’s there.

Then. Then came the moment I’d been waiting so long for. What I’d worked and toiled for. The end of the 2019 blog recaps! 🙌🏻
📸 Photo credit: Image can be found at Unsplash

FINALLY!!! One last blog post to recap them all! 🙌🙌🙌 This one covers June – December.

You know what this means… 😁
#OutWithTheOld #InWithTheNew #NewThingsComingSoon

You know, I’ve shared my last recap blog post. And I’m ready to move on to new things. But, I have to admit, I’ve loved rereading posts from the past. Take this one, for instance. What a fabulous reminder. We’re all in the mission field. 💗

This seems like a good day to reshare this. I love kids. 💗

Then, it happened. Everything was going well. We were 2/3 of the way through January. And the bottom dropped out.

“This is not what I thought I’d be doing.”
How many times have I thought this exact thought over the past year? I lost count long ago. Sometimes, this thought was an awesome one: “This is not what I thought I’d be doing!” 😍 God has blessed us more than I could have ever imagined.

All too often, though, it’s expressed as more of a disappointment. “This is not what I thought I’d be doing.” 😔 I thought I’d be writing a very different post tonight. Instead, I’m sitting in an ICU waiting room. My mother-in-law has cancer. And all our plans changed & rearranged to make a 12 hour trip to Ohio, because we try our best to love our people well. (Spoiler alert: Loving people well is always the better choice. Always.) Oh, and an axle broke on our trip up here. Make that an 18 hour trip. #lifehappens

So, instead of making posts or homeschooling my kids or whatever it is I had planned on doing, I find myself being drawn to reshare this post from another time in my life. We met Coffey Anderson before his beautiful wife annouced that cancer had reared its ugly head once again. He spoke at a church we happened to visit. His message was an encouraging one: “At some point we stopped realizing how big our God was.”

How big is my God now? How big is He, when I feel like I just take beating after beating? How big is He when, every time I try to get up, I feel like some unseen force just keeps knocking me down? Anyone else ever tempted to just…stay down?

You know what, though? That’s the thing about God. He remains unchanged. 💗 He’s still there, big as ever. He’s still the rock I can cling to. He’s still bigger than any enemy any of us face. He’s still for us…which means cancer, or life-threatening infections, or all the wrenches life throws in our well-laid plans can squall all they want. Bottom line: We’re victorious through Him. 🙌

This is not what I thought I’d be doing – but He’s weaving my story, your story, OUR stories into such beautiful tales. What an amazing God. ❤️

That’s right. Cancer reared its ugly head & charged, uninvited into our loved one’s life. This came on the heels of my aunt’s funeral, something I didn’t even have time to process before we packed up & headed for Ohio. And there was more to come…

Update: We’re still in Ohio. My mother-in-law had a few complications after her surgery. Good news is, she came off the ventilator today!!! 😃🙌 Thank you to all who have expressed concern & offered to pray. We appreciate you all so much! 💗 Please keep them coming; she still has a long road of recovery ahead.

Also, please keep our hometown of Flippin, Arkansas, in your prayers. Yesterday, the world lost a living legend, Forrest L Wood. If you’re into fishing, or you’ve ever heard of Ranger Boats or the FLW tour…then you’ve probably heard of Forrest & Nina Wood. And, if you’ve ever lived in a small town, you know that EVERYONE is connected to each other. We went to school with Forrest’s & Nina’s grandchildren. Our hearts are hurting for our hometown. Please lift them up in prayer as well.

And, that’s pretty much the end of our January. We had a few more hiccups. Our household got hit by…something. Flu? 🤷‍♀️ No idea, really. 3/5 of our clan was sick for a while. We limped along, exhausted and a bit beaten down. It’s so strange to tell you all about our lives in blog form. Because – I promise you – our lives are not as depressing as they sound! 😂 Not even a little bit. We do seem to get hit with an awful lot at once, though. 😬 But that’s okay. His power works best in weakness. His grace is sufficient. Always. 🙌 Can’t wait to see how He uses this for His glory!

Interested in sharing your story? Like what we’re doing, and want to help keep the campfires burning? Want to offer a word of encouragement? We’d love to hear from you!