We stand for our spouses and marriage restoration to change our family tree. We are praying for eternal changes to take place in the lives of ourselves and our family, to see our loved ones come to know Christ.

Today, I experienced a most unexpected blessing. Ariel, our 7 year old eldest daughter, the one who fought leukemia, told me she thinks she finally heard from God. 🙂

Let’s rewind to a few weeks ago when she wrote me a letter saying she’d been praying to God for Him to speak to her. She just didn’t understand why she couldn’t hear His voice. I took that time to explain that God speaks to us in a number of different ways. Mostly, it’s from His word. When His word jumps out at us, we know He’s speaking directly to us. Sometimes, He speaks to us through others. Other times we see or experience signs or feelings. However, whatever we think we hear from God MUST ALWAYS align to His word, never against it. I explained that it can be hard sometimes to hear God because we let distractions get in the way. We gotta learn to be quiet to hear Him. However, over time and with much seeking we can learn to hear from Him. He wants to talk to us. He wants us to listen.

Today, she tells me that about a week ago she was reading a scripture on the wall (as I’ve mentioned before, we have promises posted all over our house). She said, for some reason she focused on the word “rejoice.” Then she felt like she heard, “Have joy, for I am with you.”

When she shared that with me, the first thing I did was to look it up in the concordance. We discovered that there’s no exact reference for those words together, but of course God does command us to rejoice and also promises us that He’s with us. So I told her that it falls in line with truth. I also looked at her and told her that I know for a fact that God is with her. She knew that too. Then, I told her she needed to write it in her journal to God, because all her prior entries were her talking to God. She needed to write down when God speaks to her too!

I’ve been amazed seeing this spiritual growth in my tiny daughter. I peeked through her journal and saw she had asked God some serious questions. I read one aloud: “God why do you let bad things happen?” So I asked her what she thought the answer was to that one. She thought it was different reasons, but the one that she named was how ppl think they have a good relationship with God and He uses bad things to happen so He can really show them how their relationship really is.

I was impressed. Have we discussed this topic before? Of course. We’ve explained leukemia, the deaths of grandfathers, Covid, etc. But here was her chance to express what she’s learned. I thought it was profound. There’s a lot of adults who struggle with that question.

God challenged me in 2012 to stand for my marriage…way before kids. When I accepted that challenge, I was just hoping to get my husband back (being honest here). I never could’ve imagined this moment almost 10 years ago. When God changed me, he tipped the first domino to change my husband, to change my marriage, to create 4 amazing kids, and to change the way we would raise them. We’ve seen what God can do. We’ve seen Him restore. We’ve seen Him provide. We’ve seen Him protect. We’ve seen Him heal. How can we not share this with our kids? They’re part of the miracles we’ve seen!

God has this amazing plan for them. I know it because they came so close to never existing! God has this amazing plan for your family tree as well! Please, please, PLEASE don’t ever give up on your stand!