New times in the Reinsel House! Keep those prayers coming!!

Thank you all so much for your prayers for our family over these past few weeks, please keep them coming! However the time has come to share what you have been praying for. Some of you know, as we have gone to you for advice, and encouragement, thank you for that, it is has blessed us so much! For those of you who have just prayed for us daily without knowing how to direct it, thank you for your faithfulness to just pray, that has blessed us beyond measure!

The boys are in their last week in the public school system. We have made the decision with much prayer, tears (mine of course, as the crazy over thinking mom you all know I am) :), research, and the leading of the Spirit to home school all 6 of our boys. This is not an easy decision or one that Shawn and I have made lightly, trust me. So much has led to this new transition of our family, both good and bad.  We are trusting our Lord, and walk in faith in what He calls us to do, even though it seems hard, even impossible, or comes with many questions/concerns, but also with some great encouragement to teach our boys and get the best of them everyday. Our God is a great equipper and we are ready for this new adventure He has called us to. We are all very excited, nervous too, but ready. Please continue to pray as it is a huge transition for all of us. Pray specifically for Shawn and I in our teaching of the boys, our balance of family, school, church, and just life. Pray for the boys as they say goodbye to the only schooling they have known, their teachers and friends that they won't get to see daily. They do get to stay in all of their clubs and the older boys their band class so that is such a huge blessing to all of us! Pray that we all fall into this new routine and that above all we will continue to direct our boys to Jesus in every way and even more so now in their school needs.

And pray for our school systems. We have encountered things we never have before this year in school. Both good and some terribly bad. Our schools, our teachers, our districts, our students, all need so much prayer and love. If your kids are in public school, surround them, ask questions, come along side your teachers, encourage them, go to the district ask for change in things that need changed. Be involved parents do not sit on the sidelines! We at the middle school level have fought, had meetings, been well extended this year and calling for justice in the school system and asking them to step up where they need to and change things that need fixed, all with prayer and love, sadly to no avail and at a point where we are not willing to sacrifice our children's safety and education to keep them in their current school.

We have loved our elementary school, and still do. Those teachers, administrators and staff have poured so much into our family over the last 6 years, it blesses us and makes it so hard to leave! We are so thankful to all of you that have poured into us and will continue to do so even though we leave the school walls. They are not just our boys teachers, or our boys school, but truly our friends!

Thank you again for your prayers, we really do appreciate them and Lord knows we need them each and every day. Prayer is so powerful, don't ever forget that! Our God is so great and we are ready to step into this new journey with Him as our leader as we charge forward in raising and teaching those most precious gifts He has given us, our boys!

Special Day

 Getting their certificates

 us: silly, crazy, happy, crying, excited and blessed

Brothers

Pretty special day around here! John and Ximon graduated 5th grade today! I'm still in a little bit of shock that we have two boys, who are getting so big (Ahh 6th graders). Our first born boys, so far they have come and accomplished so much! It's just so awesome, amazing, unbelievable and about 1000 other things that are swimming around in my mind tonight. We couldn't be more proud of these two! They are true joys to our heart, great big brothers, lovers of Jesus and just plain awesome all around! It was a full day of celebration and saying goodbye, with lots of tears, hugs, and of course high fives! :) I am so proud and honored to be the mom of these two, still wondering sometimes why God chose me, but none the less, blessed to have this role in their lives! Of course with this new milestone, come remembrance of where we have been, what we have come from. Struggle, sadness, fear, and yet here we are, our God is good, great actually. And I am floored each moment I think of these two and what they have overcome in their shorts lives. We are excited for the years to come, the new adventures, and friends, and struggles that will come our way. Praying and knowing that God will lead us in new ways, and grow us more than he already has. Cherishing each and every moment with all of our ever growing dudes! 

Life Lessons

So many lessons I am still learning each and everyday in my walk with the Lord. This message from last week at the pastors/leaders conference, both convicted and encouraged me. Listen to it be blessed (once you click the link, it's the one from Levi Lusko call frequent flyer Ex. 19)! But here are my thoughts on it, what I took away, what I learned!!

There are three major things we need to do in our walk, three things that I fail at everyday.

The first being trust, trusting our Lord for who he is, what he has done and what he will do. I have a major trust problem, I always have honestly. I don't trust anyone, not even myself. People are not trustworthy, even the good ones. It's been proven over and over again in my life, that I can't trust. So when it comes to the Lord, my creator, my everything, I can't even trust him. And that's sad, and shouldn't' be that way at all. My Jesus has NEVER let me down, it's not in his blood, he can't forsakes us, nor does he want to. Even in the hardest times of my life, my Lord has proven faithful, I just have a hard time accepting and believing it. Something that I am praying for strength in, something for the Lord to come in and change in my heart. That ugly nastiness anxious part of who I am. To be made new in him, to see his faithfulness and rest in it, with every new challenge,with every new scary thing, every unsure thing that pops into my life. God is faithful no matter what!!!!!

Second, once we know that we can trust Jesus above all things, we can relax a little, and enjoy where he has us, where he's taking us, etc. This is majorly big for me right now. As I am missing the joy of starting our own church, and my boys growing up (2 are going into middle school), because I am so scared to just trust Jesus and know that he has this!! I don't want to miss the joys of where he has me or where he is taking me. It's big stuff, exciting stuff, scary stuff,yes but not with the trust of the Lord rooted deep in my heart. I want to enjoy life and not just let is pass me by because I am consumed with worry, and trying to figure things out myself. I want to relish in the awesome place the Lord has Shawn and I right now. We started a church, us, unbelievable, Shawn doing what he has always been called to do, with people that we love and want to minister to. I am a pastors wife, again crazy, but a place that I want to shine Jesus in so brightly that people are changed. A stretching place for our whole family, but a place, Jesus himself chose us specifically for, how humbling, how grateful, how awesome it is to be right where our Lord placed us.  Crazy steps of faith that wouldn't' even be possible if Jesus hadn't orchestrated them and wasn't leading us. Times in our life I don't want to miss, because they are big, they are exciting and our Jesus is going to be proven over and over again in this adventure, we need to just enjoy the ride and see all that God is going to do.

Which leads us right in to our third item, Taking it to the next level, taking those God size steps of faith, going deeper, being stretched, doing and being all that God has for us, without being hung up on stress, worry, and not trusting. Missing so many blessings, because our mind is so focused somewhere else, consumed with things Jesus commands us to hand over to him. But instead saying Yes Jesus, what ever you have for me, I will go, I will do, I will bring glory to your name. Awesome, to be placed in places you never thought possible, to shine Jesus in ways you never could have imagined and to be blessed and see God's faithfulness day in and day out, as all the work is his, and you can't claim anything in yourself. But that's it's all God, because we are nothing but mere vessels in his hands! Like that song oceans, I linked it for you. It blesses me so much, I think it's a perfect song for this time in our life. We are ready to trust, take it in, and take it to the next level with our Lord in this coming year, and every year to come. I pray you will to! I pray you are blessed today and always, and that you get ready for what ever the Lord has for you!!! We are buckled in and ready for the ride!

Psalm 73

Ps. 73, this morning rang in very true and encouraging to me. I get so frustrated when I see the evil in people around me prevail. Deceiving others, deceiving themselves, pulling me down with them. I ask God if he even sees, if he even cares, why do I always have to be the good one, the one to walk in righteousness, the one to love, when I get nothing in return, when evil threatens to destroy me, my family, my children. When I am fighting so hard for the approval of people, being my own defender, instead of God. That's the whole first part of this chapter, then comes verse 17, and the word until. Until I went into the house of the Lord, and I understood the end of this, the end of evil. Those things, those people, may prosper and "win" preceiveably everyday on this earth. But they will reach an eternal end and it won't be good. It actually will bring us to grieve for those people. To pray harder for them, give us the strength and courage to keep being Jesus even when everything in our flesh wants to fight against that. When the flesh wants to take over as our defender, when we must in this life "make it right, bring to light the sin". God sees even if no one else does, even if every person is deceived by the sin in peoples lives, and it hurts us, God still sees, he is still sovereign, he still is righteous, and he will and always does defend us. Verse 25 and 26, will be my strength in these hard days, hard times, in the middle of battle. "whom have I in heaven but you?And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart my fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.