A Leap of Faith

Sorry I have been slacking on the blogging... I have been so busy with school stuff, mom stuff, church stuff.... I am very happy to report I am getting ALL A's!!! For the first time since like...3rd grade! LOL! I mean, honestly though, that was the last year I can remember loving school. How sad. I loved "school" after that but not LOVED it and not really the school school part, just the social/extracurricular part. So anyway, that is keeping me super busy. The twins are ALWAYS keeping me super busy of course! And we have a new found "happy place", our church...which is what I going to write about in this post. This is going to maybe surprise some of my friends who I haven't closely spoken to lately because this is a very new thing my family is going through. Its surprising Dan and I, and our families as well....Trust me... (bear with me if this is long, I am getting out a lot here!)
A few months back....maybe 6 months ago or so, friends of ours (Josh and Aimee Bogner) asked me if I would like to volunteer cutting hair once a month at their church. Its a cute little church called Prince of Peace in Mentor. I agreed because I don't work in a salon so any heads I can get my hands on is a fun time for me and I felt like volunteering would be a fun thing to do! So every last Saturday of the month that's where I go for a few hours. I have met some very cool people. Aimee asked me if I would like to try out church with them the following day plenty of times and I never went. I basically swore off religion after catholic schools, being made to go to church every Sunday for years, and then one of my best friends being killed in Afghanistan in 2008 (I never thought a God could exist who could take away someone like my friend.....I didn't realize then the schooling was because my parents chose the best option for me and the church every week was to raise me in a good home...sorry mom and dad!) So after what seemed like a long time of Aimee asking me to go to church I finally decided one Sunday to pack up the kids and go (with TONS of discouragement from Dan.) The whole time during the first service I cried. The message was about the fact that every storm stops eventually... it will always clear up. Things WILL get better. After that I just knew I had to come back. That week Gary Allan had a song become popular called "Every Storm"...Coincidence? It was awesome. I went again the next week as well and have gone ever since....now getting Dan there I thought was never going to happen.
Within the first couple weeks of me going to church I knew the pastor and his wife were great and I wanted to get to know them. I wanted Dan to meet them. I wanted to get Dan to this place where I felt so safe. Josh and Aimee had us over for dinner one night and I dropped the bomb to Dan that we were having dinner with the pastors of a church. He threatened to cancel a few times, but eventually, we made it there on the night it was planned! : ) It was a great dinner, a great night, great company. I heard Dan talk about things it normally takes months....or years....of knowing him for him to tell you. War stories...life stories. He trusted Ken and Shelley right off the bat. It was a breath of fresh air for me. It was a mini therapy session for him! After that night Dan started to attend church a little more but not as regularly as I. We were a little unstable, we would fight about random, stupid things and there were Sundays I would bring the twins to church alone (there is a wonderful playroom there for them, so I get an hour of peace and quiet!) and Aimee would just let me cry on her shoulder and remind me that Dan was resisting and he would come around. It was so hard to believe then because I didn't think Dan would ever go to church but I felt that was where I had so much love and support so I continued going.
I started meeting more and more people at the church (which I am wondering....is everyone there somehow related???? LOL!) and everyone is just SO nice. People I didn't know were hugging me on days they didn't know I needed those hugs. Pastor Kens messages seemed like they were for me every week! I was so happy. And then Dan started coming regularly. And then Dan started meeting the amazing people I did. And then Dan started hearing the amazing messages. And then Dan started LIVING a new life. We started going to a bible study at Josh and Aimee's house with some amazing people, Dan goes to a men's homeless shelter every Saturday morning now with Josh, Josh's brother Don and our friend Shawn from PoP to do a bible study for these men at the shelter. He gets up at 6 am on his day off to do this.
Seeing my husband, who has lived one of the craziest lives I have ever heard of...like literally from day 1...who SWORE off God....go from zero to sixty....who told our bible study group he is breaking the mold and raising our children the right way, and in a Christian home and living a new life now......makes. me. cry. This man had to leave his dream job as a United States Marine because of PTSD, bipolar disorder, etc... He is now sober and made that amazing choice for the sake of his life, his children, and myself.....The fact that he wants to change things from the way things were.... I am in tears writing this.
I know some of you who will read this may not believe in God, or have a faith similar to this and think I am crazy. People who knew me before will probably be like WHAAA??? But this is my new choice.....This church has Changed. My. Life. I am never, ever going to come up to any of you and smack you with a bible and tell you I wont be your friend if you don't believe what I do....haha! I am making this choice because I can't say these things that have happened in my life are coincidences anymore...Trust me, I still have A LOT of questions and SO much to learn. But honestly....I have nothing to lose....What if it's not real....I have thought about it to.... I mean, that just means I lived in a good way, I raised my kids to be decent little kiddos and had a good, solid family. That's the goal anyway. I never thought I would be the person who would say "I will be praying for you".... I was always the "I will be thinking about you" person....but now I will pray for you....whether you believe, or whether you don't : ) And I'm still the same old me..... I just have this awesome faith now and I am writing this to share it with you.
I have to admit am nervous to post this because people judge people over their faith habits. I know Dan and I both have friends..... and family even.... who may judge us, doubt us, and look at us differently now, but I know our true friends will realize we are no different (except Dan is trying to swear A LOT less LOL!!) I just hope we have your support on our new "leap of faith" as we walk with our new friends at our new church. It is so awesome. And I am SO. so. Happy. <3
Xoxo
Em