Happy Monday!
Once again I’m linking up Simple Life of a Fire Wife for Inspire Me Monday! Please take a moment and visit some of the other blogs linked up as well! I was featured this week for my past from last Monday over there (how cool is that?)and at Mama of Many Blessings and Farmhouse 40 so please so check those awesome sites out as well…I need to sit with my cup of coffee and read some of them too!
I hope if you’re in the path of Hurricane Irma, you’re keeping safe today. We’re supposed to get the worst of it overnight in South Carolina tonight in the way of rain and wind. Schools were out here today because they considered it too risky to drive buses with the wind threat. The pictures and videos we’ve seen on television are just heartbreaking!
This song by NewSpring called King of Kings is really speaking to me the last few weeks at church. One of my life verses is Ephesians 3:20-21 as it reminds me that God’s plan for my life FAR exceeds ANY expectation I could ever have for myself. His plan is perfect, on time, HIS time, not my time and exactly what I need when I need it. I give glory to Him who is more able than I can even comprehend. If you’re so inclined, give it a listen, I pray you’ll be as blessed as I am by the powerful message in it!
So back in the winter, my husband and I were invited to salvage some materials from an early 1900s house being torn down by a friend of mine. We were excited, but a little wary of the work that was ahead of us as there was no power to the house and it was COLD! But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to save some precious items and building materials of a time before pressed wood and laminate anything. Y’all. We were dirty, cold, tired and a little overwhelmed with all we had to do to pull the good stuff out. But we managed to fill my husbands truck with shiplap, windows, gorgeous wood building materials and beadboard. It’s been sitting in our garage since then because who has time, right?
Fast forward to the summer and a friend of mine from high school sent me a project through my Etsy shop that she wanted for a home at the beach that she and her fiance were renovating. And I knew I had the perfect wood – the shiplap from this house! It took some elbow grease and engineering by my husband, but the results were worth every single bit of it! It ended up being 3×4 feet in size and had some custom touches that were special to the couple and these awesome hooks from Hobby Lobby. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I love that we could breathe new life into this wood that was left to be bulldozed and burned and find a home for it in what will be a newlyweds first home together – so exciting!
I can’t let September 11th pass without remembering the lives of so many who perished that fateful day. I sent my then husband, a firefighter, to work that day, same as every 3rd day prior to that. I watched in horror as the planes hit just like everyone else, but mostly I thought of those same husbands and wives that kissed their spouse goodbye, not knowing that it would be for the last time. My husband was fine – he had to work extra shifts because of the security threat. But there were so many fire personnel that didn’t come home that day. It’s what they loved to do. Many born to do it and wouldn’t do anything else if they could have. And as their spouses, we knew the danger. But you don’t really think it could happen to you. Fire service is a tight knit group and will always hold a special place in my heart, even after I was no longer married into it. For those that perished – we remember. For those that walked into that burning building leaving the ones you loved behind – we won’t forget you. For those that received the worst possible phone call or knock at the door ever…we honor your sacrifice. We won’t ever forget that all of you gave something, some gave everything. Hug your loved ones tight. You just never know.
Blessings
Stephanie
