His plan

Wow! I am in awe. We are in such a flow of the Spirit right now. It is such a refreshing time. 

The last two days have been grounding, but great. The Holy Spirit showed me that I have been mystified by the local church here. I came here thinking that the church was the reason we were moving up here, but I was wrong. The church is still just another church. No matter how you package it, it's still a church. The Lord showed me that is not why we are here. The people are why we are here. He reminded me that He has taken me out of Christianity and all other boxes and to not fall into that thinking any longer. I am free from it! 

God has been bringing us a group of people that are of the same heart, and I am ecstatic. We have been living in our house less than a week, and tonight we had 10 visitors. All of them were wonderful! We threw a birthday party for a new friend who is 45-ish :), and then when they left (and we were cleaning up and getting the kids ready for bed) 6 more people showed up. 5 of them were new people. The second group was a group of artists, and they played music, we sang, saw a spiritual card trick, danced, and talked. Oh yeah, one of the guys had written two songs, one for me and one for Danny, that symbolized who we were. They were completely instrumental, and right on! It was such a blessing. It was great. DH found a running partner, as well as a dance instructor who teaches swing on Thursday nights. I found a group of people to explore the arts with. The owner of the gallery holds Saturday night sessions where there is music, and art that everyone can get involved in. I am going to go to these. I think I will blossom in that environment. I have decided not to go to iWar, so if I asked you for a recommendation, please disregard it.  Like I've said before: I reserve the right to change my opinion or stance on anything. I am completely open to letting the Lord correct me, because I want what He has planned, not anything I come up with on my own.

Talk to you soon...

Tara

    

Family

Yesterday was just another amazing day in the Lord! 

In the morning, a new friend came by because her tire had gotten a flat and it was still sitting in front of our house. She chatted and ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches with us, while we waited for AAA. (The good thing about living downtown, is that all of us are walking distance from each other. We were able to just walk her home the night before.) This wonderful woman is a limousine driver and offered to chauffeur us around the city and show us where certain stores and other places of interest are. We took her up on her offer and were given a luxury ride around town, great music and all. She dropped us off at "The Gallery" in downtown, where a woman from the church runs a children's art gallery. Here children learn about how much they are loved by God, and how to express themselves through worship art. It is a great place and I just love her heart for the kids. 

We had gone to the Gallery for a purpose. I am planning on attending a school called IWAR and, knowing this would require me to find a place for my children while I attended, had caused me a little angst. However, the night before, it had been made apparent to me that if God had a plan for me to attend this school, He also had a plan for my kids. That's when the gallery was mentioned. 

So, I walked into the gallery and started talking to the woman who owns it. She is amazing! I just love her spirit. She said she was starting a homeschool co-op that would be two days a week. She described it to me and it sounds perfect for my kids. They will be focusing on different parts of the world, learning about them, praying for them, listening to music and viewing art from the area, doing intercessory prayer, working in the prophetic, learning how to play instruments, building drums, you name it! How perfect to prepare my children in this way! Thank you Lord! This way, while I am learning worship arts, they are. What a great way to grow our family together.

While we were at the gallery, another woman from the church came in to pick her daughter up. She has an 11 week old baby, along with her two other daughters, and she was joking about all the laundry piling up and her having no time to do anything. I looked at her and said, "Well, if your house needs help, we're coming over to clean it." She broke down crying and said, "I'm just going to receive that from you. Thank you, Lord. "  

While we were talking to this woman, a man walked in that we were supposed to meet at some point, as he was a friend of the limousine driver. We told him who we were and asked him if he would be at the birthday party on Thursday. He said that he was coming over that very night, as that is when he had been invited. We just said, "Okay! Tonight it is!" Then we invited the Gallery owner to dinner, and she accepted. 

So, we went home, ate lunch, went and cleaned the new mom's house (where my girls made a fast friend in her oldest daughter), came home and cooked dinner, and had another amazing get together with more amazing people, including the limousine driver. All the people that have come over are already like a family. When we rented this house, we declared that it would be a revolving door, with people coming in and out of it all the time. We've only been here a few days, and it is already that way. Some of the people don't even knock, and we love it! They just know they're welcome. We set up a bulletin board by our front door with colorful 3x5 cards pinned all over it. All of our new friends have put their name and phone number on one of the cards. I just know that by the way things are going, it will be bursting with cards before long. 

Today, I went to the church to talk to the Leaders of both IWAR and Potter's House to see which was a better fit. The Lord really met me there and made it clear to me that IWAR was the one to attend. I am so excited about this new adventure in our lives, and this is just the beginning! 

I am truly living a life full of awe and wonder, overwhelmed by the goodness of God. I could not possibly imagine a better life. Thank you, Lord.

-Tara  

Dinner Party

The Lord is moving!!! Today, after church, I saw the woman that had prayed us into the yellow house. I went up to her and told her we were now living in it. She was elated and said, "Can I come over?" 

"Of course," we said.

"Like today, and can I bring a friend?" she says.

"Yes," we said, "but you'll have to bring your own chair, as we don't have enough yet."  

This made us very excited, as it is the most intentionality anyone has shown towards us thus far. So, we told her to come over for dinner. We also invited another woman that we are getting intentional with. 

At dinner time they both showed up and it turned out the other woman we invited was the same one that "yellow house woman" was going to invite! When we were sitting on the porch, one of the neighbors walked by and we invited her to join us. So, we ended up with an impromptu dinner party and had amazing fellowship! It was a total God appointment. We talked about all sorts of things, including who the Lord says we are and what's going on in our lives. We are destined to be a family. 

We found out it is one of the ladies birthdays on Thursday, and her being new to town, knew it was our job (her new family) to throw her a party. So, on Thursday, we're having a party. I have no doubt it will be a packed house. We're praying that God blesses us with chairs before then, otherwise it will be a BYOC (bring your own chair) party. Haha. I believe He will. 

It was a great night. More and more is being revealed to us about why we are here. It is definitely to prepare the way, as we can see the Lord about to break loose here in this neighborhood. Also, we can see the equipping and training being very helpful.

I'll keep you updated, as I am expecting great things!

Tara

A White Canvas

I saw a vision. A vision of many people going about their lives. Some were working, some washing their cars, some mowing lawns, some reading, some playing. Just life happening all around. The Lord came to me and said, "Now let me show you what is real." And he took away everything but the people. All the people were standing as if on a white canvas. There were no houses, no cars, no jobs, no lawns, no sky or clouds, no food, just people. My heart went out to them as I realized the lies of the enemy. We are so distracted from what really matters. I'm angry that I have allowed the enemy to keep me from my brothers and sisters; that I have not loved them. I wanted to stretch out my arms and pull them all into me and just love on them in whatever way possible. 

Friends, the ONLY thing that matters is relationships. Relationship with God and relationships with people. All else will decay and waste away. All else is a lie from the enemy to keep us distracted from truth. I think this is why God takes us away from our homes many times to minister to people. It takes us away from our distractions, like keeping our house clean, or our lawn mowed, or our business in order, and it takes us into a place where people are what matters. Where all you have left are the people. If only we could grasp that in our home. If only we could all see it and embrace each other in that way, prioritizing each other, opening our hearts to each other, sharing the Lord with each other, then we would be so much stronger, so much more in the truth. 

What can we do to remedy this? Is there an answer? Do you notice when you are away from home that you are more likely to focus on relationships? Do you think it's possible to let go of all else and live for relationships alone? Do we dare?

Tara

Friends

I had a great day today! I met up with two different friends from my past. One that I hadn't seen in 4 years and one I hadn't seen in 13 years! They were both great visits and I am so glad to be connected with them again as I believe we will be good friends once more. I met with them each separately, but they happen to live about two blocks from each other, which made the double visit possible. It was a total God thing!

Summer is for Friends and Family

I have been so blessed lately by friendships. The Lord is opening up doors for relationships all over the place. This past week we have been able to visit with some friends from Washington that are in town on a visit and it has really blessed us and our children. There are a whole bunch of other new friends we have been making too, and I am excited about it. It seems for the last two years, when we were in Colorado, friendships were hard and few. Now I am grateful, because it would have been harder to leave if we had all sorts of really close friends there. I did take a few friendships from Colorado, though. It's nice to be able to not worry about anything during the summer and just visit with others until late at night. That is why Summer is for friends and family. Good food, good friends, great family, a loving God... what more could we want?

Family Time

We had a great Mother's Day with our family. My sister and her husband came over as well as my grandmother and father, my mother already being here. We ate a great meal, played boys against girls Pictionary, went to the park and played softball, came home and roasted marshmallows and made smores with our new fire pit, 

 bathed the kids and put a movie on for them while we went in the spa and settled into a good conversation. Everyone left between nine and ten at night. It was a great day spent with family. 

We are starting a Saturday night gathering and we are calling it "Embrace the Drama". We are all excited about this! This week we are building a stage and hanging lights and lanterns to set the scene. Every Saturday night will be a different theme. To start, this Saturday we are having an open mic night. This is to kick things off. It is also a celebration for DH 29th birthday. Other themes we are considering: Poetry night, blockbuster night, interpretive dance night, music night, public service announcements to be done randomly, karaoke, improv night, lip sinc and air guitar night, stand up comedy, etc...  I just love fellowship with other people. Relationships are what life is about and I feel so much more alive when I live in that purpose.