You know what the news is -- in a minute, you're going to know the rest of the story...

Growing up, one of my favorite things to hear on the radio when I was riding around with my parents was Paul Harvey's, "The Rest of The Story".  I was always loved hearing the back story to famous events or how some common household item was actually invented by mistake.  I was always fascinated to learn the "why" behind the "what".  This post is going to attempt to start to tell our "Rest of the Story".

For more about the "Rest of the Story" including some audio of Paul Harvey's more famous segments, click here.

Over the last few days Lauren & I have used this blog to tell you about what has been going on in our lives recently, both the joys and some of the struggles.  We decided to do so in order to first and foremost, show God's faithfulness and provision, but also to hopefully provide some strength for others that are going through some of the same things we did and maybe tackle a couple topics that for some reason seem to be taboo in today's society. 

There's no way that I can tell the entire story today, so I'm going to try to start at what I believe to be the beginning, the real reason "why" 2015 has proven to be, in many ways, our toughest year of yet. 

When Lauren and I moved to Houston, one of our first priorities was to find a new church home. After visiting several great churches, we really felt called to join Houston's First Baptist Church.  We were a little worried at first about joining a church of that size, but we very quickly got involved in a Life Bible Study (it will always be "Sunday School" to me) and small group which helped make us feel at home.  We feel absolutely blessed to be apart of such an amazing church body, one that is incredibly externally focused (more than 60% of its' budget goes outside the walls of the church) and dedicated to living out the Gospel.  I could go own for days about how God is moving in that church, but let me move on to how it affects this part of our story. 

We were approached in late 2014 by the directors of our Life Bible Study and asked if we would be willing to step into a leadership positions and fill in for them while they were out after the birth of their first child.  Lauren and I excitedly agreed and began preparing to take on the new responsibilities. (Well, maybe I was a little more gung ho about it because part of the job required me to get in front of the entire class each week to speak and everyone knows how much I just HATE to be in front of a crowd!) 

We felt that God was calling us to serve and so we wanted to be faithful in answering that call.  Little did we know that this decision was going to have a much greater impact on our lives than we ever could have dreamed. Many may disagree, and that's OK, but I am a firm believer that when you make a decision to step out and lead, you are going to face challenges and attacks because of it.  This applies in every facet of life, but no more so than when you choose to lead others spiritually.  I believe with all of my heart that if you are working to see the advance of the Kingdom, Satan will actively work against you to prevent you from being successful.  This is not a blanket statement that covers the entirety of "bad things" that happen to people in an effort to relieve ourselves of blame or responsibility for our sin, but simply an observation made over time and one that I believe is Biblical. I can't say that everything that has happened to Lauren and I over the last two years is directly related to this decision, because in truth it is probably not, but I do believe that it had an impact.  

More on this and the other crazy events that we went through tomorrow...

In Him,

Chad

For everything there is a season . . .

As most of you know, we moved to Houston a little over two years ago. With the craziness of the move, new jobs, a new church, etc., we have admittedly been slacking on the blogging front since then, but it is time for us to get back with the program because we have a lot of life to share with you in the days, weeks, and months to come. 

Looking back over all that has happened the last two years, I can't help but to be reminded of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: 

"For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven. 

A time to be born and a time to die.

    A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace."

The last two years have shown us every season; good and bad, joy and heartache. We've rejoiced as new life has entered this world and wept as death took loved ones from us. We've shared lots of laughter with both new and old friends and we've shed tears at times when it seemed the world around us was crumbling. Overall, it has been a season of growth that has drawn Lauren & I closer together as a couple and closer to God. These updates have been a long time coming and I look forward to sharing them with you over the next few days. 

Our church just recently finished a sermon series entitled "Share Your Story...". During one of his sermons, our Pastor told us that God has given each of us a story to share and that though we often don't want to share the bad, it's the part of our story that we find hardest to talk about that will likely have the biggest impact on others. That is our goal with the upcoming series of posts. We want you to join us as we rejoice and celebrate the good and as we reflect and continue to try to heal from the pain that life often inflicts. Our hope is that God will be able to use the trials that we have walked through to bless others around us.  

As we share our story, we ask two things of those of you that might read some or all of these posts.  First, please don't ever read any of our words as a "Woe is me" post or a search for attention. As always, God has been more than faithful to take care of us in every situation and we only hope that through telling our story, we might be able to provide hope to someone that might be experiencing some of the same things that we did. We also know that though what we went through at times over the last few years was incredibly difficult for us, it pales in comparison to what so many other people are dealing with on a daily basis through out the world. Second, we ask that if anything you read touches you, strikes a nerve, or you find yourself walking through anything similar, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to be able to talk to you, pray for you, and show you how God provided for us in our time of need.  

To Be Continued...

-Chad