Lately all we have been seeing is how scared people are of the virus, or how mad people are at how the scared people are acting. Social media is blowing up with news articles, opinions, debates, and arguments on what people believe about this virus. Friendships and relationships that were once good are being strained because the people are on opposing sides of how to handle this virus. Well, this artical is going to focus on what is absolutely true about the virus:
1. Families are now spending a LOT of time together due to social distancing. Now whether you view this as positive or negative :) schools are out and kids are home therefore moms and dads are home and y’all are together. There isn’t a psychologist in the world that would say families spending extended time together is bad (in most cases of course).
2. Due to school being out, people are starting to meet neighbors. Kids are outside playing, parents are meeting other parents on their street. I’ve gotten to check on my elderly neighbor and help get her supplies because she is self quarantining. People are building new relationships out of necessity.
3. Schedules are being reduced or even stopped. Sports, school activities, extra curricular, etc are all being halted. Kids are having to just stay home and play. Kids are simply just being kids and the stress (good or bad stress) of busyness is gone.
4. People are turning to God. They are praying more, even if it is simply out of fear, praying is praying. There are people watching church for the first time because of all of the churches advertising church services online. People are coming to God.
Families, neighbors, communities are coming closer together to support each other. People are turning to God, kids are with each other getting to be board together....this is GOOD. Thought the virus has its bad and has brought sickness and even death to some, our God promises that He will bring good from ALL THINGS. Let’s start seeing the good in order to survive the frustrating, scary, fearful parts of this time. Psalm 46:10 gives a promise: “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth”. HE will be exalted.
In Dee Forrest****** I am a mommy to four wonderful little boys. I love my role and want to remember every little detail of the days that I get to spend with them as a stay-at-home mommy. I am a homeschooling momma with a husband who is working full time along with full time seminary. This blog is to help me work through the daily, but mainly, it's to help me remember precious little moments that I never want to forget and cherish forever!
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Thursday, December 5, 2019
What is the Theiss family doing now?!?
So what is your next step?
This was the question we were asked so often when people heard Blake graduated in December (2018) from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters in Divinity. (Whew,that’s a mouthful). Do you know what our answer to every question was? “I don’t know”. Do you know how humbling it is to have to say that when Blake worked himself so hard for 5 years in seminary only to not know what’s next? Well, here is the full story...
In 2013 we were called to move up to Fort Worth for Blake to begin work on a masters degree to enable us to go overseees with the IMB as missionaries. (See my 2013 blog postings for all of those details). God did groundbreaking things like sell our house immediately after it was listed and provide for us an amazing house to rent that was perfectly affordable in Fort Worth, and the list goes on. God got us up here. We found a church family that we fell in love with and found family away from home, since we both heartbreakingly left our families in Houston. Blake began school that fall of 2013 and things were moving along. About 2 years into his studies Blake came to me and asked if I still felt God was calling us to mission. I told him that I felt that God was moving us in a different direction and to my surprise Blake said he felt the same way. We had no idea where He was moving us, but just that it may not be overseas. As time went on, Blake began to feel the burden on his heart for the local church, and then more specifically church planting. We started to feel excited at the direction God was taking us!
2018 comes along and Blake is in his last semester and God gave him such a clear vision for the nuclear family and the role a father has. Within that vision was a clear passion for the youth of today and how family dynamics can affect a teen’s walk with the Lord. However, when graduation came, Blake came to me and said he felt that God was calling us to a season of rest first. Seminary was some of the hardest years on us. Full-time work, full-time seminary and full-time husband/father wore Blake out and consequently wore me out as his wife and mother of 4 boys. There was a lot of struggling those 5 years. Yet, Blake had seen a vision of family ministry and, with our season of rest, he wanted us to practice it in our own family and practice it with other families in our church, which birthed our ministry of Family Night of Worship. He wanted us to have a weekly plan where we worship as a family in our own home and alternate weeks inviting other families in our home where we eat a meal, worship together and then he leads a devotional. He wanted to be able to tell people, I have done this; I believe in it.
It is now exactly one year later. God has continued to move us along step by step. He provided us a house to buy that was just perfect for us. It’s a 1,000 square foot mid-century house on a big lot and it’s forced us to minimalize our life and let me tell you, it’s AMAZING. Blake is still buying vehicles for Carmax 15 years later and we are still waiting on the Lord to open up what He wants us to do. We still do family night of worship weekly, though during the move and remodel it was difficult to stay on track. I finally feel like I am seeing the stress of the past 6 years come off the shoulders of Blake and we are resting.
I am still homeschooling our boys: Parker 10, Beckham 9, Jett 5 and then Denver 3 (he obviously isn’t in on the school yet). God is faithful, God is good, and God is daily refining us and making us holy. We are so so thankful for the love and support from our family and our church family. We are excited for what God has in store for us. We have told Him YES to whatever His plan is for us, and we are thankful that before that plan happens, He has given us a time to rest as a family. Merry Christmas Ya’ll!!!!!
This was the question we were asked so often when people heard Blake graduated in December (2018) from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters in Divinity. (Whew,that’s a mouthful). Do you know what our answer to every question was? “I don’t know”. Do you know how humbling it is to have to say that when Blake worked himself so hard for 5 years in seminary only to not know what’s next? Well, here is the full story...
In 2013 we were called to move up to Fort Worth for Blake to begin work on a masters degree to enable us to go overseees with the IMB as missionaries. (See my 2013 blog postings for all of those details). God did groundbreaking things like sell our house immediately after it was listed and provide for us an amazing house to rent that was perfectly affordable in Fort Worth, and the list goes on. God got us up here. We found a church family that we fell in love with and found family away from home, since we both heartbreakingly left our families in Houston. Blake began school that fall of 2013 and things were moving along. About 2 years into his studies Blake came to me and asked if I still felt God was calling us to mission. I told him that I felt that God was moving us in a different direction and to my surprise Blake said he felt the same way. We had no idea where He was moving us, but just that it may not be overseas. As time went on, Blake began to feel the burden on his heart for the local church, and then more specifically church planting. We started to feel excited at the direction God was taking us!
2018 comes along and Blake is in his last semester and God gave him such a clear vision for the nuclear family and the role a father has. Within that vision was a clear passion for the youth of today and how family dynamics can affect a teen’s walk with the Lord. However, when graduation came, Blake came to me and said he felt that God was calling us to a season of rest first. Seminary was some of the hardest years on us. Full-time work, full-time seminary and full-time husband/father wore Blake out and consequently wore me out as his wife and mother of 4 boys. There was a lot of struggling those 5 years. Yet, Blake had seen a vision of family ministry and, with our season of rest, he wanted us to practice it in our own family and practice it with other families in our church, which birthed our ministry of Family Night of Worship. He wanted us to have a weekly plan where we worship as a family in our own home and alternate weeks inviting other families in our home where we eat a meal, worship together and then he leads a devotional. He wanted to be able to tell people, I have done this; I believe in it.
It is now exactly one year later. God has continued to move us along step by step. He provided us a house to buy that was just perfect for us. It’s a 1,000 square foot mid-century house on a big lot and it’s forced us to minimalize our life and let me tell you, it’s AMAZING. Blake is still buying vehicles for Carmax 15 years later and we are still waiting on the Lord to open up what He wants us to do. We still do family night of worship weekly, though during the move and remodel it was difficult to stay on track. I finally feel like I am seeing the stress of the past 6 years come off the shoulders of Blake and we are resting.
I am still homeschooling our boys: Parker 10, Beckham 9, Jett 5 and then Denver 3 (he obviously isn’t in on the school yet). God is faithful, God is good, and God is daily refining us and making us holy. We are so so thankful for the love and support from our family and our church family. We are excited for what God has in store for us. We have told Him YES to whatever His plan is for us, and we are thankful that before that plan happens, He has given us a time to rest as a family. Merry Christmas Ya’ll!!!!!
Saturday, March 9, 2019
FEAR
“Ok, Lord, I will write, I will write! What do you want me to write about?”....a conversation I just had with the Lord when my blog was put on my heart. So I sat down with my iPad and the big word “FEAR” came to my mind. So here I am, writing about fear. I am 36 years old and for as long as I can remember FEAR has had some sort of grip on my life. Lately God has been speaking to me on this subject. I’ve realized that the Lord is finally....FINALLY addressing fear and anxiety in me and bringing it onto the battle ground. When I realized this was happening I must say FEAR came rushing in. What is this going to FEEL like, what is going to happen to me, how difficult of a battle is this going to be? It’s crazy to me that I would have FEAR about God finally addressing FEAR in my life, but it’s true, this is a huge area of bondage that I have been begging the Lord to address for the majority of my life.
God has opened my eyes to some things about fear:
1. Fear is a sin. You may not agree, but fear is a result of not trusting God, and not believing He is sovereign and in control, and therefore is sin.
2. Fear must be confessed- it has such a gripping hold on my life that you better believe I am confessing all.day.long.
3. Fear needs to be brought from the darkness to the light- I do this out loud. I tell the Lord “Father, I am afraid that, I am bringing this from the darkness to the Light, to the one who is sovereign and in control of this fear. By doing this it not only sheds light on your sin of fear, but it strips the enemy of having any power. So often I didn’t want to voice out loud my fears, because the enemy would hear them and haunt me with these fears...I was giving power to an enemy that has NO power against me. Try it. When a fear pops in your mind, for example “God, I am fearful that I have cancer, I am bringing from the darkness to the light, to the one who has power over sickness and health, who is sovereign over all things, Father forgive me for being fearful”.....saying that out loud, or whatever fear you have, brings such a freedom and a feeling of peace.
4. Once fears have been confessed and brought from darkness to light, I leave them with the Lord and ask him to fill me with his spirit.
The more you confess a sin, the less and less you will struggle with that sin. I am not saying this is immediate, far from immediate, but it’s through OBEDIENCE of confession that you receive miraculous healing of your bondage to fear.
When you read about miracles in the Bible, it was usually accompanied by an act of obedience by the one being healed. The act proved the person’s FAITH.
Someone wrote that fear is “False Evidence Appearing Real”...that’s what fear is. When you feel fear rise up in you, bring it from the darkness to the LIGHT, confess it, and allow truth to be spoken over it, and then it’s the TRUTH that will set you free.
God has opened my eyes to some things about fear:
1. Fear is a sin. You may not agree, but fear is a result of not trusting God, and not believing He is sovereign and in control, and therefore is sin.
2. Fear must be confessed- it has such a gripping hold on my life that you better believe I am confessing all.day.long.
3. Fear needs to be brought from the darkness to the light- I do this out loud. I tell the Lord “Father, I am afraid that
4. Once fears have been confessed and brought from darkness to light, I leave them with the Lord and ask him to fill me with his spirit.
The more you confess a sin, the less and less you will struggle with that sin. I am not saying this is immediate, far from immediate, but it’s through OBEDIENCE of confession that you receive miraculous healing of your bondage to fear.
When you read about miracles in the Bible, it was usually accompanied by an act of obedience by the one being healed. The act proved the person’s FAITH.
Someone wrote that fear is “False Evidence Appearing Real”...that’s what fear is. When you feel fear rise up in you, bring it from the darkness to the LIGHT, confess it, and allow truth to be spoken over it, and then it’s the TRUTH that will set you free.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Denver James
OH Denver James.
He is 13 months old now and is SO PRECIOUS.
-He loves breakfast bars, fruit, pretzels, and gold fish.
-He still isn't walking
-He crawls like a maniac!
-He thinks everyone is so so funny and laughs at anything
-He HATES diaper changes most of the time
-He loves outside
-He plays peak-a-boo and will say "dah-dah-dah" for peak-a-boo
-He signs "more"
-He will "buzz" your pointer finger
-He LOVES TO EAT
-He will mimic you
-He waves
This kid is the perfect exclamation point to the sentence of our life! We love you Denver James!
He is 13 months old now and is SO PRECIOUS.
-He loves breakfast bars, fruit, pretzels, and gold fish.
-He still isn't walking
-He crawls like a maniac!
-He thinks everyone is so so funny and laughs at anything
-He HATES diaper changes most of the time
-He loves outside
-He plays peak-a-boo and will say "dah-dah-dah" for peak-a-boo
-He signs "more"
-He will "buzz" your pointer finger
-He LOVES TO EAT
-He will mimic you
-He waves
This kid is the perfect exclamation point to the sentence of our life! We love you Denver James!
Parker and Beckham
My big boys...oh how they bring so much joy to my heart.
Parker is 8 now and has a heart of absolute gold. He is ALWAYS thinking of other people and never wanting to hurt feelings. "Mommy, does it hurt your feelings that...." is what I hear very often.
Beckham wants to see everyone happy and he wants to be the one who makes that happen. "Whatever, I just want my brothers to be happy" is what I hear from this precious heart a LOT.
Parker loves to build things out of wood, cardboard, plastic...anything really. He is taking little wood working classes from an older man in our church, and he is so happy.
Beckham is our little engineer. He will sit with legos for hours and create, create, create. It's amazing, utterly amazing, to watch his brain work and create.
Parker just started baseball and boy is he in his element out there. He's so happy now that he's found his spot in the sports world.
Beckham is playing soccer and LOVES it. He's really good at it and it's been so much fun to watch him shine in his own element.
Parker is doing much much better in school now. His reading has finally taken off and his writing is coming along SO well. He doesn't really like school (I don't blame him- I never did either), but it's been fun doing this new curriculum with him.
Beckham is rocking it in school. He loves to read and is doing SO well with it. School gets monotonous, but when he's working on reading and math and activity time he enjoys it.
They both love to jump on the trampoline, they both love riding bikes, they still love parks, their motorcycles, donuts, pizza, Friday fun day, bounce houses, car washes, the dollar store, garage sales, watching movies in their bed, video games, their HAMSTER Jackson, building tents, making videos, shooting nerf guns, visiting family, powerwheels, parks and so much more.
They are a JOY to raise, even though they are CRAZY sometimes. I'm so thankful to the Lord that I have them with me all day everyday and get to be the one who watches them turn into the little men God created them to be.
Parker is 8 now and has a heart of absolute gold. He is ALWAYS thinking of other people and never wanting to hurt feelings. "Mommy, does it hurt your feelings that...." is what I hear very often.
Beckham wants to see everyone happy and he wants to be the one who makes that happen. "Whatever, I just want my brothers to be happy" is what I hear from this precious heart a LOT.
Parker loves to build things out of wood, cardboard, plastic...anything really. He is taking little wood working classes from an older man in our church, and he is so happy.
Beckham is our little engineer. He will sit with legos for hours and create, create, create. It's amazing, utterly amazing, to watch his brain work and create.
Parker just started baseball and boy is he in his element out there. He's so happy now that he's found his spot in the sports world.
Beckham is playing soccer and LOVES it. He's really good at it and it's been so much fun to watch him shine in his own element.
Parker is doing much much better in school now. His reading has finally taken off and his writing is coming along SO well. He doesn't really like school (I don't blame him- I never did either), but it's been fun doing this new curriculum with him.
Beckham is rocking it in school. He loves to read and is doing SO well with it. School gets monotonous, but when he's working on reading and math and activity time he enjoys it.
They both love to jump on the trampoline, they both love riding bikes, they still love parks, their motorcycles, donuts, pizza, Friday fun day, bounce houses, car washes, the dollar store, garage sales, watching movies in their bed, video games, their HAMSTER Jackson, building tents, making videos, shooting nerf guns, visiting family, powerwheels, parks and so much more.
They are a JOY to raise, even though they are CRAZY sometimes. I'm so thankful to the Lord that I have them with me all day everyday and get to be the one who watches them turn into the little men God created them to be.
Jett E. Pants
My Jett. He is 2 and a half now and this kid is a hoot! He talks non-stop and he has a will power to "do it himself" that's crazy strong! So- what's this guy up to?
-He learned how to potty on the toilet! Woohoo!
-He LOVES to sit in your lap and read books
-He's a super night owl- he would stay up till midnight easily if I let him
-Everytime daddy gets on to him he comes over to me and tells me "daddy heart my feelings"
-He loves trains, plains and buses like nothing else.
-Mighty machines is his favorite show
-He started calling oatmeal "oatmeal"...except for his healthy oatmeal he still calls it "oatmuck".
-He still likes to sit on the kitchen floor for his eggs and oatmuck
-He LOVES taking vitamins "like a big boy" with a medicine cup instead of dropper
-He loves his Denver..."DENBUH"....but hates sharing toys with him
-He is still a super scairdy-cat for everything fun and exciting
-He hates daddy's blower
-We got him to get excited about the carwash finally!
-When the garage door opens and daddy is home, he yells "DADDY'S HOME" every-single-time.
-He can dress him self for the most part now, and INSISTS on it.
-He likes coffee like his big brothers do
I think that's it. He loves to tell stories and he's always yelling "mommy watch". Jetty, you are such a joy to daddy and I. I love you.
-He learned how to potty on the toilet! Woohoo!
-He LOVES to sit in your lap and read books
-He's a super night owl- he would stay up till midnight easily if I let him
-Everytime daddy gets on to him he comes over to me and tells me "daddy heart my feelings"
-He loves trains, plains and buses like nothing else.
-Mighty machines is his favorite show
-He started calling oatmeal "oatmeal"...except for his healthy oatmeal he still calls it "oatmuck".
-He still likes to sit on the kitchen floor for his eggs and oatmuck
-He LOVES taking vitamins "like a big boy" with a medicine cup instead of dropper
-He loves his Denver..."DENBUH"....but hates sharing toys with him
-He is still a super scairdy-cat for everything fun and exciting
-He hates daddy's blower
-We got him to get excited about the carwash finally!
-When the garage door opens and daddy is home, he yells "DADDY'S HOME" every-single-time.
-He can dress him self for the most part now, and INSISTS on it.
-He likes coffee like his big brothers do
I think that's it. He loves to tell stories and he's always yelling "mommy watch". Jetty, you are such a joy to daddy and I. I love you.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
My Denver James is 9 months
Denver James is a little more than 9 months old and boy has he brought crazy amounts of joy to this family! He is crawling, eating normal food and WAIVING when said "hi" to! So precious. 
I absolutely adore this baby.
He scrunched up his nose and grins from ear to ear when he's excited to see you. He is still not super nuts about his paci, but will take it if needed. He's having to learn to like eggs and avocado...my staple baby foods. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth and oh does he love his family. He's also pulling up on whatever he can too!
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