Our Forgiving God - This month the Lord has led us to meditate a lot on God's amazing forgiveness of our sins. The Lord has also given us opportunities to forgive others as He in Christ has forgiven us. We are grateful that the Lord is the One who empowers and enables us to forgive others because our flesh wants to hold on to bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice etc. (Ephesians 4:31). Thank You, Lord, for Your amazing grace and forgiveness and for how You help Your people to extend grace and forgiveness to others.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
Psalm 103:10-13
Psalm 103:10-13
Click on this link for a song that has been encouraging to us about God's forgiveness: East to West - by Casting Crowns
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other,
just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
Click on this link for a song that has been encouraging to us about forgiving others: Forgiveness - by Matthew West
*What forgiveness is not: Forgiveness is neither a feeling, nor forgetting, nor is it excusing.
A few important & helpful principles on forgiveness from the book Resolving Everyday Conflict by Ken Sande:
*What forgiveness is not: Forgiveness is neither a feeling, nor forgetting, nor is it excusing.
*What forgiveness is: Forgiveness is a decision modeled after God's forgiveness of us - a decision not to hold an offense against the offender.
*Forgiveness isn't a matter of whether we forget, but of how we remember.
*Unforgiveness is the poison we drink hoping someone else will die.
*[Forgiveness] should be the hallmark of the Christian. Why? Because we are the most forgiven people in the world, we can and should be forgiving.
*Forgiveness is Four Promises:
With God's help:
-"I promise I will not dwell on this incident."
-"I promise I will not bring up this incident and use it against you."
-"I promise not to talk to others about this incident."
-"I promise I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our personal relationship."
*"When we strive against all thoughts of revenge; when we will not do our enemies mischief, but wish well of them, grieve at their calamities, pray for them, seek reconciliation with them, and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them. This is gospel forgiving. " Thomas Watson
What's on the Harrisons' Hearts & Marriage Memories
Wes & I were blessed with the movie October Baby, which we have been wanting to see for a long time. We enjoyed an at-home-after-the-boys-were-in-bed date night. :) Little did we know that both of us would be shedding lots of tears! We highly recommend this movie to all, even though we realize that it is more touching and impacting to us with having adopted. It was good to process through adoption themes in the movie together, and we even watched and talked through all the additional features, which we never do with movies. Our hearts continue to be full of compassion and respect for what our birthmother, Jeana, and other birthmothers go through. We are also praying for Josiah and his journey with processing, dealing with, and thinking through his adoption - like Hannah (the main character) did. We pray the Lord gives Wes and me wisdom for having age-appropriate dialogue with Josiah and that God gives Josiah a mind that has a beautiful perspective of adoption and a heart that tenderly embraces God's story for him, which involves a tangible expression of the Lord's plan of spiritual adoption. (We pray that the Lord saves Josiah so that he experiences this spiritual adoption.) 
Homeschool Moms Bible Study - Several months ago, a friend from church started a Bible Study for homeschool moms. I was very excited since I had been looking for a homeschool moms Bible study/support group and had needed to look outside of our church at the time. We recently finished going through the book - Season's of a Mother's Heart by Sally Clarkson. I highly recommend this book to any mom since Sally mainly focuses on biblical principles that apply to mothering in general, though she does include some specific encouragement and illustrations for homeschool moms. The main theme of the book is that motherhood consists of changing seasons that parallel our seasons of nature (though motherhood seasons do not go in order & can overlap), and mothers can embrace these seasons well and intentionally/effectively or can "miss out" or "fight" them:
Spring - Season of Renewal:
Joy & rejoicing in times of celebration
ex. birth of babies, graduations, weddings, etc. (Psalm 1118:24)
Summer - Season of Response:
Planting seeds of truth in our children's hearts while their hearts are very open to the sowing of seed, basically from the age of a toddler & understanding language to middle-school age
when approaching greater maturity (Deuteronomy 6:7 & 1 Corinthians 3:6-7)
Fall - Season of Resolve:
Letting go & moving on with times of transition & change
ex. small changes such as baby no longer nursing & moving on to regular milk
to big changes such as a child becoming an adult & leaving the home (3 John 1:4 & Psalm 90:12)
Winter - Season of Reflection:
Trusting God in trials of dark, trying, challenging times that can be from
anxieties of life, loss, fear, temptation, stress, or other factors (James 1:2-4)
Keeping my Teacher's License Current - I applied to renew my teacher's license, which was expiring this month. In order to renew, one must complete 90 hours of professional development within 5 years (and pay a monetary fee), which for me involved taking classes through a nearby district. I praise the Lord that I finished all my hours well in advance (the summer after Noah was born) because there was no way it would have worked to complete 90 hours of classes this past year with all that was going on with our adoption. So, I am "certified" for another 5 years! :)
Even though I have no plans of teaching in a classroom setting anytime soon (or ever again), Wes and I discussed several reasons why it was worth the time and money for me to keep my teacher's license current:
#1 - Back-up in case something were to happen to Wes' job
#2 - Homeschooling - you have more freedom
#3 - Ability to be a more effective homeschool teacher with keeping current with educational research & strategies
#4 - Many people (most not even in the educational field) advising us to keep it current
#5 - Several stay-at-home moms, that ended up teaching again when their children were older, telling me they wished they had kept their license current
Praises & Prayers
Paul & Amanda - Praise for the Lord blessing them with a little one on the way.
Tami - Continued prayers for the Lord to give my dad and other loved ones His perspective and that God would heal Tami, but ultimately that His will would be done.
Various Loved Ones - Prayer for wisdom and for Christ's strength and perspective as they are in the midst of various trials (James 1:2-5).
Our Family - Praise for the Lord's forgiveness and for growing us in forgiving others.
Wes - Continued praise for being able to enjoy a lot of sweet time with the Lord since he does not have school work to complete. Continued prayer for James 1:5 for the Lord to give him wisdom with co-worker dynamics at work and other relationships in his life.
Christina - Praise for the Lord giving me wisdom for various situations that I had been asking Him for wisdom for. Continued prayer for the Lord to grow my love for Christ and others and to help me to have a servants heart (Philippians 2:3-7), especially for serving Wes, Noah, & Josiah.
Noah - God would graciously save him at a young age and lead him to walk with the Lord all of his days, if that be the Lord's will. Praise for Noah learning some strategies to help his heart when his heart is hard - the 2 main ones are praying for Jesus to help his heart be right and "taking a break." Prayer for Psalm 19:14 that the Lord would grow Noah in having a right heart rather than a selfish heart (when he does not get his way) that is demonstrated by using his words with a kind voice rather than trying to communicate with tears or using a whiney voice.
Josiah - God would graciously save him at a young age and lead him to walk with the Lord all of his days, if that be the Lord's will. There is only one request (which is more out of my selfish desire for uninterrupted sleep) that Josiah would sleep through "our night" again, since he started getting up once in the night again. :( However, our main prayer for Josiah continues to be for the Lord to draw Josiah to Himself in salvation (John 6:33).
Family Fun
Having fun on a hayride at the CO Pumpkin Patch
Sidenote - Wes has been having fun experimenting with special effects on photos, so you'll notice the ones he has put his artistic touch on. :)
Mommy & sons * Noah holding Daddy's hand :)
Petting a turkey * Playing with friends from our church in the corn box
Launching gourds
Pumpkin Painting
Daddy & son putting their artistic skills in action
Neighborhood boys joining in on the fun
Proud of our painted pumpkins
Fall Festival Fun with Family
Construction Foreman Noah
Little Pumpkin Josiah - Sweet smile * Ready to crash after all the festivities ;)
Mommy & sons
The bros
Papa & Nana * Uncle Adam & Auntie Wendy
Gpa
We met up with the White Family at a nearby Fall Festival - Lion Ollie & Minnie Mouse Naomi with our boys * Playing games
Friends having fun * Adorable Ollie
Papa & Noah * Nana & Josiah
Auntie Wendy & Josiah
Wes was working the night of the Fall Festival, so we visited him at work that weekend. :)
Age - 3 years oldCute Communication -
*Noah was singing the following as he marched/chased Sierra around the island in our kitchen - "Please help us obey... Please help us obey our parents... We will be kind... forever! Forever! We have sinned. We will be kind like God. Jesus came to save us... (and so on)." Too cute!
*One night we were tucking Noah in bed, and he informed us, "My tummy not full." (aka. I am still hungry and want to eat something.) We let him know we would make him an extra big breakfast in the morning. ;)
*Noah is starting to understand the place of greetings in conversation. (He has pretend friendly monsters in the basement known as Big Frank & Little Frank. One day Noah wanted to go to the basement to say hi to them.) "Hi Big Frank and Little Frank! I haven't seen you for a while. Nice to meet you. How are you?"
*Wes was reading Noah the story about Jesus being in the temple when His parents were looking for Him. However, Wes put his own twist on it and inserted in the story that Noah and Josiah were also in the temple listening to Jesus. Wes asked Noah what Jesus would say to him and Josiah. Noah - "Children obey your parents." It's good to know Noah has Ephesians 6:1 memorized. We're just working on applying it. ;)
*"Mommy, I have a lot of work to do in my construction site today. I better get to work." :)
*Fun phrases he got from Daddy - "Boom!...shakalaka!" "Yummylicious!"
Latest Loves
Helping - he even enjoyed helping clean our church with my Bible study
Playing with his legos
"Working" in his construction site in our backyard
Loving on & playing with Josiah
"Cold ice & cold water" to drink - like Daddy
Washing dishes - Noah is an excellent helper!
Noah made this fun design on his own. When I asked him about it he said, "Mommy, traffic is backed up!" We must have recently been in a lot of traffic...
Serious * Silly ;)
Noah had fun getting his faced painted at the YMCA one day while Wes & I were working out together
Noah is quite fearless!
Climbing a large boulder at a nearby park
At the top strategizing his landing
Jumping through the air
Wes says the pictures don't do justice to how high Noah was.
Another boulder & big jump - this boy kept going back for more!
*Video - Noah decorating Auntie Wendy's "birthday cake"
Homeschool Fall Fun
Noah and I enjoyed going on a "leaf walk" collecting leaves one beautiful fall day. We used these leaves for reinforcing preschool concepts of letters, numbers, and art - glue/pasting & making a collage.
Here are a few samples of our fun...
Can you guess the correct letter & number?
Capital letter
Lower case letter
Number
If you guessed capital "T," lower case "t," and the number "10," then you are correct!
Noah did a great job, and we had a lot of fun! :)
Josiah Joys
4 Months Old StatsWeight - 15 lbs. 3 oz. 40-45%
Height - 24 1/2 in.
Head - 16 in.
1sts - eating baby cereal, attempting to roll over
Latest Loves
Squealing in delight, smiling, laughing, cooing/baby talking
Kicking his legs
Helping hold his bottle
Chomping on his hands
Playing pat-a-cake with Noah
Sweet boy * Sucking on his thumb & index finger
1st time in the grass - Smiley * Serious
Check out that drool! :)
1st solids - eating baby rice cereal
Our full of joy, smiley, easy-going, sweet son
*Video - Josiah (out of the blue) attempting to roll over on the table at the doctor's office
Bro Bonding
Precious brothers :)
Josiah loves hanging out with his bro * Noah unintentionally showing Josiah who's the big bro ;)
Showing off some "love" from CA
Noah having fun feeding his little bro * Josiah attempting to smile at Noah with a full mouth
Snuggling
Noah concerned & wanting to comfort his little bro before Josiah's shots at the doctor office
Memorable Moment of the Month
Cubbie Clubber of the Month - Each month in AWANA, one boy & girl clubber from each age group (Cubbies, Sparks, & TNT) is given an award for going above & beyond and being a role model for other clubbers. This month Noah was awarded the Cubbie boy Clubber of the Month -
Noah Harrison was nominated for working hard on his verses and knowing them each week.
He also has a sweet and loving spirit.
Standing on the Cubbie line with his Cubbie friends
Going up with his Cubbie leader - Mrs. Danae - to receive his award * Picking out his prize
Noah holding his prize & wondering what just happened - he did not quite grasp the award concept
Noah made this cute poster for one of his Cubbie projects - based off of Luke 2:52 - "Jesus grew in wisdom..."
Auntie Autumn - Noah chose these photos & specifically wanted the picture of you with him for his baby photo. :)
More Memories
Gpa & Noah
Showing Gpa his construction site * Enjoying some laughs
Gpa & Josiah exchanging smiles :)
Celebrating Auntie Wendy's birthday - Noah decorated her ice cream ;) * Reading together
Raking leaves with neighbor friends - Noah, Kelsey, Caleb, Skylar, & Josh
Noah's 1st 3D reading experience with Gpa
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