I say all of that to say this. Here are the names of some men that have served, currently serve, are active, are reservists in our military. They all need prayer. Despite what you may feel about our military or our government, these men are real – with regular lives just like you and I. They have families that care deeply for them. We get caught up in our busy routine’s that we forget to take the time to support our troops via prayer.

I’m just asking that you join with me in prayer for them this week [or when the Lord prompts you to pray]. Pray for these guys. Call out their names before the Father. Never forget that they represent the freedoms that we have to serve our mighty God! Join me in praying for these guys! You may be blessed more than they are! It’s my privilege and honor to pray for them! I salute their honor, loyalty, and commitment.

If you would like to submit a name to be added to the list, add a comment, send a tweet, or facebook comment.

Here are the men listed so far:

Matt Carman, Jamey Cline, Mike Lowery, Matt Furtick, Dustin Peets, Tom, David, & Mark Rippy, Kevin and Jared Crown.

If you have ever struggled with anything or faced any sort of crisis in your entire life, this book is for you. Growing in any kind of way has always triggered questions for me. Pete has offered the hope of God in a different way than I have ever heard it presented. His transparency gives you a feeling that he truly cares about what your desert pain is. He doesn’t pretend to have every answer to the hard questions you are asking.

What he does, is asks you to look inward and upward. Have you become too busy to stop and spend some quality time,  not check-the-box-off-your-list time with God? Has busyness become an idol? Your giftedness? TV? Money? Relationship? What is distracting you from giving God 100% of yourself. Those are hard but necessary questions to ask ourselves.

Most times Plan Bs are times of transformation. During the difficult moments, we don’t focus on the real reason why. We cry out to God why in the world things ‘suck so badly for us’, but we are asking the wrong questions. At this point, I’m grateful I’m not Job! I think it’s safe to say that I haven’t suffered quite like he did! I have experienced a particularly difficult Plan B, if you will. No, I didn’t have a spouse cheat on me or abuse me. I didn’t have children born with health problems. I haven’t experienced financial ruin. My Plan B was just the situation that God used, and I needed to wake me up from the robotic motions I was living in. Nothing went as I planned. Nothing turned out as I planned. I hurt like I have never hurt before, but God had my Plan B laid before me – where I would grow and develop into the woman He has called me to be.

If you have experienced anything painful, I strongly urge you to get your hands on this book! Pete Wilson has done a phenomenal job at walking the suffering person through to victory at the feet of Jesus! Thank you Pete for pouring your heart into this book. God is using your book to reach many broken, hurting people and bringing them into His presence for restoration!

Ps 130:5 I wait for the Lord to help me, and I trust His word. – - Do you?

Seasons include many different phases of growth and change. You may think you’re actually leaving a season and more time than not, you’re entering a different phase meant to trim/shape you and grow you closer to your maximum potential.

Matt and I are in a really strange phase right now. We’ve just transitioned into another season of our lives. This first growing phase has been interesting to say the least! His job, well, I’m asking for prayer about that. We know that God is the provider, not Matt or his abilities. There are so many things that have exploded around us that we feel a bit in shell shock for lack of a better description. Abba surely has us in His hands, but things seem to be spinning like crazy at the moment! I’m looking to go back to work since all of my girls are in school in the fall.

The steps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord, and we are desperate to remain on His path! We are resting in Him!

Ps 32:6-11 says:

⁶ Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you
while you may be found;
surely when the mighty waters rise,
they will not reach him.

⁷ You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah

⁸ I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.

⁹ Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.

¹⁰ Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the LORD’s unfailing love
surrounds the man who trusts in him.

¹¹ Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Bask in His love. He desires to pour it out during every single phase of our lives that make up each season He has set up for us!

Jesus. He is my Way, Truth, and Life. I cannot even begin to write how grateful I am for His sacrifice in order to save my life.

Matthew Carman. He is an amazing man. He’s my best friend. He’s my confidante, one I can tell my biggest fear, excitement,  or secret, without fear of it being exposed. God knew that I needed him. It was a long road for our relationship to be where it is at, but God certainly completed me when He created Matt. I love him so! If we have a disagreement, I don’t have to worry. I know that I have a man that loves me more than anything and is committed to the success of our marriage. I can take that one to the bank!

Baylee, Julianna, and Rachael Carman. These girls have an uncanny ability to drive me berserk, but I am so grateful for the joy they bring to me. I have been tasked with some of the most amazing little girls – ever, in the course of history! Sure, the whining may be like fingernails on a chalkboard, but their lungs are healthy enough to push out the screaming. They may fight with one another, but ‘nobody better lay a hand on the other’ because they understand what loyalty really looks like. They are all very healthy girls.

Mountain Dew. It sustains my natural lack of energy – and I suppose my addiction to caffeine.

What are you grateful for? These things are just a few of things that I am most grateful for. Have you checked your vantage lately?

We were talking about shaving heads and it made me remember another goof-up I made about 2 months after I got married. We were poor [and I'm mean POOR] little airmen, and Matt said that we needed to save money and cut his hair. He asked me to do the back. I had NO idea how to cut hair with the clippers, and I balked, but he insisted. So, I took the clippers in my hand and very slowly started up. I basically ate a chunk out of his hair. He told me he wanted it long, and when I saw what I had done, I put them down, and said, “I’m done! I can’t do this!” He said, “What’s going on?” When he saw the bald spot I had created his face was priceless. I must confess that I have never laid hands on clippers for HIS head ever again! For that, he’s grateful!

At Christmastime in the late nineties, my dad and I were asked to sing at a Christmas gathering at a church in our community. He was playing his guitar, and I didn’t realize that I could actually play the keys then – but that was the set up. Daddy on his guitar singing, and me singing beside him.

We practiced, and since ‘Daddy was getting old’ [isn't that funny!] I made very detailed notes on the music. They looked sort of like this: Daddy leads, Ash – harmony, or Ashley LEADS – Daddy do the harmony. Don’t forget you’re doing harmony!

In our lineup was “Emmanuel”. You know, “Oh come oh come Emmanuel. And ransom captive Israel”. I’m very sorry if this is now stuck in your head. Here’s the deal, I was up to sing the lead of this song. We were going to do an amazing a cappella version of this song. You know how BEAUTIFUL family harmonies are and how well they blend right? It made the hair on my arms stand at attention during our rehearsal. He was to strum the chord on the guitar and then let it ring out, and I would push forward . . . Yes, BIG deep breath, and I start to sing “Oh come” and my dad is singing AS high as I WAS because he missed the note. . . ? Panic set in. I didn’t really know how to recover and he wouldn’t stop singing. Yes, you already see what’s getting ready to happen. . . the first giggle slipped out and I was TOAST! Strum. . . * *deep breath* *, * *giggling* *, “Ok, ok”. Strum… **deep breath**, **EXTREME LAUGHTER**, and we tried this about 15 times LITERALLY. We finally had to go to the next song, and come back to it to get through it.

Strum. . . **deep breath**, **small giggles, Oh come, . . .**

Whew! I got through it, but I have to admit that when the initial instance happened, I could only imagine my dad struggling with himself to even sing that high and started imaging someone doing ugly things to him to cause him to be able to hit the notes that he was hitting. Oh dear. . . I suppose there’s never a dull moment with me around!

Matt and I chose to use different vows, not the traditional ones. My great uncle was officiating the ceremony, and maybe you noticed that I said GREAT uncle. . . Yes, I’m implying that he was a little older and required the use of reading glasses. Since we opted to use different vows, I decided to print them out for him in a huge 48 size font. I mean, literally, there were probably 2 words on a line, only one if it was a long word. The pages were all neatly labeled and all he had to do was read. Yes, just read. Matthew is repeating after him and said this line, “I promise to respect and be respected by you.” Uncle Onnie then said, “And to respect and be respected by you.” As soon as I realized that he had lost his place, the nervous laughter began and the little giggles started seeping out. Trying to maintain every shred of composure that I could, [don't forget my coping mechanism to stress is uncontrollable, inappropriate laughter] I looked up at Matt with panic in my eyes. Matthew started, “And to respect”. . . I broke out into full form – hysterics. As soon as Uncle Onnie realized what had happened, and that there was no helping me, he jokingly interjected, “Well, I guess he’s really going to practice respect huh?” It was all I could stand there and laugh like a fool.

Do you recall wedding ritual? Yes, most often, the groom is addressed and the bride follows. Now, at this point are you beginning to realize the panic that is really settling inside of me? I have to start talking and professing my undying love for Matthew and ALL I can do, literally is laugh! I managed to giggle through most of it, but as soon as we got to the ‘respect and be respected by you’ part, the hysterics started all over again.

Matthew got so irritated, but there were folks in the audience that were giggling and cackling with me. That made it worse. I think I may be able to identify some other ‘laughing’ coper’s.  Most people have other technical problems with their wedding ceremonies, but I don’t know of anyone that has suffered through the vows fighting full form hysterical laughter.

Maybe tomorrow’s story will bring even funnier memories. . . ‘Til then! G’night!

I was driving down the road one day and realized quickly that I was going to crash if I wasn’t able to get slowed down. I was about 17 years old and had “tons” of driving experience. You agree, right? So, I’m about 3 miles away from home and there was a rollback that was billowing black smoke from it in front of me. He slowed to a creep and apparently the lady in the car behind me didn’t realize that we had slowed down so much. I told my friend to hang on because we were getting ready to get whacked. She hit me from behind going about 60 – 65 mph. We were going about 15-20 mph. The whole back end of my car buckled. Both quarter-panels were bent toward the ground.

My passenger just happened to be eating Laffy Taffy. It was funny because she has no idea what happened to it because we couldn’t find it anywhere in the car after the crash. [I suggested that she swallowed it whole and was awful lucky not to have choked on it!]

When I got out of the car and jelly-leggedly walked to the back to see the damages, a giggle slipped out. I sat down in the middle of the road and then, the eyes watering, trouble breathing, hysterical laughter erupted. By the time the cop got there, I was in a full form. He kept asking if I had been drinking or hitting a pipe. I had no idea what ‘hitting a pipe’ meant, but I answered him with a giggly “no”. It was so severe that I had to take a breathalyzer and drug test to prove I was innocent.

After I was cleared, I tried to explain to this trooper that I seriously just didn’t know how to handle stress and that it was laughter for me. He said that he had never encountered something like it.

So, if I get nervous, I break out in laughter. More laughter coming in the next few days. . .  :D   Enjoy at my crazy expense!

This was a most incredible day and we had a blast hanging as a fam! These Carman gals were hipped up and ready to go on the new bikes they got from Paw-Paw for Christmas!