16 years ago...

16 years ago, Hannah McKay was born.  For so long, we hadn't had any babies.  Ryan was 8, K'Lynn was 10.  They were elementary school students that were independent.  Suddenly, our days became once again filled with diapers and pacifiers, bottles and baby wipes, blankies and  carseats.  We became a new family, the one that God always knew we would be.


16 years ago, God began to make it clear to Kyle that it was His plan for Kyle to go into the ministry. I have heard him tell the story many times.  He says that he had fought the calling, making excuses for why he couldn't do it.  He always said God hadn't shown him how he could make it work financially.  During this  time, he had been doing volunteer work as the youth leader in our home church. He was just plain good at it...God had a plan for him in that area of ministry.  He attended an evangelism conference in a church in Arkansas and finally surrendered.  He told God, "OK, I will just do it and trust you to show me how it will work"...and God did.


16 years ago, God had taken a church with a long history and placed in it the desire to hold on.  The desire to hold together, despite the fact that the numbers were dwindling.  By this time, the number in attendance was only 7.  7 widow women that met each Sunday.  They asked for a pastor nearby to come in the afternoons, after he preached at his regular church.  They asked him to help them keep the doors open, knowing that the good work God started in that place could not be finished yet.  So they continued...

16 years ago, God put into place all of the pieces necessary to bring our family to where we are today.  God knew long ago that one day 4 years ago, Kyle and that baby would drive up to the church that He had protected and prepared for our family to join.  God knew that He would put into place a complicated series of events that would allow Kyle to be in the state of Texas in the first place.  God knew Hannah would take a trip to see her Mawmaw and Pawpaw, would become ill, and her Daddy would have to jump into his Mustang and make his way quickly to care for her, from New Mexico all the way to Texas.  This trip would coincide with a search committee that had come across one more resume...after reviewing more than 80 of them.  God knew....

So, today, we celebrate the life of a baby born 16 years ago.  I also reflect on the things God put into place back then for the life He has given us today.  I look at the number of families God has allowed us to interact with, to touch, and to come to love- people we knew nothing of back then.  So much has changed, over these past 16 years. So thankful for a God with a plan!!

Be blessed...