A Valentine for Jesus

At our LifeGroup yesterday, our worship was to write a love letter to Jesus...I thought that was such a cool idea, because to be honest, I'd never thought about the Lord and Valentines Day - we have Valentines Day because of Jesus. We have marriage because of Jesus. We are able to love one another because of Jesus. But how many "valentines" have I written to Him? How often am I as intimate with Jesus as I am with my husband? He desires this level of intimacy with us, he designed us for a relationship with Him...and we do love - love other people, love things, love concepts, love God - because He first loved us. We have the greatest, craziest, most amazing example of love in the life and death of Christ.

I love Valentines Day. I know it's a cheesy holiday where people just go crazy spending money on flowers, candy and cards, but it's so much MORE than that. Unfortunately, Vday serves as a reminder day...we get one day a year, maybe two or three including an anniversary or the occasional birthday, where we have an excuse to dote on one another (romantically or just on our friends!) and be over the top loving to the ones we care about. Why do we need a national holiday to remind us to love our spouse? Or tell our friends how much we appreciate them? Since Jesus is our example of love, that pretty much means we need to love passionately all the time...I am so in love with Jesus' passion - his passion for people, His father, changing lives, chasing after His beloved, and most bewildering of all, His passion for me. This year, I get to have THREE valentines...Adam, baby Cruz, and Jesus. I don't want to wait until February of next year to passionately display my love for my friends, my family, or my Lord.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." 1 John 3:16

Spit-up, Graduation, New York, Sleepless Nights, Endless Love...

Welcome! So, technically Adam and I started this blog two years ago...but never made an entry. I decided recently we needed to change that because there has been SO much going on in the Willard household, we wanted everyone to be aware of the changes, challenges, and amazing new events in our lives!

First things first...Adam and I welcomed our first child into the world on September 10, 2010 - Cruz Erik Willard. I'll post later about how we came up with his name...its an interesting story. From the first moment, Cruz has captured our hearts and continues to do so as he grows and learns new things everyday - he is our sweet, red-haired, blue-eyed little man who looks just like his daddy and unfortunately has the unyielding passion of his mama...at times we call him our bi-polar child. He is not afraid to let us know how he's feeling, whether it's happy, sad, or mad as fire - but we wouldn't have it any other way. I am constantly amazed at our Savior who somehow thought I deserved such a giant blessing as having Cruz in my life; not to mention blessing me with an amazing husband and father who walks with me through it all EVERYday. I never knew what anyone meant when they said it hurt to love something or someone so much, but now I can definitely relate.

On other news, Adam and I officially began the application process with AIM, Africa Inland Mission, last fall. We cannot tell you how long we searched and prayed for the right organization to serve with, and finally, we feel the Lord led us to AIM. Again, I'll post about them and our experience with the application process later, this post is just a basic introduction/overview of the big events in our lives lately! We will finish up the paper part of our application in the next couple of weeks and then start an ongoing conversation with the man in charge of job requests about the calling we feel God has placed on our lives, which will eventually lead us to our placement in Africa! We will head up to New York in April for candidate week where we will offically be handed our placement...and then it's all about support raising, planning, and a lot of prayer!

After 3 1/2, will be 4 in May, long years, Adam and I will FINALLY finish our seminary degrees and take that expensive, exciting, unbelieveable walk across the graduation stage in May. I already tear up every time I think of graduation, because graduation means moving and leaving our life here in New Orleans, but we are excited about our next steps. We have loved, loved, loved living in New Orleans - it was our first home together as a married couple, we had our first child here, we have cried/laughed/grown/learned/been stretched in every way possible here, and made some of the best friends we know we will keep for a lifetime. I'll post more about graduation, seminary life, what we have learned, and our next steps later too.

Thank you to whoever is reading this blog...thank you for caring what is changing in our lives, for investing in us, for putting up with my nil blogger skills, and listening to my rambling! My hope and prayer is that we can continue to update our blog to allow everyone a clear picture of our future and what God is doing in our lives - thank you for letting us share!