Simply Awesome

That's what God is. Simply awesome. I've been meaning to write this post for some time now, but with all of our stuff here, it's been a little crazy. I'm sure most of you understand how that is. But what I want to address today is the awesomeness of God, and what He's been doing here. Or, a list of current praises, if you will.

Obviously the biggest praise of all is that our stuff arrived from Germany WEEKS before it was scheduled to. Let's look at this timeline. We arrived from Germany the end of July with only some clothes and toys. No furniture. We bought a futon that doubled as a couch during the day and a bed at night (Josh was so good natured to carry it back and forth every day). We got a set of pots, and used paper plates and plastic silverware. We bought a washer and dryer so I could clean the clothes we brought with us, and we were pretty well set for the two and a half weeks we spent in Oklahoma before going on vacation to New Jersey.

Then we spent three weeks in New Jersey, and you all know how that went. If you don't, check my archives. I've posted about each week in fairly good detail. More details will be with the pictures as I post them on Flickr. But more about pictures later.

We got home from NJ on the 31st of August, really the 1st of September since it was almost midnight by the time we arrived. Here's where it gets exciting. On September 2nd and 3rd, a mere day or two after getting back home, ALL of our stuff from Germany arrived. Our unaccompanyed stuff came the 2nd, our household goods came the 3rd. Wow! Okay, our household goods minus one crate of stuff, but that was on it's way. Think about this. Josh was starting class on Monday the 8th. All of our stuff wasn't due to come until the 20th or so, after we would be knee-deep, as it were, in school - both career course and grad school. But God is so good, He worked it out to where our stuff came in THREE WEEKS EARLY (I'm capitalizing all of that because it's pretty unheard of in the military and pretty AMAZING), so that Josh would still be home when it all came so we could start going through it together and set up the majority of it all before he started class the following Monday. Wow.

But that's not all. While we were in NJ, Josh got a call that his Volvo had made it to Baltimore, and he should be able to pick it up in Tulsa when we got back from NJ. For a frame of reference, Tulsa is a good three hours from Lawton. On the 2nd of September (the 1st was Labor Day so no one was open) Josh called the car place in Tulsa and found out that yes, his car was there and ready to be picked up. Oh, we got a rental car to get home from the airport with and Josh extended it from 1 night to 1 week since he didn't know when he'd get around to getting his car. So, I think that day we also got a call that my Volvo had arrived in Baltimore and would soon be making it's way to Tulsa. Josh was talking to Jim about the drive I guess, and Jim offered to go with Josh for the ride, if Josh would be willing to wait until Saturday. Since we had the rental car until then anyway, that became the plan. Well, wouldn't you know it, MY Volvo arrived in Tulsa on Thursday or Friday SO Josh and Jim only had to make ONE trip up to Tulsa to retrieve cars, instead of two. I didn't have to go ever, as Jim drove mine home while Josh drove his home. WOW! Not only did God work it out that both of our cars would be in Tulsa by the time Josh got out there, but He did it in with such amazing timing that we never really had to be a one car family. (Which would never have worked, by the way, since I have two kids with two car seats and no one could really ever pick us up because we all wouldn't fit.) And He got our cars here before Josh started his class, so we wouldn't have to worry about it all once Josh started and had school to stress over.

Isn't God the coolest? I submit that He is. So there you have it. God is doing amazing things over here for us, and I just cannot help but praise Him for it. I love seeing Him work like this. He is so good. So, so good.

Oh, and the pictures. I have recently added pictures from Stacey and Shawn's wedding on Flickr, to go along with the beach pictures. Feel free to check them out at your own leisure. I'm hoping to get more up a lot sooner than this last batch now that we've got most of the boxes taken care of/in a more manageable setup (ie, in the garage).