#11 - Back to 2019

So much was different in 2019. So many huge milestones were happening in our family. It’s amazing how different our life looked in one year.

But 2019 started the changes. Our oldest daughter Sydni was graduating from high school and our youngest daughter Paige was about to be a junior in high school. The dreaded “empty nest” was quickly approaching….

And then, God put Jaylen in our path. He grew up at the studio with our kids.

I’ll never forget the day Paige came home and said, “Mom, Jaylen needs our help.” God immediately started speaking to our hearts in that moment. I remember thinking, “God when I asked for a son, I really wanted a baby…...I don’t know how to raise a sixteen-year-old boy.”

But God said, “Yes, you can.”

I remember Andrew and I talking and praying about what we should do. God spoke to my heart and told me that He was sending Jaylen to us. I knew in that moment he was going to be a part of our family forever. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a baby…. he needed a mom and a dad and family, and we could be that for him…… and we are. There is more to his story, but that is for him to tell. All I know, is that God was changing, creating, molding our family again……and it started with Jaylen and following what God asked us to do even though we didn’t know what the path up ahead looked like.

I was sitting in my car in the garage praying that evening and I felt that tiny little seed that was planted long ago in the depths of my heart, say maybe God is still going to answer my prayers for a baby boy…maybe…just maybe.

I’ll never forget this. The song on the radio was “Symphony” by Switch. The words rang out loud in my heart:

“Even in the madness

There’s peace

Drowning out the voices

All around me

Through all of this chaos,

You are writing a symphony”

I knew it was from God. There is no other way to explain it. I could feel it.

God was writing the symphony of our life….. and He still is.

Music beats fast and slow, quiet and loud, real low and very high. But in the end, it makes for a beautiful song. An incredible composition of music.

The same goes for life. My life. Some things are fast while others are irritatingly slow, loud in my face and then that still small voice, high on the mountain top and low in the valley. This was the way God was writing my symphony and when all the notes and chords were written, it would be a beautiful sound. A perfect melody written especially for me.

Love & Blessings,

Amanda

Jaylen and Paige's last dance recital at The Wright Step.......Isaiah asleep in the stroller