Challenged

So, I think I have been about the worst blogger ever! That’s okay though. I usually just write when I feel I have something worthy of sharing. I guess today is one of those days!

As most of you know, Chandler and I have been accepted into the New Tribes Missions missionary training program! We are beyond excited about all that is in store as we get ready to journey with Christ into the great unknown! Are we scared? Yes! Are we excited? Yes! We have never been asked to walk such a road of faith before, but we know that the Lord is going to guide and direct us every step of the way.

As I was spending time with the Lord today I came across the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). I have been going through the book of Acts as I thought this would be great preparation as we get ready to move to Missouri! Wow, what a great story this is. I have read it many times before, but this time I felt like I got a little more out of it than normal. I just love how God’s Word really is living and active!

This is the story of Philip, one of the disciples, who God uses in a great way. An angel of the Lord instructs him to go witness to an Ethiopian Eunuch who had come to Jerusalem to worship. The eunuch is found in his chariot reading a scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. Philip comes up to him and asks him if he understands what he is readying. Catch his response, “How can I, unless someone guides me.” (Acts 8:31) This immediately made me think about the millions of people around the world (including our neighbors in the towns where we live) who have no one to guide them in the ways of the Lord. God brought Philip there for such a moment; to guide him! I get excited thinking about the people which we will one day “guide.” I have no clue in which country they live or which language they speak, but they are out there somewhere, waiting to be guided. Wow! Philip had the great opportunity to share the gospel with this man and then baptize him. Then something crazy happened! As the eunuch came out of the water the Holy Spirit carried Philip away to a place called Azotus.

Another thing stuck out to me about this next part. Scripture says that as Philip was making his way from Azotus, “he preached the Gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.” (Acts  8:40). Philip made everything count…every minute, every town, every opportunity. I remember hearing a sermon in Church recently where our pastor talked about how much ministry Jesus did “along the way.” Jesus healed people “along the way,” taught people “along the way,” and loved people “along the way.” Here we see Philip doing the same. There are so many times in Scripture were we see a lot happening “along the way.” I think of the lessons the Israelites learned “along the way” to Canaan. I think of the experiences Abraham had “along the way” of becoming the father of many nations. There are so many stories where we see God not wasting a single moment. I pray that I will live such a life where I do not waste the opportunities that God gives me. Chandler and I still have quite a bit of “along the way” time before we end up overseas one day. May we be found faithful!

Great is His Faithfullness!

Great is His faithfulness! I am reminded of this today! For those of you who know us, you probably know that we have been in the process of trying to get to the mission field since we got married! It seems as though we have had hurdle after hurdle. There have been times when we have become so discouraged and wondered if we would ever get there!

In the Summer, God closed the door for us to pursue service with the International Mission Board. That was a hard time, but God brought people into our lives to encourage us and remind us that God is at work and He is using this to direct our paths! Shortly after this we started correspondence with New Tribes Missions. They have an incredible Missionary Training Center in Missouri and the more we thought about it, the more we were convinced that we needed more training before actually leaving for the mission field. We began the application process and (finally) submitted our last piece of paperwork this morning!!! The last thing we need to do is have a skype interview. If we are accepted, we are looking at attending training in August. Talk about scary!

As I was washing dishes yesterday I began to think about this journey we are just beginning. Never in my life have I been confronted with such an opportunity to trust God. You see, we have no clue how the Lord is going to provide for us to attend this training…but He already knows! I think about selling our worldly possessions and the desire to hold onto things gnaws at me. I think about leaving a place of comfort and fear overwhelms me. This will certainly be where the rubber meets the road.

But I must remember that Great Is His Faithfulness.  

 

 

Our Growing Girl!

I cannot get over how much our sweet little Selah has changed in the past few months. It is so crazy to think that she is no longer an infant, but a baby girl trying so hard to be a toddler. If I even try to cradle her in my arms she struggles to sit up. I already get sad thinking about how quickly her 1st birthday is approaching.

Selah is such a busy girl from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep. She loves to pull up on everything, but her favorite place to hang out is the coffee table. She makes multiple laps around it each day. She has enjoyed getting into a plant that we have in the living room. She is slowly learning “no”, but can’t seem to remember what that means as she is digging her little hand into the soil. Sometimes my patience starts to lessen at this point! She loves eating oatmeal mixed with bananas for breakfast and grilled cheese for lunch (really anything with cheese). Dinner is where we are struggling; she is not a fan of veggies so I have to sneak them in things (like spinach in her grilled cheese and peas in her yogurt). She will thank me for that later! She has recently started playing with a doll that was mine when I was a little girl. And by playing I mean chewing on her face and limbs. It’s still cute though!

As I write this she is desperately trying to fight her nap. We are in the process of transitioning to one nap a day, which is tough. When I used to put her down for a nap at around 10am she would just play and play and play. If you would peek in on her she would be playing with her hands and feet, staring at the owls on her wall, or pulling the ties on her bumper. We can no longer put her down for a nap with socks on because she loves playing with them so much! I have a feeling she will have a pretty big imagination! So, all that to say I have started putting her down after her lunch. That was working for a few days, but today is another story. She finally fell asleep after more than 30 min of playing in her crib. Then she only slept for 30ish min. I’m trying to wait it out to see if she gives in to a little more sleep, but it’s not looking good!

We are so incredibly thankful for Selah’s life! I was looking back in my journal earlier today and I found the entry from the day we dedicated her to the Lord. I was reminded once again that she is not ours, but His! He has just been gracious to let us be her parents here on earth. My prayer that day, and this day as well, is that when I have the tendancy to hold her too tight, that I would remember that she is much safer in the Lord’s hands. I will probably spend the rest of my life learning how to trust Him with this, but thankfully He is patient with me!

Here are few pictures of her and what she has been up to lately!

Here is Selah exploring outside. We had a 70 degree day the other weekend which was a really nice treat!

Here is Selah in her first pair of big girl jammies!

 

This was Selah’s first snow.

 

I took her out the next day so she could really experience it! She thought it was fun to eat!

This is the cutest little owl I know!

 

The other night Selah had her first boo boo. She slipped when she was crawling in the kitchen and got a fat lip. After lots of tears she finally passed out on Papa’s shoulder.

 

And today was her first time eating mac-n-cheese! She really liked it. It’s nice to know there is another thing that she likes that can be added to the menu!

 

 

 

 

 

Can we take another walk?

Today is a tough day for all who knew and loved Joseph C Sharpe, my Papa-in-law. Today is his birthday. It is hard to believe he has been gone for over a year now. I feel like he has missed out on so much, but I guess in reality, we are the ones who are missing out. I know the celebration in heaven is far greater than any here, but we can’t help to wish he was here with us. I think one of the hardest things about him being gone is that he will never know Selah this side of heaven. I often look at her precious face and think about how much he would have loved her. I have a feeling she would have had him wrapped around her finger, especially being his first girl grandchild. I am still tempted to ask God “why,” but I have to cling to this hope:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  – Isaiah:55:8-9

I praise God for Papa’s life, for the way he loved God, his family, and all those whom he came in contact with. You will be missed til the day we die, but you are alive in our memories and in the eyes of our precious Selah!

Here we were walking along the beach on Christmas day 2010. What I would give for another walk…one day.

Like papa like son…carrying on a tradition of love!

love

Love. It’s really a mysterious thing. I have recently come to the realization that I do not have a very good grasp or understanding of God’s love for me. I had the chance to talk with a dear friend last week about our views of God, and it was interesting to find that at one point or another both of us have had a skewed view of who God is and His love for us! I have found that I fear God, but not the reverence type of fear that the Bible talks about. I so often see God as someone who is waiting for me to mess up so he can punish me.  My friend reminded me that when God looks at one of His children, He sees His son, the One who took our place on the cross. He no longer sees our failures and sin, but rather perfection. This has been one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp because I get so caught up in my sin that I don’t think that I can ever please God.

Last night, God used a woman who I was talking with to finally help me grasp the kind of love that God has for me. She asked me to think about the way that I love Selah. She talked about how loving your child helps to give you an understanding on the kind of love God has for us as His children. When she said that to me I felt as though scales were removed from my eyes and I could really see God’s love, His genuine love, for the first time. As I was driving home in the car I thought about my love for Selah. I can’t even begin to describe the depth of love that I have for this sweet, precious child of mine. She brings so much joy and happiness to my life. I would do anything to keep her safe and healthy. I truly do delight in her. I get so excited as I watch her grow and learn new things. As I contemplated this I began to see that as a child of God this is how He views me. He finds joy in me, delights in me, desires the best for me. Wow. As I was talking through all of this with Chandler last night I realized that when I think about God and how He sees me, it is never positive. I always picture him being disappointed in me because I didn’t spend time with Him that day or frustrated with me because I keep repeating the same sin. How amazing it is to know this isn’t true. How freeing. I can’t even begin to say how thankful I am that God used a few ladies to help show truth to me.

This song made me think of His love for me…the love that I am just beginning to understand.

How He Loves

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves

We are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking
So Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way

And oh, how He loves us
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us so
how He loves   

So thankful for this sweet girl. My love for her has helped me to understand God’s love for me!

by grace

I find it fascinating how the Lord uses our children to teach us about Him. Selah is just getting to the point where she can do a backwards scoot. It is so funny because we can put her down in one place, and the next thing you know she is across the room backing herself into a corner or under the kitchen table. This morning I was sitting on the floor with Selah in her room. I put a few stuffed animals in front of her to keep her occupied and happy. It looked as though she was playing school and she had her students in front of her. Although she found the toys amusing, she started scooting back. I decided to get down on my stomach too to see if I could in any way lure her to move forward, rather than backwards. She continued to scoot backwards. I would reach out my hand to her and she would barely touch it and then continue to scoot away. As I sat there taking all of this in, I thought about how this is so like our lives before we come to have a personal relationship with God. We continuously back away from Him, getting further and further from the truth. Sometimes we will reach out to him, but eventually we will continue going our way. When our playing was over I had to pick Selah up, otherwise she would have been stuck.  That is exactly what God has to do with us. He is the One who picks us up. He is the One who saves us. There was nothing that Selah could have done on her own to come to me (at least not yet anyways); just as there is no way a sinner can save himself. It reminded me of this verse:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” –Ephesians 2:9

I am thankful that the Lord is using Selah to remind me of His grace in my life.

Here is the little scooter! (This picture is not from today, but I thought it would be a good visual)

Oh the Prairie Days

I just so happened to finish reading a book series that was set back in the 1840’s. At first I thought the books were a little cheesy, but the next thing I knew I was hooked. When I wasn’t engrossed in my reading, I was busy imagining being back in those days. Yes, some may think this is weird, and that’s okay! When I was little I LOVED pretending I lived back in the prairie days. At times I wondered if I was born in the wrong century. If you can guess, I was a big fan of Little House on the Prairie. I remember taking my dolls out into the fields where I lived and sitting on the hay bales, preparing picnics, and dreaming of the simple life.

The only difference between now and then is I am about 18 years older, married, and I have traded out my doll for a real (and incredibly adorable) baby. After completing my book series, I felt inspired to do a few things: can and sew! My Aunt Angie and Uncle Pete gave us this wonderful cherry tomato plant and we have been enjoying the tomatoes all summer. Just last week the plan reached its peak and I was getting probably 20+ a day. I didn’t want to waste them, so I canned them so that I could use them for spaghetti sauce later on. Below are a few pictures of my creations!

my canned cherry tomatoes

 

Selah’s first pillowcase dress!

 

back of the dress

 

I made this dress out of scrap fabric (don’t look too close, I’m a novice and made it up as I went)

 

On a side note, I think it is kind of cool how God gives us certain desires and likings. When I lived in Uganda for almost 2 years, I found myself living a rather simple life. I had chickens (until they ran away or I killed them for dinner), a cow, a garden (until it died), I walked most places I needed to go, I bought food in a market, hung my clothes out to dry, and so on.

As most of you know, Chandler and I have a desire to serve on the mission field one day. Our desire is to eventually return to Africa…a continent which has completely stolen our hearts. Prayerfully, we will one day live the simple life again. I believe God designed me to love that lifestyle, knowing that one day I would actually get to live that way, only then it won’t be for nostalgias sake, but rather that we may bring the Gospel and love of Jesus to people who have never heard of Him and His saving grace! In the meantime, I will keep sewing dresses for my sweet Selah and canning when I have something to can…why not have a little fun along the way.

 

 

 

 

Our Family Newsletter

For those of you who did not recieve our family newsletter, here it is (click on the link below)  If you wish to have it sent to your email address, please email sharpesonamission@gmail.com. Our goal is to send out a newsletter once every 3-4 months to keep everyone posted on what God is up to in our lives!

Enjoy!

Come and Listen – A Journey With the Sharpes

A Lot Like Jesus

Once a month Chandler and I, along with some friends, go to a downtown apartment complex in Lynchburg to have a kids club called GROW Club. This stands for God Rocks Our World. We have been going for a little over a year now and it has been exciting to really begin building relationships with the kids and even some of the parents. The kids were giggling this past Saturday because one of the girls was whispering that Chandler looked like an elf. This was kind of funny, but then someone said, “No, he looks like Jesus.” Chandler was quick to say that no, he doesn’t look like Jesus, nor an elf. But the more I got to thinking, this little girl was right, my husband does look a lot like Jesus.Just being completely transparent, I have not been the most loving wife lately. I do not really have a good excuse, other than I have not chosen to love. Love is a choice. Instead, I have chosen to be selfish and critical. God seems to keep bringing me back to his Word, to 1 Corinthians 13 specifically.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends

– 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

It is amazing how Scripture has a way of setting us straight and convicting us and then in the process, refining us to look more like Him. See, I would be honest to say that I have failed lately in pretty much every description of what love is (and is not). This is not something I am proud of, in fact, I am appalled by it. But I am thankful that I have a husband who regularly extends to me the love that is found in these verses. I do not give him enough praise and credit for who he is. I do not thank him enough for the way he loves me unconditionally.

Today, I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for this man, and I thought others should know about it!

I love you Chandler and am proud to be your wife. Thank you for your patience with me.

love this man!

sleepless nights

Not long after 1 am my stomach woke me up thinking it needed a late night snack. My sister-in-laws would be the first to tell you that this is a classic Benedict move. I must be the first to agree. I do not give into this urge very often, but once and a while it gets the best of me. So, I settled into the kitchen table with our jar of peanut butter and some saltine crackers. I would have had milk, too, but there was just enough left in the gallon for Chandler to have some on his cereal in the morning. For some reason, lately, I have been forgetting milk when I go to the grocery store, but that is another story. So here I am at the table, eating my crackers with peanut butter and now making my grocery list, milk at the top of the list. After about 4 or 5 crackers I decide to call it a night and hope that sleep will now come. I crawl back into bed, lay there, but for some reason cannot get back to sleep. I have developed a sty in my eye in the last few days so I thought about how much that was hurting as well as other pointless things. I finally decided to get back out of bed, grab a book, our laptop and head to the couch. I looked at pillow case dresses on pinterest for about an hour – something I really want to make for Selah. After I found enough tutorials on that, I decided to pick up my book. Before I knew it, it was now after 4 am and bed was beginning to finally call my name. I took a quick detour into Selah’s room to make sure she was still sleeping soundly, and then I crawled into bed. Not 2 minutes after I pull up the covers do I hear Selah begin to toss and turn in her crib, making some little noises along with the rustling. So here I am getting out of bed for the 3^rd time in one night. After flipping on the bathroom switch to provide some light, I find sweet little Selah smiling and kicking her legs as fast as she can. I picked her up, changed her diaper and admired her precious smiles. We made our way out to the kitchen where I now made Selah a late night snack, or should I say early morning snack. Usually Selah sleeps a little later than 4 am, but in a way I was thankful for the distraction in case I couldn’t get back to sleep. We ventured back to her room where I popped on the nightlight and settled into the glider to feed my girl. Never was I more thankful for a sleepless night. On any given night I would usually feed her and stick her back into bed as fast as I could so I could get back to sleep. But here I was already wide awake, ready to enjoy the moment of holding my baby safely in my arms. I enjoyed watching her eat and then slowly drift back to sleep. I thought about how quickly she is growing and how these moments will not last forever. I tried to drink it every minute, capturing it like a photograph that I hope would never leave my mind.