I am a mother to three children. I have been taking photos since I was a teen. Just recently though I got my first DSLR and I am now learning how to take photos properly. It is a lot of fun and I seem to be a little obsessed with it.

The Life of Faith, What does it take to live a life of faith?

When I think about what it takes to live a life of faith, I think about the things that have caused me to have more faith in my life. I know that God uses the tragedies and trials to bring us to a life of faith. As the scripture in Romans 8:28 reads: And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. So how do I know that I am one of THE called ? Well John 3:15 - 3:17 says : that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. I know and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died and rose again so that I could have eternal life. Knowing this, makes me one of THE Called. All things work to the good to those who are THE Called. These are the things that have worked for the good in my life. As a child, my mother took us to church. I questioned everything. I asked my Mother, where did God come from? My mother not knowing what to tell me took me to the Pastor. God has no beginning or end he told me. Because of the talk I had with the Pastor I asked Christ to come into to my heart. I wanted something stable in my life.The love the Pastor told me about sounded so good. My parents had a very rocky marriage and by the time I was 9 they had already been divorced once.They eventually married and divorced 3 times. At 16 I meet a friend that introduced me to Christ. I rededicated my life. I struggled with my walk at a time when my parents were going through yet another divorce. I walked away again. From the time I was 17 until I was 34 I led my life according to my wishes and did things that I should not have done. I was going into bars at 17 years old and experimenting with drugs. The whole time feeling that something was missing in my life. I had a big empty hole. All the time I was looking for someone to Love me and except me for who I was. I joined a dating service at 21. I became a member of this service hoping to meet the man I would marry. My last referral was Michael. Even though I was not a Christian walking in faith. I was still praying, asking God to send me a husband. I didn't realize that Michael was praying the same prayer. The first date we had we talked about Christ and our beliefs about him. In all the other dates I had, I don't remember talking about my beliefs. I came home from our first date and I told my roomate that this was the man I was going to marry. She just laughed at me. One year to the day we were married. I got pregnant right away, but the sad fact is I lost this baby and ended up with cancer . I was told that I would probably not be able to have children. For years we tried to have a child but to no avail. I have had 5 miscarriages . In 1993 I decided I wanted a child in my home. I thought that we could adopt. Michael at the time did not want to adopt. He was happy with things the way they were. As time went by I became very depressed and thought foster care would be a good way to have the family I wanted. Michael agreed to this. Thirty-six children came through our home in the next 5 years. James came to live with us when he was only 4 days old and Danielle at almost 2 years old. They are both the same age. We both grew up with parents that took us to church. We thought the right thing to do was to take our children to church , not realizing that God was calling us back to him. We found that it wasn't only the children that needed a relationship with our Father in Heaven . We also needed to live our lives for Christ. Slowly God taught us that, through him our lives would be made whole again. In 1999 I prayed asking God for another favor: John 14:13 - 14 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do , that the Father may be glorified in the Son . If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. I took this verse to heart and asked God in Jesus name to give me a child that was part of Michael and I both.

Do you know what permissive will is? My understanding of it is, God grants us what we want so that we can learn from it, even though it may not be God's perfect will. I sometimes think that God had granted me my wish with our first two children. Then nine months after this prayer to the very day Emily was born. Emily was born 5 weeks early according to the doctor. You would think being born five weeks early she would be in intensive care and in an incubator. She wasn't but there were problems . Moments after she was born, we were doing the normal things. Counting toes and fingers. Michael was looking at Emily's hands and thought that she had a broken thumb. He told the doctor. They immediately took Emily from us to have her checked over. Children with floating thumbs usually have heart problems. Michael went with Emily during this time. I was left behind. I didn't get to see her again for 4 hours. I cried and prayed the whole time. I finally got to hold her again. As far as they could tell her heart was ok. We went home 2 days later. Life was a struggle for us. Three months later I was feeding Emily and she had fallen a sleep. I was just watching her when I noticed that I could see her heart beating in her chest. It was moving so fast. I couldn't even count the beats. It scared me. Michael was at work. He worked swing shift. I phoned the nurse on call at our health care office. She told me to take Emily to the emergency room immediately. My Mother was living with us so I got in my car and drove her to the hospital. When we got there Emily was put on a heart monitor. Her heart was beating at 298 beats a minute. This is not normal. They gave her a shot of adenasine which shocks the heart and causes it to stop for a second. Then her heart beat went back to normal. She had SVT (Super Ventricle Tacycardia.) There were several times we rushed her to the hospital to have medicine to slow her heart. God has healed Emily of her heart problems . She no longer takes atenalol for her heart and does not get attacks of SVT. Emily was always sick as a baby. Everything that a child can get, she got. At 15 months she had surgery to fix her thumb. The doctors removed her floating thumb. It had only one tiny little bone in the end of it. They moved her index finger over and into the thumb position. That was another time I know that God was a moving in our lives. Before her operation, we had prayed asking God to take us to the right doctor to help Emily. We interviewed several doctors. We were given a referral to one of the top hand surgeons in LA. The pictures we saw of other surgeries he had done, didn't look that great but they were the best of all the doctors that we had seen. After the operation the doctor was so happy. Emily's hand was one of the best that he had ever done. During her visit with him he would walk her up and down the halls calling to all the other doctors and nurses to come look at Emily's hand. She had more mobility then any of his other patients. He took pictures. He was so proud of himself. The whole time I was thinking to myself, you silly man. It wasn't you who did this miracle, it was God! We even thanked him for allowing God to use him to fix Emily's hand. He just smiled at us. I don't know if he believed us or not. Two months later, Emily became very sick. This was her second time with pneumonia. At least that is what they thought she had. They were wrong. January 28, 2002 we received the awful news. She had Leukemia. Again I was crying and pleading with God not to take my child. He had just given her to me. Why would he take her so soon? Later I learned from a friend that God had told her to share a scripture with me. She was not sure it was God speaking and didn't want to tell me. John 11:4 This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Later it made things easier on me when she would get sick again. A month into treatment for the leukemia we got even worse news. Emily tested positive for Fanconi's Anemia twice . It is a disorder that causes the body to stop producing its own blood cells. The treatment for cancer also inhibits blood production and this would mean death within two months . We were told to take our baby home and take lots of pictures. To enjoy the little time we had left with her. They took two tests to make sure they had confirmed the diagnosis. We were devastated, but again we went to God and prayed. Everyone we knew prayed. Our church, my Aunts church. Anyone and everyone we could think of including the congregation at my cousins church. Two weeks later we ask the doctor to test her again. They sent the test to New York this time. PRAISE THE LORD the results came back negative. She had been healed by God, but to the Doctors, they had just made a mistake the first two times. They put her back in the hospital and for the next 7 months she went through treatment for cancer. Several times we almost lost her, but my God is Faithful and she is still here with us today. A living walking miracle. We still go through trials with her health but with each miracle my faith is made stronger .